Plot

Kathryn "Kate" McQuean is a Miami lawyer who, in the course of a divorce case, attempts to have a freighter moored off the Florida coast seized in lieu of unpaid alimony. The ship, which is owned by criminal Emilio Juantorena, is the current base of operations of Ilya Kazak, a former KGB agent who has become an international money launderer, and has also become the leader of a group of rogue ex-KGB members, including Stefan, Leonide "Hacker" Volkov, Navigator, Rosa and Zhukov.

When Kate is hit by a stray bullet, Miami detective Max Kirkpatrick is assigned to the case. Then an attempt is made on Kate's life by Kazak, who — after killing Juantorena — assembles his team to track and kill Kate; Max then becomes her protector.

Kate, Max, and two of his colleagues stay at a hotel used for witness protection. They order pizza using Kate's credit card, and Volkov traces the order. Rosa and two henchmen infiltrate the hotel and kill Max's colleagues. Max manages to kill the hit squad (except for Rosa); he and Kate then leave. After Max contacts his superior, Lt. Meyerson, FBI agents are sent to escort them. The "agents" turn out to be working for Kazak, and Max's partner and long-time friend Detective Louis Aragon is killed in the process. After killing some of Kazak's men, Max and Kate travel through Florida, trying to avoid Kazak and find out why he wants Kate dead.

However, their jeep breaks down on a freeway and they call a tow truck to pick them up. Volkov and Stefan show up, while Kazak splits from them to deal with Max's cousin, who has been feeding them information regarding Kazak and his past activities in Cuba. Kate and Max are forced to run with the tow truck while their jeep is still hooked onto it. After a long chase and gunfight, Kate steps hard on the brakes while Max steers the wheel of the truck, unhooking their car and causing it to crash into Volkov's and Stefan's SUV, killing both of them.

One of Kate's clients is the former wife of Emilio Juantorena, and she is trying to repossess the boat to pay for her divorce settlement. This is the main reason why Kazak wishes to kill Kate.

Kate then flees from Max because she wants to get away from everyone, and manages to board a freight train, but Max catches up and boards the freight train also. They argue but then make up and start to have sex. During this, the criminals locate them on the train and attack them again. Kate is kidnapped by Kazak and taken to the freighter while Rosa and Zhukov are sent to kill Max. They accidentally kill Navigator and Max shoots the pair. Rosa, however, has a bulletproof vest on, and Max only kills her after a long fight.

Max then uses the hit squad's boat to board the freighter in an attempt to rescue Kate. Max and Kate blow up the freighter. They jump off the ship just in time to watch it blow up and sink, killing Kazak in the process. Kate and Max climb aboard the boat he used to reach the freighter and start to kiss, sailing off together into the sunset.
Cast
William Baldwin as Max Kirkpatrick, a Miami police detective
Cindy Crawford as Kate McQuean, a lawyer who becomes a target for murder
Steven Berkoff as Colonel Ilya Pavel Kazak, a rogue ex-KGB operative who now heads a group of terrorists
Christopher McDonald as Lieutenant Meyerson, Max's boss
Miguel Sandoval as Emilio Juantorena, the owner of the freighter which is Kazak's base of operations
Johann Carlo as Jodi Kirkpatrick, Max's cousin who is a forensics specialist
Salma Hayek as Rita, Max's ex-girlfriend
John Bedford Lloyd as Detective Louis Aragon, Max's partner
Frank Medrano as Detective Graybera
Don Yesso as Detective Beanpole
Jenette Goldstein as Rosa, Kazak's brutal henchwoman
Paul Dillon as Leonid 'The Hacker' Volkov, one of Kazak's henchmen
Olek Krupa as Zhukov, Kazak's henchman
Gustav Vintas as Stefan, one of Kazak's henchmen
Marc Macaulay as Navigator, one of Kazak's henchmen
Kane Hodder as one of Kazak's henchmen on train
Antoni Corone as Codebreaker, one of Kazak's henchmen
Sonny Carl Davis as fake FBI agent Baker, one of Kazak's henchmen
Scott Michael Campbell as Adam, salesman at computer store
Dan Hedaya as Walter Hollenbach (uncredited), Juantorena's attorne



9 1/2 Weeks
Plot

Elizabeth McGraw, an employee at a SoHo art gallery, meets John Gray, a Wall Street arbitrageur, at a Chinese grocer, and later at a street fair where he buys her an expensive scarf. They start dating, but John's strange behavior escalates, and he gives her an expensive gold watch with instructions to think about him touching her at noon every day. Elizabeth goes further and masturbates at work at the designated time.

