Ruby Dee

Two scientists, Dr. Elena Kinder (Kathleen Turner) and Dr. Heep (Christopher Lloyd), use genius-baby studies to fund BabyCo's theme park "Joyworld". BabyCo is the largest manufacturer of products for the baby and this research would help them understand the needs of babies are lot better. Kinder is also the CEO of BabyCo. According to Dr. Kinder's research on toddlers/babies, babies are born possessing vast, universal knowledge and speak a secret yet impossible-to-translate baby Pre-language called Babytalk. However, at age 2-3, the knowledge and language are lost as the babies "cross over" by learning how to speak human languages. All babies raised in Dr. Kinder's underground research facility were adopted from the orphanages Babyco supports. As they serve to filter out which babies should be raised under the Kinder Method and which babies shouldn't be raised under the Kinder Method. The selected babies are transformed into small geniuses through use of the Kinder Method, and then used in experiments to decipher this secret yet impossible-to-translate language used by the eight baby geniuses. Kinder says that she is spending $200 million every year on the orphanages with the sole purpose of expanding her pool of geniuses. One mischievous toddler, Sylvester (Leo, Gerry and Myles Fitzgerald) the only one of her toddlers raised via use of the superior version of the Kinder Method, nicknamed "Sly", makes repeated attempts to escape Dr. Kinder's research facility. The facility itself is well protected to prevent the smart toddlers from escaping. The facility is 25 stories underground for added protection and secrecy. Sylvester is only afraid of Dr Heep and falls in line as soon as he is confronted by him. Dr Heep had figured out the a baby playing on a musical instrument seems to produce noise, but a computer analysis of the sounds reveals a complex symphony worthy of a Beethoven. Also he finds that children drawing using crayons resemble an ancient language called Cuneiform. Dr Heep concludes that babies use this language and can understand each other. Cracking this secret would be the key to proving the superiority of the Kinder method of child upbringing. Sly's fellow geniuses believe that Kinder is trying to unleash a new world order where the babies would be the leaders, but Sly is not convinced and remains very skeptical of Kinder and her motives. He believes that Heep and Kinder are just wanting their own way to control the world through the babies. One night, Sylvester manages to get into a diaper truck and succeeds in getting out of the facility. The next morning, he is surprised to run into his long-lost normal twin brother, Whit, in a mall where Sly was hiding from Kinder's goons. Sly and Whit were born to a specifically selected surrogate mother and while Sly was taken to the research facility, Kinder arranged for Whit to be adopted by Robin, her niece. For the integrity of the experiment it was imperative that no one discovers that Sly and Whit are twins. A comparative evaluation will be done at the age of 6 to conclusively establish the superiority of the Kinder method. Sly is able to create complex shapes using Lego blocks even though he is only a baby. Meanwhile Whit is very naughty and plays pranks all the time. Although Sylvester and Whit share a telepathic bond, each has no idea of the other's existence. The guards from Dr. Kinder's research facility capture Whit, mistaking him for Sylvester, and take him back to Dr. Kinder's research facility. Sylvester is taken home by Whit's adopted mother, Robin (Kim Cattrall), who is Dr. Kinder's niece. Dan Bobbin is Robin's husband. Robin knows that Kinder has stolen all of Dan's research on babies and is now using it for her own personal profit. Dan and Robin run a Pre-school of their own, where Dan does his own research on babies. Dan was doing his own work on the secret baby language which Kinder did not know about. Dan video tapes Sly talking and suddenly realizes that he can understand what the babies are saying. Dr. Kinder (when Heep compares voice prints of Sly from last week with ones from the current baby) and the seven other baby-geniuses are shocked that Whit and Sylvester switched places at the mall, but Dr. Kinder becomes excited and begins to see this as an opportunity to do a cross evaluation on the twins. However, when she comes to Dan Bobbin's (Peter MacNicol) place, she realizes that Dan can understand babies. She realizes that if Sly tells Dan the truth about her keeping the twins separate, she could go to jail. After the attempts to retrieve Sylvester fail (her goons simulate a power outage in the area and enter the house as power company men, but Sly is able to defeat them), Dr. Kinder decides to move the research facility to Liechtenstein, and they have no choice but to make Whit be the only normal baby to be raised in this research facility until they can find a possible way to get Sylvester back to her research facility. The babies at Bobbin's place hypnotize Lenny (Dom DeLuise), the bus driver, to drive to Dr. Kinder's research facility. Once at the research facility, Sylvester goes to the control room to set the robots from the theme park on the lab