Glenne Headly

Jon Martello (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a strong, handsome, good old fashioned guy. His buddies call him Don Jon due to his ability to `pull` a different woman every weekend, but even the finest fling doesn`t compare to the bliss he finds alone in front of the computer watching pornography. Barbara Sugarman (Scarlett Johansson) is a bright, beautiful, good old fashioned girl. Raised on romantic Hollywood movies, she`s determined to find her Prince Charming and ride off into the sunset. Wrestling with good old fashioned expectations of the opposite sex, Jon and Barbara struggle against a media culture full of false fantasies to try and find true intimacy in this unexpected comedy written and directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Set in Cincinnati at the height of the Great Depression, Kit Kittredge, a resourceful young girl, helps her mother run a boardinghouse after her father loses his job. 'Kit Kittredge: An American Mystery' centers around a young girl living in the struggles of the Great Depression. 10 year old Kit lives in a boarding house her parents own in Cincinnati, Ohio. She has a passion for writing, & dreams of having something of hers put in the local paper someday. With the help of her friends, Sterling & Ruthie, will her dream finally come true? —wgdpink Kit Kitteredge is a movie based off the book series an American Girl. It's about a teenaged girl living through the depression and dreams of writing for the newspaper. But since her father lost his job their house has become a boarding house. Where Kit helps out her mom and makes new friends. But soon trouble stirs about and it's up to Kit and her friends to figure out what's wrong. —jillianlayton The film focuses on Kit Kittredge, who grows up in the early years of the Great Depression. —anonymous

A bitter, recently divorced man is goaded by his grandfather and son into going on a family road trip to reconcile with his estranged father. In Los Angeles, Jason Lair is recently separated, living with his grandfather and his son. He's a banker, tense, with a limp. Grandfather Henry, an archaeologist, wants to take the family van on a trip to Albuquerque. His plans are interrupted when Turner, Jason's father and Henry's son, appears after years of absence. Henry wants to celebrate family, as does Zach, Jason's son; Jason is angry and distant, Turner seems detached and says he's got a bus to catch in the morning. This prompts Henry to put in place an elaborate plan that will send his "tribe" on that Volkswagen bus trip to New Mexico sorting out relationships and digging up a crippled family history. —<jhailey@hotmail.com> Four generations of men who haven't seen each other in years are suddenly brought together by the chance to uncover the truth about their family's past. It's a journey that takes them out on the road to a world full of surprises, some comic, some dramatic, and all of them personal. A tale of four generations of men, three of whom have had their children at a young age: a great-grandfather, a grandfather, a father in his twenties and a son who is about seven-years-old. When the oldest member dies, the trio heads out on the road together in the Southwest to search out an old family secret that connects to their past. —film@nmfilm.com

Kevin Caffrey, a thief and connoisseur is at a local auction looking for things worth stealing. He meets Amber Belhaven who is auctioning off her father's painting to pay a hotel bill. When Kevin asks Amber about her hotel room which leads to Amber asking if he was trying to sleep with her, Kevin blinks rapidly and lies while also telling her that when he blinks he lies. When Kevin asks Amber if he could see her sometime Amber pretends to have the same thing Kevin has and says yes. While knowing what hotel she was staying in, he shows up to her room with the painting she auctioned off, having stolen it. Kevin tells Amber about his stealing business which shocks Amber at first but she accepts it in order to be with Kevin, and she later gives Kevin her father's lucky ring. Elsewhere, Max Fairbanks, a snarky businessman whose company, TUI, is going into bankruptcy, is going over with his lawyer Walter Greenbaum on how to save his company. Walter is exhausted as Max does not take the proceeding