Elizabeth wants to introduce John to her friends, but he only wants to see her in the evenings and tells her to see her friends during the day. One evening, she is alone in his apartment and finds a photo of him with another woman named April Tover. When John calls and asks if she went through his things, she admits it. He threatens to punish her, and when he returns home, he orders her to face the wall for a spanking. Elizabeth tries to leave, but the door is locked. John slaps her, she slaps him back, and he rapes her. Despite this, Elizabeth falls in love with John, so she starts to enjoy his dominant behavior and has sex with him on top of a clock tower.

John takes control of all aspects of Elizabeth's life, from what she wears and eats to how he brushes her hair and feeds her. Elizabeth becomes increasingly dependent on John, losing her sense of self. One day, she follows John to work and brings him lunch, telling him she wants to "be one of the guys". John arranges for her to crossdress for a rendezvous at a bar at the Algonquin Hotel, but after the exit they are mistaken for a gay couple and attacked by a group of tramps in an alley. Elizabeth stabs one of the attackers in the buttocks, and they flee. Excited from the incident, Elizabeth declares her love for John, strips, reveals wet informal undergarments, and has passionate sex with him at the scene of the crime.

John starts to make their BDSM-style relationship more apparent in public. He dares her to shoplift a necklace, and she does so. At the bedding section in Bloomingdale's, he asks Elizabeth to "spread your legs for daddy" in front of the saleswoman. At an equestrian store, he whips Elizabeth on the leg with a riding crop and tells the salesman, "I'll take this one." Later that evening, Elizabeth performs a striptease at John's apartment.

Someday after, John asks Elizabeth to crawl and pick up money as he throws it on the floor of his office. Elizabeth initially obliges but then objects, and John takes off his belt, whipping the floor, almost hitting her. Elizabeth cries and protests, but John continues to insist that she crawl and pick up the money. She eventually does so before throwing the money in John's face and declaring that she hates the game.

Elizabeth is confident and sexy at home with John, but she becomes withdrawn at work and thinks about her ex-husband Bruce, who starts dating her co-worker and roommate Molly. She goes to the countryside to visit an elderly artist named Farnsworth and secure an exhibit.

Elizabeth meets John at a room at the Hotel Chelsea and is asked to wear a blindfold. John touches her briefly before a South American sex worker enters the room and caresses Elizabeth as John observes. Elizabeth shows anxiety, and the woman removes her blindfold. John takes the woman to the next room and starts undressing her. Elizabeth intervenes violently and flees with John in pursuit. They end up in an adult entertainment venue where Elizabeth starts kissing the man next to her during a live sex show. John approaches her, and they embrace.

Elizabeth's gallery hosts a successful opening featuring Farnsworth's work. Farnsworth, uncomfortable with the partying crowd, finds Elizabeth in tears in a corner. Elizabeth, dependent on John for emotional stability, calls him while wearing a metal bracelet cuff. The next morning, Elizabeth tries to leave John's apartment, but he tries to convince her to stay by confessing his feelings. Elizabeth leaves anyway, and John begins a mental countdown, hoping she will return before he finishes. Elizabeth walks in the street among the crowd, crying.
Cast

    Kim Basinger as Elizabeth McGraw
    Mickey Rourke as John Gray
    Margaret Whitton as Molly
    David Margulies as Harvey
    Christine Baranski as Thea
    Karen Young as Sue
    William DeAcutis as Ted
    Dwight Weist as Farnsworth
    Roderick Cook as Sinclair
    Olek Krupa as Bruce
    Michael Margotta as Michael
    Victor Truro as Gallery Client
    Julian Beck as Dinner Guest
    Dan Lauria as Janitor


Like Water for Chocolate
Plot

A woman named Tita living in the early 1900s experiences the struggles of love, family dynamics and family tradition.

