Steve Zahn

A group of friends is going through a mid-life crisis. They decide to remake a favourite movie from their youth, but encounter unexpected events when they enter the jungle.

In 1980s Chicago, a 10-year-old embarks on a quest to get the latest and greatest video game system for Christmas.

After discovering that she has only a short time to live, a successful woman becomes mean and turns on everyone, but the aftermath of her actions might cost her a lifelong desire.

In 1865, at the conclusion of the American Civil War, Richmond, Virginia is in ruins. The CSS Texas, captained by Mason Tombs (Robert Cavanah), is loaded with the last of the Confederacy's gold to keep it from Union forces. It then disappears into the Atlantic as it escapes the approaching Union army. The Union army unleashes its cannons on the CSS Texas, but the cannon shells simply bounce off the thick armor of the ship, which covers the entire ship from top to bottom. In the present day, in 1990s, World Health Organization doctors Eva Rojas (Penelope Cruz) and Frank Hopper (Glynn Turman) are investigating a disease that is spreading across Mali, Africa. Eva and Hopper are stationed in Laos, Nigeria, and find evidence that people who show symptoms of the plague have traveled to Mali recently. Eva tries convincing Hopper that they need to go to Mali to find the source of this outbreak. In Mali, there is a civil war between dictator General Kazim and the Tuareg people. Hopper says that WHO won't be willing to lose any more staff to the civil war in Mali. Eva investigates more cases in Lagos and goes to a lighthouse, where she finds the dead father of one of the victims she examined before. The father had also been to Mali. Assassins attempt to murder Eva, but she is rescued by Dirk Pitt (Matthew McConaughey), from National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA), who was working nearby. The assassins run away with Eva's medical kit with all the samples she had gathered so far. Dirk is a famous person who is known to hunt down missing battleships, and the CSS Texas is one of the ships on his list. Dirk gets a call from a dealer in Nigeria. He sells Dirk a gold Confederate States of America coin, one of supposedly only five in existence, which was found in the Niger River. Dirk believes that this is a clue to the long-lost Texas. He convinces his boss, retired admiral James Sandecker (William H. Macy), to let him, Al Giordino (Steve Zahn), and Rudi Gunn (Rainn Wilson), from NUMA, go to Mali to search for the CSS Texas. Sandecker leads a private organization and partners with Governments to explore undersea wrecks and restore national treasures to museums. Dirk borrows his boss Sandecker's yacht to search for it. They give Eva and Hopper a ride, so that they can continue their investigation, for the WHO. While taking water samples they discover red algae, which puzzles them as it is not usually found in fresh water. Businessman Yves Massarde (Lambert Wilson) and dictator General Kazim (Lennie James), who controls half of civil war-torn Mali, try to stop the doctors from discovering the source of "plague". Kazim sends men to kill them and the NUMA team, not realizing their CIA and Navy background. Kazim sends men to attack the yacht. Dirk, Al, and Rudi survive, but the yacht is destroyed. Rudi tries to get out of the country to get help while Dirk and Al go to rescue the doctors. Kazim's men track down the doctors and kill Hopper. Dirk and Al rescue Eva. As they are leaving Mali, they are captured by the Tuareg insurgents. Tuareg who are fighting the civil war. The Tuaregs leader, Modibo (Paulin Fudouop), shows Eva his people, who are dying. After taking samples, she finds out water contains toxins, and there is no treatment available. By accident, Al stumbles into a cave with a painting showing the ironclad Texas. Dirk believes that the Texas became stranded when the river water dried up after a storm and that the same river that carried the Texas now runs underground, spreading the contamination. They start to follow the dry riverbed and work their way to the border. Dirk still hopes to find the ironclad along the way. Their plans are interrupted when they stumble upon the solar detoxification plant owned by Massarde and realize that it is the source of the contamination. Rudi and Sandecker have already deduced that chemicals are creating the red algae and seeping slowly towards the ocean, where they will expand rapidly upon entering salt water and kill ocean life worldwide. But they can't get any government help to intervene during a civil war in a sovereign country. However, Massarde and Zakara capture them, keep Eva, and send Dirk and Al in a truck to Kazim. They escape in the middle of the desert. Rebuilding a plane wreck into a land yacht, they leave the desert. They contact Sandecker, who warns them that Kazim and his troops are after them. Dirk and Al enlist Modibo's aid to return to the plant and rescue Eva. He helps them infiltrate the plant and rescue his people who are working there as slaves. Rather than risk discovery, Massarde plans to destroy the plant, making it almost impossible to stop the contamination. Al goes to defuse the bombs while Dirk tries to head off Massarde and save Eva. Massarde escapes. Dirk, Eva, and Al get away from the plant in a stolen Avions Voisin C-28 that was originally owned by Kazim but are strafed by Kazim in a helicopter gunship. A series of explosions along the dry riverbed reveals the Texas, right where the cave painting showed it to be. They take cover inside, but Kazim's helicopter's armor piercing ammunition is too much for the old ironclad's armor. They manage to fight back with the old cannon and destroy Kazim's gunship, just as Modibo arrives with Tuareg reinforcements. In the end the contamination is dealt with, and Sandecker is offered a deal to do some covert work, while the government in a serendipitous manner funds NUMA, which he accepts, tentatively. Massarde, busy eating with a businessman, does not notice that the waiter who serves him water (which he drinks) served only him and disappeared with the rest of the bottle. The Texas gold, which belongs to the CSA - Confederate States of America, is left with Modibo's people. It is implied that Massarde is poisoned by Carl, an undercover US agent, while Dirk and Eva start a relationship.

