Christine Ebersole

To the amusement of their adult children and friends, long divorced couple Don and Ellie Griffin (De Niro and Keaton) are forced to play the happy couple for the sake of their adopted son`s wedding after his ultra conservative biological mother unexpectedly decides to fly halfway across the world to attend. With all of the wedding guests looking on, the Griffins are hilariously forced to confront their past, present and future - and hopefully avoid killing each other in the process.

Mike Donnelly (Chris Farley), a good-natured but loud and bumbling oddball of his family, is driving an advertisement truck to support his older brother Al Donnelly's (Tim Matheson) campaign for Governor of Washington. His competition is incumbent Evelyn Tracy (Christine Ebersole). Mike is chased by neighborhood dogs while driving the truck and crashes into a local movie theater. Al's campaign manager, Roger Kovary (Timothy Carhart), advises Al to get rid of Mike, but Al decides to have Mike campaign for him in town with the assistance of campaign aide Steve Dodds (David Spade), who accepts the job in return for a spot on Al's staff following the election. As Steve goes to pick up Mike, he hits a crazed Vietnam veteran named Sgt. Drake Sabitch (Gary Busey), who ends up stealing his rental car. Later on, Mike tries to stop underage youngsters from drinking, but incriminating pictures make it look like he was drinking with them, leading to his termination from a county recreation center where he works. While packing up, he runs into a pair of thugs who set fire to the recreation center, while the same photographer takes potentially incriminating pictures of Mike right after the thugs leave the scene of the fire. However, the first cop to arrive at the scene is Robbie Mighuem (Grant Heslov), a friend of Mike's who lets him and Steve leave before the police arrive. The two take off in Mike's car and, per Kovary's instructions to Steve, head for a shack in rural Garfield County to hide out. The next day, as Steve and Mike hang fliers, Steve tries to make a call via cell phone; while looking for a place with reception, Steve stumbles down a mountain and lands upon the home of the aforementioned Drake Sabitch; which is an old school bus with a TV, a hammock, a grill, and several weapons. While trying to find a high-ground to get reception on his phone, Steve accidentally loosens a rock in a pile of stones. Later on, as the guys play checkers, a huge boulder rolls down the mountain, almost completely knocking their cabin off its foundation. Later that night, a stormy wind blows the cabin's roof away and hail falls inside. The next day, Mike tries to talk to Al, but Kovary refuses, so Mike decides to head into Seattle that night to talk to Al, who is going on MTV's Rock the Vote campaign. However, after hanging out with some Rastafarians, Mike makes a fool of himself onstage (culminating to his yelling "KILL WHITEY!" to a suddenly silent audience) as a shocked Al and Kovary helplessly watch. Because of his stunt, Al decides to have Mike to not bother helping him with the campaign, leaving Mike down. The next day, Steve and Mike sneak into Drake's home (after dodging some hidden land mines) to watch Al's debate on his TV. When Steve goes outside to use the restroom, he is attacked by Drake, but is saved by Mike, who beats the ex-soldier in unarmed combat. Drake is impressed by Mike's fighting skill and befriends both men. Governor Tracy, in hopes of sabotaging Al following their debate, purchases the pictures of Mike at the rec center fire and posts them on the TV news, therefore allowing Tracy to win the election. Mike notices that the voting results are wrong, since the total vote count is 1,882 for Garfield County, when in fact there are only 1,502 registered voters there; furthermore, Mike recognizes the two men who set the recreation center on fire standing next to Tracy. Mike and Steve go to the Garfield County Courthouse, where they obtain the names of the voters in the election. Steve discovers that over half the people who voted for Tracy have been dead for over ten years (including Drake's father and grandfather), proving Tracy had rigged the elections. To get this to the people and Al, Steve and Mike borrow Robbie's squad car to Governor Tracy's victory party the following day. At the party, the duo appears during Tracy's victory speech and the police try to arrest Mike for arson. At the podium, Mike takes a gun from one of the cops and pretends to hold Steve hostage, while Drake shows up in time to prevent a sniper from shooting Mike and controls the crowd by threatening them with an RPG. Mike reveals Tracy's election fraud, overturning the election results and making Al the election winner, while Tracy is ousted for fraud (especially after her long-suffering assistant, Neuschwander (Bruce McGill), drunkenly admits that she made him and her other associates go along with the fraud). Three months later, Steve is Al's new assistant, Mike has his job running the recreation center back, and Al has decreased crime rates in Washington. As Al and Steve get into a jet to go to a meeting, Mike's jacket gets caught in the jet's door, causing him to be trapped outside the plane, while it takes off.

