Annette Bening

A lonely Frankenstein travels to 1930s Chicago to ask groundbreaking scientist Dr. Euphronious to create a companion for him. The two revive a murdered young woman, and the bride is born. What ensues is beyond what either of them imagined: murder, possession, a wild and radical cultural movement! and outlaw lovers in a wild and combustible romance.

William Singh was living peacefully with his wife and daughters Kerry and Kathy when a local gangster known as the Skull descends on them

Daniel J. Jones (Adam Driver) is a Senate staffer, selected by Senator Feinstein (Annette Bening) to lead an investigation into the 2005 destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes. With the conclusion of the two-year investigation and tabling of the report in 2007, Feinstein announced the launch of a second, larger investigation. Jones' small team of six, which includes April (Sarah Goldberg) and Julian (Lucas Dixon), begins work in early 2009 reviewing 6 million pages of CIA materials in a windowless office. The narrative shifts back to 2001, introducing George Tenet (Dominic Fumusa), Bernadette (Maura Tierney) and Gretchen (Joanne Tucker) at the Counterterrorist Center (CTC), anxiously watching live videos of the September 11, 2001, attacks. At the CIA headquarters a few days later, Tenet reports on his meeting at Camp David with President George W. Bush and CTC director, Cofer Black (Ian Blackman). John Rizzo (Joseph Siravo), the CIA's legal counsel said that the President had given the CIA powers to "capture and detain suspected terrorists." Jones finds evidence that this was the point when CIA decided to set up black ops prisons on foreign soil to hold suspected terrorists. The state department was specifically excluded in the decision-making process as Powell would have dis-agreed. As his investigation proceeds, the Republicans on the senate intelligence committee withdraw their support and the CIA issues a notification that no-one who actually worked on the interrogations program would talk to Jones and his Democrats team. They only have the files and Senator Feinstein's support. When Abu Zubaydah (Zuhdi Boueri) was captured in 2002, the FBI and CIA were cooperating. FBI agent Ali Soufan is talking to Abu, and he is providing Intel, but the CIA is not happy that no CIA person is involved in interrogating Abu. The CIA hired two contractors, Bruce Jessen (T. Ryder Smith) and James Elmer Mitchell (Douglas Hodge), who developed so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" (EITs) based on the Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape training given to American servicemen. Although both men are psychologists, their professional education and experience has nothing to do with interrogation. Jessen and Mitchell's clinical presentation of their techniques on PowerPoint slides contrasted with the actual torture being carried out at black sites. Jessen and Mitchell are present during the implementation of EITs-observing, commenting, and in some cases, actively participating. Bernadette is often present as a witness, at times, seeking justification for the CIA's use of torture. The investigation shifted when Jones briefed Senator Feinstein in her office, providing the evidence from the CIA's own records, proving that the CIA knew Zubaydah was not a high-ranking member of Al-Qaeda, as they had falsely reported to the Department of Justice (DOJ). After the CIA told President Bush that Zubaydah was a key player, they received authorization in an August 2002 CIA memo to torture Zubaydah, making him the first detainee to be tortured. Jones meets with FBI agent Ali Soufan (Fajer Al-Kaisi) (since he is FBI, there is no rule against him not speaking to Jones) and learns more about the CIA's interrogation program, particularly regarding Abu Zubaydah (Zuhdi Boueri). The interrogation of Abu Zubaydah is shown, contrasting the FBI's approach with the CIA's EITs. Bernadette is present as a witness. The FBI arrived at the Thailand black site before the CIA arrived. Soufan, who speaks both English and Arabic, said they kept Zubaydah alive and gathered crucial intelligence in the days before the CIA took over the interrogations. The CIA disagreed on techniques and results. Raymond Nathan (Tim Blake Nelson), a physician assistant with the Office of Medical Services, secretly met with Jones and told him that he and others had wanted to leave the service because of the use of torture. He witnessed the waterboarding of Zubaydah, who almost drowned and was who lost consciousness during the procedure. Nathan said that they were told by Director Jose Rodriguez (Carlos Gomez) to not put their complaints in writing. In a meeting with the Office of Legal Counsel, lawyer John Yoo explained the narrow re-definition of torture that permitted "enhanced interrogation techniques". In order for a technique to qualify as torture, it had to be far more brutal than the standard previously used by the CIA. Jones and April uncovered the story of Gul Rahman who died in his cell from hypothermia in 2002. Jones met with Feinstein and her staffer Marcy Morris (Linda Powell) to tell them about the Inspector General's report of the incident. The CIA had undertaken its own investigation into the death. Jones said that the National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice had been told to not inform the President about the redefinition of torture. President Bush only learned about this four years later in April 2006. Jones finds the Panetta Review among the files provided by the CIA. The Panetta Review is an internal CIA review-prepared in 2009 but never shared-of its use of torture. While watching TV at a bar after work, April, Julian and Jones became discouraged as they watched a broadcast claiming that torture had yielded good intelligence and prevented terrorist attacks. Jones stays up all night to disprove the media claims; the CIA's own data showed it already had crucial information from Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM) (Ratnesh Dubey) before subjecting him to torture. The next scene shows Jessen in March 2003, waterboarding Mohammad and threatening to hurt Mohammad's children as loud heavy metal music plays in the background. Mitchell complains that when tortured, Muhammad lies to avoid more torture. Mitchell wants to go easy on Mohammad for a while, then go in harder. Bernadette, who is witnessing from another room admits they have a problem. Gretchen decides that the torture will continue. April announces that she would be taking a new job, discouraged by the lack of support for their research and her concern that the report might never be published. She said that the CIA knew in 1978 that torture did not work but they did it anyway. In response to the April 21, 2004, address to the United Nations by President Bush, in which he denounced the use of torture, Tenet, Bernadette, Mitchell, Jessen, Thomas Eastman, Jose Rodriguez, and John Rizzo met to discuss how they would respond. Jack Goldsmith, the OLC's new head, had repudiated and withdrew the Torture Memos. Mitchell gave an impassioned speech in defense of his methods and Rodriguez said he would have the program re-certified. Feinstein decides to move ahead with the report in 2011, gets in approved in the Senate Intelligence Committee and sends it to CIA for final comments. CIA diverges with the report on key points, including conduct of officers, using not certified and untested torture techniques and the assertion that torture produced no actionable intelligence. Jones is adamant that CIA paid $80 MM to 2 untested psychologists to run their torture program. 119 people went through the program, not producing a single piece of info that the CIA already didn't have. Their own internal review indicated that CIA wanted their officers to focus on "rapport building" rather than torture going forward. Senator Mark Udall (Scott Shepherd) confronts Caroline Krass (Jennifer Morrison) during the December 17, 2013, SSCI hearing, stating that he "was more confident than ever of the accuracy of the committee's 6,300 page study". The CIA's formerly secret Panetta Review was consistent with SSCI's report on CIA torture and conflicted with the CIA's official response. He used the original dialogue from the official transcript for that scene almost in its entirety. Jones had taken the Panetta review report from his office in the CIA basement and given it to Mark Udall to confront Krass at her confirmation hearing. CIA uses this to gain access to Jones's room and then accuse him of stealing the report by hacking their computer systems. Jones seeks legal advice to challenge charges laid against him that he has "stolen" the CIA's Panetta Review files from their computer system. His lawyer, Cyrus Clifford (Corey Stoll) advises him that he does not have a legal problem, he has a "sunlight" or transparency problem. Jones meets with New York Times reporter (Matthew Rhys) and suggests he look into the CIA break-in and theft at the Senate Intelligence Committee's closed facilities. Jones is careful to provide the reporter with no details. When the Times article is published, Jones is called into a meeting with Morris and Senator Feinstein, who is visibly angry with him. Jones's efforts bear fruit as it puts the spotlight on CIA's action in hacking the senate computers to obtain critical information. The Attorney General authorizes a full investigation into the agency's actions. CIA drops the lawsuit against Jones. Feinstein asks Jones to write a 400 summary. But the summary is also sent to the CIA for final comments. They black out large section of the summary citing classified information. Jones and Feinstein fight the CIA on their specific objections. Meanwhile Mark Udall loses his senate re-election from Colorado, a sure shot Democrat state. With that Feinstein is in minority on the Intelligence Committee and has a week left on the job. Faced with unrelenting blocks to the report's publication, Jones met in an underground parking lot with the New York Times national security reporter, but ultimately decided he would work through official channels; he would not leak the report to the media Feinstein decides to release the report by reading it in the Senate. Republican John McCain breaks rank to support her. In 2015 President Obama banned EITs.

