It’s the weekend, and five students have weekend detention. There’s a jock, a princess, a misfit, a nerd, and a lout. Not much in common, except for having to give up their day, sit in the school library, and write an essay for the principal. Being from such widely different backgrounds and having such completely different personalities, it’s inevitable that some frictions and shenanigans develop. Especially when the principal leaves the room… Written by Murray Chapman {muzzle@cs.uq.oz.au}

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Vietnam vet Travis Bickle is 26, a loner in the mean streets of New York City, slipping slowly into isolation and violent misanthropy. In solving his insomnia by driving a yellow cab on the night shift, he grows increasingly disgusted by the low-lifes that hang out at night: “Someday a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets.” His touching attempts to woo Betsy, a Senator’s campaign worker, turn sour when he takes her to a porn movie on their first date. He even fails in his attempt to persuade child prostitute Iris to desert her pimp and return to her parents and school. Driven to the edge by powerlessness, he buys four handguns and sets out to assassinate the Senator, heading for the infamy of a ‘lone crazed gunman’… Written by Tim Jones {jonestd@vax.sbu.ac.uk}

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Preston, Idaho’s most curious resident, Napoleon Dynamite, lives with his grandma and his 32-year-old brother (who cruises chat rooms for ladies) and works to help his best friend, Pedro, snatch the Student Body President title from mean teen Summer Wheatley. Written by IMDb Editors

I’ve heard people refer to “The Notebook” as cheesy, as a ‘chick flick’ (a label very few of my colleagues can stand because of its negative connotation), as predictable and sappy. So “The Notebook” doesn’t exactly take a brain surgeon to guess how the story is going to play out. And it does unapologetically play on your emotions, practically begging you to squeeze out a few tears. But here’s why I enjoyed “The Notebook”: it’s a movie you can relax and let flow over you. It’s also one of the few films out there that tells a complete story. There’s a well-defined beginning, middle, and end.

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Dr. Evil uses a device he calls a “Time Machine” to travel back to 1969 and remove Austin Powers’ mojo. The sexually wounded swinger must travel back in time and, with the help of agent Felicity Shagwell, recover his vitality. Meanwhile, Dr. Evil’s personal life runs amok as he discovers love, continues to shun his son and develops a close relationship with himself. Well, actually, a clone 1/8 his size whom he dubs “Mini-Me”. The always time-baffled Dr. Evil begins his plan to put a gigantic cannon on the moon, thus turning it into a device called either “The Death Star” or “Alan Parson’s Project,” depending on which name is available. Written by Michael “Rabbit” Hutchison {rabhutch@spacestar.net}

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The 1950s. Manhattan lavatory attendant, Tom Ripley, borrows a Princeton jacket to play piano at a garden party. When the wealthy father of a recent Princeton grad chats Tom up, Tom pretends to know the son and is soon offered $1,000 to go to Italy to convince Dickie Greenleaf to return home. In Italy, Tom attaches himself to Dickie and to Marge, Dickie’s cultured fiancée, pretending to love jazz and harboring homoerotic hopes as he soaks in luxury. Besides lying, Tom’s talents include impressions and forgery, so when the handsome and confident Dickie tires of Tom, dismissing him as a bore, Tom goes to extreme lengths to make Greenleaf’s privileges his own. Written by {jhailey@hotmail.com}

Valentine’s Day 1988: At the school dance, geeky Jeremy Melton bravely faces one rejection after the other when asking four popular girls to dance with him. A fifth girl, plump and insecure, agrees, but they end up making out under the bleachers. When a group of school bullies catches them, the girl claims that Jeremy attacked her. This causes them to strip off his clothes and beat him up in front of the entire school. Flash forward to 2001. We meet the five girls who were in that school gym: Kate (Marley Shelton), Paige (Denise Richards), Shelly (Katherine Heigl), Lily (Jessica Cauffiel) and the formerly plump Dorothy (Jessica Capshaw). They are all in their 20’s now and trying to sort out their love lives, which is appropriate, since Valentine’s Day is coming up. After a disastrous date with a loser, one of the girls, a pre-med student, is murdered by a Cherub-mask wearing killer who sent her a death threat in the form of a Valentine card prior to the attack. After the four remaining girls are reunited at her funeral, they all start receiving threatening cards and messages. At first they don’t know who would want to hurt them, but eventually they figure that maybe Jeremy is responsible. Police records show that Jeremy has completely disappeared, so no one knows what he looks like. Could the formerly nerdish Jeremy have had plastic surgery and turned into one of the girls’ handsome boyfriends? Who ever it is, the lone survivor has to put a stop to this spurned individual’s murder spree before she, too, becomes a valentine to die for. Written by Tertius Saayman {tsaayman@hotmail.com}

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After twelve years in prison, Walter arrives in an unnamed city, moves into a small apartment across the street from an elementary school, gets a job at a lumberyard, and mostly keeps to himself. A quiet, guarded man, Walter finds unexpected solace from Vickie, a tough-talking woman who promises not to judge him for his history. But Walter cannot escape his past. A convicted sex offender, Walter is warily eyed by his brother-in-law, shunned by his sister, lives in fear of being discovered at work, and is hounded by a suspicious local police officer, Detective Lucas. After befriending a young girl in a neighborhood park, Walter must also grapple with the terrible prospect of his own reawakened demons. Written by Sujit R. Varma

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