Robert Stanton

Set in the early 1950s in Saigon, Vietnam, during the end of the First Indochina War, on one level The Quiet American is a love story about the triangle that develops between Thomas Fowler (Michael Caine), a British journalist in his fifties; a young American idealist, supposedly an aid worker, named Alden Pyle (Brendan Fraser); and Phuong (Do Thi Hai Yen), a Vietnamese girl. On another level it is also about the political turmoil and growing American involvement that led to the Vietnam War. Thomas Fowler (Michael Caine), who narrates the story, is involved in the war only as an observer, apart from one crucial instant. Fowler loves Vietnam. Pyle (Brendan Fraser), who represents America and its policies in Vietnam, is an OSS (Office of Strategic Services) operative sent to steer the war according to America's interests, and is passionately devoted to the ideas of York Harding, an American foreign policy theorist who said that what Vietnam needed was a "third player" to take the place of both the colonialists and the Vietnamese rebels and restore order. Officially, Pyle is posted to Vietnam as the Economic Aid Mission. Fowler doesn't know that Pyle is a spy. Fowler had met Pyle at the hotel Continental in Saigon. Fowler had a Vietnamese mistress Phuong (Do Thi Hai Yen). Pyle wanted to understand why the French were losing and the communists winning in Vietnam. Pyle met Phuong via Fowler. Hinh (Tzi Ma) is Fowler's assistant. Fowler knows that Hinh has friends in the communist circles. Fowler is being asked by his paper to return to London, so he is looking for a fresh story that can justify his presence in Vietnam. Pyle starts flirting with Phuong and it is clear that she is also more than interested in him. Fowler tells Phuong that his paper is asking him to return to London, which makes her insecure. For a story, Fowler travels to Phat Diem, a communist insurgent area. He finds Pyle there as well. Together they reach a village, where everyone was killed by the communists. The entire village eradicated. In Phat Diem Pyle admits to Fowler that he has feelings for Phuong and promises that he wont act on them without Fowler's knowledge. After they return to Saigon, Pyle meets Phuong in front of Fowler and proposes to her. This angers Fowler. He tells Phuong later that he has asked his wife for a divorce. Due to his story on Phat Diem, Fowler is granted an extension to stay in Vietnam. This third player was plainly meant to be America, and so Pyle sets about creating a "Third Force" against the Viet Minh by using a Vietnamese splinter group headed by corrupt militia leader General The (Quang Hai) (based on the actual Trinh Minh The). Fowler visits General The's garrison for an interview and is surprised to find Pyle there. Fowler suspects that General The is getting supplies from an unknown power and was responsible for the massacre at Phat Diem. Pyle rides back to Saigon with Fowler. The road is controlled by the communists at night. Fowler's car runs out of petrol, and they take shelter in a watch tower. As the communists descend upon the road, an alert Pyle saves them even as the car and watch-tower are destroyed. Once Fowler and Pyle reach Saigon, Fowler asks Hinh to investigate about who is arming General The. The army he has is not small and he definitely has a big power behind him. Fowler tells Phuong that his wife had agreed to give him a divorce. But Pyle reads the letter and finds that Fowler's wife has made no such promise. He reveals the same to Phuong. Hinh finds that a new shipment of materials has arrived for General The. Fowler and Hinh investigate and finds several crates of Dialacton (a medicine being used by Pyle's mission) in American marked boxes. Pyle has stolen Fowler's Vietnamese mistress Phuong, promising her marriage and security. Fowler returns home to find Phoung gone, and later finds her living with Pyle. Pyle's arming of The's militia with American weaponry leads to a series of terrorist bombings in Saigon. Fowler was at the location of the bombings. Right after the blasts he sees Pyle arriving at the scene and speaking in fluent Vietnamese. Fowler now suspects that Pyle is a spy and is supporting General The. Upon reading further, Fowler figures out that Dialacton is used in the manufacture of plastic explosives. He connects Pyle directly to the bombings. These bombings, dishonestly blamed on the Communists in order to further American outrage, kill a number of innocent people (30 dead), including women and children. When Fowler finds out about Pyle's involvement in the bombings, he takes one definitive action to seal all of their fates. He indirectly agrees to let his assistant, Hinh, and his Communist cohorts confront Pyle; when Pyle tries to flee, Hinh fatally stabs him. Phuong subsequently returns to Fowler, and while the local French police commander Inspector Vigot (Rade Serbedzija) suspects Fowler's role in Pyle's murder, he has no evidence and does not pursue the matter. Eventually the French are defeated, and Vietnam is split between North ruled by Communists and the South ruled by capitalists. Communists then declare war to unite Vietnam. US gets directly involved in Vietnam, supporting the South army.

