Jack Nicholson

In 1978, a young Dave Buznik (Adam Sanlder) is about to kiss the girl of his dreams, when a local bully, Arnie Shankman, pulls down his pants and underwear, embarrassing him in front of everybody. This leaves Dave with lasting trauma about public affection, as well as repressing his emotions. In the present day, Dave Buznik lives in New York, working as a secretary for Frank, an abusive boss who takes credit for Dave's work. His problems also extend to his private life, much to the concern of his girlfriend Linda (Marisa Tomei). Her ex-boyfriend and best friend Andrew is in her life constantly, and makes no resistance in being condescending to Dave. While flying to a business meeting, Dave sits next to a man named Buddy Rydell (Jack Nicholson). Buddy irritates Dave, and after Buddy pressures Dave to watch a movie with him, Dave asks the flight attendant for a headset. She ignores him, and when Dave asks her again, she overreacts and demands that he keep calm. The flight's sky marshal appears, overreacting to the situation as well, and tasers Dave. Dave is then arrested, tried, found guilty of assault, and sentenced to anger management therapy. Arriving at his first therapy session, he discovers that his therapist is Buddy. There, Dave meets a diverse group with assorted mental issues. Dave loses his temper more than once, mostly due to Buddy's odd therapy techniques. After the session, Buddy tells Dave that he will have to attend double the entire therapy course, recognizing Dave's problem as passive-aggressive anger. Later that night at a bar, Dave and Chuck, his "Anger Ally", played by John Turturro, get into a confrontation due to Chuck's anger. Dave accidentally strikes a cocktail waitress, while trying to stop a bar fight that Chuck had just started. Due to this, Dave ends up landing back in court. There, brash Buddy enlists Dave in his intense anger management therapy, moving into Dave's apartment, where he finds various ways to aggravate him. Among these, Buddy accompanies Dave to work where he insults Dave's boss and Andrew, whose father knows Frank. After receiving a phone call for Buddy, Dave is asked to tell him that his mother is having minor surgery in Boston. As a joke, he exaggerates its seriousness. Regretting his deceit, Dave confesses and Buddy forgives him, but vows to get him back. Buddy then tells Dave that he has to accompany him to Boston to check on his mother. On the way back to New York, they stop at a restaurant. There, Dave meets and goes home with an attractive woman at Buddy's insistence. He later comes back to the bar after rejecting her out of loyalty to Linda. Later, Dave is devastated to learn that Buddy has told Linda about the woman. Buddy reveals that the woman is actually a former patient of his and that this was his way of getting back at Dave. Buddy agrees that when they get back to New York, he will tell Linda the truth. On their way back, Buddy takes a detour to a Buddhist temple, so that Dave can confront Arnie. Now a monk, he is remorseful for his previous behavior, except for pulling down his pants when they were still kids. Buddy quickly starts a confrontation by lying to Arnie about insulting comments Dave made about Buddha and things that he did to tease Arnie's nutty sister. Dave beats Arnie in a fight, then he and Buddy are chased from the grounds. Back in New York, Dave attempts to propose to Linda but loses his nerve. Disappointed, Linda suggests that they take a break from their relationship. Later, Dave learns that Buddy has started dating Linda. He has an outburst and attacks Buddy, prompting him to end up in court on assault charges. Afterwards, Dave's boss browbeats him to return his latest assignment and gives the promotion Dave was clamoring for, to Andrew. Fed up, Dave snaps in his boss' office, punches Andrew out after ordering him to stay away from Linda, humiliates his boss and orders him to give him the promotion, to which he agrees. Dave learns that Buddy is taking Linda out to a New York Yankees game that night. Assuming that Buddy has stolen his idea of proposing to her at a game, he races to the stadium, runs out onto the field. Security captures him and begins to remove him from the stadium but Mayor Rudy Giuliani orders them to allow Dave to speak. He proposes to Linda but before she says yes, she wants him to prove his love by kissing her in front of everyone. When he does, she tells him that he has graduated from anger management. Linda then explains how she first approached Buddy while attending one of his anger management lectures and that everything that has happened was a setup for Dave's therapy; the Judge, the female flight attendant and the waitress were all friends of Buddy's and were part of the setup... except for the Air Marshal that shocked Dave with the taser, who was just another disgruntled passenger on the flight at the time. Dave, Linda, Buddy and the other therapy group members are celebrating Dave's graduation in Central Park, when a man approaches and asks for Buddy. When Buddy steps forward, the man pulls a gun and points it at him. Dave confronts the man, citing what he has learned from Buddy. The situation is defused when the man squirts water in Dave's face, revealing the pistol to be a toy, and Dave stating that he's a friend of his. The group laughs then sings together as the movie ends.

Harry Sanborn (Jack Nicholson) is a wealthy New York music mogul who has had a 40-year habit of dating women under 30, including his latest conquest, Marin Klein (Amanda Peet). Harry finds younger women very uncomplicated and extremely satisfying. Harry tells the girls that women above a certain age do not date him, so it is not his fault. The two drive to her mother's Hamptons beach house expecting to be alone, but are surprised by Marin's mother, successful playwright Erica Barry (Diane Keaton), along with her sister Zoe (Frances McDormand). Harry was in the kitchen chilling the champagne when Erica and Zoe walked in from outside and assumed that Harry is a burglar. Only when Marin comes into the kitchen, is when the situation is clarified, and Erica cancels her 911 call. Harry offers to leave, but Zoe says that they are all adults, and there is no reason why all four could not stay for the weekend. Together they go shopping to a local supermarket. Erica learns that Harry owns a records company called Drive-By Records which produces hip-hop albums. Erica says she hates hip-hop as she finds it violent and misogynist. Harry already regrets agreeing to stay over. Harry and Marin met at a wine auction at Christie's. Harry and Marin had restrained from having sex and this weekend was when they were both looking forward to having it. The dinner is awkward as it is revealed that Harry has never been married and Zoe remembers an article on Harry in the New York Magazine. The article was titled "the escape artist". Harry was once engaged to Diane Sawyer, which impresses Erica. Zoe is amazed that Harry is 63 and never married. If he was a woman, he would be consider cursed, and yet as a man he is celebrated as elusive. The whole over 50 dating scene only looks like older men dating women as young as Marin. The night turns disastrous when, during foreplay with Marin, Harry has a heart attack and is rushed to a hospital. The doctor, Julian Mercer (Keanu Reeves), tells Harry to stay nearby for a few days, so Harry ends up staying with Erica. Their personalities clash and make for awkward living arrangements at first until they get to know each other. The fact that Harry is dating her daughter, and that Julian has fallen for Erica leave the two struggling to deal with relationships. Marin tells her mother that she will break up with Harry, but he ends things first. He and Erica spend more time together and eventually consummate their relationship. Harry discovers that his improving health means that he no longer has to stay with Erica, so he heads home. He and Erica share an awkward goodbye, as despite their strong feelings, Harry is clearly hesitant to enter into a relationship. Marin receives news that her father, Erica's ex-husband, whom she still allows to direct her plays, is getting remarried. Although Erica is unaffected by the news, Marin is devastated and pressures her mother into accompanying her to a family dinner. Erica is the life of the party until she sees Harry at another table with another woman. An argument follows and Erica confesses that she is in love with him, but he does not seem to reciprocate, so she ends things between them and leaves. Harry suffers from what he believes is another heart attack, but he is told by the young ER physician, Dr. Martinez (Rachel Ticotin), who treats him like her father, that it was only a panic attack. Devastated, Erica returns home where she cries almost nonstop for several weeks. She pours her heartbreak into a new play about a woman who falls in love with her daughter's boyfriend, titling it "A Woman to Love," a phrase Harry had used to describe Erica. Harry hears about it and rushes to the NYC theater where it is being rehearsed. Despite her denials, it is quickly obvious that she has used the most personal details of their affair in the play. When Harry tells her he still cares about her, she rebuffs him. After learning his character dies in the play, he suffers another panic attack. At the hospital, he is told he needs to reduce stress, and he relocates temporarily to the Bahamas. Six months pass. Erica's play is a huge success. Harry pays Marin a visit to apologize for anything he ever did to hurt her. She replies that he was nothing but nice to her and happily tells him that she is pregnant and has a new husband. Harry expresses a desire to see Erica. Marin tells him that her mother is in Paris to celebrate her birthday. Harry decides to surprise Erica. Remembering how they had once planned to spend their birthdays together there, he shows up at the Parisian restaurant where she is seated at a table. Harry explains that over the past six months he reached out to all of the women he ever had affairs with, and even though repeatedly rebuffed at first, finally broke through. They all had identical harsh stories that helped him learn how "I arrived at being me." He tells Erica that his trip to find her was the last and the farthest. Julian appears. All along, Erica has been waiting at the restaurant for Julian, whom she is now dating. Harry and Erica get along well during the dinner, but they part outside the restaurant. While he is gazing in heartache over the river Seine, Erica pulls up in a taxi. She explains that Julian figured out what was happening between them and decided to step aside to let Erica be with Harry. Harry explains that his search the last six months has made him realize he truly loves Erica. He tells her that at age 63, he is in love for the first time in his life, and they embrace. Harry and Erica kiss. A year later, at a New York restaurant, Erica and Harry, now married, are out with Marin and her husband and new baby, as one big happy family.