In the early twentieth century, an aging actress and her lover visit the estate of her elderly brother. Aging actress Irina Arkadina (Annette Bening) pays summer visits to her brother Pjotr Sorin (Brian Dennehy) and her son Konstantin Treplyov (Billy Howle) on a country estate. On one occasion, she brings Boris Trigorin (Corey Stoll), a successful novelist, with her. Nina Zarechnaya (Saoirse Ronan), a free and innocent girl on a neighboring estate, falls in love with Boris. Aging actress Irina Arkadina (Annette Bening) visits her family's summer home with her son Konstantin Treplyov (Billy Howle), who pines for the neighborhood girl Nina Zarechnaya (Saoirse Ronan). When famous writer Boris Trigorin (Corey Stoll) drops by, Nina finds herself enamored with him and ignoring Konstantin. Soon, a love triangle unfolds amidst family drama. One summer at a lakeside Russian estate, friends and family gather for a weekend in the countryside. A love triangle soon forms between ageing actress Irina, her lover Boris, and Nina from a neighbouring estate. While everyone is caught up in passionately loving someone who loves somebody else, a tragicomedy unfolds about art, fame, human folly, and the eternal desire to live a purposeful life.

Chapter One - The Hero (narrated by Samuel L. Jackson) The film starts with Samuel Jackson attempting to introduce us to the hero of our story. He first shows us a handsome gay man, Henry (Jake Robinson), as he is talking to his therapist, Dr. Cait Morris (Annette Bening). Sam is unimpressed with Henry's story, so he moves the focus to Cait. Afterwards, Cait is walking down the street when Will Dempsey (Oscar Isaac) tells her he's a big fan. Cait smiles in gratitude...and then she's hit by a bus. Sam then breaks the narration and appears physically to suggest that since Cait is the hero that she'll be fine... except for the blood pouring out of her head. This all turns out to be part of an "unreliable Samuel L. Jackson narrator" script that Will is working on in real life, and another narrator continues the story from there. Will then goes to get coffee and starts singing obnoxiously in front of everyone after adding alcohol and xanax to his coffee. He goes to therapy to see Cait, as he has been doing so since his wife Abby (Olivia Wilde) has left him. Flashbacks show Will and Abby's married life. She was a big Bob Dylan fan, and they had a dog named Fuckface (seriously). Abby was shown to be very pregnant before their marriage ended. Will tells Cait about Abby's history when she asks him to talk about Abby. Abby's mother and father met in college while she was eating a PB&J sandwich. Abby lived with them for seven years until they perished in a horrible car accident that left her father decapitated. She would go on to live with her Uncle Joe (Bryant Carroll), who was physically and sexually abusive to Abby until she got a gun from a friend and threatened to kill him if he ever touched her again, and she shot him in the knee to prove that she's not kidding. Abby found herself in college when she met Will, and he made the bold move to ask her out. Less than a year after they start dating, the two go to a Halloween party dressed as Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace (and they even recreate the adrenaline needle scene), and Will asks Abby to marry him. Abby has some conditions, specifically about wanting a dog before kids, but she agrees to marry him. They later meet Will's parents Irwin (Mandy Patinkin) and Linda (Jean Smart). On another occasion, Abby goes to Will to talk about her school thesis paper, and she wants to make it on the unreliable narrator, and how life is the ultimate unreliable narrator because of how tricky and surprising it can be. In the present day, Will wonders to Cait just how it went wrong with Abby. Cait mentions that Will was institutionalized following Abby leaving him. Cait asks Will to tell her about what happened on "that day". Will and Abby had just had lunch at his parents' house. They were walking down the street as Abby told Will that they were having a girl. Abby gets distracted as Will tells her he's a big fan, and Abby is struck by a bus. Inside, a little boy named Rodrigo Gonzalez (Adrian Marrero) watches as Will frantically tries to revive Abby. She died, but the baby survived. Will still blames himself for what happened. On impulse, Will pulls out a gun and blows his brains out in front of Cait. She runs away screaming to get help. Chapter Two - Dylan Dempsey The narrator mentions how Will and Abby's daughter Dylan (Kya Kruse) was born of death and tragedy, and these just seemed to follow her growing up. After being taken in by Irwin and Linda, Dylan loses Linda at age 6, and then Fuckface dies when she is 7. After Linda's funeral, Dylan asked Irwin if he would die. The two of them imagine the right things to say one another, with Dylan wanting to express her desire for a great life, and Irwin wanting to be honest with her, but they just keep it simple. On her 21st birthday, Dylan (now played by Olivia Cooke) is getting ready to go out. Her relationship with Irwin is a little more hostile, but she is shown to still care about him. She goes to a venue where she and her band, PB&J, are getting ready to play. Dylan tries to play a song and describe her feelings toward it regarding her mother, but some dickhead in the audience keeps telling her to take her shirt off until she throws a beer bottle at him. The band plays the song to an excited crowd. After the show, Dylan is making out with one of her band mates. Another girl records them, and Dylan gets up to take her phone and stomp it on the ground. The girl confronts Dylan to demand that she get her another phone, and Dylan responds by punching the girl in the face and fighting her until she gets pulled off. Dylan leaves the venue. Dylan sits down on a bench to smoke a joint. She passes out momentarily and dreams that she watches her mother's final moment. Dylan wakes up crying with the bus in front of her. It appears that she sees Rodrigo again asking her if she's okay. Chapter Three - The Gonzalez Family In Spain, a man named Vincent Saccione (Antonio Banderas) owns a piece of land with several men at his employment. He brings in one man, Javier Gonazlez (Sergio Peris-Mencheta), for a drink. Saccione tells Javier a story of how his father was an Italian man who did not allow any Spanish being spoken in his home. He later impregnated Saccione's mother and essentially shunned the two of them. After he died, Saccione took advantage of the fact that his father left no will, and so he took his father's money and now owns the land. Saccione wants to be friends with Javier, but Javier prefers to keep the relationship professional, stating that he wouldn't have taken his father's money. Saccione offers Javier a place to stay so that he may oversee some of the land. Javier agrees. Javier goes to see his beloved girlfriend Isabel Diaz (Laia Costa), who works as a waitress. The two build a life with each other, eventually marrying and becoming parents to Rodrigo. All the way back in America, Abby turns in her thesis paper and it is said to be a disaster. Her professor also tried to have his way with her, which, according to the narrator, somehow proves Abby's paper on the unreliable narrator. Saccione starts to make secret visits to the Gonzalez home whenever Javier isn't there. He presents Rodrigo with a globe, and the boy takes an interest in seeing New York. Saccione tells Isabel how he feels it is late in his life to find the kind of happiness that Javier has, and he feels bad for intruding on their life, but Isabel assures Saccione that Rodrigo likes him. However, Javier disapproves of Saccione's visits and gives the globe back to him. Javier then decides to take Isabel and Rodrigo to America to see New York City. Rodrigo has the time of his life, until they find themselves on the bus. Rodrigo talks to the bus driver, who is momentarily distracted when he hits Abby. Rodrigo watches the whole scene and becomes traumatized. Back home, Javier and Isabel struggle to take care of Rodrigo since he can't sleep and still feels the effects of what he's seen. They invite Saccione to come back and help the boy, and it works. Saccione teaches him English and helps him get better. Javier sees this and becomes envious, feeling that Isabel and Rodrigo love Saccione more than they love him. He confronts Saccione and asks if he loves them both, and he says yes, but he feels guilty about it. Javier makes the decision to leave, even though Isabel insists that she loves the life that she has with Javier. Isabel stays with Saccione, but she makes it clear she won't love him the way she loves Javier. Chapter Four - Rodrigo Gonzalez Rodrigo (now played by Alex Monner) grows up to go to school in New York. He runs track and starts a relationship with a girl named Shari Dickstein (Isabel Durant), who is, in Rodrigo's words, "loud". At one point, Rodrigo travels back home when Isabel gets sick with cancer. Rodrigo wants to come back and stay with his mother, but she tells him "Enough is enough", and with that, they say goodbye. The narrator takes us to what is the most important day in Rodrigo's life. He wakes up with Shari, who says she is pregnant. Rodrigo becomes worried, even as she continues going on about it casually to the point where she almost gets hit by a cab until Rodrigo pulls her out of the way, but she doesn't notice and keeps talking. Shari then says it was just an April Fool's prank, but Rodrigo breaks up with her right then and there. Back in Spain, Isabel knows her time is running out. Saccione wants to call Rodrigo, but she doesn't want to say goodbye to him twice. Javier then arrives for the first time in years. The narrator reveals that Javier asked Saccione to write letters to him to update him on Isabel and Rodrigo. Javier spends one final moment with his wife. Rodrigo goes back to his dorm room and gets a call from Saccione that Isabel has passed away. Distraught, Rodrigo goes for a run throughout the city. That's when he runs by Dylan crying on the bench. He asks her if she is okay. Chapter Five - Elena Dempsey-Gonzalez It is then revealed that the narrator is Elena (Lorenza Izzo), Dylan and Rodrigo's daughter. She is telling a group of people in a book store the story that led to her life right now. Elena tells the listeners the last thing that Isabel told Rodrigo, and we see her saying it in English. She tells her son that although life may bring us to our knees, if we look hard enough, we will find love. Elena concludes her story by saying how one moment shaped her whole life, and that every bit of her has some of her mother, her father, and her grandmothers. The last is a brief clip of Will admiring a pregnant Abby.

