
            After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a wealth billionaire software engineer & genius, who generally goes by the name Harold Finch (played by Michael Emerson), created a Machine that is an all-seeing Supercomputer designed to detect acts of terror before they can happen. The Supercomputer simply called "The Machine" can monitor the entire world using pattern recognition Software by monitoring every cell-phone communication (using voice-print technology), every email (using keyword filters) and accessing every surveillance camera (using facial reconciliation). Finch and best friend Nathan Ingram (played by Brett Cullen) devised the machine to sell to the US government, using Ingram's own company IFT in New York.The two friends make a deal that keeps Finch's animosity. Finch is a pseudonym as Harold is a wanted Cyber hacker due to something which happened in his youth in the 1970s. It's later revealed that when Finch's father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, a young Harold built a prototype machine to replace his fathers failing memory, but he needed to power the machine, so he went and hacked into the government's network. Ingram acts as a frontman so the government are unaware of Finch working behind the scenes.The purpose of the machine is so that the government can spot acts leading to terrorism and stop them before they can act. To prevent abuse of its capabilities by the government, Finch decided to program the Machine to only provide an identity of a Terrorist predicted to be involved in an imminent attack in the form of a Social Security number, but no other details of the future attack will be shown to the government. But a moral dilemma soon occurs when Finch and Ingram discover the machine not only searches for potential terrorist acts but also violent crimes that involve ordinary people such as murders, attempted murders and kidnappings. As with the Terrorists they only receive the social security numbers of the people involved and they will not know whether the POI (person of interest) is a perpetrator or victim. Knowing the government would considered violent crimes between normal people "irrelevant", Finch programmed the Machine to delete the "Irrelevant" list every-night at midnight but Ingram becomes guilt-ridden and builds a back-door into the system and programs the machine to give him access to the social security numbers of people involved in a future violent crime before the midnight deadline deletes the list . But with only the social security number to go on it gets difficult to tell who's good and bad.Meanwhile whilst the Machine was in its testing phase it encourages Harold to talk to a woman named Grace Hendrix (played by Carrie Preston), who the Machine picked out as a perfect match for Finch and soon the pair start dating. After a few months, Finch even goes as far as proposing to Grace and she says yes. But whilst on his way to tell Nathan the good news Finch discovers what Nathan has been doing with the irrelevant list and becomes angry that he has been putting the project in jeopardy, so they fight. Nathan reveals he has decided to go public and tell the world about what he and Finch have done by talking to a reporter in a public place.However, the government soon finds out and just before Finch turned off a computer screen, Ingram's picture pops-up but Finch does not see it. Before he can talk to the reporter the government stages a terrorist attack on a New York ferry, which was the meeting place Ingram had chosen. Ingram and the reporter are killed and Finch (who turned up to see Ingram) ends up partially paralyze and goes into hiding, even from his fiancee Grace. Finch later finds out the Machine knew about Ingram being a target and so changes his mind about helping the potential victims.Soon Finch hires a Blackwater mercenary called Rick Dillinger (played by Neil Jackson) whose only motivated by money and has different morals and ethics to Finch, Dillinger ends up getting killed when he betrays Finch and his objective to save lives by handing over a victim in exchange for money.Finch later finds the perfect replacement in John Reese (played by Jim Caviezel) an ex-CIA special operative who was recruited by the CIA who were impressed by his skills he had learned in the army after quickly rising to the rank of U.S. Army Sergeant First Class, having been in the Army Rangers, the Green Berets, and Delta Force all of which he uses the skills acquired in those organizations in his later missions with Finch. When Reese joined the CIA he believes he is helping his country and is told there is no going back to his former life with the love of his life, Jessica Arndt (played by Susan Misner, his neighbor and childhood sweetheart who he pushed her away to rein-list in the Army after the 9/11 attacks.Reese starts to have doubts about his work for the CIA and he is sent to retrieve a laptop that contains key data to the Machine (but Reese does not know this) in China. The CIA considers John and his CIA partner Kara Stanton (played by Annie Parisse) expendable and fire missiles at their last known location. Reese survives and is officially listed as dead, he returns to America and finds out that Jessica died in a car crash. But soon he finds evidence that she was being abused by her husband Peter Arndt (played by Jonno Roberts), whom she married after Reese rejected her. Reese meets up with Peter and it's assumed that Reese kills Peter.Reese then goes on a suicidal path and was on a subway ride to a perfect suicide spot but gets himself into a fight with some Teenage punks. He is arrested for assault and is interviewed by a Detective called Jocelyn "Joss" Carter (played by Taraji P. Henson) who recognizes his fighting skills as being from the Army as she used to be in the Army herself as an Army interrogator. As she is interrogating him she takes his fingerprints and Carter finds that he had been at several crime scenes when he was with the CIA.However before she returns to formally arrest him, Finch has a lawyer spring John before she returns and Finch meets with him to offer him a job to help people. At first, Reese is reluctant and doesn't believe Finch's claims that he wants Reese to work him as a protector as Finch isn't forthcoming about the Machine but Finch soon starts to open up to Reese about it. Together, the pair attempt to stop violent crimes before they can happen, with Reese taking on the moniker of the man-in-the-suit.The first number they work together is that of Diane Hansen (played by Natalie Zea), an Assistant District Attorney involved in an organized Drug ring of Corrupt Cops. At first, Reese and Finch assume she will be the victim of the cops but it turns out she is helping them. Reese is captured but manages to escape and takes the gun of one of the Corrupt Cops called Lionel Fusco (played by Kevin Chapman). Reese uses Fusco's gun to shoot the leader of the corrupt cops, Detective James Stills (played by James Hanlon), in self-defense after saving the real victim, another Assistant District Attorney, James Wheeler (played by Brian d'Arcy James), who was investigating Hanson, after suspecting she might be dirty. After anonymously passing evidence of the corrupt cops' activities to Wheeler and Internal Affairs who then arrests them and exposing Hansen as corrupt, by swapping an evidence tape that plays a recording of her ordering the hit on Wheeler to a packed courtroom. Reese then blackmails Fusco (who had escaped unpunished) into helping him track down leads involving the "Persons of Interests".Eventually their activities lead to being hunted by the New York Police Department's Homicide Task Force, led by Detective Carter, whom is revealed to be a good cop in a crooked department, after chasing Reese for several episodes he saves her life, when a mob boss puts a target on her, she then has a change of heart and joins them in their crusade. Early on in the series Reese arranges for Fusco and Carter to be partners to keep tabs on Carter when she was hunting them, after she changes her mind about Reese and Finch, Reese decides not to tell either Fusco or Carter that the other is working with him and Finch to protect them as well as keeping them both in the dark as to how they know about the crimes aka "the Machine". Whilst being partnered with Carter, Fusco starts to see what it's like to be a good cop and starts to redeem himself of his own free will throughout the series.Meanwhile, when Carter was chasing Reese she managed to flag him up to the CIA who is now also after Reese. Led by Mark Snow (played by Michael Kelly) and his partner Tyrell Evans (played by Darien Sills-Evans), they want to finish the job to kill Reese. Also after Reese is the FBI led by Special Agent Nicholas Donnelly (played by Brennan Brown), who thinks Reese is still working for the CIA as a government hit-man after Reese got in the way of the FBI arresting a framed "Person of Interest".Soon a computer hacker named Root finds out about the Machine and decides she wants access to it to free it from human control. The team also faces dangers from the government which is keeping all knowledge of the machine secret from the public. As the series progresses the Team (consisting of Reese, Finch, Fusco and Carter) called by fans of the Show as Team Machine soon gains additional members including a dog called Bear,a Belgian Malinois with military training whom Reese rescues from Aryan Nationalists, who were using him as an attack dog and Sameen Shaw (played by Sarah Shahi) a former ISA operative, originally an assassin working for "The Program", the section of the Government dealing with the "relevant" numbers found by The Machine. She begins to have doubts after one of her targets proves to be an engineer working for the government; the assassination is part of the cover-up that conceals the existence of The Machine. As a result, her partner is killed and she becomes a number. Reese and Finch save her life and she subsequently works for them regularly.Team machine saves many lives, including Zoe Morgan (Paige Turco) a "fixer" who specializes in crisis management. Finch and Reese first met her as a person of interest who found out that a client of hers, a pharmaceutical company, was covering up the deaths of test patients. She ends up working with them on cases that require her skills. They also save the life of a man called Charlie Burton (Enrico Colantoni), only to discover he is a budding mob boss called Carl Elias. Elias is trying to take over the New York criminal underworld with the help of the crooked cops called HR. Elias was the one who tried to kill Carter and HR is who Fusco's gang was formerly affiliated with. Carter manages to get Elias arrested and with the help of the F.B.I, she manages to get a majority of H.R arrested. The only exceptions are the person in charge of HR, it's second in command Patrick Simmons (Robert John Burke) and Fusco who had gone undercover in HR on orders of Reese to find out who was running the group.It is soon revealed that the Mayor's aid Alonzo Quinn (Clarke Peters) is HRs leader and he plans on recruiting more dirty cops. Although a majority of HR are placed in Prison and ties to Elias's crew are cut, Alonzo forges new ties to the Yogorov family who are part of the Russian mob led by Peter Yogorov. Quinn arranges for the charges against the Yogorovs to disappear before their trial by planting evidence against the cop investigating them, Organised crime Detective Bill Szymanski (Michael McGlone) and telling his godson Narcotics Detective Cal Becher (Sterling K. Brown) who mistakenly things the tip-off is legit. Beecher is currently dating Carter but doesn't know about his Godfather's role in HR. Carter finds the proof to get Szymanski cleared but he and an ADA called Melinda Wright who was about to prosecute the Yogorovs get invited to a sit down with Quinn who murders them then gets another cop, Detective Raymond Terney to shoot him in the shoulder to cover up his crime.Beecher decides to investigate the tip but when he gets to close to discovering the truth about Quinn, Quin has him taken out in an ambush during a fake narcotics sting. Carter then gets framed for killing on unarmed man by Terney and is demoted to beat cop.
    

