Mark Feuerstein

Nick Marshall (Mel Gibson) is a Chicago advertising executive and alpha male. The mother of Nick Marshall was a Las Vegas showgirl. Raised by beautiful women who spoiled the boy as an adored mascot, and with tough casino men as role models (who treated women as nothing more than objects), the adult Nick is a chauvinist skilled at selling products to men and seducing women. Nick is famous for not lifting a finger at work and is surrounded by beautiful women who do all the heavy lifting for him, while he takes the credit. Annie (Sarah Paulson) is Nick's secretary, Stella (Diana-Maria Riva) is his maid, the doorman to his apartment building Flo (Loretta Devine). Coworkers Eve (Delta Burke), Dina (Lisa Edelstein), and Sue (Ana Gasteyer) work with him at his office. Nick's only male coworker is Morgan (Mark Feuerstein), who participates in Nick's skirt chasing contests. His conquests including local coffee attendant Lola (Marisa Tomei). Nick expects a promotion at the advertising firm Sloane Curtis. However, just as he thinks he's headed to a meeting for a promotion, his manager, Dan (Alan Alda), informs him that he is hiring the talents of Darcy McGuire (Helen Hunt) instead, to broaden the firm's appeal to women. He says that women in the age group of 18 to 24 are the fastest growing consumer group, and they control the spending and hence the advertising dollars. Dan says that 10 years ago they were the best agency in town and now they are 3rd. Dan says that getting into woman's psyche is not really Nick's strength. Also, his estranged 15-year-old daughter Alex (Ashley Johnson) is spending two weeks with him while his ex-wife Gigi (Lauren Holly) goes on her honeymoon with her new husband Ted (Robert Briscoe Evans). Alex is embarrassed by Nick, and resents his being protective when he meets her much older boyfriend Cameron (Eric Balfour). Darcy tells her team that female driven advertising market is worth $40 Billion and Sloan Curtis' share of that pie is zero. Needing to prove himself to Darcy and Dan, Nick attempts to think of copy for a series of feminine products that Darcy distributed at the day's staff meeting. However, he slips and falls into his bathtub while holding an electric hairdryer, electrocuting himself. The next day, Nick wakes up able to understand his maid's thoughts as she cleans his apartment. Nick finds that Flo has lustful feelings towards him. As he walks through a park and encounters numerous women, he realizes that he can hear their thoughts, even those of a female poodle. This proves to be an epiphany for him when he hears the thoughts of his female co-workers (some of whom have slept with him and regretted it). Dina doesn't like Nick's disgusting jokes, Eve doesn't like when Nick comments on her eating habits, women think he wears too much aftershave, Annie feels that she got an Ivy League education and Nick has got her picking up his dry-cleaning and realizes that he cannot hear men's thoughts. Nick tells Morgan that he can hear women's thoughts. Morgan warns Nick that he sounds insane and cannot say this to anyone. When he goes to a previous therapist, Dr. Perkins (Bette Midler) (who also disliked him), she realizes his gift: "If Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, and you can speak Venutian, the world can be yours." Nick eavesdrops on women's thoughts and uses their ideas as his own, but also begin to develop real friendships with his co-workers. He corrects his off-hand comments and starts to appreciate women for who they are. He has sex with Lola, and using he thoughts as a guide, he satisfies her in bed, and she ends up declaring that Nick is a sex God. As Nick spends more time with Darcy, he is attracted to her. Darcy is going after the Nike, women's division account and this account will make her career at the agency. However, when he tries to get closer to his daughter, she resents him for trying after so many years of neglect. Nick learns that Alex wants to go to prom with Cameron, even though Nick knows that all Cameron wants to do is to have sex with her. Darcy tells Nick that going to the prom is all about the dress and asks Nick to take Alex shopping. Nick and Alex start to bond while he takes her shopping for a prom dress. Nick shrewdly suspects that Alex's boyfriend, who is considerably older than Alex, plans to sleep with her and then dump her. He tells her Cameron is not interested in her for who she is, just for what he can do with her in bed. Alex, thinking Nick is being over-protective and trying to sabotage her prom, rejects his advice. Nick steals most of Darcy's ideas and presents them to Dan as his own. Soon, Nick is the darling of the office women. Nick and Darcy begin to spend more time together, and ultimately, they kiss. When he manages to trump Darcy out of her idea for a new Nike ad campaign aimed at women (he had heard Darcy's pitch in her mind, and delivers it verbatim to the client in the meeting before Darcy could say anything), he later regrets his selfishness, especially as it leads to her being fired. Over time, Nick succeeds in repairing his relationships with female acquaintances, especially those at work. Nick loses his gift during a storm while trying to find a company secretary, Erin (Judy Greer), who (as his telepathic ability has shown him) is contemplating suicide. He offers her a position for which he had previously turned her down; she accepts. He is also reconciled with his daughter when her boyfriend rejects her. Nick finally visits Darcy and explains everything. She regains her job and Nick gets fired. But she forgives him, and agrees to save him from himself, to which he responds, "My hero".

