Curtis Hanson

Lucky You - a movie based on human relationships in a place where stakes doesn't get any higher than Las Vegas - the Sin city. Drew Barrymore (Billie Offer) is a young singer with a big heart rather than raw talent from Bakersfield. Eric Bana (Huck Cheever) is an ace when it comes to playing poker. His emotions at the table seem to overshadow his mastery in playing poker. Even he is tad ahead of his father (L.C.Cheever), a legendary poker player played by Robert Duvall. The only common skill which Huck and Billie shares is an intuitive ability of reading people. However difference lies in what they do. On one hand Huck's gut feel enables him to gain advantage over his opponents at the poker table by cleverly avoiding any sort of emotional attachments and long term commitments in his personal life. While on the other hand, Billie utilizes her intuitive talents in seeking emotional truths of those around her and subsequently shares their sorrows. But when Huck and Billie meet the real game starts. If Huck has to win over Billie then he needs to play cards the way he has been living his life and lead life in a manner he has been playing cards.

Detroit 1995, Jimmy is an aspiring rap artist, trying to make a music career for himself. Although encouraged by his friends, Jimmy worries about his potential as a rapper. One night, Jimmy 'chokes' during a rap battle at a local venue (with a stage name of B-Rabbit), the Shelter, and he leaves the stage humiliated. Jimmy becomes speechless when the African American rappers (from the group called "Leaders of the Free World") attack his white trash background, and term him as privileged and out of touch with reality. Jimmy's friends include Future, Cheddar Bob, Sol George (Omar Benson Miller) and Iz (De'Angelo Wilson). Jimmy Smith (Eminem), a young and unhappy blue-collar worker from a poor family, struggling with different aspects of his life. He has moved back north of 8 Mile Road to the rundown trailer home in Warren, Michigan of his alcoholic mother, Stephanie (Kim Basinger), his sister Lily (Chloe Greenfield), and Stephanie's abusive live-in boyfriend Greg (Michael Shannon). Jimmy has to move in with Stephanie as he has been fired from the pizza place for being late too often. He needs a place to stay till he can get a job and make rent. Jimmy is focused on getting his music career started, but he seems unable to catch a break. Just recently, he ends a relationship with his girlfriend, Janeane (Taryn Manning) (Jimmy left her his car as she claimed that she is pregnant) and begins a new relationship with Alex (Brittany Murphy), whom he meets at the factory when she shows up one day looking for her brother. Jimmy comes to realize that his life has remained largely the same since he graduated high school (Greg used to be classmates with Jimmy and Future at school). At first, Jimmy considers himself a victim of his circumstances and blames others for his problems. Over time, though, Jimmy begins to take more responsibility for the direction of his life. Stephanie discovers an eviction notice as Jimmy is getting ready for work. Stephanie wants to hide the notice from Greg as he is supposed to get a fat settlement check from an accident, and Stephanie hopes that she and Lily can move into a new house with that money. She doesn't want to freak out Greg and wants Jimmy to help with the money. Jimmy appears to decide to take his day job more seriously, and this becomes evident to his supervisor at the factory. Initially, when Jimmy requests extra shifts, his supervisor Manny laughs at him (because of his tendency to be late to work), but by the end, Jimmy's improved attitude and performance earns him the extra work he had originally asked for. Jimmy is friends with Wink, who has ties to a record label promoter. Wink has promised Jimmy that he will take Jimmy along for a record deal with the promoter. Jimmy's friend Future does not trust Wink and considers him to be a negative influence. Through Jimmy, Wink meets Alex. Jimmy relationship with Wink becomes strained after he discovers that Wink does promotional work for Jimmy's rivals, a rap group known as "Leaders of the Free World". Papa Doc is the leader of this group and he particularly dislikes Jimmy. He even pulls a gun on Jimmy during one of their confrontations but is pulled back by his entourage. At one point, Jimmy and his friends get into a violent brawl with the Free World crew (When Jimmy watches Wink with Papa Doc, having a meeting), which is disrupted when Jimmy's friend, Cheddar Bob (Evan Jones), threatens them with a gun and accidentally shoots himself in the leg; he survives after being rushed to the hospital. During a lunch break at work, one of Jimmy's co-workers performs a freestyle rap insulting his co-worker, Paul, insinuating Paul is gay. Jimmy raps a freestyle defending Paul, which improves his confidence after a positive reception. Alex arrives and is impressed by Jimmy's talent, and they have sex. Despite her best attempts to keep the eviction notice a secret, Greg discovers it and confronts Stephanie. When Jimmy