The film opens on a shot of Santa Barbara, California and were told it's the year 1979. Dorothea (Annette Bening) and her 15-year-old son, Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann) are inside a grocery store while outside, their Ford Galaxy car is on fire. Everyone In the parking lot scrambles to help as Dorothea and Jamie explain, in voice-over, that this was the car that drove Jamie from the hospital. Dorothea was 40 when Jamie was born, and everyone said she was too old to be a mother. She recalls telling Jamie, as a baby, that the world was big and there-s a lot to explore. Jamie tells us his parents are divorced and he hasn't seen his dad in five years. Now it is just his mom and him. Dorothea thanks the firemen who put out the fire. She invites them over to her birthday gathering that evening. Dorothea laments that the car was beautiful but Jamie points out it smelled like gas and overheated all the time. He tells her its not normal to invite firemen to dinner. We meet the 17-year-old Julie (Elle Fanning) as she sits, bored, at a therapy session for teen girls. She leaves, lighting up a cigarette, riding her bike. At an OB-GYN office, 28-year-old Abbie (Greta Gerwig) takes a photo of her doctor as he puts a swab into a tube and writes down her name. She goes home to the house she stays in and plays rock music loudly. Julie enters the same house and is told by the home repair guy, William (Billy Crudup), that Jamie isn't there. Julie visits Abbie's room instead. Abbie takes a picture of Julie even though she tells her not to. Abbie explains she's taking pictures of everything that happens to her in a day. Dorothea and William get home with groceries and tell the other three about their car bursting into flames. Abbie lets Dorothea know she'll be late on her rent. Dorothea tells her not to worry about it. Jamie and Julie go up to his bedroom and lay next to each other. She traces her finger over his hair and nose and chest and they touch hands but when he tries to grab her leg, she pulls away and tells him she liked it better before he got old enough to be horny. Julie tells Jamie that friends cant have sex and still be friends, adding that she likes them as they are. Dorothea calls Jamie downstairs to set up for the party and Julie comments that she's compensating for her loneliness. Downstairs, Dorothea compliments William on the work he's doing on repairing the ceiling. That evening, many arrive for Dorothea's birthday party. She chats up the firemen, telling them about the history of her home. William and Abbie bond. In the kitchen, Dorothea asks William about a car he can loan her to replace the one that caught on fire; he suggests a 49 Deluxe in exchange for rent. In voice-over, Jamie tells us that his mother was born in 1924 in a time with no television or money. When she was16, World War II broke out and she dreamed of being an Air Force pilot. She went to flight school but the war ended before she completed the training. She became the first woman to work in the drafting room of Continental Can Company. She met Jamie's dad, had Jamie, and then they divorced. We see an eight-year-old Jamie with Dorothea as she tries to open a bank account in his name but is refused because he's just a little guy. She tells them he's a person who has volition and autonomy and privacy who needs a bank account. When shes called into the principal's office because a 13-year-old Jamie has skipped school, she asks why he's not allowed to skip school. The principal says he needs to provide a note with her signature and not a forgery. At home, Jamie shows his mom how he traced her signature from a check and she finds it ingenious. She then provides genuine notes to excuse Jamie from school with crazy excuses (volunteer work for the Sandinistas; involved in a small plane accident) to show how she feels about the school's policy. We flashback to Dorothea introducing Jamie to William, hoping that, as he renovates their house, he will become a male role model for him. We also learn that Dorothea writes her stocks down every morning with Jamie's help. He also tells us she smokes and never dates a man for very long. In the present, Julie leaves the party. Dorothea knows Jamie's in love with her and tells him having his heart broken is a tremendous way to learn about the world. While doing the dishes that night, Jamie asks "Do you think you're as happy as you thought you'd be when you were my age?" She tells him not to ask people questions like that because wondering if you're happy is a great shortcut to being depressed. Jamie and Abbie stay up late listening to vinyl records of punk music. Dorothea enters their room and asks them what it is. Abbie tells her, "It's the Raincoats". Dorothea asks why it can't be pretty. Jamie tells her pretty music is used to hide how unfair and corrupt society is. Dorothea points out the music isn't very good. Abbie says the band doesn't want to be skilled but just likes creating energy that is raw. Dorothea tells us Jamie was born in 1964 with a meaningless war (Vietnam), protests, Nixon, computers, drugs, boredom. She feels she knows him less every day. We see Jamie playing the fainting game with other kids where someone pulls on your diaphragm until you faint. But when Jamie tries it, he falls and doesn't wake up for 30 minutes. He is brought to the hospital and recovers. The next day, Dorothea asks him why he did something so stupid. He counters by asking her why she smokes too much as if she is trying to smoke herself to death and why she's fine being sad and alone. Worrying that she can no longer connect with her son, Dorothea talks to Julie and Abbie in her kitchen and asks if they can help him figure himself out and be a good man. They suggest William help but Dorothea thinks Jamie connects with Julie and Abbie more. Dorothea drives until she finds Jamie skateboarding and tells him that she asked Julie and Abbie to help him with life. He gets angry and runs off. He finds his skateboarding friends and asks if they're still going to Los Angeles. In Dorothea's home, William gets a phone call that Jamie went to L.A. to see a concert with his friends. Dorothea says he's mad at her and this is his way of dealing with the disconnect he feels for her. That night, Julie climbs up the window and sneaks into Jamie's room. He's still out of town so she gets undressed and gets into his bed. Nearby, William joins Abbie in her room, where she shows off her photographs. Arbitrarily, she asks if he wants to fool around with her and he says, yeah. She tells him shes recovering from cervical cancer and then they begin kissing. Jamie returns home and finds Julie in his bed. He tells her he was in L.A. and tries to kiss her. She stops him and tells him she's upset because a boy came inside her. In a flashback, we see Julie hanging out with friends and then alone in a car with a boy; she sits up and asks if he just came and he apologizes. In the present, Jamie asks what she's going to do but she says until be fine. Julie reminds Jamie that she was asked to help raise him; she asks him what he would say to her if she was his mom. He says he would tell her he doesn't need any help and is okay. In Abbie's room, she asks for William to come up with a story for them to have sex to. She decides he will be a photographer and start touching her inappropriately. They role play. Later, they have loud sex which everyone in the house overhears, including Dorothea, who is up late, thinking. In another voice-over, Jamie tells us he met Julie when they were little. Her mother is a therapist and she has to attend teen group sessions. Julie was changed when her mom got remarried and also when her half-sister