Peter Jason

Jack Cole (Steven Seagal) was once a CIA operative known as "The Glimmer Man," because he could move so quickly and quietly through the jungle that his victims would only see a glimmer before they died. Having retired from Central Intelligence, Cole, who is versed in Buddhism and unaccustomed to working with others, has become a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. Cole is partnered with tough, no-nonsense detective Jim Campbell (Keenen Ivory Wayans) who has little patience for Cole's New Age philosophies and "outsider" attitude. Campbell says that they are homicide detectives and refuses to deal with anything outside of that. While Cole says that life and death do not distinguish between homicide or suicide and believes as policemen its their job to help the victims, no matter how they died. Cole and Campbell must set aside their differences when they're assigned to track down a serial killer known as "The Family Man," named for his habit of killing entire households. The serial killer had struck 6 times already and the 7th instance is the day Cole joins the LAPD. The distinctive feature of the killer is that all his victims are Catholics, and he performs a proper Crucifixion with their bodies. Cole determines at autopsy that the victim is a Russian. Campbell later IDs the victims as Eugene and Sonya Roslov. Cole and Campbell save Johnny Deverell from suicide. Johnny had taken a class of students' hostage, which was being taught by his girlfriend Millie. When Cole and Campbell reach the school, they find that Johnny had been in therapy and has a record for drug use. Cole enters the classroom where Johnny is ready to shoot himself and repeats "I can't go back to him". Cole manages to tackle Johnny to the floor, before he presses the trigger. Turns out Johnny is the stepson of Frank Deverell. Donald Cunningham is Deverell's head of security and wants Cole to testify that Johnny is insane to avoid a prison term. Cole refuses to cooperate and Deverall asks Cunningham to send their Russian friends after him. Cole and Campbell are ambushed by men sent by the Russian mafia, but they are able to fight them off. The Family Man strikes again. The Family Man's latest victims turn out to be Cole's former wife Ellen and her current husband Andrew Dunleavy. Cole lives with his current wife Jessica (Michelle Johnson). Cole knows that somebody is trying to send him a personal message. Cole's fingerprints are found on Ellen's body, and Campbell knows that Cole was with him the entire evening (when the murder took place). They deduce that someone is trying to frame Cole for the murders. Campbell tries to find out about Cole's history prior to LAPD and NYPD but gets nothing. Cole also refuses to dwell into his past. Cole suspects that Smith (Brian Cox) - Jack's former superior in the CIA - may be connected with the killings. Cole contacts Smith, who (unknown to him and Campbell) has been working with local crime boss Frank Deverell (Bob Gunton). Smith refuses to contact Cole and ignores his calls. Cole confronts Smith at a restaurant where he is having a private lunch. Cole says that the last 2 serial killings are the work of a professional. Campbell receive a tip from a teacher, who saw the drawings associated to the serial murders and she links it to one of her past students This leads them to Christopher Maynard (Stephen Tobolowsky). While Campbell goes after the residential address, Cole goes to the Church in the vicinity of the address and finds Maynard there. Maynard insists that the Family Man murders were actually committed by more than one killer. Only the slayings that occurred prior to Jack's arrival in Los Angeles were Maynard's work; more recently, a second party has been massacring households and blaming it on Maynard. Maynard pulls a gun on Cole and Cole is forced to shoot him in self-defense. Cole is suspended for killing a suspect without due sanction. This had happened with Cole previously in New York as well when he was serving with the NYPD. Cole is suspended pending investigation from Internal Affairs Division. Seeking a lead on the "other" Family Man, Cole goes to the home of Celia Roslov: Deverell's Russian translator and a relative of the recent victims of the serial killer. Jack finds out that the Roslovs had tickets to Russia, paid for by Deverell's company. The Family Man makes an unsuccessful attempt on the lives of both Cole and Campbell, blowing up the latter's apartment. It is revealed that the Family Man works for both Deverell and Smith, who have murder contracts out on both of the detectives and also on Johnny (Johnny Strong), Deverell's own stepson. Cole and Campbell chat with Johnny's girlfriend Millie (Nikki Cox), who tells them where to find Johnny. The detectives trick and kill a hit-man sent by Johnny's stepfather. Johnny informs Campbell and Cole that Donald Cunningham (John M. Jackson), Deverell's private security chief, is the other Family Man whose killings were confused with Maynard's. Johnny also reveals Smith's partnership with Deverell. Turns out that Smith was collaborating with Deverell to smuggle Chemical weapons into US to sell to terrorists. Smith & Deverell used the cover of the serial killer to tie up their loose ends. The detectives confront Smith, who reveals that Deverell has been smuggling chemical weapons into the USA from Russia and selling said arms to the Serbian underworld. Smith is arranging contacts for the deal, which is being cut by the Russian Liberation Fighters (aka the Organizatsiya). The sale has been scheduled to take place at a welfare hotel in Downtown Los Angeles. When Cole and Campbell storm the hotel to disrupt the weapons deal, Cunningham kills Deverell (because Deverell set up Cunningham for the LAPD, in order to clear himself of the arms-running charges) and wounds Jim. Cole fights Cunningham, who is finally tossed through a window and impaled on a wrought iron fence. Campbell half-jokes that Cole has brought him nothing but bad luck ever since they became partners. Cole says he'll keep that in mind, as Campbell is driven off to the hospital.