punches Greg for pushing his mother to the ground, they fight, ending in Greg leaving Stephanie for good. Jimmy's relationship with Alex ends when Jimmy walks in on his friend Wink (Eugene Byrd) having sex with her. Jimmy beats up Wink, which later causes Wink to officially join forces with Jimmy's enemies, the Leaders of the Free World. Later, Wink and the Free World gang jump Jimmy outside of his mother's trailer, but when one member pulls a gun on Jimmy, Wink stops him, and they leave. After the group has left Jimmy alone, his mother arrives with enough money to pay to avoid eviction, having won $3,200 at a bingo tournament. As Jimmy finds Stephanie lying on the porch, they have an argument, prompting Stephanie to kick Jimmy out of the house. Jimmy's friends hail him as an incredible rapper, and his friend Future (Mekhi Phifer) puts pressure on Jimmy to get his revenge by competing against the Leaders of the Free World at the next rap battle. However, Jimmy's late-night shift conflicts with the next battle tournament. A visit from Alex changes his mind about competing. Paul (Craig Chandler), a gay co-worker who Jimmy stood up for earlier, agrees to cover for him and he participates in the battle. The battle acts as kind of a "final conflict" with the Leaders of the Free World gang who have harassed Jimmy. It has three rounds, and in each of them Jimmy faces a member of the gang. Jimmy wins both of the first two rounds with progressively more impressive freestyle raps. In the last round, he is paired against Papa Doc (Anthony Mackie), the tournament's most feared battler. Jimmy is aware that Doc knows all his weak points, so he decides to address them preemptively with his freestyle. Jimmy acknowledges without shame his lower-class white trash roots and the various humiliations the Free World gang have inflicted on him, and then uses the difficult life he has had as a springboard to reveal the truth about Papa Doc: Doc, whose real name is Clarence, despite passing himself off as a thug, has a privileged background, having attended Cranbrook, a private high school, and growing up in a stable two-parent household. With nothing to say in rebuttal, Papa Doc hands the microphone back to Future and Jimmy wins the battle. As Jimmy leaves the venue, Future suggests that he stay and celebrate his victory while also offering a position that would allow him to host battles at The Shelter. Jimmy turns him down, claiming he has to get back to work and to find success his own way. He then starts walking back to work, feeling more confident about his future.

Professor Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas) is a novelist who teaches creative writing at an unnamed Pittsburgh university (the movie was shot chiefly in and around Carnegie Mellon University). He is having an affair with the university chancellor, Sara Gaskell (Frances McDormand), whose husband, Walter, is the chairman of the English department and thus Grady's boss. Grady's third wife, Emily, has just left him, and he has failed to repeat the grand success of his first novel, published years earlier. He continues to labor on a second novel, but the more he tries to finish it the less able he finds himself to invent a satisfactory ending - the book runs to over two and a half thousand pages and is still far from finished. He spends his free time smoking marijuana. His students include James Leer (Tobey Maguire) and Hannah Green (Katie Holmes). Hannah and James are friends and both very good writers. Hannah, who rents a room in Tripp's large house, is attracted to Tripp, but he does not reciprocate. James is enigmatic, quiet, dark and enjoys writing fiction more than he first lets on. During a party at the Gaskells' house, Sara reveals to Grady that she is pregnant with his child. Grady finds James standing outside holding what he claims to be a replica gun, won by his mother at a fairground during her schooldays. However, the gun turns out to be very real, as James shoots the Gaskells' dog when he finds it attacking Grady. James also steals a very valuable piece of Marilyn Monroe memorabilia from the house. Grady is unable to tell Sara of this incident as she is pressuring him to choose between her and Emily. As a result, Grady is forced to keep the dead dog in the trunk of his car for most of the weekend. He also allows James to follow him around, fearing that he may be depressed or even suicidal. Gradually he realizes that much of what James tells him about himself and his life is untrue, and is seemingly designed to elicit Grady's sympathy. Meanwhile, Grady's editor, Terry Crabtree (Robert Downey Jr.), has flown into town on the pretense of attending the university's annual WordFest, a literary event for aspiring authors. In reality, Crabtree is there to see if Tripp has written anything worth publishing, as both men's careers depend on Grady's upcoming book. Terry arrives with a transvestite whom he met on the flight, called Antonia Sloviak (Michael Cavadias). The pair apparently become intimate in a bedroom at the Gaskells' party, but immediately afterwards Terry