Kathleen Wilhoite

An unstable dad who, after getting out of a mental institution, tries to convince his daughter that there's Spanish gold buried somewhere under suburbia. A fresh-out-of-the-mental institution father and his emancipated teenage daughter venture together on a quest for an ancient Spanish treasure buried beneath their local Costco in this take on the modern family and the American dream. —Anonymous Michael Douglas stars as a treasure-hunting eccentric in this Alexander Payne-produced comedy from director Michael Cahill. Recently released from a mental institution and reunited with his teenage daughter, Miranda (Evan Rachel Wood), Charlie (Douglas) decides there's century's old gold buried near their lower-middle-class neighborhood, and sets out on an obsessive quest to find it. Along the way, the estranged parent and child rekindle a long-lost bond with each other.

On November 5, 1975 in Snowflake, Arizona, logger Travis Walton (D.B. Sweeney), and his co-workers - Mike Rogers (Robert Patrick), Allan Dallis (Craig Sheffer), David Whitlock (Peter Berg), Greg Hayes (Henry Thomas) and Bobby Cogdill (Bradley Gregg) - head to work in the White Mountains. Driving home from work, the loggers see an unearthly light in the distance through the treeline. Upon investigating, they come across an unidentified flying object. Curious to learn more, Walton gets out of the truck to examine closer, only for the hovering object to reach and strike him with a bright beam of light, hurling him several feet backwards. Fearing Walton has been killed, the terrified loggers escape from the scene. Rogers decides to go back to the spot to retrieve Walton, but he is nowhere to be found. Going back to town to report the incident, the loggers are meet with skepticism by Sheriff Blake Davis (Noble Willingham) and Lieutenant Frank Watters (James Garner). They are suspected of foul play, something believed that quickly spreads over their small town, leaving them as social outcasts. Watters realizes there was a great deal of tension between Walton and Dallis and that Dallis has a criminal record, leading him to believe this is a murder investigation. Watters also discovers a tabloid newspaper in their truck with headlines about aliens, hinting that they used the article to concoct their story. The loggers are accused of murder and are threatened by Travis' older brother Dan Walton (Scott MacDonald). After a large search party found no sign of Walton, the loggers are offered the chance to take a lie detector test. After the testing is complete, Rogers is outraged that the results are not shared and he and "his guys" refused to return the next day to retake this. After the loggers leave, the test's administrator informs Watters and Davis that, with the exception of Dallis (whose results were inconclusive), the loggers seem to be telling the truth. Five days later, Rogers receives a phone call from someone claiming to be Walton. He is found at a Heber gas station, alive but naked, dehydrated and severely traumatized. A ufologist questions Walton but he is thrown out and Walton is taken to a hospital. Rogers visits Walton while in the emergency room and ends up telling Walton that he leave him after he was struck by the beam of light but came back to get him. Walton appears enraged by this and turns away from Rogers who blames the whole incident on Walton for getting out of the truck. During a welcome home party, Walton suffers from a mental breakdown and flashback of the abduction by the extraterrestrials. In his flashback, he awakens inside a slimy cocoon. Breaking out of its membrane, a puzzled Walton finds himself in a zero-gravity alien environment inside a cylindrical enclosure, whose walls contain other similar cocoons. Struggling in the low gravity, he breaches a nearby cocoon by chance, horrified to discover that this contains decomposing human remains. Exploring further, he drifts towards a neighboring area, seeing several humanoid figures below him. Drifting uncontrollably towards them, he surmises that the immobile figures are actually spacesuits, one of them occupied by an extraterrestrial creature. Walton attempts to escape, but is apprehended by two extraterrestrial creatures who drag him down corridors full of terrestrial detritus such as shoes and keys before arriving in a bizarre examining chamber. The aliens hold the struggling Walton to a raised platform in the middle of the chamber, stripping him of his clothes and covering him with an elastic material that completely restrains him. Despite Walton's terrified screams, the small aliens clinically force him to undergo an experiment in which a gelatinous substance is shoved into his mouth, a long pipe is inserted down his throat, his jaw is clamped open and a device is stabbed into his neck. Overhead equipment then begins lowering towards him while fully conscious during the experience. After a needle-like ocular probe extends towards this exposed eye, Walton loses consciousness until finding himself back on Earth, disoriented and severely traumatized. While interviewing Walton, Lieutenant Watters expresses his doubts about the abduction, dismissing this merely as a hoax. He notes Walton's newfound celebrity because of the tabloids' attempt to profit from his story, believing that he had faked the abduction to become a celebrity. However, with the investigation closed, Watters is forced to abandon his pursuit and leaves town. Two and a half years later, Walton visits Rogers, now a hermit, and the two reconcile while they struggle with trauma over the past. The film's closing titles inform that in 1993, Walton, Rogers and Dallis were resubmitted to additional polygraph examinations, which they passed, corroborating their innocence.

