Marg Helgenberger

Charlie, an unmotivated man in his mid-20s still living at home with his mother and stepfather, falls for a young woman who has a serious boyfriend.

Dan Foreman (Dennis Quaid) is a 51-year-old advertising executive and head of sales for Sports America, a major sports magazine. Happily married with two daughters, Dan faces a life-changing event when his magazine is bought out by Globecom, an international corporation that promotes the corporate concept of "synergy". Globecom is headed by Teddy K (Malcolm McDowell) a reclusive billionaire. Dan has been with the company for 20 years and believes in the power of the magazine as a great advertising medium. Dan believes in building relationships with his clients rather than resorting to any aggressive sales techniques. He leaves them a copy of the Magazine as his final argument. One of Dan's prospects is Eugene (Philip Baker Hall with whom he is in the process of building such a long term relationship. Mark Steckle (Clark Gregg) is Carter's boss at Globecom. Teddy K picks Mark to run Marketing at Sports America and Mark picks Carter to run the Advertisements division. Mark intends to "Cut the fat" at Sports America. Carter gets excited when Mark mentions that Carter "is being groomed" by Teddy K, presumably for leadership positions at future acquisitions. After he is forced to fire several of his longtime colleagues (like Enrique (Ty Burrell), Lou (Kevin Chapman) & Morty (David Paymer)), to reduce payroll by $300,000 in the sales team), Dan is demoted and becomes the "wingman" of his new boss, Carter Duryea (Topher Grace), a 26-year-old business school prodigy. While Dan develops clients through handshake deals and relationships, Carter champions the corporate creed of synergy, cross promoting the magazine with the cell phone division and "Krispity Krunch", a snack food also owned by Globecom. Carter has no experience in advertisement sales. He wants to use the synergy concept to increase sales by 20%. The big idea is to put sports factoids in Krispity Krunch boxes and basically force them to buy 28 pages a year in the Sports America magazine, and same with the cell phone division. Dan and Carter are both facing challenges in their personal lives. Dan is supporting two daughters-16-year-old Jana (Zena Grey) and 18-year-old Alex (Scarlett Johansson) who is preparing to enter college and learns that his wife is pregnant with their third child. Alex gets into NYU to study creative writing, which is a much more expensive course as compared to the one she was taking in Newark. Meanwhile, Carter is dumped by his wife of seven months (for being too self-centered and career focused) and focuses all his energy on work. With Dan facing the financial realities of a mortgage, education costs, and a new child, and with Carter needing Dan's practical, real-life experience in the field of advertising, the two form an uneasy friendship. One day, Carter, who has been struggling with loneliness following the breakup of his marriage, invites himself to dinner at Dan's house, where he meets Dan's daughter Alex, and the two quickly form an attraction. Their initial friendship allows Carter to forget his loneliness, and Alex, who is now attending New York University, is able to escape her own loneliness and boredom. Dan is angry at Carter for making him fire the people that he hired himself and had worked with for many years. Dan wants Carter to fire him instead, and Carter retorts that the only reason he doesn't fire Dan is because he has a family that needs him. Dan has to accept his reality and continue to do what Carter tells him to, even if Dan does not agree with it. In the coming days, Carter and Alex spend time together and become romantically involved. Fearful of offending her father, they keep their relationship a secret for the time being. They are successful since Alex has moved into a dorm in NYC to pursue her studies at NYU. Their friendship, however, takes a turn for the worse when Dan discovers that Carter and Alex have been seeing each other, approaches them in a restaurant, and punches his boss in the face when he finds that Alex has been sleeping with Carter. Carter says that he loves Alex. The confrontation with her father (Dan said that he took out a 2nd mortgage so that Alex could study at NYU) convinces Alex to break off the relationship with Carter who is heartbroken. Soon after, faced with a major setback with a longtime client who is unimpressed with Carter's "synergy" and cross-promotional ideas, Carter relies on Dan's personal approach, which ends up saving the account. Later, when Mark tells Carter to fire Dan, he refuses. This is because Dan was honest enough to tell Teddy K in a live office conference that some of his synergy ideas would end up destroying the Sports America brand. Teddy wanted to put a computers section in the Sports America Magazine, and Dan argues that nobody will want to read that and that a sports magazine should remain true to their mandate. Carter stands up for Dan and says that Dan is a hardworking employee. He also threatens Mark that he would call Teddy K and reveal how Mark took his most profitable magazine and drove it into the ground with all the layoffs. To top it off, he says that he and Dan have been working on a huge account, that would save the magazine. The duo approach Eugene and convince him to make a large purchase of ad space in the magazine, thus proving to Mark that their bluster was not bluff. Following another corporate shakeup, Sports America is sold off, Carter is let go, and Dan returns to his former position as head of sales. Having developed fatherly feelings toward Carter, Dan offers him a position in his new department as his "wingman", but Carter refuses, admitting he needs to take some time off and examine what he really wants to do in his life, and the two part as friends. On his way out of the building, Carter runs into Alex, and they exchange pleasantries. Dan's wife gives birth to a girl. He calls Carter-who is jogging outdoors for the first time and feels like a new man-in Los Angeles with the news.