The quiet coastal town of Midwich, California is invaded by an unseen force which leaves ten women mysteriously pregnant. Nine months later, the babies are born simultaneously on one night, except for one which is stillborn. At first, they all appear to be normal, but it does not take the parents long to realize that their children are anything but normal. As they grow older, the children are shown to have pale skin, platinum-white hair, fierce intellect and steely, cobalt eyes. The emotionless children display eerie psychic abilities and remarkable powers, which they use with deadly consequences, unleashing a reign of terror. When they actively use their mind-controlled powers, their irises or their entire eyes glow in different colours, mostly reddish-orange, but also green, yellow, violet, blue or pure white. There are some story differences from the earlier adaptation. In this version, the children "paired off", but one of the children, David (Thomas Dekker), loses his partner after she dies at birth. As a result, he shows human compassion while still resembling the other children and retaining some degree of psychic powers. This leads to him not fitting in well with the children. Their ruthless leader, Mara (Lindsey Haun) ("daughter" of a local doctor, Dr. Alan Chaffee (Christopher Reeve); her mother, Barbara (Karen Kahn), commits suicide by walking off an ocean cliff), considers him less important due to his expression of emotions. Because of his childhood loss, he understands what the other children do not: pain. He and his mother (Linda Kozlowski) (the local school principal) share a brief conversation about the meaning of the word "empathy", with David beginning to understand that if he feels pain, he can understand others' pain as well. When the other children experience pain, they simply use their powers to inflict the same pain on the adult responsible for the pain, for example forcing one of the mothers to put one of her arms in a pot full of boiling water, or forcing the local optometrist making herself blind with a painful liquid. Soon, the other colonies of psychic children in foreign countries are eliminated because of their danger. The scientific team at Midwich quickly flees the town to escape the chaos. However, the lead government scientist, Dr. Susan Verner (Kirstie Alley), is killed by the children after being forced to show them David's partner, the baby that was stillborn. Susan has secretly kept it so that she could perform an autopsy on it and study it. A mob of angry townspeople attempt to stop the children, but the latter use their powers to kill the leader of the mob causing the other townspeople to flee quickly. The State Police and the National Guards are then sent out to kill the children, who instead hypnotize them into shooting each other in a chaotic gun battle. In order to rid the town of the children, Alan devises a plan; to detonate a briefcase of explosives inside the children's classroom. By thinking of a brick wall, he is able to create a mental barrier and keep the presence of the bomb a secret from the children. Jill begs him to save David (because he is not like the others), and Alan agrees. He attempts to do this by asking David to leave the classroom to get his books from his car. Finally, Jill shows up, but the children stop her. David, angered by this, rushes to her defense and knocks Mara over. The children turn on David, but Jill rushes him from the building. At last, the children break through Alan's defenses, but the explosives detonate, destroying the barn and killing everyone, including Alan. Jill and David survive the massacre; she says that they would both move to a place where nobody knows them. The last scene is of David, riding in his mother's car, looking off into the distance.

