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A young man has dropped out of Queens College but desperately wants to please his father, a federal judge who’s harsh with his son. At his father’s insistence, Seth Davis closes a casino he operates in his own house, mostly for college students. Thinking he’ll please dad, he takes a job in a small brokerage house, an hour from Manhattan, where trainees make cold calls to lists of well-paid men, and then apply high-pressure tactics to sell initial public offerings exclusive to the firm. He’s terrific at sales. Once training is over, the pay is phenomenal, and Seth wonders why. Curiosity leads him to ethical dilemmas, encounters with the Feds, and new territory with his father.

This drama centers on Hank Chinaski, the fictional alter-ego of “Factotum” author Charles Bukowski, who wanders around Los Angeles, CA trying to live off jobs which don’t interfere with his primary interest, which is writing. Along the way, he fends off the distractions offered by women, drinking and gambling.

Academy Award nominee ‘Diane Lane (I)’ (qv) stars as ‘Frances Mayes’ (qv), a 35-year-old San Francisco writer whose perfect life has just taken an unexpected detour. Her recent divorce has left her with terminal writer’s block and extremely depressed, and her best friend, Patti, is beginning to think she might never recover. Frances decides to take a break and she buys a villa in the beautiful Tuscan countryside and decides to begin anew. Restoring her new home, she eventually finds the fulfillment she was searching for, including love. Based on ‘Frances Mayes’ (qv)’ memoir of the same name.

When a magical artifact is lifted from his library, a meek librarian sets out to ensure its safe return. To do so, however, he enlists the service of a woman with exceptional martial arts skills - who becomes the enforcer in the relationship.

The movie combines a diverting story, songs, color and sequences of live action blended with the movements of animated figures. Mary Poppins is a kind of Super-nanny who flies in with her umbrella in response to the request of the Banks children and proceeds to put things right with the aid of her rather extraordinary magical powers before flying off again.

In New York, the unemployed divorced Larry Daley is a complete loser. His son Nick is very disappointed with his father that is gong to be evicted, and Larry accepts the job of night watchman in the Museum of Natural History as the substituted for three old security guards that have just retired to raise some money and pay his bills. In his first nightshift, Larry realizes that everything at the museum comes to life at night. The Museum transforms in a complete chaos with the inexperienced Larry, and he learns that since an old Egyptian stone came to the Museum in 1950, the was statues comes to life until dawn. When Larry brings his son to spend a night with him, the three old guards break in the Museum to stole the magic stone. Larry organizes the historic characters to help him to arrest the criminals and save the museum.

Miranda Priestley, of “Runway” magazine tears up the landscape as a demanding fashion editor. She is a terror to everyone who is around her as is quickly depicted in the opening scenes of the movie. Her first assistant strives to please her and tries to emulate her, but one can sense that she is not quite as hard as she tries to put on. Into this mix comes a young woman who knows nothing of the fashion industry, has never read the magazine, and doesn’t know who Miranda Priestley is. She only sees this as a stepping stone to another journalism position. Showing no fashion sense and immediately scorned by everyone, Miranda nonetheless hires her as the second assistant. When Miranda demands that she obtain the next unpublished Harry Potter manuscript, you can sense that she is trying to force her to quit, but it makes the young woman dig in to please her boss. With the help of one of the magazine’s fashion editors, she gets a complete makeover and a new security. However, with her new appearance and the demands placed on her, she starts to lose her friends, family and her live-in boy friend. As she is whisked away to Paris with Miranda and faces all of the glamor that could be hers, including a flashy if not artificial freelance journalist, she is forced to make the decision of where she wants to be in her life.

Jim Davis is an ex-Army Ranger who finds himself slipping back into his old life of petty crime after a job offer from the LAPD evaporates. His best friend is pressured by his girlfriend Sylvia to find a job, but Jim is more interested in hanging out and making cash from small heists, while trying to get a law enforcement job so he can marry his Mexican girlfriend.

Dr. David Gale, an advocate of eliminating the death penalty, is falsely accused of rape and murder. Once convicted, he ends up on death row in Texas himself, telling his story to a reporter through a series of flashbacks.

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’…