Two LAPD policemen, Hank Rafferty (Steve Zahn) and Charlie Reed (Timothy Busfield), investigate a warehouse heist and discover a gang of thieves, one of whom kills Charlie before they escape. Hank had noticed the tattoo on the killer's arm, before he escaped with the rest of his gang. Meanwhile, Earl Montgomery's (Martin Lawrence) lifelong dream to become a police officer is thwarted when he flunks police academy for accidentally causing an explosion. Earl is racist and arrogant. He thinks he is better than everyone and when challenged by the instructor, he ends up taking the drill far too seriously, cuffing the instructor by jumping from his car, which then drives into barrels of gasoline, which explodes. After Hank receives a warning from Detective Frank McDuff (Colm Feore) after interfering with the investigation of Charlie's death (Mcduff wanted Hank to stay away as the warehouse was storing $800K of computer chips, which are now gone, making this a national security matter), he meets Earl when Hank notices him trying to get into his car after locking his keys inside. When Hank questions Earl, Earl race-baits and insults Hank to the point of getting himself arrested. A bumblebee comes along to which Earl is allergic, causing him to panic. Hank tries to save Earl by shooing away the bee. From afar, it appears as if Hank is brutalizing Earl when he is actually attempting to shoo the bee away by swatting it with his baton; a man catches the incident on videotape. Because of the incriminating evidence and a spiteful Earl lying about the accused brutalizing, Hank is terminated from the police force and charged with aggravated assault against Earl. He is sentenced to six months in prison. Hank is hated by all the blacks in prison, even before he steps foot inside the prison, so he assaults a prison guard regularly and spends the entire 6 months in solitary confinement. After being released, Hank takes a job as a security guard and continues investigating Charlie's death. Noticing an alarm being tripped at a soda warehouse, Hank goes to investigate. Earl, who is working for the same security company, is on duty at the warehouse but is slacking off. Hank interrupts the heist, and a gunfight erupts with the thugs, during which Hank and Earl cross paths again. The two give chase to the thieves but are pulled over by the police for speeding. One of the thieves had dropped a cell phone. Hank calls the number, and it belongs to the van rental company. They figure that the guys who rented the van are headed to Mexico in a semi-trailer. Inside the truck (they get in when they find the truck at a rest stop), Hank and Earl find the thieves' van. Earl tries to hot-wire the van but accidentally triggers the alarm, alerting the thieves. After a brief shootout, Hank and Earl drive the van out of the truck and escape. Inside the van are what look like ordinary beer kegs; Hank has them examined at a foundry, where they learn that the kegs are actually made of an atomic aerospace alloy, which is worth millions. Hank takes the van and the kegs to the house of his ex-girlfriend, Denise (Robinne Lee). They broke up after Hank was arrested, and Hank asks Earl to tell Denise the truth about the "assault". Earl promises, but when he sees that Denise is an attractive black woman, he breaks his promise and starts hitting on her, playing the victim again. This causes another fight between them, and Denise kicks both of them out. After a heated argument, Hank punches Earl in the face, before storming off. Later, the pair is cornered by police, learning that they are suspects in the earlier shootout (on the highway inside the trailer truck, but no cops knew that they were ever inside the trailer truck). They escape and Hank realizes that the thieves must have an inside man in the police department. That night, the pair trace the van's owner to an address and stake out the place, but Earl rushes inside on his own and is confronted by the thieves. Hank arrives just as Earl is shot in the leg, and before escaping, he recognizes one of the thieves, Nash (Eric Roberts), as Charlie's murderer (from the tattoo on his wrist). When Hank takes Earl to Denise to get his wound treated (which turns out to be simply a graze), a bee flies into the house and Earl runs for cover, making Denise realize that Hank's story about the "assault" on Earl was actually true while revealing that Earl is actually the racist. She slaps Earl for lying and reconciles with Hank. Based on seeing the address on Nash's pager, they follow him to a meeting at a yacht club and witness him talking to McDuff, who is revealed to be Nash's inside man. Hank and Earl share everything they know with Hank's former boss, Lieutenant Washington (Bill Duke). Washington tells them that an year ago $7MM worth of space alloy was stolen from an aerospace company. The guys melted it into beer kegs to smuggle it out, when FBI got a tip. But the insider moved first to secure the stuff, before the FBI could get there. They pretend to approach McDuff, offering to sell him back the "beer kegs" for $1 million. However, Nash learns about their plans (his guys overheard the conversation between Washington and Hank & Earl) and takes Washington hostage first. During the confrontation the next day, Earl and Hank meet with McDuff, Nash, and their men near the coast, rescuing Washington and accidentally starting a shootout, but the trio manage to kill or apprehend most of Nash's gang, including McDuff. Hank is shot, but he survives and kills Nash by dropping a nearby crane's lifting hook onto an unstable slab of rock that Nash is standing on, catapulting him into the ocean, avenging Charlie's death. Six more months later, in honor of their heroic actions, Hank is reinstated in the LAPD and Earl is admitted to the force, and they are made partners. The two encounter a situation similar to where they met, in which a man is apparently locked out of his car. Earl helps the man but learns that he is actually a thief. He successfully stops the thief by shooting at the car, but the vehicle explodes soon after.