They influence our decisions without us knowing it. They numb our senses without us feeling it. They control our lives without us realizing it. They live. Nada, a down-on-his-luck construction worker, discovers a pair of special sunglasses. Wearing them, he is able to see the world as it really is: people being bombarded by media and government with messages like "Stay Asleep," "No Imagination," "Submit to Authority." Even scarier is that he is able to see that some usually normal-looking people are in fact ugly aliens in charge of the massive campaign to keep humans subdued. —Melissa Portell <mportell@s-cwis.unomaha.edu> John Carpenter's slow and deliberate immersion of the daunting and worrying fable of the corrupt, deceiving and indifferent economic, social and political society, that has wrapped itself around its people and who in turn have blindly accepted their fate. Multicultural in more forms than anticipated, are the leading and upwardly mobile alien race who have gelled themselves into the Human psyche and exploited it to its full potential. This is the story of an everyman, a no one, a Nada who stumbles upon their secret, via an underground movement, whose mission is to sabotage their plans and awaken the world to its sinister plans. With the help of a pair of sunglasses, that shows the world as it really is, not in color, but a black and white parallel world that the sub-conscious has chosen to ignore. With subliminal messages as "OBEY," "CONFORM," "MARRY AND REPRODUCE," "CONSUME," "WATCH TELEVISION" and "SLEEP." It is through this thought control that the aliens have this world tied up and neatly packaged for its own manipulative uses, to further themselves at the expense of the meek, mild and the lowly sufferers of a job less and hungry world. This is the battle of self-awareness and one mans struggle with a reality check that has these alien beings staging war against the up-rising and rebellious armies from the gutters and streets. They Live You Sleep; where will your consciousness take you when the sleep is washed from your eyes. Welcome to the real world. —Cinema_Fan They influence our decisions without us knowing it. They numb our senses without us feeling it. They control our lives without us realizing it. They live. Horror master John Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing) directs this heart-pounding thriller. Aliens are systematically gaining control of the earth by masquerading as humans and lulling the public into submission. Humanity's last chance lies with a lone drifter who stumbles upon a harrowing discovery - a unique pair of sunglasses that reveal the terrifying and deadly truth. —Anonymous John Nada is a man without job who walks around a big American city trying to find something to do. He finally finds a job as a worker and a place to spend the nights, but one day something terrible happens to him. John discovers a pair of sun-glasses through which he can see the true face of people. Many persons in this city are in fact aliens (from the Andromeda) and most of them are important members of our society. They keep humans in ignorance and they rule our world as they like. Nada must find the rest of the men that know what's happening (those who made the strange sun-glasses) and join them in the fight against the aliens. —Chris Makrozahopoulos <makzax@hotmail.com>

Montgomery "Monty" Brewster (Richard Pryor) is a second-rate minor league baseball pitcher with the Hackensack Bulls. One night after winning a game, Monty and his best friend, the Bulls' catcher, Spike Nolan (John Candy), are flirting with two women at a local bar. When they try to leave with them, they're confronted by two large men who claim they are the women's husbands. Monty and Spike are punched out by the men and a large bar brawl starts. They are later arrested and thrown in jail. Their coach, Charley (Jerry Orbach), tells them that management has decided to kick them off the team. In court, Monty tries to explain the fight to the judge, who is wholly unsympathetic. A photographer that had been following Monty (whom Monty thought may be a professional baseball scout) suddenly rises and tells the judge that he represents an unidentified party that will post bail for both Monty and Spike if they plead guilty. The photographer, named J.B. Donaldo (Joe Grifasi) takes Monty and Spike to New York City with him. At the Manhattan law office of Granville & Baxter, Brewster is told that his recently deceased great-uncle Rupert Horn (Hume Cronyn), whom he has never met, has left him his entire fortune because Monty is his only living blood relative (by way of Monty's grandmother, Rupert's half-sister), but with several conditions. Rupert's last will is on film and features the wheezy and ill-tempered Rupert himself. He relates a story from his youth where his father made him smoke a whole box of cigars to punish him for smoking just one. Rupert tells Monty that he wants to teach Monty to hate spending money. Monty will be given $30 million to spend in 30 days. If he's successful, he'll be awarded the full inheritance of $300 million. Brewster is challenged to either take $1 million upfront (as part of a "Wimp" clause), or spend $30 million in 30 days. If he chooses the former, the law firm becomes executor of the estate and divides the money among various charities (after taking a sizable fee). In the latter case, he must spend the entire $30 million within one month under the following rules: 1.) With the exception of those who witnessed the will reading, whom are the firm's two senior partners George Granville (David White) and Norris Baxter (Jerome Dempsey) and Rupert's lawyer and executor of the estate Edward Roundfield (Pat Hingle), Brewster cannot reveal to anyone the will's terms. He may only tell everyone else he inherited $30 million. Rupert doesn't want anyone directly helping Monty in his quest. 