The movie opens with shots of a large building in Omaha, NE, called the Woodmen Building. Actuary Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson) is sitting in his dull, gray office watching the clock until it hits five. There are packed boxes all around him, implying that this is his last day at work. The clock hits five and Warren solemnly grabs his coat, turns out the lights and leaves. In the next scene, Warren is driving at night in the rain with his wife Helen to a steakhouse where his retirement party is being held. The affair is rather quiet and solemn, with the new guy replacing Warren offering a tribute and telling Warren to feel free to come down to the office any time, mentioning that he may need some help with Warren's old accounts. Warren's best friend and co-worker Ray, who is obviously inebriated, delivers an impassioned speech for his friend. Warren appears touched at the sentiment and excuses himself. He retreats to the other side of the restaurant where the bar is and orders a drink. It's obvious he is not happy to retire. When Warren and Helen return home, their daughter Jeannie calls to wish Warren well. They discuss her upcoming wedding. Before bed, Helen remarks to Warren that she wishes he would try to be more friendly to Jeannie's fiancé. In the days following Warren's retirement, he is not sure what to do with himself. Helen surprises him with breakfast in their newly purchased Winnebago, saying how much fun they are going to have traveling the country. Warren doesn't appear enthused, but puts on a smile for his wife. A visit back to the office to visit his replacement doesn't go well; the new guy brushes him off, and Warren is taken aback by it. As he leaves the building, he passes a dumpster and discovers all of his old files have been thrown away. When he gets home, however, he tells Helen that the visit went well and that the new guy needed his help. Days pass and Warren spends his time sitting in front of the TV feeling sorry for himself. As he's flipping channels he comes across a commercial for a Third World relief fund where people can "adopt" a young African child (trivia: that's Angela Lansbury's voice in the commercial). Warren makes the call. After some more days of loafing and moping around, Warren receives his packet in the mail. He has "adopted" a young Tanzanian boy named Ndugu. He is advised in the letter to write to the young boy, so he does. In the letter (done in voiceover, which is very funny), he tells Ndugu about his life, how he's been married for 42 years... and soon the letter spirals into a rant about how he was cast aside by Woodmen, how his wife is starting to annoy him, and how his daughter is about to marry a loser waterbed salesman named Randall. He goes off to mail the letter, and his wife tells him not to dilly-dally. Next we see Warren heading into a Dairy Queen, where he gets some ice cream. He comes home to find Helen unconscious on the floor. She has died. Jeannie and Randall fly in for the funeral; Warren is very happy to see her but is rather stiff toward Randall, who is just emotional over the death. After the funeral Warren's friend Ray is sobbing violently (somewhat important later). Jeannie and Randall stay for a while at Warren's house. Warren asks Jeannie to stay longer, implying that he'd like for her to take care of him, but Jeannie is adamant about getting back to Denver to plan the wedding. Warren is upset that Jeannie still wants to go through with it; he thinks she should postpone because of Helen's death, but Jeannie insists her mother would want her to get married. Jeannie then rails on Warren for buying a cheap casket, saying that Helen deserved more. Eventually Jeannie and Randall leave for Denver, telling Warren they'll see him in a few weeks. Warren writes another letter to Ndugu about Helen's death, taking back all the bad things he said about her previously. This is done in a voiceover as Warren goes through her makeup, putting on her cold cream, and going through her closets. He then opens a shoebox and finds several to letters to "My darling Helen" which were not written by him. He looks closely at the signature and realizes who his wife had an affair with. In a rage, he sweeps all of Helen's belongings into boxes and throws them into a local recycling bin. Then he drives to a barber shop. Seconds later, Ray comes out and Warren confronts him with the letters. Ray tries to explain that the affair happened 25-30 years ago, but Warren clumsily punches him anyway and drives off in a rage. Warren decides since there's nothing left at home for him, he will go to Denver early. He loads up the Winnebago and takes off. Within a few hours he calls Jeannie at a gas station pay phone to say he's coming. Jeannie freaks out, and insists he go home until it's time to come for the wedding. Warren is very upset as he hangs up, feeling unneeded. He decides to take a leisurely pace, and in another letter to Ndugu, he tells of his pathetic adventures visiting the site of his childhood home-- which is now a tire store-- and his old fraternity at the University of Kansas, where the current frat brothers do not connect with him. He goes on to visit an arrowhead museum and ruminate about Native Americans, then buys some Hummel figurines like his wife collected. He's finishing the letter to Ndugu in an RV campground just as there's a knock on his door. John Rusk, another Winnebago enthusiast, greets him and invites him over to dinner with him and his wife Vicki. John and Vicki turn out to be two unbearably perky people from Wisconsin; Warren is perplexed by them at first, but later he warms up to them. After dinner, John leaves to get some more beer, while Vicki shows Warren pictures of their family. When they are alone, Vicki makes an observation that Warren is a sad person. Warren admits this and breaks down a little bit. When he tries to kiss Vicki, she shrieks and kicks him out of her camper. Warren goes back to his Winnebago and takes off into the night, passing a confused John on the road. In an deserted spot, Warren sits on top of his Winnebago with lighted candles and the Hummels, talking to Helen and wondering what he did to drive her into an affair. He asks her forgiveness for not being a good enough husband, and sees a shooting star. The next morning he takes off, leaving the candles and figurines on the roof. One by one they slide off the roof as he drives. Warren eventually arrives in Denver at the house of Randall's mother, Roberta (the wonderful Kathy Bates). Roberta's house is full of odd decorations which match her dotty personality. She is very outgoing and Warren seems somewhat frightened of her. Jeannie and Randall arrive, and Warren tries to get Jeannie alone to tell her to call off the wedding, but she is too busy. Dinner is a tense event. Roberta and Randall's father (her ex) Larry (an almost unrecognizable Howard Hesseman) snipe at each other. Randall's brother Duncan acts like a zombie, and Warren is watching everything and wondering why he is there. After dinner he finally gets Jeannie alone and begs her not to marry Randall, saying she deserves better. Jeannie tears into him, saying he was never there for her in the past but now wants to run her life. She says she will marry Randall, and Warren will come to the wedding and deal with it. Warren is very hurt at her behavior. Warren is given Randall's old room, equipped with a waterbed. He looks around to see Randall's honorable mention trophies and participant certificates (to enhance just how average the guy is). Warren wakes up the next morning with his back out of whack from sleeping on the bed. Jeannie thinks he's faking it and is furious. Roberta becomes Warren's nursemaid. Very funny scene follows as Roberta feeds him soup for lunch and goes into detail about Jeannie and Randall's sex life. Warren is very uncomfortable, and Roberta gives him some Percodan to get him through the rehearsal. At the rehearsal, Warren is completely stoned but gets through it and the dinner. Roberta takes him home and puts him in the hot tub. Here Warren is finally relaxed, until Roberta comes out. She disrobes and goes down into the tub with him (she's completely naked, he's wearing swim trunks). Roberta slowly hits on Warren, making him so distraught that he soon leaves to retreat to his Winnebago, where he spends the night. The next day is the wedding, which goes off without a hitch. Warren is restrained throughout the whole ceremony and reception. After Randall's best man gives the speech, he hands the mic over to Warren. Jeannie appears nervous, but Warren goes into a speech, then pauses. He mentions Helen dying and delivers an impassioned speech about how Helen wanted to see Jeannie happy. He then offers a nice tribute to Roberta and Larry, as well as Larry's wife, and even finds something nice to say about Duncan. The crowd applauds and Warren retreats immediately to the men's room to control himself. The reception goes on gaily. Another letter to Ndugu in voiceover as Warren drives home. He writes about the wedding and how Jeannie and Randall are in Orlando on his nickel, and that there's nothing he can do about her life anymore. On his trip home east, Warren stops at a museum and marvels at the courageous journeys pioneers had made going west, prompting him to ponder what he has accomplished in the direction of his life. He is depressed that he hasn't made one bit of difference to anybody, that he hasn't done anything important. He returns home; the house is a mess and there's a huge pile of mail behind the door. Warren quietly collects everything and goes to his den to sift through it. He finds a letter from a nun who works at Ndugu's orphanage, and she explains that Ndugu cannot yet read or write, but he enjoys Warren's letters, and he likes to paint. A picture by Ndugu for Warren in enclosed in the letter, and Warren unfolds it to see two smiling stick figures holding hands (one child and one adult, apparently Warren and Ndugu). Warren breaks down and cries, realizing that he indeed has made a difference in somebody's life.