Lorenzo Odone, a Virginia 5-year-old, develops a degenerative nerve disease so rare that nobody is working on a cure, so his parents decide to immerse themselves in research and tackle the problem themselves. Until about the age of seven, Lorenzo Odone was a normal child. After then, strange things began to happen to him: he would have blackouts, memory lapses, and other strange mental phemonenons. He is eventually diagnosed as suffering from ALD (adrenoleukodystrophy): an extremely rare incurable degenerative brain disorder. Frustrated at the failings of doctors and medicine in this area, the Odones begin to educate themselves in the hope of discovering something which can halt the progress of the disease. —Murray Chapman <muzzle@cs.uq.oz.au>

A soft and hesitant young man is in danger when he tries to break toxic relationships with a mysterious stranger claiming to be his friend. Michael, a wimpy young executive, is about to get pulverized by a jealous boyfriend in a bar when a handsome, mysterious stranger steps in--and then disappears. Later that night, while jogging, Michael runs into the stranger on a pier. He introduces himself as Alex, and the two go out to an under- ground club. Within a matter of days, Alex wheedles his way into Michael's life and turns it upside down, and Michael doesn't realize that Alex is a dangerous sociopath until it's too late. —Denise P. Meyer <dpm1@cornell.edu>

Framed for his ex-wife's murder by a parolee he once put behind bars, Los Angeles cop Jack Murphy escapes from custody to capture the killer, but he is now handcuffed to a foul-mouthed thief he had only just arrested. Charles Bronson plays Jack Murphy a veteran police detective who is framed for the murder of his ex-wife. Although taken into custody, Murphy escapes from the police station handcuffed to a foul-mouthed car thief. Pursued by the police, Murphy must find the real killer before it is too late. —Michael A Kortt <mkortt@metz.une.edu.au> Jack Murphy is a tough, antisocial cop. Things are not good for him right now; he just killed the brother of a mobster, and is now marked for death. His wife left him and is now an exotic dancer, and is trying to get her to come back to him and when she shuns him, he drowns his sorrows in the bottle. And if that isn't enough, it seems like someone is stalking him but before going after him, this person wants to torment him first. And what this person does is kill his wife and frame him. Murphy would be arrested and is handcuffed to a young street kid, whom he arrested earlier. They escape and Murphy tries to find out who did this to him. —rcs0411@yahoo.com