Vada Sultenfuss must go to LA to stay with her Uncle Phil to do some research on her mother's life, but finds much more. Vada Sultenfuss has a holiday coming up, and an assignment to do an essay on someone she admires and has never met. She decides she wants to do it on her mother, but she quickly realizes that she knows very little about her. She manages to get her father to agree to let her go to Los Angeles to stay with her Uncle Phil and do some research on her mother. Once there, she finds herself under the protection of Uncle Phil's girlfriend's son, Nick, who at first is very annoyed at losing his holidays to escort a hick girl around town. However, he soon becomes more involved in the difficult search.

Richard "Richie" Rich Jr. (Macaulay Culkin) is the world's wealthiest kid, the son of Imagineer and philanthropist Richard Rich, Sr. (Edward Herrmann), worth $70,000,000,001. Richie has loyal butler Herbert Cadbury (Jonathan Hyde) as a companion. He lacks any friends his own age. But he thinks he might get his chance at a dedication to the reopening of United Tool, a factory Richard recently acquired (intending to modernize the factory and give it away to the workers as a token of goodwill). There Richie encounters a group of sandlot kids playing baseball. Unfortunately, the too-strict head of security, Ferguson (Chelcie Ross), stops Richie and pulls him sharply away. Cadbury warns Ferguson against being too rough with Richie. Richard tries to keep in touch with Richie and spend time with his son whenever he can. He even had the Rich family's head scientist, Professor Keenbean (Michael McShane), invent a machine called the "Dadlink" that pinpoints Richard's location in seconds, so Richie can talk to his dad whenever he's away on business. Meanwhile, the greedy CFO of Rich Industries, Laurence Van Dough, is planning to steal the Rich financial fortune, believed to be stored in the Rich family vault. Van Dough, with the help of Ferguson, plots to blow up the plane (a Douglas DC-3 christened the Billion Dollar One) carrying the Rich family to England by disguising a bomb among the presents that they were to give to Queen Elizabeth II. Cadbury, seeing Richie's loneliness, makes a suggestion to Richie's mother, Regina, and arranges for Richie to stay home in Chicago with the sandlot kids for a weekend of fun. That weekend allows Richie to earn the friendship of the sandlot kids. Thanks to the new invention of Professor Keenbean, the Smellmaster 9000 which translates smell into sound, the bomb is detected. Richard is able toss the bomb out his window, but it detonates, destroying part of the tail, sending Billion Dollar One into the Atlantic Ocean. Richie Sr. and Regina survive the crash and climb into one of the plane's inflatable rafts. Believing that Richie's parents are dead, Van Dough assumes leadership of the Rich corporation, and proceeds to cut the many charitable contributions the Rich family were known for. This includes closing the recently reopened United Tool factory, which the parents of the sandlot kids relied upon for their living. This angers Richie, who proceeds to the company headquarters and, as a living Rich family member, assumes the leadership position. Van Dough, however, saw this as a minor setback: as Richie is still underage, his ability to run the business was limited by the powers to him by someone who was able to give it to him - namely, Cadbury. Cadbury is framed for the Rich family's murder, and the Rich family's other loyal servants are all fired together by Van Dough's edict, effectively isolating Richie from the outside world and making him a prisoner within his own home. However, he does get the assistance of Keenbean, who has been distrustful of Van Dough from the start. Hiding in his lab, located in the basement of Rich Manor, Keenbean listens in on Van Dough and Ferguson playing pool. They plot to have Cadbury murdered and appear to have committed suicide. The professor manages to sneak Richie out with a plan to break Cadbury escape from prison. After Cadbury gets the supplies (a card in Latin, a language he is fluent in, to warn him and Keenbean's mixture, which will eat through literally anything), he is attacked by one of Van Dough's henchmen; surprisingly, he shows great strength for his appearance, and