Theresa Merritt

Billy Madison (Adam Sandler), a 27-year-old heir to a wealthy father, has spent his entire life reaping the benefits of his family's hotel chain with 650 properties, Madison Hotels, a Fortune 500 company. 61,000 people work for the hotel chain. He spends his days drinking with best friends, Jack (Mark Beltzman) and Frank (Norm Macdonald), and creating disturbances across his father's estate. Billy is so baked in the sun and on drugs that he sees Penguins chasing him everywhere. Billy feels that it is too hot for penguins and wants to capture them and send them back to colder climates. Juanita (Theresa Merritt) is the house maid and cares for Billy. One day, Billy ruins a dinner meeting between his father, Brian (Darren McGavin), and his business associates. Billy is very late arriving for the dinner and then acts obnoxiously after being instigated by Eric Gordon (Bradley Whitford), Brian's executive vice president. This prompts Brian to lose any remaining faith in Billy, as he chooses the conniving Eric to become the next CEO of the company. Brian also passes over Carl, who is a senior and loyal employee to the company for his entire working life of 25 years. Brian said that he and his now deceased wife always wanted to turn over their empire to Billy, but Eric argues that the 61,000 employees will have their jobs in danger when Billy takes over. When Billy, who despises Eric, protests that he can be responsible, Brian reveals that he secretly bribed all of Billy's school teachers in order for him to pass. Billy begs his father to reconsider his decision. The two finally come to a compromise: Billy must pass elementary, middle, and high school (grades 1-12) on his own within the course of twenty-four weeks (two weeks per grade), in order to prove his competence. Miss Lippy (Dina Platias) is Billy's first grade teacher, where he reads stories and plays dodge ball. Billy is brutal with the other kids at dodge-ball. Billy has a lot of trouble with simple hand eye coordination required to create a cotton snow-man. The urinals for first grade are too small for Billy. He passes first grade when he draws a blue duck. Every time Billy passes a grade, he throws a grand party for all his fellow students at his mansion. Rollo is the school janitor who brings news of Billy's progress to Eric. Billy passes 2nd grade after completing the spelling bee correctly. Shortly after enrolling into school, Billy becomes attracted to a third-grade teacher named Veronica Vaughn (Bridgette Wilson), who initially is disgusted with Billy and finds his enrollment to be a distraction for the other students. He eventually finds himself as one of Veronica's students and earns her respect by defending Ernie (Jared Cook), his friend and classmate. Eric peed his pants while on a class trip and to save him from embarrassment, Billy throws water on his pants and pretends that peeing in pants is cool. The whole class pees inside their own pants. Billy starts getting Valentine cards from the pretty girls in school, but he has the hots for Veronica. Billy becomes popular among the third graders and begins to miss them as he advances through school. Veronica and Billy hook up after he passes 3rd grade. Carl warns Billy that Eric is up to something. When Billy reaches ninth grade, he finds that rather than being the cool guy that everyone looks up to, he is now considered a loser; realizing how it feels to be on the receiving end of bullying, he calls up an old classmate, Danny McGrath (Steve Buscemi), and apologizes for the way he treated him in high school. Danny accepts his apology and crosses his name off a list of people to kill. Billy's progress frustrates and alarms Eric, leading him to take the offensive while Billy struggles in high school. He visits Billy's grade school principal, Max Anderson (Josh Mostel), and threatens to reveal his past as a professional wrestler that is filled with controversial incidents, especially a particular one back in 1983, when Max accidentally caused the death of another man while performing a stunt. Coerced, Max publicly states he took bribes from Billy in return for passing him. The announcement angers Brian who chooses to give the hotel chain to Eric. Billy becomes distraught and reverts to his original care-free lifestyle. Veronica and others come to Billy's aid, convincing him to keep fighting Eric. He returns to school and begins to study again; however, Billy realizes that he must reclaim the hotel chain. His grade school friends visit Max at his home and convince him to retract his previous statements. Veronica encourages Billy to practice by removing one piece of clothing for every correct answer he gives. With Billy's named cleared, Brian and Carl Alphonse (Larry Hankin), a loyal, long-time employee of Madison Hotels argue to Eric that Billy deserves another chance, but Eric disagrees and threatens to file a lawsuit. Billy challenges Eric to an academic decathlon that will determine his father's successor. Although both men excel in different activities, Billy manages to take a single-point lead before the contest's final event, a Jeopardy! style academic test. The game progresses as Eric is given the chance to answer and potentially win. However, he is asked to answer a question about business ethics, of which he has no concept, and begins to break down. Refusing to admit defeat, he brandishes a gun at Billy. Max, clad in his wrestling outfit, subdues Eric. The attack fails to keep Eric down and laughing maniacally, he makes a final attempt to get revenge on Billy by turning his gun on Veronica. Suddenly, Danny McGrath appears with a high-powered rifle and disables Eric by firing a single shot into his buttocks. Danny and Billy share a quick wave, before he departs. At Billy's graduation, he announces that he is passing the hotel business to Carl and will instead attend college with hopes of becoming a teacher.