seriously and still spends freely even asking to declare bankruptcy immediately without trying to budget so his assets are protected. He tells his wife Lutetia Fairbanks that his company is in a technical procedure to disguise what his company is really going into. Kevin goes to a local bar which his Uncle Jack owns to see Amber. Whilst inside he also runs into his friend Berger, who is also a thief and happens to know what places to hit. While having Kevin going outside to tell him about Max Fairbanks, he shows him an article about Max's current situation with his company, as well as what he couldn't access due to the critical condition of the chapter 11 bankruptcy code which includes going into his beachfront mansion. Kevin and Berger go to the house to rob it, but Max captures Kevin. Before the police take Kevin away, Max spots Amber's ring and tells the police that the ring was also stolen. Kevin is forced to hand over the ring. After escaping from the police, Kevin returns to the beach house to get his ring back from Max, but fails to find him. Angry at Max, Kevin finishes off what he started by robbing Max of the valuables inside the house and one of Max's three cars outside. Kevin tells Amber that the ring was stolen from him. The next day an exasperated Walter informs Max he was banned from his summer house, and his being there breached the terms of his bankruptcy. Max flippantly says he'll be fine as the ring is his lucky charm. Meanwhile, Kevin and Berger hire Shelly Nix, a computer hacker, to track Max's whereabouts by hacking into his e-mail. During an airplane flight, Max talks to his associate Gloria, a psychic, about the ring. Gloria consults her cards, and draws a king with five daggers on his head. Shocked at the result, Gloria doesn't tell Max what she drew and pretends that her phone connection is breaking up. Max meets a judge that he thought he paid off to keep his house, but his insults lead to the judge ordering him to sell his house and his contents at a public auction. Upon knowing Max's plan to go to a cocktail party and then head to his beach house for one final visit, Kevin and Berger, with the help of their partners Windham and Edwina, rob another one of Max's houses. The next morning Max finds out that his house has been robbed and meets with Detective Alex Tardio of the Robbery Division. Having enough of Kevin stealing from him, he calls his head of security, Earl Redburn. Kevin finds out from Shelly that Max is going to Washington, D.C., for a Senate hearing and has an apartment there. Kevin and Berger go to Washington to try and rob Max's apartment. There, Kevin learns that Max intends to secretly bribe the senators, and replaces the bribe money with insulting notes in Max's name. Max and Earl later storm into the apartment, having deduced Kevin's presence there. In the ensuing scuffle, Kevin tries to steal back the ring, but instead steals Max's wedding ring. Afterwards, Amber decides that Kevin's feud with Max has gone too far and that she no longer cares about the ring. While Max later addresses the Senate Committee he gets a call from Kevin who tells him that if Max will give him his ring back he will give him back his. Max refuses and proceeds to repeatedly curse at Kevin. To the senators, and other viewers, it appears he is speaking to them, with the result being that the hearing ends very badly for Max. While going back to his apartment in Philadelphia, Walter quits as his lawyer and Earl tells him that he was hacked; Max tells Earl his plan to get Kevin once and for all. Kevin goes to Jack to find out where Amber is; Jack tells Kevin to stop robbing Max out of personal conflict and to forget about the ring. But when Berger tells Kevin about Max's bankruptcy auction and for how much his auction full of valuables is worth, Jack wants in on it too. Max gets a call from Lutetia about Max's behavior on TV, and tells him not to come home, while Amber breaks up with Kevin due to his obsession with Max and the ring. Lutetia finds Amber at Jack's bar wearing a jacket of hers that Kevin stole from their house and confronts her, Amber tells her that Max stole the ring she gave to Kevin. Knowing that they are both in the same situation, they come up with a plan. Gloria, thinking about Max, still draws the same card and decides