Nora Ephron

The true story of how Julia Child`s life and cookbook inspired writer Julie Powell to whip up 524 recipes in 365 days, introducing a new generation to the magic of French cooking.

After a couple of movies flopped badly, a film star, Jack, agrees to a TV role as Darrin in a revival of Bewitched. His intent is to make Darrin the major part. He wants an unknown to play Elizabeth Montgomery's role (Samantha) so she won't try to upstage him. A real witch trying to act human becomes romantically interested in Jack and is cast as Samantha because she can do the nose twitch. But the audience prefers her to him. She becomes disillusioned when she realizes what an egotistical jerk he really is. After quarrels in which she uses her powers, Jack finally realizes he's been a jerk and reforms. -------------------------------- Isabel Bigelow (Nicole Kidman), who has been a real witch her whole life, moves to San Fernando Valley to try to be a normal person. Isabel wants to feel the hardships that mortal people experience everyday by not using her powers. Jack Wyatt (Will Ferrell) is a movie star whose career has gone down since his last picture lost millions. His agent gets him a job on a remake of the Bewitched television show as Darrin Stephens. Jack wants an unknown actress to play the part of Samantha. The casting call goes out and the search is on. Jack sees Isabel twitch her nose at a book store and follows her. Jack thinks she is the perfect choice to play Samantha. What they don't know is that Isabel is a witch. While filming the show, Isabel uses her witchcraft to get events to go her way. Isabel has a little help from her father (Michael Caine). Douglas Young (the-movie-guy) Will Ferrell is Jack Wyatt an actor with minimal talent whose career has been declining steadily. Desperately seeking something that will boost his sagging career and his self esteem, Jack agrees to star in a re-make of the TV show Bewitched on the condition that he gets a complete unknown for the female lead to play opposite him. This will ensure that the audience will only be left with Jack to see with lots of screen time. Jack and the producers audition a long roster of wannabes, and in a period of frustration, he sees Isabel (Nicole Kidman) at a caf and begs her to become an actress and work in his TV show. He is confused when she initially rebuffs his advances, mistaking his attention as declaration of love. Since she is a witch and has been brought up in a world of spells and goblins, without TV, she is unaware of Elizabeth Montgomerys role of Samantha Stevens and the legacy of the TV show Bewitched. Isabel is trying to be a regular mortal person, and ultimately trying to catch a normal husband form the mortal side of reality. During the course of events she finds she must use her magical powers to help things along. But in the end she discovers that she must decide finally between a life spent on earth with mortal man or return home, where she will be a witch forever more.

Set in New York City, the film follows three Mozell sisters, who deal with their self-obsessed lives and hang up on others in phone conversations. The eldest sister Georgia (Diane Keaton), age 50, is single and runs a successful women's magazine in NYC. The youngest sister Maddy (Lisa Kudrow), age 34, is also single and a not-very-bright nobody who has just landed her big break as a soap opera actress. Middle child Eve (Meg Ryan), age 39, is an event planner living in Los Angeles with a husband named Joe Marks (Adam Arkin) and their young teenage son Jesse, and spends most of her time worrying that her ailing and cantankerous 79-year-old father, Lou Mozell (Walter Matthau), will die at any minute. Much of the story proceeds around phone calls the three sisters make to each other (rudely hanging up on each other without saying good-bye), and calls that Lou makes to Eve. Eve places Lou in the hospital for tests because he has been having memory problems. He recalls his days writing a screenplay with his wife for a John Wayne movie. His wife, the daughters mother, left them in the 1980s because she no longer loved him and felt she did not make it as a mother. Eve tends to Lou in the hospital, whose senility is becoming more evident. At one point, Lou even comes on to Eve, thinking she is a past love named Cleo. In a flashback to 11 years ago in 1988, Eve remembers when she and her sisters came to visit Lou for Christmas at his house in L.A., and found him in bed with their female dental hygienist. Afterwords, Lou gets sad and says he misses his wife. Eve goes off to visit her mom Pat (Cloris Leachman), asking her to return to Lou, but she is adamant about her reasons for leaving. She does not care that Lou recently tried to kill himself. Eve returns to their house and goes out with Lou to get a Christmas tree, which cheers him up. In the present day, Maddy brings a huge St. Bernard dog to visit Eve. Some hilarity ensues. Meanwhile, Lou wanders out of the hospital back to their old house, and Eve comes to pick him up. In another flashback to six years earlier, Eve remembers Halloween in 1993. She throws a big costume party for her son Jesse, but Lou shows up drunk and ruins the party. He insults her and she throws him out. In the present, Lou has a "mini-stroke" as Eve is dealing with planning a speech Georgia will deliver to a women's group. Georgia suggests to Eve (by phone) that Lou should sign a blank check for their needs because he has plenty of money in the bank, but he refuses. After the mother of a doctor tells Eve that she needs to let go of her estranged mother, Eve goes to Lou and lies that his wife died in an earthquake. He whispers to her, "I won." Eve gathers up all cell phones in her house and puts them in a cupboard. Georgia makes a big entrance at the women's event, then makes a surprising and insincere speech about her father dying, leaving her sisters aghast. She concludes that her generation of women are dealing with the death of their parents as they face their own mortality. Eve gets upset at Georgia and Maddy because she deals with their dad more than them. The three of them then bicker at length. They get a call that Lou has gone into a coma and rush to the hospital. After more tension between the sisters, Eve tells Georgia that she needed her help. The sisters sit by Lou's bed as Eve tries yet again to recall the name of a short blonde actress from the 1950s who always played sad roles. Lou becomes conscious for a second and says, "June Allyson." The sisters are thrilled that he is right, but just as suddenly as he spoke, his heart stops beating. A nurse comes in to find he has no pulse, and he dies before their eyes. In the final scene, some months later at Thanksgiving, the three sisters make turkey, and get into a mild food fight. Eve has another memory of her father, this time dancing with his daughters and wife.

