John Turturro

Ingrid (Julianne Moore) and Martha (Tilda Swinton) were close friends in their youth, when they worked together at the same magazine. Ingrid went on to become a novelist while Martha became a war reporter. Separated by the circumstances of life and after years of being out of touch, they meet again in an extreme but strangely sweet situation.

Note: this is a remake of the 2013 Spanish-language Chilean film of the same name. Gloria Bell (Julianne Moore) is a 50-something woman who has been divorced for nearly 10 years. She has two grown kids and works an office job at an insurance company. She spends her days working and checking in with her children. At night, she likes to go out dancing and meeting people at local nightclubs frequented by middle aged single people like herself. At home, a stray cat keeps sneaking its way into her apartment, and her upstairs neighbor is constantly screaming. One night while out dancing at a local singles retro disco club for middle aged people, she meets Arnold (John Turturro), who is only one year divorced. The two bond, dance, and sleep together. Gloria goes to a local salon to have her legs waxed and talks to her waxer, complaining about the cat, but the waxer tells her a mythic biblical tale about how the cats were created to take care of the mice overpopulation on Noah's arc. Arnold reaches out to Gloria to ask her on an official date. During the date, he takes a phone call. He admits to Gloria that while he's divorced, he still financially supports his ex-wife and his two adult daughters; the latter especially who don't even have jobs and depend on him for everything... they are always making demands of him. His phone is constantly ringing with his daughters calling. He also recently had gastric bypass and lost a significant amount of weight. He and Gloria continue to date, having fun at Arnold's paintball course that he runs. But when his daughters call, Arnold continually lies to them about where he is. This hurts Gloria's feelings, and she pushes him on it, but he says his daughters will be cruel and he wants to protect them from that. Gloria brings Arnold to her son Peter's (Michael Cera) birthday party. Peter has been having a hard time since he has a newborn baby and the baby's mother has just left him to go "find herself", and Gloria has been helping out with the baby. Gloria's daughter Anne (Caren Pistorius) and Anne's ex-husband Dustin (Brad Garrett), along with Dustin's new wife (Jeanne Tripplehorn) are all also in attendance. Gloria congratulates Anne on her pregnancy, which makes things awkward since Dustin didn't know. Anne tells them she will be moving to Sweden to be with the baby's father. Dustin's wife offers Gloria marijuana, but Gloria says she doesn't do that. The family goes down memory lane, looking at old photos, and Arnold becomes sullen and a little removed. He gets a phone call from his daughters, again, and leaves without a word. The family looks for Arnold, and Gloria calls him, but he doesn't answer his phone. Gloria is incredibly embarrassed. Arnold calls her repeatedly to apologize, but Gloria ignores his calls. He catches her in her parking garage at work, and is completely non-apologetic, asking how he could embarrass her by being cozy with her ex-husband and saying his daughters needed him. Gloria tells him to grow a pair and drives off. Arnold chases after her saying he loves her, but she drives away. After her crazy neighbor accidentally leaves his marijuana at her door, Gloria smokes it and resumes going out dancing. She brings Anne to the airport and sends her tearfully off to Sweden. But after her co-worker and friend loses her job, and she is told her eyesight is failing and needs prescription eye drops for the rest of her life, she finally answers Arnold's continued phone calls. Gloria and Arnold take a romantic trip to Las Vegas. Things are going well, but Arnold's daughters call again, saying their mother has injured herself walking through a glass door and that he needs to come home. Gloria, exhausted, says they should just cancel the trip, but Arnold says he's not going to. He and Gloria sleep together in the hotel room. Arnold continues to ignore his daughter's calls, and the two have a romantic dinner. His phone keeps ringing, and Gloria playfully puts his cellphone into his soup. She suggests they take a romantic, longer trip to Spain. Arnold agrees and excuses himself, presumably to use the restroom... but never returns. Gloria goes back to the room and finds Arnold's things are gone. She goes on an odyssey, drinking and going through the casinos, making friends, and ends up meeting a younger man (Sean Astin) and going on a full bender, waking up on a pool chair missing a shoe. She walks back to her hotel and calls her mother (Holland Taylor) who comes to get her and take her home. Upon returning, she finds the cat once again in her apartment, but this time, she lets it stay and begins feeding it. Arnold continues to call her repeatedly, and she unplugs her phone from the wall. On a day where she is set to attend her friend (Rita Wilson)'s daughter's wedding, she dresses up and on the way out, tosses Arnold's paintball gun into the trash. But after having a second thought, she retrieves it. She drives to Arnold's house and upon seeing him, fires paint balls into his home. When he protests, she blasts him several times in the chest and stomach. As he doubles over, his daughters run out, screaming at Gloria, but she gets into her car and drives off without a word. Once the shock wears off, she begins laughing hysterically. In the final scene, Gloria makes it to the wedding reception, apologizing for having missed the ceremony. She is asked by a random man to dance with him, but declines, a little dejected. But the song "Gloria" starts playing, and she gives in, getting onto the dance floor and dancing joyously, lost in the music.

Shia LaBeouf returns as Sam Witwicky in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. When a mysterious event from Earth`s past erupts into the present day it threatens to bring a war to Earth so big that the Transformers alone will not be able to save us.

A New York City subway dispatcher`s day is thrown into chaos when an armed gang hijack a train, leaving him to use his knowledge of the subway system to outwit their leader.

This comedy flick features Zohan Dvir (Adam Sandler) who is a disgruntled Mossad agent wanting to make it big as a hairdresser. He fakes his death and lands in New York. He later works in a salon for a Palestinian (Emanuelle Chriqui). But when the salon business booms, they meet with resistance from a local rival, who uses unfair means to thwart the competition. How Zohan uses the help of local Palestinians and Israelis, who unite together, makes for interesting viewing. Also featuring is comic Rob Schneider as a Palestinian cab driver.