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.

May 10th, 1996. Earth is visited by a massive fleet of thousands of flying saucers from Mars. President of the United States James Dale (Jack Nicholson) addresses the people of the United States. General Decker wants to go to war, but General Casey argues that there is no conclusive evidence of the aliens visiting with hostile intentions. Donald Kessler the scientific advisor also argues that an advanced civilization, by definition, is not barbaric. Jerry Ross (Martin Short) is Dale's Press Secretary, who is shown to hire prostitutes to satisfy his sexual desires. Talk show host Nathalie Lake (Sarah Jessica Parker) and her boyfriend, news reporter Jason Stone (Michael J. Fox), attempt to capitalize on the developing story with an interview with Dale's scientific advisor Professor Donald Kessler (Pierce Brosnan) on May 11th, which is unexpectedly interrupted by a broadcast from the Martian leader. Kessler admits to Nathalie that he has feelings for her. As the Martians prepare to land outside Pahrump, Nevada, on May 13th numerous people around the country react, including donuts shop employee Richie Norris (Lukas Haas) and his older brother Billy-Glenn (Jack Black), flamboyant casino operator Art Land (Jack Nicholson) (owner of the Galaxy casino) and his hippie wife Barbara (Annette Bening), divorced ex-boxer Byron Williams (Jim Brown) and his former wife Louise (Pam Grier), and Byron and Louise's children Cedric (Ray J) and Neville (Brandon Hammond). Billy volunteers for the army. Richie is asked by his parents to drop his grandmother to her retirement home. Byron works as a prop in a casino in Vegas and Louise is a public bus driver in Washington DC. Byron is looking to take leave to go back to his family in Washington. Barbara is a climate activist and believes that the Martians have come to save the planet. Against the advice of the hawkish General Decker (Rod Steiger), Dale chooses to greet the Martians as foreign dignitaries, ordering military officer General Casey (Paul Winfield) to welcome them to Earth. General Casey never really voices any opinion, and just stands there waiting for things to happen to him, which has been the secret to his success. Billy-Glenn, a private in the US Army, is among the soldiers who volunteers to accompany Casey as he greets the Martians in Nevada. The Government had developed a translator to help in communicating with the Martians. Despite the translated message from the Martian ambassador stating that the Martians "come in peace", the ambassador sees a hippie release a dove into the air and kills it with his ray gun. The Martians then turn on the assembled crowd and attack them with their ray guns, killing Casey, Jason, and Billy-Glenn, and abducting Nathalie and her pet chihuahua Poppy. Kessler convinces Dale that the Martians' attack in Nevada may have been the result of a cultural misunderstanding, and Dale agrees to let the Martian ambassador address Congress after the Martians issue a formal apology for their actions. Meanwhile, the Martians are shown to be laughing maniacally on their flying saucers, while conducting experiments on the captured humans and other life forms. Once again, the Martians turn on the assembled humans, massacring most of Congress and abducting Kessler. While Nathalie and Kessler are held captive in the Martian mothership, the Martians switch Nathalie and Poppy's heads and reduce Kessler to a disembodied head. Dale still refuses to launch nuclear weapons at the Martians, even though General Decker insists that they are already at war. Dale narrowly survives an assassination attempt by a Martian disguised as an attractive blonde woman (Lisa Marie), who infiltrates the White House by seducing and killing his press secretary, after he mistakes the Martian for a prostitute and gives her entry into the White House. Following the assassination attempt, the Martians commence a full-scale invasion of Earth, attacking major cities throughout the world. When Martian soldiers overrun the White House, First Lady Marsha (Glenn Close) Dale is killed by a falling chandelier as President Dale escapes to the PEOC. Cedric and Neville were at the White House as part of a public tour, and they pick up the alien guns and start shooting back to allow the President to escape. Art is killed when the Martians destroy his casino in Las Vegas. In Las Vegas, Barbara prepares to flee to Tahoe in Art's private plane and offers to let Byron accompany her. They are joined by Byron's co-worker Cindy (Janice Rivera) and guest singer Tom Jones, who offers to pilot the plane. Meanwhile, Richie abandons his parents Glenn (Joe Don Baker) & Sue-Ann (O-Lan Jones) in their mobile home and goes to his grandmother Florence's (Sylvia Sidney) retirement home to escort her to safety, leaving his parents to be killed by a Martian piloting a giant robot. At the retirement home, the Martians' brains explode when they hear Florence's record of Slim Whitman's yodeling on "Indian Love Call", revealing one of their only weaknesses. Eventually, Martian soldiers breach Dale's secure bunker, crushing Decker after reducing him to minuscule size with a shrink ray, then leveling their weapons on everyone else in the bunker, causing many to be killed while others flee the bunker, leaving Dale the last alive in the room. He makes an eloquent, impassioned speech exhorting the Martians to make peace with humanity, but the now teary-eyed Martian leader kills him with a fake-hand-prank device after offering a handshake. Barbara, Byron, Cindy, and Jones reach Art's plane, but find the runway overrun by a group of Martians led by the Martian ambassador. To buy time for his companions to escape, Byron steps forward to challenge the ambassador to a boxing match and beats him to death before being seemingly overrun by Martians as the plane takes off. Around the world, the Martians are defeated as humans play "Indian Love Call" to destroy them, resulting in Kessler, Nathalie and Poppy's death as the ship they are on crashes. In the aftermath of the war with the Martians, the Dales' teenage daughter Taffy (Natalie Portman) awards the Medal of Honor to Richie and Florence. In Washington, D.C., Byron-who survived his encounter with the Martians-walks up to Louise's home to greet his family. In Tahoe, Barbara, Cindy, and Jones emerge unharmed from a cavern.

Freddy Gale is a seedy jeweller who has sworn to kill the drunk driver who killed his little girl. After his daughter died in a hit and run, Freddy Gale has waited six years for John Booth, the man responsible, to be released from prison. On the day of release, Gale visits Booth and announces that he will kill him in one week. Booth uses his time to try and make peace with himself and his entourage, and even finds romance. Gale, whose life is spiraling down because of his obsession towards Booth, will bring himself on the very edge of sanity. At the end of the week, both men will find themselves on a collision course with each other. Freddy Gale's life was never the same after his little girl was killed in a hit and run accident. With his life descending into debauchery and deep personal loathing, Freddy is a man full of hatred for he and the very man who took his daughter's life. That man is John Booth, the one who was behind the wheel that served his sentence. A changed man with regret, John is ready to piece his life together. But Freddy has different plans and gives John one week before fate intervenes. As both men are headed for a dreadful date, they're forced to confront the demons of their past. —mystic80

