Friday Films

Harvard educated lawyer Lucy Kelson, following in the footsteps of her lawyer parents, uses her career for social activism. She hides any sense of femininity behind her work. George Wade is the suave public face of the Manhattan-based Wade Corporation, a development firm that Lucy routinely opposes and whose true head is George's profit-oriented brother, Howard Wade. George, who has a reputation as a lady's man, has had as his legal counsel a series of beautiful female lawyers with questionable credentials, they who have more primarily acted as his casual sex partners. Needing a real lawyer, he offers Lucy the job of his legal counsel on a chance meeting. Despite warnings from her parents in working for the "enemy", Lucy, who has no intention of being the latest in his bed partners, accepts the job as she feels she can do more good from the inside, and as George, as part of the job offer, promises not to demolish a community center in a heritage building as part of a development project near her childhood Coney Island home where her parents still live. Although Lucy is able to effect the type of change she wanted from this position, she finds she cannot deal with George's expectations of her, namely being his primary confidante and advisor at all hours of the day and night, mostly about issues she considers frivolous. As such, she gives him two weeks notice, although she promises to help George find her replacement. As Lucy begins to review resumes, George himself unilaterally decides to hire June Carver, a fellow Harvardite, but who seems to have her sights set on George as both a boss and personal partner. As June begins to replace Lucy in seemingly all aspects of George's life, Lucy begins to realize that she herself has fallen for George. However, Lucy's feelings for George and her attempts to re-ingratiate herself into George's life are placed into jeopardy when she learns of a Wade Corporation decision against her basic sensibilities.

Harry and Sally meet when she gives him a ride to New York after they both graduate from the University of Chicago. The film jumps through their lives as they both search for love, but fail, bumping into each other time and time again. Finally a close friendship blooms between them, and they both like having a friend of the opposite sex. But then they are confronted with the problem: "Can a man and a woman be friends, without sex getting in the way?"

Melanie Parker, an architect and mother of Sammy, and Jack Taylor, a newspaper columnist and father of Maggie, are both divorced. They meet one morning when overwhelmed Jack is left unexpectedly with Maggie and forgets that Melanie was to take her to school. As a result, both children miss their school field trip and are stuck with the parents. The two adults project their negative stereotypes of ex-spouses on each other, but end up needing to rely on each other to watch the children as each must save his job. Humor is added by Sammy's propensity for lodging objects in his nose and Maggie's tendency to wander.

Jake and Brian are friends. They are Jewish and Catholic respectively. They would grow up and become a rabbi and priest. Anna, whom they knew when they were younger, comes back to town a stunning woman. Jake is up to be the head of his synagogue but he is not married which doesn't make his appointment any easier. Jake finds himself attracted to Anna but because she's not Jewish, he can't marry her as it would make his appointment less likely. Brian also finds himself attracted to Anna, but the priesthood doesn't allow that. Their friendship is strained when each learns of the other's feelings for her.

Harry Sanborn is an aged music industry exec with a fondness for younger women like Marin, his latest trophy girlfriend. Things get a little awkward when Harry suffers a heart attack at the home of Marin's mother Erica. Left in the care of Erica and his doctor, a love triangle starts to take shape.

After years of no contact with his Uncle Henry, London banker and bond trader Max Skinner learns that Henry has died intestate, so Max inherits a château and vineyard in Provence. Max spent part of his childhood there, learning maxims and how to win and lose, and honing his killer instinct (at chess, which serves him well in finance). Max goes to France intent on selling the property. He spends a few days there, getting the property ready to show. Memories, a beautiful woman, and a young American who says she's Henry's illegitimate daughter interrupt his plans. Did Max the boy know things that Max the man has forgotten?

Finding it hard to settle down and commit himself to only one woman, the unrepentant philanderer and undeniable ladies' man, Alfie, is a charming British bachelor who cruises the streets of New York as a limousine chauffeur. In his impeccable suits, the silver-tongued Casanova is simply irresistible; however, things will take a turn for the unexpected, when a night of unrestrained passion seriously tests Alfie's frivolous approach to life. In the end, is Alfie happy, and, above all, what's it all about, then?

A master chef, Kate, lives her life like she runs the kitchen at upscale 22 Bleecker Restaurant in Manhattan--with a no-nonsense intensity that both captivates and intimidates everyone around her. With breathtaking precision, she powers through each hectic shift, coordinating hundreds of meals, preparing delicate sauces, seasoning and simmering each dish to absolute perfection.

A woman finds a romantic letter in a bottle washed ashore and tracks down the author, a widowed shipbuilder whose wife died tragically early. As a deep and mutual attraction blossoms, the man struggles to make peace with his past so that he can move on and find happiness.

Toula Portokalos is 30, Greek, and works in her family's restaurant, Dancing Zorba's, in Chicago. All her father Gus wants is for her to get married to a nice Greek boy. But Toula is looking for more in life. Her mother convinces Gus to let her take some computer classes at college (making him think it's his idea). With those classes under her belt, she then takes over her aunt's travel agency (again making her father think it's his idea). She meets Ian Miller, a high school English teacher, WASP, and dreamboat she had made a fool of herself over at the restaurant; they date secretly for a while before her family finds out. Her father is livid over her dating a non-Greek. He has to learn to accept Ian; Ian has to learn to accept Toula's huge family, and Toula has to learn to accept herself.