Person of Interest


            BASED ON A TRUE STORYThe film opens in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia in 1926. A young Katherine Coleman (Lidya Jewett) is waiting, naming the geometric shapes in a stained glass window, while her parents talk to a school official. The official wants to sent Katherine to a school for gifted students -- she's an advanced student and a genius at math. The only such school for "colored" students starts at the sixth grade and Katherine is only eight, so she will have to skip several grades. That worries her parents, but they agree it will be best for her, even though the family will have to move. Katherine's teacher gives her parents some money to help with the move, from a collection all the teachers contributed to.At the new school, a teacher asks Katherine to tackle an algebra problem on the blackboard; the camera zooms in on the teacher's hand as he passes Katherine the chalk. Katherine solves the problem without hesitation, then turns around and explains it to her teenaged classmates.In Hampton, Virginia, in 1961, an adult Katherine (Taraji P. Henson), now Katherine Goble, is stuck on the side of the road with the two co-workers she carpools with, Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe). A racist police officer stops and asks for identification. When they explain that they work at NASA, he changes his tune; he's surprised they hire black women, but he's impressed. He seems very well-versed in NASA and asserts that the Americans have to beat the Russians in the Space Race. He asks if they've met the astronauts; Mary answers that they have but it's clear from the others' expressions that they're kept separate from them. Dorothy manages to get the car up and running and the police officer provides them an escort -- lights and sirens blazing -- to the NASA Langley Research Center, which they find ironic since it's not usually a group of black people speeding to follow a police car.The Space Task Group watches a newsreel about Russia's launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite. In the ensuing discussion, leaders worry that the Soviets' access to space could allow them to spy on America. The man in charge demands that Al Harrison (Kevin Costner) get them up there because they can't justify the cost of a space program that doesn't put anyone in space. A man in the crowd, Paul Stafford (Jim Parsons), makes a snooty comment and is asked what his position is. He explains he is the head engineer.The three women work at the West Area Computing division, segregated from the rest of Langley Research Center, along with many other black women who work as computers -- meaning they do math by hand. Dorothy gives out new assignments to the group. Mary wants to work as an engineer but she is told she is going to be assisting the male engineers. Vivian Mitchell (Kirsten Dunst), Dorothy's boss, comes in to talk to Dorothy. She tells her the Space Task Group needs a new computer who can do analytic geometry. Dorothy assigns Katherine because she knows analytic geometry and she's the all-around best at numbers.Vivian (whom the black women all address as Mrs. Mitchell, though she calls them by their first names) escorts Katherine to the Flight Research Division elsewhere on the campus, telling her that the dress code for women is skirts below the knee and no jewelry except maybe pearls. She tells Katherine the department she's joining is demanding and has dismissed several computers lately; she doesn't expect Katherine to last long. She warns her not to speak to the department head, Mr. Harrison, unless he speaks to her first. Vivian notes that they've never had a colored person in that department and admonishes Katherine not to embarrass her. Katherine enters the large area where white men are working, some at desks and some at equations on blackboards so tall they need ladders. Mr. Harrison's glass-walled office overlooks the work area. Katherine is mistaken for a janitor and the men act rudely towards her.In the engineering department, Mary carries her papers through a sealed chamber where a space capsule is about to undergo wind tunnel testing; she stops to admire it. As the test countdown nears zero, the heel of her shoe gets caught in a grate on the floor and she can't pry it loose. The male engineers in the observation room shout that her life is not worth a shoe so she abandons it and joins the engineers behind the glass. The space capsule fails the wind test -- many of its louvered exterior heat shielding panels fly off. Mary and the engineers examine it and the head engineer, Karl Zielinski (Olek Krupa), muses that they could use a corrugated heat shield. Mary suggests that they try different fasteners for the existing panels instead. Zielinski says she ought to be an engineer, and she says that she's a negro woman, and she's "not gonna entertain the impossible." He asks, if she was a white man, would she wish to be an engineer? She responds that she wouldn't have to; she'd already be one. Mary explains that the only schools that have the programs needed to become an engineer are off limits to colored people.Dorothy asks Vivian if she can be promoted to supervisor since she's doing the work of a supervisor already. But Vivian refuses -- claiming it's not her call -- which Dorothy has to remain diplomatic about because otherwise she might lose her job. Meanwhile, Katherine is given a lot of work to check by Paul Stafford, who is short with her, telling her his numbers are perfect and he needs them checked by the end of the day. He has also blacked out a lot of information as if Katherine couldn't be trusted with it, saying she doesn't have a high enough security clearance. She has to hold it up to the light to read it because she can't solve the problems otherwise.Time passes and Katherine needs to use the restroom. She asks Ruth (Kimberly Quinn), who's white and the only other woman in the department, where it is and is told, "I don't know where YOUR bathroom is." Katherine goes outside, needing to pee, but realizes the bathroom in that building is for white women only and she can't sneak in because some white women are loitering nearby. She has to leave the building and run half a mile to the colored women's bathroom in the West Area Computing division she used to work in. She brings her work with her and continues to proof it while she pees.That night, Dorothy is in a bad mood as she drives the other two home, complaining about Vivian not making her a supervisor when she's been working as one for years. Katherine gets home and finds her three daughters fighting in their bedroom. (It turns out Katherine is a widow, and her mother (Donna Biscoe) takes care of her children while she works.) The young ones want to know why the oldest sister gets her own bed. Katherine says if they want to take on the same chores and responsibilities, they can earn the right to the bed. The younger girls agree they are fine sharing. They complain that their mom has been gone for a long time and she cites her new position as the cause.The three women go to church with their families and a handsome colonel (Mahershala Ali) catches Katherine's eye. At the barbecue afterwards, Mary signals for the man, Jim Johnson, to come over and talk to Katherine. He does, and Dorothy and Mary make themselves scarce. Jim and Katherine flirt with each other, but he gets off on the wrong foot when he hears about her work at NASA, expressing surprise that they "let women" do something "so taxing." She tells him off and marches away.Back at NASA, Katherine pours herself a cup of coffee, which makes all the white people in the Space Task Group stare at her in disapproving surprise -- in segregated Virginia, white and colored people don't usually drink from the same pot. Nobody says anything, but the next day when Katherine looks for coffee she finds a separate pot labeled "Colored."Al Harrison joins the group and asks if anyone wants to take a crack at an equation on a large chalkboard that has gone unsolved. Nobody notices but Katherine steps up and does the math. Time passes and Al asks who solved the problem. When Katherine admits she did, he asks what she does and Katherine tells him she is checking work. She shows him and he asks how she's able to work with all the blacked out sections. She demonstrates that you can read the blacked-out text if you hold the paper up to the light. She requests that she get uncensored reports in the future. Al agrees, saying that she's not a Russian spy so there's no reason to keep information from her. Stafford, who is in Harrison's office during this exchange, is chagrined.The NASA employees are gathered out on the launch site to meet the astronauts, including John Glenn (Glen Powell). Glenn will later pilot the Friendship 7, becoming the first American in orbit. He is discouraged from greeting the black women, who are standing apart from the white employees, but he comes over anyway and proves to be friendly.At a party where many couples are dancing to music on the radio, Col. Johnson approaches Katherine, who's very reserved and clearly still thinking about what he said about her work when they first met. He asks her to dance and apologizes for disrespecting her. They see each other often during the next months.Katherine is assigned to write up reports and, because the majority of the research is hers, puts her name on the byline after Paul Stafford's. When Stafford sees it, he makes her retype the cover sheet without her name because computers aren't allowed to author reports.On a rainy day, Katherine sprints the long distance to use the colored women's rest room. Al Harrison comes to her desk looking for her, but -- not for the first time -- she's missing. When she returns, Harrison asks her why she is gone for so long every day. Soaking wet, Katherine launches into a tirade about how she has to run half a mile to the west campus to use the colored women's rest room because there's no toilet she's allowed to use in the building they're working in. She adds that she's not allowed to drink coffee from the same pot as everyone else and she's been forbidden to wear any jewelry other than pearls, but she's never owned any -- NASA doesn't pay colored computers enough to afford pearls. Al listens closely. He doesn't say anything, but after Katherine storms out, he walks over to the coffee station and rips the "Colored" label off her coffee pot. In the next scene, a crowd watches as Al attacks the COLORED WOMEN bathroom sign in the West Area Computing division with a crowbar. When it falls, he says from now on, there will be no segregation of bathrooms: "Here at NASA, we all pee the same color."Dorothy has been curious about a large empty room near her office with windows facing the hallway. When she sees that a big digital computer has been installed there, she sneaks in and studies the IBM machine they've set up. Later, she takes her children to the library and finds a book on FORTRAN programming. A white woman spots her and complains she's in the wrong section. Dorothy tells her that they didn't have the book she wanted in the colored section. She is kicked out of the library but once on the bus, she reveals to her children that she has taken the FORTRAN book with her. When her son asks her about it, Dorothy says she's a taxpayer and the library is government-owned so she's entitled to take the book.Tension between Katherine and Paul Stafford continue over the issue of credit for the reports they both contribute to, and a new problem arises: the details of the Friendship mission are changing so fast that her calculations are often wrong by the time she's done with them. Katherine argues that she needs to sit in on meetings where new information is presented, but Paul says dismissively that women aren't allowed. She tells Al Harrison that she wants to be included in the meetings since she is responsible for updating the launch calculations every time there's a change of any kind -- to the launch time, payload, landing location, etc -- and changes are discussed at almost every meeting. Al points out there's no protocol for women attending meetings but she responds there's no protocol for a man circling the Earth either. Katherine points out that he makes the rules because he's the boss -- he just needs to act like one. Despite Paul's protests, Al agrees to let her sit in, saying that they all work together or not at all. But he tells her to keep quiet.Katherine follows Al into the meeting, which includes John Glenn and a lot of NASA big-wigs. One of them complains to Al that they need a way to figure out where Glenn's Friendship 7 space capsule will land. There's a long silence while Al contemplates the problem. Then he holds out a piece of chalk to Katherine and asks her to take a stab at it. The camera zooms in on the hand-off of the chalk, recreating the scene early in the movie when the teacher asks a much younger Katherine to step up to the blackboard. Katherine isn't prepared for this -- she thought she was there just to listen -- but she thinks it through and covers half the blackboard with a set of equations that predict, based on current plans, that Glenn will splash down at a particular latitude and longitude near the Bahamas. No one can see any flaws in her logic or her numbers, so they're all impressed, including John Glenn.Mary goes to a judge and asks if she can attend a school that does not allow colored people so she can get a degree in engineering. She is granted permission to enroll exclusively in night classes, making her the first colored woman to attend. She goes to class and the white students are taken aback but it does not bother her.Dorothy has been reading IBM documentation, brushing up on FORTRAN, and paying secret visits to the IBM computer in the data center. The men tasked with getting the machine working are having a hard time, and Al has threatened not to pay them. Dorothy has also asked some canny questions and discovered that once it proves its reliability, the IBM -- which can run computations many times faster than a whole room full of human computers -- will replace her West Area Computing unit. One evening in the data center, Dorothy notices that one of the cables on the IBM's patch panel is in the wrong place and reconnects it correctly, which fixes the problem the men were having. Dorothy is testing a program on a set of punch cards when the male technicians rush in and ask her what she's doing. They're terrified that she might break something until they realize that Dorothy, puttering around in her spare time, has managed a feat that has eluded them for weeks: she's gotten the computer to run a program and produce meaningful results.When Vivian notes that they're short on computer programmers, Dorothy reveals that she has become proficient in FORTRAN, and she's been teaching the computers in her group about FORTRAN and the IBM machine. She arranges for all 30 of the women she supervises to come along and join the data center staff. Dorothy tells the women that they've all been reassigned and they walk as a group to their new department.One evening Katherine comes home to find her daughters dressed up and her dinner table set for a special occasion. She asks her mother what's going on and Mrs. Coleman says it's not her secret to tell. Jim Johnson comes out of the kitchen with a plate of food -- he's cooked them dinner -- and a small jeweler's box, which he puts on the table in front of Katherine. She says yes before he gets his proposal out, though he follows up with touching words about how he's joining the family, not just marrying Katherine.With John Glenn's launch approaching, Katherine continues calculating trajectories and writing reports, but now she can include her own name in the bylines: her value to the project is fully recognized and Paul has finally gotten past his racist resentment. He even brings her coffee while she's typing. But Al tells her that, now that Friendship 7 is about to be launched, the Space Task Group's need for Katherine has ended. Everyone in the department appreciates her and as she packs up her things, Ruth gives Katherine a wedding gift from the whole group: a string of pearls.The day of the launch, Vivian runs into Dorothy in the bathroom. She apologizes to Dorothy for never making her supervisor. Vivian tells Dorothy she has nothing against the black women under her supervision and always did the best she could for them. Before walking out, Dorothy studies her and says pityingly, "I know you really believe that."The whole world tunes in to watch John Glenn's launch. A problem arises in the control room when the IBM computer's calculations for Glenn's flight don't match the previous day's. One set of calculations must be wrong, and without the correct figures, it's not safe to take off. Glenn requests that Katherine do the math by hand because he trusts her brain more than he trusts the IBM machine. Al is able to locate her and she sits down to check the calculations at her old desk in the West Area Computing room. Katherine runs the numbers, identifies the correct set of figures, and races back to the control room to hand the notebook to Al, who is inside. The door is shut in Katherine's face. She stands outside, dejected, despite having saved the day. A long moment passes and then Al returns, handing her a pass that grants her access to the control room and ushering her inside with him.Fifty million people watch the lift-off on television while Katherine and Al watch from the control room. We see the horizon from the space capsule as John Glenn pilots Friendship 7 into orbit. After successful orbits around Earth, Glenn notices a warning light: there's a problem with the fasteners for the heat shield. Mary, who's watching the launch on TV, realizes what's wrong and rushes to a payphone to call NASA. She tells them that Glenn must keep the retro pack in place during reentry, rather than jettisoning it as planned, because the retro pack's straps might keep the heat shield in place. If the heat shield blows away, the capsule will burn up as it reenters the atmosphere and Glenn will die. This advice is passed to Glenn, who's having a bumpy ride and soon reports that the capsule is growing very hot. But after a tense few minutes when the control room loses contact with Friendship 7, Mary's advice proves good -- the straps hold enough of the heat shield down to save Glenn's life, and he splashes down safely.After the launch, the activity at NASA dies down. Vivian finally promotes Dorothy to supervisor in the Analysis and Computation Division and addresses her as Mrs. Vaughan. Mary gets her degree and becomes an engineer.Katherine went on to calculate the trajectories for the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the Moon and for Apollo 13, as well. President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015. In 2016, the Langley Research Center in Virginia where she worked was renamed the Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility. She retired in 1986 and remains married to Jim Johnson to this day.
    