A young lady is cutting onions, expressing the influences of emotions and cooking. She begins a story with the birth of a girl named Tita. Tita's mother, Elena, gives birth on the kitchen table, assisted by the cook, Nacha. Shortly afterwards Elena's husband dies of a heart attack when a stranger viciously tells him that his wife had an affair and the second daughter isn't his. During the funeral Elena explains to Nacha that she can no longer have children and the family tradition dictates that Tita, being the youngest child, cannot marry but must take care of her mother until her death. Tita's sisters, Rosaura and Gertrudis, will be allowed to marry. Nacha takes charge of teaching Tita how to cook food in flavorful ways. Tita learns to infuse her emotions into food.

Years later a young man named Pedro Muzquiz professes his love and desire to marry Tita, who feels the same way about Pedro. On Tita's birthday, Pedro arrives with his father, Don Pascual Muzquiz, to ask for her hand. Elena explains why Tita is not allowed to marry and offers Rosaura instead. Rosaura is delighted, Tita is devastated and Gertrudis and Chencha (a maid) are disappointed. Nacha overhears Pedro tell his father that he is marrying Rosaura only in order to stay close to Tita. Nacha tells Tita but she is too upset to believe it. While baking the wedding cake Tita cries into the batter. During the wedding reception Pedro tells Tita of his true feelings. Suspicious that Tita and Pedro are having an affair, Elena says Tita must stay away from Pedro. As the guests eat the wedding cake, everyone is overcome with great sadness for lost lovers and begins to cry, followed by vomiting. Overcome with this sadness Elena rushes to her bedroom and tearfully looks at the photo of a well-dressed mulatto man. It is implied that the rumours about Elena's affair are true. Tita finds Nacha dead on the floor holding a picture of her husband.

Some time later Rosaura becomes pregnant. One day Pedro brings Tita a bouquet of roses to celebrate Tita being the head cook. Elena commands Tita to throw them away but Tita uses the petals to create a rose sauce for a quail dish. While eating the meal everyone except Rosaura becomes filled with sensual gratification. Rosaura is sick instead and leaves the table. Gertrudis becomes hot and so overheated that the shower house catches fire. She runs away naked, encountering the soldier Juan Alejandrez, who is fighting in the Mexican Revolution. Filled with a strong attraction to Juan, Gertrudis immediately jumps onto his horse and leaves with him. Tita sees this but tells Elena that Gertrudis was kidnapped and the soldiers set the shower house on fire. Elena is informed by a family priest that Gertrudis was forced into prostitution. Tita secretly sends Gertrudis her things.

Rosaura gives birth to a sickly son, Roberto. Too ill to nurse Roberto, she must let Tita nurse him with Pedro monitoring. Still suspicious that Tita and Pedro are having an affair, Elena sends Rosaura, Pedro and Roberto to live in Texas. Months later Chencha informs Elena and Tita that Roberto, unwilling to eat, has died. Tita is greatly saddened, but Elena tells her to show no emotion and to continue with the kitchen chores. This brings Tita to an angry outburst and Elena slapping her with a wooden spoon, resulting in a nose bleed. Tita runs into the dovecote and Elena threatens to have the ladder taken down.

For Tita, her rite of separation is the physical removal of her person from Elena's oppressive domination and into the dovecote, where she inhabits a state of nothingness for a period of seven days. After a week of being in the dovecote, Tita is rescued by John Brown, a family doctor, who takes her to his home in Texas for treatment. Tita's rite of transition occurs with this rescue by Dr. Brown, where she eats the healing soup he has made for her and learns of the tunnel of light that she later encounters at the end of the film. Chencha goes to visit Tita and is shocked that she has recovered. Tita tells Chencha to tell Elena that she is never coming back to the ranch. Doctor Brown, who has fallen in love with Tita, proposes marriage and Tita accepts.

Back at the ranch, a group of bandits invade the property, rape Chencha and kill Elena by pushing her off a cliff. Tita and Doctor Brown return to the ranch to prepare Elena's funeral. While dressing Elena's body, Tita discovers the locket and jewelry box containing the picture of Elena's lover. Tita's rite of incorporation occurs when she returns to the ranch with her new found freedom from Elena, where she discovers the locket her mother had been hiding, which contained pictures of another man. Pedro and Rosaura, now pregnant again, return for Elena's funeral, and Rosaura's water breaks. Rosaura has a difficult labor but gives birth to a healthy baby girl named Esperanza. However, Esperanza refuses to be fed by Rosaura, so Tita once again takes on the duties of nursing. Due to complications in childbirth, Rosaura is no longer able to bear children. To Tita and Pedro's dismay, Rosaura imposes the family tradition on Esperanza. Upon finding out about Tita's engagement to Doctor Brown, Pedro becomes jealous, and he sneaks into Tita's room to have sex with her.