A television weatherman scams a local lottery. Winter 1988. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania is Russ Richard's oyster, there where he is the popular weatherman for WTPA Channel 6 News. That popularity allows him many perks in the city, especially at his local Denny's. Things start to go off the rails for him as this winter is unseasonably warm and not white, meaning that no one is buying from his snowmobile dealership, and none of his usual sources are willing to advance him any money to tide him over this rough business patch. In turning to Gig, a slightly shady acquaintance who operates a strip club and bar, Russ decides to turn to illegal activities to get the money he needs. After one failed attempt at that criminal life which has its own negative consequences, Russ instead decides on a lottery scam, his partners in crime being Gig, and Crystal Latroy, Russ' colleague at WTPA as the Pennsylvania Lucky Six Lottery girl - the lottery numbers which are drawn live on air during WTPA's supper hour news - and his sometime lover. Crystal is also sleeping with her and Russ' married boss, WTPA manager Dick Simmons, in an effort to get ahead in the world. Russ, Gig and Crystal are able to devise a plan to win the next jackpot, worth $6.4 million. As they enact the plan, which requires the assistance from a few others, the plan also potentially starts to go off the rails as those in the know and those who think that they know something about the fraud want what they believe is their fair share which, if Russ would agree, would get him further in the hole than he was before going into the venture. But as things get more and more dangerous and potentially lethal, Russ, Crystal and Gig begin to have diverging views on how to get out from the increasing mess based on their own tolerance of the risk for the potential reward. —Huggo Winter, 1988: Harrisburg PA's celebrity weatherman, Russ Richards, is broke: he's borrowed heavily to open a snowmobile dealership, and it's still unseasonably warm. Gig, his seedy pal, advises him to run an insurance scam; when it goes awry, Russ is out another $10,000 and in trouble with Dale, a bat-wielding thug. Gig convinces Russ to rig the state lottery with the help of Crystal, a gold-digging ditz with a heart of tin. They have to find a beard to buy the ticket, and then they have to cash it. Soon, murder and various double-crosses add to Russ's nightmare. A lazy cop zeroes in. Jail is closer than riches. Will Russ have to choose between his money and his life? —<jhailey@hotmail.com>

Neighborhood bookstore rivals, Joe Fox and Kathleen Kelly, unwittingly become e-mail pen pals in this charming remake of The Shop Around the Corner.

