Helen Hunt

As phroggers, who are people that secretly squat inside occupied houses, teenagers Mindy and Alec infiltrate the suburban home of police detective Greg Harper, his counselor wife Jackie, and their teenage son Connor. Although Mindy insists on drawing no attention to themselves while hiding inside the house, Alec begins mentally messing with the Harpers by removing photographs from their frames, turning on televisions, and urinating on Greg while he sleeps. He also hides Jackie's favorite mug which has sunflowers painted on it. The family vaguely wonders if there may be a paranormal presence haunting their home. Connor and Greg remain angry with Jackie in the wake of a revelation that Jackie had an affair. Still coming to terms with how to handle their marriage moving forward, Greg throws his phone through a window in frustration. When a repairman arrives to fix the window while the Harpers are not home, Alec convinces Mindy to let him in since he doesn't know she doesn't live there. Jackie comes home surprised to find the repairman in her house. Jackie's confusion grows when he explains that her daughter let him inside. Jackie reports the repairman to the police after discovering that her silverware is missing, although Alec actually hid it. Lieutenant Moriah Davis assigns Greg and his longtime partner Ray Spitzky to investigate the disappearances of Michael King and 12-year-old Justin Whitter, the latter of whom mysteriously vanished while riding his bike through the woods. At the crime scene, the detectives discover a green pocketknife like those used by Cole Gordon, a man they sent to prison for killing six other boys years earlier. Although Greg and Spitzky consider they are dealing with a copycat, Davis has the duo track down Gordon's two surviving victims to ensure that Gordon's defense attorney doesn't push to reopen the case. They go to see previous victim Tommy Braun. When Tommy turns to look at Spitzky it's revealed that his face is horribly disfigured. Tommy then begins whimpering and yelling. Spitzky listens to his original interview with Tommy. Tommy says that he disfigured his face himself after being in the little house in the trees. Tommy says it's a magic house that disappears. Spitzky asks what that means and Tommy says it means that Spitzky will never find the man. Jackie's lover Todd comes to the Harper house to profess his love for Jackie. From the roof above, Alec smashes Jackie's sunflower mug on Todd's head. Jackie presumes it was thrown by Connor. She takes Todd into the basement to treat his wound. Jackie leaves Todd alone while she drives Connor to school. Mindy decides that she and Alec need to leave the house immediately. She goes to the basement to retrieve the backpack she had hidden there earlier, but is forced to hide when she sees Todd is in the basement. Greg returns home unexpectedly and finds Todd in the basement kneeling in front of a cupboard as he looks for a cloth for his head wound. From her hiding spot Mindy silently witnesses Greg murder Todd by hitting him in the head from behind with a bat. Mindy grabs her backpack and prepares to leave but is forced to hide again as Jackie returns and finds Todd dead from a head wound. Fearing that Connor will be held responsible because of the mug she presumed he threw, Jackie convinces Greg to help her bury Todd's body in the woods. While his parents are out, Connor finds the missing silverware inside the washing machine. Connor then receives an anonymous message asking if he knows what "phrogging" is. Connor finds disturbing phrogging videos when he searches the term online. Wearing a frog mask, Alec captures Connor. Catching Alec in the act of tying up Connor, Mindy expresses her terror at the psychotic person Alec is becoming. A struggle ensues between Mindy and Alec. Mindy hits her head and falls unconscious. Alec puts Mindy in the back of Greg's vehicle and attempts to drive away but has trouble getting the vehicle to start. Greg and Jackie return home from burying Todd's body and Alec hides to avoid being seen. Jackie and Greg find Connor bound and gagged in the bathtub with a green pocketknife stuck into a bar of soap beside him. Before Jackie rushes Connor to the hospital Greg tells her he will find the person who did this to Connor. Alec is still hiding in the garage and is horrified to see Greg get in his vehicle and drive away with Mindy still unconscious in the back. Mindy quietly recovers in the back of the vehicle where she finds Justin Whittier's jersey and other evidence to indicates that Greg has been the one abducting and killing