2.) Brewster must spend the money on tangible items. If anything he buys accrues value, such as an investment or property that earns money, that is considered part of the money he inherited and he must spend that as well. 3.) Directly giving away money is capped at 10%; split between 5% ($1.5 million) in gambling losses and another 5% ($1.5 million) maximum to be donated to charity. 4.) Brewster may not willfully damage or destroy anything he buys with the money. 5.) After 30 days, he must be penniless and may not own any assets that are not already his (in other words, nothing but "the clothes on his back"). If any one of these five rules are violated, the challenge is forfeited. Also, if Brewster fails to meet the 30 day challenge to spend the $30 million, any remaining money that he has after the 30 day deadline (regardless if it's a few dollars or a few million dollars) will go to the law firm and Brewster will inherit nothing. Despite the tempting offer just to "wimp out" and walk away with a one-time payment of $1 million, especially after the law firm reveals that they already did a background check on him and showed that the highest annual salary he ever earned was $11,000-a-year while a member of the Toledo Mud Hens, Monty decides to take the $30 million challenge. After leaving the offices, Monty goes to a bank across the street where the money is waiting for him in cash. He appoints Spike as the vice president of an investment corporation he's building and hires one of the bank's security guards as his personal guard for the next month. He also asks to rent the bank vault where the cash is stored and is granted a 30-day lease and refuses an account that will earn him interest. On the street, Monty hires a Russian taxi driver (Yakov Smirnov) to be his personal driver. He has the cabbie rent a fleet of limousines and other drivers. He takes everyone in earshot out for an expensive dinner in Manhattan. At dinner he talks with the accountant that Granville and Baxter have assigned to him, Angela Drake (Lonette McKee), an attractive woman and law student clerking in the firm, who Monty is instantly smitten with. Monty tries to convince her that he's not another newly rich snob and asks her out, thinking he can hire someone to do her work for her. He is coldly rebuffed by Angela, who has a fiance, Warren (a junior partner at the law firm). Monty rents a large penthouse in the Plaza Hotel and a large amount of office space in the same building, beating the rental fee proposed by another client. He has also hired a couple of high-priced tailors to make custom suits for him, renting the clothes themselves. With the salary that Monty is paying him, Spike fixes himself up. Down in the new office that Monty is renting, he meets Angela's boyfriend Warren (Stephen Collins) and his former wife Marilyn, whom Monty has hired to redecorate the office space. (Over the next few weeks, Monty changes his mind several times regarding the stylistic choices Marilyn presents to him, thereby using up more of his inheritance.) In Monty's office over the next few days are hundreds of people looking to either do business with Monty or scam him. One man has an investment offer; a large iceberg will be outfitted with giant engines and be sailed to the Middle East where the ice will be used to supply water to the farmers in the region. Monty is also allowed to gamble 5% of his $30 million, so he hires a bookie to bet on every long shot racehorse he can and even puts down a sizable amount on the field hockey team of Drake's alma mater, Loyola University. Monty calls his old Bulls coach and tells him he plans to fix up their old playing field in Hackensack and that he'll arrange a three-inning exhibition game where the Bulls will play the New York Yankees. Monty continues his spending campaign for a few weeks. One night he's inspired by an idea from Spike to invest in expensive items like stamps. Monty goes to a fine collectibles store and asks to see the most expensive stamp the owner has. The stamp is the infamous Inverted Jenny which Monty buys for $1,250,000. Granville and Baxter read the story in the newspaper, thinking Monty has flagrantly violated the terms of the will. Baxter finds a postcard in the daily mail that has a photo of the Hackensack Bulls and a bland message from Monty. After a few moments, Baxter realizes that Monty has used the Inverted Jenny stamp to mail the card, thereby making it their property and devaluing it. Both men are furious and have a private meeting with Warren where they show him the will (the conditions of not revealing the $30 million spending plan in 30 days does not apply to the others of the will reading). They then order him to cause a small error in bookkeeping amounting to $20,000 that will be discovered at the last moment. They promise Warren that he'll be made full partner and that Monty's real $300 million inheritance will go to the firm. Spike and the rest of Monty's friends and associates become very worried about Monty's frivolous spending and try to convince him to curtail it. They go so far to trick Monty into meeting Spike's financial adviser, Eugene (David Wohl), who tells Monty