MOTIVATIONAL DRINKING
Feature Film (by Robert Tornroos & Ryan Flowers)
A dead-broke, washed-up, full-blown alcoholic motivational speaker makes the
painful decision to come crawling back to his hometown when he hears news
that a mysterious benefactor may have left him a large trust fund
inheritance. He quickly learns, however, that he must jump through a bunch
of ridiculous hoops, such as prove his ongoing sobriety, in order to receive
more information and small payments from the fund. So he instinctually
searches for a way to thwart the system and gain access to all the money at
once, but to complicate matters, there is a second beneficiary required to
‘unlock’ any more information: his long-lost Cub-Scouts buddy who is now a
homeless addict living somewhere in Vancouver’s notorious Downtown East
Side. With no other option than to find his old friend and miraculously
sober both of them up, our man must put his dusty motivational skills to the
test. But as the haze of drugs/alcohol fades and they learn more about their
mysterious benefactor, repressed traumatic memories threaten to drive them
back into their old ways. Will they white-knuckle through the darkness to
expose the truth about a devastating far-reaching scandal / cover-up, or
will they say fuck it and head back into the abyss?
CRAIGSLIST FREE: HOUSE
Short Film (by Ryan Flowers)
An undercover CIA agent is on the verge of suicide. He went too deep
undercover and became a soft, lazy, full blown alcoholic deadbeat. But he
has one last dangerous chance to complete his assignment: break back into
his own house and steal his “wife”s mysterious invention. But when he gets
wasted during the mission and becomes sentimental, he makes a risky gamble
which could jeopardize the future of humanity. Will he see the truth and
make the right move? Or will insanity, and his “wife”, get the best of him?
PUBLIC DETECTIVE
8 Episode Limited Series (by Robert Tornroos & Ryan Flowers)
"Nothing ever gets solved."
PILOT:
After losing his job as a Vancouver mailman, struggling alcoholic Jim
Duggan entertains his wild fantasies of being a Hard Boiled Private Eye.
Unlicensed and unaware, Jim is hired to investigate a string of suspicious
building fires in the Downtown East Side.
With his old uniform in tow and a set of Postie tricks up his sleeve, our
man stumbles head-first into Vancouver's seedy underbelly. Will he sober
up long enough to connect the dots, or will his heavy drinking unknowingly
lead him down the wrong alley?
PUBLIC DETECTIVE (Old Version)
Short Film (by Robert Tornroos & Ryan Flowers)
Fired from his job as a mailman and unable to afford the proper Justice
Institute training to become a Licensed Private Detective, a disorganized
middle-aged dreamer uses his questionable photoshop skills to forge
credentials and land his first real investigative gig. Hot on the trail of a
string of nefarious building fires, he utilizes his intricate knowledge of
the postal system, his network of loyal ex-coworkers, and of course his
trustworthy unsurrendered uniform, to discover a far-reaching and
long-running real-estate scandal in his hometown of Vancouver BC. But with
his vindictive Canada Post supervisors closing in, multiple warrants out for
his arrest, and the local Vancouver Police Department Detectives extremely
pissed off about his illegal interference in, and possible compromise of,
their years-long joint CSIS investigation, our man might need to play by the
rules for once in order to assemble the puzzle pieces and prove an
outlandish conspiracy theory. Is he really cut out for the detective
lifestyle, or is he an easy-mark fall-guy for wiser men?
SPECIAL SECRET DELIVERY
Short Film (by Ryan Flowers)
A socially awkward and imaginative mailman has his curiousity stimulated
when he begins consistently delivering what he determines to be dildos and
other items of a sexual nature to a mysterious decrepit house on his route.
Frustrated that nobody ever seems to be home and he can’t get a glimpse of
who is ordering all these captivating items, he snoops around the exterior
of the house a little bit more and more each day, finding clues and slowly
piecing together a dark narrative about the scandalous and dangerous nature
of the home’s occupants. Discouraged with his lame vanilla cookie-cutter
lifestyle, the mailman decides to deliver his own enigmatic handwritten
letter through their mail slot, unlocking a pandora’s box of escalating and
alarming fiascos which put him on a serpentine path he never could have
expected. Will he become a dark legend, or will he wimper the safe word and
head back to his sheltered existence?