was born with Cerebral Palsy. She then began fooling around with boys and sneaking into Jamie's house. She works at the mall, selling potpourri. We see her reading the book 'Forever' by Judy Blume. The next morning, Julie climbs down from Jamie's window and goes in the front door, letting us know that she spends the night discretely. At breakfast, Abbie asks about Jamie getting home safely. Dorothea tells her she couldn't sleep so she was listening for him, hinting that she heard Abbie and William loudly having sex. Jamie emerges and she asks him to tell him next time he goes out of town so she doesn't make so much dinner. She then convinces him to do the stocks with her, as is their normal routine. When they're alone, she asks Jamie if he can escort Abbie to her doctor's appointment since Dorothea will be at work. Jamie is worried shell get bad news about her cancer. Dorothea tells him, "Men feel like you have to fix everything for women, or you're not doing anything. But some things cant be fixed. Just be there. Somehow, that's hard for you all." He says he's not all men; he only represents himself. She responds with, "Well, yes and no." At the OB-GYN, Abbie is told her cancer is benign but she has an incompetent cervix and it may not be strong enough to go full term during pregnancy. Back at the house, Abbie asks Dorothea if having Jamie was the biggest thing that happened to her. Dorothea tells her she guesses it was but Abbie will get through it; this is the hard part but then it gets better. She then adds then it will get hard again and wonders if she should have thrown that in. Abbie reveals she has purchased two birds a boy and a girl that will be monogamous for life. If one dies, the other will die a week later. Dorothea asks Jamie about his trip to the doctor with Abbie. He says he learned a lot and we flash back to him in the waiting room, next to a pregnant teenager. This reminds him of Julie and him visiting the pharmacy to pick up an E.P.T. pregnancy test. He brings it to Julie's bedroom and tells her how it works (since they weren't very common back in 1979). They have to wait two hours for results so they go to the creek and she teaches him how to smoke a cigarette. She tells Jamie she thinks being strong is the most important quality a man can have not vulnerability or sensitivity or even happiness. When they return to her room, they learn that she is not pregnant. At his home, Abbie thanks Jamie for joining her at the doctor by giving him a mix tape. He tells us that he bonded with Abbie that night and learned she grew up in Santa Barbara but then moved to New York City In 1973 to go to art school. She fell in love with photography, then with her teacher, then had an abortion. Her friends couldn't deal with her cancer so she went back home. Her mom reveals she took DES when she was pregnant with Abbie and that it probably led to the cervical cancer. Her mom feels so guilty, she never talks about Abbie's cancer with her so Abbie looks for another place to live which is how she ended up in an upstairs room at Dorothea's. At her job, Dorothea is the only female employee. A co-worker asks her out and is surprised when shes open to the idea, stating her coworkers had wondered if she was a lesbian. Back at home, Dorothea sees Julie climb down from Jamie's room. As Julie walks home, Dorothea pulls up in her car and asks Julie what she does with Jamie. Julie says she just sleeps and they talk. Dorothea and Julie then sit in Dorothea's car. When Dorothea begins to smoke, Julie asks for a cigarette. Dorothea tells her its bad for her. When Julie replies that Dorothea smokes all the time, she responds "When I started, they weren't bad for you. They were stylish and edgy so it's different for me." Julie asks Dorothea if she has moved on since Jamie's dad. Dorothea says she had love twice but that part of her life just never worked out right. At home, Jamie asks Dorothea where she's been but she lies and tells him she was just out running errands. He has done the stock list without her, which makes her happy. Dorothea invites Abbie to go out with her that night and William asks to come along. The three of them go to a bar where Dorothea looks for a man to date. William leans in and kisses her. A punk rock band plays. Dorothea tells us that she's 55 years old and this music is what her son believes in. She tells us, "It's 1979 and in 1999, I will die of cancer from the smoking". She adds in voice-over that people don't know punk will come to an end and Reagan will be president and the fear of a nuclear war will end and HIV/AIDS will become a thing and there will be new skateboard tricks and the Internet. Jamie returns home and tells Jamie the club was life-changing. She continues to narrate, telling us she will prepare for Y2K before she dies [in 1999]. That she will put $16,000 worth of gold coins into a safe deposit box. That she died before the millennium officially began. Abbie comes home and finds Julie in Jamie's bed, which surprises her. They tell her they were just sleeping. Abbie has come in to give Jamie advice to get out of their town if he wants to ever have a chance at an interesting life. She tells them that at the club, she ran into an old friend who spat on her so she hit her and they got into a fight. They ask why she spat on her and she tells them that right before she moved to New York years earlier, Abbie had spat on the friend, thinking she'd never come back so it wouldn't matter. She tells Jamie that William then told her he didn't want to sleep with her anymore. Abbie then tells Julie she wants to talk to Jamie alone and she leans in to tell Jamie not to let Julie sleep there without having sex with him because its disempowering. She adds that he should get out of the town before he ends up working at a sunglasses shop. The next morning at breakfast, Abbie gives Jamie some books from her feminism class, as her attempt to parent him, as Dorothea requested. Jamie begins reading Our Bodies Our Selves; Sisterhood Is Powerful; The Politics of Orgasm. At the skateboard park, a friend brags that he fucked his girlfriend so hard, she came three times. Jamie asks how he stimulated her clitoris. When his friend responds "With my dick", Jamie tells him women need direct clitoral stimulation, with fingers or a vibrator, and she probably faked her orgasm. The boy notices Jamie's TALKING HEADS shirt and says they're a bunch of art fags. He tells them the Talking Heads' drummer is dating the girl in the Talking Heads. He asks if his name is Jamie and they begin to fight. At home, Dorothea is treating Jamie's wounds from the scuffle. She asks what the fight was about and he says clitoral stimulation; he wants to be a good guy and satisfy a woman one day. Outside Dorothea finds ART FAG spray painted onto one side of her car. On the other side is BLACK FLAG. Jamie knows it was his friend because he called him an art fag. Abbie explains that Black Flag is a hardcore band and their fans don't like the Talking Heads. In Abbie's room, she suggests that Jamie just let guys believe in their sex stories rather than contradict them. Abbie tells him that whatever he thinks his life is going to be like, it's not going to be anything like that. He asks Abbie to take him to the club. Abbie takes Jamie to the same club she went with Dorothea. Abbie gives him advice on how to pick up a girl, practicing on Trish (Alia Shawkat), her punk friend. The three of them all dance to the music. Back at home, Dorothea and William talk. He asks her about Jamie's dad. Dorothea tells him that he was left-handed and since she was right-handed, they could do the stock reports together in the morning with him scratching her back