Barry Levinson

The Alto Knights follows two of New Yorks most notorious crime bosses and how their separate paths to power place them on a deadly collision course.

A has-been rock manager from Van Nuys, California stumbles upon a once-in-a-lifetime voice in a remote Afghan cave in Rock the Kasbah, a dramatic comedy inspired by stranger-than-fiction, real-life events. Richie Lanz (Bill Murray), dumped and stranded in war-torn Kabul by his last remaining client (Zooey Deschanel), discovers Salima Khan (Leem Lubany), a Pashtun teenager with a beautiful voice and the courageous dream of becoming the first woman to compete on national television in Afghanistan`s version of ``American Idol``. Richie partners with a savvy hooker (Kate Hudson), a pair of hard-partying war profiteers (Danny McBride and Scott Caan) and a hair-trigger mercenary (Bruce Willis) and, braving dangerous cultural prejudices, manages his new protegee into becoming the ``Afghan Star``.

Take a close look at the world through the eyes of a bee. The quest of Barry B. Benson (Jerry Seinfeld), a recent college graduate, to discover the human world at its functioning in terms of honey being freely available in stores. His mission to sue the human race for selling honey without the consent of the Bees.

Tim Dingman (Ben Stiller) and Nick Vanderpark (Jack Black) are best friends, neighbors and co-workers at 3M. Tim has been recently promoted at work, while Nick has received a performance evaluation which says that he is not focused enough on work. Due to his promotion, Tim has received a new fancy chair, which has excellent lumbar support. Nick is constantly coming up with crazy ideas to get rich quick. Tim is the voice of reason and tells Nick all the reasons why his crazy invention ideas are not practical and would not work. One day, while returning from work, Nick observes a dog owner having to clean after his dog. Nick thinks about inventing a canned spray to make dog turds disappear. Nick works with a research scientist Dimitriov to create a working prototype of his product. Tim is skeptical since he cannot understand how the product works and where does the feces disappear to. Nick asks Tim to go 50/50 for the next stage of the invention, which requires an investment of $4000. Tim's wife Debbie was excited about the idea and wanted to invest, but Tim says that matter cannot simply disappear. Soon, Nick performs a demonstration of the product, and it works just as intended. Tim is dumbfounded. 18 months later, Nick has invented Vapoorize, a spray that instantly removes dog feces, and he actually succeeds. Nick is now selling the product on live TV. He now lives in a huge mansion (right in front of Tim, where his old house used to be) with his family. Nick even has a horse named Corkey, who always comes to Tim's yard to eat his apples. As Nick's wealth continues to grow, so does Tim's envy, as he had initially scoffed at the idea and squandered an opportunity to invest and become mega-rich himself. Nick is blissfully unaware of Tim's jealousy, and his generosity only serves to make Tim more envious of him. Tim is increasingly self-conscious and goes into a tirade when any of his kids (Mike or Lula) question him about their relative lack of wealth as compared to Nick's family. Nick no longer has to work and spends all the time with his family. Meanwhile Nick's wife Natalie (Amy Poehler) decides to run for state senate but is continually plagued by questions about her husband's product. Natalie has decided to make environment as her main campaign platform. The people want to know where the dog turd goes to. Tim's wife Debbie (Rachel Weisz) and children temporarily leave (as Debbie cannot stand to look at Tim), and he is fired from 3M (as his focus has nosedived recently), after Tim's jealousy reaches new levels and he has angry tirade at his boss when questioned about his lack of focus. Tim also has to cancel the pool as he now has no money to pay the contractors (who had already dug a hole in Tim's backyard). Meanwhile Nick has just acquired a new Vineyard. To drown his sorrows, Tim goes to a bar for the first time in his life. In a bar he meets J-Man (Christopher Walken), a bizarre drifter, who lends a sympathetic ear and offers advice. J-Man tells Tim to shake things up with Tim and sends him home in a taxi. After a drunken night out, Tim believes that he accidentally kills Nick's beloved horse, Corkey. Tim was shooting arrows, and he suddenly finds Corkey dead in his backyard with an arrow stuck in his body. Tim buries the horse in his abandoned swimming pool. J-Man comes by to return Tim's car. The same morning, Debbie returns home with the kids and is determined to focus on what she has with Tim. Nick offers a $50,000 reward for the return of his horse. J-Man and Tim concoct a plan whereby J-Man would discover the dead horse and claim the reward, splitting the proceeds. J-Man decides to move the horse to a different location while Tim is enjoying a family vacation with his family at J-Man's cabin by the lake. The endeavor is hit by a series of unfortunate events, including the sequestering of Tim's family in J-Man's mountain cabin. The car could not drive up to the cabin and the family had to hike through a mountain to get there, only to find that it wasn't very nice to begin with. Then Tim is called back to the house by J-Man to help with putting the horse on the flatbed of J-Man's truck. But J-Man's truck is too high, so they load the horse on the top of Tim's mini-van. J-Man makes him drive way out of town to make sure that the horse is not discovered by anyone else and it starts raining. This leads to the horse's carcass being lost in a rainstorm. Nick reveals to Tim that he is going to Rome for the debut of Vapoorize there and gives Tim the opportunity to join him in a 50:50 partnership, which he accepts. J-Man finds out that Tim is now rich, and, feeling betrayed, tries to blackmail him. After confessing to his wife, now enjoying her rich lifestyle, Tim agrees to pay J-Man; however, J-Man ups his demands and asks to be Tim's partner. Tim accidentally shoots him in the back with an arrow and J-Man, believing that Tim has tried to kill him, backs down in fear. Tim eventually confesses all to Nick who forgives him for his jealousy and agrees to continue with the partnership. However, at a press conference for Debbie's electoral campaign (where she promises to withdraw her candidacy if it is proven Vapoorize is harmful to the environment in any way), Corkey's body is seen floating down the nearby river, and the animal's Post-Mortem discovers that the horse was not killed by the arrow as previously thought but actually poisoned by a by-product of Vapoorize, used by Tim to treat his garden after Corkey came to eat the apples off of his tree. The veterinarian informs the pair that she is obliged to inform the Environmental Protection Agency, and Vapoorize is immediately pulled from the market. Nick and Tim almost lose all their wealth and glory-until Tim comes up with an invention of his own: Pocket Flan, inspired by Nick and his family's love for the dessert. J-Man is shown in the audience of Tim and Nick's infomercial for Pocket Flan, apparently reconciled.