It tells the story of Stephen Glass (Hayden Christensen), who was the youngest journalist at the New Republic. This newspaper prides itself to have been read by everybody in the political field in Washington, and to be the only one in the American president's plane. Little by little, we see how things work in the editorial room: Stephen's direct boss and editor is Michael Kelly, who is constantly insisting on having every single detail checked through direct notes. The first time Stephen gets in trouble in the film it's on an article about a Republican young people convention, where he alleged they got drunk and called a prostitute. Stephen gets into trouble because the hotel manager complains that hotel rooms did not have any drink or food fridges in them, all the opposite of what Stephen had said in his article. Kelly talks with Stephen about that. Stephen comes back later admitting he has made a mistake: he saw so many mini spirits bottles and he took it for granted that they came from a mini-bar. Stephen says he's sorry, and that if Kelly wants his resignation, he'll sign it right away. However, Kelly is not about to do anything of that sort. Stephen's girlfriend is Caitlin Avey (Chloë Sevigny), a fellow journalist at the newspaper. She is worried because Stephen has had much success lately, she's even a bit jealous. Stephen is freelancing and writing stories for other magazines, like Rolling Stones, because his news stories have always got an edge to them: he investigates, finds out the truth and talks about humourous situations and peculiar characters. Also, to Caitlin's dismay, he's even going to be busier, as he is about to start to study law, which he considers to be more prestigious. In the small row they have over this matter, Stephen blames his parents, who follow the peer pressure of their friends and think that a lawyer is the most prestigious job in the world. Kelly is fired as editor and replaced by one of Stephens colleagues: Charles "Chuck" Lane (Peter Sarsgaard). One of his most successful stories is about how software companies try to stop hackers from damaging their products. In a computer-geek convention, Stephen tells how a computer company hired and paid one million dollars to a hacker so that he would stop breaking their security system. That hacker signed a contract right there, and then boasted about it in front of everybody. While Stephen is telling this story at the meeting room, all journalists and editors sitting together deciding the new news stories, he jumps on his chair in the meeting room and shouts "show me the money, show me the money" emulating the hacker with a cocky attitude. Everybody knows this is the best news story for years, and they all wonder "where he gets these characters from". Stephen's news story is so appealing: the attitude, the streetwise teenagers who make the best out of it and beat computer tycoons to their money, etc... In a later scene, Amy (another reporter at TNR) is trying to copy Stephen's sense of humour, but Caitlin tells her to come back to what she does best: glossing figures, explaining in plain words economic concepts and situations, and being serious and formal at all times. In the Forbes internet magazine, Adam Penenberg (Steve Zahn) is told off by his boss. Adam is supposed to be responsible for all the high-tech content of the subscription magazine; he didn't even get a hint of the news story everybody is talking about, that about about the million-dollar contract to the hacker. Adam calls Chuck asking for more details about the story, as he would like to go on investigating it. Stephen reads his notes and gives him some further details. Adam starts investigating, but soon he finds out things don't add up. He calls Chuck and Stephen once again, asking where the latter had got wind of the story. Stephen fabricates the ghost-company's website, but he doesn't realise that he put it in a net section which could only be seen by AOL subscribers. He didn't think or didn't have time of fabricating a whole fake website domain. Stephen admits that he may have made a mistake over some minor details on the story, but he insists on the truth of the main article. This time, Chuck starts to get the hint that something fishy is going on. Although he doesn't dismiss Stephen yet, this time the journalist is not going to find it so easy to move on. Caitlin supports Stephen through and through. As many more untruthful details spring to view, and Adam won't let things be, Chuck comes to the point when he insists on being taken to the location where that computer-geek convention took place right away. Stephen feels unsure, and tries to talk his way out of it, but this time to no avail. Chuck comes to realise that there are many problems with Stephen's story: the hotel where it was celebrated does not know anything about a convention of that kind, the actual room where it was supposed to have taken place is not big enough to accommodate the huge number of people Stephen says he himself saw, etc... More and more details appear missing, and the teenager who supposedly earned that million dollars is nowhere to be seen. The pressure increases, especially on Chuck. More facts come to light proving Stephen fabricated stories, but he continues to hopelessly deny it to Chuck and is subsequently fired. Chuck faces a wall display with The New Republic's old numbers, and he starts pulling them out, re-reading Stephen's editorial contributions once again, this time with a view to finding strange details, unlikely events, non-existent names of people and companies, dates which don't hold up, etc. Caitlin talks to Chuck. She is angry that Stephen was fired, and she is disappointed because Chuck and higher levels of management are not standing by Stephen. Chuck talks to her, saying that everybody believed what Stephen said because they all liked him, and that she should use her journalistic instinct to find out whether Stephen had been lying or not. This makes Caitlin think, and after reviewing articles, she admits that Chuck is right: they all had been fooled by Stephen's charm and his news bombshells. The New Republic will write an editorial retracting almost half of Stephen Glass' news stories, and admitting to some more details in some more articles which cannot be put to the test concerning their veracity. The last captions of the film say what happened to the people behind this story: Caitlin kept on writing for the New Republic Stephen did not want to comment on the film, and he dedicated full time to the study of law at university. Adam Penenberg's story made it to the headlines itself, and it became recorded as the first real breakthrough for internet newspapers. >> written by KrystelClaire

