From Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ===== The pilgrim's inner journey begins when he is struck upon hearing the words of Paul (in I Thessalonians 5:17) to "pray without ceasing." He visits churches and monasteries to try and understand how to pray without ceasing. His travels lead him to a starets (a spiritual father) who teaches him the Jesus Prayer—"Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me"—and gives him practical advice on how to recite the prayer uninterruptedly, as a type of mantra.Smith, Huston, in the foreword of: The book details the gradual spiritual development and struggles of the narrator, and the effect the narrator's spirituality has on those around him. The sequel is entitled The Pilgrim Continues his Way. Translations of both documents were published together in some English editions. ===== The narrator is sent by a friend to interview an old man, Simon Wheeler, who might know the location of an old acquaintance named Leonidas W. Smiley. Finding Simon at an old mining camp, the narrator asks him if he knows anything about Leonidas; Simon appears not to, and instead tells a story about Jim Smiley, a man who had visited the camp years earlier. Jim loves to gamble and will offer to bet on anything and everything, from horse races to dogfights, to the health of the local parson's wife. He catches a frog, whom he names Dan'l Webster, and spends three months training it to jump. When a stranger visits the camp, Jim shows off Dan'l and offers to bet $40 that it can out-jump any other frog in Calaveras County. The stranger, unimpressed, says that he would take the bet if he had a frog, so Jim goes out to catch one, leaving him alone with Dan'l. While Jim is away, the stranger pours lead shot down Dan'l's throat. Once Jim returns, he and the stranger set the frogs down and let them loose. The stranger's frog jumps away while Dan'l does not budge, and the surprised and disgusted Jim pays the $40 wager. After the stranger has departed, Jim notices Dan'l's sluggishness and picks the frog up, finding it to be much heavier than he remembers. When Dan'l belches out a double handful of lead shot, Jim realizes that he has been cheated and chases after the stranger, but never catches him. At this point in the story, Simon excuses himself to go outside for a moment. The narrator realizes that Jim has no connection to Leonidas and gets up to leave, only to have Simon stop him at the door, offering to tell him about a yellow, one-eyed, stubby-tailed cow that Jim had owned. Rather than stay to hear another pointless story, the narrator excuses himself and leaves. ===== Charley Brewster is a 17-year-old fan of both traditional horror films and a horror TV series entitled Fright Night, hosted by former movie vampire hunter Peter Vincent. One evening, Charley discovers that his new next-door neighbor Jerry Dandrige is a vampire responsible for the disappearances of several victims. Charley tells his mother and asks his friends for help. In desperation, he contacts the authorities. Detective Lennox goes with Charley to Jerry's house to question him, but his "roommate" Billy Cole tells them that Jerry is "away on business". Charley reveals his suspicions, and the detective leaves, furious. That night, Charley is surprised to see Jerry in his house after his mother invites him in (after Charley's friend "Evil Ed" Thompson tells him that a vampire cannot enter someone's home without an invitation). Later on, Charley gets a visit from Jerry, who offers Charley a choice - forget about his vampire identity – or else. Charlie refuses, brandishing his crucifix at Jerry. When Jerry stops Charley and slowly tries to push him out the window to his death, Charley stabs Jerry's hand with a pencil. Enraged, Jerry destroys Charley's car in retaliation and informs Charley that he will do much worse to him tomorrow night. Charley turns to Peter Vincent for help, but Peter dismisses Charley as an obsessed fan. Charley's girlfriend, Amy Peterson, fearing for Charley's sanity and safety, hires the destitute Vincent to "prove" that Jerry is not a vampire by having him drink what they claim is "holy water", but it is only tap water; Jerry has claimed to Peter that drinking actual holy water would be against his religious convictions. Vincent discovers Jerry's true nature after glancing at his pocket mirror and noticing Jerry's lack of a reflection, causing him to accidentally drop and smash the mirror. Vincent then flees, but Jerry learns of his discovery after finding a shard of mirrored glass on the floor. Jerry hunts down Ed and turns him into a vampire. Ed then visits Vincent, and upon revealing himself, tries to attack him, only to be warded off when burned by a crucifix. Meanwhile, Jerry chases Charley and Amy into a nightclub. While Charley is trying to call the police for help, Jerry hypnotizes and abducts Amy, who bears a resemblance to Jerry's lost love, and bites her after an intimate moment. With nowhere left to turn, Charley attempts to gain Vincent's help once more. A frightened Vincent initially refuses, but he then reluctantly resumes his "vampire killer" role as Charley approaches his neighbor's house. The two are able to repel Jerry's attack using a crucifix, though only Charley's works since he has faith in its spiritual power. Billy appears and knocks Charley unconscious over the banister, leaving Vincent to flee to Charley's house. There, he is surprised by Ed, who attacks him in the form of a wolf, only to be pierced through the heart with a broken table leg held by Vincent. Removing the stake from Ed's corpse, Vincent goes to rescue Charley and battle Dandridge. Meanwhile, Charley is locked in with Amy, who is slowly transforming into a vampire. Vincent manages to free him before she awakens, and says the process can be reversed if they destroy Jerry before dawn. Charley and Vincent are then confronted by Billy, who is revealed to be an undead, though nonvampiric servant, and manage to destroy him, melting him into goo and sand. Jerry appears, but Vincent is able to lure the overconfident vampire in front of a window using a crucifix (now working due to his renewed faith in its abilities). Just before the morning sun, Jerry transforms into a bat and attacks Vincent and Charley before fleeing to his coffin in the basement. Charley and Vincent pursue Jerry; Vincent breaks open Jerry's coffin and tries to stake him through the heart while Charley fights off Amy, who has almost completed her transformation. By breaking the blacked-out windows in the basement, Vincent and Charley expose Jerry to the sunlight, destroying him. Jerry's destruction leads to Amy reverting to her human form, and the three embrace. A few nights later, Vincent returns to his Fright Night TV series and announces a hiatus from vampires by instead presenting a science-fiction film titled Mars Wants Flesh (represented by clips from Octaman). The series is being watched by Charley and Amy as they embrace in bed. As Charley gets up to turn off the TV, he at first sees red eyes in Jerry's now-vacant house, but dismisses them. Unbeknownst to both Charley and Amy, the still undead Ed (hiding in the darkness) laughs and says, "Oh, you're so cool, Brewster!" ===== US cover of Lord Brocktree This book revolves around the badger Lord Brocktree, father of Boar the Fighter, grandfather of Bella of Brockhall, and great-grandfather of Sunflash the Mace. He sets out to find the ancient badger mountain stronghold of Salamandastron, aided by the quick talking haremaid Dorothea Duckfontein Dillworthy and otter Ruffgar Brookback. Meanwhile, in Salamandastron, trouble comes for Brocktree's father, Lord Stonepaw. Years of peace have left the mountain stronghold with few fighters, and those that remain are long past their prime, including Stonepaw himself. The wildcat Ungatt Trunn, son of Mortspear, Highland King of the North, lays siege to the fortress with his Blue Hordes. Eventually the mountain is overrun, leading to the deaths of many hares and even of Stonepaw himself, who dies valiantly defending his hares, taking many vermin with him as he does. The wildcat takes at least sixty hares as prisoners, but through the efforts of warrior Stiffener Medick and his otter friend Brogalaw, they escape. Lord Brocktree gets an army from the hare Bucko Bigbones, after Dotti defeats him in a contest. Thanks to the Bark Crew, the group of guerrillas formed by Stiffener and Brogalaw to harass Trunn, the Blue Hordes are slowly starved, their supplies cut off. Ungatt Trunn tricks the Bark Crew into putting up a last stand in battle, but Lord Brocktree joins forces with the hares and saves the day. The book culminates in a massive final battle, with many memorable characters killed, including Jukka and Fleetscut. Eventually, when the battle ends up a near-stalemate, Trunn and Brocktree face off in a duel. After a failed assassination attempt on Brocktree by the searats Ripfang and Doomeye and the corsair fleet captain Karangool (Trunn's second in command) the badger eventually wins, snapping Trunn's spine and leaving him on the sand to die. Trunn is thrown into the water but survives, only to be drowned by Groddil, one of his former advisors. The book ends with thousands of hares rallying to form the Long Patrol under Brocktree and Dotti (whom the badger names first Long Patrol General). ===== Set in an alternate near-future Japan, a young woman codenamed "Kabuki", acts as an agent and television law-enforcement personality for a clandestine government body known as "The Noh". In the first volume of the series, The Noh's nature and background is explained. The Noh is controlled by a renowned World War II Japanese military man known as the General, who has achieved much power and status for being a brilliant military tactician during his many years of service. The agency itself exists as part of Japan's strict police state, which hunts down and brutally executes criminals for their misdeeds under the veil of keeping the peace. Secretly the Noh also acts to maintain the balance of crime and order that ultimately benefits the national economy on both sides of the law and thus targets politicians, businessmen and certain underworld kingpins whose actions threaten this balance. Kabuki herself is one of eight masked assassins who perform these secret executions under the General's orders. Ryuchi Kai is the General's son and another war veteran, who is a Yakuza boss and every bit as deadly and brilliant as his father but has earned a reputation for swift brutality. Astonishingly, despite the high level of discretion surrounding Noh, Kai manages to infiltrate the agency, personally, by using its policy of masked operatives to his advantage. He poses as Oni – one of the General's two overseers of the assassins (the other being a mysterious old man named "Dove"). He manipulates Kabuki and her partners into eliminating the entire underworld hierarchy in Tokyo. Publicly Kai is a talented businessman with much stock and influence in the Japanese market, thus this move makes him indispensable and essential to the balance. Kabuki's origins are revealed as the story progresses, her mother was an Ainu comfort woman named "Tsukiko" taken by Japanese soldiers during WWII. Rather than be used as sex slaves, the General instead had the women act out Kabuki plays to entertain the soldiers, something that was met with scorn by his son, who fast made "Kabuki" a derogatory term among the ranks. Tsukiko in particular captivated the General, a widower, who took her to be his wife. This decision infuriated Kai, who saw it as an affront to his deceased mother. On the eve of their wedding, he assaulted, raped, blinded and savagely scarred Tsukiko with the words "Kabuki" into her back. Tsukiko survived the encounter, and she was pregnant with Kai's child, something the General kept hidden. Tsukiko dies while her daughter Ukiko is being born. The General in turn raises her as his own daughter. Nine years later, Kai, still demented and vicious, learns of the child's existence and savagely attacks Ukiko at her mother's grave, once again carving "Kabuki" into her skin, this time along the girl's face. Ukiko dies for nine minutes but is successfully resuscitated. From then on, the General grooms her into a perfect soldier, having her trained in martial arts, combat and weaponry so that she may never fall victim to another assault. When the Noh is created, she is given a mask reminiscent of her mother's face and the codename "Kabuki" – claiming the term as her own. In the present, Kai is a political figurehead and inaccessible from The Noh's wrath, going as far to reconnect with his father to cement his status. Most Noh agents are all dismissed by Dove except Kabuki. Dove reveals that he is in fact her biological grandfather on her mother's side, that The Noh has become defunct, and that Kai's reign has gone on long enough. He dispatches Kabuki/Ukiko to eliminate him, his followers, and The Noh's board of directors. The battle is bloody, and Kai very nearly defeats her, though she succeeds at the last moment. Her final confrontation at the General's headquarters results in her sustaining fatal wounds. Victorious and dying, Ukiko finally limps to her mother's grave to die. With the following volumes, it is revealed that Ukiko was in fact abducted shortly after this, by a rival agency called "Control Corps", who treat her injuries and keep her trapped and medicated within a hidden asylum for broken-down government agents. For nine months, they study her and probe her for information regarding The Noh. She does not relent and instead, devotes this period to introspection and personal reflection. During this time she is contacted periodically by another inmate – a mysterious individual known as Akemi who has grand plans for escape. Meanwhile, outside of the asylum, all of Japan is in confusion as its top political lynchpins have been killed, and The Noh is unable to comment. Dove has vanished and, with him, all knowledge of Ukiko's motives. Thus, the seven remaining assassins have been dispatched to hunt down Ukiko and kill her. Ironically during the months of searching, two of the agents, codenamed "Scarab" and "Tigerlilly", become friends and start socializing as civilians – something which later compromises their mission. Through Akemi's elaborate machinations, Ukiko manages to escape Control Corps just as her former partners arrive to eliminate her, resulting in the death of one of them. Akemi takes advantage of this and just as Kai did, he poses as the fallen agent to continue infiltrating The Noh, this time on Ukiko's behalf. Ukiko then embarks on a convoluted trail, given to her by Akemi, so she can forge a new identity and life for herself. Escaping Japan to America, with the help of other brilliant escapees under Akemi's employ, she successfully achieves a blissful, private existence wherein she can be happy. The final pages of the series see her subtly overthrowing The Noh altogether, through a tell-all comic book created by herself and a comic artist whom she encounters. She also falls pregnant, much to her delight. ===== It tells the story of a Bedouin princess (Maureen O'Hara) who returns to Baghdad after being educated in England. She finds that her father has been murdered by a group of renegades. She is hosted by the Pasha (Vincent Price), the corrupt representative of the national government. She is also courted by Prince Hassan (Paul Hubschmid), who is falsely accused of the murder. The plot revolves around her attempts to bring the killer to justice while being courted by the Pasha. The film was directed by Charles Lamont and included choreography by Lester Horton and Bella Lewitzky. ===== US cover of Martin the Warrior Martin the Warrior tells the story of a young mouse named Martin, a slave in Marshank under the cruel stoat Badrang the Tyrant. When Badrang leaves Martin to be tortured by the weather and the birds, a young mousemaid named Laterose, or Rose (whom Martin falls in love with) and a mole named Grumm hear his cry of defiance. They become instrumental in helping Martin, along with a squirrel named Felldoh, and Rose's brother Brome, escape Marshank. When that is accomplished, they decide to travel to Noonvale to rouse an army to attack Marshank. However, in the ocean, Felldoh and Brome are separated from Rose, Martin, and Grumm. Felldoh and Brome meet up with the Rambling Rosehip Players, a travelling band of creatures, and join forces with them, eventually freeing the slaves as Brome bluffs his way into and out of Marshank, disguised as a rat from Badrang's horde. Meanwhile, Martin, Rose and Grumm meet a hedgehog named Pallum after being imprisoned by pigmy shrews. They are eventually freed by saving the life of the Pygmy Queen's son, Dinjer, along with Pallum, who in turn joins up with them. After a long series of adventures, the four adventurers reach Noonvale, Rose and Grumm's home. They gather an army there, but it is not large enough. But all is not lost. Boldred, a scholarly owl whom they met on the way to Noonvale, helps gather a huge army, including the pigmy shrews and the Gawtrybe (a group of savage squirrels). The entire army then sails to Marshank and reach it in good timing, since the Rambling Rosehip Players are in a predicament. Badrang and all of the vermin under his command, with the exception of mad Cap'n Tramun Clogg, are slain. Rose is killed in the final battle by the very tyrant she had gone with Martin to defeat. After the battle, Martin, along with Ballaw, Rowanoak, Brome, and Keyla all stay in Polleekin's treehouse for the short rest of the season. Martin is devastated, his one love gone, and has nowhere to go. He declines going back to Noonvale with the rest, the memory of Laterose lingering too strong, not to mention he'll have to tell Urran Voh what had happened to his daughter. He makes a vow not to tell anyone about his friends or Noonvale, to protect them from enemies. He decides simply to relate a tale of living by the sword in the caves until the time came to move on southward. The story of Martin and Rose is later brought to Redwall during the time of Abbot Saxtus by Aubretia, a descendant of Brome, and Bultip, a descendant of Pallum, who brought a sprig of climbing-rose culled from that which grew on Rose of Noonvale's grave. This becomes the Laterose of Redwall. In the passing of Spring to Summer, it blooms year round a bit later than the rest, and that is why it is called the Laterose. ===== A psychiatrist, Dr. Cross (Vincent Price), is treating a young woman, Janet Stewart (Anabel Shaw), who is in a coma-state, brought on when she heard loud arguing, went to her window and saw a man strike his wife with a candlestick and kill her. Lynn Bari is Dr. Cross's nurse/lover, Elaine Jordan. As Stewart comes out of her shock, she recognizes Dr. Cross as the killer. He then takes her to his sanitarium and at Elaine's urging, gives Janet an overdose of insulin under the pretense of administering insulin shock therapy. He can't bring himself to murder her in cold blood, though, and asks Elaine to get the medicine to save her. Elaine refuses, they argue, and he strangles her. A colleague of Dr. Cross, Dr. Harvey, saves Janet's life and Dr. Cross is taken into custody by a lawyer from the District Attorney's office. ===== A Japanese minister of defence is traveling to Paris to sign a weapons contract between Japan and France, but first, he is visiting Marseille to view and rate the city police's anti gang tactics (using fake attacks on him). During the visit, however, he is kidnapped by a group working for the Japanese yakuza. Emilien (Frédéric Diefenthal) is determined to rescue the minister and detective Petra (Emma Sjöberg), his girlfriend who was also kidnapped, and restore the honour of his department. Once again, speed demon taxi driver Daniel (Samy Naceri) is called upon to save the day with his high speed driving skills. Also with the Peugeot, the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VI is also featured as a star car driven by the Yakuzas. ===== A group of thieves calling themselves the Santa Claus gang are wreaking havoc, using Santa Claus costumes to commit heists, and the Marseille police are, as usual, unable to keep up. Superintendent Gibert (played by Bernard Farcy) is distracted by a Chinese journalist (Bai Ling) writing a story on his squad, and is unable to stop the robbers. Detective Emilien's wife, Petra, has just announced that she's pregnant and taxi driver Daniel (Samy Naceri) is in the midst of a relationship crisis. His long suffering girlfriend Lilly has walked out on him after finding him customising his taxi at four o'clock in the morning, and complaining that their house has become a mere garage and how Daniel stopped paying attention to her. After a string of mistakes in which the thieves outsmart the police time and time again, the journalist is kidnapped. It is revealed that the journalist is the leader of the Santa Claus gang. The police go in search, but Emilien is captured after another botched attempt to arrest them. The journalist sets a trap; she leaves Emilien tied to a chair in an old warehouse, directly in the path of a giant ball which will crush him five minutes later. At the very last moment, Daniel rushes in with his taxi and rescues him. They track the gang to their hideout in the Swiss mountains, where the journalist and her accomplices are arrested by a crack team of Alpine troops. Gibert lands in an ice-bound lake after leaping from an aircraft with them. Petra gives birth, Daniel proposes to Lilly and a Gibert is seen being pushed around in a wheelchair covered in ice. ===== In December 1989, Chicago resident Clark Griswold plans to have a great Christmas with his entire family. He gathers his wife Ellen, daughter Audrey, and son Rusty and drives out to the country to a tree farm. After walking through the snow for hours, Clark finds the largest tree he can. Realizing too late that they did not bring any tools to cut the tree down, they are forced to uproot it instead, before driving home with the tree strapped to the roof of their car. Soon after, both Clark's and Ellen's parents arrive to spend Christmas, but their bickering quickly begins to annoy the family. Clark, however, maintains a positive attitude, determined to have a "fun old-fashioned family Christmas." He covers the house's entire exterior with 25,000 twinkle lights, which fail to work at first, as he has accidentally wired them through his garage's light switch. When they finally come on, they temporarily cause a citywide power shortage and create chaos for Clark's yuppie neighbors, Todd and Margo. While standing on the front lawn admiring the lights, Clark is shocked to see Ellen's redneck cousin Catherine and her husband Eddie, as they arrive unannounced with their children, Rocky and Ruby Sue, and their Rottweiler dog, Snots. Eddie later admits that they are living in the RV they arrived in, as he is broke and has been forced to sell his home and acreage. Clark offers to buy gifts for Eddie's kids so they can still enjoy Christmas. Soon afterward, Clark’s Aunt Bethany and Uncle Lewis arrive as well. Clark begins to wonder why his boss Frank Shirley has not given him his yearly bonus, which he desperately needs to replace an advance payment he has made to install a swimming pool for the coming summer. After a disastrous Christmas Eve dinner, along with Bethany's cat getting electrocuted and Uncle Lewis accidentally burning down the Christmas tree, he finally receives an envelope from a company messenger, who had failed to deliver it the day before. Instead of the presumed bonus, the envelope contains a free year's membership for the "Jelly of the Month Club". This prompts Clark to snap and go into a tirade about Frank, and out of anger, requests that he be delivered to the house, wrapped in a bow, so Clark can insult him to his face. Eddie takes the request literally, drives to Frank's mansion, and kidnaps him. Frank admits to have cancelled the Christmas bonuses, and Clark chastises him for it. Meanwhile, Frank's wife, Helen, calls the police, and a SWAT team storms the Griswold house and holds everyone at gunpoint. Frank decides not to press charges and explains the situation to his wife and the SWAT leader, who scold him for his decision to scrap the bonuses, and he decides to reinstate them (with Clark getting a bonus equal to last year's amount, plus 20% as compensation). The family heads outside when Rocky and Ruby Sue believe they see Santa Claus in the distance. Clark tells them it is actually the Christmas Star and that he finally realizes what the holiday means to him. Uncle Lewis says the light is coming from the sewage treatment plant; reminding Clark that Eddie had been dumping his sewage into the nearby storm drain. Before Clark can stop him, Uncle Lewis tosses a match used to light his cigar into the drain, triggering an explosion. The explosion sends a Santa's sleigh decoration flying into the sky. Aunt Bethany starts singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" and everyone joins in as the flaming decoration flies into the distance. The entire family and the SWAT team members then celebrate inside the house, while Clark and Ellen happily share a Christmas kiss, and Clark stands outside satisfied that he has the Christmas that he always wanted. ===== The games follow twins named Tarra and Torr. Their parents were slain by King Tyrannus's guards, prompted by a prophecy by the king's wizard Konjuro that the twins would slay Tyrannus. The twins were then raised as commoners by thieves to avoid being slain by the king. When they go to plunder Konjuro's sea keep, they accidentally reveal their identities to him. The twins then start running from a demon summoned to kill them, but it appears that a jewel they stole attracts it. After smashing the stone to avoid the demon, two of Tyrannus's old advisers appear and tell the two about the "Sword of Ultimate Sorcery" and the "Talisman of Penultimate Truth." They are then transported to Earthworld. After defeating many beasts of the Zodiac and another thief (Herminus) in Earthworld, the twins are transported to the "central chamber" where the "Sword of Ultimate Sorcery" and the "Talisman of Penultimate Truth" are kept. Upon reaching them, the sword burns a hole through its altar all the way to Fireworld. In Fireworld, the twins split up to look for water, and Torr, with the aid of the talisman, summons Mentorr who shows Torr the "Chalice of Light," which will quench his thirst. The twins reunite eventually and find the chalice. However, Torr drops it after he is startled, and it is revealed that the one they found was not the true chalice. Herminus then gives them the chalice, and it grows until it becomes large enough to swallow the twins and transports them to Waterworld. Upon reaching Waterworld, the twins become separated. Tarra travels to a ship made of ice, somehow forgets her name, and meets Cap'n Frost, who desires to find the "Crown of Life" and rule Waterworld. Meanwhile, Torr travels to an undersea kingdom, forgets his name as well and meets the city's ex-queen Aquana, who desires to find the "Crown of Life" in order to regain her throne. After a brief war between the ex-queen and captain, Herminus sets the twins to duel each other. They then pray to their deities for guidance, which summons Mentorr who allows them to regain their memories. The twins throw down their swords, causing the crown to be revealed and split in half. The halves are given to the ex-queen and the captain, who then rule as equals. The "Sword of Ultimate Sorcery" then transports the twins to Airworld where they would have to do battle with King Tyrannus and Konjuro. While the comic for Airworld was started, the cancellation of the series left the comic unfinished. ===== On November 27, 2006, a U.S. Navy SEAL fireteam consisting of Kahuna, Boomer, Spectre, and Jester is sent in to neutralize an emerging terrorist threat. A new group calling itself the Iron Brotherhood, made up of former Spetsnaz operatives, is using a barge as a base for buying and transporting weapons. They are making their trades with a known black market organization, the Zemy, and the two are rendezvousing in international waters off the coast of Alaska. The team are to eliminate the terrorists, gather intel, and scuttle the freighter. With the intel that the SEALs gathered, SOCOM is able to locate the Brotherhood's headquarters, a ghost town in Alaska. The team is tasked with securing the compound, destroying any weapon caches that are present, and detaining a terrorist named Kola Petrenko, codename Pincushion. Information from Pincushion revealed that the Brotherhood has taken control of an oil platform in the Alaskan Beaufort Sea. Most of the oil workers had been killed, but some are being held captive by the terrorists. The Brotherhood is also threatening to destroy the platform, which would result in a disastrous oil spill. The SEALs are sent in to infiltrate the platform and neutralize all threats, including the Brotherhood's leader, Stanislav, codename Spectrum. They are successful in taking down all of the terrorists and defusing all bombs on board. In Thailand, a group calling themselves the Riddah Rouge, led by a man named Sudarak Thongkon, has acquired sensitive and highly valuable biological data from a smuggler out of Sri Lanka. The terrorists murder him and his crew, then offload the data and move it deep into the jungles of Thailand. With a potential biological threat on their soil, the Thai government asks for assistance, and the United States responds by sending in the SEALs. Kahuna's team are inserted into the area and proceed to travel upriver to intercept and retrieve the data. After moving from one island to another and neutralizing numerous patrols, the team finds some documents. Unfortunately, only half of the bio data is among them as the other half had been moved elsewhere. With the bio data in their possession, the Riddah Rouge has taken the U.S. Ambassador to Thailand and his wife hostage. The terrorists demand ransom money and threaten to execute the two if their demands are not met. Intelligence tracks their movements and are able to locate the hostages at an abandoned temple in the jungles of Hohn Kaen. The team move in under cover of night and safely extract the Ambassador and his wife. While no ransom is paid for the pair, the Riddah Rouge manage to manufacture a small amount of biological agent. Their plan is to use the agents to destabilize the Thai government. The SEALs are assigned to assault another abandoned temple. While there, the team either captures or kills Thongkon, codename Bad Dog, and secures the biological agents. With their leader in custody, the Riddah Rouge disbanded. In the Congo, a new mercenary organization known as Preemptive Strike has established a base of operations deep in the jungle. They are recruiting European mercenaries and are actively stockpiling weapons and ammunition. Concerned about this new threat, the Congolese government has requested aid from the United States. The SEALs are sent in to recon and collect intel about the group. After disabling communications and destroying the enemy munitions in their staging area, the team finds out that the remaining mercenaries have ambushed and captured a patrol of U.S. Marines. The marines are being held at the mercenary base camp where they are being tortured for information. The SEALs are able to rescue the POWs and eliminate the mercenary leader Magnus, but not before finding out that one of the captive Marines is missing, having been moved to an abandoned German bunker built during World War I which contains a network of tunnels and pillboxes. This complex is no match for the SEALs however, and they successfully liberate the final Marine with the help of U.S. Navy F/A-18 fighter jets firing missiles at designated pillboxes. In Turkmenistan, members of a terrorist group, the Allah Sadikahu, have attained several portable nuclear devices from various black market organizations. An informant named Basim Maccek, codename Mr. Pickle, has knowledge about the nuclear devices moving through the region, but has gotten himself captured in the process. He is imprisoned in a Turkmen Detention Center in the mountains and the SEALs are sent in to release, escort, and extract the informant. The recovered informant confirms the presence of two suitcase nukes in Turkmenistan and their location. The Sadikahu have concealed the devices in a desert cave network close to the Afghan border. With no time to lose, the team travels to the nukes' location. After an intensive firefight, the team manages to destroy the nukes and the cave system. The Sadikahu's ruthless leader Mullah Bahir Al- Qadi, however, is not present at the caves. He and his brother Imad have retreated to a deserted bombed city in central Turkmenistan. Kahuna's team is once again sent in to find and neutralize the Al-Qadi brothers. The SEALs fight against countless terrorist defenders and race against the clock as Mullah and Imad Al-Qadi, codename Fat Cat and Kitten, call for helicopters to come and extract them. In the end, both brothers are killed and the mission is completed. ===== Vince Majestyk (Charles Bronson) is a farmer, an ex-con, a former U. S. Army Ranger instructor and Vietnam War veteran, who owns and operates a watermelon farm in rural Colorado. He needs to harvest his crop soon in order to keep the farm financially solvent. A small-time hood, Bobby Kopas (Paul Koslo), attempts to coerce Majestyk into a protection racket of using unskilled drunks to harvest his watermelon crop. Majestyk runs him off with Kopas's own shotgun and hires experienced Mexican migrant workers, including Nancy Chavez (Linda Cristal), a crops picker who is also a union leader. They are romantically attracted to each other. Kopas brings assault charges against Majestyk, resulting in the farmer being placed under arrest before he can finish the harvest. In jail, Majestyk meets and annoys Frank Renda (Al Lettieri), a notorious mob hit man being transferred to a higher-security prison. Renda's men try to break him out of police custody during a prisoner transport by bus. In the escape attempt, Majestyk drives off in the bus with Renda still in handcuffs, eventually taking him to his hunting cabin in the nearby foothills. Majestyk hopes to trade Renda to the police in return for being released to finish harvesting his melons. Renda offers his captor $25,000 for his freedom, but Majestyk declines. Renda then threatens to kill Majestyk if he doesn't release him, and Majestyk pretends to be persuaded to take the money, but contacts both the police and Renda's mafia contacts to come pick them up. Wiley (Lee Purcell), Renda's girlfriend, arrives and they manage to turn the tables on Majestyk, although he is able to escape. Renda learns the charges for which he had been imprisoned have been dropped. He meets up with his right-hand man, Lundy (Taylor Lacher), who advises him to fly to Mexico and enjoy himself; Renda will have none of it...he wants revenge on Majestyk. He arranges for Kopas to drop the assault charges against Majestyk, and orders his men to find the "melon picker" so he can have the satisfaction of killing him personally. They arrive at the farm to kill Majestyk, but not finding him they instead machine-gun the melons and rough up the hired hands, forcing them to depart. The next day, Kopas badly injures Majestyk's friend as he tries to deliver a load of melons, putting him in hospital. As Majestyk and Nancy have a drink at a bar in town Renda approaches and tells him he plans to kill him. Instead of being intimidated, Majestyk knocks Renda down, telling him to 'call the cops', further infuriating Renda. Renda and his men surround Majestyk's home, but Majestyk gets away in the back of a pickup truck driven by Nancy, and a prolonged car chase ensues. The police set up roadblocks and launch a helicopter hoping to find them. Luring Renda and his men into the foothills, Majestyk turns the tables on them and becomes the attacker, killing most of Renda's men during the pursuit. Realizing they are now the hunted, Renda retreats to their lodge hideout where he, Wiley, Lundy and Kopas hole up. Majestyk arrives and disables their vehicle. Renda sends Wiley outside to negotiate with Majestyk, hoping to force him to show himself, but Majestyk sends her away with Nancy. Majestyk then assaults the cabin, killing Lundy after Renda sacrifices him to save himself. Disgusted, Kopas decides to leave when he realizes Renda will also sacrifice him to get to Majestyk. With Kopas' help, Majestyk gets the drop on Renda and kills him. The police soon arrive and arrest Kopas and Wiley, while Majestyk drives off with Nancy. ===== Edward and Connie Sumner live in Westchester County, New York with their eight-year-old son, Charlie. While shopping, Connie runs into stranger Paul Martel and scrapes her knees, accepting Paul's offer to treat her injuries at his Soho apartment. Uncomfortable with his advances, she leaves. Finding Paul's phone number inside the book he gave her, Connie calls him and is invited over. Paul again flirts with her. She leaves despite their mutual attraction, but visits again, and they have sex. Both thrilled and guilty, Connie uses her work as an excuse to continue visiting Paul, raising Edward's suspicion. Noticing Connie readying herself