knocks the goon unconscious. Dressing in the goon's leather and denim biker clothes, Cadbury then regroups with Richie, his new friends and one's mother (whom Cadbury is falling for). They are willing to assist Richie in whatever it takes to get his home back. During this time, Van Dough finds out about Cadbury's escape and, with Ferguson's help, confronts Keenbean. They tie the professor up and threaten to throw him into his molecular Reorganizer, which turns garbage into whatever's typed in (a bedpan in this case), unless he gets them into the vault. Keenbean states the lock is voice-activated and only Richard and Regina can open it. Meanwhile, Richie was left with the Dadlink. However, Richard's receiver was broken in the crash, and when Richard manages to fix it, the signal is intercepted by Ferguson, who disconnects Richie's modem from the phone line, leaving Richie (remoting in from a friend's terminal) in the dark as to where his parents may be. After rescuing Keenbean from captivity, the kids manage to sneak Richie back into Rich Manor, only to discover that the Dadlink shows that Richie's parents are inside the Rich's house. He is shocked to discover that Van Dough had anticipated his own arrival and had arranged for his parents' rescue. Held at gunpoint, Van Dough forces the Rich family elders to the Rich vault, while Ferguson and his men take Richie and his friends to the molecular Reorganizer. Using his ultra-adhesive substance Cementia and his remote-controlled RoboBee, Keenbean thwarts Ferguson's plan and manages to save Richie and his friends. Richie then proceeds to take a bag full of Keenbean's inventions in a bid to save his parents. Van Dough is eventually led to Mount Richmore, a stone mountain portrait of the Rich family, where the vault is located. There, he is furious upon discovering that the vault holds the Rich family's childhood memories and treasures - nothing that was valuable to him. Demanding an explanation, he finds the Rich family keeps their money in banks, the stock market, and real estate, because they simply do not value money. Desperate to get the money, he attempts to shoot Richard and Regina, only for Richie to interfere. Van Dough attempts to shoot Richie instead, but manages to barely faze him, his clothes having turned bulletproof thanks to one of Keenbean's inventions. The Rich family then takes the opening caused by Keenbean's invention to escape. The chase eventually leads them down the side of the mountain, where they are under further attack by Ferguson (covered in pieces of towel from the Cementia) and a special rock-blasting laser that had been used to sculpt the mountain vault. Cadbury finally manages to disarm Ferguson and manages to keep the Rich family safe, while Van Dough hangs upside down for dear life, after Cadbury fires at him. Although Richard abhors firing staff, he allows Richie to fire Van Dough, who is then subsequently decked by Regina and arrested. Later, Richie plays baseball with his new friends for the United Tool team on Rich Manor's yard (with Cadbury as team coach and Keenbean as umpire) and hits a home run that's picked up by Van Dough, who's doing gardening with Ferguson as work release.

A widowed father tries to support his children after he becomes a ghost in an accident. Elliot Hopper, a widower with three children, is currently working on a deal. His late wife's illness was very expensive and this deal could bring them out of the red. But he gets into a cab that the maniac driver crashes, and the next thing he realizes is that he's floating around and landing in the lab of a scientist who studies the paranormal. He asks the scientist to send him back so he can finish the deal and make sure his children will be taken care of when he's gone for good. —rcs0411@yahoo.com

An alien trying to escape from NASA is befriended by a wheelchair-bound boy.

If you met Ray and Mickey Davis, you'd swear they had a perfect marriage. But if you read Mickey's diary, you'd know that unrest is lurking just beneath the surface. A woman trapped in a boring marriage begins an affair with a handsome man who seems able to read her mind. She doesn't know that he has broken into her house and read her diaries, where she has recorded her deepest thoughts and fantasies. —<paultb@voicenet.com>