During a large social dinner Gertrudis, now a military General, returns to the ranch with Juan Alejandrez, now her husband, along with their squad. Due to her guilt Tita begins to have illusions of Elena chastising her for sleeping with Pedro. Tita suspects that she is pregnant with Pedro's child, and tells Gertrudis her concerns. Gertrudis advises Tita to tell Pedro. Gertrudis reminds Tita that the love she and Pedro share is true and that Rosaura's feelings are irrelevant because she knew that Tita was in love with Pedro but married him anyway. Tita is once again confronted with an illusion of Elena berating her. This time Tita stands up to Elena, confronting her about her affair and then banishing her. While singing up to Tita's window with Juan, Pedro catches on fire. Tita treats Pedro's wounds until Doctor Brown shows up. Pedro, still jealous of Tita's engagement with Doctor Brown, wants her to break it off and threatens to tell Doctor Brown about their one-night stand and her pregnancy. Tita tells Pedro she's not pregnant; it was a false alarm. However, out of guilt, Tita tells Doctor Brown of her infidelity and apologizes for hurting him. Doctor Brown accepts her apology and states that he still wants to be with her, but he will accept whatever decision she makes of their relationship. Rosaura confronts Tita about her relationship with Pedro. Rosaura threatens to kick Tita off the ranch if she goes anywhere near her daughter Esperanza, and dictates that Esperanza will never marry per family tradition.

Many years later, Esperanza marries Doctor Brown's son. It is revealed through gossip that Tita stayed on the ranch to fight for Esperanza's right to marry and Pedro woke up to find Rosaura dead from an unknown gastro-intestinal illness, releasing Esperanza from the family tradition.

Pedro tells Tita that, with Esperanza married off, they can rekindle their romance. After the wedding they both go to the guest house to make love. While having sex, Pedro has a heart attack and dies. Devastated, Tita commits suicide by swallowing matches, causing her body to spontaneously combust and the room to catch on fire, which spreads throughout the entire property.

The young woman narrating the whole story reveals that she is the daughter of Esperanza. She reveals that when Esperanza returned home from her honeymoon to find the property burned to ashes, she discovered Tita's cook book, which she kept and passed down to her daughter.
Cast

    Lumi Cavazos as Tita
    Marco Leonardi as Pedro
    Regina Torné as Mama Elena
    Mario Iván Martínez as Doctor John Brown
    Ada Carrasco as Nacha
    Yareli Arizmendi as Rosaura
    Claudette Maillé as Gertrudis
    Pilar Aranda as Chencha
    Farnesio de Bernal as Cura
    Joaquín Garrido as Sargento Treviño
    Rodolfo Arias as Juan Alejándrez
    Margarita Isabel as Paquita Lobo
    Sandra Arau as Esperanza Muzquiz
    Andrés García Jr as Alex Brown
    Regino Herrera as Nicolás
    Genaro Aguirre as Rosalio
    David Ostrosky as Juan de la Garza
    Brígida Alexander as Tia Mary
    Amado Ramírez as Pedro's father
    Arcelia Ramírez as Esperanza's daughter
    Socorro Rodríguez as friend of Paquita


Blue Velvet
Plot

College student Jeffrey Beaumont returns to his hometown of Lumberton, North Carolina, after his father, Tom, has a near-fatal attack from a medical condition. Walking home from the hospital, Jeffrey cuts through a vacant lot and discovers a severed human ear, which he takes to police detective John Williams. Williams' daughter Sandy tells Jeffrey that the ear somehow relates to a lounge singer named Dorothy Vallens. Intrigued, Jeffrey enters her apartment by posing as an exterminator. While there, he steals a spare key while she is distracted by a man in a distinctive yellow sport coat, whom Jeffrey nicknames the "Yellow Man".

