Is there room for principle in Los Angeles? Mike Terry teaches jujitsu and barely makes ends meet. His Brazilian wife, whose family promotes fights, wants to see Mike in the ring making money, but to him competition is degrading. A woman sideswipes Mike’s car and then, after an odd sequence of events, shoots out the studio’s window. Later that evening, Mike rescues an action movie star in a fistfight at a bar. In return, the actor befriends Mike, gives him a gift, offers him work on his newest film, and introduces Mike’s wife to his own - the women initiate business dealings. Then, things go sour all at once, Mike’s debts mount, and going into the ring may be his only option. Written by {jhailey@hotmail.com}

“Anger Management” is another example of a good idea gone bad. Take two popular actors with radically different styles, mix in a sprinkling of a few name actors, throw in Adam Sandler’s buddies in supporting roles, and ask them to take an intriguing idea and turn it into a solid comedy. The result? Well, let’s just say this is deeply disappointing considering how much promise Sandler showed in “Punch-Drunk Love.” And Nicholson’s far from blameless. He takes his wild man character from the latter part of “The Shining,” tones it down a bit, and then generally looks uncomfortable with the results throughout this film.

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Mitch, Frank and Beanie are disillusioned with their personal lives begining when Mitch’s nymphomanic girlfriend, Heidi, cheats on him, then former party animal Frank gets married, but unwilling to get go of his wild life, and Beanie is a family man seeking to reclaim his wild and crazy youth. Beanie suggests that they form their own fraternity in Mitch’s new house on a college campus to re-live their glory days by bringing together a variety of misfit college students, losers, middle-aged and elderly retirees as their new friends and later try to avoid being evicted by the new Dean of Students, Pritchard, whom still holds a personal grudge against all three of them. Written by Matthew Patay

In South Central Los Angeles, the unbalanced, deranged and neurotic ex-Ranger Jim Luther Davis meets his best friend Miguel ‘Mike’ Alonzo to drink beers and smoke joint. Jim is expecting to join the LAPD to marry his Mexican girlfriend Marta while Mike is being pressured by his mate Sylvia to find a job. When Jim is refused by the police department, he becomes furious and begins a series of violent actions until he is called by the Federal agency and assigned to work in Colombia. Meanwhile, Mike gets a dream job, making Sylvia happy. Jim invites the weak Mike and their friend Toussant to spend the weekend in Mexico. After some incidents, Jim returns bringing 20 kg of marijuana to Los Angeles, leading to a tragic end. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

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After the Twin Towers fell on September 11, 2001 only 20 people were pulled from the rubble alive. 20 people. Port Authority Police Sergeant John McLoughlin and Officer Will Jimeno were numbers 18 and 19. World Trade Center is their story, told through the eyes of Jimeno, McLoughlin and their families. There’s no political agenda or finger-pointing. World Trade Center is very simply a tale of hope, courage and survival on one of America’s darkest days.

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Susie’s husband is asked to hold a doll for a woman as they get off an airplane. She disappears. Mike and Carlino are small time hoods who find the woman’s body in Susie’s apartment, placed there by her partner, Harry Rote. Susie’s blindness is the key to them searching the apartment for the doll that contains smuggled drugs. Mike pretends to be an old friend of Susie’s husband while her husband is away and together the crooks invent a story of a police investigation of her husband that only the discovery of the now missing doll can save him from. Rote is a killer, and his stalking of Susie becomes more and more obvious as the story unfolds, leaving us with the question, how does a blind woman defend herself? Written by John Vogel {jlvogel@comcast.net}

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Rather than a paint-by-the-numbers remake of the 1962 John Frankenheimer film, director Jonathan Demme’s 2004 version of “The Manchurian Candidate” is a re-envisioned, revamped and contemporized take on the classic political thriller. Academy Award-winner Denzel Washington stars in the role Frank Sinatra handled in the original. Liev Schreiber takes on the Laurence Harvey part from the first film. And two-time Oscar winner Meryl Streep chews up the screen as the candidate’s political junkie mother, a role which earned Angela Lansbury an Academy Award nomination in 1963 and which might do the same for Streep.

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New Orleans, 1981. Sonny Phillips, just discharged from the Army, returns home. The only life he’s known is as a gigolo, working for his mother, but he wants to leave that behind. However, the job his Army buddy promised doesn’t materialize, and he can’t escape his past. Written by Jon Reeves {jreeves@imdb.com}

Ex-Special Forces operator Frank Martin lives what seems to be a quiet life along the French Mediterranean, hiring himself out as a mercenary “transporter” who moves goods–human or otherwise–from one place to another. No questions asked. Carrying out mysterious and sometimes dangerous tasks in his tricked-out BMW, Frank adheres to a strict set of rules, which he never breaks. Rule One: Never change the deal. Rule Two: No names–Frank doesn’t want to know whom he’s working for, or what he’s transporting. Rule Three: never look in the package. Frank’s newest transport seems no different from the countless ones he’s done in the past. He’s been hired by an American known only as “Wall Street” to make a delivery; but when Frank stops along the route, he notices his package is moving. Violating Rule Three, Frank looks inside the bag, finding its contents to be a beautiful, gagged woman. Frank’s steadfast adherence to his other two rules–which make up his basic code of survival–also quickly fails, hurtling him and his new companion on a road leading to shocking secrets, deadly complications, and the last thing that Frank ever expected to come to believe: that rules are made to be broken. Written by Anthony Pereyra {hypersonic91@yahoo.com}

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