meets, and becomes infatuated with, James Leer, and Sloviak is unceremoniously sent home. After a night on the town, Crabtree and James semi-consciously flirt throughout the night, which eventually leads up to the two end up spending an awkwardly intimate night together in one of Grady's spare rooms. Tired and confused, Grady phones Walter Gaskell (Richard Thomas) and reveals to him that he is in love with Walter's wife. Meanwhile, Walter has also made the connection between the disappearance of Marilyn Monroe's jacket and James Leer. The following morning the Pittsburgh Police arrive with Sara to escort James to the Chancellor's office to discuss the ramifications of his actions. The jacket is still in Grady's car, which has conspicuously gone missing. This car had been given to him by a friend as payment for a loan, and over the weekend Grady has come to suspect that the car was stolen. Over the course of his travel around town, Grady has been repeatedly accosted by a man claiming to be the car's real owner. He eventually tracks the car down, but in a dispute over its ownership the majority of his manuscript blows out of the car and is lost. The car's owner gives him a ride to the university with his wife, Oola, in the passenger seat, wearing the stolen jacket. Remembering James Leer's distress at how lonely the jacket looked in its own special closet, Grady finally sees that making things right involves having to make difficult choices. Grady tells Oola the story behind the jacket and allows her to leave with it. Worried that Grady's choice comes at the expense of damaging James Leer's future, Crabtree convinces Walter not to press charges by agreeing to publish his book, "a critical exploration of the union of Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe and its function in American mythopoetics", tentatively titled The Last American Marriage. The film ends with Grady recounting the eventual fate of the main characters - Hannah graduates and becomes a magazine editor; James wasn't expelled, but drops out anyway and moves to New York with Crabtree to rework his novel for publication; and Crabtree himself "goes right on being Crabtree." Grady finishes typing his new novel (now using a computer rather than a typewriter), then watches Sara and their child arriving home before turning back to the computer and clicking "Save."

A Boston couple, Gail (Meryl Streep) and Tom (David Strathairn) are having marital problems. Gail, a rafting expert, decides to take their child Roarke (Joseph Mazzello) on a holiday rafting down the Salmon River in Idaho, along with their pet dog. At the last minute Tom joins them. As they are setting off they meet a couple of other rafters, Wade (Kevin Bacon) and Terry (John C. Reilly), who appear to be friendly. After a day's rafting the family make camp for the night, but Tom continues to work on his laptop computer rather than enter fully into the experience. The family are joined by Wade and Terry who help to celebrate Roarke's birthday. Gail flirts with Wade. However, after a while Wade begins acting suspiciously and Gail decides it would be best to part ways. During the morning's rafting Wade reveals to Roarke that they have a gun with them. As they raft down the river the parents discuss an exit strategy that will allow them to leave the two men behind, and at lunch they attempt to leave on their raft and get away before Wade and Terry realize what is going on. Their attempt fails and Wade pulls the gun on them and assaults Tom. Gail then realizes that an armed robbery she had heard about was actually carried out by Wade and Terry, and their rafting trip is actually a way for them to get away. The family are forced to raft at gunpoint down the rest of the river before they all set up camp for the night. During the night Tom attempts to steal the gun off the sleeping Terry but is heard and has to run into the bushes and to the river. Wade gives chase and believes he has shot him when he hears a loud splash into the water. It's revealed that Wade and Terry, in order to aid their escape, want to go on down the river to a set of rapids where in recent years one person was killed and another was left paralyzed. Consequently, rafting is no longer allowed. Wade and Terry force the rafters down through the rapids despite Gail's repeated attempts to flip the raft and so force Wade and Terry out of the river. Meanwhile a park ranger (Benjamin Bratt), who knows Gail, is white water canoeing down the river. He bumps into the group; but Wade holds the gun to Gail's back and pretends that everything is OK. Later, he appears again but this time Wade shoots him and he falls dying into the river. Tom reappears and manages to flip the raft. Gail and Roarke, who have been tied to the raft by Wade, remain in the raft and to get hold of the gun, which had fallen into the water. whilst Tom is fighting Terry. The struggle ends when Gail throws the bag of money into the water and shoots Wade whose dead body floats off down river. The film ends with the family and Terry (who has been arrested) being helicoptered out.