to come clean. Noticing how bad it is, she tells him to put an end to it, but Max still refuses to give up Kevin's ring. Realizing Max's arrogant determination to keep the ring, she quits being his associate, and goes to Tardio to give him Max's company records. At the bankruptcy auction, Lutetia tells Max that she wishes him well and sends him a masseuse. While Earl keeps looking out for Kevin through his monitors, Berger, Jack, Windham, and Edwina set their scheme in motion. Edwina and Windham are disguised as waiters, with the real waiters bound and gagged in their truck. Berger is disguised as the auctioneer, while Jack is his associate, having tied up and gagged the original auctioneer. Shelly hacks into Max's security system. The crooks steal as much as they can, and later flee. Windham plants smoke bombs to obscure their escape and calls the fire brigade. At 2:00 Shelly plants a video of Kevin delivering a message to Max that he was being robbed without him being there on Earl's monitors. Angry and enraged, Max goes out into the smoke to find Kevin, but a firefighter, actually Kevin in disguise, drags him out of the smoke, stealing the ring in the process. Kevin steals Max's boat to escape, but Max jumps onto the boat and struggles with Kevin to get back the ring. While hitting a buoy, causing the boat to sink, Kevin and Max find out that the ring is a fake, the ring having an inscription inside it that said: "Grow up." a message that they both got from their lovers. Max realizes that Lutetia had induced the masseuse to steal the ring during his massage. When Tardio finds Max and Kevin, Kevin tells Tardio that he was saving Max, while Max corroborates his story, telling Tardio that he had never met Kevin. Kevin thanks Max and tells him that he owes him one. While going back to the hotel where Amber used to be before she moved in with Kevin, she shows him the ring, revealing that she was the masseuse. She tells Kevin that the ring had bad luck and that he should throw it away. Kevin agrees and flings the ring out of sight and gets back together with Amber. Kevin, pretending to be Max's lawyer, fixes the Senate hearing and goes into the press conference victorious. When it is over Max and Kevin part ways, but as they do so, Kevin steals one of Max's watches.

We begin simultaneously with a screen showing 4 different stories that will converge during the film. Lauren Hathaway (Jeanne Tripplehorn) clandestinely flattens the tire of the car belonging to actress Rose (Salma Hayek) her lover. Lauren is suspicious of her faithfulness and plants a secret microphone on Rose so she can overhear her conversations when they are apart. Rose is eager to get to the casting sessions for a new film, being directed by Lester Moore (Richard Edson). Alex Green (Stellan Skarsgard), the studio executive overseeing Moores project, has problems of his own connected to his wife Emma (Saffron Burrows), who is discussing her relationship problems with her Therapist played by Glenne Headly. Alex also has a substance-abuse problem and this negatively affects his ability to perform executive decisions and his sexual involvement with Rose compromises his marriage and his career. At the studio a local spa has sent over Quentin (Julian Sands), a Latin-speaking masseuse to give everyone back rubs during their business conferences. Rose has come to the studio to meet up with Alex as part of a seduction to obtain a favorable introduction and audition for the current film being cast. The story also spins out the day of producer Evan Watz (Xander Berkeley) and his relationship with Alex and the other executives of the film company and attempts to push forward in spite of Alexs obvious problems. When Scott "Bunny" Drysdale (Kyle MacLachlan) brings in his client, Euro filmmaker Ana Pauls (Mia Maestro), an artist with ideas to pitch a new project to the executive group with the assistance of white rap musician Joey Z (Alessandro Nivola), the film clearly moves into the realm of screwball comedy, but with a pacing and delivery of some very bitter-sweet reality show. During this slice of the work day a variety of actions disrupt the actions including drug and alcohol consumption, fornication physical abuse and a few earthquakes to further shake things up as well as the actual camera work.