Famed mystery writer, Mort Rainey (Johnny Depp) is confronted by a mysterious stranger outside his house. This stranger calls himself John Shooter (John Turturro) and claims that Mort has stolen an idea for a story from him. Mort says he can prove he wrote his first, but whilst Mort waits for the evidence to appear, Shooter starts to become more and more violent. At first, Mort regards Shooter as mentally ill and throws away the book. But his housekeeper (Joan Heney) takes it out of the garbage believing it was his and instead of throwing it away again he cannot stop thinking about it, and finally reads it. It is almost exactly like his own novel, with different names and sentence arrangements. The movie follows Mort's struggles to prove conclusively to Shooter and to himself that he has not plagiarized the story. Shooter continually harasses Mort and later kills his dog, an Australian Cattle Dog named Chico. As the story progresses, Mort hires a private investigator (Charles S. Dutton) and asks the help of the local sheriff, Dave Newsome (Len Cariou), who doesn't believe him. The investigator asks if there are any witnesses, and Mort remembers a local man saw them together. But Shooter then murders both the investigator and the man and leaves them in a car. Mort then pushes the car into the river, since he thinks the murders will be pinned on him. Shooter also burns down the house of Mort's soon-to-be ex-wife. Mort is convinced that Ted is the culprit responsible for the burning. Mort eventually locates the magazine that proves he published "Secret Window" before Shooter wrote "Sowing Season." He goes to the post office, where he gets the magazine. But when he gets out of his car, the sheriff approaches him with a smirk asking him if he could ask a few questions. Mort then leaves. But when Mort gets the magazine, he finds that his story has been cut out. Mort's inner voice tells him that since the magazine was sent to him in a sealed UPS package, Shooter could not have tampered with it. Prompting from his own conscience leads Mort to the realization that Shooter is not real, only a figment of Mort's imagination brought so vividly to life through undetected dissociative identity disorder to personify the dark side of Mort's personality and to commit acts that Mort himself feels he could not commit (murder and arson). (This scene includes the moment where Mort sees his back, instead of his front, reflected in the mirror above the mantelpiece - much like Magritte's 1937 painting La reproduction interdite). During this revelation, his concerned wife drives up to his cabin, and at that instant he changes his persona from the well-meaning Mort to the murderous Shooter. When his wife walks in he is gone. She starts searching the house for Mort and finds an almost empty bottle of Jack Daniels on a table. We later learn that when influenced by Jack Daniels, Mort's second personality "Shooter" comes alive. All over the walls she sees inscriptions of the word "shooter". She realizes after Mort reveals himself that "shooter" actually means "shoot her". After she realizes this she tries to run away but Mort is too quick for her. He then kills his wife and her lover, Ted (Timothy Hutton), with a shovel and buries them in a garden where he later plants a crop of corn. Afterwards, Mort changes profoundly - his writer's block is finally over and his passion for life returns. The movie, however, ends on a rather sinister note. The local sheriff informs Mort that he knows what he did and as soon as they find the bodies, he'll go to prison. Mort dismisses the statement nonchalantly, and replies that "The ending is the most important part of the story. This one is very good. This one is perfect." It is then revealed to the audience that the bodies are buried under the corn field.

Gordon Brewer`s wife and child get killed in a terrorist bombing. Frustrated with the official investigation`s failure, Brewer teams up with an unlikely ally to exact his revenge.

Preston Blake (Harve Presnell) started out in his career hoping to be a disc jockey as a young man, slowly working his way up through the ranks to found Blake Media, a corporation running hundreds of television and radio stations and with 50,000 employees. The 82 years old Blake is attempting to summit Everest when a severe blizzard hits the mountain. His team strongly advises Blake to turn back, but Blake is adamant to keep pushing for the summit. Blake decides to summit alone, when his entire support team abandons him and returns to base camp. Blake freezes to death at the summit of Mount Everest, & a search for his heir begins. Blake's dead body is air lifted from the top of mount Everest by helicopter. Blake has a 49% stake in the media empire, valued at $ 40 billion. It is found that Blake has a living nephew named Longfellow Deeds (Adam Sandler), who runs a pizzeria in New Hampshire and attempts (unsuccessfully) to write and sell greeting card captions, hoping they might be accepted by Hallmark. Deeds is very down to Earth and is very well integrated as part of his community. He makes his own Pizza deliveries when the regular delivery guy calls in sick. His friends include Murph (Peter Dante) and Jan (Conchata Ferrell) who work at the Pizzeria with Deeds. Deeds is contacted and brought to New York City by attorney and businessman Chuck Cedar (Peter Gallagher). Deeds is flown to New York City in a helicopter and the whole town comes to see him off at the airfield. In New York he meets various Blake staff members, including well-meaning general counsel Cecil Anderson. He also meets Blake's longtime butler Emilio Lopez, who saw Blake as a father figure and quickly befriends Deeds. Plans are made for Deeds to sell his shares in the company to Cedar and return home $40 billion richer, but he must remain in New York for a few days as all the legal details are worked out. Cedar grows to despise Deeds and secretly wants to break up Blake Media. The story is major news, and reporter Babe Bennett (Winona Ryder) works for a tabloid show called Inside Access. Mac McGrath (Jared Harris) is the dishonest Australian head of Inside Access and wants the inside story on Deeds at all costs. Babe is flat broke and Mac is about to fire her, so she needs the Deeds story desperately. Babe has her lecherous co-worker Marty (Allen Covert) pretend to steal her purse in front of Deeds so he can "save her". She does this because their research indicated Deeds wanted to meet a girl by saving her, the same way his father had met his mother. Unfortunately, however, Deeds beats Marty senseless. Deeds rescues her and she goes out with him under the disguise of Pam Dawson, a school nurse from Winchestertonfieldville, Iowa. a town she made up on the spot when asked where she was from, which later turns out to be a real place in Syosset, New York. Though Pam initially hopes to just get a good story on the new heir, she eventually falls for the unfailingly kind Deeds and decides to tell him that she is not who she says she is. Deeds writes her a poem and manages to find a real "Winchestertonfieldville, Iowa," to which he takes her on a surprise trip. Cedar is fed the truth by the "robber", still suffering from the effects of Deeds "saving" Bennett. Inside Access, in concert with Cedar reveals the truth to Deeds first. Heartbroken, and upset, Deeds decides to return home to Mandrake Falls after giving $40 Billion of his money he inherits to the United African American College Fund (much to the surprise of the chairman, who has a heart attack). After returning to Mandrake Falls, he learns from Crazy Eyes (Steve Buscemi) that Chuck Cedar intends to sell off the company, which will cause thousands of people to lose their jobs. Babe follows Deeds to Mandrake Falls to win him back, getting into a massive brawl with Jan, who is furious at Babe for hurting her friend. Jan realizes Babe really cares for Deeds and tells her where to find him. While approaching Deeds, Babe falls through the ice of a frozen lake. Deeds hears her cries and saves her from drowning, breaking the ice with his foot, which was rendered rock-hard from a childhood frostbite injury. Despite Babe's pleas for forgiveness, he rejects her, and she sadly returns to New York. At a shareholders meeting, Cedar has everyone convinced to sell the company, until Deeds (who has bought a single share) arrives and manages to convince everyone not to sell. But Cedar has control of a majority of the shares and the sale is approved. Babe suddenly arrives, having stolen and studied Blake's personal diary. The diary reveals that forty years earlier, Blake had a brief romance with his maid, Consuela, Emilio's (John Turturro) late mother who died while giving birth to him nine months later. Thus, Emilio is Blake's illegitimate son and the true heir to his stake in the company. As a result, Deeds' sale of his shares to Cedar is not legal. Emilio immediately takes control and fires Cedar, as well as the entire top brass at the company, with the exception of Cecil Anderson (Erick Avari), a good executive who had befriended Deeds. When he asks to remain, Emilio leaves the decision to Deeds, who quickly says yes. Babe reveals herself to Deeds and apologizes for tricking him, and they reconcile and Deeds falls in love again. As they are leaving, Emilio thanks Deeds for his support and asks how he can repay him. Deeds says that all he wants is his friendship. Emilio ends up giving Deeds a billion dollars, some of which Deeds spends on Corvettes for the entire town though "Crazy Eyes" immediately crashes his. Deeds and Babe reconcile and return to Mandrake Falls, where she now works alongside him and Jan at the pizzeria. The poem Deeds wrote for Babe is accepted by Hallmark and becomes a popular greeting card.

Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney), a suave, fast-taking convict, escapes from incarceration at a chain gang in rural Mississippi in 1937 during the Great Depression. He is chained to two other prisoners, slow-witted Delmar (Tim Blake Neslon) and hot-tempered Pete (John Turturro), so the three must escape together. Everett convinces them that he has hidden $1.2 million after robbing an armored car, and promises to split it with them. They hitch a ride with an elderly blind man on a railway handcar, and he foretells that they will indeed find a treasure, though it may not be the one they seek. They travel on foot to visit Pete's cousin, Washington Hogwallop, who removes their shackles, gives them new clothes, and allows them to sleep in his barn for the night. However, the trio is awakened by the authorities, led by the partly-blinded World War I veteran Sheriff Cooley (Daniel Von Bargen) after Hogwallop had turned them in for the reward. The barn is set ablaze, but Everett, Pete, and Delmar escape with the help of Hogwallop's rambunctious young son (who drives them out of the fiery barn in a car). They continue their journey, and encounter a religious congregation in the midst of a mass baptism. Pete and Delmar are drawn in and are baptized as well, but Everett resists. They later pick up a hitchhiking young black guitarist, named Tommy Johnson (Chris Thomas King), who claims he sold his soul to the devil in exchange for musical talent. They hear that the nearby WEZY radio station pays people to sing into a can, so they pay a visit to the blind disc jockey (Stephen Root), and sing a version of "Man of Constant Sorrow" with Tommy accompanying them. Calling themselves 'The Soggy Bottom Boys', they are paid $40 in cash and leave satisfied. However, unbeknownst to them, their record becomes wildly popular around the state, with no one knowing the identity of the band. That night, the shadowy Sheriff Cooley and police track them down and find their car near their campsite. Everett, Pete, and Delmar part ways with Tommy as they escape. The next day, they meet famed robber George 'Babyface' Nelson (Michael Badalucco), on the run from police, and accompany him in robbing a bank. After spending the night at a campsite, Babyface gives them a share of the stolen loot and departs. The trio encounters three sirens: beautiful women washing clothes in the river, and are seduced by them. Delmar and Everett discover the next morning that Pete has disappeared, and Delmar believes the women had turned him into a toad (which was found in Pete's abandoned clothes). Carrying "Pete" in a shoe box, Delmar and Everett go to a restaurant for breakfast where they meet Big Dan Teague (John Goodman), a one-eyed Bible salesman. Thinking that their box contains money, Big Dan lures them to a field for an advanced tutorial on salesmanship. He violently beats the two men, kills the toad after finding no cash, and steals their car and what money they have on them. Bruised and defeated, Everett and Delmar arrive at Everett's hometown, where he attempts to speak to his estranged wife, Penny (Holly Hunter), mother of his seven daughters. He finds that Penny is engaged to Vernon T. Waldrip, the campaign manager for Homer Stokes (Wayne Duvall), who is running for governor against the grouchy elderly incumbent, Pappy O'Daniel (Charles Durning). Penny refuses to take Everett back, and was so ashamed of his arrest that she told their daughters he was hit by a train and killed. Rejected, Everett and Delmar attend a movie, where a prison chain gang is in the audience. Pete, it turns out, was turned into the police by the Sirens, and is once again in chains. In the theater, Pete advises his friends to abandon their quest, as it is a "bushwhack." That night, Everett and Delmar stealthily break him out of jail. Pete tearfully confesses that, after threatened with death by the authorities, he revealed their plans to find the armored car loot for Sheriff Cooley, whom they finally learn is the one who has been hunting them across the state. However, Everett reveals that he fabricated the story to entice Pete and Delmar to escape with him. Everett had truthfully been arrested for practicing law without a license, and was determined to escape when he heard his wife planned to remarry. If caught, the trio could face an additional 50 years in jail. An enraged Pete tackles Everett. The three stumble upon a Ku Klux Klan rally in a nearby field. Shocked, they see that Tommy Johnson has been captured and that the Klan is preparing to hang him. The trio disguise themselves as color guard members and attempt to rescue Tommy, but are confronted by Big Dan Teague, a member in attendance. The red-robed Grand Wizard, it so happens, is candidate for governor Homer Stokes. After a scuffle, Everett, Pete, and Delmar topple a huge fiery crucifix onto Big Dan, presumably killing him, and escape with Tommy. The four men arrive at a campaign dinner, disguised by long false beards. Pretending to be the hired band, they slip onstage and entertain (Delmar sings an impressive version of "In the Jailhouse Now") while Everett attempts to speak to Penny again. When the men launch into "Man of Constant Sorrow", they watch in awe as the entire audience rises to its feet and cheers, recognizing them as the elusive Soggy Bottom Boys. However, Homer Stokes arrives and tries to reveal them as the men who disrupted the lynch mob in performance of its duties. The townspeople are outraged at Homer's confessed racism, and literally ride him out on a rail. Everett, Pete, Delmar, and Tommy resume playing, and a delighted (and victorious) Pappy O'Daniel joins them onstage and grants them an official pardon. After the event, Penny takes Everett back, but demands that he return to their old cabin and retrieve her wedding ring. The four men depart quickly, as the cabin is in the valley that is due to be flooded the following day. They briefly see Babyface Nelson again, re-captured by police, but in extremely high spirits, happy at the thought of being executed in the electric chair. The men arrive at the cabin the next morning, but to their horror find that Sheriff Cooley and his posse have caught up with them and his men have already dug their graves. As the authorities loop nooses over a tree branch, Everett drops to his knees and prays that he might see his daughters again. At that moment, the valley is flooded. The cabin is destroyed, and Everett, Pete, Delmar, and Tommy surface on the newly-made lake. They retrieve the sought-after ring from a floating roll top desk, and return to town. Shortly afterwards, Everett is happily reunited with Penny and his children. The family is taking a walk through the town when Penny remarks that the ring Everett brought her is the wrong one. She firmly asserts to a frustrated Everett that he must find the original ring (now at the bottom of a lake). Their daughters sing the hymn Angel Band as they cross paths with the elderly handcar operator who had predicted Everett's fate.