Two friends and convicts, one charismatic Joe (Bruce Willis), the other neurotic and hypochondriac Terry (Billy Bob Thornton), break out of Oregon State Penitentiary in a concrete mixing truck and start a bank robbing spree, hoping to fund a dream they share. Joe notices that the main gate of the prison takes time to open and shut. When it open let out a pickup truck, Joe commandeers the concrete mixer that was in the prison compound, laying concrete and drives towards the main gate. Terry jumps on the truck, more out of worry for Joe. Joe is the brawn and Terry is the brains of the operation. Right after breaking out of prison, Joe steals a car from a woman, and uses that to drive up to a bank. He uses a magic marker and puts it against the lone guard inside the bank to make it seem like a gun. Joe is shows to have a weakness for beautiful women. Exiting the bank, Joe steals another car for their getaway. Escaping the police, they enter the first open garage they can find. The house belongs to Cheri Woods (Azura Skye) whose father is out for the weekend and she was spending time with her boyfriend Phil (Anthony Burch). Joe tells Terry that his uncle owns a hotel in Acapulco, and his dream is to buy the hotel and convert it into a resort and nightclub. Terry likes the idea. Joe proposes to pay for it by robbing banks. The next morning, the duo wear Cheri's father's clothes and leave in Phil's car. Terry says that the biggest issue with robbing banks is that everybody is trying to hit the alarm and there are too many uncontrollable. He figures out a way to control their environment. They become known as the "Sleepover Bandits" because of the way they work: they kidnap the manager of a target bank the night before a planned robbery, then spend the night with the manager's family; early the next morning, they accompany the manager to the bank to get their money. They use dim-witted would-be special effects stunt man Harvey Pollard (Troy Garity) as their getaway driver and lookout. Harvey is Joe's cousin. Harvey wants to make a name for himself in fire based special effects, but he needs a perfect suit. Their first bank was the Oregon City Bank, and its manager Darill Miller (Brían F. O'Byrne). They enter his home and kidnap his family including wife Cloe (Stacey Travis) and 2 daughters Monica (Scout LaRue Willis) and Erika (Tallulah Belle Willis). The next morning the plan goes like clockwork and quickly becomes a template. The three successfully pull off a series of robberies that gets them recognition on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list and ultimately the reward for information leading to their capture is increased to $1 million. When a housewife, with a failing marriage, Kate (Cate Blanchett) decides to run away, she ends up in the hands of the criminals. Terry was out of gas in his car and was stranded on a bridge. When he came back with a can, the cops were already there. Frantic, he tries to flag down a driver, running into Kate. Kate is in depression, and it doesn't matter to her that Terry is a fugitive. She offers to drive Terry to his destination and won't allow him to leave her car as she does not want to be alone. Terry had no choice but to bring Kate to their hideout in the woods. At first, Joe is livid, but is charmed by Kate and allows her to stay. Terry reads Kate's situation perfectly, and Kate loves that Joe is well read and into poetry. Initially attracted to Joe and kisses him. She also participates in the upcoming heists as a regular member of the crew and goes with Joe for the 2-week hiding period after every heist. After the next heist, Harvey is driving Kate, and Joe and Terry are in another car. Harvey makes a mistake while driving due to which an oncoming truck rams into Joe's car. The whole thing is recorded in a camcorder by a bystander. In the chaos, Terry escapes with Kate, and Joe with Harvey, with a plan to meet at the rendezvous point. Terry reaches their early and leaves with Kate, without waiting for Joe. Terry and Kate end up in a motel, which has only a single room available. Kate ends up in bed with Terry and a confused love triangle begins. The gang regroups out of town of their next heist location, as planned. The guys ask Kate to choose, and she refuses to and prefers to keep things ambiguous. Meanwhile, the tapes of the recording are all over the media and now police believe that Joe and Terry have kidnapped Kate. On one heist Harvey leaves the lookout to chase a girl, and the gang is almost caught. Terry fires Harvey, who leaves the gang and meets his girl on the highway. The three of them go on the lam and manage to pull off a few more robberies, but after a while the two begin to fight over Kate, and she decides to leave them. The two criminals then decide to pull off one last job. The story is told in flashbacks, framed by the story of the pair's last robbery of the Alamo Bank, as told by Criminals at Large and its host Darren (Bobby Slayton), a fictional reality television show. Apparently, Joe and Terry reached out to Darren at his house, and narrated their life story and within 24 hours, they died in the shootout at Alamo Bank. The show tells the story of the last job to be a failure when Kate tips off the police and the two are caught in the act, robbing the bank. The two then begin to argue when Joe tells the police "You won't take us alive!" and the argument gets to the point where the two of them shoot each other dead. But at the end of the film the real story behind the last job is revealed: Harvey used some of his special effects to make it seem as though Terry and Joe were shooting each other. Harvey and his girlfriend then ran in dressed as paramedics and placed the stolen money, Terry, and Joe in body bags. In the ambulance, Harvey uses electronics to blow out his tires which sends the ambulance into a junkyard. Under his jumpsuit, Harvey was wearing a fire suit. He lights himself on fire and rigs a bomb to go off. Kate, Harvey, Harvey's girlfriend, Terry, and Joe flee the scene, leading officials to believe the bodies were burned. Reunited, Joe, Terry, Harvey and Kate make it to Mexico to live out their dream. The last scene shows Harvey getting married in Mexico and Kate kissing Joe and Terry passionately.