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.

Two years after the first film, Stuart Little has settled into family life with his parents, older brother George, and baby sister Martha, who has yet to say her first words. Stuart is becoming tired of his adoptive mother Eleanor's over-protectiveness due to his small size and is finding himself lonely when George would rather play with his own friend, Will (Marc John Jefferies). Stuart is looking forward to a soccer match with George, but Eleanor is worried that Stuart might get crushed by any of the players in cleats. Stuart is benched for most of the game, passing orange slices to players during the break. With 40 seconds left in the match, a player gets hurt, and Stuart is asked to take the field. Stuart Little (Michael J. Fox) questions his ability after a grueling soccer match alongside George (Jonathan Lipnicki), who kicked him with a soccer ball. Stuart is found by Frederick and Eleanor hanging on the back of the net. Stuart becomes even more downhearted after George's toy airplane gets broken in an accident because of him. George and Stuart had built the model airplane together, but then George went to play PS2 with Will. Stuart decided to finish the plane himself, but accidentally ends up turning it on. Stuart is unable to control the plane, and it flies out of the house into a park, where it crashes. This prompts George to furiously throw it into a trash can However, Stuart's dad Mr. Frederick Little (Hugh Laurie) tells him that for every Little, there is a "silver lining"- a good thing that comes out of an apparently bad situation. Stuart tries to make new friends at school, but everyone is busy with a lot going on in their lives. When driving home from school in his roadster, Stuart saves a female canary named Margalo (Melanie Griffith) who is being pursued by a peregrine falcon (James Woods), and they become friends. But Margalo is secretly working with the Falcon to case and steal from households. When he presses her to find and take an object of value, or lose the sanctuary he promised her, Margalo can't seem to concentrate on her assignment, as she is beginning to have tender feelings for Stuart. Falcon eventually loses patience and threatens to kill Stuart if she doesn't deliver. Sadly, Margalo takes Mrs. Eleanor Little's (Geena Davis) diamond ring. When the family sees the ring is missing, they think it has fallen down the sink. Stuart offers to be lowered down the drain on a string to get it, and nearly succeeds. When the string breaks Margalo saves him, and his thanks to her only make her feel even more guilty, so she decides to leave. When Stuart can't find her, he assumes she has been kidnapped - and that Falcon is somehow involved. He leaves on a quest to rescue her with the household's reluctant cat Snowbell (Nathan Lane), but not before setting up a plan with George. Stuart convinces George to conduct a series of elaborate (and extremely unconvincing) lies to Eleanor in order to cover for him. Stuart and Snowbell decide to get information on Falcon's whereabouts, so they enlist the help of Monty (Steve Zahn), an alley cat, who tells them that Falcon's lair is at the disused observation deck of the nearby Pishkin Building and warns that he is an extremely dangerous foe. Stuart and Snowbell hatch a plan to use balloons to get Stuart to the top, where he finds out that Margalo is Falcon's slave, and was forced to take the ring. He tries to save her, but Falcon traps Margalo in a paint can, and drops him from an immense height to his presumed death. However, he lands on a soft trash bag in a garbage truck and is taken to a garbage barge out at sea. In the meantime, Snowbell has also ventured up the Pishkin Building, and frees Margalo from the paint can, only to become trapped in it himself. Snowbell learns from Margalo that Falcon killed Stuart. Margalo breaks free from Falcon's control, and flies away with Eleanor's ring, prompting Falcon to give chase. On a garbage scow where he has ended up, Stuart blames himself for everything and has almost lost all hope. But suddenly, he finds George's broken plane, fixes it up, and flies to save Margalo, who, having been freed by Snowbell, just fled from Falcon. Meanwhile, George, after being reprimanded by his parents for his deception and interrogated on Stuart's true whereabouts, confesses where Stuart is to them, prompting them to head out and look for him. The Littles follow Stuart by taxi as he begins an aerial adventure through the park, with Margalo at his side. Eventually, they lose the Falcon, but he catches up and makes an attempt to kill Stuart, when he detaches the upper wing of the plane, damaging the main wing and causing it to enter a steep nosedive, which fails when Stuart recovers from the dive, nearly missing the Littles. Stuart then realizes he can't run from Falcon and lets Margalo off. Stuart turns and flies the damaged plane in a kamikaze run while Falcon goes into an attack dive. Stuart uses Mrs. Little's ring to temporarily blind Falcon and jumps out using a Bandana as a parachute. The kamikaze attack works, and Falcon is struck head on and defeated. Although Falcon survives the attack, he falls out of the sky and lands in a garbage can that Monty is scavenging in, and is presumably eaten by the cat, but not before Stuart falls when his parachute is sliced apart by the propeller of the shattered plane, and then is rescued by Margalo. Stuart is congratulated by his family, and Margalo, who gives Mrs. Little her ring back, and Snowbell reunite with them as well. That evening, Margalo leaves with the other birds to migrate south, but not before saying goodbye to her friends. Stuart says the "silver lining" is that she'll be back in the spring, and his baby sister, Martha (Anna and Ashley Hoelck) the infant daughter of the Little family, says her first words: "Bye-bye, birdie."