Gifted poker player Mike McDermott (Matt Damon) loses his entire $30,000 bankroll in a hand of Texas hold'em against Teddy "KGB" (John Malkovich), a Russian mobster who runs an illegal underground poker room. Shaken, Mike decides to concentrate on law school, while promising his girlfriend and fellow law student Jo (Gretchen Mol) not to play the game anymore. Mentor and fellow rounder Knish (John Turturro) offers him a part-time job driving a delivery truck to make ends meet. Time passes, and Mike is true to his promise. He focuses on school and work until his childhood friend Lester "Worm" Murphy (Edward Norton) is released from prison. Worm is also a card player, who owes an outstanding debt accumulated before his incarceration. At Worm's influence, Mike is soon rounding again, which interferes with his studies and hurts his relationship with Jo. When Worm is given a five-day deadline to pay off his debt, Mike joins him in a furious race to earn the money. Worm wants to cheat to win, but Mike insists on playing straight. Played out through several card games in and around New York City, the two nearly make the $15,000 needed, but the pair are caught cheating and lose their entire bankroll. After this, Worm decides to leave the city, and he advises Mike to do the same. This is when he reveals to Mike that his debt is owed to KGB, the same Russian mobster who cleaned Mike out of his $30,000 bankroll several months before. Infuriated, Mike cuts ties with Worm once and for all. Mike refuses to flee. In a race against time to pay off Worm's debt, Mike gets his shot at redemption by placing his life on the line against the man who forced him out of the game. With the help of a $10,000 loan from his law school professor Petrovsky (Martin Landau), Mike sits down to play KGB in a no limit, heads-up game of Texas Hold'em. In two heated heads-up matches, Mike beats KGB, winning enough to pay off Worm's debt, repay his loan to the professor, and regain his original bankroll of about $30,000. The movie ends with Mike officially dropping out of law school, saying goodbye to Jo, and going to Las Vegas to play in the World Series of Poker Main Event.