Two Irish wig salesmen, one Catholic and one Protestant, grapple with profiting from conflict amidst lucrative rival orders during the Troubles, risking their partnership while navigating dangerous territories and moral dilemmas. Colm is a Catholic, and George is a poetry-loving Protestant. In Belfast, Northern Ireland in the 1980s, they could have been enemies, but instead, they became business partners. After persuading a mad wig salesman known as the Scalper to sell them his leads, the two embark on a series of house calls, always in neighborhoods that are dangerous for one or the other partner. Then they find out they might lose their exclusive wig distributorship to competitors. Through a series of comic twists, the pair are given large orders for wigs by both sides of the Protestant and Catholic conflict. Should they compromise their principles in order to keep their business? Will it destroy their friendship? Could one of their wigs in the hands of the I.R.A. actually put one or both of them in jail, or even get them killed? —Miles Fowler

Pregnant Sally unknowingly falls for the stepson of the deceased father of her baby and has to deal with his homicidal family. Hamburger joint waitress Sally Jackson is pregnant. When Beatrice, the wife of the father, finds out about his infidelity, she sends her sons from a previous marriage, military pilots Angus and Dorian Montier, to scare the living daylights out of him. Their gunship does such a good job, without hitting him, that he dies from a heart attack. Worrying about radio interference that night, they investigate who might have heard too much within the fairly empty reception perimeter, and soon discover only Sally could, still ignorant about her affair with his step-dad Henry. Dorian takes a job there to be sure, but soon falls for her himself, while mother-obsessed moron Angus would do anything to anyone for her honor... —KGF Vissers

In the middle of the southern Pacific Ocean, a thousand feet below the surface, what is believed to be an alien spacecraft is discovered after a ship laying transoceanic cable has its cable cut and the United States Navy investigates the cause. The thickness of coral growth on the spaceship suggests that it has been there for almost 300 years. A team made up of marine biologist Dr. Beth Halperin (Sharon Stone), mathematician Dr. Harry Adams (Samuel L. Jackson), astrophysicist Dr. Ted Fielding (Liev Schreiber), psychologist Dr. Norman Goodman (Dustin Hoffman), and U.S. Navy Capt. Harold Barnes (Peter Coyote) are tasked with investigating the spaceship. The team (along with two navy technicians) are housed in a state-of-the-art underwater living environment called the Habitat during their stay on the ocean floor. Upon entering the spaceship, the team makes several discoveries. The first is that the ship is not alien, and that it is in fact an American spaceship. They assume, due to the years of coral growth and advanced technology, that the craft is from the future. The last date in the ship's log, 06/21/43, does not indicate the specific century. The last entry in the log details an "Unknown (Entry) Event", which depicts the ship apparently falling into a black hole, resulting in its trip through time. The ship's mission apparently involved gathering objects from around the galaxy to bring back to Earth. An item of particular interest is a large, perfect sphere in the cargo hold. It is suspended a few feet above the ground and has an impenetrable fluid surface which reflects its surroundings but not, for some undetermined reason, people. Harry concludes from the classification of the event which sent the ship back that the Habitat crew is fated to die: it would not have been an "unknown event" if they had lived to report about it, he reasons. Harry soon sneaks back to the spaceship and finds a way to enter the sphere. Soon after, a series of numeric-encoded messages begins to show up on the habitat's computer screens, and Harry and Ted are able to decipher the messages and converse with what appears to be an alien (which calls itself "Jerry"), which has been trapped in the sphere. They soon discover that "Jerry" can hear everything they are saying aboard the Habitat. Harry's entry into the sphere prevents the team from evacuating before the arrival of a powerful typhoon on the surface, forcing them to stay below for almost a week. A series of tragedies then befalls the crew: Fletcher, the navy technician, is killed by aggressive Sea Nettles. Later, Edmunds' corpse is found drifting near the station, her body completely pulverized by what turns out to be a giant squid, which returns to attack the station. In the chaos that ensues, Barnes is cut in half by a computer operated door, and Ted is burned to death. Sea snakes attack Norman, though he is not injured. Jerry is suspected to be the cause of these incidents. Eventually, only Harry, Norman, and Beth remain. At this point, they realize that they have all entered the world of the perfect sphere except for Norman. Norman enters the Sphere to hurt Beth later than the others. The Sphere has given them the power to manifest their thoughts into reality. As such, all of the disasters that had been plaguing them are the result of manifestations of the worst parts of their own minds. The name "Jerry" turns out to have been erroneously decoded and is actually spelled "Harry"; it is Harry's subconscious communicating with them through their computer system whenever he is asleep. At that point, Beth's suicidal thoughts manifest themselves as triggering a countdown to detonate the explosives that were brought along to clear away the coral. They abandon the Habitat for the mini sub, but their fears manifest an illusion of the spacecraft around them. Norman finally sees through the illusion and punches the mini-sub's emergency surfacing button. The explosives destroy the habitat and the spaceship, but (unknown to them) the sphere itself remains undamaged. As the explosives detonate and create a huge blast wave below it, the mini sub rises to the surface, to be quickly retrieved by the returning surface ships, permitting the survivors to begin safe decompression once on board a navy ship. The film ends with the three deciding to use their powers to erase their own memories before being debriefed, in order to prevent the knowledge about the sphere from falling into the wrong hands. Thus, Harry's paradox, in which they are alive, yet no one has learned about the "unknown event," is resolved. As they erase their own memories of the "unknown event," the sphere is seen emerging from the ocean and flying off into space. (There is an alternate ending which does not feature the special effects of the sphere, first at the bottom of the ocean, and then flying off into space. Instead, it just includes their decision to forget, followed by one or two lines from each character demonstrating that they have forgotten what happened while a helicopter flies off into the distance)