Months after the events of the first film, Babe (E. G. Daily) and his master, Arthur Hoggett (James Cromwell), are hailed upon return after Babe's success as a "sheep pig". One day, Babe inadvertently causes an accident while attempting to lend Farmer Hoggett a hand repairing the pump for the farm's well. Arthur sustains severe injuries and is unable to tend to the farm; Esme (Magda Szubanski) is tasked with tending the farm alone, which proves unsuccessful. Shortly afterward, bank representatives arrive to inform the Hoggetts they defaulted on their mortgage and will be evicted at the end of the month, unless they can pay it off. With the looming threat of foreclosure and losing the farm forever, Esme finds a flyer for a faraway fair hosting a sheepdog herding contest, which promises enough prize money to save the farm. After reassuring Arthur she'll take care of Babe on the trip, Esme and Babe leave the farm together. At the city of Metropolis' airport, an overzealous sniffer beagle named Snoop (Bill Capizzi), who shows Babe what it is like to be rewarded for a "good job", falsely signals that he and Esme are carrying illegal substances. Airport security officers interrogate Esme, causing her to miss their connecting flight. They have to wait a few days for the flight back. Failing to secure accommodation that allows animals in an unfamiliar city, Esme is approached by an airport janitor who refers them to a suitable hotel. But when Esme arrives at the hotel, she's conspicuously turned away by the landlady Miss Floom (Mary Stein). Dejected, Esme begins to depart, only to be intercepted at the back entrance by the landlady, who secretly loves animals and mercifully provides refuge by skirting hospitality laws and the authorities, much to the chagrin of her nosy neighbors Hortense (Julie Godfrey). While Esme leaves Babe to make a long-distance call home, Babe chases a Panamanian white-faced Capuchin named Tug (Danny Mann) who steals Esme's suitcase. Following him into a hotel room, Babe meets a trio of chimpanzees-Bob (Steven Wright), Zootie (Glenne Headly) and Easy (Myles Jeffrey)-and Thelonius (James Cosmo), a civilized Bornean orangutan who is a servant for the landlady's elderly uncle, Fugly (Mickey Rooney), who decides to keep Babe and make him part of his clown act he performs with his apes at the children's ward of the local hospital. Babe initially refuses, but accepts when the apes insinuate he will be paid-funds he could use to save the farm. When Esme returns, Fugly leads her to think Babe escaped into the city. During her search for Babe, Esme is arrested after an incident involving police officers and other bystanders caused by a gang of hooligan bikers attempting to mug her. Meanwhile, at the hospital, Fugly performs his act, with Babe as the new addition to the show. However, the act goes awry when Babe accidentally causes Fugly to set the stage curtains ablaze, forcing an evacuation. The next morning, Fugly is taken to the hospital in a food coma, accompanied by his niece. The hotel's animal occupants, now left to fend for themselves, soon become hungry. Later that night, the chimps decide to steal food from a store, using Babe to distract a pair of guard dogs. When they chase Babe around the neighborhood, he falls into a canal, but swims to safety. Babe returns to save one of the dogs from drowning, who gratefully pledges to be Babe's bodyguard; Babe then invites all the stray cats and dogs to the hotel (the inhabitants cannot complain due to the presence of the ferocious guard dog). Babe and the guard dog share the pilfered jellybeans the chimps stole, with all the animals as Zootie later goes into labor and gives birth to twins. To comfort the still-hungry group of animal guests, Babe joins them together in singing "If I Had Words", which is overheard by Babe's duck friend, Ferdinand (Danny Mann), who left the farm in search of him. The celebration is interrupted when several animal control officers, alerted to the violation by the Flooms' spying neighbor, Hortense, break into the hotel and remove all the animals except for Babe, Tug, Ferdinand and a disabled Jack Russell terrier named Flealick (Adam Goldberg). The next day, Esme is released from custody after explaining her predicament to the judge (Kim Story). That night, Babe, Tug, Ferdinand, and Flealick infiltrate the animal control facility and rescue their imprisoned friends. Esme later returns to the hotel to find it in disarray and the landlady mourning her uncle and the animals' capture. They both soon confront Hortense about where the animals have been sent and then set out to find them. The duo track the animals to a charity dinner in the hospital's ballroom. After evading the staff, Esme, who is later aided by Thelonius, and the landlady successfully retrieve all the animals. The landlady then sells the hotel, which becomes a loud nightclub, and gives the proceeds to Esme to save the farm. The landlady and the animals come to stay at the farm, Esme happily resumes her duties aided by Thelonius, and Arthur recovers with only a minor limp. Arthur, after finally fixing the farm's water pump, proudly beams at Babe and says, "That'll do, Pig. That'll do."