In 1963, Edna Buxton (Illeana Douglas) is a steel heiress living in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, who wants to be a singer and enters a local talent contest. She plans to sing "You'll Never Walk Alone," until, backstage, she meets a blues singer named Doris Shelley (Jennifer Leigh Warren) who is belting out "The Blues Ain't Nothin' (But a Woman Cryin' for her Man)." Doris advises Edna to follow her heart, so Edna sings "Hey There" instead and wins the contest. She uses some of her own money to record a demo of her first original song, "In Another World". Record producer Joel Milner (John Turturro) likes the demo but says he cannot market a girl singer-songwriter. He becomes her agent, renames her "Denise Waverly" and invents a blue-collar persona for her. Milner also reworks her song for a male doo-wop group, the Stylettes, and the song becomes a hit. Denise (formerly Edna) moves to New York and becomes a professional songwriter in the Brill Building. Over the next several months, she worries that she will not be able to pen a follow-up to "In Another World," but Milner encourages her to look at the world around her. She meets fellow songwriter Howard Caszatt (Eric Stoltz), and after a difficult first encounter she becomes professionally and romantically involved with him. She also meets once again with Doris, who is now an unsuccessful young singer, and persuades Milner to let Doris and her group audition. Milner likes the group and the song Denise has written, and he renames them the Luminaries. The group is a success, and disc jockey John Murray (Bruce Davison) credits Denise with "sparking the craze for girl groups." Denise and Howard write a song about the condition of working class black girls in New York City. Denise then suggests that she and Howard should write a wedding-themed song for the Luminaries. Howard refuses, but when Denise reveals that she is pregnant with Howard's child - and is herself an heiress - they get married and have a daughter. However, Howard starts flirting with Cheryl Steed (Patsy Kensit), a newly hired English songwriter. In 1965, Joel asks Cheryl and her husband Matthew (Chris Isaak) to write a song for the Luminaries. The result becomes a hit. Howard, annoyed, concedes that Denise's instincts were right. Then Joel asks Denise and Cheryl to collaborate on writing a song for closeted lesbian ingenue singer Kelly Porter (Bridget Fonda). Denise agrees, even though she dislikes Cheryl, but when she arrives home unexpectedly and finds Howard in bed with another woman, she takes her child in a cab to the studio and tells Cheryl what has happened. Cheryl holds and comforts Denise, and the two become close friends. Denise learns that she is pregnant with Howard's second baby; Cheryl convinces her to go to an obstetrician, who safely performs an illegal abortion. Over the next few years, Denise throws herself into her work and becomes a highly successful songwriter. Having broken up with Howard, she has a brief but unhappy affair with the married John Murray, which ends when he moves with his family to Chicago. With the British Invasion, the Brill Building songwriting machine has become obsolete. Milner tells Denise she should not be so sad, because she forced him to take chances he would have never had the courage to tackle alone. He finally allows her to become a singer, and introduces her to Jay Phillips (Matt Dillon), the singer, songwriter and producer of a popular surf-rock group. Denise initially hates Jay's music, but agrees to let him produce her. She writes and sings "God Give Me Strength," and she is delighted when he gives the song a skilful orchestral arrangement. However, the record bombs, and Denise blames herself for making the song too personal. Denise and Jay become a couple and re-settle in California at the height of the hippie movement. Denise is soon reunited with her old friend Cheryl who is working as a songwriter in Los Angeles. She and Denise collaborate on songs for a Bubblegum pop TV show called 'Where the Action Is'. Jay is affectionate but also childlike, reclusive and a heavy drug user, and becomes increasingly paranoid. He disapproves of Denise writing songs for the TV show, insisting that it's beneath her. His band mates distance themselves from him, leaving him to work alone in his studio. In a fit of paranoia, he accuses Denise of stealing tapes from him, but when it turns out that he threw the tapes over the studio balcony in a fit of irritation and then forgot that he had done so, Denise is distressed. He also takes his and her children to the museum and forgets to bring them home. While Denise is at a club with Doris, Jay, directionless and in despair at his inability to be more responsible, wanders into the ocean and drowns. Numbed by Jay's death, Denise retires with her two children to a hippie commune in the mountains above Palm Springs and adopts yet another father-figure in the commune's guru. Joel Milner visits Denise in the commune and takes her and her children out to dinner. That night, he confronts her with her constant reliance on men for guidance and her failure to take responsibility for her own talent. Denise's suppressed anger spills out, and she screams at Milner that he is a "fucking leech" who exploited her. He agrees with her, and the more he agrees with her the angrier she becomes, until he deliberately provokes her by throwing his drink into her face. She strikes him and then collapses in tears, grieving for Jay. Milner consoles her and the two are reconciled. In the closing sequence (set in 1973), Denise is seen confidently recording and producing her first solo album 'Grace of My Heart' with her extended family and friends in attendance.

In a Brooklyn housing project, a group of "clockers" - street-level drug dealers - sell drugs for Rodney Little (Delroy Lindo), a local drug lord. Rodney tells Ronald "Strike" Dunham (Mekhi Phifer), one of his lead clockers, that another dealer, Darryl Adams (Steve White), is stealing from him and "got to be got", implying that he wants Strike to kill Darryl. Strike then meets with his brother, Victor Dunham (Isaiah Washington) and tries to persuade Victor to kill Darryl Adams. Rocco Klein (Harvey Keitel) and Larry Mazilli (John Turturro), homicide detectives, ride to the scene of Darryl Adams' murder. Larry and Rocco receive a phone call from another detective who says a man has confessed at a local church that he killed Darryl. The police meet Strike's older brother Victor at the church and take him in for questioning. In the interrogation room, Victor tells Rocco that he shot Darryl Adams in self-defense. Rocco finds holes in this story and starts looking into Victor's background which includes two jobs, a wife, two children, no criminal record, and aspirations to move out of the projects; Rocco comes to the conclusion that Victor is covering for his younger brother. Rocco pressures Strike but Victor sticks to his story, so Rocco convinces Rodney that Strike has confessed and informed on Rodney's drug ring. Rocco arrests Rodney and then humiliates Strike in front of his crew. Strike gets together some money and decides to leave town, but a younger boy who admired Strike shoots Errol, Rodney's enforcer, with Strike's gun. Rocco lets Strike leave town.