While protecting an autistic boy who cracks a secret government code, FBI agent Art Jeffries leads us through an action-packed thriller with government assassins at every turn.

An American attorney on business in China is wrongfully arrested and put on trial for murder, with a female defense lawyer from the country the only key to proving his innocence. American lawyer Jack Moore is in Beijing on what looks to be a successful business trip for his company to enter into a film and television distribution deal with the Chinese government, their main competitor for that distribution deal being HoffCo Telecom out of Germany. Before Jack's boss David McAndrews and the Chinese government sign on the dotted line of the contract, Jack is implicated in a murder, the victim who was discovered in his hotel room. The police were alerted to an incident in his hotel room based on the report of hearing a scream emanating from his room, such a scream which Jack, asleep in the room when the police entered, did not hear. Jack being charged with murder quashes the distribution deal, which instead is awarded to HoffCo. The situation is made all the worse for Jack due to the known connections between the victim and people within high places in China, who may try to manipulate the situation to see Jack sentenced to death for the murder. Jack also has language, cultural and political obstacles to overcome, the Chinese government and thus the court system which seems already to have convicted him to make him, a foreigner, an example. As such, Jack does not trust his court appointed lawyer, a young woman named Shen Yuelin who has always seen her role to carry out Chinese government policy. Things may change when Yuelin begins to believe that Jack is being framed for the murder, the death of an innocent man which she may not be able to tolerate if she has any sway within the Chinese justice system, which she may find she does not. The key to discovering the truth behind the murder, the reason for Jack being framed for it and Jack possibly coming out the other end with his life is an important piece of physical evidence which he knows exists but which seems to be missing. —Huggo A lawyer goes to China, has a one night stand with a Chinese woman he meets there, and she ends up dead. The law immediately points the finger at him, and he must stand trial in China, facing their corrupt and unfair system. A young Chinese lawyer who is assigned to Gere's case starts believing him, and they both fight for his rights in an unfair system. —ShowBob <showbob@geocities.com> Jack Moore, a high-profile international lawyer, is in China for business. Moore sleeps with a young woman, and wakes up to find her dead in his bed. Falsely accused of murder, Moore's only chance is his Chinese advocate Yuelin. The rules and laws are different, and Moore must convince Yuelin of his innocence and unravel the chain of events that has entrapped him. —John Hawkinson <jhawk@mit.edu>

Former FBI secretary Erin Grant (Demi Moore) loses custody of her young daughter Angela (Rumer Willis) to her ex-husband Darrell (Robert Patrick), a criminal who cost Erin her job as a secretary for the FBI (as Darell was a drug addict and dealt in illegal drugs). The judge was sympathetic to Darrell as he was collaborating with the Miami Police Department as an informant. To afford an appeal to get her daughter back, Erin becomes a stripper at the Eager Beaver, a strip club in Miami. Erin has been working there for 8 weeks and needs to come up $15k in 6 weeks to appeal her daughter's custody decision. Erin is the top draw at the Eager Beaver and patrons come specifically to watch her strip on stage. Other strippers include Monique (Dina Spybey) who comes from Paris, Lorelei (Barbara Alyn Woods) who is a transfer from a rival club called Flesh Farm and Urbana Sprawl (Pandora Peaks). Erin would have to dance day and night and hope for generous tips to have any chance of making the money she needs for her appeal. Meanwhile Darrell has moved without informing Erin and is using Angela to steal hospital medical supplies and selling them on the black market. Rita (Siobhan Fallon Hogan) is Darell's sister, and Erin tries to find out from her where he has moved to. Shad (Ving Rhames) is a bouncer at the club and looks out for Erin. Shad wants to get rich by suing a yogurt company for a cockroach he found in their product. In reality, Shad had put the cockroach inside the yogurt himself