scientists. When the Bobbins return home, their natural daughter Carrie (Gabrielle and Megan Robbins) tells her father that the children are in Dr. Kinder's research facility. At the end of the fight, Dr. Kinder captures Whit and takes him to the helicopter pad on the roof. Robin and Dan (Peter MacNicol) chase them to the roof, where Dr. Kinder reveals that she and Robin are not related and that Robin was adopted at age 2. After Dr. Kinder is arrested by the police, Sylvester and Whit come together on the roof to cross over. Dan and Robin adopt Sylvester. Dan is still curious of the secrets of life; but, as the twins have crossed over, they no longer know those secrets. Carrie, their sister, doesn't reveal anything (just giving her father a Sly smile) because adults are never meant to know their secrets.

Thanks to his poor performing skills, Oliver Greening is rejected from a coveted performance in a musical version of "A Tale of Two Cities." After his daughter Annabel attempts to get her brother Charlie to believe that the tooth fairy exists, Murray, a clumsy fairy godfather, appears after Charlie has gone to sleep. Annabel wants to wish for her father to get the role, but Murray suddenly remembers he is late for an important engagement and promises to return to grant her wish later. Hortence, the head of all fairy godmothers, is holding the annual meeting of the NAFGA (or North American Fairy Godmothers Association). Due to Hortence's rule, all the fairy godmothers must check in their wands before the meeting. Claudia, a former fairy godmother turned evil witch, has shown up at the meeting uninvited and intends to steal all the wands. She gives Hortence's receptionist, Rena a witch's apple that puts her to sleep, casts a spell on Hortence turning the head fairy paper-thin and binding her mouth with bricks, and locks all the fairy godmothers downstairs on her way to stealing the wands. Murray, however, arrives at the meeting late and never checks his wand, leaving it as the only wand Claudia has yet to obtain. Annabel realizes that Murray has left his magic wand behind and decides to bring it back to him, but Charlie breaks it. Murray and Annabel disappear to Nebraska, by way of a misconstrued spell cast by him to get out quickly. After he tries and fails to turn a selfish motel owner they meet there into a rabbit (turning him instead into a giant rabbi), the two end up back in Central Park. Because of Annabel's disappearing in an unexplained way, the school closes early. Charlie finds them there. Annabel begs Murray to try to grant her wish now that they are close to her father, but due to yet another mishap by him, Oliver is turned into a statue. To fix the problem, the three of them go to NAFGA and ask for the help of Hortence, who is still under the effects of Claudia's spell. While Murray, Charlie and Rena (who has awoken from Claudia's sleeping spell) fix Murray's wand, Hortence tells Annabel of Claudia's plot and explains that the awry spell must be lifted before midnight, or Oliver will be doomed to remain a statue forever. Claudia, meanwhile, has been looking through the wands, searching for hers. After going through, she realizes it is missing and now belongs to Murray, and she is determined to obtain it. Annabel and Murray head to the theater and see Tony Sable, the selfish and conceited actor who is auditioning for Oliver's part. Knowing this could ruin her father's chance of being in the show, she asks Murray to sabotage the audition any way he can. First he tries to make it rain on the stage but it is dismissed as a simple technical problem and the audition continues. Then she asks him to give Sable a frog in his throat to impair his singing. He takes this wish too literally, and frogs start hopping out of Sable's mouth, shocking the cast and crew. Annabel and Murray celebrate, but Sable gets the part since Oliver has not shown up. Boots, Claudias terrier turned lackey who has been looking for Murray, finds them. Murray mentions the story of Brer Rabbit to Annabel and together they beg her not to take them to Claudia's lair so that she will. Claudia catches them, and demands them to tell her where her wand is. When Murray tries to persuade Annabel not to tell her, as punishment, Claudia changes her and Murray into ballerinas and makes them dance uncontrollably until Annabel agrees to tell her. However, Annabel is able to keep Claudia distracted until Charlie can return with the wand. When he does, Murray wins Boots' allegiance long enough to convince her to give him the wand. Claudia attempts to attack him, but Murray is able to trick her into firing a spell that draws her into a mirror, which is then shattered. Murray, Charlie, and Annabel return to Central Park and restore Oliver in the nick of time. He is given the part of Sable's understudy thanks to a producer who enjoyed his audition. In order to finally grant Annabel's wish, Murray appears backstage and causes Sable to slip on a bucket, and twist his ankle. The resultant temper tantrum gets him fired and Oliver, his understudy, is cast in his place. Charlie and Annabel watch the show with Murray and the other fairy godmothers including Hortence, who is now free from Claudia's spell.

