Cher

An orphaned Italian boy is raised amongst a circle of British and American women living in Mussolini's Italy before and during World War II. In 1935 a group of elderly British women, whom the Italians have named the Scorpioni, have chosen Italy, specifically Florence, as a place to live to blend their proper British sensibilities with their love of Italian art and culture. One of those Scorpioni, Mary Walsh (Dame Joan Plowright), works as the English secretary for Paolo Innocente (Massimo Ghini), who, in part because of his own wife's adamant refusal, largely neglects his illegitimate adolescent son, Luca (Baird Wallace), despite Paolo's want for Luca to grow up to be a proper young man, much like the English. Luca has lived in an orphanage since his dressmaker mother's death, death a concept that Luca does not yet understand. As such, he often runs away looking for his mother. On a mutual agreement between Paolo and Mary, Mary becomes Luca's guardian, she who will receive help in raising Luca by her fellow Scorpioni and financial help from Paolo as needed. Associated with the Scorpioni is a brash younger nouveau riche Jewish-American woman named Elsa Morgenthal (Cher), who, because of her affection for Luca's mother to whom she owed money, sets up a trust for Luca's future. Amongst the Scorpioni, Lady Hester Random (Dame Maggie Smith), the widow of the former ambassador to Italy, in particular and Elsa do not get along because of their fundamental outward differences. The life for the Scorpioni changes with the on-set of World War II, more specifically when Italy declares war on Britain and France. Despite all of the Scorpioni taken into custody of sorts by the Italians, they are eventually housed in the comforts of a hotel. Lady Hester wrongly believes it is her association with Mussolini (Claudio Spadaro) that has gotten them into their comfortable surroundings, but which in reality was arranged and paid for by Elsa. Luca, who has just returned to Italy after attending school in Austria, helps Elsa with her efforts to assist those persecuted in Italy. Luca, now a teenager, has fallen in love with Elsa. As such, Luca is jealous of Elsa's professional and personal relationship with Italian lawyer Vittorio Fanfanni (Paolo Seganti). Elsa's own situation becomes more precarious with the United States' entrance into the war, the Nazis' increasing persecution of Jews, and Luca discovering that Fanfanni has ulterior motives in his relationship with Elsa. Through it all, Mary still tries to be the voice of what is right to Luca, who may be tainted by his own immature teenaged thoughts during these difficult times. —Huggo Semi-autobiographical tale from the early life of Writer and Director Franco Zeffirelli looks at the illegitimate son of an Italian businessman. The boy's mother has died, and he is raised by an Englishwoman in pre-World War II Fascist Italy. Living to each other in Florence, and presided over by an ambassador's widow, a group of Englishwomen live a sheltered existence which they believe is guaranteed personal protection in a tea reception given by Il Duce (Claudio Spadaro). However, as war breaks out, the women are interned. Occasionally in this English colony is a wealthy American, who visits amongst her travels and marriages to wealthy older men. She respects the "Scorpioni", as they are known, and secretly arranges for their stay in a hotel. The ambassador's widow finds her vulgar and tries to ignore her, but when the United States enters the war, the American too is taken into custody. Only then does she discover that her Italian lover has tricked her into signing over all of her money and modern art collection to him, and is now arranging her execution. This obliges all to join forces. Georgie (Lily Tomlin) is an American archaeologist working at a dig in the city. —John Sacksteder <jsackste@bellsouth.net> Semi-autobiographical tale from the early life of Writer and Director Franco Zeffirelli. An illegitimate child is raised by an Englishwoman in pre-World War II Fascist Italy, part of an English community in Florence presided over by a diplomat's widow. Elsa Morganthal Strauss-Armistan (Cher) is a wealthy American collector of modern art who visits these "Scorpioni" on occasion. —Dehlia

A depressed housewife whose husband is having an affair contemplates suicide, but changes her mind when she faces death by a killer hired to do her in. For their 20th wedding anniversary, Jack gets Maggie a diamond necklace and a hit man. But when Tony shows up and, waiting for the signal from Jack in Connecticut to do the hit, he and Maggie begin to talk - perhaps Tony can come to value Maggie even more than her husband does. And when Jack shows up, things get very tricky. —Bruce Cameron <dumarest@midcoast.com>