A single mother, with dreams of becoming a writer, has a son at the age of 15 in 1965, and goes through a failed marriage with the drug-addicted father. Seriocomic story based on the memoir by Beverly Donofrio, the movie follows a young woman who finds her life radically altered by an event from her teen years. Born in 1950, Beverly grew up bright and ambitious in a working-class neighborhood in Connecticut; her father was a tough but good-hearted cop who listened to his daughter's problems, and her mother was a nervous woman eager to imagine the worst. From an early age, Beverly displays a keen intelligence and an interest in literature, and dreams of going to college in New York and becoming a writer. However, she also develops an early interest in boys, and at 15 finds herself madly in love with a boy from her high school. However, an attempt to get his attention leads to an embarassing incident at a party, and Ray, a sweet but thick-headed 18-year-old, steps forward to defend her. Beverly and Ray end up making out, and after one thing leads to another, Beverly discovers she's pregnant. Telling Ray is only marginally less difficult than informing her parents, and at 16, Beverly is a wife and mother. Against the odds, Beverly is determined to still finish high school and go on to college, but that goal becomes more difficult with time, especially after Beverly's marriage begins to fall apart. Ray tries to do the right thing but has trouble holding a job, and becomes addicted to heroin.

Darren Silverman (Jason Biggs), Wayne LeFessier (Steve Zahn) and J.D. McNugent (Jack Black), best friends since fifth grade and Neil Diamond fans throughout, form a Neil Diamond tribute band called "Diamonds in the Rough". Wayne was born when his mother's water broke at a Neil Diamond concert and ever since he has had a cosmic connection to Neil Diamond. JD is lactose intolerant and not very bright. Darren is a romantic but very gullible around women. Wayne became the third string Quarterback for his high school football team, and JD became the mascot, while Darren joined the cheer-leading squad. Darren develops a crush for Sandy, who was also on the cheer-leading squad. Coach Norton was their idol through High School. As grown-ups, JD works at Subway. Darren is the social director at a retirement home. Wayne started his own business for pest and rodent removal, but he ends up getting assaulted by the animals. Darren is still alone and wants to be in a relationship. The only woman he loved, Sandy, was from a family of circus performers who left town for new opportunities. Sandy didn't even know that Darren had a crush on her as he never asked her out. Darren meets a beautiful but domineering psychologist, Judith Fessbeggler (Amanda Peet), through a chance encounter in a local bar after a band gig. Judith shows signs of being emotionally abusive when she orders a drink for Darren without even asking his preference. Unfortunately, six weeks into their relationship, Judith is still making Darren watch her change clothes. Darren asks her if they could finally have sex, but Judith refuses until marriage. She suggests non-penetrative sex instead and proceeds to push Darren's head between her legs. Darren gets nothing but a sore jaw. Judith says that she cannot return the favor as she has very sensitive gums and instead gives