with new shoes and lingerie, Edward asks her to meet him for lunch, but she says she has a salon appointment. Edward calls the salon and confirms Connie was lying. Edward is devastated when a private investigator, Frank Wilson, provides pictures of Connie and Paul together. As Connie's visits become more frequent, she is late to pick up Charlie from school and realizes she can no longer carry on the affair. She decides to end things in person and the following day she does some errands. As Connie completes her grocery shopping errand, she drives to Paul's home to break off the bad news but notices him running off to the library with another woman. She jumps out of her car and runs to the library to confront Paul and the other woman. As she notices them caressing, Connie starts to get jealous and physically attacks Paul and the other woman. As she is in the elevator alone with Paul, she asks him how many women is he seeing but Paul denies the entire subject and tells Connie that the woman is only just a friend and nothing more. She then tells Paul that she doesn't want to see him anymore and tells him that their affair is over and mentions she hates him. However as she attempts to leave Paul's apartment, he manages to chase and capture Connie. She then tries to stop and push Paul away but is unsuccessful and they end up having quick but steamy and erotic makeup sex in the hallway of his apartment. She leaves, narrowly missing Edward, who confronts Paul. Paul lets him into his apartment. As they discuss Connie, Edward is stunned to find a snow globe he had given her, which Paul explains she had gifted to him. Edward snaps and fractures Paul's skull with the snow globe, killing him instantly. Cleaning up evidence, Edward hears Connie leave a message for Paul, saying she must end their affair. He erases the message and later dumps Paul's body in a landfill but is plagued by memories of the murder. NYPD detectives arrive at the Sumner home, explaining that Paul's estranged wife has reported him missing. Connie claims she barely knows him, and the detectives return a week later to reveal that Paul's body has been discovered. Connie lies that she met Paul at a fundraiser which, to her surprise, Edward corroborates. Later, she finds the photos of her and Paul, realizing Edward knew about the affair. She also notices that the snow globe has been returned to their collection. Sharing a meaningful look with Edward, she realizes he murdered Paul. They argue, and Edward says that he wanted to kill her instead of Paul. In the days that follow, Connie discovers a hidden compartment in the snow globe containing a photograph of her, Edward, and an infant Charlie, with a loving anniversary message. As she burns the photographs of her and Paul, Edward says he will turn himself in, but Connie objects, saying they will find a way to move on, and they appear to return to a normal life together. One night, Edward stops at a red light with Charlie asleep in the backseat. Connie whispers that they could leave the country and assume new identities, and Edward agrees, consoling her as she cries. It is revealed that Edward has stopped the car near a police station. ===== Vance “Van” Wilder (Ryan Reynolds) is a confident and sardonic seventh-year senior at Coolidge College who is popular among most of the student body. With no ambition to graduate, Van spends his days driving around campus in his customized golf cart, posing nude for figure drawing classes, and organizing soirees and fundraisers for his peers. Among his friends are his roommate and close confidant Hutch (Teck Holmes) and his newly hired assistant Taj Badalandabad (Kal Penn), a sexually repressed foreign exchange student from India. Upon learning that his son is still in school, Van's father (Tim Matheson) arrives at Coolidge intent on bringing him home. When Van refuses, his father decides to sever Van's financial support. Faced with disenrollment due to unpaid tuition, Van seeks a payment extension from the registrar, Deloris Haver (Cynthia Fancher). After Van has sex with her, Deloris hands him the paperwork for an extension, which Van realizes he only needed to ask for in the first place. Gwen Pearson (Tara Reid) works for the school paper, and despite her talents for journalism, her articles don't generate interest from the student body. Her editor assigns her to get an “unattainable” human interest story on Van Wilder as he normally refuses to do interviews for the paper. After a couple of attempts to get money fast, Van is approached by the Lambda Omega Omega fraternity, offering to pay him a thousand dollars to throw them a blowout party and boost their popularity. Overhearing two of the Lambdas expressing their excitement over the party's success and their satisfaction with Van's work, Gwen writes a story crediting Van as the host of the party. Though Van hates the article at first, he realizes it can be the "cash cow" he needs to stay in school. Van eventually agrees to sit down with Gwen for the follow-up piece after losing a hockey bet to her. Gwen's boyfriend, Richard “Dick” Bagg (Daniel Cosgrove), is a pre- medical student and the president of his fraternity Delta Iota Kappa as well as the student government. As he learns of Gwen's work with Van and suspects a growing bond between them, he moves to sabotage their prospective romance. Van and Richard exchange escalating pranks, culminating in Van, Taj and Hutch replacing the cream filling of a batch of pastries with canine semen taken from Van's English Bulldog Colossus. Though Gwen grows closer to Van, she accesses his transcripts from the Admissions & Records office while doing background work on her piece, learning that Van has actively avoided graduating for the past seven semesters; he stopped attending classes years ago, 18 units short of graduation. Angry that Gwen dug into such personal details, Van dissociates himself from Gwen and takes a contemplative look at his life. Richard arranges to sabotage Van's latest party with Jeannie (Emily Rutherfurd), a member of a sister sorority by smuggling underaged children into the party and getting them drunk, then calling a campus police officer to the scene. As a result, Van is arrested for providing alcohol to minors and faces expulsion from Coolidge. A depressed Van prepares to leave Coolidge until Taj inspires him to fight back against the charges. The student body pools its resources to defend Van against the charges before a university panel featuring, among others, Van's collegiate adversary Professor McDougal (Paul Gleason), Deloris and Richard. While the law club invests time coaching Van to plead innocent to the charges, the rest of the student body works to generate support for Van. Having learned from his past mistakes and what Gwen has shown him, Van goes off-book during the hearing; though he did not intend for underage students to attend the party, he nonetheless considers himself responsible for ensuring its legality. He throws himself at the mercy of the court and asks that rather than expelling him, they force him to graduate; he offers to complete his remaining units before the semester ends, earning a degree in leisure studies. Professor McDougal surprises everyone with his swing vote, casting the 3–2 vote in favor of Van's reinstatement, and Van begins studying for the finals - which will be held in just six days. In retaliation for Richard's underhandedness (having learned it was him who set Van up and his later-revealed infidelity with Jeannie), Gwen spikes Richard's ritual protein shake with a powerful laxative just prior to his taking the Medical College Admission Test. Unable to hold out (since bathroom breaks are forbidden during the test), Richard “dials down the middle” on most of his multiple-choice exam sheet, and hurriedly exits the exam room. As he rushes to find a bathroom, he is intercepted by one of the doctors from the group meant to interview him for admission to Northwestern Medical School, who pulls him into an office to meet with the others. Unable to hold himself any longer, Richard strips off his pants and has violent diarrhea in the wastebasket in the room, to the revulsion and horror of the doctors present. Van uses the entire exam period for his last final with Professor McDougal, finishing with a negative attitude. McDougal himself delivers the news to Van that he passed. McDougal notes that he had been so hard on him all those years because he believed Van wasn't living up to his potential. Gwen finishes her article on Van for the graduation issue revealing Van's many contributions to the students and staff of Coolidge in the last seven years, his superhuman accomplishment of a semester's worth of studying in just six days, and Richard's plot to have Van expelled; Richard is last seen reading the article in a restroom, his medical school dreams, and reputation in ruins. The university celebrates Van's graduation with a wild party held in Van's honor. Van's father appears (having read Gwen's article), admitting he was wrong and expressing his pride in Van's success. Gwen then arrives, lovingly reuniting with Van. ===== The story opens early in the 21st century, as an automated space probe is being prepared for a mission to explore habitable exoplanets in the Alpha Centauri system. However, Earth appears destined for a global war which the probe designers fear that humanity may not survive. It appears that the only chance for the human species is to reestablish itself far away from the conflict but there is no time left for a manned expedition to escape Earth. The team, led by Henry B. Congreve, change their mission priority and quickly modify the design to carry several hundred sets of electronically coded human genetic data. Also included in this mission of embryo space colonization is a databank of human knowledge, robots to convert the data into genetic material and care for the children and construct habitats when the destination is reached, and a number of artificial wombs. The probe's designers name it the Kuan-Yin after the bodhisattva of childbirth and compassion. Shortly after the launch, global war indeed breaks out and several decades later, Earthbound humanity is united under an authoritarian government. It is this government that receives a radio message from the fledgling "Chironian" civilization revealing that the probe found a habitable planet (Chiron) and that the first generation of children have been raised successfully. As the surviving power blocs of Earth before the conflict are still evident, North America, Europe and Asia each send a generation ship to Alpha Centauri to take control of the colony. By the time that the first generation ship (the American Mayflower II) arrives after 20 years, Chironian society is in its fifth generation. The Mayflower II has brought with it thousands of settlers, all the trappings of the authoritarian regime along with bureaucracy, religion, fascism and a military presence to keep the population in line. However, the planners behind the generation ship did not anticipate the direction that Chironian society took: in the absence of conditioning and with limitless robotic labor and fusion power, Chiron has become a post-scarcity economy. Money and material possessions are meaningless to the Chironians and social standing is determined by individual talent, which has resulted in a wealth of art and technology without any hierarchies, central authority or armed conflict. In an attempt to crush this anarchist adhocracy, the Mayflower II government employs every available method of control; however, in the absence of conditioning the Chironians are not even capable of comprehending the methods, let alone bowing to them. The Chironians simply use methods similar to Gandhi's satyagraha and other forms of nonviolent resistance to win over most of the Mayflower II crew members, who had never previously experienced true freedom, and isolate the die-hard authoritarians. Frustrated with their lack of success, the authoritarian faction stages a military coup on board the Mayflower II and launches the ship's heavily armed "battle module", threatening to attack unless they submit to a military dictatorship. Having isolated the authoritarians, the Chironians destroy the module with an antimatter particle beam weapon. The remainder of the crew dissolve their government and join Chironian society. The week after, the laser communications beam to the Mayflower II cuts off, having been destroyed in another global war that had taken place 4.5 years ago. The epilogue is set five years after these events and shows that the Chironians also assimilated the crews of the Asian and European starships. Now united, the Chironians refit and recommission the Mayflower II with an advanced antimatter drive and rename it the Henry B. Congreve. The Henry B. Congreve is sent back to Earth to rebuild human civilization (with the new drive, this journey will only take eight years), fulfilling the Kuan-Yin's mission of preserving humanity. ===== The Federation starship USS Enterprise responds to a distress call from an uncharted planet. A landing party beams down to locate the source, and promptly finds a humanoid male and female, Rojan and Kelinda of the Kelvan Empire, who immediately paralyze Kirk and the landing party and order Kirk to surrender the Enterprise. Rojan tells Kirk that the Kelvans originate from the Andromeda Galaxy, and have come to find planets suitable for conquest in the Milky Way galaxy. As their own ship had been destroyed by the negative-energy barrier at the galactic rim, they need the Enterprise to make the 300-year return journey. Three other Kelvans transport aboard the Enterprise, and quickly gain control of the ship. Rojan orders the landing party to a cave guarded by Kelinda. Mr. Spock uses his Vulcan telepathic ability to lure her into the cave, where Kirk knocks her unconscious and seizes her control belt. Their freedom is short-lived, however, and as punishment Rojan orders the Kelvan Hanar to activate his belt, transforming two of the landing team members to small cuboctahedral blocks of a chalk-like substance. Rojan picks up the blocks and crushes one to dust, killing Yeoman Thompson. He then transforms the other block (Lt. Shea) back into human form. Back in their cell, Spock relates the experience of his mental contact with Kelinda. The Kelvans, it seems, are not humanoid after all, but have taken human form for convenience; they are actually huge creatures with hundreds of tentacles. (So alien were they, and so powerful their minds, that he had been thrown back out of the mind meld.) Kirk and Spock decide to try to adapt McCoy's neural scanning equipment into a countermeasure to the Kelvans' paralysis field. As a pretext for beaming back to the ship, Spock feigns illness by placing himself into a deep trance. The Kelvans transport the rest of the landing party and themselves to the ship shortly afterwards. Spock determines that there is no hope of penetrating the paralysis field projector's casing. Instead, he has Scott rig the matter/antimatter system to explode on contact with the barrier if Kirk so orders. Kirk opts not to. Once the ship has crossed the galactic barrier, the Kelvans reduce all personnel except Kirk, Scott, Spock, and McCoy into chalk-like blocks. Spock remembers more from his mental contact with Kelinda and reveals that the Kelvans in their natural form have very weak senses and emotions, but in their present form they are having human reactions. Kirk decides to use their inexperience with physical and emotional stimuli against them. Scott introduces the Kelvan engineer Tomar to alcoholic beverages, McCoy injects Hanar with a "supplement" that is actually a stimulant, and Kirk begins a flirtation with Kelinda, provoking feelings of jealousy in Rojan. Kirk is eventually able to goad Rojan into attacking him, and, in the course of the fight, points out that Rojan is behaving like a human and that his descendants who reach the Andromeda Galaxy will be alien inferiors in the eyes of the Kelvans. Realizing Kirk is correct, Rojan relinquishes control of the ship to Kirk, who then gives the order to return "home" to our galaxy. The world on which Rojan and his people were marooned is suggested as their new home. ===== The book starts with the traction city of London chasing and catching a small mining town called Salthook. Tom Natsworthy, a teenage Apprentice Historian, is sent to the "Gut" of London, where towns are stripped for resources, after he skips a chore. Tom incidentally meets the Head of the Guild of Historians, Thaddeus Valentine, along with his daughter, Katherine. One of Salthook's residents, teenager Hester Shaw, attempts to assassinate Valentine, but Tom interferes and chases her. She reveals a disfiguring scar on her face and claims Valentine caused it, before escaping the London police through a chute. When Tom informs Valentine of her name, Valentine pushes him down into the chute. Tom and Hester recover outside of London within the Hunting Ground, and after an argument start following the city's tracks to reboard it. The pair eventually boards a small town called Speedwell, where the owner Orme Wreyland drugs them and plans to sell the pair as slaves for profit at a trading cluster. Tom and Hester escape from Wreyland, meeting a friendly airship pilot called Anna Fang, who takes them in her airship the Jenny Haniver to the neutral flying city of Airhaven where they can find passage to London. At Airhaven, they are then attacked by a cyborg "Stalker" called Shrike, who was sent after them by the London Mayor Magnus Crome to kill them and bring their bodies to him. Tom and Hester escape by stealing a hot-air balloon and drift over the Hunting Ground. Hester reveals that when she was a child, her parents were killed by Valentine as they would not give up an Ancient machine. Valentine then injured her and believed that she was dead. Hester escaped, and Shrike took care of her for most of her childhood. Despite the fact that Shrike was not supposed to have feelings, he developed a fatherlike bond with her. Wanting to avenge her parents, Hester left Shrike despite his pleas for her to stay and travelled to London. Shrike followed her, reaching London first, but was captured by Crome and used to create more Stalkers for London. Hester sees that a London-built scoutship is following them and lowers the balloon onto the Hunting Ground. The scoutship, with Shrike on board, finds the pair and the Stalker confronts them. Before he can explain why he wants Hester to die, two chasing towns run over him, and Tom and Hester manage to board the second of these, a pirate town called Tunbridge Wheels. The mayor, Chrysler Peavy, who knows Hester from her days with Shrike, frees Tom as he is a resident of London and Peavy wishes to learn etiquette worthy of a Londoner gentleman. Tom convinces him to free Hester, and Peavy informs them that he plans to consume the downed Airhaven. While charging at it over shallow water, Tunbridge Wheels beaches on a coral reef, sinking it whilst the survivors escape inland with Tom and Hester. Whilst attempting to feebly retake Airhaven, Peavy gets stuck in a bog and his pirate subordinates shoot him, then attempt to execute Tom and Hester, but Shrike intervenes and kills the remaining pirates. Shrike explains to Hester that Crome had agreed to resurrect her as a Stalker similar to him after he brings back her body. She agrees to this, but Tom intervenes by stabbing Shrike in the eye, shutting him down and saving her life. Valentine is sent away by Crome on a "secret mission", much to Katherine's dismay. Suspicious of her father, Katherine begins investigating events in London with the help of Apprentice Engineer Bevis Pod, whom she befriends after discovering he witnessed Tom chasing Hester. They discover that Valentine salvaged a monstrous ancient weapon called MEDUSA for London, and that the Guild of Engineers have reassembled it inside St Paul's Cathedral. The Cathedral's dome splits open to reveal MEDUSA, which is then used to destroy a much larger city pursuing London. Tom and Hester are rescued by Fang, who is revealed to be an Anti-Traction League agent, and takes them to the Shield Wall of Batmunkh Gompa which protects the nation-state of the League. Fang suspects that the weapon that London has reassembled will be used to destroy the Shield Wall, and warns League Governor Khan of MEDUSA. Khan is skeptical that London will attack, but Fang insists that they should bomb London to destroy the weapon. Convinced that the League will kill innocent people and angry at the idea of destroying his home, Tom storms out and discovers Valentine has infiltrated Batmunkh Gompa as a monk. Tom raises the alarm, but Valentine successfully cripples the League's northern fleet of airships. Valentine duels and kills Fang by stabbing her in the neck, before escaping in his own airship the 13th Floor Elevator. Tom and Hester take the Jenny Haniver and fly it back to London in the hope of stopping Valentine and MEDUSA themselves. With MEDUSA finally launched, Crome begins guiding London east towards the Anti-Traction League's base behind the Shield Wall of Batmunkh Gompa in order to destroy their defenses and devour all of their settlements. After Valentine returns, Katherine learns that MEDUSA was originally found by Hester's mother Pandora, and that he had killed her to steal it for London. He also admits that Katherine was likely Hester's half sister. Disillusioned, and horrified by the destructive power of the weapon, Katherine and Bevis conspire to plant a bomb to destroy MEDUSA, but are caught in their attempt. The Guild of Historians, led by Tom's boss Chudleigh Pomeroy, come to their aid, and battle with the Engineers. Katherine travels up to the Top Tier to Saint Paul's Cathedral, with Bevis disguised as her captor. Tom and Hester arrive, and Hester attempts to fight her way to Valentine to avenge her parents. Tom is attacked by the 13th Floor Elevator above London and shoots it down. Bevis is killed when the airship crushes him, but Katherine is able to reach Saint Paul's Cathedral. Inside, she sees Hester brought before Valentine. When he attempts to kill her, Katherine jumps in her father's way and is fatally wounded. She falls onto a keyboard, interrupting the firing sequence of MEDUSA, and causing it to malfunction. Valentine and Hester, briefly putting aside their differences, try to take Katherine to Tom to get help, but she dies before they can reach him. Hester leaves with Tom in the airship, while Valentine chooses to stay behind in London. MEDUSA finally misfires, obliterating most of the city and killing Valentine. Hester tries to comfort a grief-stricken Tom as they fly away in the Jenny Haniver, apparently the only survivors of the incident, and make their way to the Bird Roads. ===== In the year 2003, Daphne Reynolds is a 17-year-old American girl, living with her wedding singer mother, Libby, above a restaurant in New York City. Libby had met Englishman Henry Dashwood in Northern Africa, and they married in a Bedouin wedding ceremony of uncertain legality. They returned to his family estate in England. His father soon died, making Henry the Lord Dashwood. Alastair Payne, the family's aristocratic advisor, tricks Libby into leaving, telling her it is best for Henry's duties not to know she is pregnant, then he lies to Henry, hiding the pregnancy from him and saying that Libby claimed to be leaving because she was in love with someone else. Libby has always been honest with Daphne about who her father is, though Daphne feels a sense of emptiness without him. When Daphne graduates from high school, she runs off to London to try and meet her father. Henry has disclaimed his seat in the House of Lords to run for election to the House of Commons, hoping to eventually become Prime Minister. Henry is being pushed by Alistair, acting as his political advisor. Henry is engaged to Alistair's daughter, the snobby Glynnis, who has an equally snobby teenaged daughter, Clarissa. Checking into a London hostel, Daphne meets Ian Wallace, a local boy who works there to support his preferred dream of making it as a musician. After forming a friendship when Ian shows Daphne around London, they start dating. When Henry catches Daphne at his estate, he is stunned to learn he has a child, but his mother, Jocelyne, immediately welcomes her in, giving her a room at the estate. After confirming things in a phone call with Libby, Henry embraces the opportunity to connect with Daphne. Daphne tries to win the acceptance of her father's social circle, but is repeatedly thwarted by Glynnis and Clarissa. In addition, Daphne has to ward off the advances of Armistead Stewart, a sleazy and arrogant upper-class boy whom Clarissa fancies. Daphne eventually pushes him into the Thames. Daphne inadvertently wins over the aristocracy, including the elderly Princess Charlotte, whenever she interacts with them. However, Henry's political campaign suffers due to Daphne's flamboyant behavior, and his subsequent misbehavior with her. He asks her to assume the more dignified manner of the Dashwood lineage, after which Henry's polling numbers quickly improve. Ian is disappointed in her new behavior, made worse when she stands him up in favor of attending an upper-class social function. During her coming-out party, hosted by her father (who flies Libby over to attend), Daphne overhears Alastair telling Glynnis how he "got rid of" Libby seventeen years earlier. When Daphne confronts him, Glynnis locks her in another room. Glynnis then asks Ian, the band's lead singer, to announce the father–daughter dance, knowing Henry will have to dance with Clarissa. Libby frees Daphne, but when they see Henry dancing with Clarissa, Daphne rejects her new self, telling Henry she is returning to America. Some time later, Henry surprises everyone by announcing that he is withdrawing from the election. As he leaves the press conference, Henry discovers that Alastair knew about Libby's pregnancy and manipulated their separation. Henry punches Alastair in the face, then breaks off his engagement to Glynnis. Daphne is serving as a caterer at a wedding, where Libby is the singer. When the father–daughter dance begins, Henry shows up, telling Daphne that he loves her for who she is. Daphne embraces him, calling him "Dad" for the first time. Daphne finally gets the father–daughter dance she has been longing for her whole life. Henry informs Daphne that he has brought a large apology present for herat which point Ian appears and asks her to dance. As Ian and Daphne dance, Henry apologizes to Libby, and those two also start dancing. In the epilogue, Glynnis marries a wealthy nobleman, Clarissa marries Armistead, and Alastair works on a London tour bus. Libby and Henry are legally married in a Bedouin ceremony. Daphne is accepted into Oxford and is dating Ian. ===== Aaron Boone dreams of Midian, a city where monsters are accepted. At the request of girlfriend Lori Winston, Boone is seeing psychotherapist Dr. Phillip Decker, who convinces Boone that he committed a series of murders. Decker is actually a masked, family-hating serial killer who has murdered several families. Decker drugs Boone with LSD disguised as lithium and orders Boone to turn himself in. Before he can do so, Boone is struck by a truck and taken to a hospital. There, Boone overhears the rants of Narcisse, a seemingly insane man who seeks to enter Midian. Convinced that Boone is there to test him, Narcisse gives Boone directions to the hidden city before tearing the skin off his face in order to show his "true" face. He is quickly subdued by hospital staff, and Boone leaves. Boone makes his way to Midian, a city beneath a massive graveyard in the middle of nowhere. He encounters supernatural creatures Kinski and Peloquin. Kinski says they should bring him below, but Peloquin refuses to allow in a normal human. Boone claims to be a murderer, but Peloquin smells his innocence and attacks him. Boone escapes, only to encounter a squad of police officers led by Decker. Boone is gunned down after Decker tries to get him to turn himself in and then yells that Boone has a gun. Due to Peloquin's bite, Boone returns to life in the morgue. When he returns to Midian, he finds Narcisse there and is inducted into their society by the Nightbreed's leader; Dirk Lylesburg. In an initiation ceremony, Boone's touched by the blood of their deity, Baphomet. Seeking to understand why Boone left her, Lori investigates Midian. She befriends a woman named Sheryl Anne, and drives to the cemetery with her. Leaving Sheryl Anne at the car, Lori explores the cemetery, where she finds a dying wolf-like creature. A woman named Rachel (a nightbreed with the power to transform into smoke) pleads from the shadows for Lori to take it out of the sunlight. Once in the shadows, it transforms into a little girl; Rachel's daughter Babette. Lori asks after Boone, but is rebuffed by Lylesburg and scared off by Peloquin. While leaving the cemetery, Lori discovers Sheryl Anne's corpse and her killer, Decker. Decker attempts to use Lori to draw Boone out of hiding. Boone rescues Lori, and Decker learns Boone cannot be killed due to his transformation. Decker escapes and Boone takes Lori into Midian. Rachel explains to Lori that the monsters of folklore were peaceful beings who were hunted to near-extinction by humans. Boone and Lori are banished from Midian by Lylesburg. Decker learns how to kill the Nightbreed, and murders the residents of the hotel where Boone and Lori are staying. When Boone discovers the crime scene, he is unable to control his thirst for blood and begins drinking. The police find Boone and take him into custody. At Decker's urging, the police form a militia led by Police Captain Eigerman. A drunken priest named Ashberry joins them as God's servant in their upcoming battle against Midian. Lori, Rachel and Narcisse rescue Boone, and the four return to Midian where Boone convinces the Nightbreed to stand and fight. During the battle, Ashberry learns there are women and children amongst the Nightbreed. When he tries halting the attack, he is beaten by Eigerman. Ashberry finds the idol of Baphomet and swears allegiance to it. When he is splashed by its blood, he is burned and transformed. Boone learns from Lylesburg that Baphomet plans to destroy Midian. Boone argues to release the Berserkers, a monstrous feral breed that were imprisoned due to their insanity. When Lylesburg is killed before he can open the cages, Boone releases them and the Berserkers turn the tide of battle. Decker confronts Boone and is killed. When Boone faces Baphomet, Baphomet says that Boone has caused the end of Midian, which had been foretold. Baphomet charges Boone with finding a new home for the Nightbreed and renames him Cabal. Boone leaves Midian with Lori and meets with the remaining Nightbreed in a barn where he says his goodbyes to Narcisse and promises to find a place where they will be safe. In the ruins of Midian, Ashberry stands in front of Decker's corpse and states that he wants vengeance on Baphomet and the Breed. When he presses Baphomet's blood to Decker's wound, Decker springs back to life with a scream as Ashberry repeatedly hollers "Hallelujah". ===== For the first time in 58 years, retired Latin master Mr Chipping (Robert Donat) misses a first-day assembly at Brookfield public school, founded in 1492. The doctor has told him to stay at home with a cold, and, as the headmaster tells the school, "a cold can be a serious thing for a young fellow of 83." But Chips is not home in bed, as the doctor ordered. He is sitting outside the locked door of the great Hall with a new boy, who also did not make it in time. When the assembly disbands, boys pour out the door, greeting Chips, who knows all their names and interests and compares them to their fathers and grandfathers. A new young master admires his facility with the boys and Chips replies wistfully that it was not always so; it took him a long time—too long—to learn the secret, and someone else gave him that secret. That afternoon, he falls asleep in his chair by the fire—a lavish tea is waiting for any boys who come by—and his teaching career is shown in flashback. When Charles Edward Chipping first arrives as a Latin master in 1870, he is 24 years old, fresh from university, and full of dreams of building a life at Brookfield—and even becoming headmaster one day. He has a superior degree in Classics (the film never says which university he attended), but no teaching experience at all. Agonizingly shy and obviously tentative in dealing with boys en masse, he becomes a target for the younger students even before the special train for Brookfield leaves the station. The only master in a compartment full of boys, the kind-hearted Chipping tries to console an unhappy youngster who bursts into tears; the other boys assume that Chipping kicked him. As the newest master, he is assigned to lower school prep on his first evening. Fellow masters warn him that the large group of restless boys will be prepared for "blood sports". They begin by knocking his hat off and he meets his first Colley, John (Terry Kilburn plays all the Colley boys), who helpfully dusts off his hat with the chalk eraser. The class moves on to embarrassing questions about Elizabeth I (Chipping cannot bring himself to say "The Virgin Queen") and ends by rioting. Headmaster Wetherby (Lyn Harding) comes in and swiftly restores order, instructing every boy to report to his office for caning on a precise schedule. Later, in his office, he questions Chipping about his vocation, but the young man begs for another chance. Outside, two of the masters offer their condolences on the disaster and Chipping says ominously, "They will not do it again." Some time later Wetherby is addressing the entire school in the dining hall. Before him is the elaborate silver cup that Brookfield must soon defend from a rival school in a hotly contested cricket match. He pauses in the middle of his rousing speech when he realizes that the entire student body is sitting silently, heads bowed. Chipping steps up to explain. He had forgotten about the cricket match (a confession that startles masters as well as students) and the boys in one class were so rude about it that he told them they will have to stay in. The punishment has dire consequences—the school's best batsman is in the class he has punished. Wetherby has no choice but to support Chipping's authority. The classroom looks out on the playing field, and the sound and sight of Brookfield's loss is excruciating for the boys and for Chipping. Chipping apologizes to the class and dismisses them, but he is right when he observes that he may have lost the boys' friendship. He is, however, very good at teaching Latin, making him highly respected. Years pass, shown on screen as paper chases, football games, cricket matches, and boys tipping their top hats and school caps as they enter assembly in alphabetical order, calling their last names for the roll. (The latter scene recurs throughout the film, with style of clothes and headgear changing with the times.) Wetherby has died, in 1888, as we see by his monument. It is end of term, and the chaplain sends the school forth with a blessing on their summer holidays. There is a look of longing in Chipping's face every time he tries to strike up a conversation with a student, but although he is treated with respect, no one lingers to talk with him. He is spending his vacation at Harrogate, as he has for years, walking through the countryside, alone. ===== Sandy Edwards (played by Toni Collette) is a director in a company that designs geological software in Perth, Western Australia. Her business partner manipulates her into agreeing to act as a guide for a Japanese businessman visiting mines in the Pilbara desert, in hopes that he will purchase the software. When Hiromitsu Tachibana () arrives, he treats Sandy like a chauffeur, and he seems more intent on self-discovery in the wilderness than on buying computer software. At first, Sandy is angered by his reserved, demanding demeanor. On their first journey into the desert, Hiromitsu, feeling insecure, talks more on his phone with friends in Japan than he does to Sandy. He also insists that she drive farther than planned. The terrain proves too much for the pair's vehicle, which becomes bogged down in the sand. After a series of desperate attempts to release the vehicle, including digging a dead man anchor, their winch burns out. Sandy wants to use Hiromitsu's phone to call people who can rescue them, but Hiromitsu refuses. This forces them to spend the night stranded together. The next day, Hiromitsu, conscious that his refusal had placed them in danger, wakes up much earlier than Sandy and builds a track of sticks over which they can drive out of the sand. The manoeuvre is successful. Now that they are on the road again, the ice breaks and a friendship starts between them that, in isolated surroundings uninterrupted by their work, grows quickly and honestly. Later, at a motel, they have sex. Only after does Sandy learn that Hiromitsu has a wife and children in Japan. On another journey to scenic spots, Hiromitsu and Sandy share a quiet moment and kiss each other, eventually having sex again. Afterwards, Sandy runs into a swimming hole nearby. Hiromitsu follows her, diving into the shallow water before she can warn him, and