John Savage

A woman discovers a tragic love letter in a bottle on a beach, and is determined to track down its author. A woman finds a romantic letter in a bottle washed ashore and tracks down the author, a widowed shipbuilder whose wife died tragically early. As a deep and mutual attraction blossoms, the man struggles to make peace with his past so that he can move on and find happiness. —CJ Based on a Nicholas sparks novel, "Message in a bottle" is the story of Theresa who finds a message in a bottle along the shore. The message is from a man who deeply loved his wife and has lost her. She slowly begins to fall in love with him and embarks on a journey to know him better. —Keith Francis A divorced single mother finds a bottle on the shore whilst out jogging. Much taken with the sentiments of the message inside she uses the resources of the Chicago paper she works for to track down the sender. When she meets him an affection quickly forms between them, and his cantankerous father is also taken with her. But it is obvious something in the past is casting a terrible shadow. —Jeremy Perkins {J-26} Who meets by Fate, shall be sealed by Fate. Theresa Osborne is running along the beach when she stumbles upon a bottle washed up on the shore. Inside is a message, reading the letter she feels so moved and yet she felt as if she has violated someone's thoughts. In love with a man she has never met, Theresa tracks down the author of the letter to a small town in Wilmington, two lovers with crossed paths. But yet one can't let go of their past. —Ann Nonymous.

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

California, 1980 Veteran photojournalist Richard Boyle (James Woods) has been taking his camera to the world's trouble spots for over 20 years. While he does good work, Boyle's fondness for booze and drugs, and his colossal arrogance, have given him a reputation that's left him practically unemployable. One morning, he finds that his wife has abandoned him, taking their child with her. Broke and with no immediate prospects, Boyle and his best friend, Doctor Rock (Jim Belushi), an out-of-work disc jockey, head to El Salvador, where Boyle is convinced that he can scrounge some lucrative freelance work amidst the nation's political turmoil. However, when Boyle and Rock witness the execution of a teenage high school student by government troops just as they enter the country, it becomes clear that this war is more serious than they were expecting. After he asks a soldier for a general he met during the Football War, he and Rock are taken to him in a school-turned-barracks where both discuss the situation and he learns that the army is supplied by the United States. Feeling that El Salvador is a disaster starting to happen, Boyle eventually decides that it's time to get out, but he's reunited with an old flame named María (Elpidia Carrillo) and her two children (one of whom is his), and he doesn't want to leave her behind. In the meantime, both he and Maria go to a mass by Archbishop Oscar Romero. During the mass, the Archbishop is killed by an assassin sent by the far-right ARANA party (a fascist parody of the real-life ARENA party) and the army outside opens fire on the escaping crowd with Boyle and Maria barely escaping. Following this, he goes to the United States Embassy to convince the ambassador (Michael Murphy) to cut aid for the Salvadoran government as their human rights abuses increase but is denied and is told to leave the country for his own safety, prompting him to leave the embassy in anger. While attempting to get her out of the country, Boyle is harassed by the military due to his profession and eventually leads to the deaths of innocent people either close to him or María by death squads. John Cassady (John Savage), Boyle's friend and fellow photojournalist, is also killed during a battle between the government and rebels in Santa Ana when the Salvadoran army starts using American vehicles and air support to crush the left-wing rebels. Boyle and María eventually leave the country and travel through Guatemala, and later Mexico towards the United States. However, upon entering California, their bus is stopped by immigration officers and María allows herself to be deported alongside her children due to the guilt of leaving her home country behind while Boyle is arrested after desperately arguing with the officers. An epilogue reveals that Maria and her children survived and were last rumored to be in a refugee camp in Guatemala by the time of this film's release. Doctor Rock eventually returned to San Francisco. John Cassady's photos were published and Richard Boyle is still looking for Maria and her children.

Hair is a musical focusing on the lives of two young men in the Vietnam era against the backdrop of the hippie culture. Set in the late 1960s, Claude Hooper Bukowski (John Savage) is a naive Oklahoman sent off to see the sites of New York before beginning his enlistment in the US Army. On his arrival he observes a group of hippies lead by George Berger (Treat Williams) begging for change from a trio of horseback riders. Later, Claude catches the runaway horse the hippies have rented and uses it to show off his riding skills to one of the trio of strangers--an upper class débutante. While returning the horse to the hippies, Claude accepts their invitation to be shown around the city. In the course of a single evening, Claude gets stoned smoking marijuana and then is introduced to the race and class issues of the 1960's. The morning after, George finds a scrap of newspaper identifying the mysterious girl. The hippy group, including Hud (Dorsey Wright), Jeannie (Annie Golden) and Woof (Don Dacus), crash a private party where the girl, Sheila Franklin (Beverly D'Angelo), secretly enjoys the disruption of her rigid environment. After the group is arrested, Claude uses the only money he has to pay George's fine so that George can find the funds to get the rest of them released. Meanwhile, at the prison, Woof's refusal to have his hair cut leads into the title song. Unsuccessful at convincing Sheila to get the funds from her father, George returns to his parents' home and is able to convince his mother to give him enough money to have the others released from jail. For their next adventure, the group attends a peace rally in Central Park where Claude drops acid. When Jeannie proposes they get married to keep Claude out of the Army and Sheila shows up to apologize, Claude's "trip" reflects his internal conflict over which world he belongs in--his own native Oklahoman farm culture, the upper class society of Sheila or the free-wheeling world of the hippies. When his trip is over, Claude and the hippies have a falling out over both a mean trick they pull on Sheila (taking her clothes while she's skinny-dipping, which then leads to Sheila being completely humiliated when she has no choice but to hail a taxi completely naked) and their philosophical differences over the war in Vietnam and personal versus community responsibility. In the end Claude goes through with his original plan and reports to the draft board. He begins his enlistment in the Army and makes it through basic training. When Claude writes to Sheila from his training camp, she seeks out George and his group to share the news. George begins to cook up a scheme to visit Claude in Nevada at the military base. Enter Hud's finance (Cheryl Barnes), who wants him to return to their life together with his son, LaFayette Jr. (Rahsaan Curry). Tricking Sheila's brother Steve (Miles Chapin) out of the family car, the hippies, Sheila and Hud's finance all head west and try to enter the training camp to visit Claude. Turned back at the guard post, George's next scheme has Sheila chat up Fenton (Richard Bright), an Army Sergeant, at a local bar. Luring him out a back country road with intimations of sex, Sheila helps the group relieve him of his uniform and his car. Using both the car, having his hair cut very short and dressed in Fenton's Army uniform, George infiltrates the Army base, finds Claude and reveals himself. When Claude refuses to leave for fear of being found missing during a headcount, George schemes to take his place long enough for Claude to visit with the others waiting in the desert. While Claude is away, the base, which has been on alert, becomes fully activated with immediate ship-outs to Vietnam. George, unwilling to reveal the Claude is AWOL, boards the plane to Vietnam in Claude's place. Claude arrives too late to slip back into his place. The final scene is at Arlington Cemetery several months later showing George's headstone (he was killed in action in Vietnam) and the song "Let the Sunshine In". As the song continues, the movie closes with crowd shots of a full scale peace protest in Washington.

Several young draft dodgers head West to their deaths in this fatalistic reworking of OLIVER TWIST set in 1863 America - Jeff Bridges as the Artful Dodger, Barry Brown as Oliver, and David Huddleston as a sort of Fagin.