Ken Hixon

City by the Sea -- When a respected New York homicide detective (Robert De Niro) discovers the prime suspect in a murder case is his estranged son (James Franco), he is forced to return home to the decaying boardwalks of Long Beach, Long Island, to confront the darkness of his past.

Inventing the Abbotts -- A light-hearted story of two brothers courting three sisters.

An ambitious father thinks nothing of using his own son to achieve his political goals in this adolescent comedy. The lonely boy has spent the last seven years tucked away and ignored by his parents, Senator Tom Morgan and his social-climbing wife Nancy, in a distant boarding school. As the story begins, he receives the news that once again they will be too busy to have him home for the holidays. But then, out of the blue, they change their minds and invite him home to stay there for good. The boy is elated, but soon learns the bitter truth: his father only brought him back because it is an election year and his campaign manager thought he might do better if the public saw him as more of a family man. The boy then decides that it is time some changes were made around the house and mayhem ensues.

When a respected New York homicide detective (Robert De Niro) discovers the prime suspect in a murder case is his estranged son (James Franco), he is forced to return home to the decaying boardwalks of Long Beach, Long Island, to confront the darkness of his past. During the course of the investigation, he realizes that his failures as a father-and his unresolved anguish about the painful estrangement-have deeply influenced his son's life, and he must put his own life on the line in order to do right by both his family and his profession.