Lynne Thigpen

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.

Generally, the film is a dark and quirky "tragicomedy" concerning an "everyman" protagonist. Dr. Frank Sangster is a dentist with a fairly pleasant but rather innocuous, ordinary, and uneventful life. Jean is Frank's girlfriend and is also his assistant at his dental clinic. Pat (Lynne Thigpen) is Frank's office manager. Frank wants to have sex with Jean in the dentist's chair, but she refuses every time, leaving one of his fantasies unfulfilled. But all of this gets derailed, and Frank's (Steve Martin) life descends into an increasingly complex mess, from the minute a beautiful and seductive new patient named Susan Ivey (Helena Bonham Carter) comes to him, seeking a root canal and a little pain relief. On Susan's initial office visit, Frank schedules her for a root canal the very next day and offers her some Ibuprofen to address her pain in the meanwhile. Claiming that she is allergic to the offered medication, Susan requests a prescription for the addictive pain-killer Demerol. Frank initially refuses, sensing a scam on Susan's part, but Susan convinces Frank to write her a prescription. Frank provides the prescription, but only for five tablets. However, Susan changes the dosage from five tablets to fifty when she collects the medication from her pharmacist. The pharmacist calls Frank and says that 50 is way over the limit and that's when Frank knew that he had been scammed. Susan arrives for her appointment twelve hours late, having mistaken the time. The appointment was for 7 30 AM, but Susan arrives at 7 30 PM for her root canal sitting with Frank. She seduces Frank, talking him into getting drunk and having sex with her. During the night, Susan steals all of Frank's narcotics. The next day, there is a DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) agent at Frank's office demanding to see the dentist's narcotics supply, because an 18-year-old has driven a car off a cliff under the influence of Cocaine Hydrochloride from a bottle registered to the dentist. Knowing that Susan has stolen his entire drug supply, Frank puts the agent off, saying he had dispensed it all to patients. The agent leaves with the promise that if Frank fails to produce the empty containers in two days, the DEA will place him under arrest. That night Frank goes to Susan's hotel room to demand the empty containers, threatening that he'll call the police if she doesn't provide them. Once again, she overrides his initial intentions and seduces him - with the result that they have sex, and he spends the night with her. The next day at his office, Frank is confronted by Susan's brother, Duane Ivey (Scott Caan) having a violent scene, saying: "Stay the hell away from my sister" and "I don't appreciate your threats". Duane ends the conversation with, "I don't ever want to see you again, because if I do, goddamn it, I'm going to hurt you." That night, Frank returns to Susan's hotel room and, assuming that Susan is the form he sees the bed, starts talking to her. The person under the blanket turns out to be not Susan but brother Duane, who leaps up and attacks Frank, attempting to strangle him. Frank takes scissors from a nearby desk and stabs Duane in the hand, impaling him and embedding the scissors. Frank flees, stopping off at a bar to calm down. On arriving at home, just minutes ahead of his angry & suspicious girlfriend Jean (Laura Dern) (who suspects Frank is having an affair), he finds Duane dead on the floor. Police arrive on the scene to question Frank. Comically adding to Frank's distress and anxiety is actor Lance Phelps (Kevin Bacon), a hack actor doing research for a role, and permitted by the police to question Frank at aggressive levels that cause Frank heightened discomfort. After the police arrive and depart, Frank tells Jean about the whole ordeal. A while later, Frank is arrested for the murder of Duane Ivey based on finding Frank's teeth marks on the body - that Jean put there after she herself killed Duane. Jean was having an affair with Duane & Duane wanted more & more money to keep it a secret. After Frank breaks free, all of Chicago is on the lookout for him. He goes to his office in the night, only to find his brother Harlan (Elias Koteas) lying dead. At this point, it is revealed that Frank's girlfriend Jean is behind all of the killing. Jean had been conspiring with Harlan, with whom she'd been having an affair, to use Susan to frame Frank for selling drugs so she could take full control of the company she and Frank had started together. However, Duane came along with Susan, which was not part of the plan, and Jean ended up killing him, using Frank's dentures to make the bite marks. Unfortunately for Harlan, her plan was to eventually kill him as well with the shotgun to tie up all loose ends and make it appear that Frank killed him after Duane. Jean has killed Harlan, when Harlan told Jean that he knew of her affair with Duane & threatened to go public with the same. Realizing he'll never be free without starting over, Frank pulls out all of his dead brother's teeth, as well as all of his own. Frank uses his dental skills to place his own teeth into his dead brother's skull, and then sets fire to the dental office with Harlan's corpse, replete with replaced teeth, left inside. Frank and Susan, now lovers, escape to France, where they live happily ever after in a little cottage on the countryside. Meanwhile, identification of Frank's teeth in the charred corpse's remains in Frank's torched office is taken as proof that Frank is the man who was shot and killed there. Meanwhile, Jean's attempts to frame Frank fall apart. Unknown to her, Harlan was playing with a medical video camera (which was also fireproof, for insurance purposes) while he was shot, and the recovered footage shows Jean firing the shotgun at the camera holder but fails to show it was Harlan who was shot. Therefore, the police wrongly assume that Jean shot Frank and arrest her.