Will Randall (Jack Nicholson), an editor-in-chief of a large, New York City publishing house, is driving home to Manhattan from Vermont on a cold March night. The road is quite dark and icy and he hits a large wolf with his car. While he inspects the wolf's body and tries to drag it off the road, the uninjured wolf, playing dead, suddenly bites him and trots off. Will walks slowly back to his car, noticing that several other wolves are watching him in the woods nearby, their yellow eyes glowing in the dark. Will makes it back home to his penthouse and his wife, Charlotte. He ends up sleeping for some 20 hours, waking up only when Charlotte comes home in the evening. They have dinner together and Will becomes very passionate with her, to her sly delight. When he returns to his office, he notices that his sense of smell is greatly enhanced; he can smell tequila on a coworker's breath as he passes him and hear every conversation going on among the office's other employees. Will is also able to edit a manuscript quickly and without his glasses. Will's new boss, Raymond Alden (Christopher Plummer), a rich tycoon who has bought the publishing house, throws a lavish dinner party at his Long Island estate. He tells Will that he's demoted as chief editor and his replacement will be Will's protégé, Stewart Swinton (James Spader). Raymond offers Will a job as editor in Easter Europe. While stalking away from the meeting with Raymond, Will gets too close to a few prized horses Raymond is showing and they become spooked. Will also feels pain in his chest like a heart attack and is forced to sit down near a guest house. While he recovers, he meets Alden's headstrong daughter Laura (Michelle Pfeiffer), who is polite but sullen and withdrawn. She comforts him with a glass of liquor and firmly rebuffs Will's advances. Will rejoins Charlotte and Stewart and genially congratulates the latter on his promotion. Stewart, feigning incredulity, claims he had no knowledge of Raymond's decision until right before the party. Will and Charlotte drive home, both seething over the turn of events. At home later, with Charlotte out of town for work, Will takes several deep sniffs of a robe. He becomes very agitated and goes to Stewart's apartment. Steward lets Will in the building, tries to grab him to talk to reason with him and Will bites him viciously on the arm. Will jumps up the grand staircase to Stewart's apartment with seemingly superhuman agility and finds Charlotte there. Will stalks off without another word, leaving his wife unharmed. Will checks into Manhattan's Mayflower Hotel. The next day he consults his secretary Mary (Eileen Atkins) and his assistant Roy (David Hyde Pierce) and plots to draw his and Roy's clients into a new firm with new investors, a move that Will hasn't backed up with a shred of truth, much to the admiration of Mary and Roy. Will drives out to Raymond's estate again to tell him he's turning down the position in Eastern Europe. While leaving, Will sees Laura again, riding a horse nearby. The horse is spooked when it sees Will and throws Laura off. Raymond suddenly appears and, upon finding out that Laura is unharmed, takes another opportunity to slag Will, saying that he doesn't approve of Laura getting involved with Will. She turns down her father's offer of lunch and takes Will back to the guest house she's staying in. The two talk over peanut butter and jelly and wander around the estate. Will tells her about his encounter with the wolf and how he believes he might be becoming one. He feels sick again and lays down in her house while she tends to him. During the night he wakes up, clearly showing characteristics of a wolf and bounds out, hunting down a deer and killing it. In the morning Will finds himself on the bank of a stream, with blood all over his face and hands. He leaves immediately and sees his doctor, who tells him he's fine. Laura, believing Will had left her cold, refuses to take Will's calls. Will visits Dr. Vijav Alezais (Om Puri), a professor specializing in the supernatural. Alezais tells him that the wolf that bit Will was not a true werewolf but a demon wolf that simply passes the spirit of an animal on to it's victims. He also suggests that this spirit can be transmitted to another person simply through passion and that not all wolf spirits are evil, they are manipulated by the nature of the individual. The professor gives Will an amulet to protect him from turning completely into a wolf. Alezais also asks Will to bite him, as Alezais does not have long to live, and would prefer "demonization to death." After refusing, Randall keeps the amulet so that he won't transform at the next full moon. Calling Laura to explain, Randall, now a wolf, breaks into the Central Park Zoo and steals handcuffs from a policeman (David Schwimmer) who tries to arrest him. In another area of the park, muggers want his wallet, but he attacks and leaves one of them alive. He wakes up in his hotel, with no memory of what happened. Will outmanoeuvres Raymond and Stewart with his threat of stealing the publishing house's biggest authors. He finagles a new contract that will let him stay editor-in-chief and grant him a larger salary and greater authority. Raymond also grants him the opportunity to fire Stewart. The two meet in the men's room and although Stewart begs Will for a second chance, Will still fires him, urinating on his shoes. While washing his hands, he finds fingers in his handkerchief and realizes he killed someone, at least one of the muggers in Central Park. Will's biting of Steward when he discovered his affair with Charlotte has consequences. Stewart attacks and kills Charlotte and sets about framing Will for the murder. Will, who believes he's become too dangerous, handcuffs himself to the radiator in his hotel room and waits for Laura to arrive. She frees him against his objections and Will finally puts on the amulet Alezais had given him. The two spend the night together, having sex. The next day they both hear about Charlotte's murder and Will insists Laura take him to her father's estate and lock him in the horse stables. Laura gets a call from a Detective (Richard Jenkins), the chief investigator of Charlotte's death. He tells her that canine DNA was found on Charlotte's body. Alarmed, Laura goes to the police station. There she runs into Stewart, who makes an animal-like pass at her. Laura hurries away, making arrangements for her and Will to leave the country. Stewart follows her, viciously kills the two security guards on the property and attacks Laura, trying to rape her in front of Will in the stables. Will tears off the amulet, succumbs to the full power of the wolf and escapes confinement, attacking Stewart. The two fight ferociously until Stewart is shot to death by Laura when he tries to stab Will with a pair of garden shears. Will and Laura stare at each other, Will is frightened to touch her due his monstrous state. She looks at him with a loving glance and takes his hand but he still runs off, hiding in the woods where he makes a final transformation. Later, Jenkins arrives. Laura shows heightened senses while talking to the detective and the police that accompanied him, telling the detective that she can smell vodka on his breath. The final scene is a close-up of her face fading into dark, lupine eyes, and a close up of Will completing his transformation into a full werewolf.

A young Navy lawyer, Daniel Kaffee risks his career to uncover the truth during a military trial where two Marines are accused of murdering a member of their platoon.

The sequel to Chinatown (1974) finds J.J. "Jake" Gittes investigating adultery and murder, and the money that comes from oil. Private detective Jake Gittes has a new client. Jake Berman believes his wife is cheating on him and wants Gittes and his associates to catch her in the act. Everything appears to be going according to plan until Berman shoots the man dead. It should be an open-and-shut case but now Gittes is drawn into a complex web that involves far more than infidelity. —grantss After the war, L.A. private eye Jake Gittes is hired by realtor Jake Berman. He proves the infidelity of Berman's wife Kitty and sets up a way for her to be caught in the act. At the rendezvous, Berman shoots the co-respondent who turns out to be his business partner. Gittes finds himself in the middle of a complicated web, under pressure from all sides for a wire recording of the fatal encounter. He then realises that the land the partners were developing was once an orange grove connected with a case that he has never quite gotten over. —Jeremy Perkins {J-26}

An alcoholic drifter spends Halloween in his hometown of Albany, New York after returning there for the first time in decades. Albany, New York, Halloween 1938. Francis Phelan and Helen Archer are bums, back in their birth city. He was a Major League pitcher; she was a singer on the radio. Death surrounds them: she's sick, a pal has cancer, he digs graves at the cemetery and visits the grave of his infant son whom he dropped; visions of his past haunt him, including ghosts of two men he killed. That night, out drinking, Helen tries to sing at a bar. The next day, Fran visits his wife and children and meets his grandson. He could stay, but decides it's not for him. Helen gets their things out of storage and finds a hotel. Amidst their mistakes and dereliction, the film explores their code of fairness and loyalty. —<jhailey@hotmail.com>