Hidden Figures


            
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The Best of Enemies

Empire


            ALRIGHT! ALRIGHT! ALRIGHT!Funnyman Kevin Hart is BACK and starring in the theatrical version of his 2011 LAUGH AT MY PAIN comedy tour that swept the nation and earned more than $15,000,000 in ticket sales! The 90-city LAUGH AT MY PAIN tour is one of the most successful Comedy Concerts in history. Hart's 2-day performance of LAUGH AT MY PAIN (at LA Live's Nokia Theatre), raised the bar and broke Eddie Murphy's long standing record of being the first African-American Comedian to surpass over $1.1 million two-day live Comedy show ticket sales.Hartbeat Productions and CODEBLACK Entertainment are proud to bring you the historical, record-breaking and side-splitting stand-up of Kevin Hart in LAUGH AT MY PAIN. John Sellers of The Wrap says, Hart's highly successful 'Laugh at My Pain' stand-up tour has turned him into a hot commodity in Hollywood.Kevin Hart is one of the most versatile and sought after comedic actors in film and television. According to Box Office Mojo, Hart has starred films that have grossed over $510,000,000 in Domestic ticket sales at the box office, making him one of the most recognized faces of comedy today.His credits include the hit films Death At A Funeral, Superhero Movie, Meet Dave, The 40-Year Old Virgin, Scary Movie 4,Little Fockers, Barbershop, Soul Plane, Along Came Polly and Not Easily Broken and is set to star in the highly-anticipated romantic comedy Think Like A Man (based on the runaway Best-Selling book by comedian Steve Harvey) as well as the upcoming film, The Five Year Engagement, also starring 2007 Golden Globe Award Winner Emily Blunt and Jason Segel (Forgetting Sarah Marshall and TVs How I Met Your Mother).On Television, Hart recently hosted the 11th Annual BET Awards (2011), which was the #1 Awards Show on Cable with over 7.71 million viewers. Hart also premiered his own one-hour comedy special Seriously Funny (2010) on Comedy Central and has hosted BETs revamped version of the classic stand-up comedy series Comic View: One Mic Stand that also helped catapult the careers of renown comedians such as D.L. Hughley and Cedric the Entertainer.After a successful performance during amateur night at a local Philadelphia comedy club, and winning several amateur comedy competitions, Hart left his day job as a shoe salesman and began his career as a full time comedian, capturing audiences at The Boston Comedy Club, Carolines, Stand-Up NY, The Laugh Factory and The Comedy Store. His first appearance at the Montreal Just for Laughs Comedy Festival led to his first role in the feature film Paper Soldiers (featuring an All-Star cast including Jay Z, Beanie Sigal, Memphis Bleek, and Kevin Carroll).Experience LAUGH AT MY PAIN, the show that quickly became a national phenomenon. Catch the original, never-before-seen Raw and Uncut backstage footage, and travel back to Philly with Kevin Hart where he began his journey to become one of the funniest and most successful comedians of all time.Get an up-close and personal look at Kevin Hart and get ready to laugh til it hurts.
    

Kevin Hart: Laugh at My Pain


            After saving the arcade from the Cy-Bugs invasion and from Turbo's revenge, six years have passed when Wreck-It Ralph and Vanellope von Schweetz are still best friends who hang out every night after work in Litwak's Family Fun Center and Arcade. However, six years of being a racer in Sugar Rush has caused Vanellope to express quandaries with the increasing predictability of her game, so Ralph tries to surprise Vanellope with a new hidden track in Sugar Rush. Vanellope enjoys the track but goes against the controls of the player to ride it, causing the wheel on the console to get stuck, and the player to accidentally remove the wheel from the game. Mr. Litwak inadvertently breaks the wheel while trying to reattach it. Knowing that the company who made the part went out of business years ago, Litwak has no choice but to unplug Sugar Rush, rendering Vanellope and its citizens homeless.After a conversation with Fix-It Felix Jr. in Tapper's, Ralph decides to venture with Vanellope via the newly installed Wifi router to the Internet to find and purchase a new wheel for Sugar Rush from eBay. The two follow Litwak's avatar and meet KnowsMore, a search engine who points them towards eBay. Ralph and Vanellope successfully acquire the wheel via auction, but find they have no money to complete its purchase, which they are told will expire within 24 hours.After consulting a pop-up advertiser named Spamley, Ralph and Vanellope venture to a popular online game, Slaughter Race, to steal a valuable car they can sell to cover the auction. After engaging in a high-speed chase throughout Slaughter Race, the car's owner Shank commends Vanellope for her racing skills, causing visible jealously in Ralph at the budding friendship. Despite not allowing the pair to take her car, Shank points the duo towards video sharing site BuzzzTube after posting a video of Ralph taking a leaf blower to the face. They meet up with an algorithm named Yesss who gives Ralph the funds earned from his videos' popularity. When the money earned turns out to not be enough to keep Vanellope from returning to Slaughter Race to consult Shank, Ralph decides to make more videos playing off the top trends to earn more money.Ralph becomes a viral sensation with Yesss playing off this by having her assistants venture out into the internet and spamming users with pop up ads. Wanting to feel useful, Vanellope offers up her services as a pop-up advertiser. Not wanting Vanellope to fall back into Slaughter Race, Ralph has Yesss appoint her to the fansite Oh My Disney! where Vanellope realizes that she is an unauthorized advertiser and ends up meeting the Disney Princesses. The Princesses speak to Vanellope and stress the importance of finding and pursuing one's dream through song, inspiring her to return to Slaughter Race.Meanwhile, Ralph successfully earns the money for their eBay bid, despite being hurt after reading the rude and mean-spirited comments posted on his videos. After being accidentally answered over the phone and put on mute, Ralph finds Vanellope back in Slaughter Race confiding in Shank about her desire to stay there and leave the arcade. Desperate to not lose his friend, Ralph approaches Spamley about any possible virus that would make Slaughter Race more boring and less desirable for Vanellope. Spamley takes Ralph to the dark web where they meet Double Dan, who gives them an insecurity virus that analyzes any imperfection and spreads it to other parts of its surrounding area. The virus, scanning Vanellope, spreads her glitch throughout Slaughter Race, causing the game to shut down and reboot, almost killing Vanellope and Ralph in the process until Ralph breaks out from the game before it shuts down.Vanellope discovers Ralph's actions and berates him for them, asking him to leave her alone. The surviving virus escapes Slaughter Race and scans Ralph's insecurities and spreads them throughout the Internet itself. The virus manifests into hundreds of alternate versions of Ralph that tear up the Internet in a rampant search for Vanellope. With the help of Knowsmore and Yesss, the pair attempt to lead the horde of virus Ralphs to an anti-virus software. The virus Ralphs form a giant Ralph that capture Vanellope, as Ralph attempts to fight them off. Ralph catches their attention and calls them out on their selfish possessiveness of Vanellope, claiming that letting go and accepting her choice to stay in Slaughter Race does not have to mean the end of their friendship, and can actually strengthen their bond. Having let go of his insecurities, the gigantic virus Ralph disappears, in the process dropping Ralph, who is saved with the help of Spamley and the Disney Princesses.The Internet is restored and Vanellope decides to stay in Slaughter Race, with Ralph returning to the arcade and participating in activities with the other arcade members, while regularly video chatting with Vanellope. He watches the sunrise from Game Central Station, coming to peace with the changes in his life as he heads to work with Felix.In a mid-credits scene, Ralph and Vanellope crash a child's Pancake Milkshake game on her iPad. In a post-credits scene, a Frozen 2 trailer is teased, only for Ralph to rickroll the audience.
    