boys. When Greg stops, Mindy escapes into nearby woods. She calls 911 to report the killer, which summons Spitzky to investigate, but the connection drops out before her phone's location can be traced. Mindy finds a hidden trailer where Greg imprisoned Michael King and Justin Whitter. The boys tell her that Greg said he is going to kill them and is outside digging a hole to bury them. They beg Mindy to free them. As she tries to free them Greg comes up behind her and suffocates her with a plastic bag. Greg finds Mindy's camcorder documenting all of the phrogging she and Alec did inside the Harper house. Enraged, Greg heads home to hunt for Alec, taking Mindy, who's still alive, with him. When Greg arrives home he takes Mindy in the living room, tells her to stand up and shoots her with his service pistol. He takes a second handgun from his pocket, turns, and shoots two holes in the wall to make it appear as though Mindy shot at him and he killed her in self defense. He then wipes his fingerprints from the second gun and places it in MIndy's hand. With his service pistol in hand, he begins searching the house for Alec. Alec hears the shots and takes an ax from the wall of the garage. He sneaks through the house and finds Mindy's dead body. Greg is upstairs hunting for Alec. Alec lures him downstairs by playing a song on the record player. As Greg goes to turn off the record player Alec attacks him with an ax, but Greg overpowers him. Greg knocks Alec out before going to the kitchen sink and stabbing himself with a knife. He turns to plant the knife on Alec and sees that he has disappeared. He hears a hammer cock and sees Alec pointing a gun at him. Alec tells Greg that he knows what he is. Greg explains that he will stage the scene to frame Alec and MIndy as the murderers. Alec steps forward and Greg suddenly becomes frightened, pleading with Alec and telling him that Alec doesn't understand. Unmoved by Greg's plea, Alec shoots him dead just as the cops arrive. A crying Alec stares down at Greg's body. Spitzky breaks into the house and see Greg lying dead on the kitchen floor and Alec standing there holding the gun. He fires a bullet into Alec. Critically wounded, Alec lifts his head and recognizes Spitzky. He whispers Spitzky's name intimating that he was Tommy Braun's friend and had orchestrated the phrogging scheme to take revenge on the man that tortured him and Tommy as children. The police rescue the two captive boys in the woods while Spitzky finds the evidence in the back of Greg's SUV that proves that his partner was the perpetrator. Jackie and Connor return home, shocked to see their yard filled with police cars. Jackie walks toward Spitzky who says something inaudible to her. She brushes past him and stares in silence at the evidence in the back of Greg's SUV. As Alec is wheeled to the ambulance he flashes back to himself and Tommy as young boys walking along a railroad track. They encounter Greg who gives Alec a green pocketknife.

The unusual meeting between three deserters from different nationalities (Brazil, German and Italy) during World War II. During World War II, looking up the Mountain, in Italy, a Brazilian Expeditionary Force - FEB - mines weeping platoon is hit by a panic-attack that sets them running aimlessly right in the middle of 'no man's land'. Desperate cold and hungry, the ill-prepared soldiers have to choose between facing military court or delve deeper into enemy lines. After a tense discussion, they decide to save their faces with the Brazilian Army by tackling a daring military objective: to disarm the most feared minefield in Italy. On their way there, they end meeting two others deserters; a remorseful Italian soldier trying to join the Partigianos and German officer who is just simply tired of war. with unexpected help of their ex-enemy, the soldiers are set to accomplish a mission that so far had been deemed impossible. —Anonymous During the World War II, a small minesweeping and demining team from the Brazilian Expeditionary Force - BEF is in an outpost in Monte Castello. The group is not well prepared for combat and does not speak any foreign language; therefore they have difficulties to communicate with the American Army. Out of the blue, they have a panic attack and scatter on the mountain. Later, the soldiers Guimarães, Tenente, Piauí e Laurindo meet each other on the base of Monte Castello. They become afraid to go to their base of command and be considered deserters and ace court-martial; and also afraid to die if they return to their post. They stumble with the journalist Rui that tells that the important Road 47 is mined preventing the American force to proceed. They also stumble upon an Italian and a German deserters. They decide to demine the road to justify their retreat from the post. —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