The events focus around a crisis hotline business on one crazy night during the Christmas holidays. Philip runs a crisis hotline with Catherine and Mrs Munchnik. That's the easy part, now it gets tricky... Stanley loves evicting people and he evicts Philip. Philip loves helping people and he is loved by Catherine. Catherine is loved by Louie who loves writing songs. Chris loves dancing to songs and loves to wear large dresses. Gracie also loves to wear large dresses because she's pregnant. She loves the baby's father, Felix, who loves to paint. That just leaves Mrs. Munchnik who hasn't been loved by anybody in a very long time. —Tim McSmythurs <Tim.McSmythurs@swindon.ericsson.se> Christmas Eve in Venice Beach, California. A serial strangler is on the loose. A crisis hotline, staffed by three inept counselors, faces eviction. Each of the three is lovelorn. They and their non-profit program need a miracle. Their paths cross those of Gracie and Felix, penniless lovers who are fighting with each other and are about to become parents; Chris, an unhappy man in drag; Louie, their loopy song-writing neighbor; a man walking his dogs; a veterinarian; and, their landlord. A Christmas tree, an elevator, a fruit cake, and a pistol also figure in this night before Christmas. Are any miracles in the offing? —<jhailey@hotmail.com>

A widower`s son calls a radio talk show in an attempt to find his father a partner.

An all too uptight FBI agent must protect a larger than life mobster with a heart of gold, currently under witness protection in the suburbs. The mobster Vincent 'Vinnie' Antonelli is under the witness protection program and the FBI agent Barney Coopersmith is assigned to take Vinnie and his wife Linda to a house in the suburbs. However their wives leave Vinnie and Barney and the agent gets closer to the gangster and befriends him. Vinnie is a bon vivant and a crook and does not keep the necessary low profile. The District Attorney Hannah Stubbs arrests him but Barney releases him from jail since he needs to testify against the Mafia. Soon Barney falls in love with Stubbs, but Vinnie gets into many troubles calling the attention of two hitmen from the Mafia. The police officer Crystal Rybak protects him and they also falls in love with each other. In the end, the good-hearted Vinnie becomes a prominent personality in the suburbs. —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil FBI agent Barney Coopersmith is assigned to protect former Mafia figure turned informant Vincent Antonelli. In the witness protection program one is supposed to keep a low profile, but that is something that Antonelli has trouble doing. Coopersmith certainly has his hands full keeping Antonelli away from the Mafia hitmen who want to stop him testifying, not to mention the nightclubs... —Murray Chapman <muzzle@cs.uq.oz.au> Vinnie is a smooth-talking mobster who is relocated from New York City to a suburb of San Diego by the Federal Witness Protection Program in exchange for testifying against the mob. He must start life over in a quiet town with nothing to keep himself entertained - until he runs across some old friends from the Big Apple and they start up a little business of their own. Vinnie's bad behavior wreaks havoc on the life of Barney Coopersmith, the straitlaced FBI agent assigned to protect him. Barney must struggle with Hannah, the local assistant D.A., to keep Vinnie out of prison and safe from the mob before his testimony. Before long, Vinnie is sweet-talking Hannah into dates with Barney and teaching Barney how to dance, dress, and become a lady killer as they run from Mafia hit men and nearly escape murder in Manhattan. —William

A chance encounter between two college graduates, Harry and Sally, culminates in a short-term friendship. But fate keeps bringing them together, forcing them to confront their feelings.

She's a magazine writer who gives up her career for love and family. He's a playboy newspaper columnist who can't quite give up his old tricks. And if that combination doesn't give a relationship Heartburn, nothing will. An autobiographical look at the break-up of screenwriter Nora Ephron's marriage to Carl "All the President's Men" Bernstein that was also a best-selling novel. The Ephron character, Rachel Samstat (Meryl Streep), is a food writer at a New York City magazine who meets Washington, D.C. columnist Mark Forman (Jack Nicholson) at a wedding and ends up falling in love with him despite her reservations about marriage. They buy a house, have a daughter, and Rachel thinks they are living happily ever after until she discovers that Mark is having an affair while she is waddling around with a second pregnancy. —Lisa Todorovich Rachel Samstat (Meryl Streep) and Mark Forman (Jack Nicholson) meet at a mutual friend's wedding, go to bed, and get married shortly afterwards. She works in publishing in New York City, and he is a successful Washington, D.C. columnist, who is always using his friends and social life as material for his column. All goes well initially with the marriage, despite the fact they endure several months of renovation by incompetent builders on their Washington, D.C. house. A child is born, Mark proves himself a fond father, and another baby is soon on the way. Then Rachel discovers that Mark has been having an affair with one of their circle. Heavily pregnant, she briefly returns to her father's house in New York City. Mark comes after her. He says he loves her and asks her to return to him. —Tiff Banks