Regina King

Burnt-out ex-baseball player Hank Thompson unexpectedly finds himself embroiled in a dangerous struggle for survival amidst the criminal underbelly of 1990s New York City, forced to navigate a treacherous underworld he never imagined.

Set in the 1970s Tish (Kiki Layne) is a 19-year-old African-American woman living in West Harlem, New York City, and she is madly in love with Fonny (Stephan James), a fellow African American man who is a few years older than her. He is kind and warm and loves her deeply. Tish goes to the prison where Fonny is incarcerated to tell him that she's having a baby. Both of them are thrilled, the circumstances non-withstanding. Tish goes home sees her mother Sharon (Regina King). Sharon asks how Fonny is doing - he's in jail after being falsely identified in a rape case and is currently on trial. Tish nervously tell Sharon she is pregnant, and Sharon helps her tell the rest of the family: her father Joseph (Colman Domingo) and her sister Ernestine (Teyonah Parris). They are a little shocked but supportive, a tight-knit, loving group. After wondering when they should tell Fonny's family, Sharon decides to invite them over for drinks since it's a Saturday night and no time like the present. Throughout the film, we cut back to Tish and Fonny's life before he went to prison. We seem on an early date, walking through the city and getting to know one another. Back in the present, Fonny's parents, the jokester Frank (Michael Beach) and the cruel, religious Mrs. Hunt (Aunjanue Ellis) arrive with their two daughters. Mrs. Hunt and their daughters think they are too good for Tish and her family. When they tell Fonny's family, only Frank is positive. Mrs. Hunt curses Tish, and tells her the child is born from sin and is going to shrivel in her womb - and Frank punches her, hard. Everyone scrambles, Joseph takes Frank out, and Mrs. Hunt's daughters help her up. Sharon and Ernestine properly shame Mrs. Hunt, asking how she could be so cruel, and they kick the women out of their home. As the flashbacks continue, we see Tish and Fonny sleep together for the first time. In the present, Sharon and Tish go to see Hayward (Finn Wittrock), a lawyer that is going to take Fonny's defense. Victoria Rogers (Emily Rios), the victim, was a Puerto Rican woman living in New York when she was brutally assaulted. A white police officer, Officer Bell (Ed Skrein), claims he saw Fonny running from the scene of the crime, even though Fonny was with his friend Daniel Carty (Brian Tyree Henry) at the time. He then showed Victoria the lineup, and she identified Fonny. Hayward explains there are two problems: one, Victoria is missing and can't be questioned. Two, the district attorney's office has arrested Carty and won't let Hayward see him. Hayward is going to fight but warns them it will be a tough battle to win. In flashbacks, Daniel gets out of prison after two years and comes to stay with Fonny and Tish. He is jovial, but his time in prison has shaken him. He clearly is drinking as a way to cope and confesses to Fonny that he pled guilty to stealing a car to get out of a marijuana charge after being pressured by police officers... even though he doesn't even know how to drive. Tish gets farther along in her pregnancy, working as a counter girl in a department store to make ends meet. Ernestine tells Tish that Victoria has been located... in Puerto Rico. Tish is devastated, knowing she can't get there to talk to her. Money is piling up for legal defenses, and Frank commiserates with Joseph, who assures him they'll get it done. They begin stealing from the docks and re-selling the goods. In flashbacks, we see when Tish and Fonny got their loft together. They had been turned away from many places simply for being black, but Levy (Dave Franco), the young Jewish man showing them the space, tells them that love is love and he's his mother's son. Tish looks around a corner store while Fonny goes to get cigarettes, and while in the store, a young racist white man starts harassing her. Fonny arrives and throws the man out of the store, but Officer Bell (the man who will later say he saw Fonny running from the crime scene) arrives and threatens Fonny with assault charges. Tish and Fonny explain that he was defending Tish, but Bell refuses to listen and begins to arrest Fonny until the store manager, a white woman, comes forward and tells Bell that what they said was true and to leave them alone. Bell vows to see Fonny again. Sharon arrives in Puerto Rico, attempting to find Victoria. She first finds Pietro (Pedro Pascal), Victoria's boyfriend. He at first refuses to help her find Victoria, but she passionately insists that Fonny didn't rape her and begs to speak with her. He helps her find Victoria, who is visibly traumatized from what happened to her. Sharon tries to speak with her, acknowledging what happened to her was horrible but trying to explain that she has the wrong man. Victoria explains that the police asked her to pick Fonny out and she did and that that's the end. Sharon explains that she only saw Fonny in the lineup Officer Bell showed her - she presses further, but Victoria begins screaming, hysterical, and is eventually taken away by other women, leaving Sharon alone, devastated. Tish goes to see Fonny in prison, who looks worse than ever. She has bad news: Victoria has disappeared again, and now the trial might be postponed. Fonny is distraught. Tish has the baby, and Fonny, faced with the prospect of losing the trial, takes a plea for a lesser sentence. Several years later, Tish brings their child, a young boy named after his father, to visiting hours at the prison. The three have a makeshift family dinner with food bought from the vending machines and enjoy having some moments actually together.