Alexandra Medford, Jane Spofford and Sukie Ridgemont are three dissatisfied women living in the small town of Eastwick, New England. Alexandra is a sculptress and single mother, Jane is a newly divorced music teacher incapable of having children, and Sukie is an extremely fertile woman with six children and also works as a journalist at the "Eastwick Word". Besides an everlasting friendship, these three women share similar misfortunes of being abandoned by their husbands. Not knowing of themselves as being Witches, the women unwittingly form a coven of which consists of weekly get-togethers, during which they drink, play cards, and share their fantasies about ideal men. The day after one such meeting, a mysterious man arrives in the town and immediately stirs up trouble by buying the city's landmark property, the Lennox mansion. The arrival of this enigmatic stranger causes fascination among the townfolks, all except local townswoman Felicia Alden, the Christian wife of newspaper editor Clyde Alden. Clyde is the boss of Sukie (who Felicia does not like). Although Felicia is not a Witch, she is somehow able to sense that this man, whose name is easily forgotten by everyone, is up to no good. One night, at Jane's music recital, the man appears and makes a spectacle of himself, which leads to more gossip among the people. After the recital Jane receives flowers and a personal note from the man, signed with the initial "D". This then sparks Sukie's memory, finally revealing the man's name to be Daryl Van Horne. At the very moment of Sukie remembering his name, her beaded necklace inexplicably breaks and falls to the floor, causing Felicia, who had mocked Daryl's name, to trip down a large staircase, breaking her leg. Daryl begins to seduce the women one by one, beginning with self-assured Alexandra, who is at first appalled by his arrogance and bravado, but then allows him into her heart. He moves on to Jane, who is seen as being very shy and reserved. Jane explains to Daryl that the home he lives in was once said to be an area where people were burned alive after being accused of witchcraft. Daryl then encourages Jane to stop living a life of doubt and learn to enjoy herself. She takes his advice and begins to act and live recklessly. The next day Daryl invites all three women over to the mansion, which allows him to finally turn his attentions on Sukie. A jealous rivalry emerges between the women, leading to a supernatural game of tennis, where the tennis ball begins to behave oddly--floating, stopping in mid-air--in response to their mood. This shared telekinesis reveals to the women their magical abilities. The women decide to forgo competition and share Daryl, and have the most fun they've ever had in their entire lives. Their frequent presence at Daryl's mansion leads to gossip and rumors spread by Felicia. Alex, Sukie, and Jane become outcasts of the city; the women of Eastwick acknowledge the trio with nasty looks and snotty comments. The Witches begin to have second thoughts on whether or not they should continue to see each other, which then motivates Daryl into causing the girls to unknowingly cast a spell on Felicia, causing her to projectile vomit cherry stones. Felicia is finally killed by husband, who beats her with a fire poker after being horrified when seeing his wife so incredibly ill. Terrified of the dangerous effects of their relationship with Daryl, they agree among each other to never see Daryl or each other for a long period of time. This upsets Daryl, causing him to use his powers against the girls, bringing their worst fears to life. Alex awakens into a bed of snakes, Jane begins to lose her youth transforming into a old woman, and Sukie is forced to feel intense pain. The women reconcile with Daryl in order to get in his good graces again. Realizing that the only way to rid Daryl from their lives is by using Witchcraft against him, the girls trick Daryl into going to town for a while as they practice a banishing spell to make him go away forever. Sukie goes to Daryl's office and takes a spell book he kept locked in a glass chest. Jane gathered some of Daryl's personal belongings such as hair, clothing, and pictures of him. Alex created a Voodoo doll out of wax that resembled Daryl. Meanwhile, as Daryl was in town shopping for the girls, he began to feel painful sharp aches in his body from the girls sticking pins and needles into the doll. Daryl becomes infuriated with the girls betrayal, and as he made his way home, Daryl's devilish figure was beginning to reveal itself more and more. Now terrified of what Daryl is capable of doing to them, the girls throw the Voodoo into the flames of a fire then causing Daryl to disappear. Eighteen months later, Alex, Jane, and Sukie are now the mothers of Daryl's sons. They still have their Magic powers and they now live together in Daryl's mansion. Daryl appears on television screen and talks to the boys, but the women catch him and turn the TV off.

She's a magazine writer who gives up her career for love and family. He's a playboy newspaper columnist who can't quite give up his old tricks. And if that combination doesn't give a relationship Heartburn, nothing will. An autobiographical look at the break-up of screenwriter Nora Ephron's marriage to Carl "All the President's Men" Bernstein that was also a best-selling novel. The Ephron character, Rachel Samstat (Meryl Streep), is a food writer at a New York City magazine who meets Washington, D.C. columnist Mark Forman (Jack Nicholson) at a wedding and ends up falling in love with him despite her reservations about marriage. They buy a house, have a daughter, and Rachel thinks they are living happily ever after until she discovers that Mark is having an affair while she is waddling around with a second pregnancy. —Lisa Todorovich Rachel Samstat (Meryl Streep) and Mark Forman (Jack Nicholson) meet at a mutual friend's wedding, go to bed, and get married shortly afterwards. She works in publishing in New York City, and he is a successful Washington, D.C. columnist, who is always using his friends and social life as material for his column. All goes well initially with the marriage, despite the fact they endure several months of renovation by incompetent builders on their Washington, D.C. house. A child is born, Mark proves himself a fond father, and another baby is soon on the way. Then Rachel discovers that Mark has been having an affair with one of their circle. Heavily pregnant, she briefly returns to her father's house in New York City. Mark comes after her. He says he loves her and asks her to return to him. —Tiff Banks

At a christening ceremony in a Mexican church, the walls shake and the building collapses when a sudden earthquake strikes. While men clear the rubble, one of the survivors, a 19-year-old Mexican girl named Maria (Elpidia Carrillo), carries her baby and follows her younger brother, Juan (Manuel Viescars), through the wreckage. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, California, immigration Officer Charlie Smith (Jack Nicholson) arbitrarily arrests two Mexican workers from a factory. Later, Charlie returns to his run-down trailer home where his wife, Marcy (Valerie Perrine), tells him that she wishes to buy a duplex in El Paso, Texas, next door to her friend, Savannah (Shannon Wilcox). Charlie muses over the idea of changing careers and working with park services, but Marcy believes it would be a mistake. As Charlie and Marcy move to El Paso, Maria, Juan, and the baby reach the U.S.-Mexico border. Charlie and Marcy meet Savannah, her husband, Cat (Harvey Keitel), and their young son Timmy (Jay Thurman) at the house. Inside, Savannah and Marcy laugh remembering their days as high school cheerleaders. After Cat has Charlie outfitted for his uniform as a border patrolman, Charlie's new partner, Hawker (Alan Fudge), drives him around the three-mile-long "Tortilla Curtain" border fence, where they encounter a group of young Mexicans sneaking across. Because Hawker identifies them as day workers sneaking into the U.S. for the workday before returning to Mexico at night, he lets them get away. That night, Hawker and Charlie respond to an urgent call, and Hawker is shot and killed by an armed illegal immigrant. The next day at border patrol headquarters, Charlie meets Red (Warren Oates), the patrol supervisor, and attends Hawker's funeral. Later, Charlie walks along the Rio Grande River and becomes transfixed when he spots Maria holding her baby. Charlie returns home to find that, to his annoyance, Marcy purchased a waterbed and opened a charge account at the local mall. In the desert, Cat and Charlie arrest a Mexican man smuggling cocaine and load a group of immigrants into a van to drive them back across the border. Among them, Charlie recognizes Maria, but when he approaches her, she spits in his face. After Charlie locks the drug smuggler in a cell at patrol headquarters, Cat sends the patrol's Mexican contact, Manuel (Mike Gomez), to speak with the criminal. Later, Cat suggests that Charlie participate in his and Red's scheme; smuggling immigrants for extra money, but Charlie refuses. At home, Marcy tells her husband that she wants to work on television and he discovers that she installed a swimming pool. At the Rio Grande river border, Charlie calls out to a woman he believes to be Maria, but is mistaken. He crosses the water into Mexico and walks through a poor village, where he finds the drug smuggling boy with his throat slit. Back in Texas at Red's birthday party, Charlie tells Cat and Red about the body, suspecting Manuel of suspicious dealings. Cat dismisses the idea and Red banishes Charlie from crossing the border again. One night, Charlie and Cat attempt to stop a group of Mexicans, including Maria and her brother, from hopping onto a freight train. When Juan falls under the train, Charlie jumps under the train to protect him. While detained in an outdoor holding cell, a woman offers to hold Maria's child and scuttles off to hand the baby to Manuel. Maria realizes the baby is gone and begins to cry, prompting an uprising from the other detainees, who break out of their cage. The patrolmen use tear gas to control the crowd and load the detainees on a bus to drive them back to Mexico. That night, Cat confronts Manuel about the stolen baby and Manuel reveals that he sold the child to a wealthy Caucasian family. As they talk, they see El Scorcho, a man with a burned face who traffics Mexicans in competition with their own arrangement. Charlie wakes up the next morning to the sounds of Marcy moving more furniture into the house. Fed up with her excessive spending to build him the perfect "dream house," he slaps her. Charlie and Cat visit J. J. (Jeff Morris), whose house acts as a delivery station for smuggled immigrants. As Charlie waits outside, J. J. hands Cat a stack of money. During a pool party at the Smiths' house, Savannah drunkenly starts a food fight, prompting Marcy to scream. Amidst the chaos, Charlie dumps a grill full of burning meat into the pool. One afternoon, Charlie catches El Scorcho with a truckload of Mexicans. Cat suddenly arrives and takes El Scorcho back toward the station, but Jack hears two gunshots from the direction in which Cat drove away. At the station, Charlie yells at Cat that he does not want to get involved with murder. Marcy gets her hair done at the salon and worriedly tells Savannah that she does not know how to make Charlie happy. Outside a bar another night later, Charlie pays Juan $5 to take him to Maria and finds her in a strip club, where she works as a dancer for Manuel. When he tries to lead her away, two men beat Charlie up and throw him outside. The next day, Manuel warns Cat that Charlie will get them into trouble. As Charlie chases a driver through the desert, he fails to notice two Mexicans who are being transported. Cat watches the incident from a distance. When the driver confesses to transporting two men, Charlie returns to the site to check again. Inside the driver's vehicle, he finds their bloody bodies, which he swears had not been there before. Cat insists he will cover for Charlie and they sink the car in a nearby pond. Charlie again asks Juan to take him to see Maria and informs them that he will help smuggle them across the border the next day. He insists that she does not owe him anything, and that helping them would allow him to feel good about something in his life. The next night, Charlie watches as Maria, Juan, and a group of others safely cross the Rio Grande. Outside J. J.'s house, Maria's group boards a truck and Charlie and Cat take their payment for the delivery. However, Juan is shot for attempting to smuggle drugs, and he runs away. Two patrolmen notice the truck on the highway and follow in pursuit. Charlie hears the call on his patrol radio and, concerned about Maria, drives to catch up with them. Gaining speed, the truck loses control and crashes on a hillside. Charlie takes Maria home and asks Marcy to tend to the girl while he returns to J. J.'s house to look for Juan. Once there, he overhears Red talking with J. J., explaining how the heist went wrong. Charlie returns home to take Maria back to Mexico, but Marcy believes he is leaving her. Although he and Maria find Juan, bloody and feverish, he dies shortly after. As Maria prays over her brother's body, Manuel and J. J. prowl outside and Charlie shoots J. J. in the face. Charlie finds Manuel at a bar and demands he return the baby, who has not yet been sold, to Maria. At the house where the baby is hidden, Charlie finds the infant buried in a laundry basket, and Manuel calls the patrolmen. On the road, Cat and a few other officers shoot at Charlie as he drives by. Charlie gets out of his vehicle and fires at the officers, exploding their car, and Cat hides under a bulldozer. Charlie shoots the tire, which deflates and causes the oversize vehicle to crush Cat to death. Charlie returns to the Rio Grande crossing and delivers the baby to Maria, who thanks him through her tears.