disappears. Sandy frantically calls for him and, after a moment, his lifeless body resurfaces. In shock at his sudden death, Sandy struggles to deal with the situation, dragging his body into their vehicle and carefully washing it before driving for hours to the nearest town. Back in Perth, Sandy cannot comprehend the violent end to her journey. Reality intrudes in the form of Hiromitsu's grieving widow, Yukiko, and Sandy tries to understand how Hiromitsu's life had ended before she had understood his place in hers. ===== The action of the film takes place in 1978, in a fictional town called Acqua Traverse in Southern Italy, during the hottest summer of the century and the infamous Years of Lead. A nine-year-old boy named Michele Amitrano and a group of his friends set out on a race across scorched wheat fields to a deserted farmhouse. Michele's sister tags along but falls over, breaking her glasses, and she calls out to Michele, who runs back to her. Michele quickly calms her worries about the glasses, and they continue running. They are the last of the group to arrive at the farmhouse, which means that she and Michele must pay a forfeit. However, the leader of the group, Skull, chooses the only girl in the group apart from Michele's sister to pay up instead. He instructs her to expose herself to the boys, and she looks to the others for help, but they refuse to meet her gaze. She reluctantly and hesitantly begins to take off her clothes, when Michele pipes up that he was the one to arrive last and he should be the one to pay. As his punishment Michele walks the length of a beam, high up in a rickety old barn- like building at the deserted farmhouse, and after that the group is seen going home. As Michele and his sister set off, she asks him where her glasses are, and he goes back to fetch them. While searching for the glasses at the farmhouse, Michele discovers a hole in the ground covered with a sheet of metal. He opens it and sees part of a bare human leg; horrified, due to the limited time he had to investigate the situation, he decides to keep this a secret from the others. He feels threatened by Skull and doesn't want such a big discovery to be taken away from him. The next day, he returns to the place, throwing rocks at the leg. As he moves to pick up another rock, the camera pans to him, on the ground, searching around him in the dirt, where Michele finds another rock to throw. As the camera pans back into the hole, the leg is out of sight. Startled, Michele is suddenly staring down at a zombie-like young boy stumbling out of the darkness and into view. Terrified, Michele hurries home once more, but then his bicycle chain breaks and he is thrown off his bike. As he returns home he is scolded for being late. The next day while playing with friends Michele thinks about the boy and later he decides to visit the zombie-like boy again. Michele finds that the boy is actually alive, although he is very weak. He brings him water and later food. One day, Michele goes to buy bread, to feed the boy. On the way he sees the familiar face of Skull's older brother driving away from the house and thinks this may be the person who has imprisoned the boy. He returns home, making sure that his own presence is not discovered by whoever put the boy there. Michele climbs down to collect the bread back from the boy. During this time Michele's undaunted curiosity leads him to begin questioning the confused, possibly delusional, and traumatized boy. To Michele's annoyance, the boy thinks he is dead and asks Michele if he is his guardian angel. The boy walks over to him and Michele sees him at his full size, as going crazy the boy cries out "I'm Dead"! He screams louder and louder, making Michele climb back up the rope quickly and return home. One night, Michele sees his parents watching on the television news that a child named Filippo belonging to the Carducci family has been kidnapped from Milan, and the boy in the pictures shown looks just like the boy in the hole. He overhears his parents and their friends talking about keeping the boy hidden. The next morning, he discovers his parents are hosting late-night meetings with the parents of his playmates and one domineering visitor "from the North" who now sleeps in his room. Michele, to his shock, gradually comes to realize that his own father is involved in the kidnapping, as well as some other men in the town. He visits the boy and tells him he knows his name and informs the boy of his mother and the message she left on the TV about him. This message was not received well by the boy, who still believes he is dead. Until Michele told him that he is a guardian angel and comes visits him, he promise to visit again. He continues visiting Filippo (Mattia di Pierro) and one day he lets him out for some hours of play in the wheat fields together, and then he returns him back to the hole. To win a toy as a present for Filippo, he barters with his best friend Salvatore for a toy blue van by offering to share a secret, and reveals to him Filippo's existence, but Salvatore is uncomfortable about the news, even though he surrenders the van and promises Michele that he will not share his secret with anyone else. On Michele's next visit to Filippo, he is caught by one of the kidnappers (the older brother of Skull), who finds him in the hole with Filippo and punches him, then hauls him out and drives him home. It turns out that Michele's friend Salvatore has revealed his secret to Skull's brother. His parents have contrasting reactions to his being apprehended. His mother defies Michele's attacker, in defense of her son, but his father, on learning that he has been visiting Filippo, threatens to beat him if he ever goes back to visit the boy again. Michele promises to obey his father. But then one day Skull cajoles his peers into again visiting the farmhouse, where Michele discovers the hole empty and Filippo gone. His friend-turned-traitor Salvatore readily tells him he knows where Filippo has been moved, having overheard his father tell Michele's father, and will tell him if Michele will forgive his betrayal. The next night, Michele overhears the adults discussing who will kill Filippo, and Michele sets out immediately to find Filippo — who is now in a "cave" — and save him. He hoists him out over a gate and tells him to run for his life, while Michele tries to find a way out for himself with no one to hoist him over the gate. Meanwhile, Michele's father has drawn the short straw and shows up at the cave to kill Filippo. Michele sees it is his father and runs toward him across the cave just as his father fires his gun, shooting his own son in the leg. In the film's last scene, Michele's father runs with Michele in his arms in search of medical aid, as the ringleader from the North (Milan) finds him and insists he has to resume his assigned task of killing Filippo. However, Filippo appears and risks his own life to show gratitude to Michele, just as helicopters arrive and track down the ringleader trying to escape. The film ends with a repentant Pino clutching his son and Michele reaching out to Filippo. ===== The novel focuses on the life of socialite Anthony Beavis, but it does so by employing a non-chronological structure. It juxtaposes four periods of Beavis' life, from the time that he is a young boy in the 1890s up until 1936. The novel describes Beavis as he goes through school, college and various romantic affairs, while probing the meaningless lives of the upper-class during the same period. The novel depicts Beavis' own gradual disillusionment with high society, brought to a head by the suicide of his friend. At this point, he begins to search for some source of meaning in his life, which seems to be provided when he discovers pacifism and then mysticism. ===== Giovanna (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) and her husband Filippo (Filippo Nigro) have settled into life. They both have jobs that make them unhappy. She works in an poultry factory. He works the graveyard shift because he lacks seniority. They argue about money, sex, time and work... There is a subtle sense that this is a marriage whose love is dwindling fast, and that perhaps they are only going through the motions for the sake of their children. One morning, the two of them are walking home and cross paths with an elderly man (Massimo Girotti). He is suffering from transient global amnesia, remembering nothing about himself and his current situation, although recalling random episodes from his remote past. And despite Giovanna's protests, Filippo brings him back to their home for the night so that he can take him to the police the next morning in the hopes of unraveling the mystery. As complications ensue, that one night stretches to a few days. The old man experiences strange episodes, flashbacks of sorts, that reveal clues to his mysterious past. His actions lead to a meeting between Giovanna and Lorenzo (Raoul Bova). Lorenzo lives across the street from Giovanna and their apartment windows face each other. The sexual tension between the two is quite palpable as they have both been secretly watching and lusting after each other from their dimly lit windows. Giovanna and Lorenzo's instant friendship swiftly moves to flirtation and then to a passionate kiss. However, Lorenzo's job is transferring him to another city very soon and Giovanna is put in an awkward spot having to make a very quick decision. Her heart tells her she should act on her feelings. Her mind tells her to be responsible. Nevertheless, the two of them puzzle over the mystery of the old man as they try to come to terms with their feelings for one another. The only thing the old man seems to remember is the name Simone, so Giovanna and her family take to calling him this. Giovanna takes Simone's suit to be cleaned and discovers a love letter in the jacket pocket addressed to him from a certain Davide Veroli. The next morning, Simone disappears, so Giovanna sets out to trace Davide Veroli as a means of identifying Simone and at this point also of tracing him. A meeting is arranged between them. When Giovanna comes face to face with the old Davide Veroli, it turns out he is the old man they called Simone. Simone, in fact, had been the man Davide had loved when he was young. Davide heard the Nazis were going to kill all Jews in Rome and killed his boss in order to escape and to alert as many people as possible. However, Davide was in a crossroad: he had to choose between telling the others – his neighbors, those who had laughed at him for being homosexual – or looking for Simone first instead. He chose to save the others in the first place to prove that he deserved their respect and saved many people and children. He was given many honors after this, but he lost his only love. After remembering who he was, he had gone back home, although without mentioning anything to the family that had given him a roof the previous days. Nonetheless, they became very good friends. Davide helped her make some big decisions in her life, like pursuing her dream to work in a bakery and having the strength to fight for her marriage and her children. ===== Small and quiet Sam admits to his older brother Rocky that the school bully George has hurt him because he moved George's video camera while George was filming himself playing basketball. Rocky tells his friends, reserved Clyde and troubled Marty, and they devise a plan for revenge. Part of the prank entails taking George on a boating trip to celebrate Sam's fictional birthday. Then, they will get him to strip in a game of truth or dare, throw him in the river, then make him run home naked. Sam invites his new girlfriend Millie along and all five of them are driven to the river by Marty. During the ride, George reveals a different side by being genuinely pleased to be invited; the group also learns he is dyslexic. However, Sam does not tell Millie the real plan until they arrive near the river. Millie refuses to continue until Sam promises to call the plan off. Sam tells Rocky, who then tells Clyde and Marty. Although Clyde has no problem, Marty is very reluctant. Throughout the trip, George clumsily attempts to fit in with the group. Despite this, he also gets confrontational when questioned about his motives (or lack thereof). The group soon realize although George is annoying and insecure, he is very lonely and just wants to be socially accepted. On the boat, Marty deviates from the others' plan and initiates a game of truth or dare, though the rest decide to go along. After George shoots Marty with a water gun in good fun, he makes a funny quip about Marty's father, not remembering that it is a sore subject as Marty's father committed suicide years ago. This sets off Marty, who exposes the whole plan and starts to ridicule George. Angered and humiliated, George launches into a vulgar tirade against everyone else, ending by crudely mocking Marty's deceased father and Clyde's two gay fathers. Marty snaps and Rocky, in an attempt to stop the fight, accidentally pushes George off the boat instead. Unable to swim, George struggles to remain afloat in the water. As the others regard the scene in horror, George accidentally hits his head with his video camera and does not come to the surface. Rocky dives into the water and finds George, who appears face down in the shallow water close to the shore. Millie attempts to give George CPR but is too late as he had already died. The group is traumatized and in fear of being incarcerated. They dig a hole and bury George's body. Clyde's plan is to explain that it was an accident but Marty threatens him, reminding Clyde that George's camera (now lost in the water) contains Marty's taped confession of the original plan and the authorities will find out if the camera is discovered. As they had already tricked George into not telling his mother where he was going, she would not know of their involvement. They later gather at Sam and Rocky's house. Sam, Rocky, Clyde, and Millie are willing to accept the consequences for their actions as opposed to having George's death hanging over their heads. Marty refuses to turn himself in and feels betrayed. Marty storms out and convinces his brother to give him his gun and car. He robs a gas station and drives off, becoming a fugitive. Meanwhile, the others go to George's house and confess to his mother what happened. Sam is later seen in an interrogation room, telling the story to the police, who later find and view the tape from George's video camera. In a final scene, audio of George explaining his dream of becoming a filmmaker and documenting his life in hopes those who see it will finally understand him plays in the background. The police force, Sam, Rocky, their father, and George's mother find the location of the corpse while Sam watches on in regret as the sheriff exhumes George's body and his mother cries with devastation. ===== Ms. Accord, a teacher at the Primp Magic School, has lost her Flying Cane, the equivalent of a magic wand, and claims to have a reward for the student who can find it. The player plays the role of either Amitie or Raffine, students at the school, as they venture across the Puyo Pop Fever world to find the cane, while meeting many wacky characters along the way and battling them. Raffine's course contains more difficult gameplay and alters the characters the player meets, as well as which character actually finds the wand. When playing as Raffine near to the end of the game, it is revealed that Accord never actually lost her flying cane. Raffine then plans on revealing her and Popoi's secret, but fails in her ending, as she is knocked unconscious by Ms. Accord, losing all memories of the flying cane incident. She regains consciousness near her school where Amitie and her friends congratulate her. ===== The episode begins with Cartman betting Kyle five dollars that when people die they "crap their pants". Kyle says it is a stupid idea. In the meantime, a Wall-Mart opens in South Park (where Stark's Pond used to be) with much fanfare and everyone in town starts shopping there. Cartman is especially delighted that one can buy three copies of Timecop for $18 instead of just one for $9.98, though Kyle wonders why one would need three copies of the same movie. The popularity of Wall-Mart forces the local businesses to shut down, including Jim's Drugs, within minutes of Kyle's declaration that he will now take all his personal shopping there. Local residents, including Stan's father Randy, soon start to work at Wall-Mart for minimum wage and an extra 10% employee discount on store purchases which according to Randy, evens out the wage. South Park turns into a ghost town, and the townspeople decide they no longer want the Wall-Mart in South Park. They fail to resist, as they start to miss the bargains (Randy's frenzied case of impulse buying notably re-opens at dinner the first day after the self- imposed ban when Stan accidentally breaks his milk glass), so they (in the form of a vigilante mob) ask the Wall-Mart manager to have the location shut down. Terrified, he asks them to meet him outside in five minutes. As the people stop outside his office, the manager is thrown through the office window in an apparent suicide by hanging, and then voids his bowels (to the viewer, the force of defecation is so strong that his pants are blown off). Cartman gleefully tells Kyle he owes him $5. The townspeople burn the building down, only to see it rebuilt. A man rebuilding the Wall-Mart tells Kenny, Kyle and Stan that the rebuilding order came from Wall-Mart's headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas. Stan and his friends arrange a bus trip to Bentonville, Arkansas to stop the Wall-Mart, but are joined by Cartman, whom the Wall-Mart subliminally told to stop them. Though none of the boys trust him (Kyle knows for a fact that Cartman is secretly against them), they are in a hurry to leave. They then reach Bentonville, despite Cartman's sabotage (slashing the tires of the bus they travel on), and talk to Harvey Brown, the current president of Wall-Mart, who is remorseful of all the damage it's done, since he is one of the founders. The boys ask him how they can stop it, and he tells them they need to find and destroy its "heart". As the boys leave, Brown tells them to tell the world "I'm sorry" and, despite Stan urging him not to, commits suicide by shooting himself in the head; he, like the manager, then voids his bowels with enough force that it blows a hole in his pants and tips over a nearby barstool. Cartman again laughs that Kyle now owes him $10. The boys return home to the still-dilapidated South Park. Dressed in camouflage, they try to re-enter South Park Wall-Mart but Cartman confronts them. He denies that they knew he was against them, but Kyle angrily begins yelling at him that he knew Cartman was against them all along, while Cartman continues to talk about why he was against them. Kenny is then assigned to hold Cartman off while Stan and Kyle enter the Wall-Mart. In the television department, the boys are confronted by a man who says he is Wall-Mart, a reference to the film The Matrix Reloaded. He says that he can take "many forms" although he only puts on different costumes. After confusing philosophical dialogue clichés, he finally tells the boys that the heart "lies beyond that plasma screen television". The boys walk over to find it is just a small rectangular mirror, but ignore the metaphor of the true heart of Wall-Mart being human desire and simply smash it to "destroy the heart", in which Kyle does with a black mallet. The building begins to shake, and the Wall-Mart then begins to fall apart, while the man says they will see him in his "true form". However, he does no more than rip off his mustache and jump around. The boys and everyone else inside the Wall-Mart evacuate and gather with other townsfolk in the parking lot, and see the Wall-Mart fold in on itself in a blinding flash of light (in the same way as the Freeling house in Poltergeist), then, inexplicably, crap its pants (shown as the imploding building suddenly releasing a large amount of fecal matter), upon which Cartman laughs loud and hard once again and leaves the scene. Everyone cheers because Kyle tells everyone that all of these places have a self-destruct sequence if they break a mirror in the back. Chef tells a soldier to spread the word to all the towns on how to destroy these places, in reference to a scene from the film Independence Day. Randy then announces that the Wall-Mart's "heart" was their desires the whole time. Oblivious to the fact that the boys consider this obvious, Randy explains pedantically how the residents of South Park had allowed their consumerism to work against them and nearly destroy their cherished small-town charm. Realizing their mistake -- albeit only on the surface -- the townspeople loyally return to shopping at Jim's Drugs, which is shown to gradually grow larger until it reaches a Wall-Mart wholesale fashion and is later being burned down itself. Watching it burn, the townspeople vow not to shop there again, and they immediately head to the local True Value (no doubt to repeat the same mistake). ===== The story begins with the sexton standing in front of the meeting-house, ringing the bell. He is to stop ringing the bell when the Reverend Mr. Hooper comes into sight. However, the congregation is met with an unusual sight: Mr. Hooper is wearing a black semi-transparent veil that obscures all of his face but his mouth and chin from view. This creates a stir among the townspeople, who begin to speculate about his veil and its significance. As he takes the pulpit, Mr. Hooper's sermon is on secret sin and is "tinged, rather more darkly than usual, with the gentle gloom of Mr. Hooper's temperament". This topic concerns the congregation who fear for their own secret sins as well as their minister's new appearance. After the sermon, a funeral is held for a young lady of the town who has died. Mr. Hooper stays for the funeral and continues to wear his now more appropriate veil. It is said that if the veil were to blow away, he might be "fearful of her glance". Mr. Hooper says a few prayers and the body is carried away. Two of the mourners say that they have had a fancy that "the minister and the maiden's spirit were walking hand in hand". That night another occasion arises, this time a joyous one—a wedding. However, Mr. Hooper arrives in his veil again, bringing the atmosphere of the wedding down to gloom. By the next day, even the local children are talking of the strange change that seems to have come over their minister. Yet, no one is able to ask Mr. Hooper directly about the veil, except for his fiancée Elizabeth. Elizabeth tries to be cheerful and have him take it off. He will not do so, even when they are alone together, nor will he tell her why he wears the veil. Eventually, she gives up and tells him goodbye, breaking off the engagement. The one positive benefit of the veil is that Mr. Hooper becomes a more efficient clergyman, gaining many converts who feel that they too are behind the black veil with him. Dying sinners call out for him alone. Mr. Hooper lives his life thus, though he is promoted to Father, until his death. According to the text, "All through life the black veil had hung between him and the world: it had separated him from cheerful brotherhood and woman's love, and kept him in that saddest of all prisons, his own heart; and still it lay upon his face, as if to deepen the gloom of his dark-some chamber, and shade him from the sunshine of eternity". Even though Elizabeth broke off their engagement, she never marries and still keeps track of the happenings of Hooper's life from afar. When she finds out that he is deathly ill she comes to his death bed to be by his side. Elizabeth and the Reverend ask him once again to remove the veil, but he refuses. As he dies, those around him tremble. He tells them in anger not to tremble, not merely for him but for themselves, for they all wear black veils. Father Hooper is buried with the black veil on his face. ===== Álex de la Iglesia signs only two pages of this novel. In this introduction he states he has found a laptop computer lost by the poet Juan Carlos Satrústegui. On it, he has read a file called Payasos en la lavadora. Since Satrústegui has entered a mental sanatorium, de la Iglesia talks with the writer's mother and decides to publish the text after correcting it. It is a parody of the old literary technique of the false document found by chance, probably influenced by the fact that, in real life, de la Iglesia writes his film scripts on a laptop computer, which he has lost at least twice. According to this introduction, the rest of the fifteen chapters are Juan Carlos Satrústegui's autobiographical tale. Satrústegui considers himself a genius, superior to all those he comes across. But the reader soon realises his psychic problems (obsessions, deliria, paranoia, lack of empathy) become worse due to the drugs he uses in fiestas, the want of slept and the beatings he earns when dealing with the lumpen. ===== On an unnamed island, queen Maeve of Temra seeks to conquer the peaceful kingdom of Kells and enlists the evil fairy Mider, who gives her the mystical Rune Stone allowing Maeve to use sorcery. Queen Maeve mostly uses the Rune Stone often to create or summon monsters whom she sends to wreak havoc. When king Conchobar of Kells seeks a way to protect his kingdom, protagonist Rohan, a druid's apprentice, goes in search of the prophesied hero "Draganta", with his friend the reformed thief Angus. Later joined by the foreign Prince Ivar, and Conchobar's daughter, princess Deirdre, they are drawn into Tir Na Nóg, whose king Fin Varra puts the group through various tests to determine their worthiness. The heroes having passed these tests, King Fin Varra gives them certain weapons granting control of the Classical elements Fire, Air, Water and Earth. Thereafter the four overcome Mider's "Evil Sentinels" (recurring villains in the series) to capture corresponding suits of armor, and oppose the various monsters created by Maeve, assisted by the winged fairy "Aideen". Subsequently, Rohan gains a new partner in Pyre the dragon, who later identifies Rohan as Draganta. Later in the series, another Mystic Knight emerges, in the form of prince Garrett of Rheged, who joins the others after they free him from Maeve's telepathic control. With her powers nearly exhausted, queen Maeve summons the monster "Lugad", who is more powerful than any previous creation and was trained and mutated by Maeve's teacher Nemain. It was discovered that Lugad and Rohan are both Maeve's abandoned sons. In the series finale, they co-operate with the other Mystic Knights to defeat Maeve, whom king Conchobar banishes to another island. As for Nemain, she has claimed the Silver Chalice that Ivar sought to reclaim as Mider enters an alliance with her. ===== Johnny Warder gets out of prison and returns to North Carolina to marry sweetheart Carol, with whom he has a 5-year-old son. Johnny and Carol decide to rob a local bootlegger's safe during a town picnic. Their accomplice is Roger, a former Army buddy of Johnny's with knowledge of explosives. They blow the safe to get at the $250,000 inside, but the job goes awry. And during their escape, Johnny and Roger kill a law-enforcement official. At a diner, a sheriff, Carol's brother Charlie, spots the fugitives. In deference to his sister, Charlie agrees to give them a 10-minute head start before he contacts his fellow lawmen. But when emerging from a restroom, Roger doesn't realize who Charlie is and shoots him dead. The police eventually surround the gang at a sawmill. During a shootout, Roger is killed. Johnny and Carol drive off in hail of bullets, and Carol is also killed. Johnny drives her body back to her mother and son. ===== The film is set in an exclusive beach community on Long Island, where children's book author and artist Ted Cole (Jeff Bridges) lives with his wife Marion (Kim Basinger) and their young daughter Ruth (Elle Fanning), who usually is supervised by her nanny Alice. Their home is filled with photographs of the couple's teenaged sons, who were killed in an automobile accident; the tragedy left Marion deeply depressed and her marriage in a shambles. The one shared experience that holds the family together is a ritualistic daily viewing of a home gallery of family photographs of the deceased sons. Ted and Marion temporarily separate, each alternately living in the house and in a rented apartment in town. Ted hires Eddie O'Hare (Jon Foster) to work as his summer assistant and driver, since his own license was suspended for drunk driving. An aspiring writer, Eddie admires Ted, but he soon discovers the older man is a self- absorbed womanizer with an erratic work schedule that leaves the young assistant to fill his time as best he can. Eddie and Marion soon engage in a sexual relationship, which seems not to bother Ted, who is enjoying trysts of his own with local resident Evelyn Vaughn (Mimi Rogers) during sketching sessions at which she serves as his model. When Ruth walks into the room while Eddie and her mother are making love, Ted becomes upset with his wife and advises Eddie he may have to testify about the incident if Ted decides to fight for full custody of the child. Marion eventually leaves Ted and their daughter, taking with her all the photographs and negatives of her dead sons, save one that is being reframed after it was broken, injuring Ruth. Eddie takes the initiative to retrieve the one remaining reframed picture so that Ruth can have at least one partial image of her brothers. Ted reveals to Eddie the story of the car accident that caused his sons' deaths. Ted suggests his and Marion's drunkenness and Ted's failure to remove snow from the rear tail light and turn signal lights likely contributed to their sons' deaths. Eddie learns more about what may have contributed to Marion's intense despair, mental states, and choice to abandon her remaining child. At the end of the film, Ted does not fully understand why Marion left, and he questions, "What kind of mother leaves her daughter?" At the end of the story, Ted stops while playing alone in his squash court, looks into the camera with resignation, then lifts the door in the floor and descends. ===== In the year 2055, the Chicago-based Time Safari company offers the opportunity for rich people to hunt dinosaurs in the past via time travel technology. As a precaution against the potential change of the past, the company preys only on the dinosaurs who would otherwise die of natural causes and keeps the clients from stepping off the designated path. Because of the dangers of interfering with the timeline, the company's activities are vocally criticized by Sonia Rand, the developer of the time machine software "TAMI", who feels disappointed for not receiving credit during her work and is worried that some clients may alter the past through their activities. A trip with clients Eckels and Middleton goes afoul when the gun brought by team leader Travis Ryer fails to go off. The dinosaur, an Allosaurus, rushes the group, scattering the clients. Ryer is able to kill the dinosaur and afterwards, regroups the clients and returns to 2055 without further harm. The next day, however, Members of Time Safari including CEO Charles Hatton hear reports of global increases in temperature and humidity, and Ryer observes a sudden increase in plant life. On their next trip, Ryer and a new group of clients find that the Allosaurus he and the team intend to hunt is already dead and the volcano erupts much sooner. The team quickly returns and reports the changes, causing the government to shut down Time Safari for an investigation. Ryer learns from Rand that Chicago is being struck by "time waves" that cause drastic alterations to the city as they pass due to something that happened on a previous expedition. Ryer and Rand narrowly escape a building after a time wave causes the appearance of thousands of beetles and a tree bursting through its structure. Rand warns that more time waves can be expected, and each will affect more advanced life forms, people being the last. Ryer and Rand return to Time Safari to try to fix what has gone wrong along with the government. Unfortunately, another time wave strikes that leaves the city without power and now covered by dense vegetation. Evaluating the machine's logs, they find that the Eckels/Middleton expedition had come back a few grams heavier and that the bio-filter was turned off and recognize that they can use the time machine to go back to intercept their past selves so as to prevent whatever happened, but will only have a few seconds to act, and so must work to figure out who they need to stop. The Time Safari finds their equipment and gear free of anything, so Ryer and Rand lead a group through the city - now filled with evolved and deadly hybrids and other new hazards that kill some of their party members in order to find Eckels and Middleton. Eckels is safe but asserts he remained on the path, while Middleton, poisoned by the new wildlife, commits suicide before they can stop him. However, they are able to find a dead butterfly on the sole of the suit he used for the safari. The party makes it back to Time Safari after more time waves hit, now finding the time machine partially underwater and unusable. Rand obtains the hard drive containing the TAMI software with plans to use it with the nearby university's particle accelerator as a substitute time machine. With Ryer and Rand as the only two survivors, they finally make it to the university, Rand noted that the appearance of simian- like Babboonlizards from the latest time wave means the next one will wipe away humanity. Rand prepares the accelerator and stays behind while Ryer goes through the time portal, just as the last time wave hits turning Rand into a humanoid catfish-like creature. Ryer catches up to the previous expedition, catches Middleton to prevent him stepping on the butterfly, tells team member Jenny that the bio-filter is off at the same time asking her to give his earlier self a recording of the events he has witnessed. The expedition returns without incident to the future they had left and Ryer shares the footage with Rand, presumably to use it to bring down Time Safari, and make sure nothing like this ever happens again. ===== Tom and Hester meet adventurer and author Nimrod Pennyroyal aboard Airhaven, who persuades them to take him as a passenger. They are soon pursued by airships of the Green Storm, a fanatical splinter group of the Anti-Traction League, who want the Jenny Haniver as they believe it was stolen from their deceased leader and friend to Tom and Hester, Anna Fang. Despite evading the airships, the Jenny Haniver is damaged and drifts helplessly over the Ice Wastes. They are rescued by Anchorage, which was once a thriving Traction City that relied primarily upon trade, but had recently been devastated by an excavated biological weapon that killed most of the inhabitants. The survivors have set a course for North America, which is believed to be a radioactive wasteland since the Sixty Minute War. The city is ruled by the young margravine Freya Rasmussen, who treats all three of them as honoured guests and appoints Pennyroyal as the city's chief navigator because of his past experiences (detailed in his book America the Beautiful) traveling in America. As Anchorage's harbormaster works to repair the Jenny Haniver, Hester becomes jealous of Tom's growing closeness to Freya, and is also disturbed by the sightings of "ghosts" in the city. Eventually she sees Tom kissing Freya, and flies away from the city in the Jenny Haniver. Thereafter, Hester sells Anchorage's course to Piotr Masgard, the leader of the "Huntsmen" of the Traction City of Arkangel, who intends to capture the city through an airship invasion; rather than accepting money as payment for this information, she insists that when Arkangel eats Anchorage, Tom be returned to her. As she returns to the Jenny Haniver, however, she is drugged and kidnapped by a Green Storm informant. Hester is taken to Rogue's Roost, an island south of Greenland, where the Green Storm have converted Anna Fang's body into a Stalker. The commander, Sathya, hopes to restore Fang's memories by showing her Hester, but the resurrected Fang doesn't recognise her nor herself. Sathya reveals that, according to her intelligence, Hester's father was Thaddeus Valentine. Tom realizes that Pennyroyal never went to America, and based his entire book on an old explorer's map in the Reykjavík library. On his way to reveal Pennyroyal's deception to the chief engineer, Tom finds out that the "ghosts" sighted around Anchorage are thieves, operating out of a parasitic submarine-like limpet attached to the bottom of the city, who call themselves the Lost Boys and work out of a larger group in the sunken city of Grimsby. With their secret discovered, they kidnap Tom and leave the city. Tom develops a sort of friendship with a reluctant Lost Boy, Caul, on their trip to Grimsby. Caul tells him that the city is ruled by "Uncle", a man who founded it as a base of thieves and keeps the Lost Boys under constant surveillance. When they arrive in Grimsby, Tom is taken to see Uncle, who tells him there is something valuable in Rogues' Roost which he wants Tom to steal for him. In return, Tom will have the