Todd Graff

The story of an unlikely partnership between two strong-minded women who are forced to work together to save a small town Gospel Choir after budget cuts threaten to shut them down.

Will Burton (Gaelan Connell) is a music enthusiast and a David Bowie fan with a hint of rock and roll. Will writes journal-like e-mails to Bowie seeking approval of his music, although Bowie never answers. Will's mother Karen (Lisa Kudrow) finds a new job out of Cincinnati and Will could not be happier to leave his old school life behind. The new job is in Jersey, pays more money and has flexible hours. Will switches to a new school, which he is eager to do since he was bullied (and was called "Dewey") at his previous one. Will likes to categorize groups of students at school depending on the music they like. This includes groups like Hip-Hop lite, Trustafarians, rich suburban white kids with knit caps and $2000 dread-lock extensions, Indie Rock clique which includes Will and one other kid whom he refuses to meet until he bathes and stops flattening his hair with his hands and so on. Will is worried that his new school (Martin Van Buren High School) might be the same as his old one, but Karen explains that he is a terrific kid, and he has a chance at a new beginning. During lunch one day at his new school, he meets a girl who says her name is written Sa5m, but pronounced Sam (Vanessa Hudgens), the 5 is silent. She tells him about Bandslam, an annual music competition in which the winning band gets a recording contract. Ben Wheatly (Scott Porter) and his band "Ben Wheatly's The Glory Dogs" are the top contenders for the upcoming Bandslam. The whole school, including the faculty, loves The Glory Dogs and expect them to bring home the Gold. The previous year they tied for second place. Sa5m and Will are in the Human Studies class together. In their class they are asked to buddy up and create a presentation on who their buddy really is. The students are allowed to use any media such as photos, videos or even poetry to get their presentation across. The project counts for half their grade. Will and Sa5m quickly become friends, but shortly after, he is sought after by another girl named Charlotte Barnes (Alyson Michalka). One afternoon, Charlotte asks Will to join her in an after-school day-care center. Charlotte had been observing Will and chose him as he is a good Samaritan, and she believes that all good Samaritans like kids. Charlotte asks Will to accompany her every week, but it is not clear why Charlotte does this in the first place. Will agrees as Charlotte is the coolest person who had ever spoken to him. Charlotte refuses to respond why she is hanging out with Will, even though she is a senior. Charlotte used to be in Ben's band and then quit. Impressed by his eclectic knowledge of music, Charlotte, who is a gifted singer-songwriter, asks Will to manage her rock band. Her goal is to take revenge on her egocentric musician ex-boyfriend Ben Wheatley during Bandslam. Charlotte plans to enter her own band in competition against Ben's band and aims to defeat him. Charlotte learns that Will's father toured with the famous band "The Who", but Will says that it only meant that his dad was never around, and this is why his mother divorced him. Sa5m warns Will and says that cheerleaders hardly ever change and believes that Charlotte might just be using Will. Unsure of what he is getting himself into, Will agrees to help Charlotte's band (later called "I Can't Go On, I'll Go On") which includes Bug (Charlie Saxton) and Omar (Tim Jo). The band itself is dysfunctional as the members fight more than they play. Bug says that Ben named the band after himself, so he could fire whoever he wants and the name of the band would still remain the same. Will eventually expands it with more like-minded outcasts. Will says that the band needs a drummer and gives suggestions on the types of songs the band can play based on their skills and the quality of their equipment. Charlotte inducts drummer Basher Martin (Ryan Donowho), who first hesitates because he has anger management issues and dislikes the idea of Bandslam, because he believes people don't appreciate the art. Basher decides to join after Will tells him that he has an older sister who is often around (in fact this is Karen). Against all odds, the group's sound starts to come together and their prospects for success look bright. Even more surprising, Will starts losing his "loser-status". Once he gets committed in Charlotte's band, however, he is unable to complete a project he was assigned to do with Sa5m. After spending a day with Sa5m, Charlotte teaches Will how to properly kiss a girl by showing him one night in the car. Will takes Sa5m to the Overlook, where, after knocking off her hat and ripping her book out of her hand, he kisses her. She asks him to come see a movie with her, but he stands her up after Charlotte gives him tickets to a band called Burning Hotels. After that, Sa5m starts ignoring Will at school. He visits her house, hoping to apologize. Her mom then shows him a video of a younger Sa5m performing "Everything I Own", but when Sa5m walks in, she is outraged and orders Will to leave. As an apology, he makes a short yet touching documentary about her for his Human Studies project and she eventually forgives him. After Will accidentally ruins Ben's attempt to reconcile with Charlotte, Ben decides to do a little research on him, in order to ruin his image. He finds out that Will's father was sent to prison years ago when he accidentally killed a child while driving drunk. Ben then starts to call Will "Dewey" (just as other students did at his old school), which stands for "DWI", Driving While Intoxicated. Will detests this nickname because it reminds him of his father, whom he is ashamed of. Charlotte's father dies and she decides to quit the band. As she explains to Will, her father hated how she acted when she was with her ex-boyfriend Ben, so after he got sick, she decided to change her image and be nicer to outcasts, hoping that this good behavior would cause her dad to get well. The band members are hurt by this discovery, as it means she did not genuinely like them, but they decide to go on nonetheless, with Sa5m taking over as lead singer. On the night of Bandslam, Charlotte comes backstage in order to apologize to the band, and after a moment of hesitation, Will accepts her apology. Right before going on stage, however, they discover that Ben's band (the "Glory Dogs") have decided to play the song that their own band were originally to perform, forcing them to change their act at the last minute. Will suddenly remembers the video Sa5m's mother showed him earlier and suggests that they perform "Everything I Own", since it is the only song Sa5m knows. To buy some time, Will comes out first onstage, but at first, he is embarrassingly silent. The students begin to chant "Dewey". He starts to walk off the stage but then comes back and decides to chant with them instead. After carrying the chant for a while, he finally changes it to, "Do we want to ROCK?!". The band then takes the stage and performs "Everything I Own". Although they fail to win the competition, a YouTube video of their performance gains the band popularity at school. David Bowie sees the video and sends an e-mail to Will, explaining that he is starting an indie music label and is interested in having the band as one of their first artists. Will is so excited and overwhelmed that he falls down in the middle of the school hallway. Will and Sa5m, happily together, attend Charlotte's graduation ceremony.