Darren a magazine and a towel to masturbate. Darren takes Judith to meet his friends. Judith is all snobbish and calls the guys obsession with Neil Diamond as a delusion, projection fantasy. Judith tells Darren that the guys are pigs for their disgusting habits and the lack of personal hygiene. JD insists that Judith sits on his Barcalounger, but the reclining mechanism fails, throwing her right across the room. Judith loses her patience when the guys throw beer at each other after their team scores a touchdown in a game on TV. Judith isolates Darren from his friends, demands that Darren quit the band and torched his Neil Diamond albums, receive humiliating medical procedures (like implant for his butt cheeks) and attend relationship counseling under her care. JD and Wayne talk to Darren that Judith is not the right woman for him, but Darren is too far into serving Judith to be able to see the big picture. Wayne and J.D. decide to save Silverman from her by attempting to bribe her with Wayne's house, arm wrestle her, and shock her with faked photographs of Darren cheating, all to no avail (Judith knows that Darren had no tattoos and the body in the photos had a tattoo on the arm). Judith knows that she controls Darren, and he does everything she says. She refuses to let go of him. The friends, undaunted, try to reunite Darren with his "one and only", Sandy Perkus (Amanda Detmer), when she returns to Seattle to take her final vows as a nun. When Darren and Judith announce their engagement (with Darren committing to taking Judith's last name), Wayne and J.D. kidnap Judith. However, she discovers the identity of her captors, and the duo are convinced they cannot let her go. When they visit Coach Norton (R. Lee Ermey) in jail (who accidentally killed a referee with a football signal pole in a fit of rage), his advice is that they should just kill her. The pair attempt to shoot Judith but end up deciding against it. Sandy's feelings for Darren are reawakened, but the pair's attempted date is ruined by Darren's preoccupation with Judith. Sandy, disheartened, returns to the convent, but Darren snaps out of it and runs the 30 miles there to win her back. Chained to an engine block in J.D.'s basement, Judith convinces J.D. he is gay. She knocks him unconscious to steal his keys and escape, only to be tranquilized with a dart gun by Wayne. Returned to the basement, Judith seduces Wayne into releasing one of her hands, so she escapes again. Judith runs to Darren's house in time to see him kiss Sandy but shames him into confessing his engagement to Judith. Sandy, disheartened, returns to the convent again. Darren has Wayne and J.D. arrested. After escaping from jail with the help of Coach Norton, J.D. and Wayne rush to the convent on the brink of Sandy's final vows as a nun. They convince her that Darren still loves her. They then kidnap Neil Diamond to help Darren and Sandy reunite. At the wedding, Neil stalls the proceedings with song while Wayne and Judith beat each other up (as love play), Darren and Sandy reunite, and J.D. arrives holding Coach in his arms, and Coach asks him when will he get married and J.D. says he's gay and then Coach tells hims he's Gay too. On stage at the Neil Diamond concert that night, the priest weds Darren to Sandy, Wayne to Judith, and J.D. to Coach; the entire cast sings "Holly Holy".