with his right hand and writing with his left. William asks if she ever meditates. He then leads her through a meditation process up in his room. She asks how he became the man he is. We see his life in a montage as he explains he used to work in his dad's repair shop and met a woman named Theresa six years earlier. They were in love and moved to a commune in nearby Sebastopol. He didn't really enjoy it but didn't want to lose her. She eventually found him uptight and possessive and left him. Now he doesn't care what the women he dates look like; he just doesn't want to be lonely after losing Theresa. Now he likes making bowls; he gives one to Dorothea. Outside, William presents Dorothea with a 1939 Ford that he fixed up for her. The two take a ride and end up at a bar. They slow dance. Meanwhile, Jamie, Trish, and Abbie dance to David Bowie. Afterwards, they hang out near Bandshell Park. Abbie tells Jamie he's in love with Julie and shouldn't let her push him around. Dorothea and William go back to the house and up to Abbie's room. They play her Black Flag record. Neither of them can understand the appeal of the hardcore punk music. Next, they listen to Talking Heads which they like more Dorothea suggests they're more art fag types. Later that night, Abbie returns home and tells Dorothea that she gave Jamie a beer, taught him how to seduce women and that he eventually kissed Trish. Dorothea is sad that Abbie gets to see Jamie out in the world as a person but Dorothea never will. Abbie's response is to hand Dorothea a Polaroid she took of Jamie having fun. In his room, Jamie and Julie read through Forever by Judy Blume. He asks what an orgasm is like. Julie tells him she never has them. He asks why she has sex at all. She replies she likes the way men look at her and the little panting sounds they make and their bodies. She tells Jamie half the time she regrets it. He asks why she does it. She points out half the time she doesn't regret it. Jamie reads from 'It Hurts to Be Alive and Obsolete: The Aging Woman', quoting the author when she says she fears she won't marry again; that, while she is more attractive than her ex-husband, she is sexually and socially obsolete and he is not. She is afraid to show a man she finds him attractive for fear of insulting him. Dorothea hears this and asks if Jamie thinks that's applicable to her. Her feelings are hurt. The next time she sees Abbie, she thanks her for her help but suggests shes gone too far with the women's movement books. When Abbie protests, Dorothea points out she isn't really trained to educate a teenage boy. In the dining room, all five characters and some handymen watch Jimmy Carters Crisis of Confidence speech, about how owning and consuming things doesn't satisfy us and the road towards self-interest is a mistaken idea of freedom. The men think the speech has doomed him during re-election but Dorothea thinks it was a beautiful speech. Everyone sits at the kitchen table but Abbie is not participating in the conversation, seemingly in distress. She declares that she's menstruating which offends everyone. Abbie tells Jamie that, to have an adult relationship with a woman, he needs to be comfortable with her having her period. She gets him to say menstruation and then encourages everyone else to say it. William throws his advice in, telling Jamie that sex during menstruation can be pleasurable for the woman and that Jamie should never have sex with a vagina but always with the whole woman. Abbie tells him this is slightly off-topic. Julie says she had her first period while watching One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and she never saw the end because she had to rush off to get tampons; William replies by summarizing the ending. Dorothea suggests talking about something else. Julie says she lost her virginity at 14 to a guy she didn't know well; he only used spit for lubrication and she got home in time for curfew and the carpet in his van smelled like bong water. When Dorothea is alone with Jamie again, she says she'd like to know whats going on with him. He tells her he's dealing with everything and she's dealing with nothing. Upstairs, Jamie reveals to Julie that he's angry at her for revealing what she did at dinner, worried people will think she's a slut. Julie apologizes and suggests the two of them take the car and go up the coast. Dorothea learns the next day that Julie and Jamie took the car (spray painted with Art Fag) up the 101 freeway. The two of them stopped by a liquor store and got a man to buy them some wine coolers. While driving around, Dorothea is pulled over for changing lanes in the intersection. When the officer asks for her license, she asks, "What if I don't have it?" He asks for her name, address, and date of birth and she says those are personal questions and asks for his name and address. Jamie and Julie undress in a motel but she tells him she's afraid they're too close for her to have sex with him. He tries to convince her otherwise but she says he is coming off like all the other guys she knows. Jamie puts his clothes back on and leaves, hurt and angry. Abbie finds Dorothea in the police station, having been arrested after not complying with the police officer that pulled her over. The next morning, Julie calls Dorothea and tells her she's in San Luis Obispo and Jamie left and she cant find him. Dorothea asks Abbie and William to accompany her as she goes up north. When Dorothea gets to the motel, Julie reveals that Jamie had just been sitting alone nearby the whole time. Dorothea goes to talk to him and he tells her that he was offended that she asked others to guide him because it seemed like she couldn't deal with him anymore. She says she just didn't have faith she could make him happy by herself. Jamie tells her he thought they were fine. In the motel room, everyone dances to old-time music. Abbie, Julie, and William leave in the 1939 Ford. Jamie and Dorothea stay behind in San Luis Obispo to spend some time together. On his request, Dorothea helps Jamie bleach his hair. He asks her if she's lonely and she tells him she wants to marry Humphrey Bogart in her next life. When he points out Bogart's dead, she points out that she said the next life. Jamie tells us, in narration, that he thought this was the beginning of a new relationship with Dorothea but it ended up being a one-time thing. Dorothea tells us that in March of 1999, she learns that the cancer in her lungs has travelled to her breast and brain. Now we hear updates on everyone through their own narration. Julie tells us that she goes to NYU and loses touch with Jamie and Dorothea. She falls in love with a man and moves to Paris and they choose not to have children. Abbie tells us she will stay In Santa Barbara and a month after she gets married, her female bird dies, followed by the male bird. She creates art in her garage and shows it in local galleries. She ends up having two boys despite her doctor's concerns that she wouldn't be able to carry a baby to full term. William tells us he lives with Dorothea for another year and then opens a pottery store in Arizona. He marries a singer-songwriter but divorces her after a year. Then he marries another woman and continues to do his pottery. Jamie tells us his mom meets a man in 1983 who she is in a relationship with until she dies, 16 years later. Every year, on her birthday, he buys her a trip on her biplane (since, in the beginning, we learn she always wanted to be an Air Force pilot). We see Dorothea flying the plane over the ocean as Jamie tells us that years after his mom dies, he gets married and has a son. When he tries to explain what his grandmother was like, he finds it impossible.