Ralph Breaks the Internet

Variety Studio: Actors on Actors

From the Rough

Hurricane Season

Mary J Blige's My Life

Baby Boy


            Claire (Tina Fey) and Phil Foster (Steve Carell) sleep peacefully in their bedroom, till they're jumped on by their kids, who demand breakfast. During breakfast, Claire gives her daughter a one-two-three warning, and is amazed that it still works. Phil makes the kids' lunches, but he's left all the drawers open, resulting in Claire almost tripping on them. Phil is a New Jersey tax lawyer and Clair is a realtor. When they get back home, they're totally bushed. Katy, their next-door neighbor, drops by to baby-sit the kids, as it's their Date Night. Though neither is really feeling up to it, they go to a restaurant for their date. They have potato skins and salmon (their usual) and watch other couples and analyze their actions, quite comically. Still their date is rather boring and they return home. Phil wants to fool around before sleeping, but Claire's already put in her retainer. He gets grossed out when she removes it and they spend yet another night without sex.The next day, they go to their usual book club at their friends', Brad (Mark Ruffalo) and Haley's (Kristen Wiig), house. They're reading some book about a young Afghan girl who's having her first period and is traumatized or something. Phil doesn't seem all that impressed, but the ladies (Phil and Brad are the only guys there) feel sad for the poor fictitious girl. Brad speaks to Phil and tells him that he and Haley are getting divorced, but keeping it under wraps for their kids. They're like perfect roommates, he says, but that's all. While he's sad about it, Haley is excited and tells Claire that she has all the freedom to whatever she wants (like have sex with three strangers). She advises Claire to "walk among the birds."The next Date Night, Claire dresses up well. When Phil walks in, he's impressed and decides that they're going to Manhattan for dinner. They go to a fancy restaurant, Claw, without a reservation. The snooty Maitre D' tells them that reservations are taken months in advance and asks them to go to the bar and wait for a table. They go to the crowded bar and wait. Claire is all for leaving and going to a less fancy restaurant, but Phil wants her to have something special. Just then, the hostess calls out, "Tripplehorn, party of two." When no one answers after a while, Phil seizes the moment and shouts, "Us!" much to Claire's surprise. They're shown to their table. Claire is a bit unsure about taking someone else's reservation. The prices are crazy expensive. They clink empty wine glasses, even though Claire notes that it's bad luck. As they eat their overpriced but delicious risotto, they analyze other couples at the restaurant. They notice that Will.I.Am is also there, with his companion. Phil tells Claire to go near Will.I.Am and pose, while he takes a goofy picture of her on her cell phone.As they're about to finish, a couple of tough-looking guys - Armstrong (Jimmi Simpson) and Collins (Common) - walk up to their table and address them as the "Tripplehorns." They tell them that they're in trouble. The Fosters think that they've been busted for taking someone else's reservation. Armstrong and Collins escort them outside, where they frisk them and take their IDs and cell phones. Claire and Phil are a bit shocked and ask what this is about. Armstrong pulls out a gun and holds it sideways at Phil, freaking Phil out ("sideways means killshot!"). They tell them that they want the flash drive that they stole from mob boss, Joe Miletto, and are now using as blackmail. As the situation gets tenser, Phil says that he has the flash drive and that it's in Central Park.The four of them go to Central Park (in the Fosters' car) and pull up to a deserted spot. Claire wishes that Phil had chosen a more populated spot. Phil, thinking that night-boating is prevalent in New York, tells them that the drive is in the boathouse. They go to the boathouse and bust inside. Claire tries to act as if Phil's got a condition with his penis and that they need to get back to the car for his medication. Instead, he tells her to "get the flash drive". He directs her to a dark corner of the boathouse. As the two gunmen and Claire look for it, Phil seizes an oar and knocks the two gunmen out and runs out with Claire. They jump onto a boat and Phil guns the engine as hard as he can... only to find that they've chosen the slowest boat in New York! As they inch closer to the other bank, the two gunmen open fire at them. Phil and Claire duck into the boat, to evade the bullets. When they (finally) get to the other side, they hold the boat upside-down on their heads as protection and run blindly through the woods, screaming bloody murder. Bumping into a tree, they drop the boat and climb up a wall and emerge into a crowded place. The hoods, however, lose them and are livid. Phil throws up quite a bit.They go to the police station where they speak to Detective Arroyo (Taraji P. Henson) about their ordeal, mentioning Joe Miletto. When she hears that they took someone else's reservation, she's a bit disgusted. As they speak, Claire notices the two gunmen have entered the place - they're cops, for crying out loud! She hints to the still-unaware Phil that they have to "go visit their gay friends for dinner." When he sees them, they duck down, much to Arroyo's bemusement. They start rambling about having to go, but Arroyo sternly tells them to stay put. The bad cops notice them. Just then, Arroyo is called outside by her partner, Detective Walsh. The Fosters take to their heels and run out. Outside the station, they both start freaking out, realizing that Joe Miletto has cops in his pocket and that they can't trust anyone. Claire wants to go home, but Phil tells her that the bad cops have their IDs and will know where they live. Scared about their kids' well-being, they call Katy from a payphone, and tell her to stay longer and get the kids out of the house. They have to promise to pay Katy a lot more, before they notice the bad cops coming and run. Claire asks what a flash drive is and, after Phil explains, says that she calls it a "computer sticky thing".They're on the run and scared. Claire asks what they're going to do. Phil says that they have to find the real Tripplehorns, as they'll have the flash drive. To do that though, they'll have to go back to Claw again. They act as a pair of snooty glitterati-types (Phil wears his jacket on backwards) and speak to the hostess (who gave them their table). He acts like he knows Will.I.Am and that he left his cell phone at Will's table. He goes to the table with the hostess, while Claire finds out the Tripplehorns' number in the reservation register and writes it down. When they leave (after running into the hard glass door of Claw), Claire tells Phil that one of her clients (a private eye or something) will be able to help them track down that number. First she needs to break into her realty office and find his address. After breaking in, they look around, as the alarm blares. Claire finds the address for Grant Holbrooke. She hits her knee on a drawer left open by Phil. They escape before the security can show up.Detectives Arroyo and Walsh visit Joe Miletto (Ray Liotta) at one of his clubs and ask him what his beef is with the Fosters. He feigns ignorance and tells them to get out and not come back without a warrant. After they leave, he calls up Collins and asks if they have a problem.Meanwhile, the Fosters go to Holbrooke's place. They buzz his apartment. After Claire reintroduces herself, he buzzes them in. As they climb up, Phil is impressed that Claire can remember her clients so well. When the door opens, he sees why. There stands Grant Holbrooke (Mark Wahlberg), shirtless, muscles bulging everywhere. Phil is understandably not too happy, while Claire is understandably extremely happy to be there. When they tell him their full story, he agrees to help them find the Tripplehorns. They give him the phone number. Holbrooke's oh-so-hot Israeli girlfriend comes inside and (in broken English) asks if they're here to have sex with them. When they say no, she's relieved, telling Holbrooke in Hebrew that "they look old and weak."Meanwhile, a detective informs Arroyo about the break-in at Claire's realty office and that they were looking for a Grant Holbrooke's address. The bad cops, Armstrong and Collins, hear this and butt in, asking about the Fosters. Arroyo, smelling something rotten about the dirty cops, blows them off. The bad cops "leave for the day."Holbrooke takes the Fosters into his office, where he's got quite an awesome computer set-up with Minority Report-style monitors. Using some high tech satellite tracking and stuff, he manages to find out about the Tripplehorns. The cell phone is registered to Tom Felton. He gives them the address. Just then, the bad cops buzz the apartment. Claire freaks out a bit, but Holbrooke tells them to go out from his garage. As they wait for the cops to enter the building, they steal one of Holbrooke's expensive sports cars and drive off. As they drive, Phil wants to know why she was so flirty and charming with Holbrooke. Why can't she light up for him the same way? Claire gets mad and tells him that she goes through a horrible day every day in the office and at home. Phil says that Claire never lets Phil do anything, because she's afraid he'll mess up. She brings up his leaving drawers open and the number of times she's hurt herself as a result. She tells him that sometimes she dreams of being alone for a day. They calm a bit and talk about Brad and Haley, how's they're like "perfect roommates" and how they don't want to end up like them.They drive over to the Feltons' place. They buzz the apartment, but they get no answer. Phil decides to go up using the fire escape. When they climb up to the apartment, they see the place is quite a dump. As they quietly go through the place, Claire bumps into a stack of VHS tapes, causing them to fall on her, making a loud noise. The Feltons enter from the adjoining room and rush the Fosters. Phil pulls out an antique gun (which he stole from Holbrooke's apartment) and orders them to sit and answer his questions. The Feltons are Tom "Taste" Felton (James Franco) and Whippit (Mila Kunis). They trade insults with the Fosters for a bit, though Phil isn't exactly great at it, and then quarrel between themselves. As the Feltons squabble, the Fosters realize that their lives are not all that different. Phil asks about the flash drive that they stole. He says that the bad cops are after them. On hearing this, Taste gives Phil the flash drive, telling him that since Miletto thinks they're the Tripplehorns, they can return it themselves. He tells Whippit to start packing as they've practiced. After a long kiss, the Feltons leave via the fire escape, leaving the thoroughly bewildered Fosters behind. The Fosters leave.Detectives Arroyo and Walsh go to Holbrooke's place to question him about the Fosters. He tells them that he's already spoken to the other cops and that they should ask them. Arroyo asks about these "other cops."Just as the Fosters get into Holbrooke's sportscar, they're fired upon by Armstrong and Collins. As they race down a one-way street, they collide into a taxi head-on. Now the two cars are stuck together. They try reversing, but to no avail. With the bad cops on their tail, Phil is forced to drive forward, taking the taxi and the terrified driver along for the ride. As they drive, Phil tells Claire to take the wheel and climbs through the open windshield into the taxi, to stop the cabbie from pushing down on the brakes. He asks if the cabbie has a laptop or something to read the flash drive on. The cabbie has a Kindle. When Phil turns it on, he notices the same book that the book club was reading, about the Afghan menstruation thing ("Really?"). He looks at the drive's contents on the Kindle and sees pornographic photos of DA Frank Crenshaw on it. He's a DA who says he wants to clean up the streets and actually carries a broom around. Now they're being chased by other police cruisers as well as by the dirty cops. Phil tells Claire to turn. She does, causing her to go in reverse while pulling the taxi. As they turn, they find that the road is blocked by cops and cruisers. The cabbie takes charge and tells Claire to stop inches away from the cruisers and accelerate forward. They escape the cops, as the other moving cruisers and the dirty cops' car crashes into the blockade. As they celebrate their escape, they get jackknifed by an SUV, that finally separates them. Claire manages to stop the sports car, but the taxi's brakes are shot. The cabbie bails and Phil and the cab splash into the river. He manages to swim back ashore, but the flash drive is gone.Detective Arroyo arrives at the scene of the cruiser pile-up and enquires why Armstrong and Collins are there. They give her a story, but she doesn't seem to buy it. She tells them to leave.The Fosters take the subway. Phil is wearing Holbrooke's tracksuit (which he got from the smashed-up sportscar). Claire asks what was on the flash drive. Phil says that it was a ledger about DA Frank Crenshaw and his activities with prostitutes in the Peppermint Hippo Bar. They realize that the Feltons were not blackmailing Joe Miletto, but the district attorney, and those dirty cops are working for him. With nowhere else to turn, they return to Holbrooke's house, where he answers the door, again shirtless. They need his help, but he says he's not interested. Phil pleads with him, saying he has a plan. He ends his heartfelt plea by asking Holbrooke to please, please put on a shirt!The Fosters go to the Peppermint Hippo Bar. They speak to the bouncer outside, acting as pimp (Phil) and hooker (Claire). He lets them in. Claire goes into a ladies changing room and puts on a rather sexy costume. Phil's eyes almost pop out when he sees her. He's impressed and a bit aroused. They go through the raunchy bar and find out that DA Crenshaw's in a private room. Phil gives Claire a pep talk, telling her to "pop that koochie". They go towards the private room and are told to look at the camera. They're both let inside, because Crenshaw wants Phil as well. He's appalled, but Claire gives him the same pep talk, telling him to "swing that pole."Inside, they see DA Crenshaw, sitting in a corner, living it up with three hookers at his side. He sees them and says he likes Claire and Phil also, as he thinks he's androgynous. He tells them to dance on a pole. The Fosters do a rather vanilla dance, which the DA doesn't like. So they "spice it up," quite awkwardly and hilariously, but finally the DA starts to like it a lot. After the dance, the DA is interested and asks them how much for a night with Claire. Phil and Claire introduce themselves as "the Tripplehorns." Just then, the dirty cops show up and, holding guns at them, take them to the roof of the bar. Crenshaw tells Phil that if he doesnt hand over the drive immediately, he'll have Claire's arms broken. Phil lies, saying that the drive is with Holbrooke. Collins confirms that Holbrooke is ex-military and the "real deal." Just then, Miletto enters with his goons and also asks about the flash drive. Phil lets slip that the drive contained pornographic pictures of DA Crenshaw. Crenshaw is shocked and confronts Miletto, saying he thought they were ledgers that proved he was corrupt. Miletto tells him that he was protecting him. The situation deteriorates and soon all the bad guys are holding guns at each other, in a Mexican Standoff. Claire starts to freak out, but Phil calms her down, telling her to do the "one-two-three warning." She gets mad and yells at everyone that she's had it and that everybody had better put their guns down before she counts to three. ONE... TWO..... THREE!At the count of three, the cops burst in and soon all bad guys are arrested, without a shot being fired. Detective Arroyo approaches the Fosters and takes them aside. Phil gives her a tape of the incriminating conversations among the bad guys. She has the DA and Miletto arrested on quite a few charges, including prostitution. She asks the Fosters what their story is. Claire tiredly replies that they're just a boring couple that wanted to have a nice quiet dinner. She offers to drop them home, but Phil says that he promised his wife a good meal.They go to a diner, where they eat pancakes. They say they should do this again soon, except without the guns and violence. He tells Claire he'd choose her, 'every time.' Claire smiles and sits next to Phil on his side of the booth. They return home by late morning. At the door, they lay down on the lawn and kiss for a looong time.
    