A Christmastime drama centered around the Whitfield family's first holiday together in four years. In Los Angeles, Shirley Ann Whitfield, affectionately called Ma'Dere, is the matriarch of the Whitfield family, she with six children: San Francisco residing wife and mother Lisa who feels the need to act as the responsible one in managing her extended family's welfare, as such sacrificing her own wants in the process; traveling jazz musician Quentin Jr. who the family has not seen in four years; Claude the marine; New York ad exec Kelli who admits she is the selfish one; college student Mel; and Michael (called Baby) who still lives at home while figuring out what he wants to do with his life. Ma'Dere has lived in the family home for a few years now with Joe Black, a church deacon, with Ma'Dere's husband/the children's father, Quentin Whitfield Sr., long having left the family to pursue a life as a jazz musician. Because of the pain associated for Ma'Dere, Sr.'s piano sits in the garage untouched. Quentin, being a chip off the old paternal block, is the most disconnected from the family. Ma'Dere and Joe's living situation is the worst kept secret which the children do not talk about. The one who doesn't know about Joe living with Ma'Dere is Quentin, who still sees him as the obstacle to Sr. one day coming home. Ma'Dere owns and operates a dry cleaning business, in which each of the children owns a share, the business which makes little profit and is barely enough for Ma'Dere to continue living in the family home. As such, Lisa, on the urging of her husband Malcolm, wants to sell the business, of which she has to convince her siblings. Some with partners and family accompanying, the children, as usual, converge on the family home for Christmas, this year even including the previously unannounced surprise of Quentin. Each person is dealing with an issue in his/her life - some known by the family, some not - which affects the family dynamic and associated how this Christmas will turn out for them as a collective family. —Huggo

A secretary's life changes in unexpected ways after her dog dies. Peggy (Molly Shannon) is single, childless, in her forties, a lonely executive assistant in a friendly office. Her dog Pencil is the love of her life, and when he dies after eating some sort of toxin, Peggy's life spins out of her control: a friendly neighbor invites her for dinner; a friendly staff member at her vet's calls with an abused dog he recommends she adopt - she does, and also finds herself attracted to this fellow. She becomes a vegan, supports animal-rights causes, and embroils her brother's young children in these concerns. Saving dogs and other animals become such a passion that her mental health and her job may be in danger. Are regaining control and finding love beyond her reach? —<jhailey@hotmail.com>

A kid who hates ants, Lucas Nickle (voice of Zach Tyler Eisen), finds himself living among them. His family has just moved to a new town, but Lucas isn`t enjoying it much. To make matters worse, the local bully has found Lucas and is making his life miserable, so the boy looks for someone he can push around -- and he soon finds a large colony of ants in his yard. Lucas takes out his frustrations by stomping, drowning, and burying the bugs, little realizing the ants see him as a threat to their safety and aren`t about take his attacks lying down. Zoc (voice of Nicolas Cage) is a ``wizard ant`` who creates a formula that shrinks Lucas to the size of an insect, and the tiny boy is brought before the leader of the Ant Council (voice of Ricardo Montalban) and the Queen of the Colony (voice of Meryl Streep) to answer for his crimes against the ants. Showing compassion, the queen sentences Lucas not to death, but to live among them and see how difficult their circumstances can be. From here, Lucas also gathers courage and support to put up a fight against the diabolic bully, Stan!

Sam finds her Prince Charming on the Internet. Despite the malevolent efforts of her stepmother and stepsisters, Sam plans to meet her soulmate at the high school Halloween dance.

Charlie, a busy working father, is laid off after the health division in his company was shut down. Desperate for money, he opens up a day care center with the help of two friends. As it became more popular, a nearby school's daycare became less populated, because Charlie's center, Daddy Day Care was much cheaper. Mrs. Harridan, the head mistress of that school, attempts to shut down Daddy Day Care, but fails. Charlie and one of his friends are offered a better job and they decide to take it. But not long after, Charlie soon realizes that the job isn't what he really wants to do. He returns to Daddy Day Care, only to learn that everybody left and went to the expensive school. He successfully convinces the children and their parents to come back, and Daddy Day Care becomes a raging success.