to make his case. A Congressman named David Dilbeck (Burt Reynolds) representing Florida's 5th congressional district, visits the club and becomes infatuated with Erin. Erb Crandall (Robert Stanton) is Dilbeck's executive assistant. A patron named Paul Guber was at the club for his bachelor party. He got enamored with Erin, got on stage and hugs her, causing Dilbeck to attack Paul with an empty Champagne bottle. Shad was busy in the backroom and hence was not around to protect Erin. Aware of Dilbeck's embarrassing indulgences, another Eager Beaver patron Jerry (Orly) approaches Erin with a plan to manipulate the congressman to settle the custody battle and help her get Angela back. However, as he is the chairman of the subcommittee on sugar, Dilbeck has powerful business connections including lobbyist Malcolm Moldowsky (Paul Guilfoyle) his right-hand man, and father-and-son sugar barons Willie and Chris Rojo, whose price supports are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and who want to ensure he remains in office. Consequently, those who can embarrass him (including Jerry, who contacted Malcolm to blackmail Dilbeck) in an election are murdered. Attorney Alan Mordecai (Stuart Pankin), who has acquired photos of the night when Dilbeck became intoxicated at the club and assaulted fellow patron Paul Guber, his client, invites Shad, a bouncer and the club's head of security, to join him in a scheme to blackmail Dilbeck. Meanwhile police officer Al Garcia (Armand Assante) has fished out Jerry's body from a lake. Al Garcia is on vacation there with his wife Donna and son Andy. Autopsy has revealed that he was drowned in tap water first before being thrown into the lake. It was murder. Jerry had Erin's photos all over his apartment and that's how Al finds Erin at the Eager Beaver and understands her full situation. Erin wants Al to make sure that Miami PD dumps Darrell as an informant, so that during her appeal he doesn't have any protection from the police department and can be exposed for the criminal he is. Fully sympathetic to her plight, he complies. However, L.W. Fingerhut, the judge overseeing Erin's case in civil court, suffers a fatal heart attack and is pronounced dead on arrival at Don Shula Hospital, causing her appeal to be delayed by six months. To protect Angela, Erin retrieves her from Rita's care, having found Darrell's address by stealing her mail. Alan approaches Dilbeck with the picture from the Eager Beaver and Malcolm is worried. Erin takes Angela to work and sees Erin dancing on stage, topless. Darrell attacks Erin outside the club, but is saved by Shad, who breaks Darrell's hand. Angela tells Erin that she looked pretty dancing on stage. Al Garcia meets Erin and tells him that Congressman Dilbeck has a crush on her and shows her the photo being used for his blackmail. Al wants Erin to contact him if Dilbeck is in touch with her. Dilbeck's personal interest in Erin persists, and she is invited to perform privately for him. He asks her to become his lover and later his wife, despite his staff's concerns that she knows too much. Malcolm threatens Erin that he knows that Angela is with Erin illegally and will put Angela in state care if Erin talks about Dilbeck to anyone. Eventually, Alan turns up dead as well and Al is now worried about Erin. However, Erin and Al Garcia begin to suspect the congressman's guilt in the murders, and Erin concocts a plan to bring the congressman to justice. But she doesn't know that Malcolm knows that Al is in touch with her (& that she is ex-FBI). Dilbeck and Malcolm then debate whether to kill Erin or simply silence her by threatening to take away her daughter. Malcolm gets Dilbeck to invite Erin for another private show and plans to kill her just after. Erin goes for the private dance without Al or Shad. Darrell then interrupts the dance, allowing Erin to retrieve a gun and force him and Dilbeck to the nearby Belle Glade sugar refinery, where she has arranged for TV crews to arrive for a news conference. On route, she forces Darrell to write a note releasing custody of Angela to her and once there, she tricks Dilbeck into confessing to the murders on tape. As Malcolm arrives, Garcia suddenly appears along with the news crew, and Dilbeck is soon after arrested. Erin, having regained full guardianship of Angela, thanks Garcia and Shad for assisting her and jokingly expresses interest to Garcia in running for Congress as Dilbeck's replacement.