Jeffrey and Sandy attend Dorothy's nightclub act, in which she sings "Blue Velvet", and leave early so Jeffrey can infiltrate her apartment. Dorothy returns home and undresses; she finds Jeffrey hiding in a closet and forces him to strip at knifepoint, but he retreats to the closet when Frank Booth, a psychopathic gangster and drug lord, arrives and interrupts their encounter. Frank beats and rapes Dorothy while inhaling gas from a canister, alternating between fits of sobbing and violent rage. After Frank leaves, Jeffrey sneaks away and seeks comfort from Sandy.

Surmising that Frank has abducted Dorothy's husband Don, and son Donnie, to force her into sex slavery, Jeffrey suspects that Frank cut off Don's ear to intimidate her into submission. While continuing to see Sandy, Jeffrey enters into a sadomasochistic relationship with Dorothy, in which she encourages him to hit her. Jeffrey sees Frank attending Dorothy's show and later observes him selling drugs and meeting with the Yellow Man. Jeffrey then sees the Yellow Man meeting with a "well-dressed man".

When Frank catches Jeffrey leaving Dorothy's apartment, he abducts them and takes them to the lair of Ben, a criminal associate holding Don and Donnie hostage. Frank permits Dorothy to see her family and forces Jeffrey to watch Ben perform an impromptu lip-sync of Roy Orbison's "In Dreams", which moves Frank to tears. Afterwards, he and his gang take Jeffrey and Dorothy on a high-speed joyride to a sawmill yard, where he again attempts to sexually abuse Dorothy. When Jeffrey intervenes and punches him in the face, an enraged Frank and his gang pull him out of the car. Replaying the tape of "In Dreams", Frank smears lipstick on his face and violently kisses Jeffrey. Frank then has Jeffrey restrained and beats him unconscious, while Dorothy pleads for Frank to stop. Jeffrey awakens the next morning, bruised and bloodied.

While visiting the police station, Jeffrey discovers that the Yellow Man is Detective Williams's partner Tom Gordon, who has been murdering Frank's rival drug dealers and stealing confiscated narcotics from the evidence room for Frank to sell. After Jeffrey and Sandy declare their love for each other at a party, they are pursued by a car which they assume belongs to Frank; as they arrive at Jeffrey's home, Sandy realizes the driver is her ex-boyfriend, Mike. After Mike threatens to beat Jeffrey for stealing his girlfriend, Dorothy appears on Jeffrey's porch naked, beaten, and confused. Mike backs down as Jeffrey and Sandy whisk Dorothy to Sandy's house to summon medical attention.

When Dorothy calls Jeffrey "my secret lover", a distraught Sandy slaps him for cheating on her. Jeffrey asks Sandy to tell her father everything, and Detective Williams then leads a police raid on Frank's headquarters, killing Frank's men. Jeffrey returns alone to Dorothy's apartment, where he discovers Don dead and Gordon mortally wounded. As Jeffrey leaves the apartment, the "Well-Dressed Man" arrives, sees Jeffrey in the stairs, and chases him back inside. Realizing that the "Well-Dressed Man" is Frank in disguise, Jeffrey uses Gordon's walkie-talkie to say he is in the bedroom (to distract Frank, who has a police radio) before hiding in the closet. When Frank arrives, he starts shooting around the apartment, in the process killing Gordon. Frank deduces where Jeffrey is hiding, and Jeffrey kills Frank with Gordon's gun upon Frank opening the door. Moments later, Sandy and Detective Williams arrive.

Some time later, Jeffrey and Sandy have continued their relationship, Tom Beaumont has recovered, and Dorothy has been reunited with her son.
Cast

    Isabella Rossellini as Dorothy Vallens
    Kyle MacLachlan as Jeffrey Beaumont
    Dennis Hopper as Frank Booth
    Laura Dern as Sandy Williams
    Hope Lange as Mrs. Pam Williams
    Dean Stockwell as Ben
    George Dickerson as Detective John Williams
    Priscilla Pointer as Mrs. Frances Beaumont
    Frances Bay as Aunt Barbara
    Jack Harvey as Mr. Tom Beaumont
    Ken Stovitz as Mike Shaw
    Brad Dourif as Raymond
    Jack Nance as Paul
    J. Michael Hunter as Hunter
    Dick Green as Don Vallens
    Fred Pickler as Detective Tom Gordon, the "Yellow Man"
    Jon Jon Snipes as Little Donnie