In the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles County, two hit-men, Lee Woods (James Spader) and Dosmo Pizzo (Danny Aiello), break into a house at night and walk into a bedroom where a sleeping couple, aspiring Olympic athlete Becky Foxx (Teri Hatcher) and her ex-husband Roy Foxx (Peter Horton) are in bed. Lee injects Becky with a tranquilizer then shoots Roy in the head. Lee and Dosmo then drive to an abandoned area off Mulholland Drive, where Lee shoots Dosmo and blows up the car in order to set Dosmo up as the fall guy for the murder. Lee flees the scene with his Swedish girlfriend, Helga Svelgen (Charlize Theron) where they hide out at a local hotel bungalow. However, Dosmo was wearing a bulletproof vest and survived the shooting and car explosion. He seeks shelter at the mansion of wealthy art dealer, Allan Hopper (Greg Cruttwell) where he takes Hopper and his assistant, Susan Parish (Glenne Headly) hostage. Dosmo is unaware that Hopper has called his sister, Audrey Hopper (Marsha Mason) a nurse, to come to the house. On her way, Audrey picks up Teddy Peppers (Paul Mazursky) a down-and-out TV producer contemplating suicide. The next morning, Becky awakens and discovers Roy's body in bed beside her. She runs from her house and flags down two police detectives, young, ambitious Wes Taylor (Eric Stoltz) and cynical veteran Alvin Strayer (Jeff Daniels) who are driving by. Although he is sympathetic, Wes begins to suspect that Becky knows more than she is saying. It turns out that Becky was the one who had hired Lee and Dosmo to kill Roy for $30,000, but was unaware that they would kill Roy in her own house. When Audrey arrives at Allan's house, Dosmo takes both her and Teddy hostage as well as forces Audrey to tend to his wounds in exchange for her not being harmed. Meanwhile, Lee goes back to the house to get the money, encounters homicide detectives Creighton (Keith Carradine) and Carla Valenzuela (Ada Maris) working the crime scene, and kills them both. Wes decides to return to the crime scene to see if he can offer any insight on the case. Masquerading as one of the detectives, Lee lures Wes outside, intending to kill him. In Lee's bungalow, Becky and Helga get into an argument, which escalates into a fight. After being smashed over the head with a vase by Becky, Helga reaches across the bed to grab her gun from her purse, but Becky realizes this and runs and grabs the gun as well to prevent herself from being shot. In a confused fight for the gun, Helga ends up getting shot and wounded in her left side, after which Becky escapes from the hotel with Helga shooting at her from the doorway of the room multiple times but missing with each shot. Helga finds her way to Becky's house, where Lee has knocked Wes unconscious. Lee reluctantly decides to kill Helga instead of taking her to the hospital, concluding that her wound is too severe to be treated, but his gun jams. He turns to retrieve Wes' gun but finds that Helga has escaped and has flagged down a passing car containing Dosmo and his four hostages. Audrey jumps out of the moving car and tries to help the dying Helga, but Helga dies on the roadside. Wes is caught in the middle of a shootout between Dosmo and Lee, and is shot in both of his legs. Just before Lee can kill Dosmo, Teddy shoots Lee, killing him. A grateful Wes allows Dosmo to take the $30,000 and escape with Susan. The following day, Teddy shows up to an anniversary party that Audrey is attending. In the final scene, as Susan and Dosmo drive down a highway leaving Los Angeles behind them, Dosmo contemplates using the money to start a pizzeria in Brooklyn. Susan smiles and he kisses her.