Dennis Mitchell (Mason Gamble) is a five-year-old boy who lives with his parents Henry (Robert Stanton) and Alice (Lea Thompson) and is the bane of next door neighbor George Wilson's (Walter Matthau) existence. One day, George pretends to be asleep to avoid Dennis, who mistakes this for illness and shoots an aspirin into his mouth with a slingshot. Dennis's parents Henry and Alice learn of the incident, and are both dismayed about it, but they can't immediately deal with it, as they both have to work, so they leave Dennis with his best friend Joey McDonald at the home of their impetuous classmate Margaret Wade, much to Dennis's dismay. Despite Dennis and Joey's dislike of Margaret, the three work together to fix up an abandoned tree-house in the woods. Because of his trouble-making but unintentional behavior, his parents often struggle to find suitable babysitters to deal with him. While vacuuming spilled paint in the garage, Dennis inadvertently shoots a glob of it onto George's barbecue grill. Tasting the paint, George suspects Dennis for the mischief. On one night, they manage to get one named Polly (Natasha Lyonne) and her boyfriend Mickey (Devin Ratray) to babysit him, but repeated doorbell pranks from Dennis push the two too far (not knowing he is behind this). Mickey tapes a thumbtack to the doorbell. George investigates the vacuum in the Mitchells' garage and accidentally shoots himself in the buttocks with a golf ball. Hoping to confront the Mitchells, George rings the doorbell, but pricks his thumb on the tack, and Polly and Mickey, mistaking him for the prankster, douse George with water and flour, much to the amusement of George's wife, Martha. While all of this and the rest of the events in town go on, a burglar named Switchblade Sam (Christopher Lloyd) arrives in town and begins robbing houses, as well as striking fear into the children that he meets. Dennis plays with George's dentures, loses the two front incisors, and replaces them with Chiclets before George has his picture taken for the local newspaper. Dennis' parents are both called away on business trips at the same time, and when everyone they know refuses to look after him, they turn to George and his wife Martha (Joan Plowright) to look after him. Martha loves Dennis and sees him as a surrogate grandson. George is further irritated by him spilling bath water on the bathroom floor, swapping chemicals, and bringing his pet dog, Ruff, into the house for a while. George, however, is infuriated that Dennis has replaced his nasal spray with mouthwash and the latter with toilet cleaner. In the attic, Dennis's carelessness causes George to slip on mothballs. All of this is happening around the time the Summer Floraganza, a long-awaited event, is scheduled to happen. As a longtime member of the local garden club, George is chosen to host it. He is excited to have this honor, as he has been growing and nurturing a rare plant for forty years. After growing for the said length of time, its flower finally blooms, only to die several seconds later. Alice gets stuck at the airport due to a storm, thus forcing Dennis to stay with the Wilsons for an extra night, which coincides with the unveiling of the plant and its blooming to the members of the garden club. While that is happening, he is sent away for causing trouble, namely overturning the dessert table when he pushed a black button, which he found out opened the garage door. When he hears Switchblade Sam robbing the house. He goes downstairs and finds George's gold coins missing. He runs outside to tell him just as the flower is beginning to bloom, which causes him and all the guests to miss its entire lifespan of the blooming flower. Not knowing about the robbery, George severely scolds Dennis, tells him that he has no use for him, and that he doesn't want to know or see him anymore. Shortly thereafter, Dennis gets on his bicycle (with a wagon attached) and rides off into the night, eventually bumping into Switchblade Sam in the woods. Sam then abducts him, intending to use the child as a hostage. Dennis' parents return home and learn of his departure, and they, the authorities, his friends Joey (Kellen Hathaway), Margaret (Amy Sakasitz) and all the neighborhood kids, and George search all night for him. George feels intense guilt and remorse after remembering all the things he said to him and having now discovered his house was burglarized and that Dennis actually had good intentions when he tried to tell him. Switchblade Sam prepares to leave town with Dennis as an unsuspecting hostage but grows annoyed with Dennis's constant talking. Showing Sam the proper way to tie him up, Dennis handcuffs Sam, loses the key, unintentionally bludgeons him multiple times, and sets him on fire. As Dennis discovers George's stolen coins and realizes that Switchblade Sam is a thief, Sam attempts to stab Dennis but is snared in a rope that is caught by a passing train and stabbed in the buttocks by his own knife, subduing him too much to do anything further. Dennis returns to George's house the next morning with Switchblade Sam in his wagon, having also recovered George's gold coins, and Sam is taken into police custody by a slightly amused sheriff Bennett (Paul Winfield) who had previously advised him to leave town. Switchblade Sam is arrested, and Dennis naively returns his knife. Sam attempts to stab Dennis again, but Chief Bennett accidentally closes the police car door on his hand, causing him to drop his knife into the storm drain and wince in pain before being driven away, with all the neighborhood children taunting him. Dennis and George make up, and the Mitchells and Wilsons become friends on better terms. Alice mentions that she will not be traveling for work anymore and can bring Dennis to work with her because her office now has a day-care center. That night, George explains that he's learned some things about kids: kids are kids, and that one has to play by their rules, roll with the punches, and expect the unexpected, in which afterward Dennis, trying to get a flame on a marshmallow to go out, then accidentally hits him in the forehead with it. The film's end credits are accompanied with Dennis inadvertently humiliating his mother's egotistical coworker, Andrea (Melinda Mullins), while she is using a photocopier. Dennis impishly whacks the "PRINT" button and runs away, with other workers looking on. Andrea loses her balance, and her head gets pinned face-down on the scanner-bed, and the machine relentlessly flashes its blinding light in her eyes as it repeatedly "takes her picture" and spews out page after page of black-and-white "photos" showing her various agonized facial expressions as she squirms about on the scanner bed.