A dog wags its tail as the dog is smarter than the tail. If the tail was smarter, it would wag the dog. The President (Michael Belson) is caught making advances on an underage girl inside the Oval Office, less than two weeks before the election. Conrad Brean (Robert De Niro), a top spin doctor, is brought in by presidential aide Winifred Ames (Anne Heche) to take the public's attention away from the scandal. The President himself is in China, while Washington Post has the story and is ready to roll with it the following day. Conrad starts by delaying the President's return by 1 day claiming that he got sick in China. And then he floats a rumor regarding a deal for the B3 Bomber, only there is no B3 Bomber. As Conrad works with Ames on his plans, the news of the Presidential sexual misconduct with an underage girl hits the TV news. The President's rial Senator Neal (Craig T. Nelson) goes on TV and demands that the President step down to allow for an impartial investigation. The President is still 17 points ahead of Neal in the opinion polls. Conrad decides to construct a fictional war in Albania, hoping the media will concentrate on this instead. Conrad then ties in the rumor and adds that this is why the B3 bomber is being mobilized. Conrad plants questions in the media briefing regarding the situation in Albania and the B3 bomber being mobilized. The White House Press secretary had no knowledge of either and vehemently denied any such developments, thereby providing more credence to the stories. Brean contacts Hollywood producer Stanley Motss (Dustin Hoffman) to create the war, complete with a theme song and fake film footage of a photogenic orphan. Conrad convinces Motss that war is show business. Each war in the American past is characterized by a single iconic photo or event. People remember the symbolism but forget the war itself. Conrad argues that why US is at war with Albania is almost immaterial as when the bombs start falling, the reasons are sent to the background. Grace (Suzie Plakson) is Motss' assistant. Motss comes up with the story that Albania has a nuclear bomb and is threatening the US with it. The Albanians have placed the device into a suitcase and moved it to Canada to smuggle it into the US. Johnny Dean (Willie Nelson) is brought in to sing the song while "Fad King" (Denis Leary) and Liz Butsky (Andrea Martin) come up with the lyrics. Tracy Lime (Kirsten Dunst) is hired to play the orphan, running from a terrorist attack, with a kitten in her hands. Tracy is concerned that she will not be allowed to put the gig on her resume even after it goes national. Ames gets her to sign a security clearance form that prohibits her from even talking about it. Tracy is made to run in front of a blue screen and the entire scenery is added digitally, including the village, the flames and the kitten. The hoax is initially successful, with the President quickly gaining ground in the polls appearing afterwards. When the CIA learns of the plot, they send Agent Young (William H. Macy) to confront Brean about the hoax. Brean convinces Young that revealing the deception is against his and the CIA's best interests. But when the CIA - in collusion with the President's rival candidate - reports that the war did happen but is drawing to an end, the media begins to focus back on the President's sexual abuse scandal. To counter this, Motss decides to invent a hero who was left behind enemy lines in Albania. Inspired by the idea that he was "discarded like an old shoe", Brean and Motss have the Pentagon provide the team with a soldier named Schumann (Woody Harrelson) around whom a POW narrative is constructed, complete with T-shirts, patriotic songs, and faux grassroots demonstrations of patriotism and solidarity. As part of the hoax, folk singer Johnny Dean (Willie Nelson) records a song called "Old Shoe", which is pressed onto a 78 RPM record, prematurely aged so that listeners will think it was recorded years earlier and sent to the Library of Congress to be "found". Soon, large numbers of old pairs of shoes began appearing on phone and power lines, signs that the movement is taking hold. The American public gets caught up in the events of a fictional war produced in the basement of the White House with computers and blue screens, actors and scenarios. Soon they even release a mental patient who once served in the military because he has the right last name, "Shoe", to portray a war hero of the conflict. They release him because they have a show song from a nostalgic old tune that contains his name, a war tune now to drum up sympathy and national support for the war effort. When the team goes to retrieve Schumann, they discover he is in fact a criminally insane Army convict. On the way back, their plane crashes on route to Andrews Air Force Base. The team survives and is rescued by a farmer, an illegal alien who is given expedited citizenship for a better story. However, Schumann is killed after he attempts to sexually assault a gas station owner's daughter. Seizing the opportunity, Motss stages an elaborate military funeral for Schumann, claiming that he died from wounds sustained during his rescue. While watching a political talk show, Motss gets frustrated that the media are crediting the president's upsurge in the polls to the bland campaign slogan of "Don't change horses in mid-stream" rather than Motss's hard work. Despite previously claiming he was inspired by the challenge, Motss announces that he wants credit and will reveal his involvement, despite Brean's offer of an ambassadorship and the dire warning that he is "playing with his life". After Motss refuses to back down, Brean reluctantly orders his security staff to kill him. A newscast reports that Motss has died of a heart attack at home, the president was successfully re-elected, and an Albanian terrorist organization has claimed responsibility for a recent bombing, suggesting the fake war is becoming real.

