Tom Everett Scott

Violinist Finley Sinclair travels to an Irish village for her semester abroad where she encounters Beckett Rush, a handsome actor who`s filming a sequel of his medieval movie franchise.

In 1999 Seth Davis (Ribisi), a 19-year-old college dropout runs an illegal but successful underground casino in his Queens apartment. His father Marty (Rifkin), a New York City federal judge, disapproves of him and worries that Seth's criminal living may cost him his judgeship. In hopes to get on his father's good side, Seth joins J.T. Marlin, a brokerage firm based in a normal office building in or near Commack, NY, after Greg Weinstein (Katt) comes to his home to check out Seth's business and offers him a job at the firm. Seth agrees and becomes a trainee under Weinstein. Everything seems to work out for Seth in the early days of his job. Arriving at J.T. Marlin, he learns from Jim Young (Ben Affleck), one of the heads of the company, what he needs to do to become a millionaire working at the firm. Seth learns the ways of the company and does very well at his new job. He also embarks on a romance with Abbie Halpert (Long), an ex-girlfriend of Greg's, which Greg shows disapproval of and who often worries about her effect on his friends and workers. Seth also becomes part of the crowd of successful stockbrokers, including Chris Varick (Vin Diesel) and Richie O'Flaherty (Caan), and lives a high-life type of lifestyle with them, usually going out to restaurants with them and seeing their fights with other people. He hits a few snags though, including fights and arguments he has with Greg when Greg becomes too worried about Seth's explosively good work at his job, and when Seth closes down his casino because his employees don't appreciate their significantly increased salaries. Seth is unaware of the dark side of his quickly successful job, as the FBI have been tracking the firm for a period of time. The company is a chop shop brokerage firm that runs a "pump and dump", using its brokers to create artificial demand in the stock of expired or fake companies by cold calling investors and selling them shares at prices set by the brokerage firm, which include a large commission to the brokers (up to three dollars a share for a penny stock). When the firm is done pumping the stock, the investors then have no one to sell their shares in the market, and the price of the stock plummets. This becomes a problem for one of Seth's clients, Harry Reynard, a family man who is a purchasing manager of a gourmet foods company and is trying to buy a new house. After Seth sells him one hundred shares at eight dollars each, the stock market plummets and gets Harry into an excruciating financial situation. When Harry calls Seth back asking why the investment has done so poorly, Seth (under coercion from Greg) sells him even more worthless shares, convincing Harry to invest his $50,000 down-payment that he was saving for a family home. Seth promises a smooth process in the investment; however this promise does not live up and causes Harry to be abandoned by his family. Now well aware of the firm's fraudulent and unethical practices, Seth becomes deeply unnerved by his work environment and how he has knowingly scammed Harry. After being set up by Abbie (who was working with the police) Seth is arrested by the FBI for the violation of SEC regulations. He is taken into custody by the FBI along with his father, who was taken in for attempting to conceal his son from the federal law - a conversation that was of a taped phone call. Seth is given federal immunity, meaning he cannot be arrested for as long as he agrees to testify against J.T. Marlin once all the suspects are taken into court. He does this on the condition his father does not get involved with the case, as he exchanges that for information on the firm's techniques of selling, relocation if law enforcement gets too close, etc. Seth is released and instructed by the FBI to return to work the next day, only to gather evidence and leave shortly before the FBI raid the building by midday. To deliver evidence that can be used against the firm, he inserts files of investments onto a floppy disk and hides it away. Before leaving, Seth attempts to get Harry's money back by lying to J.T. Marlin the way they do with their clients. Michael Brantley (Scott), one of the company heads, agrees to go along with Seth's explanation, saying that in order to complete the process, Seth needs a ticket sale signed by a senior broker, something that his direct supervisor, Greg, has explicitly said that he would never do. On his way out of the building, Seth leaves Chris a note asking to meet in private, at which point he informs Chris about the raid and convinces him to sign the sale ticket. Chris then hastily gathers a few belongings from his desk and quickly leaves. Seth is then shown walking past Abbie in the reception area, ignoring her, and then leaving the building deciding what to do with his life now that his job and ties with J.T. Marlin are finished. As he leaves, several cars including prison buses are seen speeding into the parking lot from which FBI agents emerge, ready to raid the building.

A writer/radio advice show host fails to heed his own advice as he stalks his ex-girlfriend and then becomes involved with an actress friend of hers.

The life of a provincial town becomes stormy after the appearance of an anonymous love letter. The power of words and images to open hearts. Helen runs, miles a day, to burn off energy: she's an emotional celibate. Going through the post at her shop, she finds a romantic and poetic letter between the couch cushions, unsigned, and thinks it's for her. It melts her resistance to feelings, and soon she undertakes an affair with Johnny, a collegiate employee. (He sees the letter and thinks she wrote it to him; he quotes some of it, so she thinks he wrote it to her.) In the background are Helen's long-time friend, George, who loves her, and her mother who abruptly left on a long trip months before. Discovering who actually wrote the letter brings insight and promise. —<jhailey@hotmail.com>