An anthropologist goes to Haiti to research a drug that makes someone appear dead by suspending all vital signs. In 1985, after a successful research in Amazonas, Dr. Dennis Alan from Harvard is invited by the president of a Boston pharmaceutics industry, Andrew Cassedy, to travel to Haiti to investigate the case of a man named Christophe that died in 1978 and has apparently returned to life. Andrew wants samples of the voodoo drug that was used in Christophe to be tested with the intention of producing a powerful anesthetic. Dr. Alan travels to meet Dr. Marielle Duchamp that is treating Christophe and arrives in Haiti in a period of revolution. Soon Alan is threatened by the chief of the feared Tonton Macuse Dargent Peytraud, who is a torturer and powerful witch. Alan learns that death is not the end in the beginning of his journey to hell. —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Dennis Allan is a scientist who visits Haiti on the strength of a rumour of a drug which renders the recipient totally paralyzed but conscious. The drug's effects often fool doctors, who declare the victims dead. Could this be the origin of the "zombie" legend? Alan embarks on a surprising and often surreal investigation of the turbulent social chaos that is Haiti during the revolution which ousted hated dictator "Baby Doc" Duvalier. Often a pawn in a greater game, Alan must decide what is science, what is superstition, and what is the unknown in a anarchistic society where police corruption and witch-doctory are commonplace. —Murray Chapman <muzzle@cs.uq.oz.au>

A town's Sheriff and regular patron of a historical whorehouse fights to keep it running when a television reporter targets it as the Devil's playhouse. Founded in 1910 just outside of the city limits of Gilbert located in Lanville County, Texas, the Chicken Ranch has for generations been known as the best little whorehouse in Texas for its wholesome fun, strict moral code, and cleanliness, all perpetuated by its original owner, Miss Wulla Jean. Seven years ago, Miss Wulla Jean died, leaving the Chicken Ranch to her favorite working girl, Miss Mona Stangley, who wants to keep the same traditions of Miss Wulla Jean. The Chicken Ranch has always had the unofficial blessing of the local authorities, who see the ranch providing an important community service, one which most in local authority have used at one time or another in their lives. In fact, Miss Mona and Lanville County Sheriff Ed Earl Dodd have been in a relationship for years, Ed Earl, who is Miss Mona's protector, albeit one with a hot temper and good ol' boy attitude that doesn't exactly match the needs of his law upholding position. That blessing may change when television personality and consumer watchdog, Melvin P. Thorpe, one of the most powerful men in the state, starts an on-air exposé of the illegal activities at the Chicken Ranch, the exposé which includes Ed Earl's role in letting it happen. Ed Earl and Miss Mona's relationship goes through some difficult times on how to deal with this issue, especially with the upcoming annual party night with the players following the Thanksgiving Day football game between the University of Texas and Texas A&M, this party which is arguably the Chicken Ranch's busiest night of the year, and one filled with tradition for the ranch and the participating schools. Will the Chicken Ranch be able to remain open especially in light of a spineless Governor who sways to the direction of polls, and will Ed Earl and Miss Mona's relationship be able to withstand the pressure? —Huggo

A shy, twenty-four-year-old school teacher named Dorothy (Diana Ross) prepares a holiday supper at the New York City apartment of her adoptive parents, Aunt Em (Theresa Merrett) and Uncle Henry (Stanley Greene). While her family enjoys the festivities, Dorothy wonders why she is unable to share their happiness. Later, Aunt Em encourages Dorothy to accept a new job and venture out of Harlem, but Dorothy is afraid to leave home. Just then, her dog, Toto, runs outside into a snowstorm. Dorothy chases after Toto, and the two are swept up in a magic tornado, created by Glinda, "The Good," (Lena Horne) a sorceress who lives in the mystical Land of Oz. When the storm subsides, Dorothy finds herself a sandbox at a dark playground, where children are embedded in the concrete of city walls. Peeling themselves free, the youths show Dorothy that her arrival in Oz killed Evermean, the Wicked Witch of the East. Her surviving sister, Evillene (Mabel King), is the Wicked Witch of the West. Evermean was the city parks commissioner, and she turned the young "munchkins" into graffiti when she saw them painting on the playground walls. As Dorothy is praised for liberating the youngsters, a shopping bag-toting sorceress named "Miss One" (Thelma Carpenter) arrives and magically transfers Evermean's silver shoes onto Dorothy's feet. The young woman is terrified and wants to go home, so Miss One advises her to keep Evermean's slippers on her feet and seek help from the miraculous "Wiz," who lives in Emerald City. She tells Dorothy to follow the yellow brick road, but she does not know where it begins. Miss One and the children disappear, leaving Dorothy and Toto alone. As the sun rises, Dorothy discovers a Scarecrow (Michael Jackson) near