BUMBLING
Short Film (by Ryan Flowers & Regan Flowers)
Fields, an agoraphobic middle-aged man with no friends, still lives at his
mom's house. He loves all her neurotic attention and doting, but lately she
won’t stop harping on him to do outlandish things like get a girlfriend,
find a job, and get some exercise. When he discovers she is showing symptoms
of suicidal ideation and OxyContin addiction, he realizes it’s time to risk
his status as her number one priority and get her out of the house for
some R&R. So he secretly creates her a Bumble dating profile, and within
the immediate bombardment of horny suitors, he eventually finds someone who
seems like a pretty good fit, and is really fun to talk to. But is the
suitor a good match for his mom, or for Fields? And once the suitor
discovers he's been sexting with the son and not the Hot Milf... is he gonna
flip out and pull the plug? With her literal life on the line, Fields needs
to figure out how to put his own feelings aside and throw a double Hail Mary
ringer to get this guy, and his eccentric mother, on board for a first date.
V.T.S.D.
Feature Film (by Robert Tornroos & Ryan Flowers)
An aimless middle-aged man, struggling with his mental health, and still
living at home with his tyrannical father and ghostlike mother, decides to
abandon his dysfunctional family home and move to the big city. On the eve
of his escape, he discovers his father has committed suicide in the garage
foxhole, and he suffers a guilty nervous breakdown.
Now locked up in the psych ward, the man has taken on the personality
traits, memories and conviction that he is his own father, a decorated
Vietnam Veteran. None of the medications or psychiatrists can break through
his shell, so his mother, exasperated with her son’s sexual advances,
swallows her pride and calls in her late-husband’s disreputable
conspiracy-theory vet buddies to take a crack at him.
Highly intrigued with the fidelity of the son’s ‘memories’ and
‘personality’, the Vets immediately decide to break him out of the hospital
and escape to an apocalypse-ready HQ compound in Anacortes, WA, the home of
their collective guru: a ‘retired’ (aka revoked medical license) VA
psychiatrist ex-Navy Seal who somehow received both a Medal of Honor and a
Dishonorable Discharge, and who is notorious for his controversial methods
of treating severe PTSD.
Face-to-face with a true badass and put through some serious hell-week-type
shit, the son is disassembled into his basest component parts, and within
the broken pieces of his, his father’s, and the Doc’s own fucked-up life
history, an even more F.U.B.A.R. puzzle struggles to snap together into a
twisted picture.
Can these two men put aside their deep-seated fundamental differences and
put the wrong things right? The answer to that question lies deep in the
heart of the Red River Delta, Hanoi, Northern Vietnam, and will require 2
fake U.S. Passports and 2 economy class tickets for the next flight out of
Sea-Tac Airport.
BRING ME MCQUEEN
Feature Film (by Robert Tornroos)
"Everyone deserves not just to survive, but to live."
-Steve McQueen
Los Angeles. 1963. While wildfires rage in the Hollywood Hills, rookie LAPD patrolman Chuck Danton is tasked to track down and ticket Hollywood screen badboy, and notorious speeder, actor Steve McQueen. To catch LA’s fastest rising star, Chuck first has to overcome his own fear of high speed, all while fighting against LAPD’s tarnished reputation. Enlisting a mixed bag of locals to help him, can he bend the law just enough to succeed, or is McQueen gonna slip through his fingers?
THE GOOD MIXER
Feature Film (by Robert Tornroos)
"Is it my imagination, or have I finally found something worth living for?"
-'Cigarettes and Alcohol' by Oasis
With Britpop in full effect and London entering a Golden Age not seen since the Swinging 60s, young traveller Richard is thrust into a cultural revolution fueled by sex, drugs and pop music. As Richard finds himself working at the bar that would become the epicenter of the moment, he is slowly sucked down the grimy, cobblestone path into London's dark underworld. Can Richard survive a movement spiralling out of control, or will he be taken down faster than a pint on gameday?