A very true movie. So true I could not watch it until now. From someone who has been there, seen it, lived through it, I can say it was written by someone who was there as well. The story is of a young woman, Ellen (Renee Zellweger) who comes home for the weekend from her busy life in the city and with a possible writing career in front of her to find out from her father (William Hurt) that her mother, Kate (Meryl Streep) is ill. She is about to have cancer surgery and he expects that she will drop her life and come home to take care of her mother. She will need help after the surgery and the following chemotherapy. Ellen does not know what to think. She is a writer, as her father, an english professor, does he not understand what her life and future career mean to her? She has never seen self sacrifice before, or so she thinks. As her mother grows ever weaker Ellen gets a glimpse into her mother's life. She is involved with the community on special ocassions, she refinishes furniture, makes curtains, cooks everything wonderful, and even comforts friends in times of challenge, but most important of all, she makes her husband's life possible. At first Ellen tries to step into her mother's shoes and has a tough time for she is more like her father, she writes, she doesn't cook, clean, and comfort. Soon she finds her mother's shoes are a lot harder to fill than she ever realized. As she gets better at caring for her mother and the home front she realizes just how little her father does at home. Many of us see what many probably don't see, he is not completely self-scentered he simply can't imagine his life without her and can not be around to watch her fade. Ellen does not know this, at one point she believes he is having an affair and becomes very angry with him. She believes all he can do is think about himself. At Thanksgiving her father surprises everyone by bringing home two writers he admires, seemingly oblivious to the fact that this might well be his family's last Thanksgiving together. He asks that his wife whip up some great appetizers, as though she were in any shape to do so, which leaves Ellen to make them. Ellen is enraged with the unexpected visitors, famous or not, she wanted a quiet family Thanksgiving. Ellen becomes confrontational at every turn with her father. He wants everything to remain the same, he's not willing to help out with anything, and to top it all off, she believes when he calls to say he is working late that he is with "the other woman" who drops him off in front of the house later that evening. Ellen finally has a bitter confrontation with her father in a diner that ends up with him walking away stating that she will no longer be needed she can return to the city. Before this can even be discussed her mother is hospitalized. They are told the cancer has spread and there no need to continue therapy, all they can do now is make her comfortable. Her mother has noticed what is happening with Ellen and her father and calls her into a room to talk. She looks Ellen in the face and tells her that she does not know anything about her husband that she doesn't know. Life and marriage changes as it moves along and you find yourself accepting things you told yourself you'd never do. That it can be unbearable at one point and joyous the next. That you reach a point where if you remove someone from your life all it does is leave is a great big hole in your life, you live for your family, the ones you love. She then tries to tell Ellen things she might need for later in life and Ellen does not want to hear them. Her mother begins to cry and tells her that she's tired of people not letting her talk when she wants to talk, when Ellen agrees, she thinks a minute then says, I said it already. Ellen is charged with caring for her mother and giving her pains pills, morphine, now that the pain is much worse. Even though Ellen knows she's dying, and that she is in a wheel chair, and that a nurse comes in to help her, all these facts are really made quite clear when her mother calls out for the nurse who is not there and Ellen enters the bathroom to find her mother in the tub unable to get out. For the first time she is not seeing her bulky sweaters and cap; she sees her mother with her half bald head and barely covered bones. She is so skinny that Ellen can easily lift her from the tub. At that moment Ellen realizes exactly what is happening; to know something is one thing, to see it is almost too real. After she gets her mother settled into her chair she asks Ellen for a pain pill, as she takes it she whimpers, "This is no way to live" in her weakened voice that tells volumes. She asks Ellen to help her make it stop, Ellen's mother is now staying down stairs in a hospital bed. When she sleeps you hear her struggling to breathe, eating is no more, drinking is barely so, and talking is barely so. Then we see Ellen take out the small dish we all have for our cancer victims to put a little bit of applesauce to try in vein to get them to eat anything, and to help get medications down. Then she takes out the morphine and begins to smash the pills, first one, then another, then another. Then stands there knowing she can't do this. As much as she knows it would be a kindness, as much as she knows it would make it easier for her mother she can not do it. Her father comes home early, Ellen takes a bath and when she comes down we see her father wash out a small dish, wipe it and put it back in the cupboard. He tells Ellen, "your mother says this is not living, and she was right." Ellen goes into to be with her mother and finds awake and she tells her, "I love you." In the morning Ellen's father comes downstairs to find Ellen holding her mother's hand and staring, he realizes she is gone. Throughout the movie we have seen Ellen telling a man the story of her mother's illness but we don't know who he is, a greif counselor? A priest? It is a man wanting to know how Ellen's mother died of an overdose. Ellen has been providing stories that make it impossible for her father to be responsible, while not implicating herself either. In the last scene Ellen is at her mother's grave planting bulbs in the freshingly dug up soil. Her father approaches her and watches what she is doing and asks her how it went. She tells him it went fine that the man will also want to speak to him as well. Her father then says he admires Ellen's strength, he wanted to do it but could not. Ellen hears him but it doesn't sink in right away. She finally lifts her head and says, "I didn't do it, I thought you did it." They both take a moment and then shake their heads while stating, "oh, she couldn't have, she was too weak!" Ellen's father then shares how much he loved her, that she made his world warm and comfortable, she was his One True Thing. As the movie concludes her father attempts to help plant the bulbs and they work the soil together.

Two college roommates go out and party, resulting in bad grades. They learn of the clause that says, "If your roommate dies, you get an A," and decide to find someone who is on the verge, so to speak, to move in with them. Josh, (Scott) a college student on a scholarship, gets taught the about crazy nightlife of being in college by his unreliable roommate Cooper (Gosselaar) and fails his midterms due to being unprepared. With Cooper's father no longer willing to pay his son's way through college, and Josh needing to keep up his grades or risk losing his scholarship, the two learn of a hidden clause in the school's rules that basically says "if your roommate commits suicide, you get straight A's." Since neither are willing to do so, they instead decide to invite a suicidal colleague in. - and push him over the edge. —Damon Two college roommates go out and party, resulting in bad grades. They learn of the "if your roommate dies, you get an A" clause, and decide to find someone who is "on the verge" so to speak to move in with them. —Christy Two students, one, a slacker, and the other, a student on scholarship, find out in their college's charter that if your roomate commits suicide, you get straight As for your grief. They then go looking for the perfect roomate when the student on scholarship starts to fail his classes. —Josh Kaardal