chance to rescue Hester. Tom climbs a ladder up the rocky cliffs to infiltrate the base, but he is soon discovered and reunited with Hester in her cell. Realising that Uncle sent Tom to die as a diversion, Caul prematurely detonates the charges the Lost Boys were positioning inside the Roost, sabotaging the operation, but saving Tom and Hester. In the confusion, most of the Lost Boys make their way to the chamber where the Stalker Fang is kept, but the Stalker easily kills them all. She then pursues Tom and Hester into the island hangar where the Jenny Haniver is kept, but lets them escape when she seemingly recognises Tom, and then takes command of the Green Storm forces from Sathya. In Grimsby, after Uncle severely beats Caul for his betrayal, then leaves him to die by hanging, and informs the younger man that he knew Anna Fang when he was younger. Fang was a slave in Arkangel, but Uncle began to love her and released her. She betrayed him by building an airship and escaping from slavery. After Uncle was disowned by his family, he built Grimsby to make sure that nobody kept a secret from him ever again. Uncle wanted to retrieve Fang from Rogue's Roost to reprogram her to become his slave. Caul is saved by fellow Lost Boy Gargle, who wanted to repay Caul's kindness to him. Gargle gives Caul the Reykjavik map that Uncle had all along, and sends him back to Anchorage on a limpet. Freya catches Pennyroyal secretly broadcasting a radio message asking for someone to come and get him off of Anchorage, and he subsequently admits to her that his claims of traveling to America were all lies. Arkangel chases Anchorage, leading to the Huntsmen led by Masgard capturing Anchorage and leaving it helpless on the ice to be eaten. Tom and Hester return to the city, where Pennyroyal has evaded capture. Hester sends Tom to hide, and later liberates the inhabitants, killing Masgard and the Hunstmen in the process. Tom confronts Pennyroyal, who knows that Hester sold Anchorage to Masgard, but doesn't tell Tom. Attempting to scare Tom off, Pennyroyal accidentally shoots Tom in the chest. He then steals the Jenny Haniver and escapes. Arkangel still pursues Anchorage, but becomes trapped over thin ice, leading Anchorage to drift on the ocean on an ice floe. With the revelation that Pennyroyal is a fraud, the inhabitants lose hope in the salvation of their city, until Caul arrives with the Reykjavik map, and convinces them to continue. Meanwhile, Pennyroyal escapes to the Hunting Ground, and soon publishes a book reimagining the events of Anchorage's flight west, with himself as the hero and exposing the Lost Boys. Arkangel is evacuated and eventually sinks to the bottom of the ocean. In Asia, the Green Storm, under the leadership of the Stalker Fang, topples the old Anti-Traction League. Anchorage eventually makes it to North America, and finds it verdant and lush. Tom recovers from his wound, but is still very weak. Hester takes comfort in the knowledge that the city will be secret and safe in this new land, and is pleased to discover that she is pregnant. ===== Exactly one year after the explosion of Flight 180, college student Kimberly Corman is heading to Daytona Beach, Florida for spring break with her friends, Shaina McKlank, Dano Estevez, and Frankie Whitman. While waiting on the entrance ramp to Route 23, she has a premonition of a deadly pileup caused by a logging truck. She stalls her car on the entrance ramp, preventing several people from entering the highway, including lottery winner Evan Lewis, mother Nora Carpenter and her fifteen-year-old son Tim, businesswoman Kat Jennings, stoner Rory Peters, pregnant Isabella Hudson, high school teacher Eugene Dix, and Deputy Marshal Thomas Burke. While Burke questions Kimberly, the pileup occurs, but Shaina, Dano, and Frankie are killed by a car carrier after Burke saves Kimberly at the last second. After the survivors are questioned at the police station, Evan is fatally impaled by a fire escape ladder while attempting to escape from a fire in his apartment. Aware of Death's presence, Kimberly seeks help from Clear Rivers, the last survivor of Flight 180 who committed herself to a psychiatric ward for protection after Alex Browning was killed by a falling brick. When Kimberly informs Clear that Evan was the first of the highway survivors to die, unlike in her premonition, Clear realizes that the survivors are dying in reverse order. Meanwhile, Tim is crushed by a windowpane while leaving the dentist with his mother. Clear decides to help and introduces Kimberly and Burke to William Bludworth, who tells them that only new life can defeat Death. Believing that the birth of Isabella's baby would foil Death's plan, Burke sends fellow marshal Steve Adams to take her into custody while he gathers the other survivors in his apartment and explains Death's plan to them. When Nora attempts to leave via an elevator, a chain of accidents results in her head becoming trapped in the doors, and she is decapitated. The survivors take Kat's SUV to track down Isabella, who has gone into labor, prompting Adams to rush her to the hospital. Along the way, the survivors realize that the demises of the Flight 180 survivors affected all of their lives even before the highway pileup by saving them from prior deaths, which explains why Death is working backwards this time. The SUV then suffers a blowout, causing them to swerve into a stack of PVC pipes in a farm that penetrate the car and injure Eugene. Rescue workers arrive and assist the farm owners, the Gibbons family, with rescuing the others while Eugene is hospitalized. Using the Jaws of Life, Kat's rescuer accidentally activates her airbag, causing her head to be impaled on a pipe protruding from her headrest. Her cigarette falls onto a gasoline leak from a news van that explodes, launching a barbed wire fence into the air that dismembers Rory. Guided by a vision of a doctor named Kalarjian who Kimberly believes will euthanize Isabella, Kimberly, Clear, and Burke rush to a hospital to save her, only to find Isabella and her baby unharmed. However, an explosion from an oxygen leak in Eugene's ward kills both Clear and Eugene. Kimberly realizes that Isabella was never meant to die at all, deducing that her visions of 'Isabella' were actually of herself. Kimberly remembers that only the creation of a 'new life' can defeat Death. She drives into a lake to drown herself, but is defibrillated and revived by Dr. Kalarjian, creating 'new life'. Later, Kimberly and Burke have a picnic with the Gibbons and Kimberly's father. The Gibbonses explain that their son Brian was nearly hit by a news van after Rory saved him earlier. As a result, they witness Brian suddenly die in an explosion caused by a malfunctioning barbecue grill. ===== May (played by Anne Reid) is an unremarkable grandmother from Northern England. When her husband dies on a visit to their children in London, she recedes into the background of their busy lives. Trapped in an unfamiliar city, May fears that she has become an invisible woman whose life is more or less over; to combat this, she embarks on a sexual affair with Darren (Daniel Craig), younger and married, who is renovating her son's house and who is her daughter's lover. As her sexual desire turns into emotional longing, May drifts into a point-of-no-return, with devastating results for those around her. ===== Rising Hollywood movie star Bo Laramie (Cole Hauser) has finally achieved major success with his latest film "Adrenaline Force". Almost after the film's premiere, a persistent group of unscrupulous photographers — Kevin Rosner (Kevin Gage), Leonard Clark (Tom Hollander), Wendell Stokes (Daniel Baldwin) and their leader Rex Harper (Tom Sizemore) — harass Bo and his wife Abby (Robin Tunney), along with their 8-year-old son Zach (Blake Michael Bryan). When Bo takes Zach to soccer practice, he eyes Rex taking photos of Zach and confronts him, leading Rex to provoke Bo into punching him, caught on camera by his fellow photographers. Bo is sued as a result and is placed into anger management. Meanwhile, Rex vows to destroy Bo and those close to him. As Bo, Abby and Zach return from an event, Rex and his crew drive up beside them, in four different vehicles, and blind them by taking pictures. Bo's car is hit by a pickup truck while Rex and his crew snap photos of the wreck they caused. While Bo is not seriously injured, Abby's spleen is removed and Zach is placed in a coma. Bo is told by LAPD detective Burton (Dennis Farina) that the paparazzi each gave him the same story of finding the wreck after it happened, with no witnesses to dispute their claims. Some time later, Bo accidentally causes Kevin to wipe out on his motorcycle, careening onto a precipice. Bo tries to save him, but when Kevin gloats that they'll put his family through hell, Bo lets him fall to his death. Bo makes Leonard his next target, secretly placing a prop gun in the jacket left in Leonard's car, whilst Leonard invades Bo's movie set and is ejected by security. Following him, Bo calls 911, and describes Leonard's car, saying that the driver is waving a gun. Leonard is pulled over and, reaching into his jacket for his ID, instead pulls out the prop gun, causing the cops to shoot him dead. Convinced Bo will target them next, Rex and Wendell break into Bo's house to plant cameras inside. Abby runs into Wendell, who assaults her and threatens to kill Zach if she tells the police. Burton assigns Deputy Walker (Forry Smith) and Deputy Wilson (Donal Gibson) to provide extra security, but Bo sneaks out past the two deputies and into Wendell's house, discovering the feed from the cameras. Wendell arrives at his home where Bo confronts him with a baseball bat. In the morning, Bo puts the car back where it was at, and races to beat Burton, on his way to the house. Burton shows Bo a video taken by a camera in a button of Leonard's shirt on the movie set, and thinks someone planted the gun in Leonard's coat. Rex soon finds Wendell beaten to death, and Bo planted the bat in Rex's houseboat to frame him. Burton realizes traffic camera footage will prove what really happened at Bo's crash, along with the testimony of Emily (Andrea Baker), who was with Rex at the event, prompted by her guilt to come forward. At Wendell's house, Burton notices the video feed from the cameras in Bo's house and Rex entering with a gun. Rex goes to Bo and Abby's bedroom and opens fire, only for Bo to hit Rex and throw him to the floor. Bo viciously beats Rex, gloating about how he got his revenge. Rex is finally arrested, adding to a charge that he had previously harassed and raped Emily, and relentlessly photographed by paparazzi as he is led away. Later, as Bo is finishing filming, he's called to the hospital, where Zach has awakened from his coma. Bo, Abby and Zach later attend at the premiere of Bo's newest film, a sequel to Adrenaline Force, and Abby is now pregnant with a girl. After the film, Bo meets the press out front, taking a paparazzi's jibe at him in his stride. ===== The starship Enterprise receives a distress call from a lifeless planet. Upon arrival, a telepathic being named Sargon (voiced by James Doohan) addresses Kirk and Spock as his "children", and invites them to beam down to the planet. Kirk, Spock, Dr. McCoy, and Lt. Cmdr. Ann Mulhall beam to a subterranean vault where the voice of Sargon greets them from a luminous sphere on a pedestal. Sargon explains that he and two others are the last survivors of their race; their minds, stored in these spheres, have existed here since their planet was devastated by war. Sargon then transfers his mind into Kirk's body and Kirk's mind into the sphere. Sargon explains that he and his companions will need human bodies temporarily, in order to construct android hosts for themselves, and then returns to his orb. Kirk, returned to his own body, declares his confidence in Sargon. Back onboard the Enterprise, the four meet with Chief Engineer Scott to consider Sargon's request, and Kirk convinces the others with a rousing speech about risk. The spheres of Sargon, his wife Thalassa, and his former enemy Henoch, are brought up from the planet. McCoy supervises as Sargon takes Kirk's body again, and Thalassa and Henoch take Mulhall's and Spock's bodies, respectively. When Sargon and Thalassa become exhausted by the strain of the transference, Henoch instructs Nurse Chapel in preparing a serum that will strengthen the host bodies. Chapel notices that the serum in the hypospray designated for Kirk does not contain the correct formula. Henoch confesses that he intends to kill Kirk, and Sargon with him, in order to keep Spock's body. Henoch then erases Chapel's memory of the conversation. Manufacture of the android hosts begins. Kirk's body weakens more quickly than the others, requiring additional doses of the serum. Henoch tries to tempt Thalassa into keeping their hosts' bodies, because the android forms will be incapable of sensuality. She in turn tries to convince Sargon, but he collapses. McCoy declares that Kirk's body has died and Sargon is gone. Back in sickbay, McCoy is able to revive Kirk's bodily functions, but has no way to restore Kirk's mind. Thalassa offers to restore Kirk in exchange for McCoy's help in keeping Mulhall's body. When McCoy refuses, she assaults him telepathically, but then has a change in heart and relents. The voice of Sargon commends her, and she realizes that Sargon is using the ship itself as a temporary body. She then informs McCoy that Sargon has a plan, and locks him out of the examination room, after which Chapel marches out of sickbay. McCoy reenters the examination room and finds that Kirk and Mulhall have been returned to their bodies. However, the spheres have been destroyed, including the one that held Spock's mind. Kirk says that this was "necessary", and asks McCoy to prepare a lethal hypospray for Henoch. Henoch, who has taken control of the bridge and is terrorizing the crew, reads McCoy's mind and prevents the injection. Henoch then commands Chapel to use the lethal compound on McCoy. She moves as if to comply, but then injects Henoch instead. Henoch boasts that he can transfer to another body, but finds he cannot due to interference from Sargon. Henoch pleads for mercy, but Spock's body collapses, seemingly in death. Sargon tells Kirk that he could not allow this. Spock's and Chapel's bodies glow, and Spock revives. Sargon reveals that the injection was not lethal; it was important for McCoy and Chapel to believe it was lethal so that Henoch would believe it also. Spock's mind had been temporarily placed in Chapel's body. Sargon and Thalassa announce that they will not attempt to build host bodies, but will "depart into oblivion" instead. They make a final request: to be allowed to use Kirk and Mulhall's bodies one last time to share a kiss. ===== Several of the species in Ascendancy describe motivations for reaching to the stars. Some species are peaceful diplomats; some are curious explorers; and others want to kill or conquer other forms of life. However, plot in Ascendancy is thin. Players are free to imagine a detailed storyline but most plot is restricted to a single introductory screen for each species and a synopsis given at the end of each game. ===== As usual, Donald doesn't have enough money to celebrate Christmas with his nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie. But, they are unexpectedly invited by his uncle Scrooge to his chalet on the Bear Mountain. The misanthropic rich duck wants to stifle his boredom this Christmas by testing his nephew's courage, and plans to dress up as a bear. But a bear cub sneaks in the cabin as the ducks get a Christmas tree. Eventually the mother comes looking for the cub, and scare the Ducks out of the cabin. The bears eat the food in the house and the mother bear falls asleep in front of the fireplace. The Ducks make a plan to get the bears out of the cabin, and Donald has to tie the legs of the mother bear together while Huey, Dewey and Louie catch the cub. Donald fails to tie the feet of the bear together and faints on an arm of the bear, giving an impression that he fell asleep on the bear. Meanwhile, Scrooge comes in and finds the boys chasing the cub, thinking that they are fearless. Then he finds Donald asleep with the bear, and Scrooge thinks he's purposely sleeping with the bear and thinks that Donald doesn't know the meaning of fear. Scrooge retreats unnoticed and returns the next day to spend Christmas Dinner in his mansion with his nephews. ===== As children, Lucy (Britney Spears), Kit (Zoe Saldana) and Mimi (Taryn Manning), growing up in a small Georgia town, bury a "wish box" and vow to dig it up on the night of their high school graduation. However, as the trio grow up, their friendship fades: Lucy becomes the introverted valedictorian, Kit becomes the most popular girl in school, and Mimi becomes an outcast from a trailer park facing teenage pregnancy. On the night of graduation, they reunite to open the "wish box”, remembering their old wishes: Mimi wanted to travel to California, Lucy wanted to find her mother who abandoned her when she was very young, and Kit wanted to get married. Kit and Lucy try to convince Mimi, who is five months pregnant, not to go to Los Angeles to audition for a record company. However, the next morning they decide to go to LA together, Mimi for the audition, Kit to visit her fiancé, and Lucy to find her mother in Tucson, Arizona. After Lucy departs without notifying her overbearing father Pete (Dan Aykroyd), the trio set out in a yellow 1973 Buick Skylark convertible with Ben (Anson Mount). During the trip, the car breaks down and, with little money, Mimi suggests they sing karaoke at a local bar for tips. The girls dress up and take the stage, but Mimi develops stage fright and is unable to sing. Lucy takes her place and is a hit, and the girls earn enough money to fix the car and continue on their way. They check into a motel, and Kit tells her friends a rumor that Ben had been released from jail after killing someone. Uneasy for most of the journey, the girls finally confront Ben, who reveals that he was actually in jail for driving his stepsister across state borders without parental consent because his stepfather was abusing her. Lucy and Ben gradually grow closer, and the three women have their first honest conversation since they were kids: Lucy reveals that her mother left her and her father when she was a child but is convinced her mother wants to find her; Kit, overweight as a child, has a mother who sent her to "fat camp" but now cannot stand that her daughter is more beautiful than her; Mimi reveals that her baby's father is not her ex- boyfriend, but a man who raped her at a party, and that she is planning to put the baby up for adoption. In Tucson, Lucy finds her mother Caroline (Kim Cattrall), who has remarried with two young sons, and is unhappy to see her. Caroline reveals that Lucy was an unintended pregnancy and that she wants nothing to do with her, leaving Lucy heartbroken. At the motel, Ben comforts Lucy and impresses her by writing music to a poem she has written on the journey. Lucy then rejoins the others and they reach Los Angeles. One morning Kit takes Mimi to surprise her fiancé, Dylan. Alone together in the hotel, Lucy has sex for her first time with Ben and they fall in love. Kit and Mimi arrive at Dylan's apartment to find he is cheating on Kit. She then realizes it was Dylan who raped Mimi, and punches him. Running away, Mimi falls down the stairs and loses her baby. Her friends comfort her as she comes to terms with her loss, having decided to keep the baby. Lucy calls her father to take them back home, and Kit and Mimi tell her that she should go to the audition in Mimi's place. Lucy declines and prepares to leave with her father, but realizes that everything that she has ever done has been to please her father instead of herself. Lucy tells her father to let her go and runs after Ben, and they kiss. She and the girls head to the audition with Ben and receive a standing ovation after their performance of Lucy's song, "I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman". The girls re-bury their “wish box” at the beach, this time deciding not to make any wishes for the future but to focus on the present and their friendship. ===== Turmoil erupts in Nigeria following a military coup d'etat, which involves the brutal murders of the president and his family. As foreign nationals are evacuated from the country, Lieutenant A.K. Waters (Bruce Willis) and his U.S. Navy SEAL detachment comprising Zee (Eamonn Walker), Slo (Nick Chinlund), Red (Cole Hauser), Lake (Johnny Messner), Silk (Charles Ingram), Doc (Paul Francis), and Flea (Chad Smith), aboard the aircraft carrier , are dispatched by Captain Bill Rhodes (Tom Skerritt) to extract a "critical persona", one Dr. Lena Fiore Kendricks (Monica Bellucci), a U.S. citizen by marriage and the widowed daughter-in-law of a U.S. Senator. Their secondary mission is to extract the mission priest (Pierrino Mascarino) and two nuns (Fionnula Flanagan and Cornelia Hayes O'Herlihy), should they choose to come. The mission begins as planned. Waters tells Dr. Kendricks of the company of rebel soldiers closing in on her hospital and the mission, and that the team's orders are to extract U.S. personnel; however, Kendricks refuses to leave without the patients. Waters calls Captain Rhodes for options; after their short and heated conversation, he concedes to Dr. Kendricks' wishes and agrees to take those refugees able to walk. Kendricks begins assembling the able-bodied for the hike; the priest and the nuns stay behind to take care of the injured. Irritated and behind the schedule, the team and the refugees leave the hospital mission after daybreak. At nightfall they take a short break. Guerrilla rebels rapidly approach their position, and Waters stealthily kills a straggling rebel. Dr. Kendricks warns Waters that the rebels are going to the mission, but he is determined to carry out his orders, and they continue to the extraction point. Back at the mission, the staff and refugees are detained by rebel forces. Despite the priest's pleas for mercy, the rebel forces execute him and the remaining occupants. When the team arrives at the extraction point, Waters' initial plan becomes clear: the SEALs suddenly turn away the refugees from the waiting helicopter. Waters forces Dr. Kendricks into the helicopter, Dr. Kendricks slaps, spits, and pushes Lt Waters. Lt Waters puts her on the helicopter to leave the refugees stranded in the jungle, unprotected against the rebels. En route to the aircraft carrier, they fly over the original mission compound, seeing it destroyed and all its occupants murdered, as Dr. Kendricks had feared. Remorseful, Waters orders the pilot to return to the refugees. He then loads as many refugees as he can into the helicopter and decides to escort the remaining refugees to the Cameroon border. During the hike to the border, using satellite scans, the SEALs discover the rebels are somehow tracking them. As they escape and evade the rebels, the team enters a village whose inhabitants are being raped, tortured, and massacred by rebel soldiers. Aware of having the opportunity to stop it, Waters orders the team to take down the rebels. The team is visibly shaken by the atrocities they see the rebels have committed against the villagers. Again en route, Slo determines that a refugee is transmitting a signal allowing the rebels to locate them. The search for the transmitter reveals the presence of Arthur Azuka (Sammi Rotibi), the surviving son of late President Samuel Azuka, which they realize is the reason the rebels are hunting them: Samuel Azuka was not only the president of the country, but also the tribal king of the Igbo. As the only surviving member of this royal bloodline, Arthur is the only person left with a legitimate claim to the leadership of Nigeria. Waters is angry at Dr. Kendricks, who knew of Arthur's identity, yet never informed the SEAL team. A newer refugee (Jimmy Jean-Louis) picked up during the trek is discovered with the transmitter on his person. He attempts to run but is shot. The team decides to continue escorting the refugees to Cameroon, regardless of the cost. A firefight ensues when the rebels finally catch up with the SEALs, who decide to stay behind as rearguard to buy the refugees enough time to reach the border safely. Zee radios the Truman for air support; two F/A-18A Hornets take off and head for the firefight. The rebels kill Slo, Lake, Flea, and Silk. Waters, Red, Doc, and Zee are wounded, but direct the fighter pilots on where to attack. Arthur and Dr. Kendricks are scrambling to the Cameroon border gate when they hear the fighter jets approach and bomb the entire rebel force. Waters, Zee, Doc, and Red rise from the grass as U.S. Navy helicopters land in Cameroon, opposite the Nigerian border fence gate. Captain Rhodes arrives and orders the gate open, letting in the SEALs and the refugees. A detail of U.S. Marines then escorts the SEALs to the helicopters. Captain Rhodes promises Waters that he will recover the bodies of Waters' men. Dr. Kendricks bids tearful farewells to her Nigerian friends and flies away in a helicopter while comforting Waters, watching as Arthur is surrounded by his people proclaiming their freedom. ===== At the University of Zurich Institute of Medicine in Switzerland, Herbert West brings his dead professor, Dr. Hans Gruber, back to life. There are horrific side-effects, however; as West explains, the dosage was too large. When accused of killing Gruber, West counters: "I gave him life!" West arrives at Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts in order to further his studies as a medical student. He rents a room from fellow medical student Dan Cain and converts the house's basement into his own personal laboratory. West demonstrates his reanimating reagent to Dan by reanimating Dan's dead cat Rufus. Dan's fiancée Megan Halsey, daughter of the medical school's dean, walks in on this experiment and is horrified. Dan tries to tell the dean about West's success in reanimating the dead cat, but the dean does not believe him. When Dan insists, the dean implies that Dan and West have gone mad. Barred from the school, West and Dan sneak into the morgue to test the reagent on a human subject in an attempt to prove that the reagent works, and thereby salvage their medical careers. The corpse they inject comes back to life, but in a frenetic and violent zombie-like state. Dr. Halsey stumbles upon the scene and is killed by the reanimated corpse, which West then kills with a bone-saw. Excited at the prospect of working with a freshly dead specimen, West injects Dr. Halsey's body with his reanimating reagent. Dr. Halsey returns to life, also in a zombie-like state. Megan chances upon the scene, and is hysterical. Dan collapses in shock. Dr. Halsey's colleague Dr. Carl Hill, a professor and researcher at the hospital, takes charge of Dr. Halsey, whom he puts in a padded observation cell adjacent to his office. He carries out a surgical operation on him, lobotomizing him. During the course of this operation, he discovers that Dr. Halsey is not sick, but dead and reanimated. Dr. Hill goes to West's basement lab and attempts to blackmail him into surrendering his reagent and notes, hoping to take credit for West's discovery. West offers to demonstrate the reagent and puts a few drops of it onto a microscope slide with dead cat tissue. As Dr. Hill peers through the microscope at this slide, West clobbers him from behind with a shovel, and then decapitates him with it. West then reanimates Dr. Hill's head and body separately. While West is questioning Dr. Hill's head and taking notes, Dr. Hill's body sneaks up behind him and knocks him unconscious. The body carries the head back to Dr. Hill's office, with West's reagent and notes. In his re-animated state, Dr. Hill acquires the ability to control other re-animated corpses telepathically, after conducting brain surgery on them. He then directs Dr. Halsey to snatch Megan away from Dan. While being carried to the morgue by her reanimated father, Megan faints. When she arrives, Dr. Hill strips her naked and straps her unconscious body to a table. She regains consciousness as Hill's body and bloody, severed head begin to sexually assault her. Hill's body starts to place his head between Megan's legs, but is interrupted by the arrival of West and Dan. West distracts Dr. Hill while Dan frees Megan. Dr. Hill reveals that he has reanimated and lobotomized several corpses from the morgue, rendering them susceptible to mind control as Halsey is. However, Megan's voice reawakens a protectiveness in her father, who fights off the other corpses as Dan and Megan escape. In the ensuing chaos, West injects Dr. Hill's body with a lethal overdose of the reagent. Dr. Hill's body mutates rapidly and attacks West, who screams out to Dan to save his work before being pulled away by Dr. Hill's monstrous entrails. Dan retrieves the satchel containing West's reagent and notes. As Dan and Megan flee the morgue, one of the reanimated corpses attacks and strangles Megan. Dan takes her to the hospital emergency room and tries to revive her, but she is dead. In despair, he injects her with West's reagent. After the scene fades to black, Megan, apparently revived, can be heard screaming. ===== John Probe is a British Secret Service agent at first engaging in missions against Communists, terrorists and organised crime. He has been given extreme physical enhancement by a method known as "compu-puncture" to give him "hyperpower" equivalent to the strength of fifty men, and computer circuitry imprinted onto his skull to control and advise on use of the hyperpower. The computer also grants him occasional mental skills, such as how to pilot aeroplanes, drive an armoured car, or specific scientific and military knowledge he would not normally possess. Probe eventually discovers that his superior, Denis Sharpe, had engineered the compu-puncture treatment which had given him his abilities so as to erase Probe's pre-augmented memory and to cause his death if he did not receive frequent treatments. As a result, Probe was forced to work for Sharpe. Probe attempted to leave Sharpe and the service several times, but was forced to return for controlling hyperpower injections to prevent his energy flow from falling below survival level - although one story suggests that he has left Sharpe for an unspecified but considerable length of time. Probe's computer would often attempt to overrule or counter his human emotions, but as the story wore on Probe became more and more resentful to both the computer and Sharpe's orders, often disobeying the computer's advice completely. Eventually, M.A.C.H. 1 killed Sharpe and then sacrificed himself to enable aliens, provoked into attacking Earth by Sharpe, to return home. Probe's life before his compu-puncture treatment was never clarified or explained, and it was stated several times that the only person who knew anything about his prior life was Sharpe himself. ===== In October 1962, U-2 aerial surveillance photos reveal that the Soviet Union is in the process of placing intermediate-range ballistic missiles carrying nuclear weapons in Cuba. President John F. Kennedy (Bruce Greenwood) and his advisers must come up with a plan of action to prevent their activation. Kennedy is determined to show that the United States will not allow a missile threat. The Joint Chiefs of Staff advise immediate U.S. military strikes against the missile sites followed by an invasion of Cuba. Kennedy is reluctant to attack and invade because it would very likely cause the Soviets to invade Berlin, which could lead to an all-out war. Citing The Guns of August, Kennedy sees an analogy to the events that started World War I, where the tactics of both sides' commanders had not evolved since the previous war and were obsolete, only this time nuclear weapons are involved. War appears to be almost inevitable. The Kennedy administration tries to find a solution that will remove the missiles but avoid an act of war. They reject a blockade, as this is formally regarded as an act of war, and settle on what they publicly describe as a quarantine. They announce that the U.S. naval forces will stop all ships entering Cuban waters and inspect them to verify they are not carrying weapons destined for Cuba. The Soviet Union sends mixed messages in response. Off the shores of Cuba, the Soviet ships turn back from the quarantine lines. Secretary of State Dean Rusk (Henry Strozier) says, "We're eyeball to eyeball and I think the other fellow just blinked." The administration continues to order spy plane pictures, but one of Kennedy's top advisers, Kenny O'Donnell (Kevin Costner), calls the pilots to ensure the pilots do not report that they were shot at or fired upon, because if they were, the country would be forced to retaliate under the rules of engagement. John A. Scali, a reporter with ABC News, is contacted by Soviet "emissary" Aleksandr Fomin (Boris Lee Krutonog), and through this back-channel communication method the Soviets offer to remove the missiles in exchange for public assurances from the U.S. that it will never invade Cuba. A long message in the same tone as the informal communication from Fomin, apparently written personally by Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, is received. This is followed by a second, more hard line cable in which the Soviets offer a deal involving U.S removal of its Jupiter missiles from Turkey. The Kennedy administration interprets the second as a response from the Politburo, and in a risky act, decides to ignore it and respond to the first message, assumed to be from Khrushchev. There are several mis-steps during the crisis: the defense readiness level of Strategic Air Command (SAC) is raised to DEFCON 2 (one step shy of maximum readiness for imminent war), without informing the President; a nuclear weapon test proceeds (Bluegill Triple Prime) and a routine test launch of a U.S. offensive missile is also carried out without the President's knowledge. In a bid for time while under intense pressure from the military for an immediate strike, President Kennedy authorizes attacks on the missile sites and an invasion of Cuba, to commence the following Monday. An Air Force U-2 reconnaissance plane is sent over Cuba to gather intelligence for the attack, but is shot down, killing the pilot. After much deliberation with the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, Kennedy makes a final attempt to avoid a war by sending his brother, Robert F. Kennedy (Steven Culp), to meet with Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin on Friday night. Bobby reiterates the demand that the Soviets remove their missiles from Cuba, and in return promises not to invade or assist in the invasion of Cuba. Dobrynin insists that the U.S. must also remove all Jupiter missiles from Turkey, on the border of the Soviet Union. Bobby says that a quid pro quo is not possible, but in exchange for Khrushchev removing all the missiles from Cuba, there will be a secret understanding that the U.S. will remove all of its "obsolete" missiles from Turkey within six months as part of a pre-scheduled plan. The Soviets announce on Sunday that they will remove their missiles from Cuba, averting a war that could have escalated to the use of nuclear weapons. The film ends with President Kennedy dictating a letter of condolence to the family of the reconnaissance pilot, Rudolf Anderson, who was shot down over Cuba as part of the preparations for the invasion, and the Kennedy brothers and O'Donnell outside of the Oval Office as actual audio of President Kennedy's commencement speech at American University played in the background. ===== The book deals with the intersecting lives of a group of English Catholics from their years as students at University College London in the early 1950s up to the late 1970s. The characters are confronted with a wide range of issues and experiences including marriage, contraception, adultery, illness, grief and, most important of all, the changes in the Catholic Church brought about by the Second Vatican Council and the papal encyclical against contraception, Humanae vitae (1968). The title's meaning is twofold: it is on the one hand a reference to how far you ought to go with a member of the other sex before marriage, but also to the question of disorientation in the face of abrupt changes in the Church within only a few years. ===== A car drives up a country road and stops. The man driving the car looks up to see a country cottage, and his expression becomes puzzled. He drives up to the cottage, where his host Elliot Foley (Roland Culver) greets him in the driveway. He is Walter Craig (Mervyn Johns), an architect whom Foley has invited to his country home in Kent to consult on some renovations. Upon admittance to the sitting room of the cottage, Craig reveals to Foley and his assembled guests that, despite never having met any of them, he has seen them all in a recurring dream. He appears to have no prior personal knowledge of them but he is able to predict spontaneous events in the house before they unfold. Craig partially recalls with some dismay that something awful will later occur and becomes increasingly disturbed. Dr. Van Straaten (Frederick Valk), a German-accented psychologist, tries to persuade