A 12-year-old schoolboy in Las Vegas, Nevada named Trevor McKinney (Haley Joel Osment) is given a class project to complete by his social studies teacher Eugene Simonet (Kevin Spacey), a man with terrible burn scars on his face and neck. His task is to come up with a plan that will change the world through direct action. On his way home from school later that day, Trevor notices a homeless man, Jerry (James Caviezel) and decides to make a difference in Jerry's life. Trevor then comes up with the plan to "pay it forward" by doing a good deed for three people who must in turn each do good deeds for three other people, creating a charitable pyramid scheme. Trevor's plan is to help Jerry by feeding and housing him so he can "get on his feet." The next morning, Trevor's mother, Arlene McKinney (Helen Hunt), a single mother recovering from alcoholism, becomes angry with Trevor after finding Jerry in their house. She then accuses and confronts Eugene at the school about the reason Trevor has allowed Jerry into their home. Eugene is also intrigued by Trevor's response to the social studies project. Later that night back at their home, Trevor confronts his mother about her alcoholism, and in a fit of anger she slaps him across the face. Trevor runs away from home, and Arlene asks Eugene to help her find him. They find Trevor at a bus station, about to be molested. Trevor and Arlene embrace in relief after Arlene apologizes profusely. Meanwhile, Chris (Jay Mohr), a journalist, is trying to find out why a total stranger gave him a brand new Jaguar S-Type car after Chris' old 1965 Ford Mustang was damaged in a car accident. The stranger's only explanation is that he is simply "paying it forward". When Chris asks him for more information, the man explains that, when he recently visited a hospital while his daughter was suffering an asthma attack, a gang member suffering from a stab wound actually took up a gun to force the doctors to look at the man's daughter before she collapsed, prompting Chris to begin his search again. After Trevor's apparently unsuccessful attempt to help Jerry, he decides to help Eugene by setting him up with Arlene, Trevor's own mother. Their relationship grows in strength until Arlene's ex-husband, Ricky (Jon Bon Jovi), who claims he has "changed" and has quit drinking, shows up unannounced and Arlene decides to give him another chance. When Arlene later tries to explain her choice to Eugene, the audience learns how Eugene's burns were the result of terrible child abuse by his father. Eugene is concerned not just about the abusive and violent nature of Trevor's father, but that the simple absence of a loving father is detrimental to Trevor's well-being. He explains that his father was always abusive of him and his mother always took him back. At thirteen, Eugene ran away from home and returned home when he was 16, asking his mother to come with him but his father knocked him out and proceeded to burn him, resulting in a number of scars on his chest. Arlene feels that she must nevertheless give her ex-husband another chance, but shortly thereafter he becomes angry and violent and it appears that he has not in fact stopped drinking alcohol. Arlene realizes what a terrible mistake she has made. She feels that Eugene will never take her back, and Eugene for his part is not prepared to rekindle the relationship. At around this point, Jerry, who has moved on to another city, discovers a woman about to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge; even when she throws her purse at him and yells at him to get away, Jerry simply talks gently to her, encouraging her to come down and talk to him about her problems. Meanwhile, Chris discovers the gang member who helped the man's daughter, who reveals that he was brought into the 'pay it forward' movement when he was rescued from the police by a homeless woman in a car. Having located the woman (played by Angie Dickinson), she tells Chris that she herself was given the idea by her daughter--who turns out to be Arlene. Arlene seeks out her mother, Grace, whom she has not seen in three years. She says she wishes to say something to her and gives her mother the gift that enables Grace to have faith that she can become sober for a few days, long enough to visit the family and see her grandson: Arlene tells her mother that