Set in Washington DC, Suspect centers on three disparate characters. Carl Wayne Anderson is a homeless, deaf-mute Vietnam veteran accused of murdering Elizabeth Quinn, a file clerk at the Justice Department. Kathleen Riley is the beleaguered Federal Public Defender assigned to represent Anderson. An agribusiness lobbyist who normally works on Capitol Hill, Eddie Sanger, is made a member of the jury and begins investigating the details of the murder himself, eventually teaming up with Riley to solve the case. We see some early scenes of Sanger's work as a lobbyist on Capitol Hill, including his efforts to win passage of a bill by seducing a Congresswoman. While not relevant to the movie's plot, these scenes are establishing shots giving us a sense for Sanger as a charming, though somewhat ruthless, person. The movie begins around Christmas with the suicide of a United States Supreme Court Justice, for which no explanation or context is given. We only see the Justice making a tape recording and then shooting himself. Shortly after the Justice's suicide, Elizabeth Quinn's body is found floating in the Potomac river, and Carl Wayne Anderson is arrested for the crime, based almost entirely on the fact that he was found sleeping in Quinn's car, which was abandoned in the parking lot where she worked (and was mostly deserted at night). Anderson explains that he found it unlocked and was just looking for a warm place to sleep since it was the dead of winter. But since he was homeless, had no alibi, and was found in Quinn's car, he was arrested for her murder. The establishing scenes show Riley trying to communicate with Anderson and realizing that he is a deaf-mute. Over time, she begins to penetrate his hard exterior and he tries to cooperate with her efforts to mount a defense for him. In the District of Columbia, all crimes are tried in the federal courts, so a murder trial that would normally be in state court was in federal court instead. Riley selects Sanger to be a member of her jury. Soon thereafter, it becomes clear that Sanger is intent on helping Riley with her investigation and defense of Anderson. As the investigation by Riley and Sanger intensifies, they begin focusing on Deputy Attorney General Paul Gray. Figuring that a key found on Elizabeth Quinn's body has something to do with the Justice Department (where Quinn worked), Riley and Sanger break into the file department at the Justice Department late one night and try to find what the key unlocks. They find that it unlocks a file cabinet, which contained trial transcripts from federal cases from 1968 that Quinn was in the process of transcribing. While the investigation goes on after hours, the movie shows scenes during the day from Anderson's murder trial. During the trial, we are introduced to the stern federal judge Matthew Helms (John Mahoney). Helms is rumored to be the President's nominee for a seat on the prestigious United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Judge Helms begins to suspect that Riley may be collaborating with Sanger, which would be a disbarrable offense of jury tampering, although he does not have concrete proof. One key sequence in a law library (where Riley and Sanger continue looking for the elusive case from 1968 that may be the key to the murder) brings Helms, Riley and Sanger into close proximity. Riley and Sanger narrowly avoid being caught by Judge Helms. Eventually, Judge Helms sequesters the jury to avoid further contact between Riley and Sanger. Riley and Sanger continue tracking the federal court cases from 1968. Their theory is that Elizabeth Quinn stumbled onto something during her transcription of those cases. They look for any case that might have an impropriety. As is explained to the audience, fixing a case requires participation from both the prosecutor and the trial judge. Riley and Sanger think they will find evidence that Paul Gray was a prosecutor on a rigged 1968 case, which would be his motive to murder Elizabeth Quinn if she approached Gray about what she found. Eventually, Riley goes back to Quinn's car (still impounded where it was found in a government parking lot) and finds an audiotape that the police did not uncover in their half-hearted investigation. The tape is the one we saw the Supreme Court Justice making at the beginning of the movie. In it, he confesses to conspiring to fix a case in 1968 (with a politically influential defendant) in return for an appointment from the United States District Court to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Riley assumes the prosecutor on that case was Paul Gray and goes back to the courthouse to retrieve the case book that will confirm this. As she gets to the courthouse (now deserted at night), she is pursued and attacked by an unseen figure. With the help of Sanger (who managed to get away from being sequestered by creating a diversion with a fire alarm), Riley was able to slice the right wrist of her assailant, who then fled unseen. The following day takes place in court. Paul Gray shows up in the courtroom, to the surprise of Judge Helms. Riley then tells Judge Helms that she wants him to take the stand. Irate and perplexed, Helms says that Riley cannot make him testify as he is the presiding judge. Then, in a somewhat-rushed speech, Riley reveals that Judge Helms, not Paul Gray, was the prosecutor in the fixed case in 1968. The Supreme Court Justice was the presiding judge in that case. In exchange for fixing the case, he was promoted from the District Court to the Court of Appeals. Helms, who was the prosecutor on the fixed case, was appointed to the District Court. Judge Helms then waited 17 years (from 1969 to 1986) to be promoted again to the Court of Appeals. Just as he learned he was the President's nominee, Quinn inadvertently discovered the case fixing as she transcribed the cases from 1968. She approached the Supreme Court Justice, who responded by committing suicide. By contrast, when she approached Judge Helms, he murdered her. As Judge Helms angrily bangs his gavel during Riley's accusation, his right wrist begins to bleed from where Riley slashed him the night before, confirming his identity as the killer. The movie ends with Riley reinvigorated in her job and in a relationship with Sanger.

