The Million Dollar Hotel

Los Angles in the spring of 2001. Overshadowed by the towering offices of the big multinationals lies the Million Dollar Hotel, a sanctuary for all kinds of oddball characters and misfits who have somehow been left out of the American dream. One of the hotel’s inhabitants is the love-sick, rather shy, retiring Tom Tom, who has lost his heart to streetwalker Eloise.
Yet before he has the chance to let her know how he feels about her, the Million Dollar Hotel suddenly finds itself the focus of an uncommon amount of media attention. It seems that the artist and junky Izzy, who also lived at the hotel, has fallen from the hotel roof. The circumstances of his death are unexplained as yet: was it an accident, suicide or was he pushed?
Normally, nobody in downtown LA would bat an eyelid at this news, but, within hours, Izzy’s death makes the headlines. To the amazement of his friends and neighbours, Izzy turns out to have been no less that the son of a billionaire media mogul.

As soon as cool, uncompromising FBI agent Skinner arrives on the scene every single tenant of the hotel becomes a potential suspect.
Those whom Skinner has trained his sights on include smart-arse Dixie, who claims to be a onetime member of the Beatles who was dropped; ex-Hollywood producer Shortly, who, minus a chromosome or two, still behaves like one; self-appointed prophet Jesu and dippy Vivien, who claims she was Izzy’s fiancee.
Last, but not least, there’s crafty Geronimo, who never misses an opportunity to look out for number one and is quick to exploit Izzy’s death to advertise the hotel and earn a fast buck. But the deeper Skinner digs, the more the boundaries between reality and illusion, victim and perpetrator begin to blur. Pretty soon, even the long-suffering cop can’t tell who’s normal and who isn’t any more.
Wim Wenders: "The hotel can be understood as a kind of madhouse, except that, ultimately, compared to the world around them, the supposedly crazy inhabitants appear quite normal and healthy."