Craig that his fears are unfounded. The other guests attempt to test Craig's foresight and set him at ease, while entertaining each other with various tales of uncanny or supernatural events that they experienced or were told about. These include a racing car driver's premonition of a fatal bus crash announced by a hearse driver who says "just room for one inside, sir", a ghostly encounter during a children's Christmas party, a haunted antique mirror, a light-hearted tale of two obsessed golfers, one of whom becomes haunted by the other's ghost and the story of an unbalanced ventriloquist (Michael Redgrave) who believes his amoral dummy is truly alive. After the stories have been told, Craig murders one of the guests, then somehow runs into characters from the house guests' tales. One of these attempts to strangle Craig on a cot against the wall of a prison cell. Craig finally finds himself struggling against his bedclothes in a sunlit bedroom as a phone rings. His wife brings him the phone, it is a call from Elliot Foley, inviting him to his country home to consult on some renovations. Craig's wife suggests that spending a weekend in the country might help him get rid of his terrible nightmares. Ultimately, Craig drives up a country road to Foley's cottage in Kent. ===== Matt Murdock is a blind lawyer who lives in New York City's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, where he runs a firm with best friend Franklin "Foggy" Nelson. Matt was blinded by a toxic waste spill as a child. The accident enhanced Matt's other senses and gave him sonar to "see" via sonic vibrations. Matt's father, boxer Jack "The Devil" Murdock, was killed after refusing to turn in a fixed fight for the mobster who had employed him earlier. After his father's death, Matt promised to stop all crime that controlled Hell's Kitchen as the vigilante crime-fighter "Daredevil". Matt meets Elektra Natchios, daughter of Nikolas Natchios, a businessman who has dealings with Wilson Fisk, a rich executive who is also the criminal leader known as the Kingpin, the same mobster who employed Matt's father. When Nikolas tries to end his relationship with Fisk, the mobster hires the Irish hitman Bullseye, who has preternatural aim, to kill him. Daredevil tries to stop Bullseye, but Bullseye ultimately succeeds in killing Nikolas and framing Matt's alter-ego in the process. Elektra vows to exact revenge, while reporter Ben Urich discovers his secret identity. Believing Matt to have done good things for Hell's Kitchen, Urich tells Matt that Bullseye is going after Elektra next. Daredevil tracks Bullseye, but is attacked by Elektra, who plans to use her own training in martial arts to avenge her father's death. She defeats and injures Daredevil; when she manages to remove his mask, she discovers Matt's secret identity and innocence. Forced to fight Bullseye alone, Elektra is overpowered and killed by the hitman. A wounded Daredevil makes his way to a church, where he is looked after by his confidant, Father Everett, who knows his secret identity. After recovering slightly, Daredevil fights Bullseye, who had followed him to the church. Bullseye discovers that loud noise is Daredevil's weakness and prepares to kill him with a spiked piece of wood after incapacitating him. Matt blocks the attack and hears an FBI sniper stationed on the neighboring building preparing to fire. As the bullet is fired, Daredevil moves out of the bullet's path and pulls Bullseye's hands into it. When Bullseye pleads for mercy, Matt throws him from the church's steeple. Bullseye lands on the hood of Urich's car, severely injured but alive. Upon discovering that Fisk is the Kingpin and Bullseye's employer, Daredevil makes his way to Fisk's office. There, Daredevil and Fisk begin a fierce fight; Fisk proves to be a surprisingly powerful combatant due to his size and brute strength, and he dominates Daredevil for most of the fight. Lying on the floor, Matt questions Fisk as to why he killed the people Murdock loved, including Jack Murdock years before: Fisk replies it was just business, for he had worked under Fallon at the time he killed Jack, and Elektra was "in the wrong family at the wrong time". Angered, Daredevil regains his strength and breaks Fisk's legs, but refrains from killing him, instead allowing him to be arrested by the police, who have discovered his criminal connections. Before being taken away, Fisk—who had also discovered Matt's secret identity after overpowering him—swears revenge on Daredevil, who points out that Fisk cannot reveal Matt's secret identity because the humiliation of having been beaten by a blind man will cause him to be perceived as weak by other prison inmates. Having gained closure over his father's murder, Matt returns to his day-to-day routine as Daredevil, and meets Urich one last time, in which Urich assures him he will not publish his article exposé of Matt's true identity. In a mid-credits scene, Bullseye, having been moved to a prison hospital and severely bandaged after his confrontation with Matt, is shown to still have his perfect aim after he impales a fly with a syringe needle and says "Bullseye." ===== The book centers on a genial elephant named Horton, who is convinced by Mayzie, a lazy, irresponsible bird, to sit on her egg while she takes a short "break", which turns into her permanent relocation to Palm Beach. As Horton sits in the nest on top of a tree, he is exposed to the elements, laughed at by his jungle friends, captured by hunters, forced to endure a terrible sea voyage, and finally placed in a traveling circus. However, despite his hardships and Mayzie's clear intent not to return, Horton refuses to leave the nest because he insists on keeping his word, often repeating, "I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful, one hundred per cent!" The traveling circus ends up visiting near Mayzie's new Palm Beach residence. She visits the circus just as the egg is due to hatch (after 51 weeks in Palm Beach) and demands that Horton should return it, without offering him a reward. However, when the egg hatches, the creature that emerges is an "elephant-bird", a cross between Horton and Mayzie, and Horton and the baby are returned happily to the jungle, while Mayzie is punished for her laziness by ending up with absolutely nothing. ===== Moonseed is an exploration of what could possibly happen when rock is returned from the Apollo 18 mission (which was actually cancelled in 1970).Moonseed (review) In the book, the rock contain a mysterious substance called "moonseed" (a form of grey goo, whether nanobots, an alien virus or something else) that starts to change all inorganic matter on Earth into more moonseed. It also gets transferred by a NASA probe to Venus, and the explosion of Venus is the first clue as to what has been happening. Stephen Baxter combines a host of disciplines (space travel, geology and disaster theory) to tell a tale where the rocks are literally swept from under the feet of humanity. During the course of the novel, in which Edinburgh is the focus for much of the action, Venus is destroyed by an unknown cosmic event that showers the Earth with radiation that somehow stirs the moonseed on Earth. When Moon-dust containing the moonseed is dropped onto the streets of Edinburgh by a lab assistant of the main character, Earth's fate is sealed. The moonseed begins to disintegrate the planet from the inside-out as the core heats up exponentially, while on the surface, nuclear power stations catastrophically fail, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are abundant, and billions of people die as cities and continents vanish. Over the course of the cataclysmic erosion of Earth, a collective of scientists and engineers in space agencies from around the world desperately try to terraform the Moon for colonisation, to provide a safe haven for some surviving humans before Earth eventually disintegrates into nothingness along with human civilisation. This novel also presents numerous theories and ideas about the space-faring future of humanity, albeit in an alternate dimension where we are forced into space by an eroding Earth. It is also, in many stages, critical of NASA's performance over the last thirty years, as well as the United Kingdom's disaster programs. ===== In the year 300X, the entire world is under the tyrannical rule of the Maruhage Empire and their ruler Tsuru Tsurulina IV (Chrome Dome Empire and Baldy Bald the 4th in the English dub). His Hair Hunt troop captures innocent bystanders' hair, leaving the people victims of the Hair Hunt troop's head shaving and their villages in ruins. Standing against this evil regime is the heroic, but bizarre, rebel Bobobo-Bo Bo-Bobo who fights the Hair Hunt Troop with his powerful Hanage Shinken (Fist of the Nose Hair). His team consists of the normal teen girl Beauty, the smelly teen warrior Heppokomaru (Gasser) and the Hajike leader Don Patch (Poppa Rocks). Bo-bobo is on an exciting, gag- filled quest in which he uses his hair as a weapon in many locales to fight the forces of the Maruhage Empire as he gains other allies along the way. ===== After being killed in Daredevil, Elektra Natchios is revived by blind martial arts master Stick. He teaches her the ancient art of Kimagure, which provides its practitioners with precognition as well as the ability to resurrect the dead. Elektra is expelled from the training compound because of her inability to let go of her rage and fear of seeing her mother's killer as a child. She leaves and uses her training to become a contract killer. Years later, McCabe, Elektra's agent, receives an unusually large offer from an anonymous client wishing to hire Elektra. The only stipulation: she must spend a few days in a rented home on the island where the assassination is to be performed before the names of the targets are revealed. During the wait, Elektra catches a girl named Abby trying to steal her mother's necklace. She sends her away, and later meets and befriends her father, Mark Miller. Abby invites Elektra to dinner on Mark's behalf. Elektra develops a romantic interest in Mark but soon learns that he and Abby are the targets she has been hired to kill. Elektra spares them and leaves, but returns in time to protect them from assassins sent by The Hand, a crime syndicate of ninja mercenaries. Roshi, master of The Hand, learns of the failed attempt and permits his son Kirigi to lead a new team of assassins to kill Elektra and return with Abby, referred to as "The Treasure". Elektra tries to leave Abby and Mark with Stick, but he scolds her and tells her to protect them herself. She takes Mark and Abby to McCabe's country house, but is followed by Kirigi, Typhoid, Stone, Kinkou, and Tattoo. Elektra flees with Mark and Abby through a secret underground exit to an orchard, while McCabe sacrifices himself to buy them time. Kirigi and the assassins hunt down the trio in the orchard. Elektra kills Stone, while Abby and Mark kill Kinkou with one of his own daggers. As Elektra is distracted by the revelation that Abby has martial arts skills, Typhoid gives Elektra the "Kiss of Death". Abby is captured by Kirigi. Stick and his Chaste ninjas arrive, forcing Kirigi, Typhoid, and Tattoo to retreat. Stick saves Elektra from death and takes them under his protection. Stick confirms that Abby is the "Treasure", a martial arts prodigy, whom the Hand seeks to use. Elektra learns that she was a Treasure herself, resulting in her mother becoming a casualty of the fight between The Chaste and The Hand. She also guesses that Stick set up the hit on Mark and Abby in order to test Elektra's propensity for compassion. Elektra astrally projects herself to a meeting with Kirigi and challenges him to a fight, the winner claiming Abby for their own purpose. Elektra returns to her childhood home to face Kirigi and realizes that the horned demon who killed her mother was actually Kirigi. Elektra is defeated by Kirigi. Abby arrives and engages him long enough for Elektra to recuperate. Elektra and Abby then escape and hide in a hedge maze, but Abby is captured by snakes dispatched by Tattoo. Elektra finds Tattoo and snaps his neck, releasing Abby. Elektra engages Kirigi a second time and kills him. Typhoid poisons and kills Abby, before Elektra throws her sai at Typhoid, killing her. Elektra desperately tries to wake Abby, then calms herself, lets go all of her rage, and successfully resurrects her using Kimagure. Elektra gets ready to leave. She and Mark share one final kiss. Elektra tells Abby to live a normal life and that they each gave each other's life back. Elektra leaves, hoping that Abby won't grow up to be like her. Stick appears and points out that Elektra didn't turn out so bad. Elektra bows to Stick to thank him. He bows to Elektra, then disappears. ===== Told in a segmented fashion, the film opens as Caravaggio (Nigel Terry) dies from lead poisoning while in exile, with only his long-time deaf-dumb companion Jerusaleme (Spencer Leigh) (who was given by his family to the artist as a boy) by his side. Caravaggio thinks back to his life as a teenage street ruffian (Dexter Fletcher) who hustles and paints. While taken ill and in the care of priests, young Caravaggio catches the eye of Cardinal Del Monte (Michael Gough). Del Monte nurtures Caravaggio's artistic and intellectual development but also appears to molest him. As an adult, Caravaggio still lives under the roof and paints with the funding of Del Monte. Caravaggio is shown employing street people, drunks and prostitutes as models for his intense, usually religious paintings (see the article on the painter for examples). He is depicted as frequently brawling, gambling, getting drunk and is implied to sleep with both male and female models. In the art world, Caravaggio is regarded as vulgar and entitled for his Vatican connections. One day, Ranuccio (Sean Bean), a street fighter for pay, catches Caravaggio's eye as a subject and potential lover. Ranuccio also introduces Caravaggio to his girlfriend Lena (Tilda Swinton), who also becomes an object of attraction and a model to the artist. When both Ranuccio and Lena are separately caught kissing Caravaggio, each displays jealousy over the artist's attentions. One day, Lena announces she is pregnant (although she does not state who the father is) and will become a mistress to the wealthy Scipione Borghese (Robbie Coltrane). Soon, she is found murdered by drowning. As the weeping Ranuccio looks on, Caravaggio and Jerusaleme clean Lena's body. Caravaggio is shown painting Lena after she dies and mournfully writhing with her body. Ranuccio is arrested for Lena's murder, although he claims to be innocent. Caravaggio pulls strings and goes to the Pope himself to free Ranuccio. When Ranuccio is freed, he tells Caravaggio he killed Lena so they could be together. In response, Caravaggio cuts Ranuccio's throat, killing him. Back on his deathbed, Caravaggio is shown having visions of himself as a boy and trying to refuse the last rites offered him by the priests. ===== Jiro, a young boy of Japanese and Ainu descent, is a foundling raised by a kindly innkeeper and her daughter in the village of Sai on the Shimokita Peninsula One evening, a shinobi kills Jiro's adoptive mother and sister while he is away. When he returns home, he finds their bodies and a strange dagger. The angry villagers accuse him of the murders, and rather than face a brutal crucifixion for the grave crime of parricide, Jiro escapes with the dagger. He encounters a buddhist monk called Tenkai who works for the Shogunate as an Oniwaban (Secret Police). Tenkai takes the boy to confront the man who supposedly killed his family and provokes him into delivering the killing blow. To cover his tracks, Tenkai has the village is set ablaze and the villagers slaughtered. Tenkai takes Jiro to his temple on the island of Ezo, and has his subordinates Shingo and Sanpei train him in the ways of the Ninja. Years later, Jiro leaves to find answers to the mystery of his family and his father, Tarouza. Meanwhile, Tenkai has him followed. Jiro comes across a group of Japanese men beating up an old Ainu man and he quickly dispatches them. The old man dies of his injuries, but his son Uraka takes Jiro to his home village of Shinopirika-Kotan, unaware the old man's assailants are agents of Tenkai. At Kotan, the village elder recognizes Jiro's dagger as the Dagger of Kamui which was originally owned a former village chieftain. It was given to a Japanese ninja who married the chieftain's daughter, Oyaruru. Years later, Oyaruru returned to Kotan alone, but eventually left the village to live upriver by herself. Jiro finds Oyaruru and learns she is his biological mother. She reveals that Tenkai dispatched Tarouza to the mountain Kamui Nupuri to find a rumored treasure large enough to keep the Shogunate in power. However Tarouza, broke all contact with Tenkai and married Oyaruru. When Tenkai caught up with them, he slashed the face of the infant Jiro and sent him floating downriver in their canoe. Tarouza fought Tenkai's men on the cliff above, but lost an eye to a primitive grenade and his sword arm to Hanzou, then appeared to fall to his death. Jiro comes to the horrifying realization that Tenkai had tricked him, and that the man he stabbed was his father. During their evening meal, Jiro and Oyaruru collapse from a paralysis potion and Oyaruru is killed with the Dagger of Kamui. Implicated in her murder, Jiro is imprisoned, but Uraka returns to help free him. Jiro finally realizes that Tenkai has been manipulating him for years into following his father's footsteps, searching for the treasure, and plans his revenge against Tenkai. Travelling north, Jiro is befriended by the elderly Andou Shouzan and a young Ainu girl. She helps find secret instructions to find a great treasure which are hidden with the hilt of the sword of Kamui. However, Jiro is tracked down by three of Tenkai's formidable assassins whom he defeats, but not before they kill Shouzan. The Ainu girl helps Jiro escape, but she kills herself when confronted by the following Tenkai. With the aid of the sailor Sam, Jiro books passage on Captain Drasnic's ship to the United States. On board, he is attacked by Oyuki, one of Tenkai's shinobi but he defeats her. He then saves her from drowning and they develop a strong bond. After arriving in America, Jiro, Sam and Oyuki become separated and Jiro travels on alone. Jiro befriends Chico, a French-born Indian woman and shelters with her tribe. He then encounters Mark Twain on the way the Los Angeles, heading for the island of Santa Caterina which is apparently the location of Captain Kidd's treasure. Jiro eventually finds a small treasure on the island, but Tenkai and his shinobi have followed him there with Oyuki. Tenkai suddenly reveals that Sanpei is a Satsuma and an associate of Tarouza who was also Oyuki's father, making her Jiro's half sister. Oyuki angrily she stabs Tenkai through the heart with the dagger, although he manages to fatally wound her before he dies. Jiro then finds the real treasure below in a hidden cavern. Later, Chico reappears and shows Jiro similar copy of the treasure's location. She reveals her real name is Julie Rochelle, the daughter of French spies also seeking the treasure, and that her father and Tenkai killed each other. Jiro now realizes that Tenkai has been using body doubles. He returns to Japan where he uses Captain Kid's treasure to help fund the overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate by the combined Satsuma- Choushuu forces. In 1869, at the Citadel of Hakodate, the Imperial Japanese Navy and Army close in on the last remaining Shogunate rebels. After a massive naval bombardment, Jiro wanders through the rubble and bodies, eventually encountering Tenkai. They engage in battle, during which Jiro kills Tenkai by impaling him through his cranium with the dagger. Jiro leaves Hakodate as the Imperial forces capture the city, but not before paying a silent farewell to Sanpei and his master, the samurai Saigō Takamori. ===== A Brazilian industrialist (Vallone) plans to sterilize the human race through the use of his satellite and to personally repopulate the planet with beautiful women he has kidnapped and is holding in suspended animation.Mastroianni, Tony. "Kiss the Girls Misses". (Cleveland Press, January 19, 1967) A down-to-earth CIA agent (Michael Connors), an aristocratic female MI-6 agent (Provine), and her chauffeur (Terry-Thomas), driving a Rolls-Royce car filled with spy gadgets, team up to stop the madman."Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die" (The New York Times, January 26, 1967) ===== On Christmas Eve, in 19th century London, Charles Dickens (played by Gonzo the Great) and his friend Rizzo act as narrators throughout the film. Ebenezer Scrooge (Michael Caine), a cold-hearted, bad-tempered and selfish money-lender, does not share the merriment of Christmas. Scrooge rejects his nephew Fred's invitation to Christmas dinner, dismisses two gentlemen collecting money for charity, and tosses a wreath at a carol singing Bean Bunny. His loyal employee Bob Cratchit (played by Kermit the Frog) and the other bookkeepers request to have Christmas Day off since there will be no business for Scrooge on the day, to which he reluctantly agrees. Scrooge leaves for home while the bookkeepers celebrate Christmas. In his house, Scrooge encounters the shackled ghosts of his late business partners Jacob and Robert Marley (played by Statler and Waldorf), who warn him to repent his wicked ways or he will be condemned to suffer in the afterlife like they were, informing him that three spirits will visit him during the night. At one o'clock, Scrooge is visited by the childlike Ghost of Christmas Past who takes him back in time to his childhood and early adult life, with Dickens and Rizzo hitching a ride too. They visit his lonely school days, and then his time as an employee under Fozziwig (Mr. Fezziwig from the original story, played by Fozzie Bear), who owned a rubber chicken factory. Fozziwig and his mother throw a Christmas party, where Scrooge meets a young woman named Belle, with whom he falls in love. However, the Ghost shows Scrooge how Belle left him after he chose money over her. A tearful Scrooge dismisses the Ghost as he returns to the present. At two o'clock, Scrooge meets the gigantic, merry Ghost of Christmas Present, who shows him the joys and wonder of Christmas Day. Scrooge and the Ghost visit Fred's house where Scrooge is made fun of for his stinginess and general ill will toward all. Scrooge and the spirit then visit Bob Cratchit's house, learning his family is content with their small dinner. Scrooge also takes pity on Bob's ill son Tiny Tim (played by Robin the Frog). The Ghost of Christmas Present abruptly ages, commenting that Tiny Tim will likely not survive until next Christmas. Scrooge and the Ghost go to a cemetery, where the latter fades away. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come then approaches Scrooge, appearing as a tall, silent cloaked figure. While Dickens and Rizzo abandon the audience to avoid being frightened, the Ghost takes Scrooge into the future. Scrooge and the Ghost witness a group of businessmen discussing the death of an unnamed colleague, saying they would only attend the funeral if lunch was provided. In a den, Scrooge recognizes his charwoman, his laundress, and the local undertaker trading several stolen possessions of the deceased to a fence named Old Joe. The Ghost then transports Scrooge to Bob's house, discovering Tiny Tim has died. Scrooge is escorted back to the cemetery, where the Ghost points out his own grave, revealing Scrooge as the man who died. Realizing this, Scrooge decides to change his ways. Awakening in his bedroom on Christmas Day, Scrooge decides to surprise Bob's family with a turkey dinner, and ventures out with Bean, Dickens, Rizzo, and the charity workers to spread happiness and joy around London. Scrooge goes to the Cratchit house, at first putting on a stern demeanor before revealing he intends to raise Bob's salary and pay off his mortgage. Dickens narrates how Scrooge became a second father to Tiny Tim, who escaped death. Scrooge, the Cratchits, and the neighborhood celebrate Christmas. ===== Driving on Christmas Eve with his family, Frank Harrington decides to take a short cut through a remote location. In the car with him: his wife Laura, his son, Richard, his daughter, Marion, and her boyfriend, Brad. It is night, and as Frank drives, he begins to fall asleep at the wheel, only to be woken by the screams of his family, warning him of an oncoming vehicle, he narrowly avoids the vehicle, and after an inspection of his car, continues to drive. Confused, Laura questions her husband as to why he didn't take the usual route to her mother-in-law's house; he claims he was "bored" and fancied a change. As the siblings bicker, Frank abruptly stops the car, claiming he saw a young woman, dressed in white in the forest. The woman appears at Frank's window, holding a baby. Marion, seeing how distressed the woman appears to be, and realizing that she needs help, offers to walk so that they can take the woman in the car to a house for help. The woman gets into the car, and as the family ask her questions, she remains silent. They arrive at a wooden cabin, and Laura and Frank go in to investigate. Meanwhile, Richard goes to masturbate in the woods, leaving Brad in the car with the woman and her child. Brad begins questioning the woman and telling the woman his plans to propose to Marion, meanwhile Marion walks along the road to catch up with the family and rehearses how she plans to break up with Brad. The woman tells Brad the name of her child; Amy, and passes her to him. A confused Brad asks how the child can breathe with the blankets covering her face, the woman replies that the baby is dead. Confused, Brad lifts the blankets to discover what appears to be the corpse of the child, and screams. The camera changes back to Richard, who hears the scream and immediately runs back to the car. Brad and the woman are nowhere to be seen. However, Marion sees a hearse driving down the road, and as she turns to look, she sees Brad screaming for help in the back of it. She runs back to the family and makes them drive after the hearse. Frank once again stops the car after they hit something in the road. He finds Brad's mutilated body, and as Marion goes into a state of shock, Laura attempts to call the police using Brad's cellphone. However, the other end of the line is a woman begging for help. Disturbed by this, Laura doesn't tell the rest of the family. As they begin driving again, Marion sits silently. As tension rises, Laura questions Frank's ability to direct them. They argue, and he tells Laura that he hates visiting her family. Frank abruptly stops the car once again when he sees a baby carriage in the road. Richard gets out to look and pretends to be pulled into the carriage, scaring his parents. They get back into the car, only to stop again. This time Richard gets picked up by the same hearse as before. While the three run to save Richard, Frank sees the "woman in white" again. They find Richard's body and Laura begins to show signs of insanity. Driving with his daughter in the front of the car, Marion appears to have returned to normal, and the family pass a sign that says "Marcott". Frank realizes that this must be a military road, and that's why it's not on the map. During another stop, Laura shoots Frank in the leg with a shotgun that they unwrapped, which was a present for a family member. After dressing the wound, they begin the drive again. Shortly after, Laura talks about seeing the face of a friend who had died 20 years earlier in the woods. She demands to visit with her departed friend, and upon Frank refusing, jumps out of the moving vehicle. Frank stops and they search for Laura until the hearse appears once again. Frank tries to shoot the driver but the car begins backing up as Laura appears. She is disheveled and begins babbling with her brain exposed from the back of her head, revealing Frank had accidentally shot her instead. Laura collapses and dies. Putting her in the back of the car, Frank and Marion continue driving. They come across the same ranger station they had stopped at earlier, and Frank is attacked in the dark by the lady in white. Afterward, Frank has a noticeable change in demeanor, much like his wife and daughter, and punches Marion unconscious. He sees the woman in white go into the woods once again, and chases her with the shotgun. He begins screaming and shooting the gun, only to be quickly dispatched in the dark. Marion awakens and starts the car. She begins to drive when the car suddenly runs out of gas. She begins to walk and sees body bags containing her dead family members in the middle of the road. As she cries the hearse pulls up, but the woman in white appears behind her. She tells a frightened Marion that the hearse isn't there for her before getting into the hearse and driving off, leaving Marion alone with her dead family. Marion suddenly awakens in the hospital, heavily bandaged. The doctor tells her of her coma and assures Marion that she and the baby will be fine. On the way out of the hospital, the doctor talks to a man claiming to be the one that found the family after the car crash. The car is then seen being pulled from a wreck, and the doctor discusses the accident. The man confirms that the whole family, except Marion, have died, and that the crash has also claimed the life of a young woman and her baby in the other car. He asks the doctor for her name, and she reveals to him that it is Dr. Marcott. The viewer gets the impression that Marion dreamed of how her family had died while in a coma, and that the hearse not picking her up was her dream telling her that she would live. As the doctor tries to leave, her car fails to start, and the man who found the family offers her a lift in the same hearse from Marion's dream. As the credits roll, two workers are seen sweeping up debris from the crash. They find a note Frank had previously written in the car with Marion before their final stop, insinuating that the experiences of the family were real. ===== During the holiday season, the Muppet Theater is going through financial hardship, and the Muppets are seeking Kermit the Frog for guidance. Kermit eventually feels he is not useful to anyone and an angel named Daniel (David Arquette) brings this up with his Boss (Whoopi Goldberg) as they review what has gone on with Kermit in the past hours. Hours earlier, Kermit prepares a Christmas show with his fellow Muppets with Bobo the Bear playing Santa Claus. Kermit is approached by Rachel Bitterman (Joan Cusack), a banker/real estate agent who says that she will foreclose the Muppet Theater if Kermit does not pay her. Pepe the King Prawn leaves the Muppets because he has fallen in love with Bitterman. While trying to raise money to pay Rachel, Kermit tries to find a celebrity to participate in his Christmas play to no avail. Meanwhile, after learning from Pepe that the deadline is midnight, Bitterman changes it to 6:00 p.m. Pepe overhears this and warns Kermit about the deadline change. Upon learning this, Kermit sends Fozzie to deliver the money to Bitterman. Fozzie confronts a crazed nature-show host (spoofing Steve Irwin), and a gang of Whos after being dyed green at a Christmas tree lot and mistaken for the Grinch. Fozzie goes through the steam baths and ends up back to normal. When Fozzie eventually makes it to the bank and Bitterman's office, he goes through a gigantic web of burning lasers leading to Bitterman's office several times before finally discovering that he's too late and that he has grabbed the wrong bag containing clothes for the Salvation Army following his incident at the Christmas tree lot. After witnessing these events, the Boss allows Daniel to help Kermit. When Daniel arrives, and after Kermit wishes he has never been born, he ends up showing Kermit what would have happened if he had not existed. In the world without Kermit, Bitterman has turned the park near the Muppet Theater into a shopping mall called Bitterman Plaza, the Muppet Theater itself has become a nightclub called Club Dot owned by Bitterman, Doc Hopper's French-Fried Frog Legs has become a famous fast-food restaurant, and all of Kermit's friends have fallen into various detrimental situations. Kermit has Daniel restore him back to his reality and returns to the Muppet Theater. However, Bitterman arrives to shut the theater down and fights with Miss Piggy. Pepe arrives and announces he has made the Muppet Theater into a historical landmark, foiling Bitterman's plan. Embittered and defeated, Bitterman storms out of the Muppet Theater. Outside, the Muppets sing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas". ===== Fozzie Bear is driving many of the Muppets to his mother Emily's farm for Christmas while they all sing Christmas Carols. Unbeknownst to Fozzie, Emily Bear is preparing to go to Malibu for the holiday and rent her farmhouse to Doc and Sprocket, who want to spend a nice quiet Christmas in the country. Doc and Sprocket have arrived when Fozzie and the other Muppets enter, disrupting Emily and Doc's plans for the holidays. Just then, Miss Piggy calls the telephone to tell Kermit the Frog that she is at a photo session and will be late, making Kermit very worried. More Muppets arrive, and they begin to prepare for Christmas. Meanwhile, outside, Fozzie builds a snowman, and the snowman comes to life singing along with Fozzie and putting on a comedy act with him. After the performance, Fozzie goes into the house where he tells Kermit about his new act. This is interrupted by Miss Piggy calling on the phone again, where she tells Kermit that she is doing a little Christmas shopping before she goes to the farm house. Sometime later, the gang watches home movies of themselves as babies during their first Christmas together. A group of carolers then arrive, proving to be Big Bird and the rest of the Sesame Street Muppets. All of the Muppets continue to prepare for Christmas as the news comes on TV that the worst blizzard in 50 years is approaching the area. Kermit realizes that Miss Piggy is out in the storm and gets more worried about her. Fozzie and Emily go over where everyone is going to sleep, and then the Sesame Street Muppets perform a pageant of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. Kermit then gets a third call from Miss Piggy stating that her limo got stuck in the snow and that she is calling for a taxi. Fozzie approaches Kermit stating that now is a good time to show him his new comedy act with the Snowman, but their act is cut short no thanks to Statler and Waldorf. Feeling some sympathy for Kermit, Doc offers to go out looking for Miss Piggy. Kermit is called to the basement, where he and his nephew Robin find a Fraggle Hole and the Fraggles. Finally, after Miss Piggy gets to the house, all the Muppets sing a medley of carols and swap presents (except Oscar the Grouch, who just sits in his trash can, sighing very miserably due to his hatred for Christmas). Doc then comes in dressed as Santa giving presents to the Muppets. The last part shows Jim Henson himself making a cameo appearance preparing to do the washing up with Sprockett. ===== ===== As the Federation Starship Enterprise approaches planet Omega IV, the USS Exeter is found orbiting the planet, and Captain Kirk, along with First Officer Spock, Dr. McCoy and Lt. Galloway, beams over to investigate. They find the ship deserted, save for a few uniforms covered with a crystalline substance found to be human remains. The ship's logs reveal that the Exeters crew has died from an infectious disease brought from the planet, and that Enterprises landing party must beam down to the planet if they are to survive. Kirk's party beams to the last coordinates in the Exeters computer and discovers Exeter Captain Ron Tracey (Morgan Woodward) in what resembles a Tibetan village. Tracey explains that he was stranded when the disease ravaged his ship, and has discovered that remaining on the planet confers immunity. Tracey then reveals that the villagers, known as "Kohms", are at war with savages called "Yangs". After a Yang attack, Spock investigates the field of battle and finds evidence that Tracey has been helping the Kohms in violation of the Prime Directive. Kirk tries to contact the Enterprise, but is prevented by Tracey. To justify his actions, Tracey reveals that not only have the natives become immune to the mysterious disease, but they have developed lifespans of over 1000 years. Tracey orders McCoy to investigate the secrets of their longevity and has Kirk and Spock locked up in a crude jail with two Yang prisoners, one male and one female. Kirk has the Yang male loosen the bars of the cell window, but the Yang knocks Kirk out and escapes with the woman. When Kirk recovers, he and Spock make their own escape. Reunited with McCoy, Spock modifies some medical equipment into a makeshift communicator, which is destroyed by Tracey. McCoy and Kirk try to explain that the natives' longevity has nothing to do with their immunity to the disease, but Tracey's mind snaps, and he attempts to force Kirk to order more weapons to be sent down from Enterprise. During a struggle between the two, Yang warriors arrive and carry everyone back to their village. Their leader is Kirk's