Date Night

Taken from Me: The Tiffany Rubin Story


            12-year-old Dre Parker (Jaden Smith) and his mother, Sherry (Taraji P. Henson), arrive in Beijing from West Detroit to start a new life. Dre develops a crush on a young violinist, Mei Ying (Wen Wen Han), who reciprocates his attention, but Cheng (Zhenwei Wang), a kung fu prodigy whose family is close to Mei Ying's, attempts to keep them apart by beating Dre, and later harassing and humiliating him in and around school. During a particularly brutal beating by Cheng and his friends, the enigmatic maintenance man of Dre's building, Mr. Han (Jackie Chan), comes to Dre's aid, revealing himself as a kung fu master who adeptly dispatches Dre's tormentors.After Han mends Dre's injuries using fire cupping, they go to Cheng's teacher, Master Li (Yu Rongguang), to attempt to make peace, but the brutal Li, who teaches his students to show no mercy to their enemies, challenges Dre to a fight with Cheng. When Han declines, Li threatens him, saying that they will not be allowed to leave his school unless either Dre or Han himself fights. Han acquiesces, but insists the fight take place at an upcoming tournament, and that Li's students leave Dre alone until the tournament. The amused Li agrees.Han begins training Dre, but Dre is frustrated that Han merely has Dre spend hours taking off his jacket, hanging it up, dropping it, and then putting it back on again. After days of this, Dre refuses to continue, until Han demonstrates to him that the repetitive arm movements in question were Han's method of teaching Dre defensive block and strike techniques, which Dre is now able to display instinctively when prompted by Han's mock attacks. Han emphasizes that the movements Dre is learning apply to life in general, and that serenity and maturity, not punches and power, are the true keys to mastering the martial arts. During one lesson in the Wudang Mountains, Dre notices a female kung fu practitioner (Michelle Yeoh, in an uncredited cameo[4]) apparently copying the movements of a cobra before her, but Han informs him that it was the cobra that was imitating the woman, as in a mirror reflection. Dre wants Han to teach him this technique, which includes linking Han's hand and feet to Dre's via bamboo shafts while practicing their forms, but Dre's subsequent attempt to use this reflection technique on his mother is unsuccessful.As Dre's friendship with Mei Ying continues, she agrees to attend Dre's tournament, as does Dre her upcoming recital. Dre persuades Mei Ying to cut school for a day of fun, but when she is nearly late for her violin recital, which has been rescheduled for that day, she tells him that her parents have deemed him a bad influence, and forbid her from spending any more time with him. Later, when Dre finds Mr. Han despondent, he learns that it is the anniversary of his wife and son's deaths, which occurred years ago when he lost control of his car while arguing with his wife. Dre reminds Han that one of his lessons was in perseverance, and that Han needs to heal from his loss, and tries to help him do so. Han then assists Dre in reading a note, in Chinese, of apology to Mei Ying's father, who, impressed, allows Mei to attend the tournament.At the tournament, the under-confident Dre is slow to achieve parity with his opponents, but soon begins to beat them, and advances to the semifinals, as does Cheng, who violently finishes off his opponents. Dre eventually comes up against Liang, another of Master Li's students, who is instructed by Master Li to break Dre's leg. When Liang insists that he can beat Dre, Master Li sternly tells him that he doesn't want him beaten, but broken. During the match, Liang delivers a devastating kick to Dre's leg, along with a series of brutal follow-up punches. Although Liang is disqualified for his illegal strikes, Dre is incapacitated, which would allow Cheng to win by default.Despite Han's insistence that he has earned respect for his performance in the tournament, Dre convinces Han to use his fire cupping technique to mend his leg, in order to see the tournament to the end. Dre returns to the arena, where he confronts Cheng. Dre delivers impressive blows, but Cheng counters with a debilitating strike to Dre's already injured leg. Dre struggles to get up, and adopts the one-legged form he first learned from the woman on the mountain, attempting to use the reflection technique to manipulate Cheng's movements. Cheng charges Dre, but Dre flips, and catches Cheng with a kick to his head, winning the tournament, along with the respect of Cheng and his classmates, both for himself and Mr. Han.
    

The Karate Kid

Not Easily Broken


            The movie begins with a court scene, the judge admonishing Melinda for her behavior and advising her to attend therapy to avoid harsher consequences such as jail time. She glares at the other side of the courtroom and has to be nudged by her attorney to reply she understands. She attends a therapy session resentful at having to be there and begins telling her story of betrayal to the court appointed counselor. She begins by describing how she met Robert as they crashed into each other on campus. Their schoolwork gets exchanged accidentally and Robert locates her dorm room to return her papers to her and reclaim his own. There is an instant attraction and he offers to help her with her paper as he's already taken the class. And they begin working together and seeing each other. Melinda fails the assignment and as she's telling Robert about the sacrifice her mother is making to send her to school she sees her two sisters walk up. They give her the news that her mother has passed away.Robert comes to the house after the funeral services and her sisters give him the interrogation introducing him to Melinda's ex-boyfriend from high school. Robert leaves to return home appearing to feel out of place but Melinda runs after him and offers to drive him home. She takes him to an old RV he says he lives in that is housed in the driveway of his aunt. They talk and eventually walk into the bedroom where she advises us she loses her virginity. They are a couple now and Melinda has been left her mother's house and $350,000 in insurance that her sisters advise her not to tell Robert about but by then she has.On one of their dates he tells her that he plans to sell a battery he's invented that will be revolutionary. But he's concerned when the company he has been trying to sell it to contacts him he will have no way of making it to their office as he has no transportation. Melinda believes it's her responsibility to purchase him a car to ensure whenever that call comes he will be able to get there. But she notices almost immediately that the frequency of his calls become less and less. And she begins to suspect he may be cheating on her. She drives over to his RV and sees a hand pressed against the window and hears the sounds of love making. Quite naturally she turns her jeep around and rams it several times into the side of the RV until it falls on its side. Robert escapes through the bedroom window and pulls a young girl out we later learn is Diana. Melinda throws a brick through the window of the car she purchased and passed out. She explains that when she was driving the jeep into the RV she also hit her abdomen on the steering wheel causing internal injuries, internal bleeding and forces her ro have a hysterectomy.Robert attempts to see her in the hospital but her watchdog sisters tell him to leave as they blame him for what happened to their baby sister. Her friend Sara promises to let him know how she is.When Melinda comes home from the hospital to convalesce Robert calls out to her from outside and her sisters are livid. She begs them to let her see him so she can find out why he did this to her. He comes in and apologizes telling her that the girl met nothing to him and he has no idea why he did that but he would never do it again. Melinda forgives him and they start back to seeing each other. On another date Robert lets her know he will not have the money to complete his last two semesters and she opens her checkbook up at the bursar's office to pay his tuition. They get married and her money from her mother dwindles down to nothing. Robert has a felony from when he was a teenager and has difficulty finding work with a record. Everything they have goes into his battery invention and Melinda works two jobs and mortgages the house to support him.18 years later the house is about to be foreclosed and the company Robert has been sending videos and letters to every week all these years still hasn't responded to him. He finds out that Diana from college has become an admin to the President of the company and he seeks her guidance on what to do. Melinda's sisters come to the house to confront her about the foreclosure and her brother in laws offer Robert a job. They have a significant client that will pay for their delivery service in advance if they just comply with his delivery requirements. They explain that they will give the money to Robert and Melinda to keep the house in exchange for him working for them. Robert agrees but tells Melinda he's disappointed she didn't defend him to her family.Robert is now a delivery driver for his brother in law's business and loading his truck for the day. Melinda's sister gets in the truck to check the odometer and finds a women's wallet. It belongs to Diana. The sisters rush to Melinda's office job she got from her friend Sara to tell her Robert is being unfaithful again. Robert receives a call from Diana that her boss wants to see him at 11:30 with the battery prototype and he ditches his delivery job to go home and get ready. Melinda has returned home to confront him for being unfaithful and won't believe anything he says. They begin to fight and her sisters arrive in time to pull her off of him. He leaves for his meeting and her sisters take her into the house.Robert goes to the boardroom and is offered $700,000 for the battery and all the rights to the research. He is devastated. He believes his work is worth millions and wants to keep his licenses and copyright. He turns it down and goes home to tell Melinda what happened. She's in the living room smoking a cigarette surrounded by her sisters and brother in laws. She tells him it's over. And has all his possessions in a pile on the floor. He begs her to believe him that he hasn't been unfaithful and tells her about the offer. But she tells him to leave.Melinda loses the house and has to move in with her sister. Robert moves into a shelter and lies about his felony to get a job as a dishwasher. Melinda begins dating her boyfriend from high school and on one of their dates sees Robert washing dishes in the kitchen. They go to the attorney's office to sign the papers, Robert again asks her not to do this but she refuses to speak to him. While at work one day Robert gets a call from Diana asking why she can't reach him. He tells her his phone was stolen and that he's living in a shelter. She tells him she's coming to get him. He begins staying with her and one day she comes home from work with paperwork and a check for $75 million dollars. The company met his demands and paid for his work.Robert comes to Melinda's job with roses and apologizes for everything. Gives her a check for $10 million dollars and the keys and deed to her mom's house. He tells her he loves her. She returns home to her sister's house and they are all there with her high school boyfriend. She shows them the check and blames her sisters for causing her to lose everything. She insults everyone and goes to her bedroom. Robert is in his apartment overlooking the city in a tux and there's a knock at the door. Its Melinda. She thought that his visit met he was still in love with her and she tells him she still loves him and opens her coat to reveal lingerie. Diana enters the room and introduces herself as his fiance. Melinda leaves and begins stalking them online. She's now back in her mother's home with a mattress on the floor and a table with a laptop surrounded by empty liquor bottles. She takes Robert to court demanding more money and the judge tells her that Robert has been extremely generous and he throws out the case. She finds out where Diana's wedding dress is and goes to the shop pouring acid all over it.We return to court where the first scene began and she learn that Diana and Robert are expecting a child. Melinda's sisters ask Robert and Diana over to warn them that Melinda is dangerous. She comes over while they are there and becomes irate that they have the two of them at their home. She drives away angrily. Back at home still stalking them online she sees they are getting married and have purchased a yacht.Robert and Diana get married and sail away on their yacht. They have a full staff waiting on them and they are lying under the stars. Diana goes below deck to run a bath and Robert stays on deck to listen to Nina Simone and finish his champagne. Melinda walks out wearing Diana's wedding dress and wielding a gun. She orders the staff to jump into the water and for Robert to go with her to tell Diana its over. Melinda in her rage shoots him in the abdomen. Diana hears the shot and runs out to see Melinda with the gun. She runs away and Melinda runs after her demanding Diana give her the wedding ring. Melinda feeling that the apartment, yacht, ring and Robert all belong to her. Robert pushed her off the boat to save Diana and orders Diana to turn their yacht off and take the small boat to save the crew. Melinda returns soaking wet and grabs an ax. She follows a bleeding Robert to the front and steps into the chains of the anchor lifting the ax and bringing it down on Robert's leg. Just as she is about to do it again, Robert presses the anchor release and drops anchor pulling the chain Melinda stepped in causing it to pull her off the boat and into the water. She drowns. Diana and the crew return and begin to help Robert. And the movie fades to black.
    