Lorenzo "Shakes" Carcaterra (Jason Patric), Thomas "Tommy" Marcano (Billy Crudup), Michael Sullivan (Brad Pitt), and John Reilly (Ron Eldard) are four childhood friends who grew up in Hell's Kitchen, New York City in the mid-1960s. Hell's kitchen was an immigrant neighborhood and life was tough. Domestic violence was a daily occurrence, but the Kitchen also protected its own from outside criminals. During this time, the local priest, Father Bobby Carillo (Robert De Niro), plays a very important part in their lives and keeps an eye on them. They served as altar boys at the church. However, early on they start running small errands for a local gangster, King Benny (Vittorio Gassman). The boys also had a competition going on who could play the boldest prank. Mostly it was innocent stuff like sitting in the priest's chamber of the confession booth, or poking holes into walls to ogle at naked women changing clothes in the change rooms. On a summer day in 1967, their lives take a sharp turn when they almost kill a man after pulling a prank on a hot dog vendor. They accidentally roll the cart down a set of subway stairs, severely injuring an elderly man. As punishment, they are all sentenced to serve time at the Wilkinson Home for Boys in Upstate New York. Shakes is given six-to-twelve months, while the others are given 12-to-18 months. The juvenile center is full of hard-core offenders, with no method for rehabilitation. There, the boys are systematically beaten, abused, and sexually assaulted by guards Sean Nokes (Kevin Bacon), Henry Addison (Jeffrey Donovan), Adam Styler (Lennie Loftin), and Ralph Ferguson (Terry Kinney). These traumatic events change the boys and their friendship forever. Father Bobby visited the boys regularly, but Nokes warned them not to say anything else the reprisals would be severe. Father Bobby gives Shakes the strength to keep going. Mr. Carlson (John Slattery) is the English teacher at the facility and appreciates the interest that Shakes shows in the subject. Guard Marlboro (James Pickens Jr.) is the only one who tries to protect the boys a little bit from the brutality of the predators. When at the facility, the boys participate in Wilkinson's annual football game between the guards and inmates. Michael convinces inmate Rizzo Robinson (Eugene Byrd) to help win the game. Humiliated, the guards move the boys to solitary confinement for weeks, where they are systematically beaten. Rizzo does not survive, and his family is told he had died of pneumonia. In spring 1968, shortly before Shakes's release from Wilkinson, he suggests the boys publicly report the abuse. The others refuse, with Michael asserting that no one would believe them or care, and they vow to never speak of it again. The night before Shakes is released, Nokes and the other guards arrange a "farewell party", in which the four boys are brutally sexually assaulted worse than they have been before. Fourteen years later in 1981, John and Tommy, now gangsters, find Sean Nokes in a Hell's Kitchen pub. When John and Tommy confront him, he dismisses the abuse he put them through. They both shoot him dead in front of several witnesses. Mike, now an assistant District Attorney, arranges to be assigned to the case, secretly intending to botch the prosecution to use it as a means of getting revenge. Moreover, he and Shakes begin forging a plan to get their revenge on all the guards who abused them. Together with many of their lifelong friends, especially Carol (Minnie Driver), a social worker, and King Benny, they manage to carry out their revenge using information on all the Wilkinson guards compiled by Mike previously. Benny spreads the word not to touch Mike and forbids any hits on Mike for taking the case against John and Tommy. Mike says that all Juvenile records are destroyed after 7 years, so there is no link between them and the guards anymore. They hire Danny Snyder (Dustin Hoffman), a washed-up, alcoholic lawyer, to defend John and Tommy to make it seem as if the case is hopeless, allowing them to carry out their plan without being watched. Benny gets involved and 2 of the 4 witnessed change their minds about testifying against John and Tommy. Mike provides all the research to Danny to prove that one of the witnesses who testifies to have seen both John and Tommy walk out of the pub, was drunk at the time of the shooting. However, to clinch the case they need a key witness who can give John and Tommy an alibi. Shakes has a long talk with Father Bobby and tells him about the abuse they suffered at Wilkinson. Mike calls Ralph Ferguson as a character witness in court. Again, Danny has been provided a detailed list of questions to expose Ferguson and Nokes as serial abusers of kids at the juvenile facility. Ferguson breaks down under the strain of the questions and his oath and admits to all accusations against him and Nokes. After a few days of soul-searching, Father Bobby agrees to lie on the stand about where John and Tommy were on the night of the shooting; the priest swears under oath that they were with him at Madison Square Garden at a New York Knicks basketball game. As a result, they are acquitted. The remaining guards are also punished for their crimes: one, Henry Addison, is killed by the drug gang run by the older brother of Rizzo (who was informed by Benny about Addison's crimes against Rizzo), a boy killed years before in the Wilkinson Home; the other, Adam Styler, a corrupt policeman accused of extorting and killing a drug dealer, is exposed, and arrested. Mike and Shakes had provided all the evidence against Adam to a detective, who was Benny's cousin. After the case is over, Mike quits his job as an attorney and moves to the English countryside where he becomes a carpenter; John drinks himself to death and Tommy is eventually murdered, both within a few years of the acquittal.