she forgives her for everything. Chris finally identifies Trevor as the originator of "pay it forward," and conducts a recorded interview at the school. Trevor explains his hopes for the concept, but voices his concerns that people may be too afraid to change their own lives in order to make the whole world a better place. Eugene and Arlene are both present during the interview. When Eugene hears Trevor's words, he realizes that he and Arlene should be together. As Eugene and Arlene reconcile with a passionate embrace, they hear shouts and scuffling outside. Trevor has come to the defense of a friend who is being attacked by bullies, and is trying to fight them off, although they are older and bigger. As Eugene and Arlene run down to stop the fight, the main bully who is a gangster-like boy impulsively pulls out a knife. Trevor is pushed onto the boy with the knife and is thus inadvertently stabbed in the abdomen. Trevor is rushed to hospital, where he dies from the stabbing. Terribly distraught, Arlene and Eugene are later watching a television news report about "pay it forward" and Trevor's death, and learn that the movement has grown nationwide. Venturing outside, they see hundreds of people gathering in a vigil to pay their respects to Trevor, with yet more people arriving in a stream of vehicles visible in the distance as the movie ends. (Source: WikiPedia. Bangs_McCoy)

Nick Marshall (Mel Gibson) is a Chicago advertising executive and alpha male. The mother of Nick Marshall was a Las Vegas showgirl. Raised by beautiful women who spoiled the boy as an adored mascot, and with tough casino men as role models (who treated women as nothing more than objects), the adult Nick is a chauvinist skilled at selling products to men and seducing women. Nick is famous for not lifting a finger at work and is surrounded by beautiful women who do all the heavy lifting for him, while he takes the credit. Annie (Sarah Paulson) is Nick's secretary, Stella (Diana-Maria Riva) is his maid, the doorman to his apartment building Flo (Loretta Devine). Coworkers Eve (Delta Burke), Dina (Lisa Edelstein), and Sue (Ana Gasteyer) work with him at his office. Nick's only male coworker is Morgan (Mark Feuerstein), who participates in Nick's skirt chasing contests. His conquests including local coffee attendant Lola (Marisa Tomei). Nick expects a promotion at the advertising firm Sloane Curtis. However, just as he thinks he's headed to a meeting for a promotion, his manager, Dan (Alan Alda), informs him that he is hiring the talents of Darcy McGuire (Helen Hunt) instead, to broaden the firm's appeal to women. He says that women in the age group of 18 to 24 are the fastest growing consumer group, and they control the spending and hence the advertising dollars. Dan says that 10 years ago they were the best agency in town and now they are 3rd. Dan says that getting into woman's psyche is not really Nick's strength. Also, his estranged 15-year-old daughter Alex (Ashley Johnson) is spending two weeks with him while his ex-wife Gigi (Lauren Holly) goes on her honeymoon with her new husband Ted (Robert Briscoe Evans). Alex is embarrassed by Nick, and resents his being protective when he meets her much older boyfriend Cameron (Eric Balfour). Darcy tells her team that female driven advertising market is worth $40 Billion and Sloan Curtis' share of that pie is zero. Needing to prove himself to Darcy and Dan, Nick attempts to think of copy for a series of feminine products that Darcy distributed at the day's staff meeting. However, he slips and falls into his bathtub while holding an electric hairdryer, electrocuting himself. The next day, Nick wakes up able to understand his maid's thoughts as she cleans his apartment. Nick finds that Flo has lustful feelings towards him. As he walks through a park and encounters numerous women, he realizes that he can hear their thoughts, even those of a female poodle. This proves to be an epiphany for him when he hears the thoughts of his female co-workers (some of whom have slept with him and regretted it). Dina doesn't like Nick's disgusting jokes, Eve doesn't like when Nick comments on her eating habits, women think he wears too much aftershave, Annie feels that she got an Ivy League education and Nick has got her picking up his dry-cleaning and realizes that he cannot hear men's thoughts. Nick tells Morgan that he can hear women's thoughts. Morgan warns Nick that he sounds insane and cannot say this to anyone. When he goes to a previous therapist, Dr. Perkins (Bette Midler) (who also disliked him), she realizes his gift: "If Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, and you can speak Venutian, the world can be yours." Nick eavesdrops on women's thoughts and uses their ideas as his own, but also begin to develop real friendships with his co-workers. He corrects his off-hand comments and starts to appreciate women for who they are. He has sex with Lola, and using he thoughts as a guide, he satisfies her in bed, and she ends up declaring that Nick is a sex God. As Nick spends more time with Darcy, he is attracted to her. Darcy is going after the Nike, women's division account and this account will make her career at the agency. However, when he tries to get closer to his daughter, she resents him for trying after so many years of neglect. Nick learns that Alex wants to go to prom with Cameron, even though Nick knows that all Cameron wants to do is to have sex with her. Darcy tells Nick that going to the prom is all about the dress and asks Nick to take Alex shopping. Nick and Alex start to bond while he takes her shopping for a prom dress. Nick shrewdly suspects that Alex's boyfriend, who is considerably older than Alex, plans to sleep with her and then dump her. He tells her Cameron is not interested in her for who she is, just for what he can do with her in bed. Alex, thinking Nick is being over-protective and trying to sabotage her prom, rejects his advice. Nick steals most of Darcy's ideas and presents them to Dan as his own. Soon, Nick is the darling of the office women. Nick and Darcy begin to spend more time together, and ultimately, they kiss. When he manages to trump Darcy out of her idea for a new Nike ad campaign aimed at women (he had heard Darcy's pitch in her mind, and delivers it verbatim to the client in the meeting before Darcy could say anything), he later regrets his selfishness, especially as it leads to her being fired. Over time, Nick succeeds in repairing his relationships with female acquaintances, especially those at work. Nick loses his gift during a storm while trying to find a company secretary, Erin (Judy Greer), who (as his telepathic ability has shown him) is contemplating suicide. He offers her a position for which he had previously turned her down; she accepts. He is also reconciled with his daughter when her boyfriend rejects her. Nick finally visits Darcy and explains everything. She regains her job and Nick gets fired. But she forgives him, and agrees to save him from himself, to which he responds, "My hero".

A dysfunctional writer`s world is forever changed by a waitress with a sick child, an artist neighbor and an ugly but endearing little dog.

In June 1969, a family that includes a five-year-old girl called Jo seeks shelter in a storm cellar as a powerful tornado strikes. The storm is so strong that the locks on the cellar door fail, and Jo's father is caught up in the storm and killed. Jo and her mother emerge from the cellar the next morning to find a devastated landscape. Their home is utterly destroyed. 27 years later, Jo (Helen Hunt), who is now a meteorologist leading a team of storm chasers. Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite track the tornado activity across the nation. GOES satellites are a collaborative program between NASA and NOAA that provide data and imagery on atmospheric conditions and solar activity. Jo manages her own equipment to track tornadoes on the ground, however she is running out of grant money. Her crew includes Dusty (Philip Seymour Hoffman), Rabbit (Alan Ruck), Joey (Joey Slotnick) and others. Jo is reunited with her estranged husband, Bill Harding (Bill Paxton), who is a former weather researcher and storm chaser who has since become a weather reporter. He is planning to marry sex therapist Melissa Reeves (Jami Gertz) and arrives at Jo's field station for her signature for the final divorce papers. Jo is excited about the weather, with NSSL predicting the biggest series of storms lined up one after the other. Bill realizes that Jo has not signed one page of the papers. Jo shows Bill the realized "Dorothy", a device containing hundreds of small weather sensors that he conceptualized. Dorothy could revolutionize tornado research and potentially provide an earlier storm-warning system, but the device must be deployed dangerously close to a tornado to work. Dorothy is designed to take measurements from inside a tornado funnel and provide insights into how a tornado works. Jo's team rushes off to chase a developing storm with her failing to sign the papers, forcing Bill and Melissa to follow. The team encounters Dr. Jonas Miller (Cary Elwes), a smug and sponsored meteorologist