a burned out housing project. Ridiculed by four crows, the Scarecrow begs to be released from his perch and laments that he does not have a brain. Dorothy shoos the birds aside, helps the Scarecrow down, and invites him to the Emerald City so he can ask the Wiz for a brain. When the Scarecrow discovers the beginning of the yellow brick road, the friends follow the avenue to an abandoned amusement park resembling Coney Island. There, a Tinman (Nipsey Russell) calls for help, explaining that he is rusted and cannot move. As Dorothy and the Scarecrow carefully move his joints, the Tinman regrets he is unable to feel. They encourage him to ask the Wiz for a heart, and the three continue along the yellow brick road. At the deserted facade of the New York Public Library, a stone statue Lion (Ted Ross) breaks free and terrifies the companions, but he sobs when Toto nips his ankle. The Lion explains he is not brave, after all, and the friends persuade him to ask the Wiz for courage. In a subway train station, the foursome is followed by an eerie peddler and pursued by various monsters made up of support columns, but the Lion chases them away. Continuing along the road, the friends come to the "red light district" of Oz, where "Poppy Love Perfume" is pumped into an alleyway of half-dressed women. The Scarecrow realizes they have fallen into a trap, but Dorothy and the Lion are drugged by the poppy scent and become unconscious, whereas the Scarecrow and Tinman (who do not have internal organs, such as lungs to inhale the scent, are immune). Believing his friends to be dead, the Tinman cries, but his tears drip onto their faces and awaken them. Just then, the sun rises in the shape of an apple and the Emerald City appears in the distance as the skyline of New York City. The four cross the yellow brick road along the Brooklyn Bridge, only to find a heavily guarded vault door entrance to the city. A doorman refers them to the service entrance but notices Dorothy's silver slippers and quickly lets the travelers in. There, a cluster of enormous jewels are illuminated in green light between the twin towers of the World Trade Center. As finely dressed citizens carouse in the jade glow, the Wiz makes an announcement over a loudspeaker, declaring that Emerald City's color has been changed to red. When the city takes on a scarlet hue, the Wiz changes his mind again, and announces that yellow is the new fashion. The courtyard turns gold. The Wiz demands to see Dorothy, but she refuses to meet him without her friends. Taking an elevator to the top of the building, the companions see an enormous, fire-breathing mask. Terrified, they ask the Wiz for a brain, a heart, courage, and a way home, but the Wiz wants Dorothy's silver slippers in return. When she protests, he orders the team to kill Evillene, the Wicked Witch of the West. Outside the gates of Emerald City, the guards lead the companions to a sewer where Evillene runs a "sweat shop" and rules her slaves from a bejeweled toilet. She summons her foul-smelling flying monkeys to capture Dorothy and her friends, and the creatures go after them on motorcycles. When they are brought back to Evillene's warehouse, the witch demands the return of her dead sister's slippers. Dorothy refuses and the Scarecrow is cut in half by a power saw. Meanwhile, the Tinman is flattened by a steam press and the Lion is hung from the rafters by his tail. When Evillene threatens to throw Toto into a furnace, Dorothy agrees to surrender the shoes. As she sits to remove them, the Scarecrow nods toward a fire extinguisher. Dorothy sets off the overhead sprinklers and the warehouse is showered with water. Evillene is sucked down her toilet bowl throne. The witch's servants repair Dorothy's mangled friends, celebrate their freedom, and peel off their sweatshop costumes to discover human bodies beneath. The flying monkeys drive Dorothy and friends back to the Emerald City, and leave them at the "back door." Inside, they find the Wiz's mask head toppled over and realize they were manipulated by a false prophet. Apologizing, the Wiz (Richard Pryor) explains he was never powerful, but rather a failed politician named "Herman Smith" from Atlantic City, New Jersey. As part of a campaign to be elected Dog Catcher, he hovered above the city in a hot air balloon to distribute fliers. However, he was swept away by a storm and landed in Oz many years earlier. The residents of Emerald City had never seen an aircraft and proclaimed him "the Wiz." He has lived in solitude ever since, fearing his true identity would be revealed. Dorothy's friends lament they will never have a brain, a heart, or courage, but she reminds them that they had these qualities all along. Just then, Glinda, "the Good," appears in a starry sky. She tells Dorothy that home is not just a place. It is the understanding of one's own mind, heart, and courage. Glinda promises the girl that she can be at home anywhere in the world as long as she believes in herself. When Dorothy learns she can return to Harlem by clicking the heels of her silver slippers three times, the Wiz asks for help getting home. She advises him to go on his own journey of self-discovery. Dorothy bids her friends farewell, clicks her heels, and returns to the snowy street outside her apartment building.