Donald Petrie

A young couple must navigate a blossoming romance, amidst a war between their families' competing pizza restaurants. Young adults Nikki Angioli and Leo Campo were staunch competitors and best friends growing up in the Little Italy neighborhood of Toronto. Their respective fathers, friends Sal Angioli and Vince Campo, ran Pizza Napoli, which made the best pizza in the neighborhood due to the combination of Nikki's paternal nona Franca Angioli's secret marinara sauce, and Leo's paternal nono Carlo Campo's secret thin crust pizza dough recipe. While Leo has stayed in Toronto working part-time at his father's pizzeria with the secret hopes of one day opening his own pizzeria, Nikki, who loved Leo while they were growing up, ran off to London five years ago hoping never to return to Toronto to get away from her past, which includes Leo himself, who she believes has turned into a ladies man solely trying to put notches in his bedpost, and Sal and Vince now in a feud of an unspecified nature following they winning best pizza in Little Italy several years ago, each subsequently having opened competing pizzerias next door to each other, which would preclude Nikki and Leo getting together even if either wanted. Nikki is working toward being a chef in her own right of anything but pizza, she at the cooking school of famed Michelin starred chef, Corinne, who seemingly has nothing nice to say about anyone, especially her students. Nikki learns that it is between her and another student, Gareth, who Corinne will choose to work at her new London restaurant, the two who will compete to produce the best menu. First, Nikki further learns that she has to deal with a visa issue, meaning that, whether or not she likes it, she has to return to Toronto for a few weeks. In inevitably running in Leo, she finds that there is still a sexual tension that exists between the two. They will have the many existing hurdles to overcome to get together, they each having to realize that they are hurdles worth overcoming, while learning some of those issues are truly non-existent. —Huggo

The film opens at a school in New Jersey in 1982, where a boy is picking on another boy. We see Gracie Hart as a child who beats up the bully and tries to help the victim (whom she liked). Instead of thanking Grace the victim criticizes her by saying he disliked her because he did not want a girl to help him. She promptly punches the boy in the nose and sulks in the playground. We go forward in time to where Gracie Hart (Sandra Bullock) works for the Federal Bureau of Investigation with Eric Matthews (Benjamin Bratt) as a Special Agent. We see her on a mission where she does not follow orders from her superior and tries to stop their target from choking. Because of her actions the target takes Grace hostage and tries to escape from the siege. This results in a shootout with the FBI agents surrounding the building. As a consequence, one of her squad members Agent Grant (Gabriel Folse) gets shot. She is put on a desk job by chief McDonald (Ernie Hudson). Grace lives in a tiny apartment with no social life. She eats microwave dinners each night and spends her spare time in workout sessions in her home gym. She uses her FBI badge and siren to beat traffic and cut the line at the local coffee shop. The bureau receives a threat against the 75th annual Miss United States beauty pageant in San Antonio, Texas from notorious domestic terrorist "Citizen". Eric is elected to lead the mission to stop a supposed attack. Grace is the only one in the office with some tangible ideas on the next steps required in this situation. A computer search identifies Hart as the female FBI agent best qualified to go undercover as a contestant (as Miss New Jersey, the original having quit after she was discovered to have been in a pornographic film), although she pays little attention to her femininity. Pageant Organizers Stan Fields (William Shatner) and Kathy Morningside (Candice Bergen) agree to on-board Grace as one of the contestants undercover. Eric wants Grace to get into the top 5 so she has access to all parts of the stage at all times. Beauty pageant coach Victor Melling (Michael Caine), whose reputation was ruined after his last contestant criticized his methods. Victor considers Grace an insult as he has trained 10 out of the previous 11 pageant winners, which his contestant entered. But he is a perfectionist. Victor teaches the tomboyish Hart how to dress, walk, and act like a contestant. She is unused to such behavior. Several suspects exist, including competition director and former pageant winner Kathy Morningside; her unpleasant assistant Frank Tobin (Steve Monroe); veteran emcee Stan Fields who, like Morningside, is being replaced with a younger person; and Rhode Island's Cheryl Frasier (Heather Burns), possibly a radical animal rights activist. Other contestants include May Jo "Texas" (Deirdre Quinn), Karen "New York" (Melissa De Sousa), Leslie "California" (Wendy Raquel Robinson), Alana "Hawaii" (Asia De Marcos) and so on. Representing New Jersey as "Gracie Lou Freebush", Hart impresses the audience by playing the glass harp, (playing music on water glasses). Grace tackles an innocent bystander when she spots a gun on his person and gets an earful from Kathy who says that she has dedicated her life to the pageant, and she will not allow Grace to ruin it. Grace adjusts to the contestant life after getting a pep talk from Eric. She even participates in the swimsuit round in a bikini and answers "World Peace" to the standard question, "what does the society need the most, right now". She unexpectedly becomes friends with Frasier and the other contestants. When Citizen is caught elsewhere, McDonald wants to move the team out. But Grace argues for the FBI to stay and says that Citizen never threatened the pageant, and the letter was sent by a copycat. The handwriting on the letter was different to the past letter, and the DNA test said that the letter was licked by a woman. Grace suspects Kathy, who is getting fired this year and won the pageant after the original winner got food poisoning under mysterious circumstances. Hart gives up her badge and gun and continues the investigation alone. Just as Matthews is going to board the plane back to the bureau, he works out that Hart's suspicions were correct. Hart surprises everyone, including herself, by becoming runner-up to Frasier. This is stunning since the agreement with Kathy was only to get Grace into the top 5, beyond which she was on her own. The agents discover that Morningside and Tobin (secretly her son) impersonated Citizen due to her grudge against the network for firing her. Tobin had a dark, criminal past which he had hidden by changing his last name. Grace figures out that the bomb is in the tiara, when she learns that Tobin took the tiara away for an unscheduled polishing session. They prevent them from murdering Frasier with a bomb in the title tiara. Kathy's plan was to use the murder to prove to the network that only she was capable of guiding the pageant through the crisis. Hart's fellow contestants choose her as Miss Congeniality, and she starts a relationship with Matthews.