With his career on the skids, a Hollywood screenwriter enlists the aid of a modern-day muse, who proves to test his patience. What happens when a screenwriter (Brooks) loses his edge, he turns to anyone he can for help... even if it's the mythical "Zeus's Daughter" (Stone). And he's willing to pay, albeit reluctantly, whatever price it takes to satisfy this goddess, especially when her advice gets him going again on a sure-fire script. However, this is not the limit of her help, she also gets the writer's wife (MacDowell) going on her own bakery enterprise, much to the chagrin of Brooks, who has already had to make many personal sacrifices for his own help. —BOB STEBBINS <stebinsbob@aol.com>

When Maria, the witch ancestor of our protagonists, realizes that her lover is never going to come for her, she casts a spell on herself to never fall in love again. Unfortunately, the spell goes awry and becomes a family curse: any man that falls for an Owens woman will die. And that's exactly what happens to Sally (Sandra Bullock) and Gillian (Nicole Kidman) Owens' father, causing their mother to die of a broken heart. The young girls then live with their two aunts (Stockard Channing, Diane Wiest), who teach them the ways of being a witch and how to deal with the ridicule that comes with the family profession. But one night when they witness their aunts casting a love spell for a neighbor, Sally decides she will never fall in love and dreams up a man that will never exist... Until one day she goes to town with her aunts and she meets the man she falls for. The next thing you know, Sally is happily married to Michael (Mark Feuerstein) with two daughters of her very own. Her sister, in the mean time, has been living in Florida where life is constant parties. But when the 'death watch beetle' sounds, Sally know it is only a matter of time before she loses Michael like her mother lost her father...and like all the Owens women have lost the men they love. It is only when the curse plays out that she learns her aunts cast the spell on her to fall for him in the first place. She allows her daughters to live with the aunts who raised her, telling them that her daughters are to never do magic. With Michael's tragic death, the sisters reunite and it's Gillian who presses Sally to forgive herself and move on. But tragedy strikes twice when the sisters again reunite, this time when Gilly calls because her boyfriend, Jimmy (Goran Visnjic), begins beating her. It is his accidental death that makes them toy with nature; hoping to bring him back so they won't be arrested. They succeed, but are forced to actually kill him this time when he tries to strangle Gilly. Jimmy, however, is haunting them. And the aunts leave when the girls won't confess what happened. Which only becomes a bigger problem when an officer comes looking for Jimmy with a letter Sally had written to Gilly. Why? Because a woman has turned up dead and naked. But this one is special. He happens to be the man that Sally conjured up all those years ago and the girls realize it. Gary, however, isn't there simply because of his case. He fell in love with Sally's letter and now has to reconcile his duty to the badge, and arresting Jimmy's murderer, and duty to the woman he loves, the woman he wished for. Jimmy's ghost isn't gone. He's possessing Gilly and the only way to save her is to form a coven and banish him...which Sally does by using all the townspeople who have called her names for years. But only the love of the sisters can send him away...well that and a little magic. When Jimmy's death is declared accidental, Gary returns to Sally for that chance at happiness. And the girls embrace their magic roots. So maybe normal is relative...and a witch can have her happy ending.