It is the 70s and Augusten Burroughs (Joseph Cross) is a young gay child who spends hours upholding his mother Deidre Burroughs (Annette Benning) with emotional support as she attempts to forge her career as a poetess. Augustens father Norman Burroughs (Alec Baldwin) is an alcoholic whose relationship with Deidre has eroded to the point that they spend most of their time aggressively attacking each others values and physically attacking each other as well. Augusten connects with each parent in certain ways but most of his time is spent skipping school, dressing up, and doing things like acting as audience to his self-involved mother. When the parents decide to give Augusten to Deidres psychologist Dr. Finch (Brian Cox), the young child must learn to live with a family of misfits whose primary activity seems to be to express their innermost feelings regardless of how it affects those around them. Augusten discovers his homosexuality with Neil Bookman (Joseph Fiennes) another adopted son of Dr. Finch and also befriends Natalie Finch (Evan Rachel Wood) who has issues of her own. Together Augusten and Natalie develop a way of dealing with the crazy environment until they discover a way out.

A human-looking alien from a highly advanced but emotionless all-male society is sent to Earth to impregnate a woman and bring the child back to their planet. The alien ends up falling in love there. A suspicious F.A.A. Agent targets him. When the leader Graydon of a highly developed civilization without emotion and composed only by asexual men reproduced by cloning decides to invade Earth, he sends his best student, Harold Anderson, to impregnate a woman. He is fitted with a humming penis and uses the identity of a banker in Phoenix. Harold is clumsy with women until he meets the promiscuous and alcoholic Susan in an AA meeting and she tells him that she will only have sex when she gets married. Harold proposes Susan to get married with him to get in her pants, and when she says that she is pregnant, he has some emotion. Meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Administration agent Roland Jones suspects that Harold is an alien. —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil A highly advanced civilization, whose citizens feel no emotion and reproduce by cloning, plans to conquer Earth from the inside by sending an operative, fashioned with a humming, mechanical penis, to impregnate a human and stay until the birth. The alien, Harold Anderson, goes to Phoenix as a banker and sets to work finding a mate. His approaches to women are inept, and the humming phallus doesn't help, but on the advice of a banking colleague, he cruises an A.A. meeting, meets Susan, and somehow convinces her to marry him. The clock starts to tick: will she conceive, have a baby, and lose Harold (and the child) to his planet before he discovers emotion and starts to care? —<jhailey@hotmail.com>