Acrimony


            In the opening shot, a news report is broadcast on the criminal Colin Evans (Idris Elba). He is up for parole after serving five years on a manslaughter charge after killing a man and also taking the lives of five women. Colin gives his testimony to the parole board, claiming he was ashamed of his actions and that he is ready to return to society. However, the chairman of the board doesn't buy it for a second, claiming Colin is a malignant narcissist and a violent offender, and everyone there knows that the families of the five women would not be happy to see him walking free. The words of the chairman echo in Colin's head, and his parole is denied.Colin is being taken back to prison in a van when he appears to have a bloody nose. He asks for help, only to grab the guards gun and put him in a headlock. The driver stops and aims his gun at Colin. Colin calmly tells the driver to put the gun down, and he does. Then he shoots both the guard and the driver, free to make his escape.We meet Terri Granger (Taraji P. Henson), holding her baby Sam and trying to talk on the phone, while landscapers are working outside her house and her daughter Ryan (Mirage Moonschein) rides around the house. Terri's best friend Meg (Leslie Bibb) comes jogging in. She notices how overworked Terri is, so she suggests having a girls night. Later, Terri's husband Jeffrey (Henry Simmons) comes home, only to get packed for a trip for his father's birthday. He seems unhelpful and impatient with Terri, though he assures her he loves her.Colin is now in Atlanta, Georgia driving a van, stalking a woman named Alexis (Kate Del Castillo). He sees her meeting a man outside a cafe, and Alexis hugs him. He breaks into Alexis's home before she gets back, and he confronts her over her not waiting for him once he got out. He takes out a note that says "Didn't want to wake you up because you look so beautiful when you sleep." Scared, Alexis runs for the door, but Colin blocks her. She runs to her room where Colin makes her admit that she was sleeping with another man. Again, the words ring through his head, and he puts his hand on Alexis's throat. He breaks her neck and then brutally beats her with a lamp.At night, a heavy storm starts brewing. Terri gets her kids ready for dinner. Colin drives his van into a tree after swerving off the road. He walks until he gets to Terri's home. He rings the bell, and she answers. Colin asks to use the phone to call for a tow truck. After supposedly using the phone, Colin tells Terri that the tow truck will come later. Terri invites him inside and mends a cut on his forehead. Colin is charming and polite toward Terri, as well as Ryan when she comes around. Terri serves Colin tea and asks him if he is seeing anyone. He says he had an ex-fiancee that he caught cheating on him.Meg comes over with wine and is attracted to Colin. They share the wine and Meg makes comments about how Terri used to be a wild girl and asks Colin if that's a surprise. He says not at all. While Terri goes to check on her kids, Colin asks Meg where he can smoke. She directs him to the garage and joins him in the smoke. Meg asks him if there's something going on with him and Terri. He smiles and doesn't say a word, leading Meg to think her friend is having an affair. Colin suggests that Terri is keeping things from Meg, which angers her and prompts her to confront Terri, until Colin takes a shovel and kills Meg with it. He drags her body to the side.Terri sees Colin alone and asks where Meg is. He says she left, though Terri notices Meg's umbrella still lying by the coat rack. Terri goes to call Meg and sees the phone lines are cut, and all the knives are missing from their holder in the kitchen. She goes upstairs to see Colin playing with Ryan, and then spots the gun in the back of his pants. Terri orders him to put Ryan down. They leave the room, and Terri reaches for the fire extinguisher and sprays Colin, then hits him over the head so he falls down the stairs. Terri runs to her kids, but Colin quickly manages to get back on his feet and tell her to put Sam down and to go with him. She closes the door to the kids' room, and Colin draws his gun on her, warning her not to do anything like that again. He takes her to the bathroom and makes her stand in the shower with him as he washes himself of the foam. He then makes Terri undress and change her clothes. Thinking he is going to rape her, she tells Colin to get this over with, but he tells her not to flatter herself. Terri grabs a lamp and whacks Colin over the head with it and even manages to stab him in the side. She runs for her kids, but once again, Colin is too fast for her.Colin forces Terri to take her kids to her car so they can make their getaway. While passing through the garage, Terri sees Meg's bloody body lying on the side. On the road, Terri sees a cop and quickly signals him with the headlights when Colin isn't looking. The cop follows them and makes her pull over. Colin grabs Sam and pretends that he was crying and had to comfort him. The cop gets suspicious when Ryan asks for her dad. Terri steps out of the car and tries not to be obvious to the cop as Colin can hear her. The cop notices Terri continuously looking over at the car, and he figures out something is wrong. He tells Terri not to move as Colin steps out of the car, and Colin shoots the cop dead. He rolls the man's body down the hill.Colin makes Terri drive to Alexis's home. He brings her up to the room where her body is still lying. He ties Terri up but is pulled away when her car alarm goes off. Alexis's cell phone starts ringing. Terri manages to cut herself loose and answer the phone. A man's voice answers saying he's been calling multiple times, but Terri recognizes the voice belonging to Jeffrey. However, he replies, "Alexis?" Thus, Terri puts it together - Colin got Jeffrey's name and address off the note that he found near Alexis's bed earlier that day, and it was no accident that he came across her home. He's been seeking revenge. Terri then tells Jeffrey that Alexis is dead and to call the police. She runs to get the kids, but Colin is walking back to the house. Terri hides the kids in the closet and runs upstairs, grabbing a knife for protection. Colin nearly finds the kids, but Terri distracts him. He catches her in the bedroom and starts to fight Terri. He tries to strangle her, but she jabs him in his side wound with her keys, and even beats him with something heavy. He appears unconscious until he grabs Terri and takes her down. Then she grabs Colin's gun and shoots him once, then again, and then multiple times until he falls out the window to his death.The police arrive, along with Jeffrey. He finds Terri and tries apologizing to her, but she responds by punching him hard in the face.A while later, Terri has moved to a new home with the kids. She still carries a picture of her and Meg. She now has a new friend that helps her take care of the kids, and they take them to the park during a sunny afternoon.
    

No Good Deed


            Dr. Martin Ploeck (Played by Orlando Bloom), who has spent his life looking for respect, meets an 18-year-old patient named Diane, suffering from a kidney infection, and gets a much-needed boost of self-esteem. However, when her health starts improving, Martin fears losing her, so he begins tampering with her treatment, keeping Diane sick and in the hospital right next to him.
    

The Good Doctor


            Sports agent Ali Davis (Taraji P. Henson) gets up extra early to rack up clients and stay on top of her co-workers. She is helped by her assistant Brandon (Josh Brener) as he escorts her to her job at Summit Worldwide Management. Ali is confident that she will get a partner promotion that she has been working extra hard for. On the elevator down, Ali sees her handsome neighbor that she refers to as "Captain Fucktastic" (Kellan Lutz). She tries to get his attention but cannot since he's listening to music. She tells Brandon that she wishes she could find out what's going on inside his head.The pair arrive at SWM, which is mostly male-dominated. Ali gathers around with the other guys for a meeting in which her boss Nick (Brian Bosworth) is getting ready to select the new senior VP, and he tosses a football to his pick. Ali intercepts it, thinking it was for her, but it was to Eddie (Chris Witaske), a guy sitting two seats next to her. Ali confronts Nick to find out why she wasn't promoted. Nick acknowledges that Ali is a hard worker but he says she just doesn't connect well with the other men. Ali storms out and announces to everyone in the building that she WILL sign rising basketball superstar Jamal Barry (Shane Paul McGhie) and prove to others why she deserves the promotion.Ali goes to spend time with her father Skip (Richard Roundtree) at the boxing gym he manages before going to grab dinner with him. Skip points out a new bartender named Will (Aldis Hodge), whom Ali finds attractive. She stays there to introduce herself, and Will makes her a special cocktail. They go back to his house to have sex, but Ali is overly aggressive. In the morning, she wakes up to find Will's son Ben (Auston Moore) wearing her panties on his head. She realizes she is late for work, and as she runs out, she sees a picture of Will with his wife. Dismayed that he failed to tell her about being married with a kid, Ali leaves quickly.Ali goes to meet her co-workers as they try to work out a deal with Jamal and his father Joe Dolla (Tracy Morgan), who wants a magazine cover position. However, Ali has to negotiate with basketball legend Lisa Leslie to share with Joe. Lisa refuses, which throws Joe's intentions to work with Ali out the door. To make things worse, Brandon points out to Ali that she has a used condom stuck to her back.Ali joins her best friends Mari (Tamala Jones), Olivia (Wendi McClendon-Covey), and Ciarra (Phoebe Robinson) for Mari's bachelorette party. The others see that Ali is feeling down, but they agree with her being bad with men. Olivia then mentions that she hired a psychic named Sister (Erykah Badu) to read their fortunes. Ali goes first, and Sister reads her cards to determine Ali's work frustrations and a potentially budding relationship with Will. When Ali mentions her troubles, Sister gives her a foul-smelling tea to drink to help her. Later, the ladies go out to a club to dance. Ali gets drunk and goes to dance, only to end up tripping and knocking herself unconscious.Ali wakes up in the hospital and hears her doctor's thoughts about drinking and doing cocaine on the job. When she brings it up, he denies saying anything. Ali is greeted by her friends and Brandon, who takes her to work. On the way, Ali hears Brandon's snarky remarks about her before they both realize she can hear his thoughts. She freaks out and becomes overwhelmed when she gets to work and finds that she can only hear the thoughts of men, which are mostly sex-related or revealing some dark secrets. She and Brandon pay Sister a visit later that day to try and fix things, but Sister can't do anything. She suggests to Ali that she can use this to her advantage at work and get ahead of her male colleagues.The first thing Ali does with her new gift is to find out from her co-worker Kevin (Max Greenfield) that some of the guys are having a secret poker night. Ali shows up at the home of Ethan (Jason Jones) and finds Nick there with Joe and Kevin, as well as Mark Cuban, Grant Hill, and Shaquille O'Neal. Ali reads the guys' thoughts and manages to beat out most of the other guys until it's down to her and Joe. She folds since she figures it will keep her on Joe's good side. He is pleased.Joe brings Jamal to SWM to hear a pitch from Kevin on how they can market Jamal's status. Kevin puts on a tacky rap video with Jamal's face photo shopped in there, but Ali can see and hear that Jamal doesn't like it, and neither does Joe. She steps up and tries to appeal to Jamal based on what she's hearing from him, but she also totally blasts Kevin's idea. He goes into her office to confront her about how she made him look, but Ali argues that Kevin was the one who voted her down so that Eddie would win, but she then hears Kevin thinking the opposite, and he openly states that he sees how she pulls in numbers and was actually rooting for her. She responds that if she were a man, they would say she is driven, but Kevin thinks that everyone would just say she's a dick.Ali catches Joe and Jamal on their way out and invites them to a basketball game over the weekend, but Joe wants to spend that time with his family, and he doesn't think Ali is a family person. That's when Will and Ben walk into the place to bring Ali her drivers license that she left at their house, and she sees it as an opportunity to pretend that Will and Ben are her husband and son. This makes Joe trust Ali, and he agrees to go to the game. After returning the license, Ben lets it slip that his mother had died a while back, and Ali feels terrible for assuming Will was a cheater. She tries to make it up by inviting the two of them to the game.Ali joins the guys at the game in the Skybox and maintains the ruse that Will and Ben are her family. Ben mentions his birthday is coming up and that he wants a race car cake, which Ali promises for him. He then gives her an unexpected hug. Outside the Skybox, Ali introduces Jamal to Karl-Anthony Towns, and Jamal is freaking out internally but maintains his cool as he meets his idol. Joe then tells Ali he seems keen to sign with SWM.Brandon finds that Ali is talking to Will and makes her agree to do a double date with Mari and her fiance James (Roshawn Franklin). Ali also mentions to Brandon that a guy in the office named Danny (Pete Davidson) is closeted and has a crush on Brandon, and that Brandon should go for him. The two spark an instant connection and agree to start playing Fantasy Football together.Ali and Will go out with Mari and James to a pool hall. Ali overhears James thinking about trying to have sex with their waitress, and Ali indiscreetly goes to whack him in the nuts with the pool cue, leading to him sitting the game out and thinking how Mari only hangs out with Ali because Ali can't get a guy. Ali then overhears Will thinking genuinely sweet thoughts about her, and they go back to his place for sex. She eases up on the aggression and agrees to make it a mutual thing, leading to incredible sex for the two of them.Ali later introduces Will and Ben to Skip. Although Skip seems skeptical of him at first, he warms up to Will as he sees what a dedicated father he is, and that he and Ali have genuine feelings for each other.Just when things are looking up, everyone at work sees a press conference that Joe is holding to announce that he is taking Jamal to China due to a deal orchestrated by Ethan, who has left SWM for another agency. Nick is pissed, and while he wants to fire Ali, he says he won't do it right away, and Ali figures it's for either sexist or racist reasons, so she dares him to fire her. He then sees Will outside and spills the beans to him that Ali was just using him to make a deal with Joe. Will is hurt and he leaves Ali.Ali later attends Mari's wedding and is very drunk. She overhears multiple thoughts, especially one from James where he thinks about his affair with Mari's cousin Gabby (Ashani Roberts). As the couple is reading their vows, Ali interrupts and starts to drunkenly talk about her gift. Brandon tries to stop her, saying he is doing it as a friend, but Ali coldly tells him they are not friends and that he is just her assistant. He ditches her after that. Ali reveals James and Gabby's affair, and Gabby confesses apologetically to Mari, saying that James said they were on break. Ali THEN mentions how Ciarra's husband is having an affair with another man. This leads to mayhem as the ladies start fighting, and another woman grabs a vase and accidentally knocks Ali out with it.Ali wakes up in the hospital again and meets with the same doctor, but now she can't read his thoughts. He does, however, mention that he has done a detox and has gone to rehab to fix himself. Ali then sees that nobody is there for her as she has destroyed all her relationships.Ali goes to Sister to find out if she can get more tea to regain her gift, but Sister says she drank it all and only heard the voices of Joan Rivers and Tupac (and they do not get along).Ali first goes to apologize to Brandon at work for how she treated him. After he forgives her, he tells her that he and Danny are now in a relationship. They discuss Jamal, and she realizes she didn't listen to what he really wanted. She goes to find him at the park where he loves to play basketball, and she shoots some hoops with him to convince him to stay in Atlanta where he is happier.Ali later visits her friends at dinner. They are still mad at her, but she apologizes to them and offers to pay for their Margarita Mondays from now on. They forgive her.The NBA drafts happen, and Jamal stays in Atlanta. Joe talks to Ali and is thankful to her for making Jamal happy.Nick calls for another conference with the guys, and he decides to promote Ali. However, she decides she no longer wants to be part of the boys' club, so she is quitting and starting her own agency with Kevin as her partner, and she is taking all her clients with her. She even decides to make Brandon an agent, as he has been wanting it for a while and actually has an impressive knowledge of sports.Ali goes to a birthday party for Ben and brings him the cake he had wanted. Although Will is still upset with her, Ali apologizes and convinces him to give her another chance. He agrees, as long as they take it slow for now. They kiss.The film concludes with Ali, Will, and Ben walking together in the park as Ali discusses plans for her agency.
    