Thirty-seven-year-old Loretta Castorini (Cher), a Sicilian-American widow, is an accountant in Brooklyn Heights, New York, where she lives with her family: her father Cosmo (Vincent Gardenia) who is a successful plumber, her mother Rose (Olympia Dukakis), and her paternal grandfather (Feodor Chaliapin, Jr). Her boyfriend, Johnny Cammareri (Danny Aiello) proposes to her before leaving for Sicily to attend to his dying mother; she accepts, but is insistent that they carefully follow tradition as she believes her first marriage was cursed by her failure to do so, resulting in her husband's death when he was hit by a bus. They plan to marry one month later, and Johnny asks Loretta to invite his estranged younger brother Ronny (Nicolas Cage) to the wedding. Loretta returns home and informs her parents of the engagement. Cosmo dislikes Johnny and is reluctant to commit to paying for the "real" wedding Loretta insists on, while Rose is pleased that Loretta likes Johnny but does not love him; she believes that one can easily be driven crazy by a partner whom one loves. The next day, Loretta goes to see Ronny at his bakery after he refuses to speak to her on the phone. He reveals that he has a wooden prosthetic hand, and he explains that he blames Johnny for the loss of his hand and his own fiancée; Ronny became distracted while talking to Johnny as he cut bread for him, his hand was mangled in the slicer, and his fiancée left him. Loretta insists that they discuss the matter upstairs in his apartment, where she cooks for him and then tells him that she believes he is a "wolf" who cut off his own hand to escape the trap of a bad relationship. Ronny reacts furiously and passionately, kissing Loretta (who responds to his kiss) and then sweeping her up in his arms and carrying her to his bed where they make love. That evening, Rose's brother Raymond (Louis Guss) and his wife Rita (Julie Bovasso) join Rose and Cosmo for dinner, and they all wonder where Loretta is. Raymond recalls that when he was a boy and Cosmo was courting Rose, he thought that a particularly bright moon one night was somehow brought to the house by Cosmo because of his love for Rose. That night, Loretta remains at Ronny's apartment and sees such a moon; Raymond sees it as well, and it leads him and Rita to make love. The next morning, Loretta tells Ronny they can never see each other again. She slaps him when he claims to be in love with her ("Snap out of it!) and he agrees to never see her again if she will attend the opera (his other great love) with him that night. She agrees. After closing out the cash register in Raymond and Rita's store, Loretta impulsively has some long-neglected beauty treatments, including having the gray removed from her hair, and buys a glamorous evening gown. She then goes to church and confesses her infidelity. She unexpectedly sees her mother there, and Rose tells her that Cosmo is having an affair; Loretta is doubtful, but Cosmo is in fact dining with his mistress Mona (Anita Gillette) at that moment and giving her jewelry. Loretta and Ronny (wearing a tuxedo) meet at Lincoln Center, and each is impressed with the other's appearance. Loretta is deeply moved by her first opera, Puccini's La bohème. But as they leave, Loretta sees Cosmo and Mona, and she confronts her father. He sees that she is with Ronny, and he suggests that they simply agree that they didn't see each other at all, but Loretta is conflicted. Loretta then intends to return home alone, but Ronny leads her back to his apartment where he passionately and desperately persuades her into another tryst. The same night, Rose dines alone at a restaurant and sees a college professor, Perry (John Mahoney), being dramatically dumped by a female student, a similar scene having played out with a different girl the night Johnny proposed to Loretta. Rose invites Perry to dine with her, asks him why men pursue women, and then shares with him her belief that men pursue women because they fear death. Perry walks Rose home and tries to convince her to invite him in; she refuses, citing the fact that she knows herself. Later, Johnny unexpectedly returns from Sicily after his mother's "miraculous" recovery and goes to Loretta's house; Rose explains that she's not there and then asks him why men chase women. He tells her it may be because they fear death, and Rose realizes, as she had suspected before, that he is right. After this exchange he leaves, planning to return in the morning to see Loretta. In the morning, Loretta returns home in a reverie but is then distressed to learn from Rose that Johnny will be there soon. Ronny then arrives, and Rose notes their matching "love bites" and invites him for breakfast over Loretta's objections. Cosmo and his father emerge from upstairs, and the older man cajoles Cosmo into agreeing to pay for Loretta's wedding. Rose then confronts Cosmo and, after he acknowledges in response to her questioning that she has been a good wife, demands that he end his affair; he is upset but agrees and, after insistence from Rose, also agrees to go to confession, and they then affirm their love for each other. Raymond and Rita also arrive, concerned and seemingly reluctantly suspicious, to find out why Loretta didn't make the previous day's bank deposit; they are relieved to learn that she merely forgot and still has the money. When Johnny finally arrives, he breaks off the engagement, superstitiously believing that their marriage would cause his mother's death. Loretta, momentarily offended by his breaking the engagement, chastises Johnny for breaking his promise and throws the engagement ring at him. Seizing the moment, Ronny borrows the ring and asks Loretta to marry him; she accepts. To Rose's chagrin, Loretta declares that she loves Ronny. The family toasts the couple with champagne and a befuddled Johnny joins in at the grandfather's urging, as he will now be part of the family after all.