Two detectives interrogate a hairdresser on two homicides she may or may not have been involved in. The hairdresser, wife and mother Cynthia Kellogg is in a police department being interrogated by the experienced detective John Woods and his partner, Detective Linda Nealon. Through flashbacks, she reveals how her best friend and colleague Joyce Urbanski married the scum of the earth, nasty type, James Urbanski; how hard Joyce's life with James was; and is why Joyce became a criminal. The smart detective finds some contradictions in her statement and presses Cynthia, trying to disclose the truth of the two murders. —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Cynthia comes forward to talk to detective John about the murder of her best friend's husband. The story is told as a series of flashbacks... James was a bullying, verbally and physically abusive husband. His wife Joyce has, on a number of occasions, expressed her intention to kill him. One night when all three are at the fair, Joyce has a row with James, and Cynthia helps James back to the van. But later he was found dead... —Sami Al-Taher <staher2000@yahoo.com>

A British art expert travels across America in order to purchase a rare Renoir painting in the South but comes across some crazy characters in the process. Young Englishman Henderson Dores (Daniel Day-Lewis), yearning to give up his genteel British ways and be a bold and brash American, gets his chance when his New York firm sends him south to acquire a Renoir painting from Loomis Gage (Harry Dean Stanton), the eccentric head of an unusual family. Working at a New York City auction house as a nineteenth century art expert under the direction of Edgar Beeby, the father of his overbearing socialite fiancée Melissa, stereotypical uptight Brit Henderson Dores moved to the US to expand his horizons i.e. to break out of his staid British rut. Edgar sends him to rural Luxora Beach, GA upon news that a man named Loomis Gage wants to sell what was thought to be a long lost Pierre-Auguste Renoir painting, Henderson estimating its value in auction upwards of $10 million, which would make it one of the house's most lucrative acquisitions. Already feeling like a fish out of water in New York, Henderson feels even more so in rural Georgia in dealing with Loomis and his stereotypical backwoods, eccentric and disparate family, each member who has his or her own motivation separate from Loomis. As one by one New Yorkers start descending on Henderson in this situation, some related to his professional life and some to his personal life, Henderson reevaluates what was his version of the American dream. —Huggo A British art expert travels across America in order to purchase a rare Renoir painting in the South but comes across some crazy characters in the process. —anonymous

While suffering from glandular fever, 11-year-old Anna Madden draws a house. When she falls asleep, she has disturbing dreams in which she finds herself inside the house she has drawn. After she draws a face at the window, in her next dream she finds Marc, a boy who suffers with muscular dystrophy, living in the house. She learns from her doctor that Marc is a real person. She visits the house in her dreams several times, each time adding new things to her drawing which also appear in her dream. First she draws stairs so that she can go up and visit Marc, then adding more items to his room and a fruit tree to the front yard. In the real world, Anna's relationship with her mother is strained by Anna's lying, as well as the lingering pain she feels from her father's long absences for work and his alcoholism. Anna sketches her father into the drawing so that he can help carry Marc away, but she inadvertently gives him an angry expression which she then crosses out, and the father appears in the dream as a furious, blinded figure with scratch marks over his eyes. After hiding in a closet with Marc, he suggests Anna lie down and mimic the motions she would use to grab the drawing in real life and tear the part of the drawing containing her father out. Anna does so, barely avoiding lighting the paper on fire, and tears her father out of the drawing in her sleep. This does not work, and her father breaks into the closet and carries Anna away before beating her in the chest repeatedly while shouting "Do you know who I am?" at her. Marc musters the strength to attack Anna's father with a hammer, destroying him. Anna wakes up in the hospital, her health having taken a serious turn in her sleep. It is implied that her dream father's attack was mimicking the actions of the ambulance staff administering a heart massage. Anna's doctor tells her that Marc is 'getting better' but Anna sees through her deception, saying that she knows Marc is dying. The doctor is skeptical of Anna's