What Men Want

Coffee & Kareem


            The film starts with expert assassin Mary (Taraji P. Henson) getting dressed up. She goes to the home of her target, a bookie named Marcus Miller. Mary shoots Marcus dead and then hears noise coming from a nearby room. She finds a young boy, Danny (Jahi Di'Allo Winston), playing video games. Realizing he is Marcus' son, Mary leaves the apartment filled with guilt.One year later.Danny is on his own, working for a criminal named 'Uncle' (Xander Berkeley), with Mary keeping a close eye on him from a distance. Danny delivers drugs to a man, Jerome (Owen Burke). After getting paid, Danny notices Jerome shorted him on money. Danny aims his gun at Jerome and demands more money until Jerome tells him there's money in the fridge, and that he can take what is owed to him. Danny takes the whole stash and walks out. He stops to get food on the way home. He returns the money to Uncle, who notices some money is missing. After Danny says he got food, Uncle smacks Danny and threatens to cut off his hand next time he takes from him.Danny goes outside to take a nap on a bench when someone swipes his bag. He runs after them and gets them to drop the bag when he takes out his gun and fires it. Danny starts to feel dizzy, and he faints. Moments later, he is found and taken in by Mary.Mary takes Danny to her apartment where she makes him some food. She warns him not to go into her room (which he does). Later, she goes to Uncle's place to return anything that Danny may have that belongs to him. Mary demands that Uncle let Danny go, but when his goons threaten her, Mary kills them before shooting Uncle in the head.Mary later goes to meet with her fellow assassins, led by Benny (Danny Glover). Uncle's criminal family thinks that someone from Benny's group killed Uncle to start a war. They are later visited by Uncle's brother Luka (Rade Serbedzija). Benny assures Luka that if anyone from his team had killed Uncle, they will be dealt with immediately.The team suspects that one of their guys, Walter (Neal McDonough), might be Uncle's killer. Benny instructs Mary to follow Walter since he goes for a run every day at 3:00. Mary tries to find Walter while she takes Danny out to get hot dogs. Mary misses Walter as he goes out but spends the afternoon with Danny overlooking the city by the water. He tells Mary how his mother left him and his dad when he was 7, and how his dad was killed. Danny went to stay with his grandmother, but she passed away too, and then someone brought him to Uncle.The next day, Mary goes for a run to follow Walter, maintaining her distance so he won't notice her. After following him under a bridge, Mary shoots Walter dead.Benny's son Tom (Billy Brown), who is also Mary's ex-boyfriend, comes to Mary's apartment. He finds Danny and menacingly tells him to let Mary know he wants to speak with her.When Mary gets home, Danny tells her about Tom showing up. She later takes Danny to Benny's home for the birthday of his wife, Mina (Margaret Avery). During the dinner, Danny mentions he's from Jamaica Plain. Tom later finds Mary in the kitchen and brings up how Marcus was the target from Jamaica Plain, so he pieces together that Danny was his son, and thinks that he could pin his father's murder on Benny and his crew. Mary assures Tom that's not the case. Benny later invites Mary to slow dance, where she says she wants to leave this life behind. When Mary and Danny leave, Tom tells Benny about Danny.Mary later meets up with Tom as they storm a hideout for Luka's guys. They kill everyone inside but they do not find Luka.Danny takes one of Mary's guns from her room and goes to find Benny. He takes out the gun and tells Benny to let Mary go. Benny then tells Danny that Mary is the one who killed his father since he owed them a lot of money, and she is only taking care of him out of guilt. Danny gives Benny the gun, just as Mary arrives after learning where he went. Danny leaves, and Mary shoots Benny dead moments later.Mary tries to run after Danny, just as Tom is informed of Benny's death. Jerome, who also works under Benny, tells Tom that it may have been Danny who killed Benny since he saw the kid going in alone and running out scared.Mary finds Danny by his spot over the water. She expresses great remorse over what she did and says not a day goes by that she doesn't regret killing his dad, but she did not take him in just because she felt guilty. Danny appears to forgive her.Mary drives Danny away, but he leaves the car and is taken by Tom and his goons. Tom soon figures that Mary really killed Benny. He sends her a message to inform her that they have Danny. Mary heads over to the warehouse where they're keeping him, and she proceeds to kill every one of Benny and Tom's guys. Mary finds Danny and frees him just as Tom finds them. Danny runs out, leaving Mary and Tom to fight. Mary succeeds and finishes Tom with a bullet to the head.In the final scene, Mary reunites with Danny outside, and they drive off to another location.
    