cellmate, known as Cloud William. During a ceremony to celebrate the Yang victory, Kirk and Spock, discussing the Yang culture, connect the names Yang and Kohm with "Yankee" and "Communist". Spock surmises that the history of Omega IV closely paralleled that of Earth, until the former was devastated by a biological war which Earth had avoided. This hypothesis is confirmed when William produces a very old American Flag, along with ancient documents from which he recites the Pledge of Allegiance in a garbled accent. The Yangs are shocked when Kirk completes the Pledge. Tracey, in an attempt to save his own life, denounces Kirk and Spock, claiming that they were cast out of Heaven, and points to Spock's similar appearance to the devil as proof. William asks Kirk to prove himself by completing the "sacred words" from another document. Because of the accent, Kirk doesn't understand the words and instead suggests trial by combat between himself and Tracey. As they fight, Spock sends a mental suggestion to William's female companion to activate the communicator lying near her. Sulu and a security detail beam down to investigate, and Tracey is taken into custody. Cloud William now kneels before Kirk as if he were a deity, but Kirk orders him to stand. The second document proves to be a version of the American Constitution. Kirk rebukes the Yangs for forgetting its meaning, and declares that the words were meant not just for the Yangs, but "must apply to everyone or they mean nothing." William does not fully understand, but swears to Kirk that the words will be obeyed. ===== The story begins with a peaceful fantasy world by the name of "Morning Land", where the Chicken inhabitants live in peace and harmony. But all that is shattered as Dark Raven and his army of Crows assault Morning Land, catching the inhabitants by surprise and shrouding Morning Land in a blanket of unnatural, eternal night. Meanwhile, being late to meet with his friends due to oversleeping, the slightly mischievous Billy Hatcher races out of his house to go meet them. Upon arrival, Bantam tells Billy he is late, showing him a pocket watch in the shape of an egg. And, being some sort of tradition among the four friends, Bantam Scrambled, Chick Poacher, and Rolly Roll prepare to dish out a consequence on Billy, but they're stopped by the weak chirping of a chick. Two Crows that are looming nearby dive at the chick, as if they're finishing it off, but Billy intervenes, saving the baby chicken by fending the Crows off with a stick. The chick suddenly begins to glow, transporting Billy and his friends to Morning Land, with Billy ending up in Forest Village. Billy is informed by Menie-Funie that the Crows are trying to take over Morning Land and will soon take over the human world. He's informed that if he doesn't save Morning Land, Dark Raven will bring eternal night, darkness will overcome the hearts of everyone, and the two worlds will be ruled by evil. Billy then goes and receives the Legendary Chicken Suit to begin on a journey to free the six Chicken Elders, which have been imprisoned in golden eggs by the Crows. Uri-Uri, the Chicken Elder of Pirates Island, reveals that Dark Raven is reborn every 100 years to try and bring eternal night. Once he has freed the Elders, defeated the six Crow Bosses, and opened the Rainbow Gate, Billy travels to the Giant Palace, where Dark Raven is trying to hatch the Giant Egg to receive ultimate power. Billy battles Dark Raven, and once he defeats him, the Giant Egg hatches and grants Raven's wishes, shaping him into a crow-shaped shadow demon dubbed Ultimate Raven. A second battle then ensues. Ultimate Raven attacks Billy, destroying the Chicken Suit. Afterwards, Billy must avoid his attacks until Menie-Funie speaks to him, telling him that he must not give up. Then the Courage Emblems he has collected form into the new and enhanced Sun Suit, imbued with the power of courage. Billy must then use this power to turn Ultimate Raven's attacks against him. Billy finally defeats Ultimate Raven as his heart explodes, completely ending his existence and return. The power from the Giant Egg restores true morning to the land below. Once he and his friends return to where they entered Morning Land, they return the Chicken Suits and return to their world. It seems that when they're leaving, Billy is saddened that he has to leave Morning Land. The four friends wave goodbye and they are transported back. Upon their return to the human world, Billy is a short distance away from his friends. They get his attention by laughing at him and he runs over to them joining the laughter, thus ending the game with a chicken feather slowly falling from the sky. ===== Nineteen-year-old Irene "Rally" Vincent operates the titular "Gunsmith Cats" gun shop but also works as a bounty hunter, which is the impetus behind many of the stories. She is assisted in both activities by her housemate, former prostitute "Minnie" May Hopkins. Rally is an expert combat shooter and marksman with just about every firearm in existence, as well as a brilliant driver. May is an explosives expert, knowing the inner workings of and many uses of all manner of explosive devices. Teenage ex-burglar and lock-picker Misty Brown later joins the team and there is also Becky Farrah, a top, if expensive, source of information on underworld activity. Bounty hunting has of course led Rally to make many enemies, most notably Gray, the leader of gangsters whose use of armaments, including bombs, have likened them to terrorists; and Goldie Musou, a leading figure in the Mafia who uses drugs to manipulate people to the point that they can be brainwashed into killing their nearest and dearest. Bean Bandit, a man who specializes in delivering illegal goods, often features as an alternate ally or enemy—depending on the behavior of his clients, most of whom are being hunted by Rally. ===== Roy Thinnes stars as architect David Vincent, who accidentally learns of a secret alien invasion already underway and thereafter travels from place to place attempting to foil the aliens' plots and warn a skeptical populace of the danger. As the series progresses, Vincent is able to convince a small number of people to help him fight the aliens. In many episodes, at least one individual, often a key figure such as a U.S. Air Force intelligence officer (in the episode "The Innocent"), a police officer (in "Genesis" and "The Spores"), a U.S. Army major ("Doomsday Minus One"), or a NASA official ("Moonshot") would become aware of the alien threat and survive the episode in which he or she was introduced. In "The Leeches", a millionaire (Arthur Hill) survives an alien abduction after being rescued by Vincent, while in "Quantity: Unknown" a scientist (Susan Strasberg) is convinced of alien technology. In "The Saucer", guest stars Anne Francis and Charles Drake witness an alien saucer's landing. In the second season, larger groups of surviving witnesses were featured, as in episodes "Dark Outpost" and "The Pursued", and three scientists in "Labyrinth". Most significant of these is millionaire industrialist Edgar Scoville (Kent Smith), who became a semiregular character as of December 1967, heading a small but influential group from the episode "The Believers". Later episodes had the military involved ("The Peacemaker"), as Vincent's claims were now clearly being taken more seriously. In "The Miracle" (guest star Barbara Hershey), after an alien encounter, Vincent manages to retain a piece of alien technology both as evidence and for examination by both his group and the authorities. The series depicted an undercurrent of at least partial credulity among authority figures regarding Vincent's claims, even in the first season, as in early episodes such as "The Mutation", where a security agent (Lin McCarthy) is keeping an eye on Vincent and ends up inclined to believe him. In "The Innocent", the USAF officer (Dabney Coleman) guns down an alien who incinerates in front of him, tying in with Vincent's claims, while at the end of the episode after apparently disbelieving Vincent, he then phones USAF security to run a full background check on an officer whom Vincent claimed was an alien. In "Moonshot", the NASA official (Peter Graves) is fully expecting Vincent to arrive, and in "Condition: Red", a NORAD officer and staff witness an alien UFO formation onscreen, and are left convinced. Each of these incidents is kept to just the individual episode, with hinted official backing of Vincent (or at least 'semibacking' suggested in the episode "The Condemned"). Elsewhere, Vincent is shown as being publicly 'dismissed as a crank' by the authorities, while behind the scenes they apparently take him seriously—for example in "Doomsday Minus One", where Vincent has been invited by an Army intelligence official and then is given classified information; in the two-part "Summit Meeting" where he is present at a top security meeting without any question; and in "Condition: Red" where he is allowed into NORAD without question. Thus, viewers were left to draw their own conclusions as to the situation regarding Vincent's actual standing. Some controversy arose regarding the sudden ending of the television series after season two, as it was deemed no proper ending had been written (unlike The Fugitive, another Quinn Martin show). Yet the final season-two episode "Inquisition" does stand as some kind of series conclusion where Vincent finally convinces a key figure, an initially skeptical special assistant to the Attorney General (Mark Richman), that the Invaders have arrived, after first defeating an alien plan to use a special weapon. The aliens had withdrawn all their key personnel from Earth prior to its use, and the closing narration is that Vincent, Edgar Scoville, and the now convinced Special Assistant will join forces as the vanguard to watch for any return of the Invaders. Thus, this episode can be seen as showing Vincent achieve his goal of 'convincing disbelieving authorities' at least, and the Invaders' plans temporarily thwarted, leaving the door open for any possible later sequel or spinoff series. ===== Broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow presents an onscreen prologue, featuring footage from A Trip to the Moon (1902) by Georges Méliès, explaining that it is based loosely on the book From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne. Also included is the launching of an unmanned rocket and footage of the earth receding. In 1872, an English gentleman Phileas Fogg (David Niven) claims he can circumnavigate the world in eighty days. He makes a £20,000 wager (worth about £ in 2015) with four skeptical fellow members of the Reform Club (each contributing £5,000 to the bet) that he can arrive back eighty days from exactly 8:45 pm that evening. Together with his resourceful valet, Passepartout (Cantinflas), Fogg goes hopscotching around the globe generously spending money to encourage others to help him get to his destinations faster so he can accommodate tight steamship schedules. They set out on the journey from Paris by a gas balloon named La Coquette upon learning the mountain train tunnel is blocked. The two accidentally end up in Spain, where Passepartout engages in a comic bullfight. Next, he goes to Brindisi. Meanwhile, suspicion grows that Fogg has stolen £55,000 (around £ today) from the Bank of England so Police Inspector Fix (Robert Newton) is sent out by Scotland Yard to trail him (starting in Suez) and keeps waiting for a warrant to arrive so he can arrest Fogg in the British ports they visit. In India, Fogg and Passepartout rescue young widow Princess Aouda (Shirley MacLaine) from being forced into a funeral pyre with her late husband. The three visit Hong Kong, Yokohama, San Francisco, and the Wild West (including the Sioux Nation). After sailing across the Atlantic, and only hours short of winning his wager, Fogg is arrested upon arrival at Liverpool, by the diligent yet misguided Inspector Fix. At the jail, the humiliated Fix informs Fogg that the real culprit was caught in Brighton. Although he is now exculpated, he has insufficient time to reach London before his deadline and thus has lost everythingbut the love of the winsome Aouda. Salvation is at hand when, upon returning to London, Passepartout buys a newspaper and sees it is still Saturday. Fogg then realizes that by traveling east towards the rising sun and by crossing the International Date Line, he has gained a day. There is still time to reach the Reform Club and win the bet. Fogg arrives at the club just before the 8:45 pm chime. Passepartout and Aouda then arrive, shocking everyone, as no woman has ever entered the Reform Club before. ===== Jimson's father, based on a real person known to Cary, was an Academy artist who is heart-broken when Impressionism drives his style from popular taste. Jimson has put aside any consideration of acceptance by either academy or public and paints in fits of creative ecstasy. Although his work is known to collectors and has become valuable, Jimson himself is forced to live from one scam or petty theft to the next. Cadging enough money to buy paints and supplies, he spends much of the novel seeking surfaces, such as walls, to serve as ground for his paintings. When the novel opens, Jimson has just been released from jail. He seeks money from Hickson, his sometime patron. Later in the book, he tracks down Sara Monday, his ex-wife, and tries to obtain an early painting from her that is worth a great deal. Sara is reluctant to give up the picture, which serves as a reminder of her youth. In the struggle that follows, Sara falls and suffers a fatal injury. Jimson is unsentimental about his life and work and sees himself as someone who has given over to a destructive passion. Yet he regrets nothing. At the novel's end, Jimson reflects on his life and the home and family that he has missed. But he recognizes that he himself made the decision to sacrifice those possibilities in order to pursue his art. It is only clear at the end that Jimson has suffered a paralysing stroke, and can no longer paint. As he is being taken to hospital, a nun who is nursing him remarks that he should be praying instead of laughing, "Same thing, Mother," replies Jimson, his last words. ===== Leading Chief Petty Officer "Windy" Riker is a veteran aerial gunner of a Navy Helldiver dive bomber and the leading chief of Fighting Squadron One, about to go to Panama aboard the aircraft carrier. He loses his five-year title of "champion machine gunner" after young C.P.O. Steve Nelson joins the squadron. Windy, notorious for using his fists to enforce discipline, is charged by local police with wrecking a Turkish bath. Windy is saved from arrest, however, when Lieutenant Commander Jack Griffin, skipper of the squadron, intervenes on his behalf. Griffin and his second-in-command, Lieutenant "Duke" Johnson, agree that Nelson is the best candidate to replace Windy as he ponders retirement. The chiefs engage in friendly rivalry until the squadron practices a new dive-bombing technique and Steve becomes a hero, saving the base from being accidentally bombed by climbing out on the wing of his dive bomber to hold in place a bomb that failed to release. Feelings turn bitter when Steve contradicts Windy's explanation of the accident and Windy punches him in resentment. Windy is dressed down by Duke when the officer sees the punch. When Steve's sweetheart, Ann Mitchell, visits him, he proposes marriage to her, but Windy uses a practical joke to get even with Steve. Unaware that Ann is Steve's fiancee and not simply a girl he is trying to impress, Windy bribes an old acquaintance, Lulu, to pretend to be Steve's outraged lover. Ann leaves upset and will not listen to Steve's denials. Griffin loses an arm following a mid-air collision at night. The accident occurs when the aircraft are returning from delivering the admiral to his flagship the Saratoga before the squadron embarks. Griffin is retired and replaced in command of Fighting One by Duke Johnson. Windy becomes Johnson's gunner when the squadron flies to the ship. During a bombing exercise off Panama, Windy misplaces his code book and delays the takeoff of the squadron. As punishment, he is assigned to supervise a work party when the ship docks, missing liberty and keeping him from seeing Mame Kelsey (Rambeau), the woman in Panama he wants to settle down with after retirement. Lobby card Steve, who knows Mame, encounters her on the dock and shares her carriage, but Windy hears about it and sneaks into town. Mame tries to convince Steve to patch up his differences with Windy, then promotes peace between them when Windy shows up at her hotel. Having a drink together in the bar, however, Windy starts a brawl. Steve tries to help him avoid the local police but Windy is thrown in jail. As the Saratoga passes through the Panama Canal, Mame bails Windy out of jail and he catches up to it by stealing a boat. For his transgressions, the captain of the Saratoga reduces Windy one rate from chief. Windy is disciplined at "Captain's Mast" and reduced to Aviation Machinist's Mate 1st Class for leaving his post without authorization, absent without leave, and missing ship. Steve reluctantly becomes leading chief. During a mock battle, Steve's aircraft crashes near a rocky island, killing the pilot and leaving Steve with a broken leg. Duke and Windy land to rescue Steve, but Duke suffers a head injury and Windy has to save both. They have only a radio receiver and cannot be found in the fog. Steve and Windy become friends while waiting for rescue. Windy writes Ann a note confessing what he did with Lulu. After four days, Duke's condition worsens, Steve develops blood poisoning, and they hear on the radio that the Saratoga is leaving. Windy tries to save them by flying them out in Duke's dive bomber, with Duke in the rear cockpit and Steve riding on the wing. Despite the fog, they find the aircraft carrier, but crash on landing and Windy is fatally injured. By his last request, Windy is buried at sea as a missing man formation flies overhead. ===== In 1936 Tokyo, Sada Abe (Eiko Matsuda) is a former prostitute who now works as a maid in a hotel. The hotel's owner, Kichizo Ishida (Tatsuya Fuji), molests her, and the two begin an intense affair that consists of sexual experiments and various self-indulgences. Ishida leaves his wife to pursue his affair with Sada. Sada becomes increasingly possessive and jealous of Ishida, and Ishida more eager to please her. Their mutual obsession escalates to the point where Ishida finds she is most excited by strangling him during lovemaking, and he is killed in this fashion. Sada then severs his penis. While she is shown next to him naked, it is mentioned that she will walk around with his penis inside her for several days. Words written with blood can be read on his chest: "Sada Kichi the two of us forever". ===== In Reno, Nevada, 30-year-old Roslyn Tabor (Monroe) has filed for a quickie six-week Nevada divorce from her inattentive husband Raymond (McCarthy). As Tabor is entering the Washoe County Courthouse with her landlady Isabelle (Ritter), Roslyn ignores Raymond's attempts to talk to her and reconcile and stays with Isabelle. Isabelle is also a divorcee. After the divorce papers are filed, Isabelle takes Roslyn to a cocktail lounge at Harrah's Reno for drinks, to let the reality of her new divorce sink in. While at Harrah's, they meet an aging cowboy named Gaylord 'Gay' Langland (Gable) and his tow truck driver best friend Guido (Wallach). After some good conversation, they invite Roslyn and Isabelle to Guido's old house in the Nevada country to help her forget about the divorce after Gay tells Roslyn that he is also divorced. The group arrives at the unfinished house Guido built for his late wife, who died several years earlier during childbirth. They all drink and dance. Roslyn has too much to drink, so Gay drives her home to Reno. Eventually, Roslyn and Gay move into Guido's half-finished house and start to work on it. One day after breakfast, Gay tells Roslyn how he wishes he were more of a father to his own children, whom he has not seen for some years. Later that afternoon, Roslyn and Gay argue when Gay discovers a rabbit has been eating the lettuce in the garden. Gay states his intention to find and kill the rabbits which have been eating the vegetable garden they planted outside Guido's house. When Guido and Isabelle later show up at the house, Gay suggests that they round up wild mustangs to sell. They then plan to go to a local rodeo in Dayton to look for and hire a third man for the job. In Dayton, they run into Perce Howland (Clift), a cowboy friend of Gay's, who is in Dayton to compete in the rodeo. Gay offers to pay for the broke Perce's $10 rodeo entry fee if he helps the group round up wild mustangs the next day. Isabelle sees her ex-husband Charles and his new wife Clara and decides to invite them to her Reno home instead of going to the rodeo with Gay, Guido, Perce, and Roslyn. Before the rodeo, Guido, Perce, Roslyn and Gaylord all drink at a Dayton bar, where wagers were made and won on Roslyn's ability to play a game of paddle ball. The group is nearly involved in a fistfight when a drunken patron at the bar spanks Roslyn's bottom as she plays paddle ball. At the rodeo, Roslyn becomes somewhat upset when Guido tells her how the horses are made to buck with an irritating flank strap. She then declares that all rodeos should be banned. Later in the rodeo, Perce is thrown by a bucking horse, and Roslyn begs him to go to a hospital, but he insists on riding a bull he had already signed up and paid to ride. He gets thrown again, resulting in a head injury. Later, after Roslyn dances with Perce, he passes out in a Dayton back alley. When he regains consciousness, he sees Roslyn crying over him. He says that he never had anyone cry for him before and that he wished he had a friend to talk to. He tells her how his mother changed after his father died, giving his stepfather the ranch Perce's father wanted to leave to Perce. A drunken Gay then fetches Roslyn, telling her that he wants her to meet his kids, into whom he claims he unexpectedly ran. When Gay discovers his children have already left Dayton, he causes a public scene outside the bar in Dayton. Later on, during the drive home to Reno, a drunken Guido asks if Roslyn has left Gay, and offers to take his place. Back at Guido's house, Guido, intoxicated and sleepless, attempts to finish the patio he started. Perce awakens and nearly tears his bandages off, forgetting about his recent injury. Roslyn puts him to bed and sits down with Gay. He asks her if a woman like her would ever want to have a child with him. She avoids the issue, and Gay goes to bed. The next day, Gay, Guido and Perce prepare to go after the wild mustangs, and Roslyn reluctantly tags along. After they catch a stallion and four mares, Rosalyn becomes upset when she learns that the mustangs will be sold and slaughtered for dog food. She then tells Gay she did not know she was falling in love with a killer. Gay tells Roslyn that he did things for her that he never did for any other woman, such as making the house a home and planting the garden. After the horses are captured, Roslyn begs Gay to release the horses. He considers doing it, but when she offers to pay him the $200 she won playing paddleball, it angers him. Guido tells Roslyn that he would let them go if she would leave Gay for him. She rebuffs him, telling him he only cares about himself. Perce also asks her if she wants him to set the horses free, but she declines because she thinks it would only start a fight. Perce frees the stallion anyway. After Gay chases down and subdues the horse all by himself, he lets it go and says he just did not want anybody making up his mind for him. They get into Gay's truck. As they are driving, Roslyn tells Gay that she will leave the next day. Gay stops the truck to pick up his dog and watches Roslyn joyfully untethering it. Gay and Roslyn realize that they still love each other, and drive off into the night. ===== After Greystone, a member of Havok's X-Factor team, develops temporal insanity, he attempts to build a time machine to return to his timeline and be reunited with his mother who, in all probability, does not exist anymore. Havok attempts to stop him, but the machine explodes, supposedly killing both men.X-Factor #149 (September 1998). However, at the instant of Havok's death, a Havok from an alternate reality also dies after being shot in the chest by a Sentinel. Havok's spirit finds its way into his counterpart's body and he wakes up in the Mutant X Universe. Here, he is the leader of a mutant team of heroes dubbed The Six (who are altered versions of his friends from Earth-616), the husband of Madelyne Pryor, and the father of Scotty Summers.Mutant X #1 (October 1998) At first he tries to convince the others of the Six to help him return to his universe, but they all still believe him to be the Havok of their universe and insist that he is lying about coming from another dimension as a way of getting back at Madelyne for some unspecified injury. Havok ultimately gives up and decides to take on his counterpart's place in this universe.Mutant X #3 (December 1998) Only Scotty, who has precognitive powers, realizes that Havok is telling the truth, and addresses him as "Alex" instead of "Dad". The two quickly form a bond.Mutant X #2 (November 1998) A demon-possessed Madelyne sets plans to take over the world into play. She takes control of all the members of the Six except Havok. Scotty is warned of her doings by his precognitive power, and Havok takes him and his nanny, Elektra, into hiding.Mutant X #5-9, Mutant X '99 For months Madelyne wages war against the rest of the world while trying to open a gateway to allow a full demonic invasion. Scotty finally stops her by exorcising the Goblin Entity from her mind.Mutant X #12 (September 1999) The destruction caused by Madelyne serves as a spark to ignite the seething anti- mutant sentiment in the United States, and new president Graydon Creed tasks terrorist leader Nick Fury with rounding up mutants into prison camps; though the public explanation is that this is for their protection, mutants taken into the camps are immediately killed. Havok has Elektra take Scotty into hiding, while the remaining members of the Six, supplemented by new members Gambit and Captain America, set about rescuing mutants from Nick Fury's troops.Mutant X #15-18 At the end of the series, the Goblin Entity, Dracula and the Beyonder all converge their efforts to destroy Earth. Almost all of the heroes die in the epic battle. Havok, discovering that he is the home for the Nexus of Realities, a force of nature that binds all realities (Omniverse), uses it to wield an omniversal level of power to stop the Goblin Entity, which had merged with the Beyonder. He then fights with the possessed Maydelyne and harnesses the power of the Nexus of All realities and with a thought eliminates the Goblin Entity throughout the Omniverse. He then teleports Maydelyne to her alternate universe with her son, Scotty. Fearing that somebody would attempt to use the power of the Nexus of All Realities to reshape, destroy, or alter the very Omniverse; he then becomes one with the Nexus of All Realities to prevent anyone from getting this power, except himself. ===== The operation of time travel in Primer. Two engineers, Aaron and Abe, supplement their day-jobs with entrepreneurial tech projects, working out of Aaron's garage. During one such research effort, involving electromagnetic reduction of objects' weight, the two men accidentally discover an 'A-to-B' time loop side-effect: objects left in the weight-reducing field exhibit temporal anomalies, proceeding normally (from time 'A,' when the field was activated, to time 'B,' when the field is powered off), then backwards (from 'B' back to 'A') in a continuously repeating sequence, such that objects can leave the field in the present, or at some previous point. Abe refines this proof-of-concept and builds a stable time-apparatus ("the box"), sized to accommodate a human subject. Abe uses this box to travel six hours into his own past—as part of this process, Original-Abe sits incommunicado in a hotel room, so as not to interact or interfere with the outside world, after which Original-Abe enters the box, waits inside the box for six hours (thus going back in time six hours), and becomes Future-Abe, who travels across town, explains the proceedings to Aaron, and brings Aaron back to the self-storage facility housing the box. At the end of the overlap-timespan, Original-Abe enters the box and ceases to exist. Abe and Aaron repeat Abe's six-hour experiment multiple times over multiple days, making profitable same-day stock trades armed with foreknowledge of the market's performance. The duo's divergent personalitiesAbe cautious and controlling, Aaron impulsive and meddlesomeput subtle strain on their collaboration and friendship. These tensions come to a head after a late-night encounter with Thomas Granger (father to Abe's girlfriend, Rachel), who appears inexplicably unshaven and exists in overlap with his original suburban self. Granger falls into a comatose state after being pursued by Aaron; Aaron theorizes that, at some unknown point in the future, Granger entered the "box", with timeline-altering consequences. Abe concludes that time travel is simply too dangerous, and enters a secret second box (the "failsafe box," built before the experiment began and kept continuously running), traveling back four days to prevent the experiment's launch. Cumulative competing interference wreaks havoc upon the timeline. Future-Abe sedates Original-Abe (so he will never conduct the initial time travel experiment), and meets Original-Aaron at a park bench (so as to dissuade him), but finds that Future-Aaron has gotten there first (armed with pre-recordings of the past conversations, and an unobtrusive earpiece), having brought a disassembled "third failsafe box" four days back with his own body. Future-Abe faints at this revelation, overcome by shock and fatigue. The two men briefly and tentatively reconcile. They jointly travel back in time, experiencing and reshaping an event where Abe's girlfriend Rachel was nearly killed by a gun-wielding party crasher. After many repetitions, Aaron, forearmed with knowledge of the party's events, stops the gunman, becoming a local hero. Abe and Aaron ultimately part ways; Aaron considers a new life in foreign countries where he can tamper more broadly for personal gain, while Abe states his intent to remain in town and dissuade/sabotage the original "box" experiment. Abe warns Aaron to leave and never return. Multiple "box- aware" versions of Aaron circulateat least one Future-Aaron has shared his knowledge with Original-Aaron, via discussions, voice-recordings, and an unsuccessful physical altercation. Future-Abe watches over Original-Abe, going to painstaking extremes to keep him unaware of the future. An Aaron directs French-speaking workers in the construction of a warehouse-sized box. ===== In the late Victorian period, two young cousins, Richard (Glenn Kohan as Young Richard) and Emmeline Lestrange (Elva Josephson as Young Emmeline), and a galley cook, Paddy Button (Leo McKern), survive a shipwreck in the South Pacific and reach a lush tropical island. Paddy cares for the children and forbids them by "Law" from going to the other side of the island, as he had found remains from bloody human sacrifices on an altar there. He also warns them against eating a deadly scarlet berry. Paddy later dies after a drunken binge. Now alone, the children go to another part of the island and rebuild their home. When Richard and Emmeline become teenagers, they begin to fall in love. The experience is stressful for them because of their lack of education on human sexuality. Emmeline is frightened by her first menstrual period; she refuses to allow Richard to inspect her for what he imagines is a wound. When Richard becomes physically attracted to Emmeline, she does not reciprocate his feelings; Richard responds to the situation by hiding from Emmeline and masturbating. A ship appears for the first time in years, but Emmeline does not light the signal fire. As a result, the ship passes by without noticing them. When Richard angrily confronts Emmeline about her failure, she asserts—to Richard's disbelief—that the island is their home now and that they should remain there. Emmeline secretly ventures to the forbidden side of the island and sees the altar. She associates the blood on the altar with the blood of Christ's crucifixion, concludes that the altar is God, and tries to persuade Richard to go to the other side of the island to pray with her. Richard is shocked at the idea of breaking the Law. The two insult each other. Emmeline reveals that she knows about Richard's masturbation and threatens to tell her Uncle Arthur about it. They throw coconuts at each other, and one coconut hits Richard on the head. Emmeline accidentally steps on a venomous stonefish. Sick and weak, she pleads with Richard to "take her to God." Richard carries her to the other side of the island and places her on the altar, offering a prayer. Emmeline recovers and Richard admits his fear of losing her. After Emmeline regains her ability to walk, the two go skinny dipping in the lagoon and then swim to shore. Still naked, Richard and Emmeline discover sexual intercourse. They regularly make love from then on, and Emmeline becomes pregnant. Richard and Emmeline are stunned when they feel the baby move inside her and assume that it is her stomach causing the movements. Emmeline gives birth to a baby boy, whom they name Paddy. A ship led by Richard's father, Arthur (William Daniels), approaches the island and sees the family playing on the shore. When they notice the ship, Richard and Emmeline walk away instead of signalling for help, content with their lives. As they are covered in mud, their appearance is difficult to determine; Arthur assumes that they are natives. One day, the family takes the lifeboat to visit their original homesite. Richard goes to find bananas for them, leaving Emmeline and Paddy with the boat. Emmeline does not notice when Paddy brings a branch of the scarlet berries into the boat. Emmeline and Paddy slowly drift away, and Paddy tosses one of the oars out of the boat. Unable to reach the oar, Emmeline shouts to Richard and he swims to her, followed closely by a shark. Emmeline throws the other oar at the shark, striking it and giving Richard time to get into the boat. The boat is caught in the current and drifts out to sea. After drifting for days, Richard and Emmeline awake to find Paddy eating the berries he had picked. Hopeless, Richard and Emmeline eat the berries as well, lying down to await death. A few hours later, Arthur's ship finds them. Arthur asks, "Are they dead?" The captain (Gus Mercurio) answers, "No, sir. They're asleep". ===== While studying the diary of his grandfather, Professor Gerald Robotnik, Dr. Eggman learns of an artifact Gerald had unearthed: a 4000-year- old sentient weapon called the Gizoid created by an ancient civilization. Eggman attempts to get the dormant Gizoid to work properly, but is unsuccessful and abandons it at Emerald Beach. Sonic the Hedgehog finds the Gizoid, which activates and develops a link with him after Sonic demonstrates his abilities. The Gizoid, which Sonic names Emerl due to its ability to use the Chaos Emeralds, demonstrates an ability to perfectly replicate any moves it sees and quickly gets wrapped up in the affairs of Sonic's friends, allies and rivals. Through his encounters with Tails, Rouge, Knuckles, Amy, Cream, and Shadow, Emerl learns of the world and of concepts like friendship. As they train together, the group discovers that Emerl becomes stronger and develops more sentience with each Chaos Emerald that he obtains, and begin searching for the remaining Emeralds to help the robot develop. While searching, they are repeatedly attacked by the forces of Eggman, who now wants to retrieve the weapon, including a rebuilt E-102 Gamma and a series of imperfect Emerl duplicates under the name "E-121 Phi". Eventually, all the Chaos Emeralds are obtained and Emerl achieves full sentience. In a last attempt, Eggman decides to lure Emerl onto his new Death Egg to capture him. The two battle, and Emerl emerges victorious, but Eggman uses his new Final Egg Blaster to force Emerl to override his link with Sonic with Eggman's own. However, this overloads Emerl, deleting his personality and causing him to go haywire. The rogue Gizoid then turns the blaster towards the planet, and Sonic is sent to stop him before the world is destroyed. Sonic defeats Emerl, who briefly reverts to his previous personality and bids his friends farewell before overloading with energy and exploding, leaving the shards of the Chaos Emeralds he acquired behind. Sonic returns home to his friends, who are saddened by the loss of Emerl. When asked if he believes Emerl is truly gone, Sonic reassures everyone that they will see him again someday. ===== When occultist uncle Dr. Plato Zorba wills a huge ramshackle house to his nephew Cyrus and his impoverished family, they are shocked to find the house is haunted. Their furnished residence comes complete with a creepy housekeeper, Elaine, plus a fortune in buried treasure and 12 horrifying