Arnold Schwarzenegger remained committed to jump-starting his acting career post-governor's office and his infidelity scandal and divorce with wife Maria Shriver via his commitment to the Lionsgate western The Last Stand. Schwarzenegger agreed to play what a Lionsgate exec described as a border town sheriff facing a drug cartel leader trying to escape across the Mexican border.

Maternal melodramas featured plots with sacrificial, selfless mother-loving figures who suffered hardships. They were a popular tearjerker (or 'soaper') sub-genre requiring multiple hankies to make it to the emotional finales. Maternal characters were cruelly neglected and scorned by their children, or separated from their children for any number of causes (social pressures to give up the child, financial destitution, scandal or a moral lapse, etc.). However victimized, they would often become heroines by sacrificing themselves for their children.

Ultimately, it's of minor import how much of Rob Roy is based upon historical fact and how much has been embellished by the pen of screenwriter Alan Sharp. As a hero of 18th century Scotland, Robert Roy MacGregor is known to have walked through the mists of the Highlands, living by the code that made his name a legend. This film takes the skeletal myth and builds a real person around those bones. As embodied by Liam Neeson, Rob Roy is a tremendous protagonist -- a naive man whose belief in honor and whose love for a woman, family, and clan make him a figure to cheer for.

Cast:

Michael Douglas, Demi Moore, Donald Sutherland, Caroline Goodall, Roma Maffia

The undisputed queen of the women's melodramas, playing a wide range of tarnished females (a Southern belle, a long-suffering secret mother, a terminally-ill socialite, a spoiled seductive rich girl, a tawdry Cockney waitress, a calculating murderous wife, a repressed ugly duckling spinster who is transformed, a trampy housewife, and more) was independent-minded star Bette Davis in such classic, four-hanky films as:

Funniest Movie Scenes: Although it would be impossible to compile a list of every single funny scene ever screened, this collection moves toward that goal. It should be obvious that a selection of funny movie moments and scenes is entirely subjective and can only scratch the surface.

Transformers producers Don Murphy and Susan Montford made a lot of fans happy today with their news of acquiring popular 1990’s cartoon Captain Planet, featuring a hero who promotes environmental themes in addition to battling super villains, for a live-action movie.

Sultry Jennifer Jones starred as a lustful, spiteful, white-trash hellcat in the passionate melodrama Ruby Gentry (1952), James Dean starred in his first film as a wronged, rebellious brother in Elia Kazan's emotionally brooding East of Eden (1955), and Elizabeth Taylor starred in two literate tales of dysfunctional Southern families: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959). Both Taylor and Dean starred in George Stevens' Giant (1956), an epic melodramatic look at the aristocratic-estate life of a Texas cattle rancher over two generations. And at the close of the decade, Taylor won a Best Actress Oscar as a sophisticated, professional New York callgirl in the overripe drama Butterfield 8 (1960).

Stars: Marcelle Baer, Drew Battles and Gabe Begneaud

A visual effects artist who worked on several Dreamworks films like "Shrek" faces more than 4 years in prison -- after he was accused of beating his neighbor's puppy to death ... with a hammer.