A Harvard professor is lured back into the courtroom after twenty-five years to take the case of a young black man condemned to death for the horrific murder of a child. Bobby Earl (Blair Underwood) is facing the electric chair for the murder of a young girl. Eight years after the crime, he calls in Paul Armstrong (Sir Sean Connery), a professor of law, to help prove his innocence. Armstrong quickly uncovers some overlooked evidence to present to the local police, but they aren't interested, Bobby was their killer. —Rob Hartill The year is 1986. In Ochopee, Florida, eleven-year-old Joanie Shriver (Barbara Jean Kane) is kidnapped, raped, and murdered. Bobby Earl Ferguson (Blair Underwood) is arrested by officers Tanny Brown (Laurence Fishburne) and J. T. Wilcox (Christopher Murray), who proceed to beat Bobby into confessing to the murder. Bobby is placed on trial, where Bobby's defense attorney McNair (Ned Beatty) puts up a lousy defense for Bobby, and Bobby is sentenced to be executed. Now, eight years later, Bobby hands a letter to his grandmother Evangeline (Ruby Dee) and asks Evangeline to go to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to hire Harvard law professor Paul Armstrong (Sir Sean Connery) to clear Bobby's name. At Harvard, Paul is attacking capital punishment in a campus debate, when Evangeline arrives and hands the letter to Paul. Paul goes home, where his wife Laurie (Kate Capshaw) is throwing a birthday party for their young daughter Katie (Scarlett Johansson). Laurie reads the letter and she encourages Paul to take the case, even though he hasn't practiced law in twenty-five years. Paul, Laurie, and Katie head to Florida, where Paul meets Bobby in the prison. Bobby tells Paul his side of the story and what Tanny and Wilcox did. Paul begins to believe that Bobby was railroaded. Bobby tells Paul to speak to Blair Sullivan (Ed Harris), a man who is also on death row. Blair gives Paul some clues that could prove Bobby's innocence, and Blair's own guilt. But in the process of trying to clear Bobby, Paul learns some disturbing truths about Bobby, putting Paul and his family in a fight for their lives. —Todd Baldridge

On the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, everyone's hate and bigotry smolders and builds until it explodes into violence. This film looks at life in the Bedford-Stuyvesant district of Brooklyn on a hot summer Sunday. As he does everyday, Sal Fragione opens the pizza parlor he's owned for 25 years. The neighborhood has changed considerably in the time he's been there and is now composed primarily of African-Americans and Hispanics. His son Pino hates it there and would like nothing better than to relocate the eatery to their own neighborhood. For Sal however, the restaurant represents something that is part of his life and sees it as a part of the community. What begins as a simple complaint by one of his customers, Buggin Out - who wonders why he has only pictures of famous Italian-Americans on the wall when most of his customers are black - eventually disintegrates into violence as frustration seemingly brings out the worst in everyone. —garykmcd Life over twenty-four hours during a heatwave along one small section of Stuyvesant Avenue in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn is presented. It is a historically black section, with the exception of Sal's Pizzeria, which has been located there for twenty-five years, Sal, who now operates it with his two young adult sons Pino and Vito, making the very conscious decision on location due to the overabundance of pizzerias in his own Italo-centric neighborhood, in the process doing good business. Sal's customer base has largely been the black residents of the neighborhood, he currently employing black Mookie as a delivery boy. However, the makeup of the neighborhood has slowly been changing with Latinos moving in - Mookie's girlfriend, Tina, also the mother to his son, being Latina - gentrification leading to well-off Caucasians buying properties, and a recent immigrant Korean family opening a general store across the street from the pizzeria. There has been an underlying tension between the races as each tries to stake out