ghosts. His family soon discovers that these spirits include a wailing lady, clutching hands, a fiery skeleton, an Italian chef murdering his wife and her lover in the kitchen, a hanging lady, an executioner holding a severed head, a fully grown lion with its headless tamer, a floating head (presumably belonging to the tamer), as well as that of Plato Zorba himself, all held captive in the eerie house looking for an unlucky thirteenth ghost to free them. Dr. Zorba leaves a set of special goggles, the only way of seeing the ghosts. However, there is someone in the house who is also looking for the hidden fortune in money and is willing to kill for it. The villain turns out to be the lawyer, Benjamen Rush. He attempts to kill Cyrus' son, Buck, using the falling bed canopy Rush had used to kill Dr. Zorba, whose ghost catches him in the act, driving the terrified Rush to his death in the bed just as Buck escapes. Rush becomes the 13th ghost, and the ghosts disappear. The next morning, Cyrus and his family count the discovered money, Buck keeps the mask used by Benjamen Rush to scare Buck's older sister, Medea, and they decide to stay, with a fortune in cash. At the end of the film the special goggles are blown into smithereens by an unknown force, witnessed by Elaine, who gets a broom and permits herself a small enigmatic smile. ===== Loosely related to the author's highly regarded novel The Stand, the story occurs on an August night on Anson Beach, New Hampshire, with a group of former college students who survived a catastrophic plague caused by a virus called A6, or "Captain Trips". They believe the virus spread out of Southeast Asia and wiped out most of humanity. The characters have a grim and dark outlook, having recently taken a man dying of the plague (and seemingly out of his mind with delirium) and burned him on a pyre as a half-serious black-magic human sacrifice. The main character of the story, Bernie, reflects upon this new world and reminisces about "the time before" when he went to Anson Beach in his youth years before the plague. All the members of Bernie's group characters had all survived a virus called A2, which supposedly made them immune to A6. But one character, Needles, reveals to Bernie that he has contracted A6. Bernie admits to himself that deep down they know that A2 is not a guarantee against A6, and that they will probably all be dead by Christmas. Bernie's girlfriend keeps up the pretense, accepting Bernie's explanation that Needles must have lied about having A2 so the others would not leave him behind. Unlike The Stand, the world in this story is lingering on somewhat longer, as shown by the fact that the characters are still able to get two radio stations (run by survivors), and that some people are still dying of the superflu months after the height of the outbreak. ===== A police detective investigating a sudden rash of grisly deaths caused by an industrial laundry press, called a mangle, discovers that a series of unfortunate coincidences involving the machine have inadvertently replicated a demon- summoning ritual. Due to various ingredients (including medicine containing extract of nightshade, a live bat, and fresh blood getting into the machine) being combined, the machine itself has become possessed by a demon. The story ends after the detective and his friend underestimate the demon's power, and in seeking to exorcise the machine, instead goad it into ripping free of its moorings and prowling the streets in search of fresh prey. ===== In 1901, recently orphaned 10-year-old Mary Lennox is sent from her home in British India to her uncle Lord Archibald Craven's mansion, Misselthwaite Manor, in Yorkshire, England. Unloved and neglected by her late parents, who were killed in a sudden earthquake, she is a cold, unpleasant girl who has repressed her emotions to the point of being unable to cry. Mary is unhappy in her new surroundings. Head housekeeper Mrs. Medlock informs Mary she will not be spoiled as she was in India and that her uncle, who spends extended periods of time away from the Manor, will likely not see her. Mary is ordered by Mrs. Medlock not to leave her room, but strange noises lead her to explore the mansion on her own. Eventually Mrs. Medlock allows her to play outside to keep her from poking about in the house. In the expansive grounds of the Manor, Mary discovers her late aunt Lillian Craven's walled garden, which has been locked up and neglected since her accidental death 10 years prior. Martha Sowerby, a cheerful housemaid, and her younger brother, Dickon Sowerby, a nature-loving boy who can "talk" to the animals, befriend Mary. Fascinated by the "secret garden," Mary enlists Dickon to help her bring it back to life, gradually becoming a more friendly, happy child in the process. When she's finally introduced to her uncle, Mary is apprehensive, knowing he was responsible for locking up the secret garden. Fearful he will do it again, she evasively asks to plant seeds in an "unwanted" part of the Manor. Lord Craven grants permission and leaves the country for the rest of the year. Confident that the garden will remain a secret, Mary and Dickon continue their work. Hidden away in the gloomy mansion is Mary's cousin, Colin Craven, who has been treated all his life like a fragile, sickly invalid. This has turned him into a demanding, unpleasant, helpless boy who has never left his room or even learned to walk. Mary eventually discovers Colin and learns the strange noises she has been hearing are the sounds of his crying. She is taken aback by his unpleasant nature, but reaches out to him anyway. She shows him that he's not really sick, and that the outside world is not as dangerous as Mrs. Medlock, who is in charge of caring for him, claims. Encouraged by Mary, Colin decides to go outside for the first time in his life. Mary and Dickon take him to the secret garden, and Colin begins his own healing process, both physically and mentally. Mary, Colin, and Dickon spend all of their time having fun in the garden, and Colin learns to stand and walk on his own. Anxious to show Colin's new-found life to his father, they perform a "magic" ceremony, hoping to bring him back home. It appears to work: Lord Craven awakens suddenly from a dream of Lillian calling him home and immediately returns to Yorkshire. He finds his way into the secret garden, where he discovers Colin walking and playing hide and seek with Mary and Dickon, which leaves him dumbfounded with joy. Upon seeing her uncle, Mary runs off and breaks down in tears for the first time in her life, certain that nobody wants her and afraid that the garden will be locked up again. Lord Craven catches up to her and reassures Mary that she is part of the family now. He promises never to lock the garden up again. Lord Craven thanks Mary for bringing his family back to life. Mary, Colin, Dickon, and Lord Craven embrace, then celebrate with Martha, Mrs. Medlock, Ben, and the Manor staff. The film ends with Mary reflecting in voiceover that "If you look the right way, the whole world is a garden." ===== The Federation starship Enterprise arrives at the planet Elas to pick up Elaan, the Dohlman of Elas. Accompanying them is Ambassador Petri of Troyius, a planet with which Elas has been at war. As Petri explains, the Elasian Council of Nobles and the Troyius Tribunal have agreed to marry Elaan to the Troyian king to secure peace, lest the two planets destroy each other. Elaan is a most reluctant bride, cursing an arrangement that she considers a humiliation. Ambassador Petri's mission is to instruct Elaan in the manners and customs of the Troyians. Not long after the Enterprise begins the return journey to Troyius at low impulse speed, a Klingon warship is detected, which paces the Enterprise and ignores all hails. To complicate matters further, Elaan stabs Petri, who refuses to have any further dealings with the Dohlman and vows that his ruler will never marry her. The job of teaching her falls to Captain Kirk. In Sickbay, Nurse Chapel asks the ambassador why Elasian women are so prized in spite of their savagery. Petri explains that when the tears of an Elasian female touch a man's skin, his heart is "enslaved forever". Elaan does not take kindly to Kirk's efforts to educate her and attempts to stab him. He overpowers her, disarms her, and insists that she will learn what she has been ordered to learn. Elaan locks herself in a bathroom and begins to cry, saying she is tired of being hated by everyone. Kirk tries to comfort her, and after wiping a tear from her cheek finds himself besotted with Elaan. Meanwhile, one of the ship's engineers is killed by Kryton, Elaan's chief bodyguard, who then tampers with the Enterprises warp engines and tries to contact the Klingon battle cruiser. He is captured, but commits suicide before he can be interrogated. Kirk orders Chief Engineer Scott to check the ship's propulsion systems. Elaan reveals that Kryton was in love with her and had been infuriated by the news of the arranged marriage. The Klingon battlecruiser then begins what appears to be an attack. As Kirk orders the Enterprise to go to warp, Scott reports that, as a result of Kryton's sabotage, any attempt to do so will destroy the ship. As the Klingon passes by without firing, it becomes clear that they were hoping to destroy the Enterprise without an overt act of war. This plan having failed, the Klingons attack in earnest. Mr. Scott reports that Kryton damaged the dilithium crystals in the antimatter reactor control system, making it impossible to go to warp or fire their weapons. In Sickbay, Ambassador Petri again approaches Elaan and begs her to accept the necklace of Troyian royal jewels that was to be worn at her wedding, as a symbol of the hope for peace between their two worlds. Elaan accepts the necklace and subsequently appears on the bridge wearing it with her wedding dress. Spock detects strange energy readings from some of the jewels, which Elaan describes as common stones, valued only as good-luck charms. The stones are in fact dilithium crystals, which explains the Klingons' keen interest in this star system. The crystals are taken to Scott in Engineering, where he and Spock work to replace the damaged dilithium crystals as the battlecruiser moves in for the kill. Power is restored to the Enterprise just before the Klingons’ final attack. After suffering serious damage from the Enterprise's photon torpedoes, the Klingon ship is successfully driven off. A much changed Elaan is delivered safely to Troyius. Before she departs, Elaan gives Kirk her dagger as a memento, explaining she has learned that "on Troyius, they do not wear such things." She and Kirk say their farewells in the transporter room, with a heartbroken Elaan crying as she is beamed down. Later, McCoy appears on the bridge to report he has found an antidote to the Elasian tears, but it seems not to be needed after all. As Mr. Spock points out, "The Enterprise infected the Captain long before the Dohlman did." ===== When Chiaki meets a wounded young man on the street and offers to take him in, she has no idea that she's just invited the King of Hell to move in with her. Out of gratitude for helping him, Ororon offers to grant Chiaki one wish. Chiaki, who lives a very lonely life, asks Ororon to stay with her forever. Remarking that "forever" is not the same for each of them, Ororon agrees, and the two of them quickly become attached to each other. Unfortunately, Chiaki soon realizes that falling in love with a demon has consequences. Ororon has abandoned his throne, causing renegade demons, bounty hunters, and his own brothers to come after him to take his crown. As Ororon fights to stay alive and protect the girl he loves, Chiaki is appalled by the violence surrounding her, and condemns Ororon as a murderer. Their relationship remains strained throughout the series as Ororon attempts to refrain from killing for Chiaki's sake, leaving himself open for attack in the process. However, when her friends are threatened Chiaki herself displays a horrifying power. The powers her angelic father sealed within her level an entire city during a battle with several bounty hunters, and Chiaki spends the rest of the series in agony over her hatred of what she and Ororon must do to survive. ===== The game is set in the Edo Shogunate era of Japanese history (1865-1868). Rami Nana-Hikari, a seemingly typical teenager, has been the keeper of the Key to the Secret Treasure. Rami is really a descendant of aliens who came to Earth in ancient times. She doesn't know the importance of the Treasure, and her overbearing grandmother doesn't remember what secret the Key unlocks. The Key has been stolen (while Rami was at the local mini-mart, a common hangout for teens then), and now she must get the Key back. Rami rides into battle on her trusty dragon, Spot, as she encounters various enemies such as a sea monster, the U.S. Navy, the Russian Army, and the Seven Gods of the Good Fortune, until she arrives at the ship of Dr. Pon Eho, a raccoon billed as the most intelligent creature on Earth with an IQ of 1400, his appearance being appropriate for the thief that he is. This game features animated cutscenes provided by Studio Pierrot. ===== After the escape of Doctor Soong and the Augments, Captain Archer and his crew proceed to the coordinates Soong had provided earlier in the mission. On Trialis IV, the away team find an abandoned building where the young Augments were raised and schooled by "father" Soong. They also capture a banished member of the Augments named Udar. Nicknamed "Smike" by his Augment siblings after a handicapped character from the comic novel Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens, he is taken to Enterprise. Analysis reveals that although Udar's DNA is similar to the other Augments, he has none of their enhanced abilities (except for superior hearing). Meanwhile, Soong and the Augments capture Barzai, a Denobulan medical ship, and use it to enter the medical facility called Cold Station 12 (C-12). They soon overpower security and capture the scientists there, including its chief medical officer, Doctor Jeremy Lucas (Doctor Phlox's Interspecies Medical Exchange counterpart). Due to security protocols, tensions begin to surface between Soong and Malik, as to how to coerce Lucas into divulging the entry codes. Malik convinces Soong to torture Lucas, and failing that, to expose a scientist to a deadly pathogen using a containment chamber. Enterprise approaches within transporter range, and beams an away team (including Phlox) to the facility. They are soon detected, however, and imprisoned with the facility's staff. Meanwhile, Commander T'Pol, having lost contact with the team, attempts to destroy the station, but the Klingon ship intervenes. Malik uses Phlox's friendship to finally coerce the security codes from Lucas (by threatening to expose him to a pathogen as well). Soong, who had previously stolen 19 genetically enhanced and frozen embryos from C-12, is now able to access the remaining 1,800, a carry-over from the Eugenics Wars. Soong and the Augments then escape, but not before Malik kills Smike, helps himself to a number of pathogen samples, and sets the viral containment fields to fail. ===== Yoo Min-woo's (Song Seung-heon) first love was Seo Eun-hye (Shin Ae). However, Eun-hye gets into a car accident and dies. Without Min-woo's knowledge, her parents decide to donate her organs. Shim Hye-won (Son Ye-jin) has suffered from a possibly fatal heart disease ever since childhood. Miraculously, she finds that she will be obtaining a heart from a donor, the deceased Eun-hye. Suffering from the pain of losing his girlfriend, Min-woo goes to Italy to study, with the memories of Eun-hye still lingering in his heart. When he returns to Korea, fate takes a turn and brings Hye-won and Min-woo together. When the two first meet at the airport, Hye-won's heart (Eun-hye's heart) oddly beats faster when she is around Min-woo. Park Jung-jae (Ryu Jin) is Hye-won's fiancé. Jung-jae's younger sister, Park Jung-ah (Han Ji-hye) meets Min-woo in Italy and falls for him. Meanwhile, Min-woo feels guilt towards Eun-hye, because his feelings of love are stirred once again as he keeps being around Hye-won. Coincidentally, Min-woo ends up being hired as the art director for Jung-jae's project "Summer Scent," with Hye-won as their florist. Hiding their prior encounter in the forest, they awkwardly greet each other as if they'd never met. During the project, their fondness deepens, and Min-woo begins to "recognize" similarities between Eun-hye and Hye-won. Hye-won, on the other hand, believes it to be fate that her heart beats faster whenever Min-woo is near. Their fondness for each other soon triggers Jung-ah's and shortly thereafter, Jung- jae's suspicions. Jung-jae, however, chooses to turn a blind eye as he deeply loves Hye-won. It is then Hye-won's turn to be confused as to whether her feelings for Min-woo are true, or a physiological result of Eun-hye's past feelings for him. As a result, she decides to leave Min-woo, trying to cover up her feelings of guilt towards Jung-jae and Jung-ah. She returns to Jung- jae's side and agrees to marry him. To forget Hye-won, Min-woo decides to leave for Italy indefinitely, but only after seeing her one last time. At Hye- won's wedding, Min-woo casts one last glance at her and then leaves. With Min- woo near, Hye-won's heart once more signals his presence, and thus alerted, she sees Min-woo leaving. Desperately trying to catch Min-woo, Hye-won collapses. Min-woo rushes Hye-won to the hospital with Jung-jae arriving a little later. Jung-jae, angry at Min-woo for having caused Hye-won's collapse, tells him to leave for Italy but Min-woo agrees to leave only after Hye-won has regained consciousness. Soon, Hye-won wakes up and a deeply angered Jung- jae forbids Min-woo to see her, ordering him to leave on the spot. However, Min-woo agrees to leave only after Hye-won promises him to undergo heart surgery, for not having the operation would mean her certain demise. Soon after his arrival in Italy, Min-woo receives a letter notifying him that Hye- won died during the operation. Three years later, with memories of Hye-won in his heart, Min-woo returns to Korea as the manager of an Art Centre. During his absence, Hye-won has undergone a heart transplant after the initial surgery, and then traveled to the United States for another transplant. On his way up the steps to the Art Centre and on her way down after her delivery, they meet again. The abnormal beating of Hye-won's new heart signals Min-woo's presence to her, and thus once and for all, confirms their love for each other to be authentic. ===== Loosely based on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Lalita Bakshi (Aishwarya Rai), is a young woman living in Amritsar, India with her father (Anupam Kher), her mother (Nadira Babbar), her older sister Jaya (Namrata Shirodkar) and her two younger sisters, Lakhi (Peeya Rai Chowdhary) and Maya (Meghna Kothari). Mrs. Bakshi is determined to marry off all her daughters to respectable and wealthy men. The family is invited to a friend's (Shivani Ghai) wedding ceremony, where Lalita meets Will Darcy (Martin Henderson), a handsome and wealthy American who is a long-time friend of the British-Indian barrister Balraj (Naveen Andrews), and Balraj's sister Kiran (Indira Varma). Balraj is instantly attracted to Jaya and likewise, Darcy is attracted to Lalita. During the reception, Lalita takes a disliking to Darcy but when Balraj invites Jaya to Goa, she agrees to accompany her sister. In Goa, Lalita and Darcy clash over their ideas on men and women and India's economic future. On the beach, Lalita meets Johnny Wickham (Daniel Gillies), Darcy's former friend, and he validates her low opinion of Darcy. When the sisters return from Goa, Mrs. Bakshi announces that they will be hosting Kohli Saab, an obnoxious distant cousin living in the U.S who has come to India to find a "traditional woman" to marry. Mrs. Bakshi steers Kohli towards Lalita, much to her displeasure. Wickham also arrives and is invited to join the family at the Garba. At the Garba, Lakhi shows Wickham around and Lalita passes Kohli off to her friend Chandra. She is surprised to see Darcy, who attempts to warn Lalita that Wickham is not a good person. Lalita dismisses his concerns and happily accepts a dance from Wickham. At night, Lalita fantasizes about moving to England to marry Wickham. In her dream, Wickham transforms into Darcy at the altar, confusing Lalita. Kohli formally proposes to Lalita, but she rejects him, much to her mother’s displeasure. Balraj comes to the house to bid farewell to Jaya and promises to write to her from London. Wickham also announces that he is leaving and promises to write to Lalita. Neither man writes to the sisters, but Wickham is shown secretly writing to Lakhi. Chandra announces that she is marrying Kohli and invites the Bakshi family to her wedding ceremony in California. The family accepts and Jaya is excited to use a stopover in London as an excuse to see Balraj. In London, Kiran invites the Bakshi family to tea and informs the family that he is in New York with their parents to meet potential brides, devastating Jaya and Mrs. Bakshi. At Heathrow Airport, the Bakshi family runs into Darcy, who is also a guest at the wedding. He offers his first-class seat to Mrs. Bakshi so he can sit next to Lalita for the remainder of the flight. During their stay in California, Lalita’s opinion of Darcy improves and the two fall in love. At the wedding, Lalita meets Darcy's condescending mother Catherine (Marsha Mason) who claims Darcy is almost engaged to a former girlfriend. Lalita also meets Georgie (Alexis Bledel), Darcy's younger sister, who tells Lalita that Balraj and Darcy are not on speaking terms because Darcy convinced Balraj not to marry an Indian girl with a "gold-digger" mother. Lalita realizes that Darcy is the reason why Jaya never heard from Balraj. She runs into Darcy who confesses his feelings for her and asks her to marry him. Lalita refuses, blaming him for her sister’s unhappiness. Back in London, Lakhi takes advantage of the family's layover to sneak away to meet Wickham. Lalita realizes that that Darcy was right about him and calls for his help to find Lakhi. Darcy explains that Wickham got Georgie pregnant and tried to marry her for their family's money and ran away when his plan failed. They rescue Lakhi and Darcy apologizes to Lalita, telling her that he has gotten Balraj to reconcile with Jaya. Lalita forgives him and accepts his proposal. The film ends with a double wedding of Jaya to Balraj and Lalita to Darcy. ===== In the beginning of the book, Odd Thomas is silently approached by the ghost of a young girl brutally raped and murdered, and through his unique ability to understand the dead, is psychically led to her killer, a former schoolmate named Harlo Landerson. Koontz discloses how Odd was named and begins, layer by layer, to show how Odd's dysfunctional upbringing has shaped his life, and as those details are uncovered, his supernatural abilities begin to make more sense. While working as a short order cook in a California desert town, Odd meets a suspicious- looking man in the diner followed by bodachs, shadowy spirit creatures who appear only during times of death and disaster. This man, who Odd nicknames "Fungus Man" (due to his waxy complexion and blond hair that resembles mold), has an unusually large swarm of bodachs following him, and Odd is convinced that this man is connected to some terrible catastrophe that is about to occur. To gather more information about him, Odd uses his gift of supernatural intuition, which his soulmate Bronwen (a.k.a. Stormy) Llewellyn calls "psychic magnetism," to track him down. Odd's sixth sense leads him to Fungus Man's home, and Odd begins to uncover more details about the man and a mysterious other-worldly link to the dark forces about to be unleashed on the town of Pico Mundo. Accompanied sometimes by the ghost of Elvis Presley and encountering other memorable spirits, including a murdered prostitute, Odd is soon deeply involved in an attempt to prevent the disastrous bloodshed he knows will happen the next day. ===== The premise of the book is that everyone who has ever died (up to the time in which the book is set, which seems to be about the time of its publication) has gone to Styx, the river that circles the underworld. The book begins with Charon, ferryman of the Styx being startled--and annoyed--by the arrival of a houseboat on the Styx. At first afraid that the boat will put him out of business, he later finds out that he is actually to be appointed the boat's janitor. What follows are eleven more stories (for a total of twelve) which are set on the house boat. There is no central theme, and the purpose of the book appears to be as a literary thought experiment to see what would happen if various famous dead people were put in the same room with each other. Each chapter is a short story featuring various souls from history and mythology. In the twelfth chapter the house boat disappears, leading into the sequel, The Pursuit of the House-Boat. ===== Note: This plot synopsis details the "good ending" The game begins as Torque (who never speaks) is being escorted by CO Ernesto Alvarez (voiced by Mark Dias) onto death row in Abbott State Penitentiary on Carnate Island, off the coast of Maryland, an island with a long and troubled history. Torque has been sentenced to death for murdering his ex-wife and their two children, although he claims to have blacked out during the incident, and can remember nothing. Shortly after entering his cell, an earthquake rocks the prison, and moments later, all of the inmates on death row except Torque are killed by strange creatures. One of the creatures opens Torque's cell, and he sets out to escape. After seeing several guards killed by the creatures, Torque uses security monitors to find the entire prison is under attack. He then gets a phone call from his dead wife, Carmen (Rafeedah Keys), telling him the island is more than a prison, that it brings out evil in everyone, and advising him to escape as soon as he can. Descending to the basement, he soon encounters the spirits of three of Abbot's most famous occupants. Dr. Killjoy (voiced by John Armstrong) was a psychiatrist/surgeon who ran an insane asylum on the island in the 1920s. Obsessed with discovering what is wrong with Torque, Killjoy appears as an image projected from 16 mm film projectors. Hermes T. Haight (John Patrick Lowrie) was the executioner in Abbot for twenty-seven years, before he committed suicide in the gas chamber. He appears as a green vapor formed into the shape of a human. Hermes is determined to drive Torque into unleashing the evil inside him. Horace P. Gauge (John Armstrong) was an inmate who was executed in the electric chair for murdering his wife during a conjugal visit. Full of guilt for his actions, he claims Carnate drove him to it, and wants to help Torque realize his decency. He appears in the form of electricity. They teach Torque how to unleash the anger inside himself and transform into a powerful monster, although the transformation is only in Torque's mind. Torque then encounters a fellow inmate, Dallas (Mark Berry), who he knows from his previous prison, Eastern Correctional Institution. They head through the eastern cellblock, where Torque has a vision of Carmen, who explains why she left him; when he was incarcerated for the second time, she knew she needed to make a change to her life. Torque and Dallas make it to the loading bay, and Torque heads to the control room, opening the doors, and allowing Dallas to escape. However, a fire starts, preventing Torque from following. He then hears a call from Consuela Alvarez (Meg Savlov), Ernesto's wife, asking Ernesto to call her. She tells him that herself and the girls are fine, but there is a fire in the nearby forest getting closer to their house. Torque heads to the western cellblock, where he has another vision of Carmen, telling him she is pregnant but is filing for divorce. Torque heads to the radio room, finding the radio is working, but something from the asylum is preventing communication with the mainland. Torque heads to the asylum, and encounters Killjoy, who is determined to "cure" him using his "Rebirth Machine." Torque fights through a series of tests set by Killjoy before destroying all his projectors. Killjoy then tells Torque to return to the prison, where he will give him his diagnosis. Torque heads back to Abbot by way of the beach, where he encounters Clem (Ross Douglas), an elderly inmate who was in the middle of an escape when the earthquake struck. Clem has a small one-person boat ready to sail, but needs Torque's help fighting creatures emerging from a wrecked slave ship before he can leave. Torque sets fire to the wreck, enabling Clem to escape. He enters Abbot's sewer system where he encounters Horace, who tells him Abbot wants his soul. He then heads to the electric chair, destroying it and releasing Horace's spirit. Returning to death row, he finds Killjoy's diagnosis, and then returns to the radio room. Successfully sending a signal, he learns a Coast Guard vessel is on the way. However, Carnate's lighthouse is not working, and must be reactivated before the vessel can approach the island. Torque heads to the lighthouse, passing through the old military barracks, Fort Maleson. In the fort, he encounters Hermes, who forces him to fight. Torque defeats him by using pressurized gas to push Hermes into a furnace. He continues to the lighthouse, outside of which he meets Ernesto, who is trying to find his family. They restore power, and reactivate the lighthouse, arranging to meet the ship at the dock. They then head to the nearby village to look for Ernesto's family. The gate to town is locked, but in return for freeing his soul, Horace opens it. They then encounter a broken bridge, but, impressed with Torque's efforts to kill him, Hermes helps them cross. As they near the village, however, they are separated by a fire, and Ernesto goes on alone, telling Torque to get to the docks. As he arrives, he encounters Killjoy, who tells him to cure himself he must face what awaits him, and only by using the Rebirth Machine can he defeat it. Torque heads to the docks where he encounters a massive creature with a miniature version of himself protruding from its stomach. Torque fights and defeats the creature, finally remembering what happened to his family; when he arrived home, Torque overhears his wife screaming. Two thugs killed his entire family; one of the thugs beat his wife to death with a bat whilst the other drowned his youngest son, and threw his eldest son out of a window. Before leaving one of the thugs tells him "The colonel sends his regards. Back in Eastern he warned you... But you didn't listen. He said to leave you alive, only you. Enjoy your new life." Torque heads to the docks and is picked up by the coast guard. On the boat, the captain recognizes him, and reveals that his case has been reopened after the prosecutor was indicted, and Torque will likely have a retrial. The game ends with the boat sailing away from Carnate. ===== Plot, according to Aristotle's Poetics, refers to the sequence events connected by cause and effect in a story. A story is a series of events conveyed in chronological order. A plot is the same series of events deliberately arranged to maximize the story's dramatic, thematic, and emotional significance. E.M.Forster famously gives the example "The king died and then the queen died" is a story." But "The king died and then the queen died of grief" is a plot. For Trey Parker and Matt Stone this is best summarized as a series of events connected by "therefore" and "but". ===== One night in Detroit, Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) plans to arrest a gang of car thieves who run a local chop shop. Unbeknownst to his boss, Inspector G. Douglas Todd (Gil Hill), Axel has canceled the SWAT, intending to raid the shop using only his team. Meanwhile, a group of four men arrive at the chop shop to pick up a cube van that the car thieves had hijacked. The leader of the group confirms that the vehicle still contains its cargo, which consists of crates labeled as property of the U.S. government, then has his men execute the car thieves. As the murderers are about to leave, Axel, unaware of what has happened inside, proceeds with his plan to enter the shop and quickly finds his team outgunned. Todd, arriving moments later, shoots down one of the men, only to be shot down himself by the group's leader. As the perpetrators escape in the cube van, an angry Axel gives chase in one of the partially disassembled cars from the shop, successfully maiming another one of the men with a bullet wound, only for his boss (who is driving the van) to push him out and get run over by Foley, killing him instantly. Foley is prevented from killing the last two men by Secret Service Agent Steve Fulbright (Stephen McHattie), who intercepts his vehicle. Fulbright informs Axel that the killer must remain on the loose because the federal government is pursuing a larger scheme in which he is involved. After Todd's funeral, Axel learns that several clues left behind by the killers point to Wonder World, a theme park in Beverly Hills, California, owned by "Uncle" Dave Thornton (Alan Young). Axel arrives in Beverly Hills and reunites with his friend Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold), who has been promoted to "Deputy Director of Operations for Joint Systems Interdepartmental Operational Command" (DDO-JSIOC), and meets Jon Flint (Hector Elizondo), Billy's new partner after John Taggart's retirement. Flint calls his friend Ellis DeWald (Timothy Carhart), the head of Wonder World's park security, to let him know that Axel's coming to the park for his investigation. Axel meets and befriends Janice Perkins (Theresa Randle) whilst touring the park's behind-the-scenes facilities. Later, he is spotted by security, shot at and attacked hand-to-hand. Axel retreats to the surface where he cuts in line to enter the Spider Ferris wheel ride. The guards accidentally jam the ride, placing two little kids' lives in danger. Axel rescues them and is subsequently taken to park manager Orrin Sanderson (John Saxon). When DeWald is called in to contest the claim that Axel was attacked by the security men without prior challenge, Axel immediately recognizes DeWald as Todd's killer, but Rosewood and Flint refuse to believe that claim because DeWald is keeping an impeccable public reputation. However, Axel is later visited by Uncle Dave and Janice, who inform him that the Wonder World park's designer and Dave's close friend, Roger Fry, has mysteriously disappeared while inspecting the grounds two weeks ago, leaving only a letter with a cryptic message. He tries to heckle DeWald into revealing his criminal involvements, despite continued admonishments by Agent Fulbright, but DeWald proves too smooth to be caught in a mistake. When Axel later digs deeper into a closed-off section of the park, he finds out that DeWald and Sanderson run a counterfeiting ring that uses Wonder World as a front, and DeWald was at the chop shop in Detroit to get his hands on blank printing paper used for American currency. Axel later meets with Uncle Dave to ask him about further details to find a piece of viable evidence, and thereby discovers that Fry's warning letter is actually written on a sheet of the stolen mint paper. Before he can make use of that evidence, however, Uncle Dave is shot by DeWald, and Axel is framed for his shooting. After getting away from DeWald and bringing Uncle Dave to a hospital, Axel sets out to prove his innocence by storming the park, calling Rosewood and Flint to assist him. The resulting shootout kills DeWald's henchmen, and after a hand-to-hand fight Axel shoots and kills DeWald. Agent Fulbright appears to explain that Axel was right, but Axel realizes his actual involvement with the counterfeiter and shoots him during a brief struggle. Uncle Dave makes a full recovery, and he thanks Axel for his assistance by creating a new character for Wonder World in his honor, Axel Fox and Axel also begins a relationship with Janice. ===== A young married couple, Gilles and Marion, are in a lawyer's office. The lawyer reads out the formal terms of their separation. Then, they book a hotel room together. We then go back in time, with the second chapter showing a tense dinner party, at which Gilles appears to admit to infidelity. The third chapter shows their son's birth, which Gilles missed by several hours, leaving Marion in the hospital with only her parents. The fourth chapter shows their wedding day. The final chapter takes place at an Italian beach resort, where their relationship began. The individual chapters are all punctuated by romantic Italian love songs, which Ozon has said he chose for their "over-the-top sentimentality" and in order to offset the darkness of some of the scenes in the film. Ozon has also said that the backward structure of the story was in part inspired by Jane Campion's 1986 film Two Friends, and that it allowed for "a true, lucid reading of a couple's story". ===== The story begins around 283 BC, with Ptolemy I Soter, who narrates throughout the film. Alexander grows up with his mother Olympias and his tutor Aristotle, where he finds