Seattle technology company DigiCom is about to merge with a publishing company, and company founder and president Bob Garvin (Donald Sutherland) plans to retire. Tom Sanders (Michael Douglas), head of manufacturing, expects to be promoted to run DigiCom after the merger. However, he learns that the post instead has gone to operations executive Meredith Johnson (Demi Moore), a former girlfriend of Tom. Meredith is brought on to handle the merger, as Garvin wanted to "break the glass ceiling". Tom lives with his wife Susan (Caroline Goodall), Son Matt (Trevor Einhorn) and daughter Lisa. He is a happily married man. Chindy Chang (Jacqueline Kim) is Tom's PA at office. There are rumors at the office that after the merger, the Austin plant will be sold off. Garvin introduces Meredith to her new subordinates. Co-workers like Mark Lewyn (Dennis Miller) comment to Tom on how attractive Meredith is. Others like chief financial officer Stephanie Kaplan (Rosemary Forsyth) seem to be aware that Tom and Meredith had a relationship in the past. Meanwhile Tom is still wondering if he is out of a job as both Garvin and Meredith evaded the question. Garvin doesn't want Tom to quit, as he wants to project an image of "one big happy family" to the new buyers. And he also believes that when push comes to shove, Tom does not have the guts to quit. Late that evening, Meredith calls Tom into her office, ostensibly to discuss problems with DigiCom's new advanced CD-ROM drive, being manufactured in Malaysia. Instead, Meredith aggressively tries to resume her romantic relationship with him. Tom resists (with difficulty) as he is now a married family man. However, Meredith seduces him. Although he repeatedly turns her down, Meredith ignores Tom, forcing herself on him. Tom allows her to perform oral sex but rebuffs her attempts for sexual intercourse. Tom initially is tempted, but after catching a glimpse of himself in a mirror, he regains control and pushes Meredith to the ground. As he leaves, Meredith screams a threat to make him pay for spurning her. The next day, Tom discovers that Meredith has alleged sexual harassment complaint against him with the help of legal counsel Phillip Blackburn (Dylan Baker). To save the merger from a scandal, causing Garvin to lose $100 million if the deal falls through DigiCom officials demand that Tom accepts an assignment to the company's Austin office. Colleagues refuse to believe his protestations of innocence. Tom does not want to do this, as he would lose his stock options, ruining his career and family. He will be left jobless when the other location is sold following the merger. However, since no one believes his story and Meredith is now his boss, he appears to have no choice. Just as all seems hopeless, Tom receives an e-mail from someone identified only as "A Friend". It directs him to Seattle attorney Catherine Alvarez (Roma Maffia), who specializes in sexual harassment cases. Tom counter-sues, alleging that Meredith is the one who harassed him. At the initial mediation, a tearful Meredith repeatedly lies and blames Tom. Garvin, believing the merger will fail without her, proposes Tom drop the lawsuit in exchange for keeping his position. Tom suspects Meredith's accusations are vulnerable. He remembers dialing a number (by mistake) on his cell phone during the encounter with Meredith, but not hanging up, thus capturing the entire event on a colleague's voicemail. Tom rejects Garvin's proposal and plays the recording at the next meeting, discrediting Meredith. DigiCom agrees to a settlement calling for Meredith to be quietly eased out after the merger. As Tom celebrates his apparent victory, he receives another e-mail from "A Friend" warning him that all is not what it seems. Tom overhears Blackburn telling Meredith that although they lost the sexual harassment suit, they will make Tom look incompetent at the next morning's merger conference since Tom is unaware of what is causing the CD-ROM drive issues Meredith alluded to earlier. Since the production line in Malaysia is Tom's responsibility, he can be fired for cause. It turns out that Meredith and Garvin's legal counsel, Philip Blackburn, had weakened the quality control specifications at the Malaysian plant to cut costs. The changes resulted in severe defects in the drive, and Meredith and Phil are planning to make Tom the scapegoat. Accessing the company database for clues, Tom finds his access privileges revoked. Using a virtual reality demonstration device with access to the company database, he accesses DigiCom's files but finds that Meredith is already deleting them. Tom's Malaysian colleague faxes him copies of incriminating memos and videos. They show that Meredith, and one of the heads of operations in Malaysia, changed Tom's production specifications to gain the Malaysian government's favor and cut costs to make DigiCom appear more profitable to complete the merger. These changes caused problems with the Malaysian CD-ROMs line. To save her career, Meredith (with Blackburn's support) staged the sexual encounter with Tom to falsely accuse him of sexual harassment, forcing him out of DigiCom and covering for her mistakes. When Tom makes his presentation at the conference, Meredith immediately brings up the production problems. Tom publicly shows the evidence that exposes her direct involvement in causing the hardware defects. Garvin, realizing the full extent of Meredith's incompetence and deceit, fires her. While cleaning out her office, Meredith reveals to Tom that she has become disillusioned with Garvin following his unexpected turn against her, further refusing to accept accountability for her mistakes. Garvin announces the merger's completion and names Stephanie Kaplan to head up the Seattle operation, a decision Tom supports. Tom then asks Stephanie's son, Spencer, a University of Washington student, if he knows "A Friend". Spencer confirms he is Professor Arthur Friend's research assistant at the university. Tom realizes that Spencer would have had access to Friend's email account, enabling Stephanie (via her son) to warn Tom as "A Friend", as she knew what was happening involving the CD-ROM drives and Meredith. A grateful Tom happily resumes his position as head of manufacturing.