Struggling to forge a financial career in white male dominated wall street society, taken for granted Laurel Ayers a black woman decided to change the playing field. Quickly realizing that only white males would ever achieve greatness she invents an elusive,Howard Hugh's like character Robert Cutty. Pretending to be Mr. Robert Cutty, Laural Ayers establishes a wealthy investment firm until events force Mr. Cutty to psychically materialize; as of this point he is never seen. Enlisting the help of her drag queen friend and her associate, Sally Dugan she is able to create a physical prosthetic entity. A chain of events mostly due to Laural Ayers adversaries force her to abandon her fictional character and deal her out once again. Down and out didn't necessary leave her out of the game. Laural Ayers is smart and proves she can have the upper hand. Striking back, she reveals who Robert Cutty really is to a group of her colleagues, proving it isn't who you are on the outside but who you are in the inside Check out my review at: www.dereksheldon.blogpsot.com

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.

John and Max are elderly neighbors in a cold Minnesota town. They both live alone in their homes since their wives have died, and exchange stories about how their friends are now dying when they are not busy insulting each other. They have a contemptuous rivalry that goes back over 50 years. A very attractive woman named Ariel, who is a little younger than them, moves in across the street during the days before Thanksgiving. She is so adventurous that she rides a snowmobile on the streets at night. Johns daughter Melanie has a baby girl but is separating from her husband. Maxs son Jacob is running for mayor of their town. Melanie and Jacob have an ongoing flirtation with each other. John is trying to evade the IRS, to whom he owes back taxes. One night he thinks the IRS has come for him, so he jumps out his bedroom window, and Ariel surprisingly shows up, asking to use his bathroom for no particular reason. She discloses that she has been watching how John and Max both ogle her. The next day, John tries to convince Max that his visit from Ariel was amorous in intent. Their bitter bickering at each other continues apace. Chuck is another older man who runs a local bait shop. He challenges John and Max to think about how attractive they actually are to women anymore. Johns father, known as Grandpa, goes ice-fishing out on a frozen lake, where his son and Max (and many other local men) also have their own little fishing shacks. Grandpa is a blithe spirit at the age of 94, enjoying a bounty of liquor and non-filtered cigarettes. One evening Chuck goes to visit Ariel at her home, which John and Max intently spy upon. When later asked why he was with her, Chuck says they did not have sex but something more like a spiritual awakening. John and Max thus both plan visits to Ariel and spend much time making themselves presentable. As we learn, Ariel used to teach art and now teaches classics, and her tastes are revealed through her houseful of eccentric pieces. She also had a husband who died five years earlier, and keeps a life-size sculpture of him, naked, in her studio. Max is next to visit Ariel, and she is mildly bemused by his accounts of being a television repairman. Later she visits him in his ice-fishing shack and they try to pull in a legendarily enormous fish together. The sound of Max and Ariel loudly fighting and grunting to bring up the prize fish is overhead by the other men on the lake, who assume they are having wild sex. As it turns out, they actually do land the fish, but to the shocked dismay of Max, Ariel throws it back in the water. Thereafter, Ariel tells Max they will be great friends, but her chaste kiss reveals it will not be a romantic relationship. In a sincere moment, John tells Max that Chuck has died suddenly. They still end up fighting with each other again. Later, Ariel shows up at Johns house unexpected, and offers to cook dinner. John is quite charming in their conversation, telling her stories of his days as a teacher. John goes to visit his father, who tells him that after you turn 90, you begin realizing that all you have in life are experiences. He motivates John to pursue Ariel, which he soon does by joining her on a snowmobile ride to further evade an IRS agent waiting at his house. Ariel even lures John into making snow angels on the ground, and they hold hands. Over another dinner. Ariel asks John about the pictures in his house. He had a son who died in the Vietnam War, and as it turns out, he and Max were much closer friends when they were younger. He begins to tell the story of how the two of them became enemies when they fought over a woman. Somehow finding inspiration, John moves in to give Ariel a deep kiss, and she is receptive. Soon thereafter, Ariel invites John to bed. He remarks that he has not made love since October 4. 1978, so Ariel suggests that theres no need to worry about sexual diseases. The next morning, Max gives Ariel flowers to apologize for his rakish behavior before. Meanwhile, John is dancing around his house, so energized that he adds Tabasco to his eggs. John and Max return to their ice-fishing rituals, but now Max is so angry and jealous of him that he drives a truck into Johns shed and forces it out onto thin ice. This leads to a very physical yet comical fight between them, in which we learn that John had married a woman whom Max had always loved. John then confesses that he thought Maxs wife was a better woman than his wife. John goes on to say that he had the greatest sex ever with Ariel, which provokes Max to try stabbing him with a frozen fish. Of all people, Grandpa intervenes to break up these two delinquents. Downtrodden, John feels that Max should have Ariel because he stole Maxs true love when they were younger. Ariel brings John one of her paintings, but explains that they will not work as a couple. Ariel is disappointed, and tells John that the only things you regret in life are the risks you dont take. Johns daughter Melanie shows up for Christmas Eve with her estranged husband. John privately repeats to her what Ariel told him about living with regrets, and then Maxs son Jacob shows up. Jacob later pushes his dad to make peace with John. John and Max meet at a bar and John reveals that he pitied Max and gave up Ariel for him. They argue again, and on the way back from the bar, John has a heart attack. While he is in the hospital, the IRS moves to claim Johns house, although Jacob, who has been elected mayor, gets an order to save the property. We next see people gathering for what appears to be a solemn event at a church, which is not a funeral as we may expect, but actually a wedding for John and Ariel. Much time has done by, during which Jacob arranged to clear Johns IRS debt, with Maxs help. John and Max have reconciled, and their children are clearly falling in love with each other. Grandpa gives away Ariel at the ceremony, and all is joyous as the couple head off in their limo... but Max has left a fish in the back just as a little revenge.