knowledge, but she provides information she could not have know otherwise. Anna asks for her drawing supplies to be brought to the hospital. While Anna recovers in the hospital, her father returns with her mother to discuss going away on holiday, though Anna is not receptive to her father or the idea of a holiday. She draws a new room for Marc with nicer accommodations, and adds a pencil so that they could add anything they needed while in their dream. When she falls asleep she finds Marc at the lighthouse, seemingly cured of his paralysis and in much better spirits. They spend time together playing on a nearby hill and share a first kiss. Soon after, they discuss drawing a ladder to get down from the cliff to the shore. Marc instead suggests that Anna draw a helicopter, which she declines, saying she doesn't know how. Marc says he can, but insists that he must do it alone in the lighthouse. Anna reluctantly agrees, and Marc enters the lighthouse as Anna tells him "Don't go without me." She soon wakes from hear dream without finding out if Marc had drawn the helicopter. Anna is discharged from the hospital soon after. Her father reveals to her that he has been given a job in the home office and will not have to go away any more, though Anna still acts coldly towards him. Her father tells her that Anna's doctor said that Marc has passed away. Anna says she already knew. The family goes away on a holiday to the seaside, where Anna is still saddened over Marc's death, though her relationship with her father improves somewhat. After father opens the window in her hotel room, Anna sees the lighthouse from her dream on a nearby cliff. She runs from the hotel by herself, overjoyed, but when she arrives at the lighthouse and calls for Marc repeatedly she finds the door locked and Marc absent. She sits on the step, upset, but finds a note from Marc under a nearby rock. The note shows him and his helicopter, along with a message saying that he can't wait any longer, but he will come back for her if she waits. Anna runs to the nearby cliff and calls to Marc. A helicopter arrives, dropping a ladder. Anna hears Marc calling for her, but then yelling to be careful and to stay away from the cliff. As Anna reaches for the ladder Marc continues to yell for her to be careful, until the helicopter flies away and Anna's mother grabs before she can fall off the cliff. The movie ends with Anna in her mother and father's arms, having come to terms with Marc's death, her relationship with her parents repaired.

Lawrence Jamieson (Michael Caine) is a cultivated and suave British master con artist who operates in the deluxe hotels along the French Riviera under the watchful and approving eye of French Inspector Andre (Anton Rodgers), the resident chief of police who receives a cut of his take. Their only concern is a mysterious, anonymous character known only as "The Jackal" who has been preying on other wealthy victims of late. When small-time American hustler Freddy Benson (Steve Martin) decides to search for easy marks in Beaumont-Sur-Mer, Lawrence's home base, Lawrence recognizes that the Jackal has shown his face. He briefly has Andre arrest Freddy for conning a gold digger and release him on the promise of a bribe, but Freddy encounters one of Lawrence's past victims on his plane and realizes who Lawrence really is. Freddy returns to Beaumont-Sur-Mer and confronts Lawrence, demanding training in his art of the con in exchange for keeping silent. Lawrence agrees, but only as a way to get rid of Freddy since Lawrence does not want a lowly competitor infringing on his territory. Freddy's roles in subsequent cons are limited, and much to his chagrin, he is forced to play Lawrence's mentally disabled younger half-brother, Ruprecht, whose extremely socially subnormal traits are used to repel women that Lawrence has recently conned, and to whom they believe they will be wed. When Freddy decides that he's had enough of Lawrence's humiliating tutelage and wants to go out on his own, the two agree to a challenge to see who will remain in Beaumont-Sur-Mer, since there is not enough room for the two of them in the same small town. The first one to con $50,000 out of a selected mark will be allowed to stay, while the other must leave and never return to Beaumont-Sur-Mer. The two select Janet Colgate (Glenne Headly), a naive and wealthy American heiress, as their target and embark on their separate strategies while at the same time ruthlessly sabotaging each other. Freddy poses as a Psychosomatically crippled soldier who needs to borrow $50,000 for treatment by a celebrated Liechtenstein psychiatrist, Emile Shauffhausen. But when Lawrence discovers this scheme, he pretends to be Dr. Shauffhausen, insisting Freddy's condition is one he can cure with the stipulation that Janet pay the $50,000 