Two days before his wedding, Ben gets stranded in New York and must hitch a ride with the free spirited Sarah, leading to a series of mishaps, disasters and an irresistible attraction.

3 prisoners escape. 2 end up in Happy, Texas, where they're mistaken for a gay couple expected there to help with the small girls beauty pageant. As the 2 are paid $1000, they decide to stay until the heat is gone. Two escaped convicts arrive in the town of Happy, Texas, where they are mistaken for a gay couple who is to host the town's Little Miss Fresh Squeezed beauty pageant. Enjoying the celebrity and using their skill as con-men, the two adopt their persona to take on the task. Of course, as the two are heterosexual, their interest in the involved ladies intensifies. Ally Walker is a banker, who is distrustful of men and has given up on love. Illeana Douglas plays the dowdy, badly dressed teacher. —John Sacksteder <jsackste@bellsouth.net>

Eleanor (Geena Davis) and Frederick Little (Hugh Laurie) are intending to adopt a new family member. Their son George wants to go to the orphanage with them but has to go to school. They go to an orphanage where they meet and adopt an anthropomorphic mouse named Stuart (Michael J. Fox), whom they select over many other boys and girls up for adoption. Mrs. Keeper (the woman in charge) warns that humans should not be adopting mice. Stuart was helping the Littles trying to figure out who would be the right kid to adopt. Stuart knows almost everything about the other children, having been at the orphanage for a long time. Stuart wins them over by saying that he knows that nobody would want to adopt a mouse. However, Stuart is greeted coldly by their older son George (Jonathan Lipnicki), who refuses to acknowledge him as his brother. He was expecting a real boy and is disappointed as Stuart can't play any games with him. The family has a cat named Snowbell (Nathan Lane), who tries to eat Stuart. Family includes Uncle Crenshaw (Jeffrey Jones), Cousin Edgar (Brian Doyle-Murray), Grandpa Spencer (Harold Gould), Aunt Beatrice (Allyce Beasley), Aunt Tina (Connie Ray), Grandma Estelle (Estelle Getty), Uncle Stretch (Patrick Thomas O'Brien). That night, Snowbell visits Stuart and requests that he keep a low profile, so as to avoid getting seen by the other cats and damaging Snowbell's image (the alley cats would laugh forever if they heard that there was a mouse with a pet cat). Stuart's life with the Littles gets off to a bad start when George unknowingly throws him down the laundry chute with his pajamas and Eleanor puts him in the washing machine where he ends up submerged and swallows a lot of detergent making him really sick. He begins to feel like an outcast in the family when they bring him gifts and George snaps at them claiming that Stuart isn't his brother but simply a mouse. When Stuart admits he is lonely the Littles ask Mrs. Keeper (Julia Sweeney) to find Stuart's real parents. The Littles file an application at the orphanage. Stuart earns Snowbell's wrath when his friend, Monty the Mouth (Steve Zahn) visits for food. As Snowbell tries to keep him from seeing Stuart, Stuart makes a scene trying to get a cereal box from a cupboard. When he sees him and discovers he is a member of the family, Monty cannot contain himself. Enraged, Snowbell tries to kill Stuart, who narrowly escapes by fleeing into the basement. Here, Stuart learns that George keeps a playroom and the two interact and eventually, George comes to accept Stuart as his brother. Stuart also finds that George keeps a toy car just his size. Stuart finally bonds with George when they start playing together and plan to finish George's remote-controlled racing sailboat, Wasp, for an upcoming boat race on Conservatory Water in Central Park. Snowbell later goes with Monty to an alley to meet with Smokey (Chazz Palminteri), an alley cat mobster working for a mafia gang of other alley cats, who agrees with Snowbell to have Stuart removed from the household at his request. Stuart and George finish Wasp in time for the race, but on the day of the race, the controller is smashed by accident (by Stuart). Stuart pilots Wasp himself but ends up in a tussle with a larger boat piloted by George's bully, Anton (Miles Marsico) who is smashing all boats faster than his, as his own boat is larger and stronger. When he attempts to do the same thing