A failing actor living in crime infested Los Angeles, frustrated with his career, decides to take the law into his own hands, and becomes the leader of a mock-vigilante group that videotapes criminals and turns them over to the police. Jimmy Alto is an actor wannabe who stumbles into the role of a lifetime. He becomes a vigilante crime-fighter, aided by his sidekick William, who has suffered a head wound and has problems with short-term memory. Jimmy's vigilante alter ego soon becomes a media wonder--but Jimmy remains a total unknown and his long-suffering girl friend Lorraine is getting fed up with the whole situation. —Reid Gagle

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

A Polish-Jewish family comes to the U.S. at the beginning of the twentieth century. There, the family and their children try to make themselves a better future in the so-called promised land. A Polish-Jewish family arrives in the U.S. at the beginning of the twentieth century and they and their children try to build themselves a better future in the promised land.

After a selfish L.A. yuppie learns his estranged father left a fortune to an autistic-savant brother in Ohio that he didn't know existed, he absconds with his brother and sets out across the country, hoping to gain a larger inheritance. Charles Sanford "Charlie" Babbit is a self-centered Los Angeles-based automobile dealer/hustler/bookie who is at war with his own life. Charlie, as a young teenager, used his father's 1949 Buick convertible without permission and as a result, he went to jail for two days on account that his father reported it stolen. It is then that Charlie learns that his estranged father died and left him from his last will and testament a huge bed of roses and the car while the remainder will of $3 Million goes into a trust fund to be distributed to someone. Charlie seemed pretty angry by this and decides to look into this matter. It seems as if that "someone" is Raymond, Charlie's unknown brother, an autistic savant who lives in a world of his own, resides at the Walbrook Institute. Charlie then kidnaps Raymond and decides to take him on a lust for life trip to the west coast as a threat to get the $3 Million inheritance. Raymond's acts and nagging, including repeated talks of "Abbott & Costello", "Four minutes till Wapner" and refusal to fly on an airline except Qantas drives Charlie insane... and out of his selfish world into a cross-country trek of pure love and understanding that these two both have. —Christopher Howell (Ckhowell75360@aol.com) When car dealer Charlie Babbitt learns that his estranged father has died, he returns home to Cincinnati, where he discovers that he has an autistic older brother named Raymond and that his father's $3 million fortune is being left to the mental institution in which Raymond lives. Motivated by his father's money, Charlie checks Raymond out of the facility in order to return with him to Los Angeles. The brothers' cross-country trip ends up changing both their lives. —Jwelch5742 In this story we retrace the path of two brothers who meet and get to know each other following a legacy story that led Charlie to "kidnap" his brother from a psychiatric hospital, claiming the amount that his father had not paid him following his death. Raymond, an autistic scholar, and above all, the one who inherited the small fortune, is his brother he was separated from too early to know that this imaginary friend he called "Rain Man" was him. What is interesting about this film is the link that is created between two very different people. Raymond, being autistic, has difficulty communicating like the others, although most people in his case do not know how to speak at all. It makes it difficult for him to express his emotions and he is very sensitive to his routine; all characteristics of autism. Later we will see that he also has extraordinary memorization abilities that his brother will not deprive himself of using for his purposes. Charlie works in a car sales company, rather charismatic, he knows how to speak and be heard and has no trouble expressing himself. Throughout their journey, travel the hotel by hotel, the kidnapping quickly becomes an opportunity to create new links destroyed in the past. Charlie is a hustler. He's been on his own long enough to know how to work people and situations. He finds that the father who threw him out as a teen ager has died. He's left him a now antique convertible and something more important, a previously unknown brother, Raymond. Raymond is autistic, but is able to calculate complicated mathematical problems in his head with great speed and accuracy. Their father has left his fortune to Raymond who doesn't even understand what money is for. Charlie is enraged by what has happened and by his father keeping Raymond's existence from him for his entire life. He kidnaps Raymond from his residential home but then finds that Raymond will only fly Qantas. The two begin a long road trip that will lead them to an understanding of each other. —John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net>