A soft and hesitant young man is in danger when he tries to break toxic relationships with a mysterious stranger claiming to be his friend. Michael, a wimpy young executive, is about to get pulverized by a jealous boyfriend in a bar when a handsome, mysterious stranger steps in--and then disappears. Later that night, while jogging, Michael runs into the stranger on a pier. He introduces himself as Alex, and the two go out to an under- ground club. Within a matter of days, Alex wheedles his way into Michael's life and turns it upside down, and Michael doesn't realize that Alex is a dangerous sociopath until it's too late. —Denise P. Meyer <dpm1@cornell.edu>

While driving at night, aspiring actress Julie Sawyer (Kristy McNichol) accidentally runs over a white German shepherd. She takes the dog to a veterinarian and pays for its medical treatment, but is informed that the dog is unfit for adoption and will likely be put to sleep if handed over to the pound. Julie decides to keep the dog at her house until contacted by its owner. Concerned that Julie lives alone, her boyfriend, Roland Gray, encourages her to keep the animal as a guard dog. One night, a would-be rapist assaults Julie in her home. Jolted awake by the sounds of their struggle, the dog attacks the intruder, allowing Julie time to call the police. Several days later, the dog runs away, and Julie searches for it in vain, even checking the pound to see if the dog has been picked up or turned in. The following night the dog attacks and kills the driver of a street sweeper. The dog returns to Julie's house, blood streaked across its face. Julie cleans up the animal and fails to tell Roland about the state in which she found it. The following day Julie takes the dog with her to a studio lot where she is acting in a film. In the middle of a take, the dog attacks Molly, an actress playing a scene with Julie, severely harming her. Roland, now aware of the dog's violent behavior, tells Julie that this is an attack dog and orders her to have it put down before it claims another victim. Julie refuses and takes the dog to Noah's Ark, an animal training facility, where she seeks someone who can re-train the animal not to attack people. Mr. Carruthers (Burl Ives), one of the owners of the facility, informs her that there is nothing he can do. As Julie leaves the office, the dog breaks free of her grip and jumps a black handyman, but the animal is restrained before it can inflict serious injury. Carruthers heatedly tells Julie that her pet is a 'white dog,' trained by racists to assault black people. This explains the attacks on the sweeper driver and the actress, Molly, both of whom are black. Witnessing the dog's latest assault, the co-owner of Noah's Ark, a black animal trainer named Keys (Paul Winfield), takes it upon himself to recondition the German shepherd so that it no longer attacks black people. He also makes clear that the dog's condition is to be kept a secret. As he attempts to retrain the dog through a series of confrontations in a caged arena, Keys gradually reveals his history with white dogs and explains to Julie how they are created: white racists manipulate desperate black junkies into beating puppies until they learn to hate and attack black skin. Many animal trainers, Keys included, have tried to cure white dogs, but each time the dogs have proven unable to take the last step without snapping altogether and turning into indiscriminate attack dogs. One night, the dog breaks loose of its cage and escapes from the facility. The following day, while Keys searches around town, the dog chases a black pedestrian into an empty church and kills him. Keys subdues the dog after the attack, enters the church, and, with tears in his eyes, finds the man's corpse among the pews. When Keys returns to Noah's Ark and explains what happened, Julie immediately pleads for the dog to be killed before it takes the life of yet another innocent black person. Keys angrily retorts that as much as he'd like to shoot it, killing the dog would be nothing more than a short-term solution. Reconditioning is the only procedure that can prevent the creation of more white dogs in the future. After further training, the dog shows its first sign of improvement by willingly eating out of Keys' hand, an action that it initially refused to do. That night, as Keys, Julie and Carruthers hold a celebratory dinner to mark their first victory, they acknowledge that by keeping the nature of the dog hidden from the authorities, they are essentially accessories to murder. During their conversation, a police officer enters. Though they are worried that he may have found out about the dog, it turns out that he has only come to ask for directions. After he leaves, they conclude that in spite of what the authorities decree, what they are doing is right and humane. In the following weeks, the dog continues to make slight improvements until it is finally content around black people without turning to violence. Although Carruthers is confident that they are on the verge of victory, Keys reminds him that the dog is on the edge of a mental breakdown. Keys reluctantly calls Julie, telling her they can begin the "final test". On the way out of her house, Julie comes face-to-face with the dog's previous owner, an old man accompanied by his two granddaughters. After questioning the man and finding that he was responsible for creating the white dog, Julie refuses to return the animal and warns his granddaughters not to let him corrupt them as well. At Noah's Ark, Keys, Julie, and Carruthers stand in triangular formation in the caged arena. Keys beckons the dog in from outside, and it runs to Keys without attacking. Hearing Julie's voice, it runs to her as well, again showing no sign of violent behavior. However, upon seeing Carruthers, the dog springs and pins him to the ground. Here, Keys finally accepts that the animal's hatred cannot be defeated, only redirected to a new target, and puts the dog down with a bullet to the head. The dog breathes its last as Keys and Julie rush Carruthers away for medical help, leaving the white dog's dead body resting in the sand.