to Stuart's boat, Stuart manages to bite into the line of his sail, rendering Anton's boat inoperable. Stuart manages to win the race, gaining George's respect. However, during the family celebration, the Littles are visited by a mouse couple, Camille (Jennifer Tilly) and Reginald Stout (Bruno Kirby), who claim to be Stuart's birth parents who sent him to the orphanage due to poverty. After discussion, Stuart reluctantly leaves with his real parents, taking the small car with him as a goodbye present from George and they go to their home, a small toy castle on a golf course. A few days later, Mrs. Keeper arrives at their house and reveals the truth to the Littles that Stuart's real birth parents died many years ago in an accident at a supermarket after a pile of canned food fell on them. Realizing that the Stouts are impostors, the Littles call the police Detective Allen (Jim Doughan) & Detective Sherman (Jon Polito), who begin a search operation. However, it is revealed that the Stouts were actually sent by Smokey, who had tricked them into posing as Stuart's parents and forced them to abduct Stuart from the Little household with the intention of having him brought over to the alley cat gang so they can kill Stuart. Realizing Stuart has been kidnapped, the family organizes a search party with "missing person" posters, using his photograph from the family photo. Fearing his involvement will be exposed and that he will be kicked out of the house, Snowbell informs Smokey about the news and Smokey settles on assassinating Stuart instead. Smokey calls a meeting with Reginald. However, he and Camille have grown to love Stuart like the Littles did and reveal the truth to him. In Central Park (on his way home), Stuart finds himself confronted by Smokey and his gang, who chase him through the park and into a sewer drain, where he manages to outrun them, but loses his car and luggage in the process. Stuart returns home, only to find that the Littles are already gone (they were all out looking for Stuart). Stuart enters the house where he meets Snowbell, who lies to him about the Littles enjoying themselves greatly since Stuart's departure. Snowbell shows him the family picture with Stuart's face cut out (the Littles had actually removed the picture to provide one for the Missing posters). Feeling unwanted, a heartbroken Stuart leaves and becomes discouraged. The Littles return home with no success in finding Stuart. Meanwhile, Smokey, Monty and the other alley cats manage to trace Stuart back to Central Park and bring Snowbell along for the hunt. Snowbell, having redeemed himself since he felt guilty over his selfishness, finds Stuart and rescues him from the cats while admitting that he lied. The cats catch up with them and Snowbell attempts to convince Smokey to call off the hit on Stuart but is refused. Instead, Smokey orders the cats to kill both Stuart and Snowbell. Although Snowbell defeats Monty and the other cats by snapping the tree branch on which they are standing, Smokey attempts to kill him upon discovering his betrayal, only for Stuart to intervene and save Snowbell by hitting Smokey in the face with another branch and knocking him out of the tree and into the water. He emerges but is immediately attacked by dogs. Stuart and Snowbell eventually return home, where Stuart happily reunites with the Little family, telling them that Snowbell actually found him and helped him on the way back, who has realized Stuart truly is family.

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

A documentary filmmaker and her fellow Generation X graduates face life after college, looking for work and love in Houston. In this study of Generation X manners, Lelaina Pierce (Winona Ryder), the valedictorian of her college class, camcords her friends in a mock documentary of posteducation life. Troy Dyer (Ethan Hawke) is her best friend, a perpetually unemployed musical slacker. Vickie Miner (Janeane Garofalo) is a manager at the Gap who worries about the results of an A.I.D.S. test, while Sammy Gray (Steve Zahn) has problems grappling with his sexuality. When Lelaina meets Michael Grates (Ben Stiller), an earnest video executive who takes her homemade video to his MTV-like station, she must decide what she values - the materialism of yuppie Michael or the philosophical musings of Troy. —Rick Gregory <rag.apa@email.apa.org>