A radical American journalist becomes involved with the Communist revolution in Russia, and hopes to bring its spirit and idealism to the United States. American journalist John Reed journeys to Russia to document the Bolshevik Revolution and returns a revolutionary. His fervor for left-wing politics leads him to Louise Bryant, then married, who will become a feminist icon and activist. Politics at home become more complicated as the rift grows between reality and Reed's ideals. Bryant takes up with a cynical playwright, and Reed returns to Russia, where his health declines. —Jwelch5742 The joint lives of journalists and activists John Reed - referred to as Jack in familiar circumstances - and Louise Bryant from 1915 to 1920 are presented, the former who, at the time of the making of this movie, is the only American to be buried at the Kremlin in a place of honor. In their life together, they are sometimes friends, sometimes lovers, sometimes spouses, but always idealists who hold steadfast to their beliefs. They initially meet in Portland, Oregon in 1915 when Jack returns to his hometown on a speaking engagement, he already a well known "liberal" journalist writing about how the working class is paying the price for the elitists calling the shots in the war, with Louise the repressed wife of dentist Paul Trullinger, she who has dabbled in journalism as a means of independence from her traditional life. She is protective about her writing and how to get her point of view across, which often does not mesh even with those who may agree with that point of view. Jack and Louise attracted to each other sexually and emotionally, he asks her to return to New York with him both to be with him and to give her the freedom to write what she really wants. In New York, they associate with Jack's friends - who include among others playwright Eugene O'Neill and writer/activist Emma Goldman - who largely dismiss Louise as a lightweight, just the latest of Jack's girlfriends, and/or solely, in the minds of many of the men, a sexual being to be exploited. Despite their relationship/marriage largely at its end, Jack is able to convince Louise to travel to Russia with him in 1917 to report on and be involved with the Bolshevik Revolution, which Jack feels could be the impetus for the end of the war, and if successful, a model for the American working class. It ends up being a game changer in their lives, for Jack seeing the success of the working class, and for Louise being caught up in the fervor of true idealism coming to fruition regardless of the specific issue. The Revolution will have an impact on their lives in a different way as a possible cause of them never seeing each other again, as (1) it causes Russia to be an isolated nation, (2) the scourge of Communism, Jack who is largely seen as the face of it in the US, being something that most in the mainstream of American life would like to see eradicated, and (3) Communism in Russia not being true to the academic definition of the term and perhaps not quite what Jack or his socialist associates in the US had envisioned. Through it all, an issue in the background but one that plays an integral part of their story is Jack's poor health, something that he does little to improve or care for in his goal of forwarding his leftist ideals. Interspersed with the dramatization of Jack and Louise's life are current day interviews with real life players who knew Jack and/or Louise, or who knew of the issues with which they were dealing. —Huggo Based on the true story of Jack Reed (played by Warren Beatty) and Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton), two American socialists and writers. During WW1 they actively campaigned for and wrote about socialist causes. When the news of the Russian Revolution broke this was seen as the chance for socialism to gain a greater foothold and popularity. Reed went to Russia to see what could be learned from the revolution and took the ideas back to the US, forming the Communist Labor Party of America. Things weren't all plain-sailing though, both in the relationship between Reed and Bryant and in politics. —grantss This movie tells the true story of John Reed , a radical American journalist around the time of World War I. He soon meets Louise Bryant, a respectable married woman, who dumps her husband for Reed and becomes an important feminist and radical in her own right. After involvement with labor and political disputes in the US, they go to Russia in time for the October Revolution in 1917, when the Communists siezed power. Inspired, they return to the US, hoping to lead a similar revolution. A particularly fascinating aspect of the movie is the inclusion of interviews with "witnesses", the real-life surviving participants in the events of the movie. —Reid Gagle

Jack Torrance, along with his troubled wife and son, settles down in an isolated overlooked hotel in Colorado, where he works as a caretaker hoping to cure his writer`s block. Soon, his wife`s psychic premonitions trouble his son and he transpires to a homicidal maniac trying to terrorize his own family.

Due to the lack of men after the Civil War, a western town allows a young bachelorette who lives alone to save a thief from hanging by marrying him. They must deal with his old gang, the Sheriff, the railroad, a gold mine, and each other. Texas, shortly after the Civil War. Henry Moon is an outlaw, on the run from the law. He is captured trying to escape to Mexico and taken back to town to be hanged. The town has a special law that a condemned man can walk free if one of the single women of the town offer to marry him. Henry is in luck - at the last moment Julia Tate offers to marry him, and pretty soon they are married. However, Henry soon discovers that Julia's motives are purely business-orientated - she needs someone to work the mine on her property. This makes for a very cold marriage. —grantss Henry Moon is captured for a capital offense by a posse when his horse quits while trying to escape to Mexico. He finds that there is a post-Civil War law in the small town that any single or widowed woman can save him from the gallows by marrying him. Julia Tate needs a man to help her work her mine and marries him. The sheriff makes it very clear to Moon what the consequences of his leaving Julia will be. The two begin to try to form a relationship based on necessity in which they have nothing in common. —John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net>

The action takes place in Montana in the 1880s among the tributary streams that eventually flow together into the Missouri River, an area known as the Missouri Breaks. Tom Logan, (Jack Nicholson) is the likable leader of an amiable gang of horse thieves. They make their living stealing horses or rustling cattle from ranchers, laughing all the way, spending their money on whiskey and whores. Logan and his gang are particularly upset by the hanging of a friend by rancher David Braxton (John McLiam), an egomaniacal gay local land baron who took the law into his own hands. Braxton has horses, and a daughter, worth stealing. Logan's men pull off a daring train robbery, only to lose much of the money. The gang retaliates against Braxton by hanging his foreman Pete Marker (Richard Bradford) on the same noose. Posing as an aspiring cattle rancher, Logan buys an abandoned ranch next to Braxton's to serve as a relay station for moving stolen horses across the plains. While his men ride off across the Missouri River and north of the border to steal Canadian Mounted Police horses, Logan plants crops at their new farm and enters into a relationship with Braxton's virginal daughter, Jane (Kathleen Lloyd). He knows how to court a woman by brewing Chinese tea in the Wild West. Jane is on bad terms with her father and has taken a shine to Logan in any event, seems to be fascinated by the bad guys and demands sex, saying: "Do you want to have sexual intercourse?" while flirting with Logan. Braxton, obsessed with his rustling problem, his daughter, and avenging his friend's murder, sends for Robert E. Lee Clayton (Marlon Brando), a notorious regulator from Medicine Hat, Wyoming, who, for a price, will take care of rustlers personally, one at a time. Regulators were mercenary frontier agents famous for their ruthlessness and their ability to kill without warning from long distances with their trademark Creekmore rifles. Clayton arrives with a fancy wardrobe, a perfumed scent, an Irish brogue and a rifle with which he is deadly accurate from afar. Clayton bursts in on the funeral of the murdered foreman dressed like a western dandy in fringed leather coat and scarf, bellowing and yanking the corpse up out of the open casket to borrow a few of the ice cubes used to keep the body from decomposing as a compress for a tooth-ache. Clayton is portrayed comically, but he is a sadistic, perverse, and psychotic killer who comes across as much more lawless than the criminals he's hunting. Quickly suspicious of Logan, who doesn't strike him as much of a farmer, Clayton dons a variety of disguises to pick off Logan's gang, one by one. Impersonating a preacher "Jim Ferguson," Clayton tries to cajole Little Todd into confessing that he is part of the gang. He kills Todd by dragging him with a rope through the raging Missouri, seemingly aware of the fact that Todd cannot swim. Clayton spies on Logan with binoculars and taunts Braxton about his daughter's affair with a horse thief. Braxton attempts to discharge him but Clayton is determined to finish what he starts. He amuses himself by shooting two more of Logan's partners from a distance and then by wearing a granny dress while brutally killing Logan's closest friend, Cal (Harry Dean Stanton) with a handmade weapon. Logan knows it's kill or be killed by Clayton. He also wants vengeance against Braxton for having hired the regulator in the first place, despite his feelings for Jane. Now it's up to Logan to hunt down Clayton. One night after a campfire goes dark with Clayton serenading his horse, Logan gets his revenge catching up with him while he's asleep and then slitting his throat: "You know what woke you up? You just had your throat cut!" Logan then comes after Braxton. There's a shootout where Braxton, who everyone now believes is infirm with a stroke, pulls out a gun while he's sitting in a wheelchair and shoots the unawares Logan. Logan then shoots back killing Braxton. Logan abandons his farm and packs up to leave the area and Jane, although he acknowledges that he and Jane might renew their relationship another time, another place.