Commander Patrick Ross leads a crewed mission to Mars. Soil samples collected by the astronauts unwittingly contain an alien-based substance which thaws aboard their capsule due to the change in temperature and contaminates them, causing a seven-minute contact gap with mission control. With seemingly no subsequent negative effects, the three astronauts return to Earth to public celebration. Only an institutionalized former scientist, Dr. Cromwell, reacts to their return with violent panic. Meanwhile, Dr. Laura Baker has created a clone of Sil named Eve, whose alien DNA is suppressed to make her more docile. Her team conducts experiments on Eve, hoping to find a way to combat the alien species should it ever return to Earth. Every experiment is unsuccessful as Eve's biology adapts. Upon their return, the team members are told to refrain from sexual activity for ten days. Patrick disregards this advice and has a threesome with two sisters Marcy and Lucy following a fundraiser. During sex with Lucy, he begins to sprout tentacles. Lucy notices his transformation while she is stroking his body and is horrified at the sight of him, whereupon she tries to free herself from his clutches. She pleads with him to stop but he ignores her pleas as he proceeds to climax. The hyper-fertile alien seed within Marcy and Lucy causes them both to experience accelerated pregnancies, culminating when Patrick's half-alien children violently burst from their abdomens. Patrick hides his rapidly growing sons on the property of his father, Senator Judson Ross. Each time Patrick has sex, Eve experiences excitement. The next day, Patrick tells his father he cannot remember the previous night's events. Senator Ross indicates that he is aware of Patrick's behavior and tells him to focus on his political goals. Dr. Orinsky, one of the NASA scientists who examined Patrick, discovers something amiss about his blood sample and desperately tries to contact Cromwell. However, Orinsky is ambushed and disemboweled by something formed from Patrick's blood. Laura discovers that the DNA in Orinsky's wounds is distinct from Eve's, making her an unlikely culprit in the murder. This prompts Colonel Burgess, the military supervisor in charge of her project, to reunite her with Press Lennox to contain the new threat. Press and Laura seek out Cromwell, Orinsky's former professor, and learn that he discovered that the alien species had attacked and destroyed Mars in ancient times. Because of his fears that alien DNA might remain on Mars to infect anyone who visited the planet in the future, Cromwell urged the government to abort the mission, but was committed to an institution to permanently silence him. Press and Laura identify the Mars astronauts as the prime suspects. Unable to find Patrick, they pursue the other astronauts, Anne Sampas and Dennis Gamble. They arrive too late to prevent Anne from having sex with her husband, resulting in her impregnation with hybrid offspring. A tentacle-like creature bursts from Anne's abdomen and kills her husband before Press and Laura manage to kill the monster. Meanwhile, a second team of agents makes it in time to locate and examine Dennis, and confirm he is not infected. Laura discovers that Anne's hybrid DNA does not match that in Orinsky's wounds, meaning Patrick is the killer. Meanwhile, Patrick has sex with his girlfriend, resulting in her death through the birth of another hybrid son named Portus. Horrified at causing her death, Patrick attempts suicide by shotgun, but the alien DNA regenerates his head and restores him back to life and temporarily killing his human side, with the drive to mate with as many women as possible. Dennis witnesses this and tells Press and Laura what he saw, remembering what happened in the capsule and joining them in their mission. Patrick begins impregnating as many women as he can, hiding his victims and up to twenty children on his father's property. Laura is ordered to activate Eve's alien DNA so she can telepathically track Patrick, but this makes her volatile and strengthens her alien instincts. Patrick surrenders to Press and Dennis after attempting to rape Darlene, whereupon he becomes aware of Eve; they take him to the lab despite their suspicion. As Patrick is taken to custody, Eve shows signs of being in heat. Patrick demands Laura open Eve's cell and nearly kills her when she refuses, but Press and Dennis drive him off with a special gaseous weapon. Burgess confronts Ross with irrefutable proof of Patrick's infection and demands help in detaining Patrick. Suspicious that Patrick will instead be killed, Ross deduces that he is at the property and apologizes for treating his son so coldly. Patrick's human side briefly returns, but while he tearfully embraces his father, the alien DNA suddenly violently reasserts itself and kills the Senator. Ross's death completely destroys Patrick's humanity, and he helps his hybrid children to cocoon, so they will soon begin mating themselves and prepare to eradicate humanity. Back at the lab, Laura discovers Dennis was not infected because he is a carrier of sickle-cell disease, as the species lacks immunity to human genetic diseases. While they plan to weaponize this weakness, Eve breaks out of her confinement to find Patrick. Press, Laura and Dennis pursue her, with Burgess and the military following. At the shed, they kill Patrick's offspring while Eve and Patrick transform into their alien forms and begin to mate. The mating stops when Press and Dennis intervene, allowing Eve to break free; Patrick, transformed into another alien form, apparently attacks Eve by forcing his tongue-tentacle down her throat. Patrick attempts to attack the team, but Press impales the male alien in the back with a pitchfork coated in Dennis' blood, causing him to disintegrate and die. The military escorts Press, Laura and the injured Dennis away. Eve's seemingly lifeless body is loaded into an ambulance, but shortly after, her womb begins to swell rapidly-indicating her survival and impregnation by Patrick - while Portus, who somehow survived, watches. As the screen cuts to black, Eve's uterus bursts and her screaming is heard.