fee directly to him. Lawrence discovers that Janet is not wealthy after all but on vacation as a contest winner. She plans to sell the remainder of her prizes and combine the proceeds with her father's savings to finance Freddy's treatment. Lawrence has always taken advantage of wealthy and corrupt members of society, but he does not take advantage of the poor and virtuous. Impressed and emotionally touched by Janet's innate goodness, Lawrence calls off the bet. Freddy suggests they change the challenge and make Janet herself the bet, with the first to bed her declared the winner. Lawrence refuses to try to "win," agreeing only to bet that Freddy will fail to do so. Scheming with a group of sympathetic English sailors (who pity Freddy and think he really is disabled), Freddy has Lawrence abducted and taken to a transport plane to Honduras. He goes to Janet, who admits that she is in love with him. This "cures" Freddy of his disorder. Lawrence is in the bedroom hidden from view, and Janet reveals that he had told her how to handle Freddy's return, and that he would be 'cured'. Once a member of the Royal Naval Reserve, Lawrence had told the sailors the true story. Frustrated at being played for fools, they strong-arm Freddy into joining their party and glue his palm to a wall to stop him from escaping while Lawrence puts Janet on the next plane out of France. Despite being trapped, Freddy enjoys the party greatly. The next day however, Janet does not board her flight. She instead returns to her hotel room to find a remorseful Freddy there. They kiss, close the door and begin to undress. The news reaches Lawrence as he swims, and he accepts his defeat with grace. He is later seen struggling to retain composure as he waits for Freddy to return and gloat over his victory. Janet later goes to Lawrence in tears. She tells him that Freddy has stolen the money her father sent. Lawrence compensates her with $50,000 of his own and takes her to the airport. At the last minute before she boards the plane, Janet tells Lawrence that she cannot take the money and gives the bag back to him. As the plane leaves, Freddy, in handcuffs, appears claiming that Janet robbed the both of them. Puzzled, Lawrence finally opens up the bag and finds a note from Janet instead admitting that she indeed took the $50,000 and that she was The Jackal all along. Freddy rants his head off, while Lawrence smiles in admiration at Janet's cleverness. Freddy and Lawrence assess their loss. They are about to part company forever when Janet, under a new disguise (as a loud New Yorker named Paula), suddenly arrives at Lawrence's villa with a yacht filled with wealthy people. While the guests refresh themselves, Janet takes the two men aside and announces that as The Jackal she has made a fortune, but she had great fun during her time with Lawrence and Freddy. Joining arms, they set out to fleece their latest victims.

In 1950s Texas, a woman trying to recover sexy photos of herself and divorce her husband witnesses a murder and uncovers corrupt land dealings. Working in an Austin, Texas, beauty parlour in 1954, Nadine Hightower endeavours to retrieve some 'art studies' she injudiciously had taken. Her visit to the photographer leaves her in possession of highly valuable plans. With both the police and the murderous villains after her, she enlists the help of her (almost) ex-husband Vernon, the none too successful owner of the Bluebonnet Bar. —Jeremy Perkins {J-26} Austin, Texas, 1954. They say there are no mistakes or failures in life, only lessons. And well-meaning but naive beautician Nadine has learned her lesson after unwisely posing for a sleazy local photographer. Now, she wants the compromising negatives back, and her soon-to-be ex-husband Vernon will help Nadine get out of the tight spot whether he likes it or not. Instead, all they get is a dead body and a mysterious envelope containing secret blueprints. As bad luck invites more trouble, the murderous jackals of the corrupt real-estate magnate, Buford Pope, close in on the estranged couple, prepared to kill for the precious documents. Once, Nadine and Vernon promised each other to have and to hold. But what happens now that the bullets fly? Can divorce wait? —Nick Riganas

A mother's love for her children leads to a son's revenge for her death in this dramatic thriller that begins during the Greek civil war. Nick is a writer in New York when he gets posted to a bureau in Greece. He has waited 30 years for this. He wants to know why his mother was killed in the civil war years earlier. In a parallel plot line we see Nick as a young boy and his family as they struggle to survive in the occupied Greek hillside. The plot lines converge as Nick's investigations bring him closer to the answers. —Robert B. Young <youngb@tastemaker.com>