Payback

Payback: Mel Gibson and Maria Bello

Payback

Cast: Mel Gibson, Gregg Henry, Maria Bello, Kris Kristofferson, James Coburn, Lucy Liu, David Paymer

Porter (Mel Gibson) is a smart career criminal who is betrayed by his own wife, Lynn (Unger), and his criminal partner, Val (Henry) after they steal $140,000 from the Chinese mafia. After his wife shoots him in the back and his partner takes all of the heist money, they both leave him to die. Unbeknownst to both of them, Porter survived the two gunshots to his back. After a long recovery, he returns to reclaim the $70,000 that is now owed to him by his former partner.

Downloading Nancy

Downloading Nancy: Maria Bello

Downloading Nancy

Cast: Maria Bello, Jason Patric, Rufus Sewell, Amy Brenneman

When Albert Stockwell comes home from work one day he finds a note from his wife of 15 years, Nancy, saying she has gone to see friends. It is a lie.

After waiting several days, Albert realizes that his wife is missing. Nancy has met her salvation on the Internet in the form of Louis Farley. Louis's life, like Nancy's, has become a twisted quest for redemption via smutty chat rooms and alternative websites. Both wounded and alone, Nancy and Louis take comfort in one another through email, pictures and promises.

With Louis, Nancy goes to a different place, one of liberation and fulfillment. It¹s a location where pain is pleasure and where the end is the beginning. While she pursues the freedom that she feels will only come with ultimate liberation, Albert is left to put the pieces together and try to salvage what is left.

The Jane Austen Book Club

The Jane Austen Book Club

The Jane Austen Book Club

Cast: Maria Bello, Jimmy Smits, Emily Blunt, Kevin Zegers, Hugh Dancy, Maggie Grace, Amy Brenneman, Lynn Redgrave, Gwendoline Yeo

As five women and one enigmatic man meet to discuss the works of Jane Austen, they find their love lives playing out in a 21st century version of her novels. Sylvia (Amy Brenneman), is shocked when her husband Daniel (Jimmy Smits), leaves her after 20 plus years and three children. Jocelyn (Maria Bello), her unmarried best friend, distracts herself from her unacknowledged loneliness by breeding dogs. Prudie (Emily Blunt) is a young French teacher, in possession of a worthy husband yet distracted by persistent fantasies about sex with another man. The many times married Bernadette (Kathy Baker) develops a yearning for one more chance at happiness. Beautiful, risk-taking Allegra (Maggie Grace), Sylvia and Daniel's lesbian daughter, has quit talking to her lover. And Grigg (Hugh Dancy), a young science fiction fan and computer whiz, seems horribly both out of place and obliviously at ease as the only man to be invited into the book circle.

Assault on Precinct 13

Assault on Precinct 13

Assault on Precinct 13

Cast: Ethan Hawke, Laurence Fishburne, Maria Bello, John Leguizamo, Drea de Matteo, Gabriel Byrne, Brian Dennehy, Ja Rule, Matt Craven, Kim Coates, Aisha Hinds

To survive the night, cops and criminals alike will have to unite and fight. A classic head-to-head showdown ignites in an all-new update of the 1976 action thriller of the same name. With only a few hours left in the calendar year, Precinct 13, one of Detroit's oldest precinct houses, is closing. Amid heavy snowfall and unsafe road conditions, only a few lawmen remain on duty for New Year's Eve. They are headed by Sergeant Jake Roenick (Ethan Hawke), a good cop wrestling with bad memories of a fatal undercover op from the previous spring. Roenick and Precinct 13 have both seen better days.

Early on December 31st, deep in the city, formidable crime lord Marion Bishop (Laurence Fishburne), is cornered by an undercover cop. Their ensuing struggle leaves the cop dead - and Bishop captured, by the Organized Crime and Racketeering squad that Marcus Duvall (Gabriel Byrne) runs. Bishop is handcuffed and herded onto a prison bus with several criminals: junkie Beck (John Leguizamo), hustler Smiley (Ja Rule), and gang member Anna (Aisha Hinds). But the battering snowstorm stops the bus well short of its high-security destination and strands it at the remote Precinct 13 - where, as night falls, the prisoners are temporarily incarcerated. This influx of prisoners irks Roenick, almost as much as visiting police psychologist Alex Sabian (Maria Bello) does. But Precinct 13's provocative secretary Iris Ferri (Drea de Matteo) and salty veteran cop Jasper "Old School" O'Shea (Brian Dennehy) won't let the increasing workload deter them from celebrating...until two masked gunmen break in and attack the guards from the bus.

The gunmen are just barely beaten back, and everyone inside Precinct 13 realizes that more will come - to extract crime lord Bishop, but also armed and ready to shoot anyone and everyone else. The cops, looking to the reluctant Roenick for leadership, and the cons, looking to the steely Bishop for an angle, must join forces to live. Fortifying themselves with minimal weaponry and maximum courage, they will not go gently into the bad night. As they fight to the death, the thin lines between good and bad bleed together.

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee:

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

Cast: Robin Wright Penn, Alan Arkin, Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves, Monica Bellucci, Julianne Moore, Maria Bello, Blake Lively

As a teenager nearly driven mad by her complacent pastor father Des and bipolar mother Suky, whose neurotic behavior is precipiated by an addiction to amphetamines, Pippa Sarkissian runs away from her rural home and seeks refuge with her father's sister Trish in New York City. She is startled to discover her aunt is a lesbian and living with Kit, a dominatrix who specializes in photographing sadomasochistic scenes. Falling under Kit's influence, Pippa rapidly descends into an underworld of llegal drugs and promiscuous sex. She is rescued from her decadent lifestyle by Herb Lee, a charasmatic publisher 30 years her senior.

They wed, have two children, and live a very comfortable life until Herb's multiple heart attacks force them to sell their Manhattan apartment and settle in a retirement community in suburban Connecticut, where Pippa develops a sleep disorder. By far the youngest of all the residents, she finds herself becoming bored and restless and beginning to unravel until she meets her neighbor's emotionally damaged son Chris, who becomes an unlikely confidante and unexpected lover. Pippa's unswerving devotion to her husband is tested when she discovers he is having a fling of his own with Sandra Dulles, an attractive woman - even younger than his trophy wife - who has a long list of neuroses of her own.