A prince awakens a princess with a kiss, though she rejects his romantic advances (as she argues that she hasn't even been engaged yet and has missed the entire courtship period) and runs away. The princess says that she has ambition and drive. An American beautician named Joy Miller (Fran Drescher) does odd jobs in the TV industry, performing hair and makeup duties on the Lotto girl before she goes on air for her brief appearance. Joy lives with her parents Jerry (Michael Lerner) and Judy (Phyllis Newman). Judy asks Joy to settle in life and not keeping waiting endlessly for her to fulfill her ambition. Joy is adamant that she will not marry until she meets the right guy. Joy teaches students at a night beauty school (to supplement her income) to groom hair but is put out of business when one of her students accidentally ignites hair spray with his cigarette, eventually leading to the school burning down. Joy ends up being highlighted in a newspaper New York Post article after she helps her students, and the caged animals escape the building successfully. Joy had made several trips inside a burning building, but made sure that she rescues all the animals, including a python that she takes in her handbag. The article is seen by Ira Grushinsky (Ian McNeice), a diplomatic representative of a small Eastern European country called Slovetzia (bordered by Hungary, Romania, and Ukraine), a country she never heard of. Ira has been sent to the United States to find a tutor for the Four children of Slovetzia's President, and, mistakenly thinking that Joy is an academic teacher, offers the job to her. However, she misinterprets his job offer as teaching hair-styling. Although she has never heard of the country, she accepts the job despite her initial hesitation. Ira says that the job pays $40,000 per year. It is only after they arrive in Slovetzia that Ira realizes his error. Ira thought that Joy was a science teacher, and she says that she didn't even pass science in school. By then it is too late, and Joy agrees to keep up the ruse of being a "real" teacher for the time being. The initial meeting of Joy with the President, a dictator named Boris Pochenko (Timothy Dalton), gets off on the wrong foot. Boris prepares a full military guard to welcome Joy, but she ends up being late for the appointment as she was still busy putting on make-up. Boris warns Joy not to take her job lightly. He wants her to prepare his kids to face the western world and wants Joy to be prompt and efficient. Joy gets along well with his four children Katrina (Lisa Jakub), Karl (Adam LaVorgna), Yuri (Kyle and Tyler Wilkerson) and Masha (Heather DeLoach). Karl is very uptight, like his father, and wants Joy to teach him about the decadent American ways. Katrina is warm and inviting and is open to new ideas and thoughts. Joy teaches them of life outside Slovetzia (like the concept of Democracy, frequent flier miles, risk of cancer due to sun exposure) and helps them gain confidence in themselves. Joy encourages Karl to pursue his dream of becoming an artist, who feels pressured to be more like his father. Katrina tells Joy that all she wants to have is sex (her concept of sex is holding hands and eating ice cream), and wants to date a boy. Katrina says that her marriage is already confirmed to a prince, as per Boris' wishes. Joy encourages Katrina to speak to Boris directly, but he is enraged instead. Boris is adamant that Katrina will have an arranged marriage, as is the custom of their society. Joy frequently clashes with Pochenko, who is disturbed by her fierce independence and the fact that he cannot frighten her. Joy tells Boris that he is only ruling his children by fear and that he needs to earn their respect. Joy's presence in Slovetzia is due to Pochenko's desire to change his reputation among other Western nations as a "beast". His second-in-command, Leonid Kleist (Patrick Malahide) is against Pochenko's "softening" strategy and wants to crush the growing rebellion among Slovetzia's youth. Joy eventually learns that Katrina is in love with Alek (Timothy Dowling), one of the leaders of the youth rebellion. Joy finds Katrina outside the castle, and she takes Joy to a hidden nightclub, where she meets Alex. Unfortunately, Katrina is followed by the castle guards and Alek is captured by Pochenko. Joy secretly helps Katrina sneak to his cell to see him. A summit of visiting emissaries is arriving in Slovetzia to meet with Pochenko, and Joy convinces him that the best way to prove that he is a modern-thinking man would be to throw a party for visiting emissaries during a summit meeting to debut his new image. She encourages him to form closer relationships with his citizens and shaves his mustache. During a trip to a factory, Joy realizes that Slovetzia lacks trade unions and encourages the workers to hold a strike. Joy is put in charge of preparations, and during this time she and Pochenko grow closer. As part of the summit, Boris considers releasing Alek despite Leonid's disapproval. On the evening of the dinner, Joy confesses that she is not an academic teacher, but by this time Pochenko does not care about her credentials, only that she has brought happiness to him and his family. Later, Leonid confronts Joy with the fact that she has been helping Katrina meet Alek. When this information is brought to Pochenko, he argues with Joy on her meddling. Following Boris' decision to keep Alek in jail, Joy informs him that she had set up meetings between Alek and Katrina; he argues with Joy over her meddling in Slovetzia's political affairs. Joy decides to leave Slovetzia for good. Some months pass. Leonid has quietly taken over administrative duties and signing sentences in Pochenko's name. Pochenko, made aware of this fact by Ira, confronts Leonid and strips him of his duties. Pochenko realizes that he has spent many months depressed and discontent after Joy's leaving and decides that it is time to change his ways. Joy is back at home with her parents. She has also been depressed after leaving Slovetzia, but then receives a surprise visit by Pochenko. Boris informs her that he has freed Alek and agreed to hold free elections in Slovetzia. Boris kisses Joy after admitting his feelings for her.