After dying before his time, an aspiring black comic gets a second shot at life - by being placed in the body of a wealthy white businessman. It seems everyone is trying to get into heaven; at least those whose time is up. For Lance Barton (Chris Rock), a struggling comedian and bicycle messenger, it's the last thing on his mind. His due date in heaven is fifty years away. In the meantime, he has big dreams to pursue on Earth, such as landing a slot at the final Amateur Night Contest at the famed Apollo Theatre. Lance's has one little problem though - he isn't that funny. Thanks to an overly cautious emissary from heaven, Mr. Keyes (Eugene Levy), he's going to get hit (literally) with a much bigger problem. Showing that even God has difficulty finding good help these days, the inept minion mistakenly plucks Lance from a traffic accident - before it takes place. Transporting him to the Pearly Gates, or more accurately, the velvet roped-lines of the hottest club around, the error is finally addressed by Mr. King (Chazz Palminteri), the streetwise, no-nonsense head angel who manages the place from his plush windowed office. Since returning to his own body on Earth is impossible, the urban dwelling Lance reluctantly agrees to a normally unthinkable proposal. He'll occupy the body of a wealthy old white mogul, Charles Wellington III (Brian Rhodes), until a more suitable body can be found. Strangely enough, in a Park Avenue penthouse, servants and butlers become his new homeys as Lance works on his streetwise comedy routine for the big Apollo showdown. Living in the body of a callous old white man would be bizarre enough for Lance without falling in love with Sontee Jenkins (Regina King), the beautiful woman publicly battling Wellington's company at the same time. And if that wasn't enough, he has to deal with the love affair between Wellington's wife and his personal assistant, and their plot to have him killed. —Gilbert lee

Justice (Janet Jackson) is a young woman living in South Central, Los Angeles. She was named Justice by her late mother, who gave birth to her while attending law school. After the shooting death of her boyfriend Markell (Q-Tip), Justice falls into a deep depression. She spends the majority of her time in the house she inherited from her grandmother, with her pet cat White Boy, only going out to her job at a local hair salon. Justice is a talented poet, she reads many of her poems throughout the course of the film, both to other characters and in voice over. Justice is at the hair salon working one day when a young postal clerk named Lucky (Tupac Shakur) comes in and begins flirting with her. She rebuffs his advances with the help of her female boss; the two women pretend to be lesbians and mock Lucky with their "relationship". Meanwhile, Lucky has also had tragedy in his life: his main focus is caring for his young daughter Keisha. He had to forcibly remove her from the care of her mother, Angel, a crack addict who was using drugs and having sex with her drug dealer while leaving the child unattended in the apartment. Lucky dreams of a professional career in music and shows considerable promise, but he insists his cousin is the true talent. Justice's friend Iesha (Regina King) manages to talk Justice into taking a road trip to Oakland with Iesha's boyfriend, Chicago (Joe Torry), Lucky's co-worker at the post office. Justice warily accepts, mainly because she has to go to Oakland for a hair show, and her car dies at the last minute. Unbeknownst to Justice, Lucky is Chicago's co-worker also on the trip, and she will now be sharing a postal van with him and their two mutual friends. Initially they argue, but over the course of the film soften towards each other as they discover their similarities. The foursome make a couple of detours off the I-5 expressway, the first being a family reunion barbecue they see signs for on the road. Here it becomes apparent (although there were ample hints earlier) that Iesha and Chicago's relationship is troubled. Iesha openly flirts with other men at the barbecue, while Chicago broods watching her behavior. The second stop is a beach where each of the four characters contemplate their separate situations in internal monologues. Next, they stop at an African Cultural Fair where Lucky and Justice grow closer as they discuss their lives. After leaving the fair, the friction between Chicago and Iesha explodes when Iesha informs Chicago she has been seeing someone on the side and he physically attacks her. Lucky initially decides not to get involved in the fight until Justice defends Iesha by kicking Chicago in the groin, and Chicago turns his physical brutality on Justice in retaliation. Lucky, Justice, along with a bleeding and shaken Iesha leave Chicago by the side of the road and continue on their journey. Lucky stops the postal van at a beach, and Justice goes to see what's wrong. She begins opening up to him about her life and Lucky becomes sympathetic. They share a kiss and Justice walks away apparently unsure of her feelings for Lucky. She goes back to him and they share another kiss. When the trio finally arrive in Oakland, they are met with the news that Lucky's cousin, with whom he had been working on recording music, has been killed. Lucky blames himself for not being in Oakland sooner, believing he could have prevented the shooting had he been in town. He turns his anger on Justice, angrily blaming her for distracting him while they were on the road. Several months later. Lucky and Keisha meet up with Justice again back at the hair salon, just at the moment Lucky brings in his daughter Keisha. Lucky is remorseful over his conduct in Oakland and the cruel words he said to Justice there, and apologizes. She smiles at him and they share a passionate kiss. Justice smiles coyly, and then turns her attention to Keisha, fussing over her hair. Justice and Lucky's eyes meet over Keisha's head and they smile, their connection as strong as ever.