Alexandra Medford, Jane Spofford and Sukie Ridgemont are three dissatisfied women living in the small town of Eastwick, New England. Alexandra is a sculptress and single mother, Jane is a newly divorced music teacher incapable of having children, and Sukie is an extremely fertile woman with six children and also works as a journalist at the "Eastwick Word". Besides an everlasting friendship, these three women share similar misfortunes of being abandoned by their husbands. Not knowing of themselves as being Witches, the women unwittingly form a coven of which consists of weekly get-togethers, during which they drink, play cards, and share their fantasies about ideal men. The day after one such meeting, a mysterious man arrives in the town and immediately stirs up trouble by buying the city's landmark property, the Lennox mansion. The arrival of this enigmatic stranger causes fascination among the townfolks, all except local townswoman Felicia Alden, the Christian wife of newspaper editor Clyde Alden. Clyde is the boss of Sukie (who Felicia does not like). Although Felicia is not a Witch, she is somehow able to sense that this man, whose name is easily forgotten by everyone, is up to no good. One night, at Jane's music recital, the man appears and makes a spectacle of himself, which leads to more gossip among the people. After the recital Jane receives flowers and a personal note from the man, signed with the initial "D". This then sparks Sukie's memory, finally revealing the man's name to be Daryl Van Horne. At the very moment of Sukie remembering his name, her beaded necklace inexplicably breaks and falls to the floor, causing Felicia, who had mocked Daryl's name, to trip down a large staircase, breaking her leg. Daryl begins to seduce the women one by one, beginning with self-assured Alexandra, who is at first appalled by his arrogance and bravado, but then allows him into her heart. He moves on to Jane, who is seen as being very shy and reserved. Jane explains to Daryl that the home he lives in was once said to be an area where people were burned alive after being accused of witchcraft. Daryl then encourages Jane to stop living a life of doubt and learn to enjoy herself. She takes his advice and begins to act and live recklessly. The next day Daryl invites all three women over to the mansion, which allows him to finally turn his attentions on Sukie. A jealous rivalry emerges between the women, leading to a supernatural game of tennis, where the tennis ball begins to behave oddly--floating, stopping in mid-air--in response to their mood. This shared telekinesis reveals to the women their magical abilities. The women decide to forgo competition and share Daryl, and have the most fun they've ever had in their entire lives. Their frequent presence at Daryl's mansion leads to gossip and rumors spread by Felicia. Alex, Sukie, and Jane become outcasts of the city; the women of Eastwick acknowledge the trio with nasty looks and snotty comments. The Witches begin to have second thoughts on whether or not they should continue to see each other, which then motivates Daryl into causing the girls to unknowingly cast a spell on Felicia, causing her to projectile vomit cherry stones. Felicia is finally killed by husband, who beats her with a fire poker after being horrified when seeing his wife so incredibly ill. Terrified of the dangerous effects of their relationship with Daryl, they agree among each other to never see Daryl or each other for a long period of time. This upsets Daryl, causing him to use his powers against the girls, bringing their worst fears to life. Alex awakens into a bed of snakes, Jane begins to lose her youth transforming into a old woman, and Sukie is forced to feel intense pain. The women reconcile with Daryl in order to get in his good graces again. Realizing that the only way to rid Daryl from their lives is by using Witchcraft against him, the girls trick Daryl into going to town for a while as they practice a banishing spell to make him go away forever. Sukie goes to Daryl's office and takes a spell book he kept locked in a glass chest. Jane gathered some of Daryl's personal belongings such as hair, clothing, and pictures of him. Alex created a Voodoo doll out of wax that resembled Daryl. Meanwhile, as Daryl was in town shopping for the girls, he began to feel painful sharp aches in his body from the girls sticking pins and needles into the doll. Daryl becomes infuriated with the girls betrayal, and as he made his way home, Daryl's devilish figure was beginning to reveal itself more and more. Now terrified of what Daryl is capable of doing to them, the girls throw the Voodoo into the flames of a fire then causing Daryl to disappear. Eighteen months later, Alex, Jane, and Sukie are now the mothers of Daryl's sons. They still have their Magic powers and they now live together in Daryl's mansion. Daryl appears on television screen and talks to the boys, but the women catch him and turn the TV off.