A man's blunders regarding his family are told and retold through different eras in history. Five bittersweet vignettes that span the entire human history about five different men, all called Hector and played by the same actor (Robin Williams), who find themselves at a critical juncture in their lives. In prehistoric times, Hector lives in peace with his wife and their little son and daughter in a cave on a quite uninhabited island somewhere in the north. His world is shattered when a group of foreign pagan raiders led by a young chieftain and a somewhat pacifistic priest arrive there. In Ancient Rome, Hector is a loyal well-treated slave of Lucinnius, a somewhat naive big trader with political connections. When his latest shipment fails to arrive and the local corrupt governor Cyprion refuses to lend him money for his further endeavors due to bad omen that a professional soothsayer saw while reading the future from a chicken liver, he is ruined. To make things worse, just as Hector plans to ask his master for freedom and elope with his master's female African slave Thalia, Lucinnius informs him that they've been chosen to be scapegoats and must kill themselves under the governor's orders. In medieval times, Hector is a Scotsman who's traveling with a somewhat zealotic but friendly and well-intentioned priest on a mission of mercy to help the fallen crusaders, mortally wounded in the bloody skirmishes, make it to the other side in peace. Beatrice, a nice beautiful flirtatious Italian widow, is traveling part of the way with them as well. Hector is tired of death and carnage and wants to go home but when he and Beatrice connect despite not speaking each-others languages, he falls for her. The priest warns him that he can't handle her needs but Hector doesn't take his friendly warning seriously and eventually leaves with her. However, he soon realizes that the priest was referring to responsibilities of a complicated family life. During the Renaissance, a group of Portuguese nobleman and their servants and soldiers gets shipwrecked somewhere on the coast of Africa. They make an encampment at the beach and try to find some Africans to ask for help but they also try to uphold their strict old ways of life at their beach camp. The realities of the life and death situation they're in kick in quickly and things go wrong for most of them. Hector is one of the lower nobleman, who tries to reconnect with his lover, who wants nothing to do with him. However, Hector's misfortune turns out to be his blessing this time, if only temporarily. In present day New York, Hector is about to pick up his young daughter and little son he hasn't seen in years from his ex wife and her new husband and take them to a seaside bungalow where they can reconnect again. However, his day turns into a quagmire. First he gets blamed by the police for a bizarre accident that almost kills one of the tenants in a building owned by his somewhat sleazy partner Boris. Then Hector borrows the flower delivery car from his nice girlfriend Anna to get the kids but forgets to deliver the flowers which Anna's client ordered for a celebration. His kids don't make things much easier for him either. He decides to treat them like adults for a change and they have a redeeming serious talk about their uneasy relationship. Five bittersweet vignettes about five men from various eras of history, all called Hector and played by the same actor (Robin Williams), who find themselves at a critical juncture in their lives. In prehistoric times, Hector lives in peace with his wife, son and daughter on an uninhabited island somewhere in the north. His world is shattered when a group of raiders arrive there. In the Antiquity, Hector is a loyal well-treated slave of Lucinnius, a somewhat naive big trader with some political ties. When Lucinnius goes bankrupt and is ordered to kill himself, he asks Hector to join him. However, Hector has a different plan in mind for himself. In medieval times, Hector, a Scotsman, falls for Beatrice, a beautiful Italian widow. They connect despite the language barrier and she takes him home. However, she comes with some baggage. During the Renaissance, a group of pompous Portuguese nobleman and their servants is shipwrecked on the coast of Africa. They try to keep the old social order and survive until they can find help. In present day New York, Hector tries to reconnect with his estranged son and daughter despite his misfortunes.

A renowned New York playwright is enticed to California to write for the movies and discovers the hellish truth of Hollywood. In the wake of his early but undeniable theatrical success in Broadway, the idealistic author of the proletariat and self-pitying 1940s New York playwright, Barton Fink, finds himself lured to dazzling Hollywood to write scripts for eccentric Jack Lipnick's Capitol Pictures. But, instead of writing a story pivoting around the common man, Fink's first screenplay turns out to be a Wallace Beery wrestling movie, and, before he knows it, he develops a severe case of writer's block. Now, holed up in the seedy, run-down Hotel Earle, before his silent Underwood typewriter, Barton comes to realise that his only hope to meet the deadline is to take inspiration from the burly insurance salesman living next door, Charlie Meadows, and the unassuming secretary, Audrey Taylor. In the meantime, the suffocating stranglehold of artistic bankruptcy tightens. Does self-destructive Barton Fink have the stomach for confronting Hollywood's bitter reality? —Nick Riganas The film opens in New York City during the year 1941. Barton Fink is a novice Jewish-American playwright, who has just had his first great success at the Broadway stage. He wrote a play about the struggles and aspirations of common fishmongers. He aspires to write more plays about the lives of the working class, as he finds them more interesting than the kings and the aristocracy. His agent instead convinces him to sign a lucrative screenwriting contract with Capitol Pictures, a Los Angeles-based film studio. Fink settles into the life of a hack writer, though he is not truly suited for the job. His first assignment is to work on the script of a B-Movie about wrestling, though he does not even know the basics about this form of entertainment. Fink becomes a long-term resident of the Hotel Earle, a decaying relic of the art deco era. Feeling lonely, Fink befriends his next door-neighbor, the insurance salesman Charlie Meadows. He views Meadows as a typical working stiff, but he likes sharing drinks with him. Fink seeks writing advice from the experienced novelist and screenwriter W. P. Mayhew, but soon realizes that the man is an abusive alcoholic whose career has declined. Fink finds a love interest in Audrey Taylor, Mayhew's personal secretary, long-term mistress, and the ghost writer behind most of Mayhews' recent works. After Taylor is murdered in Fink's bedroom, a traumatized Fink becomes increasingly emotionally dependent on Meadows. Shortly after, two police detectives inform Fink that Meadows is actually wanted serial killer Karl Mundt, who typically decapitates his victims. Fink slowly realizes Meadows' hidden agenda, while finding himself out of favor with his boss at the film studio. —Dimos I In 1941, New York intellectual playwright Barton Fink comes to Hollywood to write a Wallace Beery wrestling picture. Staying in the eerie Hotel Earle, Barton develops severe writer's block. His neighbor, jovial insurance salesman Charlie Meadows, tries to help, but Barton continues to struggle as a bizarre sequence of events distracts him even further from his task. —Scott Renshaw <as.idc@forsythe.stanford.edu> Barton Fink is a troubled New York playwright obsessed with bringing his new idea of "Theater of the Common Man" to the producers he loves to hate. After his first budding success his agent convinces him to travel to Los Angeles to write for Capital Pictures. When he arrives he checks into the dark Hotel Earle and meets with Capital Pictures President Jack Lipnick, who tells him of the movie he's writing: a B-Movie wrestling picture for Wallace Beery. Fink travels back to his hotel room to begin, but when he arrives he types one sentence and then falls into the horror of writer's block. He tries getting help from his neighbor, "Common Man" Charlie Meadows; famed writer Mayhew; Mayhew's girlfriend Audrey and producer Ben Geisler. But as Fink drifts further away from his script strange things start happening, and eventually two detectives show up at his door... —Monte_Man167

An undercover officer rejoins Irish mob pals in Hell's Kitchen. Terry Noonan returns home to New York's Hells Kitchen after a ten year absence. He soon hooks up with childhood pal Jackie who is involved in the Irish mob run by his brother Frankie. Terry also rekindles an old flame with Jackie's sister Kathleen. Soon, however, Terry is torn between his loyalty to his friends and his loyalties to others.

Jazz trumpeter Bleek Gilliam makes questionable decisions in his professional and romantic lives. Bleek Gilliam is a talented and self-centred jazz trumpeteer, whose single-minded concentration on his music leaves many, especially the women in his life, scrambling for his attention. Bleek forms his own band The Bleek Gilliam Quartet, and a rivalry emerges with bandmate Shadow that threatens to tear apart the quartet. Opens with Bleek as a child learning to play the trumpet, his friends want him to come out and play but mother insists he finish his lessons. Bleek grows into adulthood and forms his own band - The Bleek Gilliam Quartet. The story of Bleek's and Shadow's friendly rivalry on stage which spills into their professional relationship and threatens to tear apart the quartet. —David <DGOWERS6@CHECLABA.SCU.EDU.AU>

On the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, everyone's hate and bigotry smolders and builds until it explodes into violence. This film looks at life in the Bedford-Stuyvesant district of Brooklyn on a hot summer Sunday. As he does everyday, Sal Fragione opens the pizza parlor he's owned for 25 years. The neighborhood has changed considerably in the time he's been there and is now composed primarily of African-Americans and Hispanics. His son Pino hates it there and would like nothing better than to relocate the eatery to their own neighborhood. For Sal however, the restaurant represents something that is part of his life and sees it as a part of the community. What begins as a simple complaint by one of his customers, Buggin Out - who wonders why he has only pictures of famous Italian-Americans on the wall when most of his customers are black - eventually disintegrates into violence as frustration seemingly brings out the worst in everyone. —garykmcd Life over twenty-four hours during a heatwave along one small section of Stuyvesant Avenue in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn is presented. It is a historically black section, with the exception of Sal's Pizzeria, which has been located there for twenty-five years, Sal, who now operates it with his two young adult sons Pino and Vito, making the very conscious decision on location due to the overabundance of pizzerias in his own Italo-centric neighborhood, in the process doing good business. Sal's customer base has largely been the black residents of the neighborhood, he currently employing black Mookie as a delivery boy. However, the makeup of the neighborhood has slowly been changing with Latinos moving in - Mookie's girlfriend, Tina, also the mother to his son, being Latina - gentrification leading to well-off Caucasians buying properties, and a recent immigrant Korean family opening a general store across the street from the pizzeria. There has been an underlying tension between the races as each tries to stake out his or her place: competing boomboxes blaring Caribbean music from one and black music from another; Pino, in particular among those in Sal's family, not liking the business largely due to the clientele and neighborhood; and contempt by some for the seeming success of the general store operated by a visible racial exception in the neighborhood, despite that property having sat empty for years. But on this day, the seeming spark that may ignite that tension is black Buggin Out taking exception to Sal only posting the photos of ethnic Italian celebrities on the pizzeria's Wall of Fame, instead of including "brothers and sisters" to reflect the makeup of Sal's customer base. —Huggo As the dog days of summer drag on in the Bed-Stuy neighbourhood of Brooklyn, an unexpected incident is about to bring tensions to a boiling point. After all, among the businesses on the lively block, it is hard not to notice Love Daddy's storefront radio station, Sonny's convenience store, and Sal's Famous Pizzeria. And then, in just one day, the residents' once-peaceful interactions become explosive confrontations as pressing demands to give voice to the frustrations of people of colour echo through the streets. Now, there is no turning back. But when you have put everything on the line to make yourself heard, what does it take to do the right thing? —Nick Riganas Salvatore "Sal" Fragione (Danny Aiello) is the Italian owner of a pizzeria in Brooklyn. A neighborhood local, Buggin' Out (Giancarlo Esposito), becomes upset when he sees that the pizzeria's Wall of Fame exhibits only Italian actors. Buggin' Out believes a pizzeria in a black neighborhood should showcase black actors, but Sal disagrees. The wall becomes a symbol of racism and hate to Buggin' Out and to other people in the neighborhood, and tensions rise. —maschzentertainment

In a town in rural Pennsylvania, the automobile factory has been shut down for nine months, leaving the town economically distressed. A Japanese company, Assan Motors, has purchased the factory, but will need to be convinced that it is worth reopening. Hunt Stevenson goes to Japan to make a presentation to Assan's management, and the result is that Assan sends a management team to America and the factory is reopened, although the workers will earn a substantially lower wage than they had before the factory had originally closed. However, Hunt is a hero for having convinced management to reopen. The culture clash is severe, as Japanese management demands far more regimentation and output than the workers are used to, and unpaid overtime is expected when output falls short of productivity standards. Management has little regard for the workers and the quality of their lives, focusing on productivity alone. The workers become agitated and their relationship with management becomes adversarial. Acting as employee liaison, Hunt tries to smooth things over, but is unable, and when a worker intentionally knocks over one of the Japanese managers during a company baseball game, the situation appears beyond repair. Japanese management sees little point in keeping the factory open until Hunt contends that he can match the production of a Japanese factory in its best month, meaning 15,000 completed automobiles. Amused by this contention, Japanese management agrees that once this output is reached, the factory would remain open and wages would return to the levels operating before the original closing of the factory. Otherwise, the factory would close once again and the workers would receive nothing. Hunt advises the workers of this deal, but his announcement is met with incredulity, and to appease them, he falsely relates that a lesser raise would still be earned once this output exceeded 13,000 automobiles. The workers give this a shot, but despite working long hours and on weekends, they conclude that the goal of 15,000 is unattainable, and decide to go for the raise that would come once 13,000 automobiles were completed. After attaining this goal, the workers walk out on management when a dispute arises. Now, Hunt must come clean, and tell his town that he made a deal for 15,000 automobiles, and that failure would result in no raises, which would devastate the town's local economy. Hunt has now gone from hero to goat, and his co-workers are furious. However, they finally put their noses to the grindstone and put their differences with the Japanese managers aside as the senior executive from Japan is coming to check on the state of the factory. When the strict executive comes by, they have fallen slightly short of their 15,000 goal, but the Japanese executive is nonetheless impressed by the team spirit he sees in the factory. Liking the way that the Americans and Japanese are now working together, he decides to keep the factory open, and give the full raises, and the stage is set for an era of understanding among all those working at the factory. The management agrees to be partially less demanding on their requirements and pay the employees better while the workers agree to be more cooperative.