A sexually frustrated man undergoing a midlife crisis gets infatuated by his daughter's friend.

A suburban housewife learns that she has a dreamworld connection to a serial murderer, and must stop him from killing again. The housewife Claire Cooper is married to the pilot Paul Cooper and their little daughter Rebecca is their pride and joy. When a stranger kidnaps a girl, Claire dreams about the man but Detective Jack Kay ignores her concerns. But when Rebecca disappears during a school play, Claire learns that her visions were actually premonitions and she is connected to the killer through her dreams. She has a nervous breakdown and tries to commit suicide. Her psychologist Dr. Silverman sends her to a mental institution and soon she finds that her husband will be the next victim of the serial-killer. Further, the serial-killer was interned in the same cell in the hospital where she is. Will Claire be able to save Paul? —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Claire Cooper dreams strange things from time to time. One night, she dreams about a little girl being taken away by a stranger, right in her neighbourhood. When her own daughter Rebecca is kidnapped and murdered only a little later, Claire is sure about the chilling truth that her and the killer's mind are connected to each other in dreams. But nobody believes her being able to foresee the killer's next steps, as she could with her own daughter. In addition, the nervous breakdown she suffers gets her into a mental facility after a suicide attempt. And here, locked away in a padded cell, she dreams of her husband being murdered... —Julian Reischl <julianreischl@mac.com>

May 10th, 1996. Earth is visited by a massive fleet of thousands of flying saucers from Mars. President of the United States James Dale (Jack Nicholson) addresses the people of the United States. General Decker wants to go to war, but General Casey argues that there is no conclusive evidence of the aliens visiting with hostile intentions. Donald Kessler the scientific advisor also argues that an advanced civilization, by definition, is not barbaric. Jerry Ross (Martin Short) is Dale's Press Secretary, who is shown to hire prostitutes to satisfy his sexual desires. Talk show host Nathalie Lake (Sarah Jessica Parker) and her boyfriend, news reporter Jason Stone (Michael J. Fox), attempt to capitalize on the developing story with an interview with Dale's scientific advisor Professor Donald Kessler (Pierce Brosnan) on May 11th, which is unexpectedly interrupted by a broadcast from the Martian leader. Kessler admits to Nathalie that he has feelings for her. As the Martians prepare to land outside Pahrump, Nevada, on May 13th numerous people around the country react, including donuts shop employee Richie Norris (Lukas Haas) and his older brother Billy-Glenn (Jack Black), flamboyant casino operator Art Land (Jack Nicholson) (owner of the Galaxy casino) and his hippie wife Barbara (Annette Bening), divorced ex-boxer Byron Williams (Jim Brown) and his former wife Louise (Pam Grier), and Byron and Louise's children Cedric (Ray J) and Neville (Brandon Hammond). Billy volunteers for the army. Richie is asked by his parents to drop his grandmother to her retirement home. Byron works as a prop in a casino in Vegas and Louise is a public bus driver in Washington DC. Byron is looking to take leave to go back to his family in Washington. Barbara is a climate activist and believes that the Martians have come to save the planet. Against the advice of the hawkish General Decker (Rod Steiger), Dale chooses to greet the Martians as foreign dignitaries, ordering military officer General Casey (Paul Winfield) to welcome them to Earth. General Casey never really voices any opinion, and just stands there waiting for things to happen to him, which has been the secret to his success. Billy-Glenn, a private in the US Army, is among the soldiers who volunteers to accompany Casey as he greets the Martians in Nevada. The Government had developed a translator to help in communicating with the Martians. Despite the translated message from the Martian ambassador stating that the Martians "come in peace", the ambassador sees a hippie release a dove into the air and kills it with his ray gun. The Martians then turn on the assembled crowd and attack them with their ray guns, killing Casey, Jason, and Billy-Glenn, and abducting Nathalie and her pet chihuahua Poppy. Kessler convinces Dale that the Martians' attack in Nevada may have been the result of a cultural misunderstanding, and Dale agrees to let the Martian ambassador address Congress after the Martians issue a formal apology for their actions. Meanwhile, the Martians are shown to be laughing maniacally on their flying saucers, while conducting experiments on the captured humans and other life forms. Once again, the Martians turn on the assembled humans, massacring most of Congress and abducting Kessler. While Nathalie and Kessler are held captive in the Martian mothership, the Martians switch Nathalie and Poppy's heads and reduce Kessler to a disembodied head. Dale still refuses to launch nuclear weapons at the Martians, even though General Decker insists that they are already at war. Dale narrowly survives an assassination attempt by a Martian disguised as an attractive blonde woman (Lisa Marie), who infiltrates the White House by seducing and killing his press secretary, after he mistakes the Martian for a prostitute and gives her entry into the White House. Following the assassination attempt, the Martians commence a full-scale invasion of Earth, attacking major cities throughout the world. When Martian soldiers overrun the White House, First Lady Marsha (Glenn Close) Dale is killed by a falling chandelier as President Dale escapes to the PEOC. Cedric and Neville were at the White House as part of a public tour, and they pick up the alien guns and start shooting back to allow the President to escape. Art is killed when the Martians destroy his casino in Las Vegas. In Las Vegas, Barbara prepares to flee to Tahoe in Art's private plane and offers to let Byron accompany her. They are joined by Byron's co-worker Cindy (Janice Rivera) and guest singer Tom Jones, who offers to pilot the plane. Meanwhile, Richie abandons his parents Glenn (Joe Don Baker) & Sue-Ann (O-Lan Jones) in their mobile home and goes to his grandmother Florence's (Sylvia Sidney) retirement home to escort her to safety, leaving his parents to be killed by a Martian piloting a giant robot. At the retirement home, the Martians' brains explode when they hear Florence's record of Slim Whitman's yodeling on "Indian Love Call", revealing one of their only weaknesses. Eventually, Martian soldiers breach Dale's secure bunker, crushing Decker after reducing him to minuscule size with a shrink ray, then leveling their weapons on everyone else in the bunker, causing many to be killed while others flee the bunker, leaving Dale the last alive in the room. He makes an eloquent, impassioned speech exhorting the Martians to make peace with humanity, but the now teary-eyed Martian leader kills him with a fake-hand-prank device after offering a handshake. Barbara, Byron, Cindy, and Jones reach Art's plane, but find the runway overrun by a group of Martians led by the Martian ambassador. To buy time for his companions to escape, Byron steps forward to challenge the ambassador to a boxing match and beats him to death before being seemingly overrun by Martians as the plane takes off. Around the world, the Martians are defeated as humans play "Indian Love Call" to destroy them, resulting in Kessler, Nathalie and Poppy's death as the ship they are on crashes. In the aftermath of the war with the Martians, the Dales' teenage daughter Taffy (Natalie Portman) awards the Medal of Honor to Richie and Florence. In Washington, D.C., Byron-who survived his encounter with the Martians-walks up to Louise's home to greet his family. In Tahoe, Barbara, Cindy, and Jones emerge unharmed from a cavern.

