Vondie Curtis-Hall

Ex-con Otis (Tyrese Gibson), or "O2" as he was once known on account of his ability to vanish from a crime scene like oxygen, has done his time and is now determined to stay out of trouble and never leave his young son, Otis, Jr. (played by Vondie Curtis-Hall's young son, Henry Hunter Hall), ever again. When O2 shows up late to pick Junior up from school one afternoon, he swears that he will always come back for Junior. That promise is put to the test just moments later when O2's vintage 1960's Chevrolet Impala SS Lowrider convertible is stolen from him at gunpoint in the middle of a crowded Southland intersection with Junior in the back seat. O2 chases the car and gets into a nasty gun battle with the carjackers circumstances that then make it impossible for O2 go to the police but to no avail. O2 does, however, catch up with Coco (Meagan Good), a woman who sells stolen suits on the streets for a thug known as P Money (Julius Denem). O2 knows she is the one who marked him for the carjacking, and he forces her to help him retrieve Junior. Lucky (Larenz Tate), Otis' unreliable cousin who works for Big Meat (Jayceon "Game" Taylor), the brutally vicious leader of the Outlaw Syndicate, also offers to help. After a few hours on the street, Lucky comes back with some bad news: Junior has fallen into Meat's hands, and Meat (the main antagonist of the film) is demanding that O2 deliver $100,000 by midnight the following night, or Junior will die. Otis claims that he has no money, but Meat thinks otherwise: Meat was once O2's partner in crime, and he thinks O2 is still holding onto the $100,000 they made off their last job together the job that got O2 six years in prison. Desperate to raise the cash, O2 comes up with a plan: he and Coco will rob P Money's and Meat's own operations, staging it to look like the one is stealing from the other, and thereby triggering a gang war that will hopefully eliminate both and help O2 and Coco rescue Junior. After a successful robbery of one of the Big Meat's locations, O2 and Coco come across a set of safe deposit box keys belonging to numerous banks in the area. The next day with time wearing thin, they stage a number of bank robberies and are able to retrieve expensive jewellery, which Lucky offers to get rid of eager to prove his worth. When Lucky takes the jewelry to Big Meat unknowing that it belongs to Big Meat, Lucky is forced to set up a meeting between himself, O2, and Coco, with Big Meat along to end O2 once and for all. They take a car to an alley and give him the money. It is then revealed that Big Meat never intended to let Junior live, as he signals one of his men to kill Junior. Lucky sees this and tackles him as the man shoots many shots, one shooting Lucky in the side of the chest. O2 kills Meat's men, leaving only Meat. He then proceeds to shoot O2 but has no shots remaining. O2 shoots and kills him and retrieves Junior. On the road, they stop at a gas station to attend to Lucky's wound. O2 tells Lucky that they will get him to a hospital, but he realizes that Lucky has died. Swerving off the road, they are chased by the cops. O2 hides in a parking lot and tells Coco that she must take Junior and go to the Mexican border while he outruns the cops. As Junior and Coco escape, O2 is tailed by the cops. They run him to a dead end where the lake is. O2, realizing he has no choice, drives straight into the water. In Mexico, Coco and Junior are living in a house on a beach. They are walking on the beach when Junior sees something in the distance. He and Coco find that it is O2, who has escaped the ocean and come back to them, as he promised. They then reunite.

