Magnolia Home Entertainment (Firm)

Aspiring playwright Louis Ives moves to New York, taking an environmental job with a beautiful, infatuating co-worker. Louis rents a room from an eccentric former playwright who moonlights as an 'extra man,' a social escort for the wealthy widows of Manhattan high society. The two men develop a volatile mentorship, which leads to a series of comic adventures.

Centered around a small group of American soldiers stationed at a checkpoint in Iraq. Alternates points of view between these soldiers, the media and the local Iraqi people illuminating how each group is deeply affected by the current conflict and their encounters with each other. The POVs are presented as a video diary, footage from a documentary-in-progress, a website's streaming video, surveillance cameras, and cellphone images.

Ben is an overburdened movie producer. He tries to balance his life and has to contend with the never-ending demands of 2 ex-wives, his ice-queen studio head, and a menagerie of various Hollywood prima donnas. Ben manages to take it all in stride. He copes by exuding a smoothly assuring demeanor. The only thing that really seems to upset Ben is when he discovers that his ex-wife sleeps with one of his colleagues.

An unemployed and unmotivated grad student, looking for a job as a professor, is driven to distraction by a yapping dog somewhere on the block of his apartment complex. In a fit of anger he takes extreme action to deal with his tormentor, an action that will come to haunt him.