Proud Mary

Once Fallen


            The movie opens with a house number at the Indigo Club (Rock Steady by Aretha Franklin). Nightclub singer April (Taraji P. Henson) takes the stage with the microphone in one hand and a glass of liquor in the other.Although talented, it is clear April is troubled and heavily dependent upon liquor; and we soon discover why: April's personal life is in shambles. She is seeing a married man, Randy (Brian White), who announces he has child support problems, his wife is pregnant again and he basically detests kids. In addition, its clear Randy is very controlling but April has tolerated his controlling and abusive nature because he pays the bills.As April sings, we break away to Madeas (Tyler Perry) home. Madea has been awakened upstairs in the middle of the night to sounds of her downstairs window breaking. Madea goes to her brother Joe's (Tyler Perry again) room and tells him someone is breaking into the house. In a comic exchange, Joe begins to tell Madea she can handle the intruders and then remembers his weed is downstairs where the intruders are so he decides to help Madea by following her downstairs.Madea goes downstairs and discovers the intruders are three children: Jennifer (Hope Wilson), Manny (Kwesi Boakye) and Byron (Frederick Siglar). Although upset, Madea invites the children in to eat and discovers there are several problems. First, Jennifer is very angry and distrustful of people (important later), Manny is very friendly but very ill due to Diabetes and Byron doesn't speak (important later). Madea soon discovers the children are very hungry and theyve been alone for about a week. Their grandmother left one day and never returned. The children declare their mother has died and their next of kin is their Aunt April. Madea decides to take the children to their aunt, partially motivated by the desire to make sure they're taken care of and partially motivated by the desire to recover the sum of $300 for her broken window.Madea arrives at April's home with the children in tow. April sees the kids and freaks out, declaring she is not their mom and it is not her problem. Also, the presence of the kids would upset Randy who pays the bills but doesn't like children. Madea insists April handle this family responsibly. April takes the kids in but makes it clear they are not welcome. We soon discover April has no maternal instinct. She doesn't know how to comfort the kids who are distraught because their grandmother (Mama Rose) is missing. Madea leaves and April gets into a shouting match with Jennifer. Jennifer decides to leave but her siblings stay behind.Meanwhile, a young man named Sandino (Adam Rodriguez) approaches Pastor Brian (Marvin Winans) who is helping the needy on the front steps of the church in April's neighborhood. Sandino tells the minister he remembers Pastor Brian did some missionary work in his native country and now he is in America and is looking for a better life. Sandino says he wants to find work. Just as Pastor Brian is about to address Sandino's concerns, Jennifer runs toward the church steps at top speed. Apparently, she has stolen something and the shopkeeper is chasing her. Sandino catches Jennifer and Pastor Brian apologizes to the shopkeeper. Then, he instructs Miss Wilma (Gladys Knight), one of the church members to show Sandino around the church so he can do some handiwork. Subsequently, Pastor Brian takes Jennifer to her Aunt April's home.Pastor Brian explains Jennifer was caught shoplifting and April flips out. It turns out Jennifer was shoplifting needles for Mannys insulin shots. Although upset, April agrees to keep the kids until she finds her mother and the kids can go back to live with her.The Pastor then asks April to help out Sandino. April has a beautiful home she inherited but she refuses to fix it up (the house is also a metaphor for April's life: beautiful on the outside, but falling apart on the inside). The Pastor suggests that April allow Sandino to fix the walls and floors of the home in exchange for room and board. April reluctantly agrees.Sandino eventually moves in and April has two comedic requests: He must shave his long hair and he must lock himself in the basement at night. Sandino looks alarmed when April says she'll lock him in the basement because she doesn't know what kind of man he is. April suggests since hes a handyman, he should be handy at using tools to break out of the basement in case of a fire! Sandino reluctantly agrees to April's requests. He shaves and April discovers Sandino is strikingly handsome!The next few days are a period of transition for April's household and Randy is not happy. Randy, who has been coming over on a regular basis to sleep with April, discovers the kids are in the house. He flips out and shows how cruel and abusive he can be. He suggestively offers candy to Jennifer who refuses to take it. However, Jennifer's chubby mute brother, Byron, reaches for it and Randy almost breaks his arm. Then, Randy begins to insult Sandino by declaring Sandino must be illegal. Again, April tolerates Randy's mean-spirited, abusive behavior. Sandino proves himself to be a better man than Randy. He takes the high road and refuses to fight although Randy tries his best to corner Sandino. Where Randy is mean-spirited and cruel, Sandino is selfless and nurturing. When April complains the kids are keeping her up by playing soccer in the house (she sings at night and must sleep during the day), Sandino offers to take the kids outside and plays soccer with them. In addition, he buys insulin for Manny. Jennifer is suspicious and wants to know why Sandino is so kind to them. Sandino tells Jennifer she is doing a great job and she should expect good things in life. Jennifer disagrees saying she hasn't seen much kindness in the world but eventually, Jennifer softens up around Sandino.Eventually, a tragedy surfaces. Pastor Brian and Miss Wilma come by to visit April from the church. They reveal April's mom died and her body is at the county morgue. Apparently, April's mom was on a bus and had a Brain Aneurysm. No one noticed because it appeared she was sleeping on the bus. Her body was at the county morgue and when no one claimed her, she was cremated. Pastor Brian and Miss Wilma present April with an urn carrying her mother's ashes.April begins to sob uncontrollably and Sandino agrees with Pastor Brian that he should look after April. April goes upstairs to Randy who is sleeping in her bed. She climbs into bed crying and begins to hug Randy while he's sleeping in hope that he will wake up and comfort her about her mother passing. Randy wakes, briefly, only to shrug April off of him and scorn her. It is obvious that Randy couldn't care less about her. April rolls off the bed and goes down to the sofa, alone.As April sits on the sofa Sandino joins her and she reveals some of the history with her mom, whom April has had a love-hate, dysfunctional relationship with. When Jennifer was age 9, Jennifer's mom (also, April's sister) pimped Jennifer out for drugs. April and her mom had a fight a year ago over April helping care for the chidren after her sisters death and they stopped speaking thereafter. April tells Sandino her mom spent so much time caring for others, that she didn't care for herself hence why it is tragic that her mom died all alone on a bus. It is part of the reason why Jennifer is so mistrustful of people. April's mom came to the rescue again and again for the children. At that point, Sandino puts his arm around April's back and begins to comfort her. April begins to let down her guard but it is clear she is uncomfortable with Sandino so close due to her trust and self-esteem issues. They only break away when the kids come in. April asks where they've been and after Jennifer tells her they've been out looking for Mama Rose, she and Sandino break the news. The kids quickly move from denial and disbelief to an almost numb outlook on relationships. Jennifer tells Sandino they're fine and "people die."Soon after, April's bartender girlfriend Tanya (Mary J. Blige) at the Indigo Club tells her, April is an alcoholic with self-esteem issues that is why she is tolerating a married, abusive man in her life. She tells her she is selfish and should be ashamed. Tanya goes on to sing the title number "I Can Do Bad All By Myself," during which we see how who we come to understand to be Mama Rose seemingly fell asleep on the bus one morning, and never woke up. Later, April tries to tell Jennifer that even though she can't keep her, she'll find her a good foster home. Jennifer retorts with ending up like her Aunt April, selfish and only worried about herself since caring for others doesn't work out so well. April hangs her head and walks away out of shame and frustration.The next morning Sandino finds April in the kitchen, awake "early" fr her. He tells her not to sleep all day. Then Sandino takes April out for a paddleboat ride at the local park and tells her that he cares about her after she asks why he held her the way he did after she learned the fate of her mother. He tells her she's funny but hides her true and beautiful self behind a wall. He asks her why she puts up with Randy and if she loves him. April deflects a direct answer by saying Randy helps out and pays the bills. Sandino tells her that isn't love. He describes that "love is having someone who will be there with you thick or thin, right or wrong." Whether she accepted what he said or not, she ends their paddleboat ride.Sandino has been fixing up a spare room in the house and shows the kids and April the room and for the first time, Byron speaks, "my bed." Jennifer is notably upset asking him why he'd get their hopes up when April won't keep them. He tells her that April could change her mind. Jennifer forces her brothers to reject the room and April chastises Sandino for not giving her a heads up. He asks her why that matters when she'd obviously made it clear that she doesn't care about those kids.Sandino tries to wake up April for church that Sunday, only to be threatened with deportation by Randy who opens the bedroom door before April could wake up. Sandino goes to church without her. April wakes and gets dressed to go to church and Randy tries to stop her. She goes anyway, despite his protests.April finds her seat next to Sandino and the children. She takes heed to the message, especially the part when Pastor Brian describes the right person walking into one's life and bringing in a new light because they're worth waiting for. April pretends not to notice Sandino looking at her during that part of the sermon. Pastor Brian then sings a song to follow up his preaching, which breaks through April's tough cookie image and we see her reminiscing on pivotal moments of her recent experiences, good and bad. She sings along and Sandino is visibly supportive of her. Miss Wilma and Pastor Brian turn the song into a duet and finish off the church service.The drama within April's household comes to a head one night when Jennifer awakens to the sounds of Manny gasping for breath. Jennifer gets up and goes to the kitchen to prepare Manny's insulin injection. Jennifer is startled by Randy who is sitting in a chair smoking a cigarette in the dark. Randy begins to make sexually suggestive comments to Jennifer who rejects him and attempts to get by Randy to give her brother his insulin. Randy grabs Jennifer and attempts to rape her. In walks Sandino with a baseball bat. Sandino strikes Randy across the back with the bat and Randy goes down screaming. April awakens and comes downstairs. April sees Sandino beating Randy to a pulp and starts screaming at Sandino to stop. Sandino tells April that Randy was trying to rape Jennifer and April becomes upset. Randy denies it. Sandino repeatedly says Randy tried to rape Jennifer. Randy declares Jennifer came onto him and asked for money and Jennifer screams he is a liar. Randy asks April who she believes and Aprils states that she believes Randy. April then tells Randy to go draw a bath and she'll clean him up. Sandino and Jennifer stay down stairs shocked. April slowly makes her way upstairs while Randy bathes. She walks into the bathroom and asking him what really happened. Randy says Jennifer attempted to seduce me for money, it was her fault and begins to look relieved when he thinks April is buying the story. Randy closes his eyes in the tub and April leaves the bathroom only to return with a radio. April plugs in the radio while Randy is ranting about how those awful kids need to leave. April asks him to tell her the truth. Randy continues to lie. April knows he is lying so she drops the radio closer to the bathtub water inches at a time. April starts to scream at Randy that she knows he is lying because, that is exactly what her mother's boyfriend said about her when he molested April. That is one of the reasons why she had such a strained, dysfunctional relationship with her mother. Sandino hears the ruckus and runs upstairs to beg April not to drop it, "he isn't worth it!" Just as April releases the radio into the bathtub Randy leaps from the bathtub, only moments to spare. April leaves the room to go to the bar. Sandino gives him three minutes to get dressed and get out of the house.Afterwards, April goes to the Indigo Club and drinks heavily. A few minutes later, Sandino enters the establishment after April. He tells her not to feel guilty, she didn't do anything wrong. April says she feels guilty because she should have seen the signs that Randy was a child molester, spending too much time looking at Jennifer's body when she passed by him. April drinks heavily because she has feelings of anger over being molested and her mom knew but told her, 'What happens in this house, stays in this house.' Where she failed April, Mama Rose had cared for her grandchildren. April says her mother should have recognized the signs in her and now she is suspicious of men who take too much of an interest in kids. April begins to turn on Sandino. She accuses Sandino of being a possible child molester because he has spent so much time looking after the kids. She asks Sandino why he cares about the kids so much. Sandino gets angry and leaves the club. April storms out behind him and yells out that he must be a child molester. Sandino turns around and begins to scream at April, telling her she is ruining her life. She is afraid of getting close to people so she pushes them away with her hardened tough-girl attitude. In addition, Sandino reveals he has been alone since he was little. Both of his parents died long ago and he was forced into the drug trade as a kid in his native country. He wasn't cared for the way a child should be and that's why he cares for Jennifer and her brothers. Sandino leaves her there in her drunken stupor and she belligerently stumbles back into the club.When April gets home, she finds a thankful Jennifer who begs and barters to stay with her. She pleads her case that her brothers have no where else to go. Emotional, April stops her mid-speech to reveal that she needs the kids to stay and she wants to learn how to care for them. She sends the kids to their new room to sleep the rest of the night.Sandino sees Jennifer, Manny and Byron the next day and tells them he is going away because he fought with April. He promises to write and call them regularly. The kids embrace him. After Sandino left, Jennifer talks to April. They unpack some of Mama Rose's things and tells her that he is a good man and April shouldn't let him go. She has had so many reasons to be distrustful of people, especially those who were too nice to her. However, Sandino seems genuine. He has always looked out for Jennifer and protected her from Randy's advances. The mood lightens thanks to comical information about the bible Jennifer relays that she gained from Madea trying to teach her about prayer and faith. Through an open window in her kitchen, April can hear the church choir down the street, singing a song her mother loved and she remarks her mother always knew when to show up. April falls into chorus and sings what she can remember about the song, right there in her kitchen. We hear the voices of Miss Wilma and Pastor Brian singing as well. Sandino is at the church service and goes up to be prayed for.After church, Sandino returns to April's house and she tells him she wants him to stay and help her with the kids. She admits that she thinks she loves him. He has no words so April, in fear of being rejected, defaults to telling him she loves him as a friend. Sandino barks that she doesn't even love herself and he loves her more than she does. She scoffs, "like a buddy?" And he explains that he doesn't want to make love to his buddies. Sandino explains that he is in love with April. April, shocked, laments that she is not good with relationships and really doesn't know how to love or be loved. Sandino says he'll show her and they share an incredibly passionate kiss.Sometime later, Sandino and April marry, with Jennifer, Manny and Byron participating in the wedding. They exit the church to the wedding reception, which is a block party. Tanya takes the stage to sing in honor of the newlyweds, April especially.
    

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