In the nightclub scene of the 1970s New York City, a multiracial young girl, Billie, born to a Caucasian father and an African-American mother, is taken away from her alcoholic, lounge singer mother after she is deemed irresponsible to raise her and Billie's estranged father wants nothing to do with either one of them. Billie spends the rest of her teenage years in an orphanage. Years later (in 1983), the 19-year-old Billie (Marah Carrey) works as a nightclub dancer along with her foster-care friends Louise and Roxanne. They meet Timothy Walker (Terrence Howard), a record promoter who offers the three of them a contract as backup singers/dancers to the singer Sylk. Initially, Billie refuses, hoping to achieve stardom on her own terms. After pestering from her friends, Billie relents and the three are contracted. They record the hit single, "All My Life" but Sylk's vocal is sub-standard. To maximize sales based on the sex appeal of Sylk, Timothy asks Billie to sing while Sylk lip-syncs. Later at a nightclub, Billie sings Sylk's song which gets her noticed by the club DJ, Julian "Dice" Black, during the public debut of "All My Life". Dice, knowing that Sylk is an indifferent singer, is shocked by the arrangement, but goes backstage to congratulate Billie for singing the song. Sylk insults her backup singers in front of a photographer and Billie, not wanting to take the verbal abuse, exposes Sylk by singing "All My Life" a cappella in front of Dice. Impressed, he wishes to produce her, but Billie turns him down, thinking that he wants to exploit her talent. When Billie relents after Dice pesters her, she raises concerns about her contract with Timothy. Dice threatens to not play any more artists from Timothy in his nightclub unless Timothy surrenders Billie and her friends' contacts. Timothy eventually agrees on the provision that Dice pays him $100,000. Billie and Dice start working on songs: the first being the hit underground single, "Didn't Mean to Turn You On". Dice advises Billie to play off record companies to secure a bigger deal. Ultimately they sign with Guy Richardson of a major record label. With success in their hands, Dice asks Billie to dinner. Later, he asks her up to his apartment and they sleep together. Billie's first major single, "Loverboy" is a success. The music video originally features Billie, Louise, and Roxanne. However, the director, dissatisfied with the results, orders Billie to wear more revealing clothing and replaces Louise and Roxanne with professional semi-nude male dancers. When the male dancers are then ordered to dance closely to Billie, this frightens her. Dice intervenes on her behalf, and they leave the set before the music video can be finished. Dice is denied permission to produce songs on Billie's debut, including "Reflections", which Billie wrote about her mother. Billie is called to perform at the USA Music Awards, where she meets singer/songwriter Rafael. Later at the party, they meet again, and Rafael suggests they write a song. Dice orders Billie and her friends to leave, accusing Rafael of sexual advances towards Billie. Louise and Roxanne give Billie an ultimatum: them or Dice, but leave before she can choose. Billie cries, but is comforted by Dice as she laments "If you didn't believe in me, none of this would have ever happened." The reconciliation is short-lived as Billie gets a threat from Timothy concerning the 100K debt that Dice failed to pay. Billie tells Dice that Timothy was at their apartment about his debt and her contract. She is confused because she thought he had handled her contract properly. She admits to Dice that Timothy threatened her and Dice, in a rage, puts Timothy in the hospital. In the middle of the beating, Dice is arrested, causing Billie to leave her appearance on Late Night Live to bail him out. Billie, upset about how Dice lied about her contract and his arrest, argues with and leaves him. With nowhere to go, she goes back to live with Roxanne and Louise. Billie tries to deal with the pain by creating the single "Want You", with Rafael, which is a hit, but her emotional pain leads her to solo songwriting. Dice also misses Billie, and also begins writing a song. Billie goes to Dice's apartment in an attempt to reconcile. He's not home, but the music he has written is and Billie realizes they wrote the same song: "Never Too Far". She kisses the sheet music, leaving a lipstick imprint, which Dice later discovers. Dice plans a reconciliation, but is shot dead by Timothy. Billie's management and support crew see a report of the murder on television. They wonder if Billie was with him, they see that she is there and has seen the report. Billie onstage commands the band to stop playing "Loverboy," tells the crowd never to take someone for granted, and that if you love them, you should tell them, because you might never have the chance to tell them how you really feel. She then starts to sing "Never Too Far". Afterwords, Billie reads a note Dice had left her, where he tells of his love for her, his plan to see her perform and that he has found Billie's mother. Billie's limo takes her to the secluded rural property where she is united with her mother once again.

Two friends try to kick their drug addiction after a friend overdoses. When they try to enroll in a detox program, things quickly go wrong. After a friend overdoses, Spoon and Stretch decide to kick their drug habits and attempt to enroll in a government detox program. Their efforts are hampered by seemingly endless red tape, as they are shuffled from one office to another while being chased by drug dealers and the police. —Andy Bogursky <bogursky@erols.com>

Summer heats up in rural Louisiana beside Eve's Bayou as the Batiste family tries to survive the secrets they've kept and the betrayals they've endured. Louis Batiste (Samuel L. Jackson), the local town doctor with a special bedside manner, is a loving father and philandering husband. His wife Roz (Lynn Whitfield) is forced to admit her family is falling apart when her younger daughter, Eve (Jurnee Smollett), witnesses one of her father's infidelities. Struggling to make sense of what she has seen, Eve turns to her older sister Cisely, who dismisses her in fear of the truth, and then to her Aunt Mozelle (Debbi Morgan), a known psychic and rumored black widow. Unable to find the the understanding she is looking for, Eve decides to take matters into her own hands. As the heat rises so does the tension. For the Batiste family, the ties that bind may not be strong enough to keep them together, and what they learn will change their lives forever.