and storm chaser. Miller is a rival storm chaser and former colleague with corporate funding, has stolen his idea for his own Dorothy-like device, Dot3, with plans to deploy it first and claim credit for its design. Enraged, Bill agrees to accompany Jo and the team for one day to launch Dorothy. Tensions rise between Jo and Bill when they have several dangerous encounters with tornadoes as the team tries unsuccessfully to deploy the new device. As the team pursues a developing tornado, Bill drives Jo's truck into a ditch, attempting to get in front of the damage path. However, the tornado strengthens into an F2, and after destroying a barn, it corners the truck in front of a bridge. Jo and Bill shelter under the bridge as the tornado destroys the vehicle and one of the four Dorothy prototypes. They continue chasing in Bill's truck, with Melissa in the back. They find a second tornado and head off on a back-road when it shifts its track. They soon find themselves driving through heavy rain and before long the same storm drops satellite tornadoes onto a lake. The team follows the F2 now with a group of waterspouts on Kaw Lake, and one of them develops another vortex, which spins the truck around before disappearing. Jo and Bill are elated by the thrill, but Melissa becomes traumatized in the process. They have lunch with Jo's aunt Meg (Lois Smith) at Wakita, Oklahoma. Dusty, a member of Jo's team, tells stories about Bill's crazy past career as a storm chaser to Melissa, but Bill claims that he had killed his old personality. The chasers take off to chase yet another storm. As they track the storm, they learn the tornado is on the ground, but they have trouble finding it. Approaching a hill, they run into a hailstorm, and Jo drives ahead of the chasers to intercept the oncoming tornado. Jo and Bill intercept an F3 with unpredictable movements, and it soon knocks over power-lines that crush Dorothy II. With the truck damaged, Bill forces them to retreat, but Jo undergoes an emotional breakdown over the failure, and unloads about her motivations and her father's death. Bill admits his feelings for Jo, unaware that Melissa is overhearing them through the CB radio. The team overnights in Fairview to repair their vehicles, while Jo signs the papers. A nocturnal F4 wedge tornado unexpectedly appears, and it forces the team and others into a garage pit near a drive-in theater for protection. The tornado destroys the garage and two team vehicles as the result of tossed debris and injures several people before proceeding toward Wakita. Melissa, frightened by the dangers of storm chasing and recognizing the unresolved feelings between Jo and Bill, leaves. The tornado moves on and hits Wakita, devastating the community and injuring Meg. Bill and Jo rescue Meg from her collapsing house. The National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) forecasts that a potentially record-breaking tornado will form the next day. Inspired by Aunt Meg's wind-vane sculptures, Bill and Jo add aluminum "wings" to the last two Dorothy prototype sensors, making them more aerodynamic. True to the forecast, a mile-wide F5 tornado forms the next day, and the team pursues it. Bill and Jo attempt to place Dorothy III in its path; however, the device is knocked over and destroyed by an airborne tree. Meanwhile, Jonas attempts to deploy Dot3, ignoring Bill and Jo's warnings that the tornado is changing direction and headed straight at them. The tornado sweeps Jonas's truck away, killing him and his driver. With the last remaining Dorothy affixed to the truck bed, Bill and Jo drive directly at the tornado, then jump out, sacrificing Bill's truck to ensure that Dorothy IV can release its probes into the wedge. The gamble is successful, as Dorothy IV's probes provide immediate scientific data, but without their truck, Jo and Bill are forced to run as the tornado shifts toward them. Inside a nearby pump-house, they strap themselves to deep pipes. As the building rips away, the F5's core passes over them. After the tornado dissipates, the team celebrate their success and Jo and Bill reconcile.

The life of Buddy Young, a comic legend in flashbacks but an old man looking for work in the present. Buddy Young was the comic's comic, beloved by everyone. Now, playing to miniscule crowds in nursing homes, it seems like everybody but Buddy realizes that he should retire. As Buddy looks for work in show business, he realizes that the rest of the world has forgotten the golden days of Buddy Young, and that there just may not be room in the business for an old comic like himself.