his or her place: competing boomboxes blaring Caribbean music from one and black music from another; Pino, in particular among those in Sal's family, not liking the business largely due to the clientele and neighborhood; and contempt by some for the seeming success of the general store operated by a visible racial exception in the neighborhood, despite that property having sat empty for years. But on this day, the seeming spark that may ignite that tension is black Buggin Out taking exception to Sal only posting the photos of ethnic Italian celebrities on the pizzeria's Wall of Fame, instead of including "brothers and sisters" to reflect the makeup of Sal's customer base. —Huggo As the dog days of summer drag on in the Bed-Stuy neighbourhood of Brooklyn, an unexpected incident is about to bring tensions to a boiling point. After all, among the businesses on the lively block, it is hard not to notice Love Daddy's storefront radio station, Sonny's convenience store, and Sal's Famous Pizzeria. And then, in just one day, the residents' once-peaceful interactions become explosive confrontations as pressing demands to give voice to the frustrations of people of colour echo through the streets. Now, there is no turning back. But when you have put everything on the line to make yourself heard, what does it take to do the right thing? —Nick Riganas Salvatore "Sal" Fragione (Danny Aiello) is the Italian owner of a pizzeria in Brooklyn. A neighborhood local, Buggin' Out (Giancarlo Esposito), becomes upset when he sees that the pizzeria's Wall of Fame exhibits only Italian actors. Buggin' Out believes a pizzeria in a black neighborhood should showcase black actors, but Sal disagrees. The wall becomes a symbol of racism and hate to Buggin' Out and to other people in the neighborhood, and tensions rise. —maschzentertainment

A wagon master and a con-man preacher help freed slaves dogged by cheap-labor agents out West. After the American Civil War, many freed slaves head out West in search of free land and a better life. Former slave and Union Army sergeant Buck becomes a self-employed wagon master to wagon trains of freed slaves heading West. Buck knows the region well and he charges fair wages from the wagon trains employing him. He also has a working relationship with the local Indian tribes that charge trespassing fees from the wagon trains heading West across Indian lands. In return, they allow the settlers to move across Indian territory unhindered and to hunt a few buffalo needed to feed the wagon-train settlers. However, not everyone in the region is friendly toward the westward-traveling Black settlers. Owners of Southern plantations, dismayed by the loss of slave manpower that previously worked the plantations for free, hire band of white rogues and outlaws to prevent former Black slaves from going West. In order to achieve this aim, the hired bands of rogues attack wagon trains and destroy the wagons, the supplies and the food resources of the former slaves. They threaten the Black settlers with harm and they tell them to return to the Southern states where they came from and work the plantations. Wagonmaster Buck encourages the freed slaves to continue their trek westward and to not give up their dream of settling in the West. Knowing this, the band of rogues led by DeShay plans to capture and kill Buck. The DeShay gang sets up ambushes and traps but Buck always manages to avoid capture. The gang resides in the town of Copper Springs where the sheriff, an honest man, doesn't agree with the gang's ruthless tactics against wagon trains of freed slaves. Chased by the DeShay bunch, wagon master Buck and his tired horse arrive at a river where a Black preacher, Reverend Willis Oakes Rutherford, is bathing. Desperate, Buck switches horses with the preacher against his will, and rides off to meet his wagon train. The preacher heads to Copper Springs where he bumps into DeShay's gang. Recognising Buck's horse, the gang interrogates the preacher about Buck's whereabouts. DeShay promises a $500 reward to the preacher if he finds Buck and captures or kills him. DeShay also instructs the preacher to convince all Black settlers to turn back East toward