A woman who, by a promise made years earlier, is supposed to marry her best friend in three weeks, even though she doesn't want to. When she finds out that he's marrying someone else, she becomes jealous and tries to break off the wedding.

Frances Mayes is a San Francisco-based literature professor, literary reviewer and author, who is struggling in writing her latest book. Her outwardly perfect and stable life takes an unexpected turn when her husband files for divorce. He wants to marry the woman with whom he is having an affair. Frances supported her husband financially as he was writing his own book, and he sues her for alimony despite her financial difficulties. And he wants to keep the house. Frances eventually accepts her best friend Patti's offer of a vacation, a gay tour of Tuscany which Patti and her lesbian partner Grace originally purchased for themselves before Patti found out that she is pregnant. The gift is a means to escape dealing with the divorce, from which Patti feels Frances may never recover emotionally without some intervention. Feeling that Patti's assessment may be correct in that she has too much emotional baggage ever to return to San Francisco, Frances, while in Tuscany, impulsively ditches the tour to purchase an aged villa, which ends up being a fixer-upper. Frances has many obstacles in eking out a productive and happy life in her new surroundings, that happy life which she hopes will eventually include rediscovering romantic love. In a discussion with sympathetic real estate agent Signor Martini, Frances outlines what emotionally she wants to accomplish with the villa, despite none of those items in a substantive material sense currently being in her life. In response, Martini tells her the story of a set of railroad tracks that were laid between Vienna and Venice before an engine that could make the trek being built, a train which now regularly travels the route. The question becomes whether Frances, in going through the process, will be laying another Vienna to Venice track, and if so whether that end product emotionally will be exactly as she envisions.

When brought together at a family event, two exes find themselves oddly attracted to each other after ten years of divorce. Although the couple think that this affair will stay in a different state, it brings itself back to their own city and disrupts their personal lives. While the couple still maintain other romances, they cannot help but to continue with their affair.

Sparks fly and cultures collide in this romantic comedy about a casual night of passion that turns into the love of a lifetime. Alex Whitman is a New Yorker sent to Las Vegas to oversee a construction project. There he meets Isabel Fuentes, and some serious chemistry brings them together for one night. But Alex doesn't see Isabel again until three months later, when he learns she is pregnant. On a whim and prayer, he proposes. However, there's more to marriage than a Vegas chapel and an Elvis impersonator, as Alex and Isabel soon learn.

Pivoting around the lively Truvy Jones' Louisiana beauty parlour, a tightly-knit band of friends, confront griefs, loss, life's unforeseen tragedies and heartaches with what they do best: gossiping and sharing. The spirited diabetic and bride-to-be, Shelby; her always supportive mother, M'Lynn; Truvy's gawky assistant, Annelle; the city's curmudgeon, Ouiser; and the town's former first lady, Clairee, are the warm Southern belles who know how to survive life's challenges with their unwavering friendship. But when Shelby decides to conceive, things will turn upside down..

Good-natured astronomer Sam is devastated when the love of his life, Linda, leaves him for a suave Frenchman named Anton. He therefore does what every other normal dumpee would do; go to New York and set up home in the abandoned building opposite his ex-girlfriend's apartment, intent on winning her back and waiting until she decides to leave her current lover. What Sam does not count on is being joined several weeks later by ultra hip tomboy Maggie, a photographer and motor-cyclist who is determined to get revenge on Anton, her ex-fiance. Hostile at first, the two of them eventually join forces in an attempt to separate the couple, and ruin Anton's life. However, complications ensue when Sam and Maggie start falling for each other.

New York columnist Ike Graham elaborates, for once without full fact checking, the story he heard from a bar mate of Maryland small town girl Maggie Carpenter, who left several grooms at the altar, taking off without warning or serious reason. Fearing a legal case from Maggie, Ike's editor and ex Ellie fires him. Staff buddy Fisher cues Ike to seek his job back (or earn another) by attempting to prove the alleged inaccuracies and/or writing a priceless follow-up piece. So his sports-car heads for her home Hale, where she runs a garage and designs glassware. His charms and journalistic nose get everyone to open up and reveal her embarrassing past before she can swear people to silence, from her three dumped grooms and family to her overconfident present groom, high school coach Bob Kelly. In the process, Maggie finds hating him as hard as tempting, while Ike develops a strange appreciation for the maverick, until even Bob sees reason to get jealous.

Jonathan Trager and Sara Thomas met while shopping for gloves in New York. Though buying for their respective lovers, the magic was right and a night of Christmas shopping turned into romance. Jon wanted to explore things further but Sara wasn't sure their love was meant to be. They decided to test fate by splitting up and seeing if destiny brought them back together... Many years later, having lost each other that night, both are engaged to be married. Still, neither can shake the need to give fate one last chance to reunite them. Jon enlists the help of his best man to track down the girl he can't forget starting at the store where they met. Sara asks her new age musician fiance for a break before the wedding and, with her best friend in tow, flies from California to New York hoping destiny will bring her soulmate back. Near-misses and classic Shakespearean confusion bring the two close to meeting a number of times but fate will have the final word on whether it was meant to be.