interest in love, honor, music, exploration, poetry and military combat. His relationship with his father is destroyed when Philip marries Attalus's niece, Eurydice. Alexander insults Philip after disowning Attalus as his kinsman, which results in Alexander's banishment from Philip's palace. After Philip is assassinated, Alexander becomes King of Macedonia. Ptolemy mentions Alexander's punitive campaign in which he razes Thebes, also referring to the later burning of Persepolis, then gives an overview of Alexander's west-Persian campaign, including his declaration as the son of Zeus by the Oracle of Amun at Siwa Oasis, his great battle against the Persian Emperor Darius III in the Battle of Gaugamela, and his eight-year campaign across Asia. Also seen are Alexander's private relationships with his childhood friend Hephaistion, Bagoas, and later his wife, Roxana. Hephaistion compares Alexander to Achilles, to which Alexander replies that Hephaistion must be his Patroclus (Achilles' lover) when Hephaistion mentions that Patroclus died first, Alexander pledges that, if Hephaistion should die first, he will follow him into the afterlife (as Achilles had done for Patroclus). Hephaistion shows extensive jealousy when he sees Alexander with Roxana and deep sadness when he marries her, going so far as to attempt to keep her away from him after Alexander murders Cleitus the Black in India. After initial objection from his soldiers, Alexander convinces them to join him in his final and bloodiest battle, the Battle of Hydaspes. He is severely injured with an arrow but survives and is celebrated. Later on, Hephaistion succumbs to an unknown illness either by chance or perhaps poison, speculated in the movie to be typhus carried with him from India. Alexander, full of grief and anger, distances himself from his wife, despite her pregnancy, believing that she has killed Hephaistion. He dies less than three months after Hephaistion, in the same manner, keeping his promise that he would follow him. On his deathbed, Bagoas grieves as Alexander's generals begin to split up his kingdom and fight over the ownership of his body. The story then returns to 283 BC, where Ptolemy admits to his scribe that he, along with all the other officers, had indeed poisoned Alexander just to spare themselves from any future conquests or consequences. However, he has it recorded that Alexander died due to illness compounding his overall weakened condition. He then goes on to end his memoirs with praise to Alexander. The story then ends with the note that Ptolemy's memoirs of Alexander were eventually burned, lost forever with the Library of Alexandria. ===== The film is presented as a series of vignettes centered around Byrne as an unnamed, cowboy-hat-wearing stranger who visits the fictional Texas town of Virgil, where he observes the citizens as they prepare for the "Celebration of Specialness" to mark the 150th anniversary of Texas' independence. The event is being sponsored by the Varicorp Corporation, a local computer manufacturing plant. Among the many characters the visitor meets and interacts with, the most prominent are: * Louis Fyne, (John Goodman), a country-western-singing clean room technician at Varicorp who is unlucky in love, * Civic leader Earl Culver (Spalding Gray), who never speaks directly to his wife, Kay (Annie McEnroe), * Miss Rollings (Swoosie Kurtz), who never leaves her bed, * Mr. Tucker (Pops Staples), Miss Rollings' personal assistant, a kindly voodoo practitioner whom Louis hires to help him find love, * A conspiracy theorist preacher (John Ingle) whose shtick owes a great deal to the Church of the SubGenius, * Ramon (Tito Larriva), a Tejano singer who claims to hear tones from people, * "The Lying Woman" (Jo Harvey Allen), who recounts fantastic episodes from her life to anyone who will listen. ===== Ruthless lumberjack foreman Barney Glasgow (Edward Arnold) will stop at nothing to achieve his goal, to someday become the head of the logging industry in 19th century Wisconsin. His determination to succeed leads him to end his relationship with saloon singer Lotta Morgan (Frances Farmer) and marry Emma Louise Hewitt (Mary Nash), the daughter of his boss Jed Hewett (Charles Halton), in order to secure a partnership in his business. Over two decades later, a wealthy and successful Barney and Emma Louise's son Richard (Joel McCrea) strongly objects to his father's practice of destroying forests without planting new trees. Barney visits his old friend Swan Bostrom (Walter Brennan), who married Lotta when Barney rejected her. Swan is now a widower raising a daughter, also named Lotta (also played by Frances Farmer), who bears a striking resemblance to her mother. Barney finds himself attracted to the girl and, foolishly hoping to recapture the love he abandoned as a young man, offers to finance her education. Complications arise when Richard meets Lotta and takes a strong interest in her, which is reciprocated, much to Barney's displeasure and jealousy. ===== In Rome, a Mossad station chief is assassinated. The murder piques the interest of the Campus, an off-the-books intelligence agency created by former United States president Jack Ryan before the end of his presidential term. Situated in a high-rise office building that has direct line-of-sight between the main headquarters for the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, the organization was created to "identify, locate, and deal with terrorist threats" in anticipation of the current administration's neglect of the CIA and the NSA. A private trading and arbitrage company, Hendley Associates, serves as a legitimate front for the Campus by funding its operations via stock market trades influenced by the captured intelligence data, thus removing federal oversight and allowing free rein in its operations. Jack Ryan Jr., son of the former president, soon discovers the Campus' operations. Wanting to serve his country in the post-9/11 world, he is hired by the agency as an analyst. Elsewhere, his cousin Brian Caruso is a U.S. Marine returning from Afghanistan to be decorated for his achievements in battle. His twin brother Dominic is an FBI agent who, while investigating a kidnapping of a little girl, finds her raped and killed. Caruso kills the suspect ostensibly in self defense after purposely getting noticed, and the suspect reacts by grabbing a knife at gun-point (thereby providing a "threat"). The Caruso brothers are soon recruited into a Campus strike team, chosen for their ability to kill enemies in cold blood. However, Brian is unsure of the morality of carrying out preemptive assassinations, even against terrorists. This changes when cells of Islamic fundamentalists cross the U.S.-Mexico border and attack several suburban malls. Brian and Dominic happen to be at one of the malls when the attack occurs. Although they efficiently find and dispatch all four shooters, dozens of people are killed; similar massacres occur at most of the other targeted sites. When a child dies in his arms after the attack, Brian abandons his earlier moral qualms. The Campus decides the brothers are ready and implements a "reconnaissance by fire" strategy to flush out the terrorist leaders. To carry out the assassinations, the brothers are issued a weapon utilizing succinylcholine, developed by a Columbia University professor whose brother died in the 9/11 attacks. The succinylcholine is delivered through a hypodermic needle disguised as a pen. Twisting the nib switches the tip from a normal tip to a sharp needle that delivers 7 milligrams of the substance. Only 5 milligrams are necessary for death. The substance causes complete paralysis at 30 to 50 seconds and death at 3 minutes, shutting down all the muscles within the victim (including the diaphragm), with the exception of the heart. However, it makes the murder look like a heart attack, thus raising no suspicion. Disguised as tourists, the team travels across Europe, finding and murdering several major players in the terrorist organization. The first three murders go off fairly routinely, and for the fourth assassination, the brothers are joined by their cousin Jack. Although originally present as an observer, Jack is forced to kill the target himself when a random accident spills wine on the brothers' suits, spoiling their anonymous appearance. After murdering the terrorist (coincidentally in the same men's room where the terrorist had killed the Mossad station chief), Jack uses his hotel key to gain access to his computer and downloads the entire contents for later analysis. ===== An angel named Raziel (previously in Moore's novel Lamb) is sent to Earth to grant the wish of a child; he decides to help a boy who had witnessed the death of a man dressed as Santa Claus. Meanwhile, the town is preparing for a community dinner- gathering at the local church, near the cemetery. In his inept attempt to bring "Santa" back to life, the angel causes the townspeople to fall under siege by brain-hungry zombies who arise from their burial plots. ===== During a high school basketball game, Odin James (Mekhi Phifer) scores the basket that wins the game for his team. Later at an awards ceremony, the coach, Duke Goulding (Martin Sheen) presents the Most Valuable Player (MVP) award to Odin for his efforts, an award he shares with his teammate Michael Cassio (Andrew Keegan). In giving Odin the award, Duke passes over his son Hugo (Josh Hartnett), Odin's teammate and best friend. At a party celebrating the victory, Hugo plans with school outcast Roger Calhoun (Elden Henson) to go to the school's dean, Bob Brable (John Heard) and tell him that Odin raped his daughter, Desi (Julia Stiles), whom Odin has been dating. Hugo promises Roger that Desi will be his after Odin is out of the way, but Roger is only a pawn in Hugo's ultimate plan to destroy Odin. Later, in another game, Odin's team wins once again. At the celebration party, Hugo engineers a fight between Roger and a very drunk Michael, who is temporarily suspended from the team. Hugo tells Michael to ingratiate himself with Desi so that she will talk to Odin on his behalf. Soon afterward, Hugo tells Odin that Michael and Desi have been spending a lot of time together, and that she may be cheating on him. Odin doesn't believe this at first, but gradually comes to suspect them. Odin questions Desi, but she calms him down and he believes her. Nevertheless, the stress of the situation drives Odin to begin using drugs. Hugo manipulates his girlfriend Emily (Rain Phoenix) into stealing a scarf for him that Odin had given to Desi. Hugo, in turn, gives it to Michael in hopes that Odin will believe that Desi gave Michael the scarf, and so is cheating on him. Meanwhile, Odin and Desi are having sex at a motel, during which Odin sees an image of Michael on top of Desi in the mirror; angered, he becomes very rough with Desi, to the point that she cries out for him to stop, a plea he ignores as he continues to rape her. Afterward, they lie together staring in opposite directions. After Odin assaults another student during a game in a drug-fueled rage, Hugo tells him about the scarf, convincing him that Desi is cheating on him. Enraged, Odin vows to kill her; Hugo then promises to kill Michael. Hugo, with Odin and Roger, plans to kill Michael and Desi. Hugo and Roger attempt to kill Michael in a carjacking, but it does not go as planned: Roger and Michael struggle, Hugo hits Michael with a crowbar, knocking him unconscious. Roger shoots Michael in the leg, and then Hugo turns the gun on Roger and kills him after telling him that Desi is dead. Odin and Desi are in Desi's room talking and Odin is pretending to make up with her. They are making out on the bed when suddenly Odin attacks her; Desi fights back, but he finally strangles her to death. Emily rushes into the room and sees Desi's corpse; she soon finds out what Hugo has done. She begins telling Odin that Hugo told her to steal the scarf and exposes his plot, and Hugo fatally shoots her when she refuses to be quiet. Odin finally realizes that Hugo has been manipulating him the entire time, and demands to know why; Hugo refuses to answer. When the police arrive, Odin tells them what happened and commits suicide. As Hugo is taken into police custody, he says in voice over that he will have his day in the spotlight. ===== The main character is Henry, fiction editor for the struggling Logan's magazine. Henry receives an unsolicited short story from up-and-coming novelist Reg Thorpe, and considers the story to be very dark, but also a masterpiece. Through his correspondence with Thorpe, Henry learns of—and, due to Henry's own alcoholism, eventually begins to believe in—Thorpe's various paranoid fantasies. Most notably, Henry and Thorpe believe that their typewriters serve as homes for Fornits—tiny elves who bring creativity and good luck. The story, told from Henry's perspective as he relays it in anecdotal form at a barbecue, concerns Henry's descent into Thorpe's madness. Meanwhile, Henry also struggles to get Thorpe's story published, despite the fact that Logan's is in the process of closing its fiction department. ===== Barbara, a veteran history teacher at a comprehensive school in London, is a lonely, unmarried woman in her early sixties, and she is eager to find a close friend. However, she reveals that she has been unable to make a previous friendship last as she was considered by previous friends to be domineering and demanding. Her former friend, teacher Jennifer Dodd, even threatened her with an injunction if she tried contacting her again. When Bathsheba "Sheba" Hart is hired as an art teacher, Barbara immediately feels that they might become close friends. When Sheba invites Barbara for Sunday lunch with her family, she is ecstatic and gives the lunch date enormous significance. Initially unknown to Barbara, Sheba falls in love with a 15-year-old pupil, Steven Connolly, who is from a deprived background and has literacy problems. Although they frequently have sex in risky places, including at school and in the open on Hampstead Heath, the unlikely couple successfully conceal their affair from colleagues and family. During Barbara's first visit to Sheba's residence, she tells Barbara a highly expurgated version of what has happened between her and Connolly, claiming only that he has tried to kiss her and that she discouraged his advances. Barbara offers her some advice on how to cool the boy's ardour, and considers the matter closed. Sheba confesses to Barbara that despite her apparently charmed life, she feels unfulfilled. Sheba has a difficult relationship with her rebellious seventeen-year-old daughter, Polly, whose youth and beauty only intensify her mother's own feelings of aging and waste. Sheba's husband, Richard, is significantly older than she is, and their relationship sometimes has a father-daughter element to it. Sheba's complaints trouble Barbara, who had considered Sheba to have the perfect family life. Barbara eventually finds out about the affair on Guy Fawkes Night, when she sees Sheba talking to Connolly on Primrose Hill. Barbara feels betrayed that Sheba did not confide in her properly about this during the early stages of their friendship, and is angered by Sheba's obsession with Connolly and her relative neglect of their friendship. When Barbara's cat Portia is diagnosed with colon cancer and needs to be euthanised, she seeks out Sheba for support, only for her to get a call from Connolly during their meeting. Sheba abandons a distraught Barbara in favour of Connolly, compounding Barbara's sense of betrayal from her. The power dynamics in the relationship between Connolly and Sheba are changing, with Connolly's interest in the affair waning as Sheba's grows. Sheba becomes needier and starts to write love letters to the boy. Sheba secretly visits Connolly in his parents' council house, and Connolly callously insults her when she tries to make conversation with him. Sheba still does not break off the affair, having become quite enslaved to the now barely invested Connolly. Brian Bangs, a mathematics teacher, asks Barbara to have Saturday lunch with him one day just before Christmas. He confesses his infatuation with Sheba, leading Barbara to realise that he only asked her out to use her as a means to discover information about Sheba's private life. Overcome by jealousy, Barbara alludes to Sheba's secret. ("'Sheba likes younger men, you know. Much younger men.' I paused a moment. 'I mean, you are aware of her unusually close relationship with one of the Year Eleven boys? '") Afterwards, Barbara is wracked with guilt, but cannot summon up the courage to tell Sheba what she has done. Rather, she hopes Bangs will not report what she has told him. Sheba's relationship with Polly deteriorates further when the girl's unruly behaviour results in her expulsion from her boarding school. On two occasions, Polly accuses Sheba of having an affair. Sheba is furious about the accusation, believing that she has covered her tracks successfully. Meanwhile, Sheba attempts to take comfort in Connolly throughout her troubles by calling him constantly, and when he fails to answer her calls, she shows up again at his house, only to find that Connolly has taken up with a younger girl and abandoned her. Even this new found evidence of Connolly's loss of interest in her is not enough for Sheba to cease her obsession of him, and she pines for him even knowing she will never hear from him again. The school's headmaster is somehow informed about the illicit affair — it is implied that the culprit is Bangs. Sheba is suspended from her job and charged with indecent assault on a pupil. Her husband demands that she leave the family home and prevents her from seeing their children, especially their son Ben, who has Down syndrome; Polly, meanwhile, refuses to have any contact with her. While Sheba's life is quickly disintegrating, Barbara thrives on the new situation, which she considers her chance to prove her qualities as a friend, even when the headmaster, glad to rid himself of one of his severest critics, forces her into early retirement. Barbara gives up the lease on her own small flat and moves with Sheba into temporary accommodation in Sheba's brother's house. Sheba finds Barbara's manuscript and discovers that she has been writing an account of her relationship with Connolly. She is distraught and furious, not least because Barbara has written about events she did not personally witness, and made judgements about people close to Sheba. She is eventually reconciled with Barbara due to their shared desperation and loneliness, as both have now lost everything. Even now, Barbara uses their desperate circumstances as yet another opportunity to further their relationship, and the mentally weakened Sheba can do little to resist. The novel ends with Sheba, trapped and demoralised, resigning to Barbara's dominance of her. ===== Frank Murphy (Roy Scheider) is a Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) air support division pilot and troubled Vietnam War veteran with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). His newly assigned observer is novice Richard Lymangood (Daniel Stern). The two patrol Los Angeles at night and give assistance to police forces on the ground. Murphy is instructed to attend a sunrise demonstration in the Mojave Desert at "Pinkville", and is selected to pilot an advanced helicopter, informally called "The Special" and nicknamed "Blue Thunder", during an evaluation exercise. It is a military-style combat aircraft intended for police use in surveillance and against possible large- scale civic disobedience during the then-upcoming 1984 Olympic games. With powerful armament, and other accoutrements such as thermal infrared scanners, unidirectional microphones and cameras, built-in mobile telephone, computer and modem, and a U-Matic Video Cassette Recorder (VCR), Blue Thunder appears to be a formidable tool in the war on crime. Murphy notes wryly that with enough of these helicopters "you could run the whole damn country." When the death of city councilwoman Diana McNeely turns out to be more than just a random murder, Murphy begins his own covert investigation. He discovers that a subversive action group is intending instead to use Blue Thunder in a military role to quell disorder under the project codename T.H.O.R. ("Tactical Helicopter Offensive Response"), and is secretly eliminating political opponents to advance its agenda. Murphy suspects the involvement of his old wartime nemesis, former United States Army Colonel F.E. Cochrane (Malcolm McDowell), the primary test pilot for Blue Thunder and someone who felt Murphy was "unsuitable" for the program. Murphy and Lymangood use Blue Thunder to record a meeting between Cochrane and the other government officials which would implicate them in the conspiracy, but Cochrane looks outside and sees Blue Thunder and realizes what has happened. After landing, Lymangood secures the tape and hides it, but is captured upon returning to his home, interrogated, and then killed while trying to escape. Murphy hijacks Blue Thunder and arranges to have his girlfriend Kate (Candy Clark) retrieve the tape and deliver it to the local news station, using the helicopter to thwart her pursuers. Kate arrives at the news station, but is almost captured by one of the conspirators; the reporter Kate was sent to find intercepts Kate and gets the tape back, while the conspirator is knocked unconscious by a security guard. Two Air National Guard F-16 fighters are deployed to deal with Murphy, but he manages to shoot one down and evade the other. However, in the process, one missile destroys a barbecue stand in Little Tokyo and a second impacts ARCO Plaza in Downtown Los Angeles. The operation is then suspended by the mayor. Cochrane, disobeying orders to stand down, ambushes Blue Thunder in a heavily armed Hughes 500 helicopter, and after a tense battle, Murphy is able to shoot him down after executing a 360° loop through use of Blue Thunder's turbine boost function. Murphy then destroys Blue Thunder by landing it in front of an approaching freight train. In the meantime, the tape is made public and, as a result, the conspirators are arrested. ===== Charles Brady and his mother Mary are Sleepwalkers, nomadic shapeshifting energy vampires who feed off the lifeforce of virgin women. Though they normally maintain a human form, they can transform into human-sized bipedal werecats, their natural form, at will. They have powers of both telekinesis and illusion. Their one weakness is cats, with whom they have a mutual hostility, which can not only see through their illusions, but can inflict severe to fatal wounds upon them with their claws. Charles and Mary live in Travis, a small Indiana town, having recently fled Bodega Bay, California after draining and killing a young girl there. Charles attends the local high school, and meets Tanya Robertson in his creative writing class. Charles feigns romantic interest in Tanya in order to take her lifeforce for himself and his mother, who is starving. Their teacher, Mr. Fallow, has his suspicions about Charles and tells him that his older high school certificates were fakes; he also tries to sexually assault Charles, but Charles kills him. On their first date, at a picnic at a nearby cemetery, Charles attempts to drain Tanya's lifeforce while kissing her. Tanya tries frantically to ward off Charles by bashing his head with her camera, scratching his face, and plunging a corkscrew into his left eye; though nothing she does seems to cause Charles more than temporary discomfort. Deputy Sheriff Andy Simpson is driving by the cemetery. When Tanya flees to him for help, Charles kills Simpson. When Charles resumes feeding off Tanya, the deputy's cat, Clovis, violently scratches him in the face and chest. Mortally wounded, Charles staggers back home to his mother, who is able to make both of them invisible, and thus keep Charles from being arrested when the police storm their house. Clovis and a small number of other cats begin to gather outside, only kept at bay by the leghold traps the Sleepwalkers have set. Knowing that the only way for her dying son to survive is to feed, Mary attacks the Robertson household, killing several deputies and state troopers and severely wounding Tanya's parents. She kidnaps Tanya and takes her back to her house. Charles is near death, but Mary revives him, and Charles makes a final attempt to drain Tanya's life force. However, Tanya plunges her fingers into his eyes, killing him. Tanya escapes with the help of the sheriff who is later impaled by Mary on the picket fence surrounding the house. The cats that have been gathering around their house, led by Clovis, jump on Mary and claw and bite her until she bursts into flames. As she dies, she screams that Tanya "killed her only son". Tanya hugs Clovis as the other cats depart, leaving Mary's body lying ablaze on her driveway.Sleepwalkers (DVD Review) ===== Solange and Claire are two housemaids who construct elaborate sadomasochistic rituals when their mistress (Madame) is away. The focus of their role-playing is the murder of Madame and they take turns portraying both sides of the power divide. Their deliberate pace and devotion to detail guarantees that they always fail to actualize their fantasies by ceremoniously "killing" Madame at the ritual's dénouement. ===== Wayne Hayes (Robert Redford), and his wife Eileen (Helen Mirren) are living the American dream in a wealthy Pittsburgh suburb, having raised two children (Alessandro Nivola, Melissa Sagemiller) and built up a successful business from scratch. He is looking forward to a peaceful retirement with Eileen. Everything changes when Wayne is kidnapped in broad daylight by a former employee, Arnold Mack (Willem Dafoe). While Wayne tries negotiating with the kidnapper, Eileen works with the FBI to try to secure her husband's release. During the investigation, Eileen learns that Wayne has continued an extramarital affair that he promised to end months previously. Eileen is eventually instructed to deliver the ransom to the kidnapper, but Arnold takes the money without returning her husband; Arnold murdered Wayne the day of the kidnapping. Although Eileen's ordeal takes place over the course of a week, the film is edited to show Wayne's kidnapping as if it was happening at the same time. Arnold is eventually caught when he begins to spend the ransom money in the neighborhood where he lives. At a local grocery store, he uses a $100 bill to make a purchase. The store manager calls authorities and verifies the serial number on the $100 bill is on a watch list the FBI distributed to local businesses. During questioning Arnold is asked if he wanted to be caught, and he admits that the kidnapping was to get money for his depressed wife, but it took him all day to bring himself to kill Wayne and he could not live with the guilt of his crime. In the end, Eileen receives a loving note written by Wayne before his death. ===== Lillian "Lil" Andrews (Jean Harlow) is a young woman, living in Ohio, who will do anything to improve herself. She seduces her wealthy boss William "Bill" Legendre Jr. (Chester Morris) and cleverly breaks up his marriage with his loving wife Irene (Leila Hyams). Irene reconsiders and tries to reconcile with Bill, only to find he has married Lil the previous day. However, Lil finds herself shunned by high society, including Bill's father, Will Legendre, Sr. (Lewis Stone), because of her lower-class origins and homewrecking. When Charles B. Gaerste (Henry Stephenson), a nationally known coal tycoon and the main customer of the Legendre's company, visits the city, Lil thinks she has found a way to force her way into the highest social circles. She seduces Charles, then blackmails him into throwing a party at her mansion, knowing that no one would dare offend him by not showing up. It seems like a social coup for Lil, until her hairdresser friend and confidante Sally (Una Merkel) points out that all the guests have left early to attend a surprise party for Irene (who lives across the street). Charles Boyer as Albert and Jean Harlow as Lillian Humiliated, she decides to move to New York City, even if it means a temporary separation from her husband. Will Sr. finds Lil's handkerchief at Gaerste's place and correctly guesses what Lil has done. He shows his evidence to his son, who hires detectives to watch Lil. They find that she is conducting not one, but two affairs, with Charles and his handsome French chauffeur Albert (Charles Boyer). Bill shows Charles damning photographs. When Lil learns that Charles has found out about her, she returns to Bill, only to find him with Irene. Furious, she shoots him, but he survives and refuses to have her charged with attempted murder. However, he does divorce her, and remarries Irene. Two years later, he sees her again, at a racetrack in Paris, in the company of an aged Frenchman. He discreetly hides Irene's binoculars. In the final scene, Lil and her elderly companion get into a limousine driven by Albert. ===== On the French Riviera, Cécile is a decadent young girl who lives with her rich playboy father, Raymond. Anne, a mature and cultured friend of Raymond's late wife, arrives at Raymond's villa for a visit. Anne and Raymond become close, but Cécile finds that Anne threatens to reform the undisciplined way of life that she has shared with her father. Despite his promises of fidelity to Anne, Raymond cannot give up his playboy life. Helped by Elsa, Raymond's young and flighty mistress, Cécile does her best to break up the relationship with Anne. The combination of the daughter's disdain and the father's rakishness drives Anne to a tragic end.Bonjour Tristesse (1957) – Trailers, Reviews, Synopsis, Showtimes and Cast. Allmovie. ===== Two young bears, Nikomi and Chinook, know nothing of Christmas until the local park ranger tells them about the legend, and they become curious to meet Santa Claus. Their mother, Nana, is preparing for Winter hibernation and cynically tells her children there is no Santa, but they are determined to believe. Mother finds it impossible to begin their sleep, since the young cubs wish to stay awake until Santa arrives. ===== Jack Breslin (Joseph Cortese) is a police officer investigating brutal murders in which organs have been removed from the victims. He learns that the crimes are being committed by a monstrous alien insectoid prisoner known as a xenomorph, possessing shape-shifting and physical possession abilities, who has escaped from an alien prison starship passing by the solar system, and he teams up with a beautiful medical officer from that ship, Ta'Ra (Maryam d'Abo), to track down the villain. Ta'Ra has assorted superhuman abilities, including telepathy and superhuman agility, which come in handy during the mission. ===== Cynical newspaper reporter George Beckworth attends a Special Forces briefing about the reasons for American military involvement in the Vietnam civil war (democratic South Vietnam v. the communist Viet Cong). He is shown captured weapons and equipment made in various communist countries, confirming that international communism is the enemy of democracy. When Beckworth remains skeptical about the value of U.S. intervention, Green Beret Colonel Mike Kirby asks him if he's ever been to Southeast Asia. Beckworth admits he hasn't, and decides to go there on a reporting mission. Meanwhile, Colonel Kirby is posted to Vietnam with orders to build a team to work with the South Vietnamese. He catches a man from another unit, Spc. Petersen, appropriating supplies from Kirby's supply depot, but decides to utilise his skills on his new team. Arriving in South Vietnam, they meet Beckworth, whom Kirby allows to accompany them to the front-line camp. Despite signs of humanitarian work, he remains unconvinced of America's need to be in Vietnam. Petersen befriends a young war-orphan Ham Chuck with no family other than his pet dog and the soldiers at the base camp. Also introduced is the South Vietnamese strike force leader Captain Nghiem, who had once fought for the North, but is now fanatically anti Viet Cong. He claims there is a spy network within the camp and his strike force. Following an enemy attack, Sergeant Muldoon notices a South Vietnamese soldier acting suspiciously and knocks him out. When Captain Nghiem interrogates the soldier, he discovers a silver Zippo lighter that belonged to a Green Beret medical specialist, a friend of Kirby's, recently murdered by the Viet Cong. After Beckworth sees Nghiem torture the Viet Cong suspect to get a confession from him, he confronts Kirby about it. The Colonel justifies the interrogation by telling Beckworth about the cigarette lighter, and says the Viet Cong are ruthless killers who deserve no legal protections of any sort in this new kind of war. A few days later, Beckworth accompanies Kirby and his team on a patrol in the nearby mountains. Beckworth witnesses the aftermath of a Viet Cong terror attack. The whole family of a village chief he had befriended earlier have been tortured and executed by the Viet Cong for cooperating with the Americans. The next night, the Special Forces camp is subjected to a human wave attack by thousands of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops. Beckworth is forced to take a rifle from a fallen sergeant and fight alongside the Green Berets. He also helps move the local villagers into the camp to protect them from the enemy onslaught. As the battle rages, Ham Chuck's pet dog is killed and the young boy tearfully buries his faithful companion, before being found by Sergeant Petersen, who takes him to safety with the other refugees. The perimeter is breached by enemy sappers who blow openings in the barbed wire fences around the camp. The Green Berets and South Vietnamese are forced to fall back to the inner perimeter. Captain Nghiem sets off hidden explosives which kill the double agents, and a mortar brings down the observation tower in which Ngheim, Kirby and other officers had been standing. As the other officers move away, Ngheim sets off explosives hidden under the camp approaches but is killed by another mortar immediately after. Kirby and Muldoon arrive with reinforcements, but by dawn the enemy is still attacking, and Colonel Kirby orders the troops to withdraw from the camp. U.S. Army helicopters arrive to evacuate the refugees. Petersen puts Ham Chuck on one and promises to return for him in Da Nang. With the base in enemy hands, Kirby orders an airstrike by a Douglas AC-47, which kills the occupying Northern troops. With the enemy dead or fled, Kirby and his team re-occupy the destroyed camp. Beckworth tells Kirby he will file a story supporting United States involvement in the war, though he'll probably be fired for it. He thanks Kirby for the experience and returns to Da Nang. Back at headquarters, Kirby meets with his superior, Colonel Morgan, as well as Kirby's South Vietnamese counterpart, Colonel Cai. He is told about a top secret mission they have been planning. The goal is to kidnap a very important North Vietnamese field commander named General Pha Son Ti. This is seen as a bargaining chip to end the war on South Vietnam's terms, as well as disrupting the leadership of the Viet Cong. Colonel Cai uses his sister-in-law, a top Vietnamese/French fashion model named Lin, as a honey trap to lure General Ti to a former French colonial mansion in a well-guarded valley in North Vietnam. Kirby, Muldoon, Peterson are among those selected for this secret mission by Cai, who will accompany them, and they are parachuted into the North Vietnamese jungle. Muldoon, medical specialist Doc McGee, and two of Cai's men stay behind at a local bridge over a river to set explosives to blow it up to stop pursuit by the enemy forces as the team exfiltrates with General Ti. Kirby and his group witness the enemy general arriving at his plantation with Lin. As they watch from cover, the scene shifts to the General's bedroom where Lin has sex with the General, being discovered in bed with him after all the sentries around the mansion have been killed. The group subdue the enemy general with Lin's help, and hoist him outside, where they put him in the trunk of his car. Kirby, Cai, Petersen, Watson, and Lin drive away, but the rest of the team is killed by North Vietnamese guards while attempting to escape. At dawn, the survivors cross the bridge which McGee and Muldoon rigged with explosives. The bridge is destroyed, but Doc McGee is seriously wounded as he and Muldoon escape. The survivors of the raid airlift the captured General out of the area by a Skyhook device mounted to a transport plane. While Kirby and the group advance through the jungle to where helicopters will pick them up, Petersen is killed by a booby-trap which leaves him impaled on spikes. The others are forced to leave his body behind. At Da Nang, Beckworth watches as Ham Chuck awaits the return of the helicopters. He realizes the toll of war as Ham Chuck runs crying from helicopter to helicopter, searching for Petersen. Kirby, in a touching moment, walks over to the boy and tells him of Peterson's death. Chuck asks plaintively, "What will happen to me now?" Kirby places Petersen's green beret on him and says, "You let me worry about that, Green Beret. You're what this thing's all about." Holding hands, the two walk along the beach into the sunset as "Ballad of the Green Berets" plays. =====