A federal agent uncovers lucrative toxic waste dumps in Appalachia and must deal with the locals who want to keep their 'gold mine' secret. When a friend and fellow agent is found dead under suspicious circumstances in a close-knit Appalachian community, it falls to the veteran EPA Agent Jack Taggert to shed light on the mystery. Posing as a worker, Taggert soon discovers that the ruthless businessman, Orin Hanner Jr, keeps dumping toxic waste into an abandoned coal mine shaft, posing a threat to public health and all living things in the picturesque valley. Now, Jack has to deal with the unscrupulous criminals who destroy nature. But, can one man working alone right a wrong and restore peace? —Nick Riganas After F.B.I. agent Jack Taggart looses his best friend to the hands of a corrupt toxic dump coverup, he decides to visit the town and find out what he can about the coverup. In the process he is met by unfriendly town folk who are being paid to keep the dumping secret. With the help of an old man and a young woman, he takes on the corporate head of the toxic dumping with a vengeance. —Steven Dretzke <stevend@unicomp.net>

The alien is the result of the SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) program. In 1974 Earth's scientists sent out transmissions with information about Earth and its inhabitants, DNA structure, etc., in hopes of finding life beyond Earth. Twenty years later, they receive two transmissions from an alien source. The first transmission was on how to create endless fuel effortlessly through a methane catalyst. Therefore, the scientists assume that this is a friendly alien species. But from a second alien transmission, the scientists receive information about an alien DNA sequence along with instructions on how to splice it with human DNA. A government team led by Xavier Fitch (Ben Kingsley) goes forward with the genetic experiment, hoping to induce a female with "more docile and controllable" traits. One of the one-hundred experimental ova produces a girl named Sil, who looks like a normal human but develops into a 12-year-old in three months. Sil's violent outbursts during her sleep make the scientists consider her a threat. They try to kill her using cyanide gas, but instead she breaks out of her containment cell and escapes out into the world. The government assembles a team composed of anthropologist Dr. Steven Arden (Alfred Molina), molecular biologist Dr. Laura Baker (Marg Helgenberger), empath Dan Smithson (Forest Whitaker) and mercenary Preston "Press" Lennox (Michael Madsen) to track and destroy Sil. While sleeping, Sil has another dream of an alien train running her down. When she wakes up, tentacles start emerging from underneath her skin and mass to form an organic cocoon around her. While transforming within the cocoon, Sil kills a train warden before emerging as a blonde, twenty-something adult woman. Also, when Sil emerges she is naked, the reason for which is unknown. It can be assumed that the cocoon that enveloped her destroyed her clothes but it can also be assumed that she removed them during the process, though if the latter is correct it is unclear why. Sil waits in the train until it has arrived at Los Angeles. This makes tracking her extremely difficult. She is incredibly strong and intelligent with amazing regenerative powers. The scientists fear she may seduce someone to copulate with her in order to reproduce and any offspring could eventually exterminate mankind. Sil lacks inhibitions when it comes to harming or even killing people who get in her way and wants to reproduce as soon as possible. She tries first to mate with a man she meets at a night club, but she rejects and kills him after sensing he is diabetic. She then tries to mate with a man she meets after a car accident, this is interrupted by Press and Laura. While attempting to keep him from alerting them, she rapidly transforms into her natural form (a bipedal, humanoid creature with silted pupils, no hair, dark/colored skin and a pair of flexible tentacles both of which she keeps stored inside one of her breasts and can retract at will) and attempts to restrain him with her tentacles, forcing one of the tentacles into his mouth to keep him from screaming; inadvertently killing him. Sil then flees into the forest without being seen by the team but does not have enough time to retrieve her clothes, forcing her to flee naked. After cutting and dying her hair, she takes an attraction to Press. She eventually partially disrobes to seduce Arden. This succeeds and she and Arden remove the rest of their clothes before she copulates with him, becoming impregnated. Sil then quickly kills Arden when he realizes who she is and flees naked into the sewers where she gives birth to her son. The rest of the team follows her. Sil kills Fitch. Dan lights Sil's son on fire; the son then falls into the pool of oil, killing him. Enraged, Sil attacks Press but he shoots her into the burning pool, where she grabs onto Dan's leg. Press shoots Sil with his grenade launcher, instantly killing her. The last scene shows a rat chewing on one of Sil's severed tentacles; it mutates a long tongue and attacks another rat with it.

A legendary pilot, after losing his life in a daring mid-air rescue, returns from the afterlife to show his girlfriend how to go on without him.