New York City tabloid editor Henry's faced with tough decisions while he faces several serious life challenges, and a tempting job offer. Henry Hackett is the metro editor of a New York City tabloid. He is a workaholic who loves his job, but the long hours and low pay are leading to discontent. Also, publisher Graham Keighly faces financial straits, and has Managing Editor Alicia Clark, Henry's nemesis, impose unpopular cutbacks. Henry's wife Martha, a hugely pregnant former reporter of his, is fed up because he has so little time for his family. He is therefore considering an offer from Paul Bladden to edit a paper like the New York Times, which would mean more money, shorter hours, more respectability...but might also be a bit boring for his tastes. But a hot story soon confronts Henry with tough decisions. —Reid Gagle At the tabloid, the New York Sun, its staff hustles more and uses gimmicky headlines to sell papers. The Sentinel's editor, Henry Hackett is a workaholic, but it's starting to take its toll on him. Alicia Clark is brought in to make cutbacks. Henry must struggle to keep the property successful while he's got a remount it elsewhere —Huggo

A simpleton inventor becomes a superhero with a bulletproof costume and a low budget. Darryl is a childlike man with a genius for inventing various gadgets out of junk. When he stumbles on a method to make his clothes bulletproof, he decides to use his skills to be the lowest budgeted superhero of all. —Kenneth Chisholm <kchishol@execulink.com> Darryl Walker is a nerdy, child-like man with a genius for inventing various gadgets out of junk. After tragedy hits his family, and when he stumbles on a method to make his clothes bulletproof, he decides to use his skills to become the lowest budgeted superhero ever. His brother Kevin disapproves of Darryl fighting crime as "Blankman", but soon finds himself fighting alongside his brother as "Other Guy", an easily overlooked partner with no special weapons or crime-fighting abilities. —Anthony Pereyra {hypersonic91@yahoo.com}

The dedicated but tyrannical Joe Clark is appointed the principal of a decaying inner-city school he is determined to improve by any and all means. An arrogant and unorthodox teacher returns as principal to the idyllic high school from which he had earlier been fired to find it a den of drug abuse, gang violence, and urban despair. Eventually he is successful but unorthodox methods lead to a clash with city officials that threatens to undo all his efforts. Based on a true story. —Keith Loh <loh@sfu.ca> When a school in Paterson, New Jersey, has less-than-average basic skills test scores, it faces the possibility of being taken over by the state. So the mayor asks the school superintendent for help, and he suggests that they appoint the controversial Joe Clark as the school principal. Clark begrudgingly agrees. And when he arrives, he shakes things up by reassigning teachers and calling all of them incompetent. And it isn't long before a lot of people want him out, but at the same time, he gains the respect of some of the teachers and the students. —rcs0411@yahoo.com

An adaption of the musical, in a modern-day song-and-dance recreation of the Gospel of St. Matthew. It's a typical bustling day in present day New York City. Eight young adults, going about their day as usual and most being negatively impacted by something or another, or being numb to life, see a vision of a man and/or hear him calling to them. He is "John", a hippie, who they follow in his heed for them to "prepare the way of the Lord". The eight end up transforming into hippies themselves in spending the day traversing a now empty New York City with John and an equally hippie Jesus as they act out Jesus' teachings of love, devotion and tolerance in order to carry the message to others. But not all will be well with Jesus in his teachings by the end of the day. —Huggo A modern-day version of the gospels, opening with John the Baptist calling a disparate group of young New Yorkers from their workaday lives to follow and learn from Jesus. They form a roving acting troupe that enacts the parables through song and dance, comedy, and mime. Jesus' ministry ends with a last supper, his Crucifixion in a junkyard, and, the following morning, his body being carried aloft by his apostles back into the world of the living on the streets of New York. —Steven Dhuey <sdhuey@mail.soemadison.wisc.edu>