that he'll only require a modest fee of any earnings that pay off. Monty hires him on the spot and shows some resentment toward Angela for tricking him. When Monty finds out that the iceberg investment has turned out to be lucrative, he immediately wants to sell his stock in it. Moments later, the bookie he hired storms in and furiously tells him he's won a large amount of money on all the long shot bets he placed and that he's banned from any more gambling in New York. Monty decides to donate the money he won to charity. Note: the amount that Monty wins, ($1,500,000) is all of the 5% of the $30 million that he can be allowed to donate. Spike and Eugene, both rush into Monty's office one day with exciting news. Spike had invested a large amount of Monty's money in a venture and earned Monty's company $10 million. Monty becomes upset, realizing that he's "right back where he started" and orders everyone out of his office. On television, he sees a news commentary about New York's upcoming mayoral election. The reporter says that his news station has chosen not to endorse either of the sleazy, possibly mob-funded candidates. Monty enters the race himself, declaring a ticket called "None of the Above" where he wants to buy the votes of New York. The campaign involves a large amount of advertising, staffing and televised ads and drains much of the $30 million in a short amount of time. Monty is unabashed in attacking his opponents openly, insulting them publicly in media spots and public appearances. When Monty's two opponents, Heller and Salvino, figure out that Monty's campaign could defeat them both, they both agree to sue him for libel. Monty settles out of court for $4 million. Meanwhile, Angela has grown increasingly cold toward Monty, thinking he's foolish for spending the $30 million so rapidly. Earlier, Monty had tried to give her a new Aston-Martin convertible -- a violation of the will that Monty can't tell Angela about. While he talks to her on the street, he's overseen by both Warren and Marilyn, who mistakenly assume Monty and Angela are having an affair. The day of the big Bulls vs. Yankees game arrives. At the game, the Bulls start out doing very well against the Yankees, until the Yanks battle back and defeat the Bulls early in the third inning, hitting a grand slam home run off Monty. Defeated, Monty leaves the game. In the locker room, Roundfield approaches Monty in the locker room and tells him that he is actually leading the election for mayor at the polls, but that if he wins the election, the $60,000 annual salary given to him as mayor could be considered an asset in accordance with the will. Monty announces to the crowd that he's withdrawing from the election. He also invites everyone to a final party which he'll pay for with his last $38,000. At the party, Monty plans to get very drunk. Spike and Melvin take up a small collection to give to Monty so he won't be flat broke. Monty refuses the money, knowing it would also violate the conditions of the will. Spike suggests that he and Monty buy a nice sports car and leave New York for a new life. Monty still turns him down. The next morning (on the 30th day), the landlord for Monty's offices and penthouse politely evicts him. The tailors take back all the clothes he rented and he finds his old Chicago Cubs jersey in the closet. He checks in on Marilyn, who'd finished the latest iteration of interior decorating of Monty's offices; she orders everything to be taken back when Monty tells her he approves of the work. Monty leaves the Plaza in his old street clothes and wanders off into Manhattan... alone. That evening, the local newscaster Chuck Fleming (Peter Jason), wondering where Monty has vanished to after declaring that he is now flat broke, announces that the mayoral race will be held again in a run-off election after primary election results showed that Monty's campaign had worked to sink the campaigns of Heller and Salvino, with the voters indeed voted for "none of the above". The run-off election will be held in a few days with neither of Monty's opponents running for office ever again. At 11:50 pm, Monty reappears at Granville & Baxter to finalize the will, not a dime to his name. Before he enters the meeting with the two, he's stopped by Warren who eagerly gives him the $20,000 he'd withheld. Monty is immediately upset, believing he'd lost and, with the clock about to strike the midnight deadline, agrees to sign whatever paperwork the two men have. While Warren watches, Angela suddenly appears. Warren discloses the conditions of Monty's will and shows her the furniture company receipt she'd missed for the money he'd given Monty. Angela is furious and rushes in to stop Monty from turning over the money to the firm, saying that Warren had cheated him, drawing an immediate termination from her bosses. Warren tells Monty and Angela that he'd suspected they'd been having an affair all along and Angela tries to hit him. Monty stops her and punches Warren himself, which Warren promises to sue him for. When offered an out-of-court settlement for the money he'd been given, Warren refuses. Monty suddenly decides to hire Angela on retainer for $20,000. She frantically writes him a receipt by the stroke of midnight and Roundfeld declares Monty's inheritance complete. He also promises to investigate Granville and Baxter for any wrongdoing for revealing to Warren the terms of the will. Monty and Angela leave the office together where they agree to talk about his legal options and of his new inheritance.