An intersecting tale with a multitude of characters living lives which, in one way or another, revolve around an old apartment block scheduled to be demolished. City of Hope is a portrait of a typical middle-sized American city of the present day. The crux of the story is an old apartment block which stands in the way of a major commercial development. Joe Rinaldi is the building contractor who owns the buildings and is being pressured to torch them to permit the development to occur. His estranged son Nick soon becomes a pawn in the power politics of the city. Corrupt Mayor Baci and policeman O'Brien are determined to push the development, while idealistic city councilman Wynn soon finds himself torn between what he knows is right and what his Black constituents want. —Reid Gagle John Sayles' urban drama follows the intersecting lives of a dozen or more characters as they move through their lives, affect one another without realizing it, and do their best to survive--both within and outside of legality--in the crumbling cityscape of the ironic title. —Susan C. Mitchell <susanm@indirect.com>

Two con men hide out in a house while the owner is away; one of them assumes the identity of the absent house sitter when the owner's relatives come to visit, only for further complications to set in. Eddie and Lou are a couple of two-bit con men on the lam from a loan shark. They hide out in someone's house and they hear on the answering machine that (A) the owner of the house is out of the country for a month or two and (B) the housesitter supposed to watch the house for the absent owner won't be able to watch the house due to a new job in another part of the country. This provides for a pretty nifty arrangement for Eddie and Lou...until the relatives of the house owner drop by to visit. Eddie quickly adopts the guise of the person supposedly housesitting for the owner, and the shenanigans start from there. —Afterburner <aburner@erols.com>