Teenagers Sherlock Holmes (Nicholas Rowe) and John Watson (Alan Cox) meet and become good friends as students at London's prestigious Brompton Academy at the height of the Victorian era. Holmes has remarkable powers of observation and prides himself on guessing people's names & where they are from just by observing them keenly. Meanwhile, a hooded figure uses a blowpipe to shoot Bentley Bobster (Patrick Newell) and Reverend Duncan Nesbitt (Donald Eccles) with hallucinogenic thorns, the effects of which lead to their deaths. Bobster has a meal at a restaurant (when he hallucinates that the bird he is eating has come alive and is attacking him). Bobster returns home and locks himself inside his first-floor room, and he jumps out of the window when he imagines the room attacking him and set itself on fire. Reverend Duncan Nesbitt was alone in church at night when he hallucinates that the knights from the tinted windows have come alive and are attacking him. Nesbitt runs out of church and is trampled by a horse carriage. Watson is introduced to Holmes' mentor, Rupert T. Waxflatter (Nigel Stock), a retired schoolmaster and inventor. Waxflatter is an eccentric retired professor to whom the school has given a large attic space for his inventions, which include a flying machine. Waxflatter had already written 27 books and is considered a genius. His machine has a bicycle pedal which flaps the wings and provides lift to the craft. Holmes finds a newspaper article circled on Waxflatter's death announcing Bobster's death. A mysterious man comes to meet Waxflatter (whom we later learn was Craigwitch). Waxflatter's niece Elizabeth (Sophie Ward) is also Holmes' close friend and love interest, and Holmes competes for her affections with fellow student Dudley (Earl Rhodes), though she shows a marked preference for Holmes. Holmes suspects foul play in the deaths of Bobster and Nesbitt (as both men graduated from the same university in 1809, and the manner of their deaths did not match their personality) but is rebuffed by Scotland Yard policeman Lestrade (Roger Ashton-Griffiths) when he suggests a connection between the deaths. Holmes is unjustly expelled from the Academy due to Dudley's machinations. During an exam, Dudley throws a note at Homles' feet and when he picks it up, the teacher spots him and accuses him of cheating. Before he leaves, Holmes has one last match with his fencing instructor Professor Rathe (Anthony Higgins) but loses after becoming distracted by a light reflected from Rathe's ring. The mysterious hooded figure strikes again, shooting Waxflatter with a hallucinogenic thorn, causing him to stab himself as he fends off imagined gargoyles. As he dies, Waxflatter's last words to Holmes are "Eh-Tar." Holmes secretly meets with Watson and Elizabeth and begins his investigation of the murders. Piecing together the clues - a jingling-bell sound made by the killer, a piece of cloth, and the blowpipe dropped at Waxflatter's murder scene - the trio uncover the existence of Rame Tep, an ancient Egyptian cult of Osiris worshipers. The cult's main weapons were blowpipes, used to shoot thorns dipped into a solution which cause the victim to experience realistic, nightmare-like hallucinations. Their investigation then leads to a paraffin warehouse of Froggit and Froggit, a Wapping-area manufacturer, where they discover a modern-day revival of the Rame Tep cult conducting their service inside a wooden-pyramid-reconstruction hidden in the warehouse. When Holmes interrupts the ceremonial sacrifice of a young girl, the three are attacked and shot with thorns by the worshipers. It is only through Holmes' endurance and the intervention of a graveyard caretaker that they're able to survive the hallucinations and their pursuers. The following evening, at Waxflatter's loft, Holmes and Watson discover a picture of the three victims and a fourth man, Chester Cragwitch (Freddie Jones). Unfortunately, Rathe and school nurse Mrs. Dribb (Susan Fleetwood) catch and separate them, preparing to expel Watson and Elizabeth in the morning. The three escape their sleeping quarters and Elizabeth returns to the loft to salvage her uncle's work. Holmes and Watson locate Mr. Cragwitch who explains that in his youth, he and the other five men were in Egypt, where they looted an underground pyramid containing the tombs of five Egyptian princesses. This was the underground pyramid of Rame Tep where they planned to build a hotel. Their find led to an angry uprising by the local populace which was violently put down by the British Army; one boy, Eh-Tar, who along with his sister lost their parents in the uprising, swore revenge. Eh-Tar vows to replace the bodies of the five princesses with the bodies of the men who desecrated the tomb. Craigwitch is then poisoned by the hooded figure's thorn and suddenly attacks Holmes but is subdued by Inspector LeStrade, who came after reconsidering the evidence presented by Holmes. As they return to campus, Holmes realizes that Rathe is Eh-Tar, but he and Watson arrive too late to stop Rathe and his sister Mrs. Dribb (Susan Fleetwood) (ostensibly the school nurse) from abducting Elizabeth. Using Waxflatter's self-propelled, heavier-than-air flying machine, they travel to the warehouse just in time to prevent Rathe from sacrificing Elizabeth, setting the cult's pyramid temple afire. As Rathe escapes with Elizabeth, Mrs Dribb is killed in a fight with Holmes. Watson successfully thwarts Rathe's escape by sabotaging his carriage. Rathe then tries to shoot Holmes, but Elizabeth intervenes and takes the shot instead. Enraged, Holmes duels Rathe and manages to get the better of him when Rathe falls through the frozen River Thames. Holmes returns to Elizabeth's side and caresses her as she dies. Afterwards, as he exchanges goodbyes with Watson, Holmes explains how he figured the identity of Rathe and Dribb, who are actually Eh-Tar and his sister, with Watson pointing out that Rathe is Eh-Tar spelled backwards - a clue that Holmes had failed to notice. Holmes transfers to another school and Watson gives him an antique pipe that he bought during the investigations as a Christmas/farewell present. As Holmes leaves by horse carriage, Watson expresses per voice-over (by his older, adult self-reminiscing) that he would long for yet more adventures at Holmes' side. Sometime later, Rathe is revealed to be alive; he checks himself into an inn as "Moriarty", making him Holmes' arch-nemesis.

The movie follows Roy Hobbs, a talented baseball player. Talent got him to the edge of glory, fate took him to the well of despair and love sent him to where he was meant to be.

After five successful years of living and working together, a couple decide to get married. But what they don't count on is how to survive the honeymoon. When a professional couple who have lived & worked together for many years finally decide to marry, their sudden betrothal causes many unexpectedly funny and awkward difficulties. They soon find that being married is often quite different from being "best friends." —Ary Luiz Dalazen Jr. <ajr@fortalnet.com.br> Richard Babson and Paula McCullen are successful Hollywood screenwriting partners, best friends, roommates and lovers. They decide to take the next step in their relationship by buying a house together. Because of the symbolism of the house purchase, Richard is able to convince an initially reluctant Paula to get married, her reluctance due to it meaning that she has to be a grown-up in life, just one of her many neuroses. In agreeing to get married, Paula in turn is able to convince Richard to take a cross-country train trip first to visit her parents in Buffalo, New York for a week to help celebrate their fortieth anniversary, then to Vienna, Virginia to visit his parents for a few days, Paula and Richard who have yet to meet their respective in-laws. Beyond the pressures they face from their producer Larry Weisman concerning their latest screenplay, Richard and Paula may not be able to survive not only as a married couple but as a partnership in all its aspects on this trip, as each not only can see into the future of their spouse by his/her parents, but the state of marriages in all their facets the longer they progress. The situation is exacerbated by their marriage being placed under a microscope by those around them. —Huggo

A young 12-year veteran lawyer battles not only one-on-one injustices in the courts, but the whole system as well.