Two bumbling hustlers in the 1920s attempt to gain the fortune of an heiress. Nothing will stop them, not even murder. The early 1900s with its Mann Act (disallowing women to be transported across state lines for immoral reasons) brings a married man to devise a scheme for taking his upper-class girlfriend away with him. He simply has her marry his unmarried buddy. However, it doesn't take very long before both men start laying claim to her affection. Until, that is, she's about to be cut out of her parents' fortune. So, a new scheme is devised, which only adds to their problems, as well as to the sly whimsy of this movie. —BOB STEBBINS <stebinsbob@aol.com> It's sometime in the 1920s, when it is illegal, as per the Mann Act, for a man to transport a woman across state lines for immoral purposes, which is what married Nicky Stumpo wants to do with Freddie Bigard. Since he can't marry her himself for that purpose of crossing the state line, Nicky instead enlists his friend Oscar Sullivan, who is trying to evade the local police for embezzlement, to marry Freddie instead. The three, who plan to live together, will masquerade as an extended family under assumed surnames, Freddie and Oscar indeed married, with Nicky Freddie's brother, while behind closed doors Oscar will be the platonic third wheel in Nicky and Freddie's love nest. Although he is purportedly doing it for love, Nicky really wants access to Freddie's money, she being an heiress to a fortune about which Nicky tries to convince Oscar is untrue. The situation becomes more complicated with the combination of Oscar wanting to have his own way with Freddie, as he also does confirm Freddie's own personal wealth, and as Freddie informs her husband and "brother" that she plans on giving away her money. As such, Nicky and Oscar figure the only thing they can do to reach that goal of getting her money is to do away with her permanently - making it look either like suicide or an accident - which is easier said than done in how hapless they are as murderers. —Huggo

While investigating a socialite`s husband, a private eye is swept into a storm of lies and a web of scandals that come crashing together for an unforgettable night in Chinatown.

One cold winter, at the Norfolk, Virginia Naval base, two seasoned petty officers, Navy lifers Signalman William "Badass" Buddusky (Jack Nicholson), and Gunner's Mate First Class "Mule" Mulhall (Otis Young), are assigned to escort a dishonorably discharged seaman, Lawrence M. Meadows (Dennis Quaid), to Portsmouth Military Prison near Kittery, Marines, where he will serve an eight-year sentence. When Badass jests that Meadows must have killed the base commander, the Master-at-Arms (Clifton James) explains that Meadows robbed forty dollars from the contribution box of the commander's wife's favorite charity, a polio foundation that annually awards her a plaque. Disregarding the men's stunned expressions, the chief congratulates them for getting assigned to a good detail, which allows a week to deliver Meadows and return, and warns that their careers are in jeopardy if they fail to complete the task. Neither officer is enthusiastic about their assignment, and Mule tells Badass that he hates the detail. However, Badass calculates that Portsmouth can be reached in two days and suggests privately to Mule that they rush Meadows to the prison. They can then return leisurely, spending the extra days and per diem on themselves. Upon meeting Meadows, they are surprised that he is just a cowering 18-year-old resigned to his fate, too timid to cause trouble, and on the bus to the train station, they remove his handcuffs. Later, on the train, the officers ask Meadows whether his lengthy sentence was really for stealing forty dollars, and the young man replies that he was actually caught before he was able to take the money. Badass later learns from Meadows that his only prior criminal record was a couple of arrests for shoplifting before he enlisted. Feeling sorry for him, Badass says the authorities might knock off two years for good behavior, to which Mule is skeptical, but Meadows brightens. Later, the officers discover that Meadows pilfered a candy bar at the station and, despite their lack of concern, the seaman panics and runs down the aisle. After they drag him back, he tearfully confesses that he is always stealing small things. In Washington, the sailors leave the train to allow Meadows time to calm down. Although the younger man has shown little interest in his situation, he mentions that he likes melted cheese on his hamburgers. At a restaurant, when the sandwich is served with a slab of cold cheese, Meadows meekly accepts it, but Badass insists on sending it back to the cook. Later, Badass confronts a bartender (Don McGovern) for refusing service to the underage Meadows, going so far as to pull out his gun, but Mule intervenes. Outside, Badass revels and proclaims loudly that he is a "bad ass," then buys beer from a liquor store, which they drink in a parking lot. By then they have missed their train, so they check into a hotel. There, the drinking continues, and Badass, proud of being a Signalman, demonstrates semaphore. When Meadows tells Badass that the bartender was only doing his job, Badass asks if he ever feels so enraged that he needs to get it out of his system. Meadows recalls being mad only once, when a Marine guard beat him up in the brig. He relates that the beating did not anger him, but when the guard claimed that he was Jesus Christ and told him not to forget it, Meadows became furious and hoped the chaplain would hear about it. Disturbed by Meadows' pathetic story, Badass smashes a lamp with his fist. To mollify him, Meadows asks Badass to teach him hand signals. The next day, at Badass' suggestion, they take Meadows to see his mother in Camden, New Jersey. Mule worries that he might try to escape, but Badass assures him that the kid is secretly glad to go to prison, because he is frightened of the world. Meadows' mother is not at home, and as they look inside at the slovenly manner in which she lives, Meadows says he would not know what to say to her. After returning to the train, Badass suggests that writing Meadows' mother's congressman might help, but Mule says that nothing will help Meadows. He says, they must either release him or he must live with the sentence, but then adds that they cannot release him. Although Mule feels sorry for the injustice of Meadows' sentence, he sternly tells Badass to stop thinking about the seaman's plight and recall that the Navy has been good to them. He points out that both of them are "lifers" and they have to do the job. When Badass says he wants to show the kid a good time before he is locked up, Mule counters that doing so will make his eight years harder. In the New York train station, Badass picks a fight with Marines in a men's room, and Mule and Meadows join in. Afterward they run out to the street and hail a taxi. Badass takes them to a food stand he knows that sells inexpensive but delicious Italian sausages, then introduces Meadows to Heineken beer. Badass then bets their traveling funds in a tavern darts game, winning $63, which he divides three ways. When they hear chanting, Meadows asks to investigate and they follow the sound to a meeting of young American Nichiren Shoshu Buddhists, where the followers testify that chanting changed their lives. Afterward, Meadows chants the phrase he learned, hoping that his situation will improve. The sailors proceed to an adult bookstore, where Meadows admits he is a virgin, then to a pinball arcade, where the seaman, emulating Badass, has a metal tag engraved that identifies him as a Chief Signalman. Later, at an ice rink, Mule and Badass watch paternally as Meadows skates. Claiming that chanting kept him from falling on the ice, Meadows continues to chant under his breath as they proceed to a bar, where Donna (Luana Anders), a Shoshu follower, hears and invites them to a party at her apartment. There, in clouds of marijuana smoke, Badass attempts unsuccessfully to seduce a woman with talk about the romance of the sea. A different woman questions Mule about Vietnam, and is reproachful when he says he simply goes where he is told. When Meadows confides to Donna that he is en route to prison, she suggests he take refuge in Canada with someone she knows, but he does not want to cause trouble for Mule and Badass, who are his "best friends." She then leads him to her bedroom, where, instead of offering him sex, as he hopes, she kneels before an altar and chants fervently. In a Boston diner the next day, Meadows arbitrarily sends his eggs back to the cook. The older men decide Meadows should experience sex before being incarcerated and take him to a brothel. As they wait for him, Badass explains to Mule that his marriage dissolved because his former wife wanted him to be a television repairman. Mule admits he never married but supports his mother, who is proud of his career. Upstairs, when Meadows ejaculates prematurely, the prostitute (Carol Kane) says her job is done. However, Badass and Mule pay for Meadows to have a second chance and this time he succeeds. Afterward, in the remaining time before Meadows is due at the prison, they go to a park to roast hot dogs in the snow, because Meadows suggests a picnic. After eating, Meadows chants, as Badass reminisces about his love of the sea. Badass remarks proudly on Meadows' transformation and when Mule announces they must now deliver him, Badass worries that he will not be able to survive the "sadistic" Marine guards. As they talk, Meadows slips away and, from across the park, uses semaphore to signal, "By By" then runs away. They chase him across the park and must use their combined strength to subdue him. During the rest of the trip, Badass and Mule must keep a sharp eye on the weeping Meadows, who now realizes how much his freedom means. Later, at the prison, Meadows is dragged away behind heavily barred, steel doors. The Marine in charge of admittance (Michael Moriarty), who saw scratches and bruises on Meadows that were caused when the officers apprehended him, accuses Mule and Badass of abusing the prisoner. However, when he asks if Meadows offered resistance or tried to escape, Mule and Badass state that he did not. The Marine continues to harass them and tells them that their orders to leave Norfolk had not been properly signed, but eventually permits them to leave after meak Mulhall challenges the arrogant Marine on his harassment by asking for his supervisor. Outside, Badass fumes about that disrespectful treatment and by others like him, while Mule again says how much he hates the detail. As they march off in unison, Badass talks about going to New York and Mule to Baltimore, before they report back at the base. Both hope their orders will have come through when they get back to Norfolk, Virginia.