In Los Angeles, President Ronald Reagan's motorcade arrives at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. During the President's speech, Secret Service agent Richard Chance (William L. Petersen) discovers a terrorist on the roof of the hotel, strapped with explosives. As Richard tries to talk him down, his partner, Jimmy Hart (Michael Greene), climbs the side of the building and pulls the suicide bomber off the roof, causing the terrorist to explode in the air. Sometime later, Richard jumps from a San Pedro bridge attached to a safety line then drinks beer with his colleagues and gives Jimmy a fishing rod as a retirement gift. Before Jimmy leaves, Richard insists that Jimmy include him on a stakeout the following day, but Jimmy says that he has only three days left at work and wants to go alone. Meanwhile, counterfeiter and artist, Eric "Rick" Masters (Willem Dafoe), prints thousands of $20 bills at a remote desert warehouse. When Jimmy arrives and finds evidence of Masters' counterfeiting in the dumpster, he is shot dead. Two days later, Richard and a team of agents raid the warehouse, but find only a washing machine. Outside, Richard notices a pool of blood beneath the dumpster and discovers Jimmy's body. Mourning the loss of Jimmy at his beachfront apartment, Richard is visited by a colleague from the warehouse raid, John Vukovich (John Pankow). Richard threatens to bring Masters down by any means necessary and John offers to be his new partner. A week later, at an airport stakeout, Richard and John arrest Carl Cody (John Turturro), one of Masters' operatives, after he uses counterfeit money to pay for his ticket. Visiting Cody in prison, Masters tells him that his lawyer, Bob Grimes (Dean Stockwell), will reduce his sentence, but inquires why Cody's last delivery of cash to Max Waxman (Christopher Allport) was never received. Cody denies Waxman's claim that he postponed a delivery just before he was detained at the airport, and threatens to kill Waxman when he is released. Later, Masters meets with Grimes about reducing Cody's sentence and expresses concern that Cody will expose his operation to the police if he stays in prison. Meanwhile, Richard's girlfriend, Ruth Lanier (Darlanne Fleugel), who works for him as an informant, tells him about Waxman. Backstage at a club, Masters tells his dancer girlfriend, Bianca Torres (Debra Feuer), that Waxman has double-crossed them and she offers to help. As Richard and John keep surveillance on Waxman's office, they observe Bianca make a delivery. Inside, Bianca acquiesces to Waxman's seduction, but leaves the door open for Masters, who interrupts their escapade and forces Waxman to open the safe and return his cash. After a brief struggle, Masters shoots Waxman dead. Although Richard and Jimmy sleep through the murder, they enter Waxman's office with the police and Richard finds a code book with dates, dollar amounts and the initials "R. M." Despite Jimmy's warning that he is tampering with police evidence, Richard keeps the journal. Later, after Richard and Ruth have sex, she asks to receive payment for leading him to Waxman. When he tells her that she won't get paid without an arrest, she predicts that her job as an informant will end her life. Before Richard leaves, Ruth reports that a Chinese man will soon be arriving from San Francisco to purchase $50,000 in stolen diamonds. Richard claims that he is only interested in counterfeit money and threatens to revoke her parole if she stops providing him with information about the Masters case. While John follows a lead to Masters' studio, Masters meets with local dealer, Jeff Rice (Steve James), at a basketball court and agrees to pay him $75,000 to have Cody killed in prison. When the hit fails, Richard interrogates Cody, but Cody refuses to betray Masters. Meanwhile, Masters puts a gun in Rice's mouth, demands his money back and burns the cash. After convincing Judge Filo Cedillo (Val DeVargas) to release Cody so he can assist with the bust, Richard forces Cody to guide him to Masters's print shop, but on the way, Cody asks to see his sick daughter in the hospital. As Richard removes Cody's handcuffs before they enter the hospital room, Cody attacks Richard and escapes. Meanwhile, John meets with Grimes at a bar. Grimes complains about having Masters as a client and agrees to set him up at a meeting with the agents. Richard and John pose as moneylenders from a bank in the Cayman Islands and meet Masters at a gym, asking for a million dollars in counterfeit bills. When Richard explains that they have a client who wants to launder bonds to avoid taxes, Masters demands $30,000 in cash upfront. Unable to produce decoy money from their department for the bust, Richard proposes to John that they covertly intercept the diamond deal Ruth told him about and seize $50,000, but John refuses. Richard blackmails Ruth with prison time to help him with the heist, but when Richard captures Thomas Ling at Union Station, John picks them up in the getaway car. Followed from the station by two men, Richard and John hold Ling at gunpoint. They discover a phone book in his briefcase and cash in a concealed money belt when shots are fired from above, killing Ling. After losing their stalkers in a car chase, Richard and John realize they are being pursued by a large team of cars and armed accomplices. John drives up a freeway off ramp and swerves through oncoming traffic to escape. Later, at an office briefing, Richard and John learn that Ling was an undercover FBI agent. While Richard delivers the cash to Masters, John consults with Grimes about his legal options and learns his only defense is to plead guilty and turn in Richard. Grimes agrees to represent John for $50,000, but John refuses to betray his partner. Meanwhile, Richard collects Cody from his girlfriend's apartment. Later, Richard and John meet Masters at the gym to complete the deal, but as they make the arrest, Master's bodyguard shoots Richard in the forehead and Richard returns fire. Leaving his dead partner behind, John returns to Masters's studio and discovers that Masters set fire to the warehouse. Sitting cross-legged among the flames, Masters asks John why he did not accept Grimes's deal. Masters beats John, covers him with shredded counterfeit bills and attempts to set him on fire, but John shoots him and Masters becomes engulfed in the flames of his own torch. Some time later, John visits Ruth to collect the remaining $20,000 from their heist. Accusing her of knowing that Ling was an FBI agent and setting them up, John tells Ruth that she is now working for him.