the Southern plantations and abandon their westward trek. The preacher agrees with DeShay and leaves town. Outside town he meets a wagon train formed of freed slaves and led by none other than Buck. After an angry exchange between the preacher and Buck, the preacher joins the wagon train. During the following days of travel, the preacher notices that all the money of the wagon train is kept in a money belt one of the women carries around her waist. A few days later, a distrustful Buck orders the preacher to leave the wagon train and he himself rides away to scout the area and to pay in cash a right of passage to the local Indian tribe in behalf of the trespassing wagon train. The preacher follows Buck and he witnesses the payment made by Buck to the Indian chief for safe passage of the settlers. When Buck, followed by the preacher, returns to the wagon train, a gruesome scene awaits. DeShay's gang attacked the wagon train, stole the settlers' money, destroyed their food and supplies and even killed a few settlers. Heartbroken, the surviving settlers want to turn back but Buck encourages them to go on. Angry at the devastation, Buck and the preacher decide to ride to the town of Copper Springs and exact revenge on DeShay's gang and also try to retrieve the money DeShay stole from the Black settlers. There are only two against many, but those two are determined to succeed. —nufs68

In this landmark collaboration between activist and actress Ruby Dee and director Jules Dassin, Black revolutionaries are betrayed by one of their own. Based on the 1935 classic "The Informer."

The Younger family consists of Mama and her college-age daughter Beneatha, her son Walter and his wife Ruth, and her 10 year old grandson Travis. The family has lived in the same cramped Chicago apartment for years. Walter is a chauffeur and Ruth works as a part-time maid. Mama has just retired as she is expecting a $10,000 life insurance check from her deceased husband's estate. Walter is very dissatisfied with his life and wants the $10,000 to open a liquor store with his friends. Ruth feels the money is Mama's to spend as she wishes and neither of them approve of Walter's dream. While waiting for the check to arrive, Walter has grown angry and bitter. He snaps at Travis and Beneatha, poking fun at his sister's dream of becoming a doctor. After school, Travis earns money by carrying groceries at the nearby supermarket. Mama worries because he doesn't have a proper bedroom and sleeps on the living room sofa. She is also worried about Ruth, who reveals that she is pregnant but hasn't told Walter yet. They can't afford more children. Beneatha's college friend from Africa, a Mr. Asagai, drops by. At Beneatha's request, he has borrowed a traditional African costume for her to wear. She reluctantly introduces him to Mama after warning her not to ask him "stupid" questions about Africa. Mr. Asagai is very good-natured and takes Mama's questions in stride. When the check arrives, Walter begs Mama yet again to let him borrow the money. He got one of his friends to write up a business plan, which Mama refuses to read. She uses part of the check to buy a house in Clybourne Park, which is an all-white neighborhood. The family will have much more room and Mama can plant a garden in the back yard. The rest of the money is set aside for Beneatha's education. Walter is furious and goes on a three-day drinking binge. His employer calls and says if he isn't back at work the next day he is fired. Mama goes to the bar and listens to Walter cry because he will never have his dream now. At last she relents and gives him the rest of the money. He and his friends give their combined cash to Willie, who is going to bribe certain officials to speed up their application for a liquor license. Only Willie leaves town instead, stealing the money of his friends. While all this was going on, an official from the Clybourne Park Home Association pays the Youngers a visit. In a nutshell, the white citizens don't want the Youngers moving into their neighborhood. The man offers Mama more than she paid to cancel the sale. But despite Walter's losing the money and likely his job, they decide to move after all.