One evening at the Cherryvale Academy for Women in southern California, student Christine Ramsay (Phoebe Cates) reads passages from a pornographic novel to her roommate, Betsy Newhouse (Kathleen Wilhoite). Outside the neighboring window, their respective boyfriends, straight-laced Jim Green (Matthew Modine) and the leering Bubba Beauregard (Michael Zorek), from the nearby Freemount Academy for Men, form a human ladder with their nerd/intellectual classmate, Roy (Jonathan Prince), as Bubba photographs senior Jordan Leigh-Jensen (Betsy Russell) taking a shower. Jordan enters Christine's room wrapped in a towel, which Bubba reaches through the window and removes as his friends collapse beneath him. Upon returning to her own dormitory, Jordan tells roommate Rita Flugel (Kari Lizer) of her disdain for Christine, which Rita perceives as jealousy over Jim Green. Though Jordan denies the accusation, she declares her intention to seduce Jim and end his romance with Christine. Later that evening, students from both schools gather for a dance in the Cherryvale ballroom. Miss Prudence Dutchbok (Fran Ryan), the strict and prude headmistress, addresses the crowd and acknowledges the visiting Cherryvale Building Committee, a group of elderly prudish women, which is sponsoring construction of a new wing for the school. She escorts the committee to her office, where they find Bubba and Betsy making love on the couch. The next day, the committee audits Ms. Regina Copuletta's (Sylvia Kristel) sex education class as she details the mechanics of intercourse. After the class, Christine decides she is ready to lose her virginity and makes a weekend reservation for herself and Jim at Hotel D'Amour, a seaside resort for honeymooners. Later that day, during an equestrian class, Jordan tries to attract Jim by exposing her breasts, unaware that he and Christine have left to buy condoms. Jim and Christine drive to a nearby pharmacy, but Jim is so nervous about purchasing condoms that the pharmacist (Martin Mull) mistakes Jim's request for contraceptives for tooth cleaning. Christine is forced to go into the pharmacy to buy the condoms herself and runs into Ms. Regina who is trying on a gaudy face cream supplied by the pharmacist. That evening, Jim, Bubba and Roy are hanging out at a local video arcade when Jim is persuaded to call Christine to tell her that he loves her. Jim phones Christine from a payphone and while Bubba and Roy stand nearby, Jordan listens in on the extension at the school. After Jordan facetiously reciprocates Jim's declaration of love, Christine and Betsy get their revenge by sneaking into Jordan's room in the middle of the night and sabotaging their cheerleader uniforms. The next day, Christine and Betsy realize (too late) they sabotaged the wrong uniform when one of Coach Whelan's (Julie Payne) breasts is exposed during cheer-leading practice. All of the girls, as well as Jim and Bubba and the Freemount football team, have a good laugh. Miss Dutchbok implicates Jordan and Rita in the prank, as well as Christine and Betsy, restricting them to campus for the week. One evening sometime later, Jim, Bubba, and Roy dress as girls (complete with dresses and makeup) in an attempt to visit Christine and Betsy. Once inside the dormitory, they encounter Jordan, who immediately recognizes them. When Jim claims to be "Christine's sister", Jordan invites him to her room and tries in vain to titillate him. Bubba enters Betsy's room with the intention of making love, but is discouraged by her demand for foreplay. He climbs out the window and makes his way to the gymnasium shower room to look at naked girls. But he soon becomes trapped in the sauna when Miss Dutchbok arrives to take a steam bath... leaving him trapped in the sauna. Meanwhile, Jim reveals his true identity to Jordan, who play-acts offended and openly accuses him of trying to seduce her. Though Jim protests his innocence to Christine, she believes Jordan and refuses to discuss the matter. At the same time, Bubba escapes from the sauna and rejoins Jim and Roy where the three guys leave the girls dorm and quietly return to their own dorm. On Parents' Day the following weekend, Jim explains the misunderstanding to Christine's father, who promises to intervene on his behalf. Betsy also speaks to Christine and convinces her to give Jim another chance. Jordan waits impatiently for her father, who embarrasses her with his habitual lateness, while Rita's father, Frank Flugel (Richard Stahl), embarrasses her with his habitual drunkenness. Mr. Leigh-Jensen finally arrives, accompanied by his latest trophy wife, a very young woman named Bambi (Karen Chase). When Mr. Flugel accidentally pushes Miss Copuletta into the swimming pool, Mr. Leigh-Jensen rescues her and offers mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, which the teacher encourages. In the parking lot, Miss Dutchbok mistakes the Leigh-Jensen's chauffeur, Chauncey (Ray Walston), for his employer and asks for a donation to the school. He invites Miss Dutchbok into his limousine, draws curtains to cover the windows and seduces her. Assuming the car is empty, Bubba and Betsy make love in the front seat until they realize they are not alone. Betsy places a microphone behind the curtain and connects it to the car's loudspeaker system, broadcasting Miss Dutchbok's seduction to the party-goers. The headmistress reacts by reaching through the curtain and choking Bubba. He accidentally releases the emergency brake, causing the limousine to careen through the party and into the swimming pool. One week later, Christine and Jim leave for the Hotel D'Amour. On the Freemount campus, Bubba bets Roy and the rest of his classmates that he can persuade Jordan to remove her clothes. Expecting a rendezvous with Jim, she enters his dormitory, unaware that several boys are hidden around the room (in the coat closet, under the bed, in the bathroom, etc.). Jordan is forced to remove her dress after Bubba sprays her with red wine, and she sends him out for club soda to remove the stain. Within moments, Betsy arrives and informs Jordan of Bubba's ruse. Upon his return, the two girls beat him up and push him out the window, while the spectators emerge from their hiding places. At the hotel, Christine and Jim find the contrived ambiance of their suite not conducive to romance and go to sleep. In the morning, however, Christine joins Jim on the beach and they make love for the first time in the surf. Months later, Cherryvale's senior class graduates. Jordan rides to the ceremony with her father and his new wife, Miss Copuletta. Jim is in attendance, along with Roy, who is dressed as a middle-aged man, and Bubba, who is dressed as a woman. Mr. Flugel staggers into an adjoining seat and attempts to fondle Bubba, who knocks him unconscious. Following Miss Dutchbok's commencement speech, Betsy leads the girls in the chant, "Graduation Cherryvale, you won't forget us soon; sunny days ahead of us, we leave behind this moon," after which they expose their behinds.