Michael Douglas is President Andrew Shepherd, a widower and father who begins to get uncomfortable with the perception surrounding his being a single father. He drops in on a meeting with environmental lobbyists and meets hard-charging Sydney Wade (Annette Bening). After Sydney escorts President Shepherd to a State dinner, the two strike up a relationship, much to the chagrin of Sydney's boss, played by John Mahoney, and much to the delight of President Shepherd's political rival, the scheming Senator Bob Rumson (Richard Dreyfuss). Rumson's attacks on Sydney and the President's character send President Shepherd's approval ratings tumbling and eventually forces Shepherd to choose between one of his priority bills and the bill Sydney was hired to get passed.

A charismatic gangster and his starlet mistress join forces to create his vision of what we now know as Las Vegas.

After being shot, a lawyer loses his memory and must relearn speech and mobility, but he has a loving family to support him. Henry is a lawyer who survives a shooting only to find he can't remember anything. As if that weren't enough, he also has to recover his speech and mobility, in a life he no longer fits into. Fortunately, he has a loving wife and daughter to help him. —Rob Hartill Henry Turner is a despicable and ruthless trial lawyer whose life is turned upside down when he is shot in the head during a robbery. He survives with significant brain damage and must relearn how to speak, walk, and function normally. He has also lost most of the memory of his personal life, and must adjust to life with the family that he does not remember. To the surprise of his wife and daughter, he becomes a loving and affectionate man. —Denny Gibbons

Actress Suzanne Vale leaves rehab only to be made to live with her movie star mother. Stuck together, the jaded starlet and silver screen has-been struggle to find common ground.

A Chicago man and his family go camping with his obnoxious brother-in-law. Having fond memories of the good old days at Pine Lodge Resort in Pechoggin, Wisconsin, Chicago family man Chet Ripley takes his wife and kids to the lakeside honeymoon cabin for the summer. But instead of having an unforgettable vacation in nature, high-rolling brother-in-law Roman and the haughty Craig family crash the party. Chet can now say goodbye to family bonding. As the two rivalling families half-heartedly try to spend quality time together, a string of undeserved misfortunes and mini-disasters pave the way for the ultimate showdown between clans. The question remains, however. Can the modern urbanites survive the Great Outdoors and save what's left of the holiday? —Nick Riganas When an unannounced, uninvited and unwelcome family of fun-loving misfits converge upon a lakeside resort to join their relatives for a summer of relaxation, the result is anything but restful in this raucous comedy starring Dan Aykroyd and John Candy. It's a vacationer's worst nightmare, as wheeler-dealer Aykroyd, his sexually repressed wife and eerie twin daughters "join" the easygoing Candy and his straight-laced clan for a season of "fun" in the sun. Unfortunately, the only thing these two in-laws have in common is their intense dislike for each other. Soon, it's brother-in-law against brother-in-law in an uproarious and hilarious fight to the finish to see which one really knows how to enjoy The Great Outdoors. —Anonymous Big-hearted Chicago family man Chet has brought his family to a lakeside resort area, and although his wife and kids aren't quite as excited as he is, Chet has high hopes for the vacation. However, his optimism is sabotaged when his obnoxious brother-in-law Roman drops in unexpectedly, along with his snooty, strange family. Chet and his family try to stay open-minded, but they find it difficult to relax and enjoy themselves because of the constant annoyance of Roman's presence. —William Agee <wa0521@broncho.ucok.edu> Chicago resident Chester "Chet" Ripley, his wife Connie, and their two sons Buck and Benny are on vacation at a lake resort in Pechoggin, Wisconsin. Then the unexpected happens -- Connie's sister Kate, Kate's know-it-all investment broker husband Roman Craig, and Kate and Roman's twin daughters Mara and Cara crash the vacation, having decided to blow off their own plans to vacation in Europe. Roman proceeds to majorly get on Chet's nerves -- so much that Chet is ready and willing to pack up and go home, even as teenager Buck tries to romance local girl Cammie. —Todd Baldridge