Two con men hide out in a house while the owner is away; one of them assumes the identity of the absent house sitter when the owner's relatives come to visit, only for further complications to set in. Eddie and Lou are a couple of two-bit con men on the lam from a loan shark. They hide out in someone's house and they hear on the answering machine that (A) the owner of the house is out of the country for a month or two and (B) the housesitter supposed to watch the house for the absent owner won't be able to watch the house due to a new job in another part of the country. This provides for a pretty nifty arrangement for Eddie and Lou...until the relatives of the house owner drop by to visit. Eddie quickly adopts the guise of the person supposedly housesitting for the owner, and the shenanigans start from there. —Afterburner <aburner@erols.com>

Three teenage girls come of age while working at a pizza parlor in the Connecticut town of Mystic. Sisters Kat and Daisy work along with Jojo at the pizza parlour in Mystic, Connecticut. Kat, shortly off to Yale, finds herself drawn to a local architect she is babysitting for, while her more tearaway sister starts dating a guy from the money side of the tracks. Jojo leaves her man at the altar; she loves him but shies away from commitment. Meanwhile the fame of the pizza continues to spread; it seems to contain something almost ..... mystic. —Jeremy Perkins {J-26} Jojo Barbosa and sisters Kat and Daisy Arujo have hung out together within their Portuguese-American working class community since they were kids in their coastal hometown of Mystic, Connecticut. They still are best friends, working together at the local pizza joint, Mystic Pizza, owned by their mentor, Leona, who arguably makes the best pizza in the area, the secret recipe for the sauce which has long been passed down in her family and which she will not divulge to anyone until it's time to pass on the reigns to whoever will operate the joint after her time. Despite her pizza being the best, Mystic Pizza needs a more consistent clientele than the just the locals and summer tourists to survive. Jojo, Kat and Daisy believe that a favorable review by the Fireside Gourmet, Hector Freshette, will do the trick, but even if they can convince him to come, Leona will not kowtow to him, he who she believes is a pompous ass. The three young women have a different history in their romantic life. Jojo is engaged to her longtime boyfriend, fisherman Bill Montijo, but she is having second thoughts about marrying him despite she knowing that she does love him, especially sexually. Kat and Daisy are polar opposites. While Daisy flaunts her sexuality which attracts the eye of many of the working class townies, Kat has focused her life on her studies, she who is working several jobs to pay for her upcoming first year's tuition in the Astronomy program at Yale. They may experience a little of the other's life with their latest encounters. Daisy has attracted the attention of wealthy Charles Gordon Windsor, Jr., a preppy who is regardless having a difficult time trying to find his own place in life following his expulsion from law school. And Kat's latest temporary job is sitting for Phoebe, the four year old daughter of architect Tim Travers and his wife Nicole, until Nicole returns from her overseas trip in a couple of weeks. Kat admits that she is starting to fall for the entire package that is Tim, especially after she finds out that his and Nicole's marriage is on the rocks. The question becomes whether there is a happily ever after or at least happily for now relationship for any of Jojo, Kat or Daisy. —Huggo Sisters, Daisy and Kat, work in a local Pizza store. Daisy is beautiful but seems to be wasting her life, Kat is going to College. The story revolves around the love lives of the two sisters and their friend Jojo. Jojo has stood at the altar but couldn't go through with a marriage, Daisy hasn't found Mr Right yet, and Kat hasn't got time for boyfriends. —Rob Hartill