The protagonists are two freewheeling hippies: Wyatt, nicknamed "Captain America" (Peter Fonda), and Billy (Dennis Hopper). Their names are a reference to Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid. Wyatt dresses in American flag-adorned leather, while Billy dresses in Native American-style buckskin pants and shirts and a bush hat. Wyatt is appreciative of the help they receive and of others along the way while Billy is often hostile, unappreciative and paranoid. After smuggling drugs from Mexico to Los Angeles, Wyatt and Billy sell their drugs to "Connection", a man (Phil Spector) in a Rolls Royce. With the money from the sale stuffed into a plastic tube hidden inside the Stars & Stripes-adorned fuel tank of Wyatt's California-style chopper, they ride eastward in an attempt to reach New Orleans in time for Mardi Gras. At nights, they are forced to camp out in the fields, as no motel will lodge them on account of their hippie and biker appearance. During their trip, Wyatt and Billy meet and have a meal with a rancher, whom Wyatt admires for his simple, traditional farming lifestyle. Later, the duo pick up a hitchhiker (Luke Askew) and agree to take him to his commune, where they stay for a day. Life in the commune appears hard, with naive city hippies finding this impossible to grow their own crops in a dry climate with poor soil. At one point, the bikers witness a prayer for blessing of the new crop, as put by one of the members: A chance "to make a stand," and to plant "simple food, for our simple taste." The commune also contains a traveling theater group that "sings for its supper" (performs for food). The notion of free love is practiced, with two of the women, Lisa (Luana Anders) and Sarah (Sabrina Scharf), sharing the affections of the hitchhiker before turning their attention to Wyatt and Billy. As the bikers leave, the hitchhiker (known only as "stranger on highway" in the closing credits) gives Wyatt some LSD for him to share with "the right people, at the right time". While riding along with a parade in a small town in New Mexico, the pair are arrested by the local authorities for "parading without a permit" and thrown in prison, where they befriend ACLU lawyer and local drunk George Hanson (Jack Nicholson), who helps them get out of prison and decides to go with them to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. George has a card for a whorehouse in New Orleans but states he has attempted to go in the past but never made it past the county line. As they camp that night, Wyatt and Billy introduce George to marijuana. As an alcoholic and a "square", George is reluctant to attempt this ("It leads to harder stuff", and "I don't want to get hooked"), but finally relents. While they attempt to eat in a rural Louisiana restaurant, the trio's hippie appearance attracts the attention of the redneck locals. However, a group of teenage girls are interested in the strangers and their appearance and want to meet and get a ride, the local men including the sheriff make mocking, racist, and homophobic remarks. One of them menacingly states, "I don't believe they'll make the parish line." Wyatt, Billy and George leave without eating and make camp outside of town. The events of the day cause George to comment, "This used to be a hell of a good country. I can't understand what's gone wrong with it." He observes that Americans talk a great deal about the value of freedom, but are actually afraid of anyone who truly exhibits this. In the middle of the night, the local rednecks attack and brutally beat the trio with baseball bats while they're sleeping. Billy manages to scare off the attackers by pulling a switchblade on them. Wyatt and Billy suffer minor injuries, but George is clubbed to death. Wyatt and Billy wrap up George's body in his sleeping bag, gather his belongings, and vow to return the items to his parents. Wyatt and Bill continue on and finally arrive in New Orleans and find the brothel George had intended to visit. Taking prostitutes Karen (Karen Black) and Mary (Toni Basil) with them, Wyatt and Billy go outdoors and wander the parade-filled street of the Mardi Gras celebration. They end up in a French Quarter cemetery, where all four ingest the LSD the hitchhiker had given to Wyatt. They experience a psychedelic bad trip infused with Catholic prayer, represented through quick edits, sound effects and over-exposed film. Making camp afterwards, Billy thinks they have made it and will retire rich in Florida but Wyatt declares, "We blew it." Billy doesn't know what he is talking about as Wyatt muses that they failed in their quest for freedom. The next morning, the two continue on their trip to Florida. While on a quiet local road somewhere in Alabama, two inbred-looking rednecks in a pickup spot them riding along and decide to "scare the hell out of them" with their shotgun. As they pull up alongside Billy who is behind Wyatt, one of them lazily aims the shotgun at him and taunts him, asking, "Want me to blow your brains out?" and "Why don't you get a haircut?" When Billy gives them the finger, the hillbilly fires the gun at Billy, who immediately crashes and is seriously wounded. As the truck roars off down the road past Wyatt, he races back to his fatally injured friend, who is covered in blood, and covers him with his flag adorned jacket before riding off for help. But the pickup truck has turned around and closes in on Wyatt as the rednecks don't want witnesses. The redneck fires at Wyatt as they pass him, the bike breaks apart and the bike's gas tank erupts into a fiery explosion. Wyatt is thrown off his bike and lands by the side of the road... dead. As the brutal country boys drive away, the film ends with an aerial shot of the flaming bike and the body on the deserted road, as the camera ascends to the sky. The duo's journey has ended into a terrible tragedy.

A magician, who has been turned into a raven, turns to a former sorcerer for help. In this tongue-in-cheek movie inspired by Poe's poem, Dr. Craven is the son of a great sorcerer (now dead) who was once himself quite skilled at that profession, but has since abandoned it. One evening, a cowardly fool of a magician named Bedlo comes to Craven for help - the evil Scarabus has turned him into a raven and he needs someone to change him back. He also tells the reluctant wizard that Craven's long-lost wife Lenore, whom he loved greatly and thought dead, is living with the despised Scarabus. —Ken Yousten <kyousten@bev.net> The magician Dr. Erasmus Craven, who does not belong to the brotherhood of magicians, grieves the loss of his beloved wife Lenore and lives in a castle with his daughter Estelle. One day, a raven knocks on his window and Dr. Craven learns that the bird is actually the magician Dr. Adolphus Bedlo that was turned into a raven after challenging the powerful magician Dr. Scarabus that was an enemy of his father. Dr. Craven makes a potion to turn Dr. Bedlo back to the human form and Dr. Bedlo tells that he has seen Lenore in the castle of Dr. Scarabus. Dr. Craven decides to go in his coach with Dr. Bedlo to visit Dr. Scarabus, and Estella and Dr. Bedlo's son, Rexford, decide to go with them. They find an amicable Dr. Scarabus who invites them to stay for the night. Was Dr. Craven's father wrong about Dr. Scarabus? —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil