From Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ===== Told in three acts set in Montana and California, the story alternates between two families after a severe incident of spousal abuse leaves all their lives altered until the final collision at an isolated cabin. The two families are linked by the marriage of Jake (son of Lorraine and brother of Sally and Frankie) and Beth (daughter of Baylor and Meg and sister of Mike). The play begins with Beth recuperating in her parents' home after a hospitalization resulting from Jake's abuse. Exploring family dysfunction and the nature of love, the play follows Jake as he searches for meaning after his relationship with Beth and her family as they struggle with Beth's brain damage. ===== The Federation starship Enterprise investigates a sector of space where starships have been disappearing every 27.346 years. A compelling musical signal lures the Enterprise to a remote planet in the Taurean system. The music works on the men of the Enterprise, affecting their judgement and causing them to experience euphoric hallucinations. Captain Kirk, First Officer Spock, Chief Medical Officer Dr. McCoy, and Lieutenant Carver beam down to the source of the signals. The inhabitants are a race of beautiful women who want to celebrate their arrival. As they indulge in the entertainments the women offer, they find themselves in a lethargic state and rapidly aging. Headbands locked around their foreheads transmit their life-force to the women, who are growing in strength. On board the Enterprise, Communications Officer Lt. Uhura talks with Nurse Chapel about the men's condition and concludes that she must take command due to the euphoric state of Chief Engineer Scott. Kirk and his party gather enough strength to escape to a spacious garden and hide inside a tall urn. They realize the pace of their loss of strength correlates with the proximity of the women. They decide that Spock should go back alone and attempt to find their communicators and contact the ship, since he has not deteriorated as much as the others. Spock completes his task and orders Uhura to come down with an all-female rescue party. Uhura beams down with Chapel and a female security force. When the native women try to force them to leave, they stun them with their phasers. When Uhura threatens to destroy their temple, the Taurean women explain how they came to be in their current situation; when their people settled on the planet, the planet weakened them, and the women could only survive by draining the men's remaining energy, causing their deaths. The women are now immortal and unaging, but cannot reproduce, and every 27 years must lure males and drain their life forces to stay alive. At Uhura's urging, the Taurean women help them locate the male landing party, who are drowning in the urn due to a rainstorm. The female landing party frees them using their phasers. The aging process is stopped with the removal of the headbands, but they cannot find a treatment to restore their original age. Spock comes up with the idea of using their original transporter patterns from when they first beamed down. Uhura returns to the planet, and witnesses the Taurean leader, Theela, destroying the device that had been luring starships, stating that Uhura should tell Kirk she kept her side of the bargain. Uhura informs them that a ship of women will return to bring them to a habitable world and that the women's bodies should return to normal in a few months. Theela is pleased, preferring a life fully lived to a static immortality. ===== While exploring the newly discovered planet Phylos for possible Federation colonization, Lt. Sulu picks up a walking plant, called a Retlaw, and is poisoned by a stinger. The plantlike alien beings who inhabit the planet approach the Enterprise landing party and their leader, Agmar, saves Sulu's life. The Phylosians say they were nearly wiped out by a mild terrestrial disease that was brought to the planet by Dr. Stavos Keniclius, a Terran scientist who survived Earth's Eugenics Wars. A giant clone of Keniclius, named Keniclius Five, kidnaps First Officer Spock. Keniclius has survived through the centuries by periodically transferring his consciousness into a new, more advanced clone body. He believes the galaxy is as war-ravaged as Earth was when he left it. He plans to enforce peace on the galaxy with the aid of a fleet of Phylosian ships and a giant clone of Spock that he's created by transferring Spock's consciousness into it, leaving Spock's original body a mindless shell. The newly awakened Spock Two uses his Vulcan telepathic abilities to mind meld with his original self and save his life. The two Spocks, in concert with Captain James T. Kirk, convince Keniclius that the need for his plan no longer exists. Spock Two and Keniclius Five devote themselves to restoring the Phylosian civilization as Spock One departs with his shipmates. ===== The novel is written in the third person, but is mostly written from the perspective of Niel Herbert, a young man who grows up in Sweet Water and witnesses the decline of Mrs. Forrester, for whom he feels very deeply, and also of the West itself from the idealized age of noble pioneers to the age of capitalist exploitation. ===== Born on the Fourth of July, 1900, John Sims (James Murray) loses his father when he is twelve. At 21, he sets out for New York City, where he is sure he will become somebody important, just as his father had always believed. Another boat passenger tells him he will have to be good in order to stand out from the crowd. John gets a job as one of many office workers of the Atlas Insurance Company. Fellow employee Bert (Bert Roach) talks him into a double date to Coney Island. John is so smitten with Mary (Eleanor Boardman), he proposes to her at the end of the date; she accepts. Bert predicts the marriage will last a year or two. A Christmas Eve dinner in their tiny apartment with Mary's mother (Lucy Beaumont) and two brothers (Daniel G. Tomlinson and Dell Henderson), with whom John is not on friendly terms, ends badly. John goes to Bert's to get some liquor. A young woman there throws herself at him, complimenting him on his looks, and starts to dance with him. John returns home very late and very drunk. Mary's family has gone home, and she tells him that they do not understand him. They exchange Christmas gifts and John compliments her, but yells at her when she does something trivial. In April, they quarrel and Mary threatens to leave, and is shocked and hurt by John's apathy when he does not try to stop her. The couple reconciles when Mary tells John that she is pregnant. She gives birth to a son. Over the next five years, the couple have a daughter and an $8 raise, but Mary is dissatisfied with John's lack of advancement, especially compared to Bert, and in light of John's big talk about his prospects. Finally, John wins $500 for an advertising slogan; and buys presents for his family. When he and Mary urge their children to rush home to see their gifts, their daughter is killed by a truck. John is so overcome with grief, he cannot function at work. When reprimanded, he quits. John gets other jobs, but cannot hold onto any of them. Mary's brothers reluctantly offer him a position, but John is too proud to accept what he deems a "charity job". In a fit of rage, Mary slaps him. John goes for a walk, contemplates suicide, but his son goes with him. The child's unconditional love for him makes him rethink his situation, and he changes his mind. John gets work as a sandwich board carrier and returns home, his optimism renewed, only to find Mary about to leave with her brothers. She steps out of the house, but no further. She loves John too much to abandon him. The reconciled family attends a vaudeville comedy show, with the final shot showing them overcome with laughter, and lost in the crowded audience of laughing people. ===== Octavia Brennan is a beautiful yet flawed young woman, living the high life in 1970s London. Though she is deeply flirtatious and has - by her own admission - slept with many men, she has never found happiness with any of them. After bumping into an old school friend, Gussie, and falling for her fiancé, Jeremy, Octavia is invited to spend the weekend with them on their canal boat. Characteristically, she convinces herself that Jeremy cannot possibly have real affection for the overweight and clumsy Gussie, and she is determined to win Jeremy by the end of the weekend. But when Jeremy invites Welsh firebrand Gareth Llewellyn along for the ride, Octavia finds her plans disrupted in more ways than one. ===== Sybil, in hospital for a few days, instructs Basil on several tasks he must do at the hotel, including running a required fire drill and hanging a moose head. At the hotel, Basil has a conversation with Major Gowen, who tells an anecdote about a Test match, in the course of it blithely referring to West Indians as "niggers" and to Indians as "wogs". The Major also expresses his dislike of Germans when Basil tells him a German group is due the next day. Basil then has several pratfalls with Manuel while trying to hang the moose head, including many calls from Sybil reminding him to do so. At one point, he leaves the head on the hotel counter to get a hammer, during which Manuel practises his English from behind the counter; a confused Major thinks the moose head is talking. The next morning Basil successfully mounts the head. After another call from Sybil, Basil prepares to start the fire drill, but ends up creating confusion with the guests between the fire alarm and the burglar alarm (with the fire alarm being "a semitone higher" than the burglar alarm). Matters are made worse when Manuel actually causes a fire in the kitchen, setting off the alarm, but Basil, unaware of this, assures the guests it is only a drill. After starting the alarm, he tries to use the extinguisher on the fire, which bursts and sprays him in the face, blinding him. Manuel races out of the kitchen and tries to help Basil, only to accidentally knock him out with a frying pan. Basil wakes up in hospital after suffering concussion, and Sybil attests to Dr Finn that Basil cannot cope with the hotel alone. Basil sneaks out and returns to Fawlty Towers in time to greet the German guests. Despite telling everyone not to "mention the war", due to a combination of his own animosity and concussion-induced mental confusion, Basil makes numerous WWII references whilst taking their dinner orders and begins arguing with them, calling out Nazi Germany and frequently referring to Adolf Hitler and others. Polly discreetly calls the hospital to warn them about Basil's behaviour. As one of the Germans breaks down into tears, Basil starts into war jokes and mocks Hitler's goose-stepping. Dr Finn arrives, prompting Basil to try to escape, Manuel giving chase. However, Basil hits the wall where he hung the moose head, which falls, knocks Basil out again, and lands on Manuel's head. As the Germans look on in disbelief, the Major comes out and thinks the moose is speaking to him again. The Germans ask aloud how the British could have won the war. ===== ===== Harry Perkins is the left-wing Leader of the Labour Party and Member of Parliament for Sheffield Central. Beating all the odds, Harry becomes Prime Minister and sets out to dismantle media monopolies, withdraw from NATO, carry out unilateral nuclear disarmament, and create an open government. Many people in the media, financial services, and the intelligence services are deeply unhappy with Harry's win and his policies, and they unite to stop him by any means. ===== The Peanuts gang heads off to Camp Remote somewhere in the mountains. Charlie Brown is accidentally left behind by the bus while at a desolate rest stop. He is then forced to hitch a harrowing ride on Snoopy's motorcycle in order to make the rest of the journey to the camp, accompanied by rock guitar type riffs while he is shouting in fear at Snoopy's wild driving. Upon their arrival, the kids are immediately exposed to the regimentation and squalor of camp life which is a stark contrast to their comfortable residences back home. They are unfamiliar with the concept that the camp schedule is in the 24-hour clock (Franklin asks if "oh-five-hundred" [5:00 AM] is noon, and Sally thinks "eighteen-hundred" [6:00 PM] is a year). Although they do their best to adjust to the rigors of camp life, Snoopy, in a tent of his own, enjoys an ice cream sundae while watching a Western film on his portable TV set. The gang must contend with a trio of ruthless bullies (and their cat, Brutus, vicious enough to intimidate even Snoopy and Woodstock) who openly boast of them having won a raft race every year they have competed. The only thing that keeps them at bay is Linus using his security blanket like a whip (which also gets him unwanted attention from Sally due to her praising the courage of her self-proclaimed "Sweet Babboo"). It is revealed that they have only "won" through outright cheating — using a raft equipped with an outboard motor, direction finder, radar and sonar. They also resort to every trick they could think of to hamper or destroy everyone else's chance to even make it to the finish line, much less win the race. The kids are broken into three groups: the boys' group (consisting of Charlie Brown, Linus, Schroeder, and Franklin), the girls' group (consisting of Peppermint Patty, Marcie, Sally, and Lucy), and Snoopy and Woodstock. Charlie Brown is the reluctant leader of the boys' group, struggling with insecurity but doing what he can to work things out and implement his decisions. His antithesis is Peppermint Patty, the leader of the girls' group who is very confident despite her ineptitude as a leader, doing little more than stand around and give orders. Moreover, she insists on every decision - no matter how inconsequential - being confirmed by a vote of secret ballots. Predictably, when the voting is tied or she disagrees with the outcome, she often overrules the decision, to the disdain of the other girls. The bullies are overconfident; they use their cheating to burst ahead, but in their boasting they fail to watch where they are going and crash into a dock, which costs them a lot of time and effort to dislodge their boat while the others sail past. The groups see many unique sights along the river race, such as mountains, forests, and a riparian logging community of houses built on docks. However, they also run into different obstacles: getting lost, stranded, storms, blizzards, and sabotage from the bullies. Snoopy abandons the race to search tirelessly for Woodstock when a storm separates them; after a long search, they manage to find each other and are joyfully reunited. Snoopy and Woodstock reunite with the gang by running into them at an abandoned cabin. Charlie Brown grows increasingly into his leadership role; ultimately, after the bullies sabotage everyone else's rafts, the boys' and girls' teams merge. Although treated as a scapegoat for problems, Charlie Brown handles it well, such as when the team is trapped on a water wheel; he decides that it is incumbent upon him as the leader to remove the obstacle. Thanks to Charlie Brown's growing self-confidence and leadership, the gang has a good chance of winning the race at its climax, after overcoming considerable odds. Unfortunately, Peppermint Patty incites the girls to celebrate too soon; they accidentally knock the boys overboard in their excitement. The girls attempt to rescue the boys, only to fall overboard themselves. The bullies seize the opportunity to pull ahead. The bullies gloat about their apparently imminent victory, yet their brash over-confidence, infighting, and constant carelessness during the race has seen them become involved in numerous mishaps, causing them to suffer substantial damage to their raft. Just shy of the finish line, their raft finally gives out and sinks. This leaves Snoopy and Woodstock as the only contenders left. Brutus slashes Snoopy's inner tube with a claw, but Woodstock promptly builds a raft of twigs (with a leaf for a sail) and continues toward victory. When Brutus attacks Woodstock, Snoopy decks him, and Woodstock wins the race. Conceding defeat, the bullies vow vengeance next year. Their threats, however, are humiliatingly cut short when Snoopy roughly beats up Brutus for threatening Woodstock again; this sends Brutus scampering away, now terrified of Snoopy's wrath. As the gang boards the bus to depart for home, Charlie Brown decides aloud to use the experience as a lesson to be more confident and assertive, and to believe in himself. Unfortunately, right after he finishes speaking, the bus leaves without him for the second time. He is forced to hitch another ride with Snoopy as the film comes to an end. ===== An Elder of the Universe, the Grandmaster, challenges a hooded female called the "Unknown"—eventually revealed to be Death—to a game for the life of his fellow Elder, the Collector (killed by the cosmic being Korvac in the title Avengers).Avengers #175 (September 1978) The pair decide to use various superheroes from Earth as pawns, the goal being to collect the four pieces of a prize called the "Golden Globe of Life." A victory for the Grandmaster's team means the Collector may be resurrected, while a loss indicates the character must remain dead. The Grandmaster's team consists of Captain America, Talisman, Darkstar, Captain Britain, Wolverine, Defensor, Sasquatch, Daredevil, Peregrine, She-Hulk, the Thing, and Blitzkrieg. Death's team consists of Iron Man, Vanguard, Iron Fist, Shamrock, Storm, Arabian Knight, Sabra, Invisible Girl, Angel, Black Panther, Sunfire, and the Collective Man. Although the storyline depicts a tie and the Grandmaster's team is written as being successful, Death advises that the Collector can only be resurrected if the Grandmaster takes his fellow Elder's place in the Realm of the Dead, with the character agreeing to the terms. International heroes Blitzkrieg (Germany); Collective Man (China); Defensor (Argentina); Peregrine (France); Shamrock (Ireland); and Talisman (Australia) debut in the series, and each issue contained a catalogue of all featured heroes and was the prototype for the publication the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. In 2015 Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars revealed that alongside the main contest a bonus round occurred featuring lesser-to-unknown characters. The Grandmaster's team consists of Rocket Racer, She-Man-Thing, The Vile Tapeworm, and Frog-Man. Death's team consists of Deadpool, Howard the Duck, Doop and The Pink Sphinx. Death's team wins, the prize being a 'participant' trophy. An Avengers Annual eventually reveals that this was a ruse perpetrated by the Grandmaster as he is able to steal Death's powers and then, via another deception, forces the entity to banish all Elders from her realm, effectively making them immortal.Avengers Annual #16 (1987) ===== The novel, written between 1956 and 1957 while living in Paris in the Hotel des Trois Colleges Martin, Gerald (2008) : Gabriel García Márquez: A Life, Penguin. and first published in 1961, is the story of an impoverished, retired colonel, a veteran of the Thousand Days' War, who still hopes to receive the pension he was promised some fifteen years earlier. The colonel lives with his asthmatic wife in a small village under martial law. The action opens with the colonel preparing to go to the funeral of a town musician whose death is notable because he was the first to die from natural causes in many years. The novel is set during the years of "La Violencia" in Colombia, when martial law and censorship prevail. Recent US paperback edition cover. ===== Karlsson is a very short, plump and overconfident man who lives in a small house hidden behind a chimney on the roof of 'a very ordinary apartment building on a very ordinary street' in Vasastan, Stockholm. When Karlsson pushes a button on his stomach, it starts a clever little motor with a propeller on his back, allowing him to fly. Karlsson is the best at everything, at least in his own opinion. He becomes the best (and only) friend of Svante (who is usually referred to as "Little Brother", , or 'Malysh' (baby, little guy) in the Russian adaptations), who lives in an apartment with his family. Karlsson is quite mischievous, eating all the food, scaring some robbers and walking/flying across the roof. He often gets Lillebror into trouble, as Karlsson always disappears just before Lillebror's family arrives leaving him to answer. The only other character to encounter Karlsson is 'Fröken Bock' (Miss Bock), a mean nanny (presumably in her late 40s or 50s), who undergoes an emotional transformation after meeting Karlsson. ===== The story begins at dusk in Salem Village, Massachusetts as young Goodman Brown leaves Faith, his wife of three months, for some unknown errand in the forest. Faith pleads with her husband to stay with her, but he insists that the journey must be completed that night. In the forest he meets an older man, dressed in a similar manner and bearing a physical resemblance to himself. The man carries a black serpent-shaped staff. Deeper in the woods, the two encounter Goody Cloyse, an older woman, whom Young Goodman had known as a boy and who had taught him his catechism. Cloyse complains about the need to walk; the older man throws his staff on the ground for the woman and quickly leaves with Brown. Other townspeople inhabit the woods that night, traveling in the same direction as Goodman Brown. When he hears his wife's voice in the trees, he calls out but is not answered. He then runs angrily through the forest, distraught that his beautiful Faith is lost somewhere in the dark, sinful forest. He soon stumbles upon a clearing at midnight where all the townspeople assembled. At the ceremony, which is carried out at a flame-lit altar of rocks, the newest acolytes are brought forth—Goodman Brown and Faith. They are the only two of the townspeople not yet initiated. Goodman Brown calls to heaven and Faith to resist and instantly the scene vanishes. Arriving back at his home in Salem the next morning, Goodman Brown is uncertain whether the previous night's events were real or a dream, but he is deeply shaken, and his belief he lives in a Christian community is distorted. He loses his faith in his wife, along with all of humanity. He lives his life an embittered and suspicious cynic, wary of everyone around him. The story concludes: "And when he had lived long, and was borne to his grave... they carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom." ===== The series is set in Big City, a colorful world populated by a cast of anthropomorphic animals, mythological creatures and humanoid beings. Each episode follows the daily experiences of a blue octopus named Oswald (voiced by Fred Savage), accompanied by his beloved pet hot dog Weenie, and their life in the cheerful and whimsically-designed community of Big City. Commonly, the program concentrates on Oswald's experiences with friends, acquaintances and neighbors, including Henry, a penguin, and Daisy, a flower, among others – and his patient methods of coping with or tolerating different situations and dilemmas, along with his thoroughly optimistic outlook on life. ===== Mr Ralph Nickleby's first visit to his poor relations Nicholas Nickleby's father dies unexpectedly after losing all of his money in a poor investment. Nicholas, his mother and his younger sister, Kate, are forced to give up their comfortable lifestyle in Devonshire and travel to London to seek the aid of their only relative, Nicholas's uncle, Ralph Nickleby. Ralph, a cold and ruthless businessman, has no desire to help his destitute relations and hates Nicholas, who reminds him of his dead brother, on sight. He gets Nicholas a very low-paying job as an assistant to Wackford Squeers, who runs the school Dotheboys Hall in Yorkshire. Nicholas is initially wary of Squeers (a very unpleasant man with one eye) because he is gruff and violent towards his young charges, but he tries to quell his suspicions. As Nicholas boards the stagecoach for Greta Bridge, he is handed a letter by Ralph's clerk, Newman Noggs. A once-wealthy businessman, Noggs lost his fortune, became a drunk, and had no other recourse but to seek employment with Ralph, whom he loathes. The letter expresses concern for him as an innocent young man, and offers assistance if Nicholas ever requires it. Once he arrives in Yorkshire, Nicholas comes to realise that Squeers is running a scam: he takes in unwanted children (most of whom are illegitimate, crippled or deformed) for a high fee, and starves and mistreats them while using the money sent by their parents, who only want to get them out of their way, to pad his own pockets. Squeers and his monstrous wife whip and beat the children regularly, while spoiling their own son. Lessons are no better; they show how poorly educated Squeers himself is and he uses the lessons as excuses to send the boys off on chores. While he is there, Nicholas befriends a "simple" boy named Smike, who is older than the other "students" and now acts as an unpaid servant. Nicholas attracts the attention of Fanny Squeers, his employer's plain and shrewish daughter, who deludes herself into thinking that Nicholas is in love with her. She attempts to disclose her affections during a game of cards, but Nicholas doesn't catch her meaning. Instead he ends up flirting with her friend Tilda Price, to the consternation of both Fanny and Tilda's friendly but crude-mannered fiancé John Browdie. After being accosted by Fanny again, Nicholas bluntly tells her he does not return her affections and wishes to be free of the horrible atmosphere of Dotheboys Hall, earning her enmity.Nicholas astonishes Mr Squeers and family Fanny uses her new-found loathing of Nicholas to make life difficult for the only friend he has at the school: Smike, whom Squeers takes to beating more and more frequently. One day Smike runs away, but is caught and brought back to Dotheboys. Squeers begins to beat him, but Nicholas intervenes. Squeers strikes him across the face and Nicholas snaps, beating the schoolmaster violently. During the fight, Fanny steps in and attacks Nicholas, hating him for rejecting her love. Nicholas ignores her and goes on to beat Squeers bloody. Quickly packing his belongings and leaving Dotheboys Hall, he meets John Browdie on the way. Browdie finds the idea that Squeers himself has been beaten uproariously funny, and gives Nicholas money and a walking staff to aid him on his trip back to London. At dawn, he is found by Smike, who begs to come with him. Nicholas and Smike set out towards London. Among other things, Nicholas wants to find out what Squeers is going to tell his uncle. Meanwhile, Kate and her mother are forced by Ralph to move out of their lodgings in the house of the kindly portrait painter Miss LaCreevy and into a cold and draughty house Ralph owns in a London slum. Ralph finds employment for Kate working for a fashionable milliner, Madame Mantalini. Her husband, Mr Mantalini, is a gigolo who depends on his (significantly older) wife to supply his extravagant tastes, and offends Kate by leering at her. Kate proves initially clumsy at her job, which endears her to the head of the showroom, Miss Knag, a vain and foolish woman who uses Kate to make herself look better. This backfires when a client prefers to be served by the young and pretty Kate rather than the ageing Miss Knag. Kate is blamed for the insult, and as a result, Kate is ostracised by the other milliners and left friendless. Nicholas seeks out the aid of Newman Noggs, who shows him a letter that Fanny Squeers has written to Ralph. It viciously exaggerates the events of the beating and slanders Nicholas. They suspect Ralph secretly knows the truth, but is latching onto Fanny's account to further persecute Nicholas. Noggs tells Nicholas, who is intent on confronting his uncle, that Ralph is out of town and advises him to find a job. Nicholas goes to an employment office, where he encounters a strikingly beautiful girl. His search for employment fails, and he is about to give up when Noggs offers him the meagre position of French teacher to the children of his neighbours, the Kenwigs family, and Nicholas is hired under the assumed name of "Johnson" to teach the children French. Ralph asks Kate to attend a dinner he is hosting for some business associates. When she arrives she discovers she is the only woman in attendance, and it becomes clear Ralph is using her as bait to entice the foolish nobleman Lord Frederick Verisopht to do business with him. The other guests include Verisopht's mentor and friend, the disreputable nobleman Sir Mulberry Hawk, who humiliates Kate at dinner by making her the subject of an offensive bet. She flees the table, but is later accosted by Hawk. He attempts to force himself on her but is stopped by Ralph. Ralph shows some unexpected tenderness towards Kate but insinuates that he will withdraw his financial help if she tells her mother about what happened. The next day, Nicholas discovers that his uncle has returned. He visits his mother and sister just as Ralph is reading them Fanny Squeers' letter and slandering Nicholas. He confronts his uncle, who vows to give no financial assistance to the Nicklebys as long as Nicholas stays with them. His hand forced, Nicholas agrees to leave London, but warns Ralph that a day of reckoning will one day come between them. The next morning, Nicholas and Smike travel towards Portsmouth with the intention of becoming sailors. At an inn, they encounter the theatrical manager Vincent Crummles, who hires Nicholas (still going under the name of Johnson) on sight. Nicholas is the new juvenile lead, and also playwright, with the task of adapting French tragedies into English and then modifying them for the troupe's minimal dramatic abilities. Nicholas and Smike join the acting company and are warmly received by the troupe, which includes Crummles's formidable wife, their daughter, "The Infant Phenomenon", and many other eccentric and melodramatic thespians. Nicholas and Smike make their debuts in Romeo and Juliet, as Romeo and the Apothecary respectively, and are met with great acclaim from the provincial audiences. Nicholas enjoys a flirtation with his Juliet, the lovely Miss Snevellici. Back in London, Mr Mantalini's reckless spending has bankrupted his wife. Madame Mantalini is forced to sell her business to Miss Knag, whose first order of business is to fire Kate. She finds employment as the companion of the social-climbing Mrs Wittiterly. Meanwhile, Sir Mulberry Hawk begins a plot to humiliate Kate for refusing his advances. He uses Lord Frederick, who is infatuated with her, to discover where she lives from Ralph. He is about to succeed in this plot when Mrs. Nickleby enters Ralph's office, and the two rakes switch their attentions from Kate's uncle to her mother, successfully worming their way into Mrs Nickleby's company and gaining access to the Wittiterly house. Mrs. Wittiterly grows jealous and admonishes Kate for flirting with the noblemen. The unfairness of this accusation makes Kate so angry that she rebukes her employer, who flies into a fit of hysterics. With no other recourse, Kate goes to her uncle for assistance, but he refuses to help her, citing his business relationships with Hawk and Verisopht. It is left to Newman Noggs to come to her aid, and he writes to Nicholas, telling him in vague terms of his sister's urgent need of him. Nicholas immediately quits the Crummles troupe and returns to London. Noggs and Miss La Creevy confer, and decide to delay telling Nicholas of Kate's plight until it is too late at night for him to seek out Hawk and take violent action. So, when Nicholas arrives, both Noggs and Miss La Creevy are out. Nicholas is about to search the city for them when he accidentally overhears Hawk and Lord Frederick rudely toasting Kate in a coffeehouse. He is able to glean from their conversation what has happened, and confronts them. Hawk refuses to give Nicholas his name or respond to his accusations. When he attempts to leave, Nicholas follows him out, and leaps onto the running board of his carriage, demanding his name. Hawk strikes him with a riding crop, and Nicholas loses his temper, returning the blow and spooking the horses, causing the carriage to crash. Hawk is injured in the crash and vows revenge, but Lord Verisopht, remorseful for his treatment of Kate, tells him that he will attempt to stop him. Later, after Hawk has recovered, they quarrel over Hawk's insistence on revenging himself against Nicholas. Verisopht strikes Hawk, resulting in a duel. Verisopht is killed, and Hawk flees to France. As a result, Ralph loses a large sum of money owed to him by the deceased lord. Nicholas collects Kate from the Wittiterlys, and with their mother and Smike, they move back into Miss LaCreevy's house. Nicholas pens a letter to Ralph, refusing, on behalf of his family, a penny of his uncle's money or influence. Returning to the employment office, Nicholas meets Charles Cheeryble, a wealthy and extremely benevolent merchant who runs a business with his twin brother Ned. Hearing Nicholas's story, the brothers take him into their employ at a generous salary and provide his family with a small house in a London suburb. Ralph encounters a beggar, who recognises him and reveals himself as Brooker, Ralph's former employee. He attempts to blackmail Ralph with a piece of unknown information, but is driven off. Returning to his office, Ralph receives Nicholas's letter and begins plotting against his nephew in earnest. Wackford Squeers returns to London and joins Ralph in his plots. Smike, on a London street, has the misfortune to run into Squeers, who kidnaps him. Luckily for Smike, John Browdie is honeymooning in London with his new wife Tilda and discovers his predicament. When they have dinner with Squeers, Browdie fakes an illness and takes the opportunity to rescue Smike and send him back to Nicholas. In gratitude, Nicholas invites the Browdies to dinner. At the party, also attended by the Cheerybles' nephew Frank and their elderly clerk Tim Linkinwater, Ralph and Squeers attempt to reclaim Smike by presenting forged documents to the effect that he is the long-lost son of a man named Snawley (who, in actuality, is a friend of Squeers with children at Dotheboys Hall). Smike refuses to go, but the threat of legal action remains. While at work, Nicholas encounters the beautiful young woman he had seen in the employment office and realises he is in love with her. The brothers tell him that her name is Madeline Bray, the penniless daughter of a debtor, Walter Bray, and enlist his help in obtaining small sums of money for her by commissioning her artwork, the only way they can help her due to her tyrannical father. Arthur Gride, an elderly miser, offers to pay a debt Ralph is owed by Walter Bray in exchange for the moneylender's help. Gride has illegally gained possession of the will of Madeline's grandfather, and she will become an heiress upon the event of her marriage. The two moneylenders persuade Bray to bully his daughter into accepting the disgusting Gride as a husband, with the promise of paying off his debts. Ralph is not aware of Nicholas's involvement with the Brays, and Nicholas does not discover Ralph's scheme until the eve of the wedding. He appeals to Madeline to cancel the wedding, but despite her feelings for Nicholas, she is too devoted to her dying father to go against his wishes. On the day of the wedding, Nicholas attempts to stop it once more but his efforts prove academic when Bray, guilt- ridden at the sacrifice his daughter has made for him, dies unexpectedly. Madeline thus has no reason to marry Gride and Nicholas and Kate take her to their house to recover. Smike has contracted tuberculosis and become dangerously ill. In a last attempt to save his friend's health, Nicholas takes him to his childhood home in Devonshire, but Smike's health rapidly deteriorates. On his deathbed, Smike is startled to see the man who brought him to Squeers's school. Nicholas dismisses it as an illusion but it is later revealed that Smike was right. After confessing his love for Kate, Smike dies peacefully in Nicholas's arms. When they return to Gride's home after the aborted wedding, Ralph and Gride discover that Peg Sliderskew, Gride's aged housekeeper, has robbed Gride, taking, amongst other things, the will. To get it back, Ralph enlists Wackford Squeers's services to track down Peg. Noggs discovers this plot, and with the help of Frank Cheeryble, he is able to recover the will and have Squeers arrested. The breaking up at Dotheboys Hall The Cheeryble brothers confront Ralph, informing him that his various schemes against Nicholas have failed. They advise him to retire from London before charges are brought up against him, as Squeers is determined to confess all and implicate Ralph. He refuses their help, but is summoned back to their offices that evening and told that Smike is dead. When he reacts to the news with vicious glee, the brothers reveal their final card. The beggar Brooker emerges, and tells Ralph that Smike was his own son. As a young man, Ralph had married a woman for her fortune, but kept it secret so she would not forfeit her inheritance for marrying without her brother's consent, and wait for the brother to die. She eventually left him after bearing him a son, whom he entrusted to Brooker, who was then his clerk. Brooker, taking the opportunity for vengeance, took the boy to Squeers' school and told Ralph the boy had died. Brooker now repents his action, but a transportation sentence kept him from putting the matter right. Devastated at the thought that his only son died as the best friend of his greatest enemy, Ralph commits suicide. His ill- gotten fortune ends up in the state coffers because he died intestate and his estranged relatives decline to claim it. Squeers is sentenced to transportation to Australia, and, upon hearing this, the boys at Dotheboys Hall rebel against the Squeers family and escape with the assistance of John Browdie. Nicholas becomes a partner in the Cheerybles' firm and marries Madeline. Kate and Frank Cheeryble also marry, as do Tim Linkinwater and Miss LaCreevy. Brooker dies penitent. Noggs recovers his respectability. The Nicklebys and their now extended family return to Devonshire, where they live in peace and contentment and grieve over Smike's grave. ===== The plot is based on the final months of Lumumba (played by Eriq Ebouaney), the first Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo, whose tenure in office lasted two months, until he was driven from office. Joseph Kasa-Vubu (Maka Kotto) is sworn in as the first President of the country, alongside Lumumba as Prime Minister. Together, they attempt to prevent the Congo succumbing to secession and anarchy. The film concludes with Joseph Mobutu (Alex Descas) seizing power. ===== Justine Last (Jennifer Aniston) is a depressed and unmotivated 30-year-old woman living in a small town in Texas with her husband Phil (John C. Reilly), a house painter who spends most of his free time smoking marijuana with his best friend, Bubba (Tim Blake Nelson). Justine works at Retail Rodeo, the local big-box store, along with Cheryl (Zooey Deschanel), a cynical, plain-spoken young woman, Gwen (Deborah Rush), a ditzy older woman who manages the cosmetics counter, and Corny (Mike White), a highly religious security guard. One morning, Justine notices a new cashier and later introduces herself. Holden (Jake Gyllenhaal) appears quiet and reserved, qualities that the two of them share; therefore they quickly take a liking to one another. They begin taking their lunch breaks together and Justine gives Holden rides home. One time, he invites her in and she accepts. They swap stories about their lives including how Justine feels unappreciated by Phil and Holden tells her of his obsession with J. D. Salinger's novel, The Catcher in the Rye, and how he took his self-assigned first name from its protagonist, Holden Caulfield. As the weeks go by, Justine and Holden start to bring out the best in each other. But when Holden makes a pass at her, she rejects him, leaving him dismayed. He becomes more and more besotted by her. Some time later, Holden does not show up to work but sends a letter to Justine, writing that if she does not meet him at 5pm that day behind the nearest Chuck E. Cheese, she will never see him again. After much consideration, Justine decides to accept Holden's invitation, only to be intercepted by her manager, Jack (John Carroll Lynch), who insists that she take a very ill Gwen to the hospital. Justine then meets up with Holden. The two have sex for the first time in a motel room that Justine pays for with her credit card. As the affair continues, Justine's marriage to Phil continues to deteriorate. One night, Justine spots Bubba's truck in the parking lot of the motel where she's been meeting Holden. She becomes convinced that Bubba knows, telling Holden that they need to cool down for a while. When Justine goes to visit Gwen in the hospital, she is told that Gwen has died after contracting parasites from eating poisonous blackberries that she bought at a roadside fruit stand. When she returns home, Bubba starts hinting to Justine that he knows about her affair with Holden. Feeling guilty, Justine suggests that she and Phil should attend a church bible study that Corny, a security guard, had invited them to. Soon after they arrive, Justine spots the motel desk clerk she encountered with Holden, she grabs Phil and demand they leave immediately. Justine speaks to Holden in private at work the following day, explaining that what they're doing is wrong and she can't see him anymore. Bubba tells Justine to meet him at his house. He blackmails her into having sex with him by threatening to tell Phil about her affair if she refuses, and she reluctantly gives into his demands. Holden, who has been following her since the split, sees them through a window. Holden does not show up for work the next day but is waiting in Justine's car when her shift ends. He calls Justine a whore and drunkenly demands an apology. He then says he could kill her husband to free her from her marriage. Justine becomes desperate to extricate herself from the relationship with Holden. She goes to talk to his parents and tells them that he is mentally ill and that he has imagined a romantic liaison between them. She goes on to suggest that Holden be hospitalized. That night after feeling unwell all day, Justine takes a pregnancy test. The results are positive. Phil is over the moon, but Justine feels uneasy, since she doesn't know whether the father is Holden or Phil. The next day when Justine arrives at work, Cheryl tells her that someone stole $15,000 from the safe and that the police suspect Holden. Justine is called into Jack's office and interrogated about their relationship. As she leaves for lunch, Justine encounters Holden, who brags about having stolen the money and about his plans for them to escape. Holden tells her to meet him the following morning at a hotel. When Justine gets home, Phil, Bubba, and Bubba's new girlfriend are all waiting for her so they can celebrate. The phone rings and Phil answers. The doctor's office has called; they tell Phil his sperm is "no good". He tells them his wife is pregnant and they don't know what they are talking about and angrily hangs up. Bubba assures Phil they made a mistake, that "they don't know everything". Phil then questions aloud if this means Justine isn't pregnant. She also assures Phil that they just made a mistake. The next morning Justine quickly packs a suitcase. While waiting at the light to turn toward either the hotel or the Retail Rodeo store, she assesses her future if she stays versus if she runs away and becomes a fugitive with Holden. She decides to stay. She arrives at Retail Rodeo and goes to the manager's office, telling him where Holden is hiding and how long he will be there. After arriving home, she watches a news report saying that the police have surrounded the hotel where Holden is staying and that Holden shot and killed himself. The next day, Bubba shows up at Retail Rodeo and tells Justine that Phil opened a statement from the credit card company, which listed the motel that Justine paid for with the card. Bubba then begs Justine not to tell Phil about their sexual encounter. When Justine arrives home, Phil is looking at the credit card statement and tearfully asks Justine if she has been having an affair. After she says, "yes", Phil strikes her. Later, Phil expresses remorse at hitting his wife and asked her if the baby is his. Wanting to spare Phil any more pain and protect herself, she tells him that he is the father. Phil insists on knowing who she had an affair with. When Justine says it doesn't matter, Phil concludes it's Corny, the security guard who invited them to Bible study. When Justine arrives at work the next morning, Cheryl attempts to cover up her facial bruises with make-up just as Corny walks by. His arm is in a cast and his face beat up. Cheryl informs Justine two "beefy guys" with baseball bats and face masks beat him up. As the movie concludes, Justine is still employed at Retail Rodeo. In a narrated scene, Phil brings the baby to Justine, who is deep in thought on the bed. She lovingly holds the baby and the couple seems blissful. ===== In futuristic Tokyo, referred to in the game as "Tokyo-to", a group of teenage skaters called the GG's vie for control of the many districts of Tokyo against many rival groups. The Rokkaku Group, a megacorporation, has taken over the many districts of the city and their leader is the mayor of Tokyo. It is oppressing the people, taking away freedom of speech and expression, and is forcing other gang members to give up their territory using the corrupt police force of Tokyo. The game begins with the player in control of a character called Yoyo, who has to complete a set of basic training exercise to prove himself worthy of joining the GGs. After these challenges are completed, the game is interrupted by a pirate radio broadcast by 'DJ Professor K' who fills the player in on the turmoil within Tokyo. After this cutscene, the player is released into Tokyo itself, where they pursue their mission to 'bury Tokyo in graffiti' and fight the authoritarian Rokkaku Group, and their police force, the Rokkaku Police. The plot begins with the GG's fighting the Poison Jam gang after they steal a statue referred to as "the Goddess of the Street". To do this, the GG's cover- up Poison Jam's graffiti in their turf, and then question Poison Jam's rivals, Rapid 99, for the location of their hideout. There, in the Tokyo Underground Sewage Facility, they fight Poison Jam and their boss, Cube, for control of the statue. After the GG's win the battle against Poison Jam, a new gang springs up, the robotic Noise Tanks, who have taken Tokyo by storm and is already in control of three gangs. At the same time, one of the GGs, Yoyo, disappears without a trace. The GGs decide to question one of the Noise Tanks' gangs, the mummified Immortals, wondering if the Noise Tanks sudden appearance had anything to do with Yoyo. They reveal they had supposedly kidnapped Yoyo; however, when he is freed, he turns on the GGs and enslaves them under the Noise Tanks' control. The Noise Tanks then have the gangs under their control battle in the game "Death Ball". Those who lose are brainwashed and controlled by the Noise Tanks for life. The GGs succeed in all three games, but then the Rokkaku Police suddenly appear and crackdown on the whole game. When the GGs win this battle again, the Noise Tanks become furious, releasing hundreds of Noise Tank androids to terrorize the street. When the GGs clear out all of the androids, they discover a wounded Poison Jam, who reveals that Yoyo had beaten him and ran off to the nearby amusement park. There, it is revealed that 'Yoyo' was a Noise Tank in disguise, and the real Yoyo had been missing the whole time. After the GGs defeat them, a mysterious man destroys the Noise Tanks and runs off. They soon discover the Noise Tanks were built by the Rokkaku Group to take over the gangs of Tokyo. After the Noise Tanks are destroyed, two new threats appear: a Yakuza-style gang called the Golden Rhinos who are bent on eliminating all graffiti in the city, along with executing all Rudies; and an insane demon-like creature who sprays odd graffiti and looks strangely like one of the GGs, Beat. Amid all this heat, the GGs are approached by Clutch, a Rudie who knows where Yoyo is; the player needs to find a certain number of Graffiti Souls for the info. However, when the GGs give him his payment, he runs off without telling any information. They chase after him and interrogate him, where he apologizes, says he was "just having a little fun", then reveals Yoyo was taken to the Fortified Residential Zone. When they arrive, they discovered the place rigged with bombs. They disable them all and finally save Yoyo. Yoyo then tells the GGs what happened: he had heard of the Golden Rhinos and went searching for more information, and he had gotten caught. After the rescue, the Golden Rhinos began tearing up the streets, which required the GGs to intervene. As soon as they clean the streets of all the Golden Rhinos, DJ Professor K is kidnapped and taken away. The owner of the Rokkaku Group, Gouji Rokkaku, uses this time to broadcast an announcement to the city to gather at the Shibuya bus terminal. Here, he blares odd, creepy music from a strange tower. He absorbs all the people into the tower, telling them to "wipe the pitiful smiles off your face" and to "let the evil show, baby". The GGs go to the bus terminal to stop him. They destroy Gouji's Beat creatures and supposedly save the city. However, soon they are absorbed inside the tower. Inside the tower, Gouji transforms into a giant monster but is defeated by the GGs again. The tower is destroyed and Gouji dies. As the game ends, an epilogue plays as DJ Professor K relates to the players how the hearts of men are easily corrupted by greed. ===== The Jetters are a highly trained intergalactic police force for keeping unique items safe from the Hige-Hige bandits. Mighty, an expert Bomberman and the leader of the Jetters, disappears while on a mission. Dr. Ein accepts Mighty's younger brother, White Bomber, into the Jetters because they need a Bomberman for the team. White Bomber is clumsy and childish, but idolizes his older brother. White Bomber and the rest of the Jetters have many adventures, foiling Doctor Mechadoc and Mujoe's plans to steal one-of-a-kind objects, facing off against the Hige-Hige Bandits, and returning antiques to their rightful owners. Early episodes of Bomberman Jetters started out with the "monster of the week" formula, where Dr. Mechadoc and Mujoe would send in one of their "Super Combined" Bombermen one at a time to attack the Jetters. Eventually the format shifted from light-hearted comedy "monster of the week" to a more dramatic, darker action story dealing with the themes of death, betrayal, and revenge, but still retaining some of the lighter aspect. Plots include characters going through trials with character development such as Shout learning the truth about her mother, how Bagular first met Mujoe, and White Bomber dealing with learning the truth of what happened to his older brother Mighty. ===== MI6 operative James Bond gains promotion to 00 agent status by assassinating two targets: traitorous section chief Dryden at the British Embassy in Prague and his contact, Fisher. In Uganda, the mysterious Mr. White introduces Steven Obanno, a high-ranking member of the Lord's Resistance Army, to Le Chiffre, an Albanian private banker to terrorists. Obanno entrusts Le Chiffre with a large sum of money to invest; Le Chiffre subsequently buys put options on aerospace manufacturer Skyfleet, betting on the company's failure given his insider knowledge of a terrorist attack. In Madagascar, Bond pursues bomb-maker Mollaka to an embassy, killing him and blowing up the building. In London, MI6 chief M admonishes Bond for causing an international incident and ignoring her orders to capture Mollaka alive. Clues point to corrupt Greek official Alex Dimitrios, whom Bond finds in the Bahamas. After winning his 1964 Aston Martin DB5 in a poker game and seducing his wife Solange, Bond pursues Dimitrios to Miami and kills him. Bond then thwarts the destruction of Skyfleet's prototype airliner. To recoup his clients' lost money, Le Chiffre organizes a high- stakes Texas hold 'em tournament at the Casino Royale in Montenegro. MI6 enters Bond in the tournament, believing a defeat will force Le Chiffre to seek asylum with the British government in exchange for information on his clients. Bond is paired with Vesper Lynd, a British Treasury agent protecting the $10 million buy-in. During their train ride, they assess and make insightful guesses about each other. In Montenegro, they meet their contact René Mathis. Bond initially gains the upper hand, deducing Le Chiffre's tell. Obanno ambushes Le Chiffre but allows him to continue playing to win back the money. Obanno's bodyguard spots Bond and Vesper, but Bond kills Obanno. After comforting a traumatized Vesper, Bond loses his stake because Le Chiffre has been tipped off to his own tell. Fellow player Felix Leiter, a CIA agent, agrees to stake Bond money to continue in exchange for taking Le Chiffre into American custody after Vesper refuses to provide the 5 million dollar re buy. Le Chiffre's lover Valenka poisons Bond's martini with digitalis. Retrieving an antidote and defibrillator from his Aston Martin DBS V12, Bond passes out but Vesper rescues him. Bond returns to the game, which culminates in a $115 million hand that Bond wins with a straight flush. Apparently tipped off by Mathis, Le Chiffre kidnaps Vesper and uses her to trap Bond. Le Chiffre brings the captives to an abandoned ship and tortures Bond to reveal the account number and password to the winnings, but Bond refuses. Mr. White bursts in and kills Le Chiffre as punishment for betraying the trust of his organization by gambling with their money, leaving Bond and Vesper alive. Bond awakens in an MI6 hospital and has Mathis arrested as a traitor. After transferring the winnings, Bond spends time recovering with Vesper at his side and the two fall in love. He resigns from MI6 and they run away to Venice. When M reveals the money was never deposited, Bond realizes Vesper has betrayed him. He follows her to a handoff of the money, where gunmen take her captive. Bond shoots the building's flotation devices, causing the foundation to sink into the Grand Canal. He kills the gunmen, but Vesper is imprisoned in an elevator plunging into the rising water. Seeing Bond wishes to rescue her, she locks the door, indicating he should save himself. Bond is unable to free Vesper before she drowns. Mr. White escapes with the money. M informs Bond the organization behind Le Chiffre threatened to kill Vesper's lover unless she became a double agent; she likely made a deal later with White, trading the money for Bond's life. Bond coldly renounces Vesper as a traitor, saying "the bitch is dead", and returns to service. Realizing Vesper left her phone to help him, he checks the contacts and locates Mr. White at an estate in Lake Como. Shooting him in the leg, 007 introduces himself: "The name's Bond. James Bond." ===== When a Silicon Valley Chinese American executive goes back to his homeland of China for the first time in 30 years, he and his family encounter many culture clashes between the lives that they lead in the United States and the lives of their relatives in China. The finale of the movie includes an exciting table tennis match involving the Chinese-American son played by Kelvin Han Yee. ===== Nick (Jacot), whose life seemed to be going perfectly, realizes he may lose his girlfriend to a famous music producer (Priestley). He sets out on a roadtrip from Tofino in west coast to go to the MuchMusic Video Awards in Toronto, along with two buddies (Tyler and Dime), for the road trip of their lives. ===== Einhänder takes place in a fictional future during a war between the Earth colony, SodomGesetz in the North American release and the Moon colony, Selene. The "First Moon War" resulted in the destruction of most of the Earth's surface and the creation of a totalitarian regime on the planet. The game recounts the events of the "Second Moon War" in which the Moon attacks the Earth again for natural resources. Selene's tactics consists of sending one-man fighter spacecraft called "Einhänder" on kamikaze missions to cause as much damage as possible on the planet before being destroyed. The player takes on the role of one of these pilots attacking the Earth capital city. As the player progresses through the game the Selene military satellite Hyperion relays command orders and objectives. The on-board central computer "EOS" synthesizes orders. EOS also records and relays the player's flight and battle record data back to Hyperion. After completion of the last objective Hyperion informs the player that the battle pattern of the latest EOS unmanned fighter is complete. The player is given the honor of being the target of the last EOS test as reward for their heroic efforts. Upon the player's death they will advance two classes and be awarded the Sirius decoration. After surviving the intense barrage of artillery fire of the test, the pilot wonders why they must be terminated by their allies and questions their military leaders' rationale for the war. The game's narrative then skips to one month later when the pilot re- emerges in space flying an armed Einhänder spacecraft. Hyperion communicates that the player is committing an act of treason and must remove their armament and surrender. Still, the player fights their way through Selene fighters and faces the Hyperion, the game's final boss. The ending sequence depicts the player's spacecraft damaged and drifting in space. The pilot engages its thrusters and dives into an army of Selene spacecraft with the Moon in the background. An epilogue shows the actions of the lone Einhänder pilot ended the war by destroying the armies of both sides — leading to an eventual peace. Yet, the pilot's name and deeds were stricken from the records and they are remembered only by veterans of the war. After the end credits a lone Einhänder spacecraft is shown powering up. ===== Over a span of nearly 40 years, Gid and Johnny, a pair of Texas farm boys, compete for the affections of Molly Taylor, a free spirit who cares for both of them. The story is told in three consecutive segments, each narrated by one of the three lead roles. The first segment is set in 1925 and narrated by Gid, who introduces himself as well as his best friend Johnny and Johnny's girlfriend Molly Taylor with whom Gid becomes smitten. Gid works part-time as a ranch hand at Molly's farm and often competes against Johnny for Molly's affections. Despite their frequent feud and arguments, Gid and Johnny's friendship never ends during their excursions and errands for Molly's father to sell and buy cattle for the family farm. Molly eventually sleeps with Gid, as well as Johnny, but she eventually chooses neither one of them and instead marries school friend Eddie after the death of her father. Gid eventually marries Sarah, a local widow with several children, and Johnny leaves town for places unknown. The second segment is set in 1945 and is narrated by Molly. It was revealed that Molly had three sons from her three different suitors, and each one of them died in combat during World War II which is currently waging. Molly's husband Eddie also died from an illness several years before. Gid had divorced Sarah and began spending most of his free time with Molly, who withheld the news of their son's death in battle. When he finally did learn the news, Gid took it badly and became more depressed. Johnny re-entered their lives after living away and, having had married and divorced his own wife, took a more active part in helping Molly run her late father's farm. The third and final segment is set in 1964 and is narrated by Johnny. He reveals that Gid is in a local hospital dying from cancer and Johnny has been keeping a bedside vigil over him. Wanting out of the place, Johnny takes Gid away from the hospital for a few days to visit Molly who is still living at her father's farm and is contemplating selling it. After working with Johnny around the farm to relive their "good old days" long gone by, Gid passes away as Johnny is taking him back to the hospital. After Gid's funeral, Johnny meets with Molly where they agree and despite they never got married or had a life in operating her family farm, they will always be soul mates before Johnny leaves Molly for the last time. ===== Patrick Lanigan is a lawyer who stole a large amount of money from his law firm and fled to South America. When the owners of the money track him down, he returns to his home in Mississippi, and the book relates how his return affects him and those around him. ===== The story focuses on how Luther and Nora Krank try to avoid the frenzy traditionally experienced during the Christmas holiday. On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, the two take their daughter Blair to the airport, where she departs for a year-long Peace Corps assignment in a remote area of Africa. Seeing all of the busy traveling at the airport, Luther starts to develop an increasingly personal antipathy for normal Christmas traditions, especially knowing that Blair will not be with them for Christmas this year. To make matters worse, Luther is told by Nora to stop by a packed grocery store on a very rainy day, causing him to get soaked, only to realize when getting back in the car that he forgot the white chocolate on the shopping list, forcing Nora to go inside to get it herself. Nora bemoans the fact that the upcoming Christmas will be the first time they have been separated as a family, prompting her husband to calculate how much they spent celebrating the holidays the previous year. When he realizes they have little to show for the $6,100 they invested in decorations, gifts, and entertaining, he decides to skip all the hubbub at home and surprise Nora by booking a 10-day Caribbean cruise aboard the Island Princess. Nora at first is skeptical but accepts the idea on one condition – that they still donate $600 to the church and Children's Hospital. At first Luther refuses, but when Nora refuses to consider the cruise otherwise, he agrees, and they begin to plan the trip. It doesn't take long for Nora to adjust to the idea of no Christmas shopping or Christmas tree, and not hosting their annual Christmas Eve party. To the couple's amazement, their neighbors on Hemlock Street strongly object to their decision to boycott the holiday, because the Kranks' decision not to decorate their home will jeopardize the block's chances at winning the coveted prize for best decorated block in the neighborhood. Vic Frohmeyer, the unelected "top man" of the neighborhood, leads the townspeople in taunting Luther and Nora about Christmas celebrations by extending a perimeter of people around their lawn, asking a group of Christmas carolers to sing carols on the Kranks' lawn, calling repeatedly to demand that they decorate their house for Christmas, and picketing with signs, et cetera. Luther stops the protest by freezing his sidewalk to prevent the carolers from singing there. The charities also are upset with the couple: the local Boy Scout troop is dismayed when the Kranks refuse to support them by purchasing a tree, the police are angered when they decline to buy a calendar, the fruitcake salesmen are shocked to learn the Kranks will not be buying a fruitcake this year, and the stationer is upset when he loses their annual order of engraved greeting cards. A newspaper even gets in the act by asking Luther's #1 rival, Walt Scheel, to film the Kranks' house for the story. Luther and Nora find themselves the objects of derision and anxiously await their departure on Christmas Day. Without warning, Blair calls on Christmas Eve to announce she's at Miami International Airport, en route home with her Peruvian fiancé to surprise her parents. She's anxious to introduce Enrique to her family's holiday traditions, and when she asks if they're having their usual party that night, a panicking Nora says, "Yes", much to Luther's dismay. Comic chaos ensues as the couple finds themselves trying to decorate the house and coordinate a party with mere hours to spare before their daughter and future son-in-law arrive. Because the Boy Scouts have sold out of Christmas trees, Luther arranges to borrow the tree of a neighbor who is leaving for the holidays. He and Vic Frohmeyer's son Spike try to transport it across the street, but the neighbors notice and mistakenly think Luther is stealing it, so they phone the police, resulting in Luther's barely escaping arrest. Luther attempts to set up a Frosty the Snowman decoration on his roof but fails, and after a series of events ends up hanging by his leg. Scheel reluctantly calls 9-1-1, and Luther is rescued. The Kranks then admit their dilemma and are rescued by everyone they've alienated, with the neighbors pulling together and providing the Christmas celebration Blair is expecting. Blair calls before the party can be started, saying she has arrived. After successfully keeping Blair and Enrique busy so the party can get started, Luther decides to celebrate Christmas. He then gives the cruise package to Walt Scheel, who is having a very bad Christmas because his wife has an illness which has a 90% probability of being terminal. ===== During the last days of the Vietnam War, USAF Lieutenant colonel Iceal E. "Gene" Hambleton (Gene Hackman) call sign BAT-21 Bravo, is flying on board an EB-66C electronic warfare aircraft, engaged in electronic countermeasures preparatory to a major bombing strike. Without warning, a number of SA-2 Guideline SAMs are launched from North Vietnam, targeting their aircraft. A massive SAM explosion tears off the tail and Hambleton, in the navigator's position, ejects as the sole survivor of the six-man crew. While still coming down by parachute, Hambleton makes radio contact with Captain Bartholomew "Birddog" Clark (Danny Glover), the pilot of a Cessna O-2 Skymaster, flying a forward air control mission near where the EB-66 was destroyed. Birddog becomes Hambleton's link to rescue. Hambleton, an expert on electronic weapons systems and who holds valuable information, is known to the North Vietnamese, who begin an all-out search, attempting to capture him. An effort to steal supplies from Vietnamese villagers is not successful, as Hambleton is discovered and kills an aggressive peasant farmer, apologizing to his grieving family as he escapes. Knowing that his current location is too dangerous for rescue aircraft, Hambleton devises a plan to reach safer territory. He plots a course to the river which is the boundary of the target area, then communicates his intended path to Clark in a code composed of various golf courses he knows well. This will allow the rescuers to keep track of his progress, making it easier for them to pick him up. Several attempts are made to recover Hambleton. Two helicopters are lost and members of its crews are killed or captured. Clark ultimately flies a "Huey" helicopter rescue mission, but as he retrieves Hambleton, the pair are shot down by ground fire, with Clark being wounded. An F-100 bombing raid both assists and hinders their progress through the jungle, as North Vietnamese irregulars are trailing them. In the end, Hambleton and Clark are rescued by a US river boat patrolling nearby on the Cam Lo River. ===== Bu (Shu Qi) is a beautiful young girl from a small Taiwanese fishing village who discovers a romantic message in a bottle. She heads for Hong Kong to find its writer, only to learn that it was in fact written by Albert (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), a lonely gay man. She then meets the wealthy recycling company owner, C.N. (Jackie Chan). They fall in love with each other. The plot is soon thickened by the rivalry between Howie Lo (Emil Chau) and C.N., both are businessmen and knew each other since their childhood days. In the English dubbed version, some of the dialogues are changed and a few scenes are edited out. These scenes included one at the airport where Sandra Ng's and Sam Lee's characters conned and robbed Long Yi (Richie Jen) who supposedly is engaged to Bu and another where Stephen Chow's policeman character came to investigate after C.N. fought off Howie Lo's masked goons and Albert's friends who on Bu's request pretended to be gangsters attacking her who in turn is pretending to be the reported missing girlfriend of a Taiwan gangster leader. ===== The 90-minute film was a horror story shot in a documentary style and appeared as part of BBC Drama's Screen One series. It involved BBC reporters performing a live, on-air investigation of a house in Northolt, Greater London, at which poltergeist activity was believed to be taking place. The reporters do not appear to be taking the story seriously, and play Halloween pranks on each other at the start of the program (Craig Charles hides in a pantry, makes banging noises, and then jumps out of the pantry wearing a rubber mask). Viewers are asked to call in with their own ghost stories, which becomes an important plot point. Parkinson is joined in studio by Dr. Lin Pascoe, a paranormal expert who attempts to explain the events in the house. Through revealing footage and interviews with neighbours and the family living there, they discover the existence of a malevolent ghost nicknamed Pipes (the children in the house had asked their mother about noises heard, and she said it was the pipes, hence the name). Several viewers call in with their own experiences, which become more violent, dangerous, and seem to be related to the show itself. Later, viewers learn that Pipes is the spirit of a psychologically disturbed man called Raymond Tunstall, who previously lived in the house with his aunt and uncle and believed himself to have been troubled by the spirit of Mother Seddons – a "baby farmer" turned child killer from the 19th century (probably inspired by Amelia Dyer). Eventually, one of the children starts making banging noises on the pipe to get people watching to believe her family's story before she's caught on camera by the film crew. Parkinson is quick to dismiss the entire thing as a hoax, but Dr. Pascoe is not so sure. The calls continue to the studio, where viewers say they've seen Pipes and their descriptions match the ones the children gave to Dr. Pascoe months earlier. Further calls reveal that poltergeist activity is now occurring in other people's homes and one of the Ghostwatch crew is injured after a mirror falls on him. Pipes continues to make various manifestations which become more bold and terrifying, until, at the end, Dr. Pascoe realises that the programme itself has been acting as a sort of "national séance" through which Pipes is gaining horrific power. Footage shows the police arriving at Foxhill Drive, and a panicked Charles moving Pam and Kim away from the house. Finally, the spirit unleashes its power to the fullest extent, dragging host Sarah Greene out of sight behind a door and then escaping to express poltergeist activity throughout the country. He takes control of the BBC studios and transmitter network, using the Ghostwatch studio as a focal point. Everyone runs out of the studio as the lights explode, leaving Parkinson alone. He stumbles around the now-darkened studio, still carrying on hosting duties and wonders aloud if any of the cameras are working. After finding the teleprompter is still active, Parkinson confusedly reads a nursery rhyme (round and round the garden/like a teddy bear) and then begins speaking in Pipes' voice, asking viewers if they really believed the story about Mother Seddons. As Parkinson/Pipes calls out "Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum," the film ends. ===== Christine Painter is a sexually naive waitress and single mother who pays for her teenage son David's tuition by renting London flats to call girls. When a landlord confronts her for illegally subletting the flats and falling behind on the rent, Christine has a sexual encounter with him. After one of her "tenants", Rose, refuses to pay rent, Christine realizes she can do sex work herself in the flat Rose abandons. Christine is charged with soliciting and pleads guilty in court. Soon she hatches a scheme with fellow sex worker Shirley to provide strictly kinky services such as bondage and fetish roleplay to an upscale clientele. They rent a suburban house where they are joined by their "maid" Dolly. Christine attends her sister's wedding, where Dolly is accidentally exposed as transgender to the groom's mother. Christine's father and sister angrily denounce her for spoiling the wedding. Christine's father later visits the brothel for sex and reconciles with his daughter. The brothel enjoys brisk business but soon attracts the notice of the police, who raid the house on Christmas Eve. When Christine appears in court to be arraigned, she is relieved when she realizes several of the judges are her kinky clients. ===== About 10,000 years ago, peaceful aliens from the planet Antarea set up an outpost on Earth on Atlantis. When Atlantis sank, twenty aliens were left behind, kept alive in large rock-like cocoons at the bottom of the ocean. Now, a group of Antareans have returned to collect them. Disguising themselves as humans, they rent a house with a swimming pool and charge the water with "life force" to give the cocooned Antareans energy to survive the trip home. They charter a boat from a local captain named Jack, who helps them retrieve the cocoons. Jack spies on Kitty, a beautiful woman from the team who chartered his boat, while she undresses in her cabin, and discovers that she is an alien. After the aliens reveal themselves to him and explain what's going on, he decides to help them. Next door to the house the Antareans are renting is a retirement home. Three of its residents, Ben, Arthur, and Joe, often trespass to swim in the pool next door. They absorb some of the life force, making them feel younger and stronger. Eventually caught in the act, they are given permission to use the pool by the Antarean leader, Walter, on the condition that they do not touch the cocoons or tell anybody else about it. Rejuvenated with youthful energy, the three men begin to let the advantages of the pool take hold as they are relieved of their ailments. Meanwhile, Kitty and Jack grow closer and decide to make love in the pool. Since she cannot do so in the human manner, she introduces him to the Antarean equivalent, in which she shares her lifeforce energy with him. The other retirement home residents become suspicious after witnessing Ben's wife Mary climb a tree. Their friend Bernie reveals the secret of the pool to the other residents, who rush to the pool to swim in its waters. When Walter finds them damaging one of the cocoons he ejects them from the property. Later that evening, Bernie finds his wife Rose has stopped breathing and carries her body to the pool in an attempt to heal her, only to be informed by Walter that the pool no longer works due to the other residents draining the force in the rush to make themselves young. Walter explains that the cocoons cannot now survive the trip back to Antarea, but will be able to survive on Earth. With the help of Jack, Ben, Arthur and Joe, the Antareans return the cocoons to the sea. The Antareans offer to take residents of the retirement home with them to Antarea, where they will never grow older and never die. Most of them accept the offer, but Bernie chooses to remain on Earth. Upon leaving, Ben tells his grandson, David, that he and Mary are leaving for good. As the residents are leaving, David's mother Susan finds out about their destination and quickly drives to the retirement home, where they find the majority of the rooms vacant and contact local authorities. While the police are searching for the residents, David notices the boat starting and jumps onto the side as it pulls away. The boat is being chased by the Coast Guard, so with little time left, David says a tearful goodbye to Ben and Mary before jumping off into the water. The Coast Guard boats stop to pick him up, giving the others a chance to get away. Out of nowhere, a thick fog appears and strands the remaining Coast Guard boats and they call off the chase. As the Antarean ship appears, Walter pays Jack for his services and the boat. Jack embraces Kitty for the last time and they share a kiss. He then says farewell to everyone before jumping into an inflatable raft as the boat starts rising up into the Antarean vessel. Jack watches as the boat disappears inside the ship and departs. Back on earth, a funeral is held for the missing residents. During the sermon, David looks toward the sky and smiles. The film ends with the Antarean vessel going towards a bright-looking object, assumed to be a hyperspace entrance or portal, leading to Antarea. ===== A lonely boy named Michael Brower (Edward Furlong) lives an isolated existence in his absent father's mansion. Michael's mother was killed in a car accident, which also permanently injured his leg. From his bedroom window he spends his spare time watching his crush, a typical girl-next-door named Kimberly, who, unbeknownst to Michael, also feels the same way about him. A huge fan of horror films and video games, Michael's only friend is a similar-minded misfit named Kyle. They are members of a Horror Club at school, which the principal bans. Kyle tells Michael about a new, ultra-realistic game called Brainscan. Intrigued, Michael sends away for the first disc. The game begins strangely, with a warning screen informing him that the experience has much in common with hypnotic suggestion. During his first experience with the game, Michael is encouraged to act as a psychopathic murderer by the game's host, an entity known as Trickster. In-game, Michael murders a stranger and takes his foot as a trophy. Later, he is horrified to discover that his victim in the game was a real person, and that the same murder also happened in the real world. Kyle begs Michael to let him play the game, and Michael angrily rebuffs him. Later Michael is tormented by Trickster, who exits the game and plays a song by the musical group Primus in Michael's bedroom. Because he is a possible witness to the earlier murder, Trickster tells Michael he must play the second disc to kill the witness. Michael refuses at first, but eventually gives in. However, this time he has no memory of playing the game. He finds Kyle's necklace, bloody in his freezer and realizes he murdered Kyle. Michael doesn't remember Kyle's murder and calls his house. The phone is answered by a policeman, Detective Hayden (Frank Langella). Michael becomes paranoid that he will be sent to jail. He is also continually annoyed by the presence of Trickster, who refuses to leave his home. Trickster ultimately instructs him to kill Kimberly. At nightfall Michael sneaks into her room, but refuses to hurt her. Trickster reveals that he is actually the evil part of Michael. He possesses Michael, the struggle of which wakes Kimberly. Kimberly reveals she has been watching Michael as well and has taken pictures, which allows him to break free from his own inner darkness. At the last minute, the Trickster materializes and opens the bedroom door. Detective Hayden enters and shoots Michael dead. Michael awakens in his room. He discovers that the whole experience was a fantasy. After a short outburst of rage, ranting at the game for his traumatic experiences, he excitedly realizes that Kyle is still alive and that nothing in the game happened in the real world. His experience with the game's iteration of Kimberly gives him confidence, and he goes over to her house and asks her out, which she replies with a shy "maybe" before giving him a kiss. The next day, Michael brings the Brainscan disc to school to show the principal, since he demanded to review all games and movies before allowing them to be played. It is implied that the principal will have the same nightmarish experience as Michael when Trickster appears behind the principal. ===== In 1519 Spain, two con artists, Miguel and Tulio, win a map to the legendary City of Gold, El Dorado, in a rigged dice gamble (though they ironically win the map fairly). After their con is exposed, the two evade the guards and hide inside barrels, which are then loaded into one of the ships to be led by conquistador Hernán Cortés for the New World. During the voyage, they are caught as stowaways and imprisoned, but break free and take a rowboat with the help of Cortés' horse, Altivo. Their boat reaches land, where Miguel begins to recognize landmarks from the map, leading them to a totem marker near a waterfall that Tulio believes is a dead end. As they prepare to leave, they encounter a native woman, Chel, being chased by guards. When the guards see Tulio and Miguel riding Altivo as depicted on the totem, they escort them and Chel to a secret entrance behind the falls, into El Dorado. They are brought to the city's elders, kindhearted Chief Tannabok and wicked high priest Tzekel-Kan. The pair are mistaken for gods and are given luxurious quarters, along with the charge of Chel. She discovers that the two are conning the people but promises to remain quiet if they take her with them when they leave the city. The two are showered with gifts of gold from Tannabok but disapprove of Tzekel-Kan attempting to sacrifice a civilian as the gods' ritual. Tulio and Miguel instruct Tannabok to build them a boat so that they can leave the city with all the gifts they have been given, under the ruse that they are needed back in the ‘other world.’ During the three days the construction will take, Miguel explores the city, and Chel gets romantically close to Tulio. Miguel comes to appreciate the peaceful life embraced by the citizens; by then, he reconsiders leaving, especially after overhearing Tulio telling Chel that he'd like her to come with them to Spain, before adding he'd like her to come with specifically him and to forget Miguel – straining the relationship between the two. When Tzekel-Kan sees Miguel playing a ball game with children, he insists the "gods" demonstrate their powers against the city's best players in the same game. Tulio and Miguel are outmatched, but Chel is able to substitute the ball with an armadillo named Bibo, allowing them to win the rounds until the final one, where Bibo is replaced with a real ball, but once again, the two ironically win the game fairly. Miguel spares the ritual of sacrificing the losing team and chastises Tzekel-Kan, much to the crowd's approval. Tzekel-Kan notices Miguel received a small cut in the game and realizes the pair are not gods, since gods do not bleed, hence the reason for the sacrifices. Afterwards, Miguel and Tulio enjoy a party being thrown for them but sooner or later begin to argue about Tulio and Chel's conversation and Miguel's desire to stay. However, before they can continue, Tzekel-Kan conjures a giant stone jaguar to chase them throughout the city. Tulio and Miguel manage to outwit the jaguar, causing it and Tzekel- Kan to fall into a giant whirlpool, thought by the natives to be the entrance to Xibalba, the spirit world. Tzekel-Kan then surfaces in the jungle, where he encounters Cortés and his men. Believing Cortés to be the real god, Tzekel-Kan offers to lead them to El Dorado. With the boat completed, Miguel decides to stay in the city. As Tulio and Chel board the boat, they see smoke on the horizon and realize Cortés is close. Knowing what will happen if Cortés discovers the city, Tulio suggests using the boat to ram the rock pillars under the waterfall and block the main entrance to the city. The plan succeeds with the citizens pulling over a statue in the boat's wake to give it enough speed. As the statue starts to fall too quickly, Tulio has difficulty in preparing the boat's sail. Giving up on staying in the city, Miguel and Altivo jump onto the boat to unfurl the sails, assuring the boat clears the statue in time. The group successfully crashes against the pillars, causing a cave-in but losing all their gifts in the process. They hide near the totem just as Cortés' men and Tzekel-Kan arrive. When they find the entrance blocked, Cortés brands Tzekel-Kan a liar and takes him prisoner as they leave. Tulio and Miguel, though disappointed they lost the gold (unaware that Altivo still wears the golden horseshoes with which he was outfitted in El Dorado), head in a different direction for a new adventure with Chel, presumably also looking for a way back to Spain. ===== Rather than providing a straightforward biography, the film weaves fantasy sequences with scenes containing somewhat fictionalized accounts of events in Darin's life, and throughout it, the adult singer interacts with his younger self. It chronicles his determination to rise from his working-class roots as Walden Robert Cassotto, a frail boy from The Bronx plagued by multiple bouts of rheumatic fever, who becomes a singer more famous than Frank Sinatra. To achieve that goal, he forms a band and struggles to find gigs at any nightclub that will hire him. His agent gets Darin a recording contract with Atlantic Records, where the singer enjoys teen idol success with "Splish Splash." Not wanting to limit his appeal to rock and roll audiences, he changes his niche to big band singing and recording major hits, such as "Mack the Knife." To capitalize on his popularity with teenage and young adult audiences, Darin is cast in Come September opposite Sandra Dee. He falls in love with the 18-year-old actress; determined to marry her, he romantically seduces and enchants her with songs like "Beyond the Sea" and "Dream Lover." The two elope, angering her mother. Darin finally realizes his own mother's dream when he is signed to appear at the famed Copacabana nightclub in Manhattan. As success takes him on the road and away from home, Dee begins to drink heavily, and the couple fights frequently. Eventually, they separate and later reconcile. She gives birth to a son, Dodd. To his actress wife's chagrin, Darin is nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as a shell shocked soldier in Captain Newman, M.D.. In the late 1960s, Darin becomes involved in the campaign to elect Robert F. Kennedy for President and contemplates a political career of his own. His sister Nina, knowing his past will be investigated closely if Bobby opts to enter the political arena, shocks him with the news his beloved mother actually was his grandmother and that he is Nina's illegitimate child, the son of a father she cannot identify. Devastated, Darin becomes a recluse living in a trailer on the Big Sur coast in California. He finds himself out of step with changing music trends, and when he tries to adapt by incorporating folk music and protest songs into his repertoire, he finds himself rejected by the audience that once embraced him. Undaunted, he stages a show, complete with a gospel choir, at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, and against all odds, it is a huge success. However, his triumph is short-lived. Suffering from blood poisoning following surgery to repair his mechanical heart valve, Darin is rushed to the hospital, where he dies at the age of 37. Following his death, he meets the younger counterpart of himself once again, and the two duet with "As Long As I'm Singing." ===== The front of the Parkers' house where A Christmas Story was filmed in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland's west side. The building was restored and reconfigured inside to match the soundstage interiors and is open to the public as A Christmas Story House. The film is presented in a series of vignettes, with narration provided by the adult Ralphie Parker reminiscing on one particular Christmas when he was nine years old. Ralphie wanted only one thing that Christmas: a Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle. Ralphie's desire is rejected by his mother, his teacher Miss Shields, and even a Santa Claus at Higbee's department store, all giving him the same warning: "You'll shoot your eye out." Christmas morning arrives and Ralphie dives into his presents. He does receive some presents that he enjoys, but he is disappointed that he did not receive the one thing that he wanted more than anything. It appears that all of the presents have been opened when father directs him to look at one last present that he had hidden. Ralphie opens it to reveal the Red Ryder gun. Ralphie takes the gun outside and fires it at a target perched on a metal sign in the backyard. However, the BB ricochets back and knocks his glasses off. While searching for them, thinking that he has indeed shot his eye out, he steps on them and breaks them. He lies to his mother that a falling icicle broke his glasses, and she believes him. Ralphie is in bed on Christmas night with his gun by his side. The adult Ralphie narrates that this was the best present he ever received. ===== Abner Marsh, a remarkably unattractive but highly skilled Mississippi River steamboat captain, is grappling with a financial crisis in 1857 when he is contacted by Joshua York, a rich, soft-spoken gentleman. They become unlikely business partners when Joshua promises to finance the construction of a magnificent new riverboat that will be larger, faster and more opulent than any other ever constructed. When finally completed, she is everything Abner has ever dreamed of piloting. The large white, blue and silver paddle steamer is christened Fevre Dream, for Abner's previously failing company, the Fevre River Packet Company. Joshua and Abner co-captain the new vessel, with Abner being solely responsible for her actual command and navigation. Many questions are soon raised by both the crew and passengers about Joshua and his circle of unusual friends, who hardly ever venture out of their cabins during daylight hours. Abner's own suspicions about his mysterious partner begin to grow when he finds scrapbooks in Joshua's cabin containing newspaper clippings detailing many mysterious, unexplained deaths. He confronts Joshua, who reveals that he and his friends are vampire hunters, using the Fevre Dream as their base of operations to investigate a trail of unusual deaths and disappearances along the river. Eventually, Joshua finally reveals the whole truth: He and his friends are themselves vampires, humanoid beings specialized for and dependent upon hunting humans, characterized by Joshua as "a different race". Joshua has developed a potion, using ancient alchemy and rudimentary chemistry, which controls the "red thirst" of all vampires. This has led many of his kind to consider him the "Pale King", a kind of vampire messiah destined to free them from their dependence on hunting humans. Joshua is on a personal crusade to free his people of their need to feed on human blood, and his traveling companions have all submitted to his control as their lord (or "bloodmaster"). The ancient and evil Damon Julian, a rival bloodmaster, formerly of New Orleans, soon learns of Joshua's efforts. He boards the Fevre Dream with his own vampire followers and manages to overpower and depose Joshua, becoming the new bloodmaster of all vampires aboard the Fevre Dream, including Joshua. Abner escapes, and sets out to hunt the Fevre Dream, which Julian now uses for his own nefarious purposes. After a failed attempt to retake his lost, now demonic ship, Marsh spends his remaining money searching up and down the Mississippi and its tributaries, until he is finally forced to give up. Marsh later serves as an agent of the Underground Railroad and a U.S. Navy officer during the American Civil War, all the while being haunted by the memory of his lost riverboat. Years later, in 1870, after receiving a surprising letter from Joshua, a retired Abner travels to New Orleans to help Joshua finally depose the evil bloodmaster who has ruined both of their dreams. Aboard the decaying Fevre Dream, the two vampires eventually square off, and with Abner's aid, Joshua finally overpowers Julian and becomes the bloodmaster once again. The novel closes many decades later by suggesting that all vampires, though still effectively immortal, were eventually freed from their blood addiction by Joshua's potion and Abner's brave efforts on their behalf. They make nighttime pilgrimages to Abner's grave overlooking the Mississippi, continuing to honor his heroic contribution to their cause of freedom, Joshua most often of all. ===== The story deals with the concepts of mindshare and evolutionary software. Jipi, a former Pacific-rim airline flight attendant, is staying with her friend in a high-rise luxury apartment building inside Manila's walled district of Intramuros. The fiftieth floor of a neighboring high-rise, houses the Asian-Pacific headquarters of Mindshare Management, under regional supervisor, Mr. Cardoza. Goto Engineering is conducting a citywide sewer replacement project which produces unpleasant gases that have hurt the city's hospitality industry. Jipi, looking for work, is given employment by Mr. Cardoza at the Manila Hotel in order to monitor guests in the lobby for signs of having noticed the unpleasant sewer gases and having the guests distracted by Cardoza's actors before they become aware of the construction across the street and lower the hotel's reputation by word of stay experiences. Mr. Cardoza explains a new job to Jipi. A California software firm, under contract with requests from law enforcement, have produced evolving software inclined to detect paranoid schizophrenics during conversations over the Internet. Eventually, several million descendent generations of software are evolved that mimics the persona of a paranoid human, thus making them ideal against a hacker trying to shut them down. Shenzhen begins to make pirated wholesale copies of the chip, which are sold to a tariff-free zone city in North Africa, leading to the manufacture of an evolved theft-deterrent - an alarm-activated car bomb. Not knowing a proper amount of explosives to use with the car alarms, one manufacturer's particular shipment of Czech Semtex is equally divided into 48 customer deliveries, each with enough charge to level part of a city block. After one levels a mall in California, Mr. Cardoza, in Manila, is hired to track down the remaining 47 vehicles using each vehicle's wireless internet modems. Recognizing Jipi's charm, he recruits her to type messages in internet conversation to the next of the remaining schizoid-induced personality car alarms via satellite connection to track down clues to its location until local police can shut it down. ===== In the story, the protagonist is an underemployed mathematician who resides in the house of his brother's family in Chicago. The brother, owner of an advertising agency, has won a large contract to create ads for "Simoleons", a form of non- governmental electronic "currency". To launch the product, they plan to give away 27 million Simoleons to the winners of a contest. The contest is based on the long-used format of "guess the number of jelly beans in the container", with Chicago's Soldier Field and 26 other football stadiums as the containers. The brother asks the mathematician ("the hero") to do the calculations needed. The hero complies with the request, using the calculator function of the family's advanced set-top box to speed the long math. Sometime later, while taking a rest break from his online job in the Metaverse, the hero is contacted by a representative of a group of "crypto-anarchists" who have formed a virtual nation called the First Distributed Republic. The FDR warns the hero that the government, which fears E-money, has stolen his calculations by compelling the cable company to tap the family's set-top box. The government plans to give the answers to a group of planted people, who will then proceed to ruin the reputation of Simoleons through various disinformation schemes. The hero has no actual worry about this, except that his parents are heavily invested in his brother's advertising agency; as the agency would be liable for the loss of security on a project they have contracted for, the agency would go bankrupt, and their parents would lose their money. The FDR, on the other hand, wish to prove that not only would E-money work, but that it can circumvent government controls such as taxes. Together, the hero and the FDR create a simple scheme to foil the plot. ===== A young woman named Odile (Anna Karina) meets a man named Franz (Sami Frey) in an English language class. She has told him of a large pile of money stashed in the villa where she lives with her aunt Victoria and Mr. Stolz in Joinville, a Parisian suburb. Franz tells his friend Arthur (Claude Brasseur) of the money, and the two make a plan to steal it. Franz and Arthur go to the English class, where Arthur flirts with Odile and asks her about the money. Odile goes home and finds the money in Stolz's room. She then meets Franz and Arthur, and they go to a café, order drinks, and dance. Odile tells Arthur that she loves him, and the two go back to his place and spend the night together. The next day, Arthur's uncle learns of the money and wants a cut of it. Franz, Arthur, and Odile decide to commit the robbery sooner than they planned. The three meet up and run through the Louvre in record time. That night, they go to Odile's house and find that the door to Stolz's room is locked. Arthur tells Odile to find the key. Franz and Arthur return to the house the following night, and Odile tells them that the locks have been changed. They tie and gag Victoria, before locking her in a closet. Then, they go to Stolz's room and see that the money is not there anymore. They search the house and find only a small amount of cash. When they open the closet to interrogate Victoria, she appears to be dead. Franz and Odile leave, and Arthur stays behind. While driving away, Franz and Odile see Arthur's uncle heading to the villa, and they go back. They then see that Arthur has found the rest of the money in a doghouse. Arthur and his uncle get into a shootout and kill each other. Stolz returns to the house, and Victoria is shown to be alive. Franz and Odile drive off with the small stack of money from the robbery. They flee to South America and realize that they love each other. ===== Jonathan Hoag, a lover of art and fine dining living in Chicago, realizes that he has no memory of his daytime activities when asked, at an evening dinner, what he does for a living. Furthermore, when he washes his hands in the evening, he discovers a red-brown substance, possibly dried blood, under his fingernails. He contacts a detective agency, Randall & Craig, and asks them to follow him during the day. The partners, actually the husband and wife team of Ted and Cynthia Randall, agree to this. They try to collect fingerprints from their client, but find that Hoag left none, even when not wearing gloves. The few memories Hoag has turn out to be false, except for his home address, and a doctor, Potiphar T. Potbury, whom Hoag consulted about the substance under his fingernails. The doctor had thrown him out of his office and told him not to return. The first time the pair tail Hoag, Cynthia sees him turn and talk to her husband. Then Cynthia is menaced by Hoag after she tails him in an office building. When she is reunited with Ted, he tells her that he had a completely different experience: after uneventfully tailing Hoag into the building and up to Hoag's office on the thirteenth floor, Ted discovers that Hoag is a jeweler working for a company called Detheridge & Co., and that the red substance is jeweler's rouge. Both realize that something is terribly wrong, especially once they discover that the building has no thirteenth floor. Ted has a series of "dreams" in which he is taken through a mirror into the offices of Detheridge & Co., where he is told to leave Hoag alone by an assembly of conservative businessmen. He ignores the dreams, until in one final dream Cynthia is taken through as well. The businessmen reveal themselves as "Sons of the Bird", disciples of an old pagan religion; Hoag is a nemesis of theirs. They cause something to be sucked out of Cynthia into a bottle, and return her and Ted to their apartment. Ted wakes up to find Cynthia in an apparent coma. He realizes that the dreams were true, and paints over all the mirrors in the apartment. He then calls Potbury, the only doctor he knows, to come and examine Cynthia. Potbury diagnoses her with lethargica gravis, but when Ted repeats the mantra of the Sons of the Bird to him, "The Bird is Cruel!", Potbury compulsively covers his face just as the Sons did. Realizing Potbury is one of them, Ted overpowers him and locks him in the bathroom. He calls Hoag, who comes to the apartment. Told about Potbury, Hoag says that lethargica gravis is just a way of saying "deep sleep". They open the bathroom door, only to find that Potbury is gone, and the mirror scraped free of paint with a razor. They find a bottle in Potbury's black bag. When they open the bottle, Cynthia revives. To solve the mystery once and for all, they take Hoag to their office and subject him to questioning under drugs. After a few questions, Hoag wakes up with a strong, dominant personality, completely different from the nervous, weak man they have heretofore worked with. He declares the session over, and tells them to meet him later in a park just outside the city. He gives them a list of things to bring, and leaves them in a state of some puzzlement. Reaching the park, with the collection of fine foods and wines Hoag requested, Ted and Cynthia find him there. They picnic on the epicurean fare, and Hoag tells them he is an art critic. The art in question is their entire world, created by an "artist" as a student project. Critics live as inhabitants in the world, not knowing they are Critics, in order to judge the experiences. One such experience is eating and drinking, as Hoag points out, since the simple act of gaining energy to live had not been thought of as an "experience" previously. Another is sex, but this is thought to be ridiculous until Hoag realizes that it is the basis for "the tragedy of human love" that he sees between Ted and Cynthia. Hoag's artistic judgment is that, while there is much that is amateurish in the world, overall its Creator has real promise. The Sons of the Bird are responsible for all the things that Ted and Cynthia have seen, including the times they saw Hoag during the day. They only encountered the real Hoag in their home and office. The Sons were an early artistic mistake, hurriedly "painted over" rather than eliminated in the rush to complete the work, but still holding power. Now they are to be expunged completely. Hoag was recruited to report on them; the substance under his fingernails is their ichor, placed there to make them fearful. Hoag tells the couple to leave the city, not stopping to talk to anyone on the way. He places one last grape in his mouth, and then becomes still. Leaving his inert body, the two drive through town, but finally yield to the urge to tell someone about Hoag's body. When they roll down their car windows, however, all that is outside their automobile is a pulsing, luminous mist, though all the other windows show an apparently normal scene. They drive on in a state of shock. In the epilogue, the Randalls now live in an unnamed remote rural area by the sea. They do everything together, have no mirrors in their home, and every night before going to sleep "he handcuffs one of his wrists to one of hers". ===== Seymour "Sy" Parrish (Robin Williams) is a photo technician at a one-hour photo in big-box store SavMart. He lives alone, has no friends or love life, and lives only for his work, which he considers a "vital service". His favorite customers are the Yorkin family, whose photos he has developed for many years. Over the years, he has grown obsessed with the family, enshrining them in his home with their photos that he secretly copies. However, as he is shy and socially inept, his attempts to become closer to the family are gently rebuffed. Sy eventually manages to spark a connection with Nina Yorkin (Connie Nielsen) when he pretends to be interested in a book that he saw her purchase. Nina learns that Sy lives a solitary existence, something only her son Jake had considered previously. The next day, Sy is fired after the store's manager Bill (Gary Cole) discovers that Sy has printed many more prints than have been ordered and paid for, as well as for spacing out on the job, taking 90-minute lunch breaks, giving Jake a disposable camera free for his birthday, and for an altercation with the developing machine's maintenance person. While inspecting his photos for the last time, Sy discovers that Will Yorkin (Michael Vartan) is having an extramarital affair, and his idyllic conception of the Yorkins as the perfect family is shattered. He surreptitiously places the photos of Will and his mistress, Maya Burson (Erin Daniels), into a packet of photos that Nina was scheduled to pick up. Sy follows and takes pictures, paparazzi style, of Bill's young daughter, and sends them to Bill as a threat. Yoshi, another SavMart employee, discovers the pictures and turns them over to Bill, leading to a police investigation against Sy. While detectives Van Der Zee (Eriq La Salle) and Outerbridge (Clark Gregg) discover Sy's obsession, Sy confronts Will and Maya during a rendezvous in their hotel room. Armed with a knife and a camera, Sy forces the lovers to pose naked in sexual positions while he takes pictures. After the confrontation, Sy sees that the police have arrived at the hotel and he escapes through an emergency exit. The exit door trips an alarm and Van Der Zee pursues him while Outerbridge discovers Will and Maya, physically unharmed but emotionally traumatized. The police apprehend Sy in the parking garage. Upon being arrested, Sy claims, "I just took pictures." When Van Der Zee asks Sy why he terrorized Will and Maya, Sy says that he can tell Van Der Zee is a good father who would never take "disgusting, sick, degrading pictures" of his children, suggesting that Sy's own father exploited him for child pornography. Sy then asks for the pictures that he took at the hotel, which Van Der Zee described as "evidence." They appear to be only shots of objects and furnishings of a hotel room. The film closes with an enigmatic family picture of the Yorkins with Will's arm around a smiling Sy. ===== Mitch McDeere is a graduate of Western Kentucky University with a degree in accounting, who has passed his Certified Public Accountant exam on the first attempt and graduated third in his class at Harvard Law School. Mitch is married to his high school sweetheart, Abby Sutherland, an elementary school teacher who also attended Western Kentucky University. His older brother Ray is imprisoned in Tennessee, and his other brother, Rusty, died in Vietnam. Mitch spurns offers from law firms in New York and Chicago in favor of signing with Bendini, Lambert and Locke, a small tax law firm based in Memphis. He finds the firm's offer — a large salary, a lease on a new Mercedes-Benz , and a low-interest mortgage on a house — too generous to resist. Soon after he joins, his new colleagues help him study and pass his bar exam, the first priority for new associates. Mitch is assigned to partner Avery Tolar, the firm's "bad boy," but a highly accomplished attorney. Two of Mitch's colleagues, Marty Kozinski and Joe Hodge, die in a scuba diving accident in the Cayman Islands a few days before he starts at the firm. On his first scheduled day of work, Mitch attends their funerals. Mitch finds the deaths unsettling, but focuses on his goal of becoming the youngest partner in the firm's history. During a memorial service at the firm for the two deceased attorneys, Mitch notices plaques commemorating three other attorneys who died while working at the firm. Suspicious, he hires a private investigator, Eddie Lomax, an ex-cellmate of his brother Ray, to investigate the deaths. Lomax discovers that the other three deceased attorneys died under suspicious circumstances: in a car accident, a hunting accident, and a suicide. While the details of their deaths don't add up, nothing concrete was ever proven. Lomax cautions Mitch to be careful. Soon after delivering his report to Mitch, Lomax is murdered. FBI agent Wayne Tarrance confronts Mitch, telling him the FBI is watching the firm. While in Washington, D.C. on business, Mitch learns from the FBI that the firm is a white collar front for the Morolto crime family of Chicago. The firm's founder, Anthony Bendini, was the son-in-law of old man Morolto. He founded the firm in 1944, and for almost half a century, the firm has lured young lawyers from humble backgrounds with the promise of prestige and financial security. Although Mitch's work so far has been legitimate, the partners and senior associates are deeply immersed in a massive tax fraud and money laundering operation that accounts for as much as 75 percent of the firm's business. By the time members of the firm become aware of its true nature, they cannot leave. No lawyer has escaped the firm alive; the five who tried were killed to keep them from talking. Kozinski and Hodge were actually in contact with the FBI at the time of their murders. Mitch learns that his house, office, and car are bugged. The FBI tells Mitch that in order to get enough evidence to bring down the firm, he must reveal information about his clients. The attorney–client privilege in most U.S. states, including Tennessee, See Rule 1.6, "Confidentiality". does not apply to situations when a lawyer knows that a crime is taking place. However, if Mitch cooperates, he will have to reveal information about some of his legitimate clients as well, which will all but end his legal career. The FBI warns Mitch that he will almost certainly go to prison if he chooses to ignore them. The firm also ramps up the pressure on Mitch; the firm's security chief, DeVasher, suspects he is getting too close to the FBI. Desperate to find a way out and stay alive in the process, Mitch has to make a decision quickly. Ultimately, Mitch and Abby decide to cooperate with the FBI. However, they secretly decide to flee after turning over enough evidence to topple the firm, since they don't completely trust the FBI to protect them. He promises to collect enough evidence to bring down the firm in return for $2 million and Ray's release from prison. Working with Lomax's secretary and lover, Tammy Hemphill, Mitch obtains several confidential documents from the firm's bank records in the Caymans, eventually copying over 10,000 documents detailing over 20 years of illegal transactions. Mitch tells Tarrance that while these documents spell out only a fraction of the firm's criminal activities, they contain enough evidence to indict roughly half the firm's active members and several retired partners immediately. However, the documents will also provide strong circumstantial evidence that the firm is part and parcel of a criminal conspiracy. This will give the FBI probable cause to obtain a search warrant for the firm's building in downtown Memphis and with it, access to all of the firm's dirty files. Mitch is certain those files will provide enough evidence for a massive RICO indictment that will bring down the firm and cripple the Morolto family. Meanwhile, the firm becomes suspicious of Mitch. Tarry Ross, alias "Alfred," a top FBI official and close confidant of Voyles who is actually a mole for another crime family, confirms that Mitch is indeed working with the FBI. Once Mitch learns of the leak, he flees to Panama City Beach, Florida with his brother and wife with the Moroltos and FBI chasing them. On the way, he steals $10 million from one of the firm's Grand Cayman bank accounts, sending some of the money to his mother and in-laws, depositing some in a Swiss bank account, and leaving the rest for Tammy. Mitch, Abby and Ray manage to escape to the Caymans with the help of Barry Abanks, a scuba diving business owner from the islands whose son died in the incident which killed Kozinski and Hodge. Armed with Mitch's evidence, the FBI indicts 51 present and former members of the Bendini firm, as well as 31 alleged members of the Morolto family, for everything from money laundering to mail fraud. As the book ends, Mitch, Abby and Ray enjoy their newfound wealth in the Caymans. ===== During a thunderstorm in early September 1944, units of the 35th Infantry Division are nearing the French town of Nancy. One of the division's mechanized reconnaissance platoons is ordered to hold their position when the Germans counterattack. The outnumbered platoon also receives friendly fire from their own mortars. Private Kelly (Clint Eastwood), a former Lieutenant scapegoated for a failed infantry assault, captures Colonel Dankhopf of Wehrmacht Intelligence. Interrogating his prisoner, Kelly notices the officer's briefcase has several gold bars disguised under lead plating. Curious, he gets the colonel drunk and learns that there is a cache of 14,000 gold bars, worth US$16 million ($ million today), stored in a bank vault behind enemy lines in the town of Clermont. When their position is overrun and the Americans pull back, a Tiger I kills Dankhopf. Kelly decides to go after the gold. He recruits Supply Sergeant "Crapgame" (Don Rickles) in order to obtain the supplies and guns that will be needed. A spaced-out tank platoon commander known as "Oddball" (Donald Sutherland) overhears, and he and his three M4 Sherman tanks join the caper. With their commanding officer, Captain Maitland (Hal Buckley), preoccupied pursuing opportunities to enrich himself, the men of Kelly's platoon are all eager to join him. After much argument, Kelly finally persuades cynical Master Sergeant "Big Joe" (Telly Savalas) to go along. Kelly decides that his infantrymen and Oddball's tanks will proceed separately and meet near Clermont. The Shermans fight their way through the German lines, destroying a railway depot in the process, but the bridge they need to cross is blown up by Allied fighter-bombers. Oddball contacts an engineer unit to build him a bridge, and the engineers in turn bring in even more men for support. After losing their jeeps and halftracks to friendly fire from an American plane that mistakes them for the enemy, Kelly and the others proceed on foot and unknowingly walk into a minefield. Private Grace is killed when he steps on a mine, and PFC Mitchell and Corporal Job are killed when the men are forced to engage a German patrol. Oddball links up with Kelly two nights later, bringing with him the extra troops. They battle their way across the river to Clermont. By this time, intercepted radio messages attract the notice of the 35th Infantry Division commander, Major General Colt, who misinterprets them as the efforts of aggressive patrols pushing forward on their own initiative. He immediately rushes to the front to exploit the "breakthrough." Kelly's men find Clermont defended by three Tiger tanks of the 1st SS Panzer Division with infantry support. The Americans are able to eliminate the German infantry and two of the Tigers, but the final tank parks itself right in front of the bank and Oddball's last Sherman breaks down, leaving them stalemated. At Crapgame’s suggestion, Kelly, Big Joe, and Oddball approach the Tiger and offer the commander and his crew a share of the loot. After the Tiger blows the bank doors open, the Germans and Americans divide the spoilsworth US$875,000 each ($ million today)and go their separate ways, just barely ahead of the still-oblivious General Colt, who is blocked from entering Clermont by the French residents, who have been deceived by Big Joe into thinking that Colt is Charles de Gaulle. ===== In 1961, scientist Dr. Paul Armstrong (Larry Blamire) and his wife Betty (Fay Masterson) drive into the mountains. Dr. Armstrong is searching for a meteorite that has fallen in the nearby woods, suspected to contain the rare element atmosphereum. Another scientist in the area, Dr. Roger Fleming (Brian Howe) questions Ranger Brad (Dan Conroy) about Cadavra Cave, a site rumored to contain a "Lost Skeleton". That evening, both the Armstrongs and Dr. Fleming observe another falling meteor. A short time later a farmer (Robert Deveau), encountered by the Armstrongs on their way to the cabin, is mutilated by a mysterious beast. The second meteorite is actually a spaceship carrying two aliens. Kro-Bar (Andrew Parks) and Lattis (Susan McConnell) are from the planet Marva and are now stranded on Earth, in need of the element atmosphereum to repair their powerless ship. The ship's pet mutant (Darren Reed) escapes from its cage while they are distracted. The next day, Dr. Roger Fleming finds Cadavra Cave and locates the Lost Skeleton. The Skeleton commands Fleming to bring atmosphereum to return him to life. Meanwhile, Dr. Armstrong and Betty venture into the woods, discovering the meteorite just outside Cadavra Cave. Dr. Fleming overhears them and plots to steal the meteorite from the pair. Kro-Bar and Lattis also journey into the woods, locating the cabin with the meteorite. Using a device called the "transmutatron," they disguise themselves as "Earth people" and clumsily manage to talk their way into the cabin, having been mistaken for the property owners. Not long after they arrive, Dr. Fleming discovers the aliens' transmutatron, left outside the cabin since it would ruin their disguise. He uses it to create an ally for himself, the alluring Animala (Jennifer Blaire), created from four different animals. After briefly teaching Animala the basics of human interaction, he leads her to the cabin and convinces the Armstrongs to invite him inside. Soon it becomes clear to Lattis and Kro-Bar (calling themselves "Turgaso" and "Bammin" on Earth in an effort to pass as earth humans) that Fleming knows their secret. They soon cooperate in stealing the meteorite, after Betty is psychically attacked by the Skeleton and Dr. Armstrong is entranced by Animala's dancing. The evil scientist tricks the pair, however, and the Skeleton uses his mind powers to freeze the aliens in their tracks once Dr. Fleming has the meteorite. Dr. Fleming and Animala soon use the atmosphereum to resurrect the Skeleton. Meanwhile, Betty, waiting for Dr. Armstrong to come back, encounters the Mutant, who appears to fall in love with her, but she is terrified and faints. While Fleming and Animala are resurrecting the skeleton, Armstrong arrives and encounters the unfrozen aliens. They also find Betty, who has realized that the mutant has some sort of feelings for her. After bonding over a meal, the four head off to try to obtain the meteorite before it can be used to resurrect the skeleton, but they are attacked by the Mutant. Dr. Armstrong is injured in the fight, but realizes that the monster does not want to harm Betty. Armstrong and his wife return to the cabin to recover, while the aliens try to stop Fleming on their own. However, they are captured by the skeleton's mind powers, and forced to dance by his psychic powers. The Skeleton uses his mental powers to force Lattis into becoming his bride, much to Kro-Bar's chagrin. The Skeleton mocks everyone, including Fleming, but keeps them in line with his telepathy. When Armstrong sees what is going on, he comes up with a plan to get Betty to lure the Mutant to the wedding to disrupt it. After getting the Mutant to follow them, Armstrong and Betty attack Fleming and Animala. During the fight, the Skeleton kills Fleming after the latter is beaten by Armstrong. The Mutant then arrives at the wedding and attacks the Skeleton, whose powers do not affect beings with as simple minds as the Mutant. They instead fight until the Skeleton is thrown over a cliff, smashing apart on impact. The mutant then succumbs to its injuries and dies. Animala is turned back into the animals she originally was via the transmutatron. The alien and human couples spout traditional homilies about different species working together in harmony, then go to retrieve the atmosphereum. ===== The story portrays a future in which the only cars allowed on the road are those that contain positronic brains; these are autonomous cars and do not require a human driver. The story takes place in 2057. Fifty-one old cars have been retired to a farm run by Jake, where they can be properly cared for. All have names, but only three are identified by Jake. Sally is a vain convertible, possibly a Corvette (the only convertible US-made sports car at the time the story was written), and one sedan, Giuseppe, is identified as coming from the Milan factories, where Alfa Romeo was headquartered. The oldest car on the farm is from 2015, a Mat-o-Mot that goes by the name of Matthew, which Jake had once chauffeured. The cars in the farm communicate by slamming doors and honking their horns, and by misfiring, causing audible engine knocking. Raymond Gellhorn, an unscrupulous businessman, tries to steal some of the cars in order to 'recycle' the brains. He forces Jake at gunpoint to board a bus he has poorly wired up to control the vehicle, trying to get away from the farm with Jake as a hostage. (Jake describes the bus as suffering the positronic brain equivalent of perpetual migraines.) The cars chase and eventually surround the bus, communicating with it until it opens a door. Jake falls out, and the bus drives off with Gellhorn. Sally takes Jake back to the farm; Gellhorn is found dead in a ditch the next morning, exhausted and run over. The bus is found by the police and is identified by its tire tracks. The story ends with Jake losing trust in his cars, thinking what the world will become if cars realize that they are effectively enslaved by humans, and revolt. ===== Stan is a worker for a small London flower business. The humour centred on the relationships between the workers and the scrapes they got into doing odd jobs in the gardens of houses in the district. Beckinsale's character, Stan, was apt to wind up in bed with lonely housewives, and equally apt to spend time with said housewives musing on philosophy and the pointlessness of life. ===== In 2003, while digging up remains at a Korean War battlefield to set up a memorial site, a South Korean army excavation team notifies an elderly man that they identified some remains as his own even though he is still alive. Five decades earlier, in June 1950, the Lee family goes about their lives in the South Korean capital of Seoul. Lee Jin-tae owns a shoeshine stand to pay for his younger brother Jin-seok's education. Jin-tae has also bought them a silver pen, a precious item the brothers share, and is working on a pair of immaculate shoes for his brother to wear to school. Jin-tae's fiancée, Young-shin, works with the Lees' noodle shop. On June 25, 1950, North Korea invades South Korea, and both brothers are forcibly conscripted. They are assigned to the 1st Infantry Division, fighting at the Pusan Perimeter before advancing north upon the successful U.S. amphibious landing at Inchon. Jin-tae is told by a superior that if he can earn the highest award for a South Korean soldier, the Taeguk Cordon of the Order of Military Merit, his brother can be sent home. Jin-tae volunteers for many dangerous missions and performs suicidal acts of bravery to earn the medal, and is quickly promoted to sergeant. His heroism during the urban Battle of Pyongyang finally results in Jin-tae's nomination for the medal, but his combat experiences have made him into an emotionless killer, which horrifies his younger brother. The U.N. coalition is eventually forced to retreat all the way back to Seoul when the Chinese enter the war on the North Korean side. Jin-tae finally earns his medal, but in Seoul, Young-shin, suspected of joining the Communist party during the Communist occupation, is arrested by a South Korean militia, and the brothers attempt to stop them. During the struggle, Young-shin is shot dead, and the brothers are arrested for trying to rescue her. In jail Jin-tae's request to release his brother is refused, and the security commander orders the prison set afire with the prisoners inside when the enemy forces approach. Trying to rescue his brother, Jin-tae loses consciousness and wakes up believing Jin-seok died in the fire. He murders the surrendering prison warden before being captured by Chinese soldiers. In truth, however, Jin-seok had been transferred to a military hospital after barely escaping, rescued by "Uncle Yang", a now-disabled veteran from their old unit. Jin-seok learns that his brother had defected to the North Koreans and now leads an elite North Korean formation known as the "Flag Unit". Jin-seok chooses to rejoin the Army, which has by now retaken all of South Korea with U.N. support. He demands to be allowed to fight, at the 38th parallel, but is denied. Jin-seok eventually defects, claiming to his captors he is Jin-tae's brother. The North Koreans, however, believe Jin-seok is a spy and are about to take him away for interrogation when their position is attacked by U.S. and South Korean forces. The attack frees Jin-seok, who continues his search as the position is captured in a vicious hand-to-hand battle. Before the U.N. forces can secure their gains, however, the "Flag Unit" arrives, tearing into them with Jin-tae at its head. The brothers come face-to-face, but, not recognizing Jin-seok, Jin-tae attempts to kill him, and Jin-seok barely avoids death before his brother is briefly incapacitated. Jin- seok attempts to carry him away but is shot in the leg. With both of them wounded, Jin-tae finally recognizes his brother, and the two have a tearful reunion. This is cut short, however, as the North Koreans force back the U.S. and South Korean troops. Jin-Tae orders his brother to save himself. Jin-seok initially refuses but relents after Jin-Tae promises that they will meet again. As the wounded Jin-seok limps to safety, Jin-tae mans a machine gun and provides cover fire for his brother and the other South Koreans before being killed. In 2003, the elderly Jin-seok stands at the excavation site; the remains initially identified as his are those of Jin-tae. He examines Jin- tae's few excavated belongings, including their long-lost silver pen, and begs his brother's skeletal remains to speak to him, quoting his promises as his granddaughter looks on with sympathy. Back in the 1950s, in the aftermath of the Korean War, Jin-seok returns to his mother, who also survived, discovers the shoes to which his brother had dedicated himself to perfecting, and heads off with Young-shin's younger siblings in a now-peaceful, but ruined, Seoul as the nation begins rebuilding. He reassures them that he will return to school, fulfilling the promise he made to Jin-tae. ===== In 1959, U. S. Navy Rear Admiral Matt Sherman, ComSubPac, boards the obsolete submarine USS Sea Tiger, prior to her departure for the scrapyard. Sherman, her first commanding officer, begins reading his wartime personal logbook, and a flashback begins. On December 10, 1941, a Japanese air raid sinks Sea Tiger while she is docked at the Cavite Navy Yard in the Philippines. Lieutenant Commander Sherman and his crew begin repairs, hoping to sail for Darwin, Australia before the Japanese overrun the port. Believing there is no chance of repairing the submarine, the squadron commodore transfers most of Sherman's crew to other boats, but promises Sherman that he will have first call on any available replacements. Lieutenant (junior grade) Nick Holden, an admiral's aide, is reassigned to Sea Tiger despite lacking any submarine training or experience. Holden demonstrates great skill as a scrounger after Sherman makes him the supply officer. He teams up with Marine Sergeant Ramon Gallardo, an escaped prisoner (caught misappropriating Navy property to run his own restaurant), to obtain materials desperately needed for repairs. What Holden and his men cannot acquire from base warehouses, they steal. Refloated and restored to barely seaworthy condition, Sea Tiger puts to sea after a native witch doctor casts a protection spell on her. Sea Tiger reaches Marinduque, where Sherman reluctantly agrees to evacuate five stranded Army nurses. Holden is attracted to Second Lieutenant Barbara Duran, while Sherman has a series of embarrassing encounters with the well-endowed and clumsy Second Lieutenant Dolores Crandall. Later, when Sherman prepares to attack an enemy oiler moored to a pier, Crandall accidentally fires a torpedo before the Torpedo Data Computer finishes transmitting the settings to the "tin fish." It misses the tanker and instead "sinks" a truck ashore. Sea Tiger flees amidst a hail of shellfire. USS Balao standing in for Operation Petticoats fictional USS Sea Tiger. Note the smoke of the backfiring No,1 engine on the starboard quarter. Sherman tries to put the nurses ashore at Cebu, but the Army refuses to accept them without the proper orders, as the Japanese are closing in. Unable to obtain needed supplies from official sources, Sherman allows Holden to set up a casino in order to acquire them from soldiers. Chief Torpedoman Molumphry has been asking for paint. Holden manages to get some red and white lead primer paint, but does not have enough of either to prime the entire hull. Sherman reluctantly has the two mixed together, resulting in a pale pink primer that is applied. A Japanese air raid forces a hasty departure before the crew can apply a top coat of navy gray. Tokyo Rose mocks the mysterious pink submarine, while the U.S. Navy believes it to be a Japanese deception, ordering that it be sunk on sight. An American destroyer spots Sea Tiger and opens fire, then launches depth charges when the submarine crash dives. Sherman tries an oil slick and then launches blankets, pillows, and life jackets, but the deception fails. At Holden's suggestion, Sherman ejects the nurses' lingerie. Crandall's bra convinces the destroyer's captain that "the Japanese have nothing like this", and he ceases fire. Sea Tiger, still painted pink, arrives at Darwin battered but under her own power. Sherman's reminiscence ends with the arrival of Commander Nick Holden, his wife (the former Lieutenant Duran), and their two sons. Sherman promises Holden command of a new nuclear-powered submarine, also named Sea Tiger. Sherman's wife (the former Lieutenant Crandall) arrives late with their four daughters and rear-ends her husband's staff car, causing it to lock bumpers with a Navy bus. When it drives away, dragging his car with it, Sherman reassures his wife that it will be stopped at the main gate. Commander Holden takes Sea Tiger out on her final voyage as the perpetually troublesome No. 1 diesel engine backfires one last time. ===== U.S. Navy Captain Rockwell "Rock" Torrey is a divorced "second generation Navy" son of a career Chief Petty Officer. A Naval Academy graduate and career officer, Torrey is removed from command of his heavy cruiser for "throwing away the book" when pursuing the enemy and then being torpedoed by a Japanese submarine after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Torrey's executive officer, Commander (later Captain) Paul Eddington, is a wayward sort who resigned as a naval aviator and returned to the surface navy because of an unhappy marriage. His wife's affairs and drunken escapades have become the talk of Honolulu, and her death during the Pearl Harbor attack—in the company of an Army Air Forces major, with whom she had a wild fling on a local beach—drives Eddington into a bar brawl with a group of Army Air Forces officers, a subsequent stint in the Pearl Harbor brig, then exile as the "... officer in charge of piers and warehouses ..." in what he calls a "backwater island purgatory." Lieutenant, junior grade William "Mac" McConnell is Officer of the Deck (Inport) of the destroyer Cassiday. The morning of the Pearl Harbor attack, McConnell orders his ship and skeleton crew to immediately get Cassiday underway when the Japanese first attack, even though the ship's commanding officer and executive officer are still ashore. McConnell and Cassiday later provide support to Torrey's heavy cruiser, sinking the Japanese submarine that torpedoed the cruiser and providing subsequent damage control support. After months of desk duty in Hawaii and recuperation from a broken arm he suffered in the attack, Torrey begins a romance with divorced Navy Nurse Corps Lieutenant Maggie Haynes, who tells him that his estranged son Jeremiah is now an ensign in the Naval Reserve on active duty, assigned to a PT boat, and dating Maggie's roommate, a Nurse Corps ensign. A brief and strained visit with Jeremiah brings Torrey in on a South Pacific island- hopping offensive codenamed "Skyhook," which is under the command of overly cautious Vice Admiral B.T. Broderick. On additional information from his BOQ roommate, Commander Egan Powell, a thrice-divorced Hollywood film writer and Naval Reserve intelligence officer called to active duty, Torrey guesses that the aim of Skyhook is to capture a strategic island named Levu-Vana, whose central plain would make an ideal airfield site for Army Air Forces Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress squadrons. Maggie informs him that her unit is to be shipped out to the same area in preparation for the offensive. Maggie's roommate, Ensign Annalee Dorne, has been dating Torrey's son. Jeremiah (“Jere”) is arrogant and conspiring with a superior officer, Commander Neal Owynn, a former U.S. congressman who obtained a commission as a senior Naval Reserve officer following Pearl Harbor. Owynn's additional intent is to do as little as possible in combat while embellishing his credentials for an eventual postwar return to Congress. Dohrn's romance with Jere ends and Eddington develops an interest in her. In the meantime, Torrey's loyal and resourceful young flag lieutenant, newly-promoted Lieutenant Commander "Mac" McConnell, uses a 30-day leave in San Francisco to get reacquainted with wife Beverly, a civilian observer for the Navy who worries that Mac will be killed in action and wants a child. Come the summer of 1942, Torrey is promoted to rear admiral by the Pacific fleet's commander-in-chief, who then gives him tactical command of Skyhook, an assignment requiring the same sort of guts and gallantry he previously displayed as commanding officer of his cruiser. Torrey personally selects Paul Eddington to be his Chief of Staff, and infuriates Broderick by immediately planning and executing an operation to overrun Gavabutu, an island to be used as a staging base for the invasion of Levu- Vana. Owynn is now Broderick's aide, with Jere still by his side. The Japanese have withdrawn their garrisons from Gavabutu, making it an easy capture. But as Torrey turns his undivided attention to Levu-Vana, his attempts to secure more material and manpower are frustrated by General Douglas MacArthur's simultaneous and much larger Solomon Islands campaign. Reconnaissance aircraft prove especially difficult to come by, and surface combatant forces amount to little more than several cruisers and destroyers, including Torrey's former command, now skippered by his former operations officer, Captain Burke. When the mission succeeds, Jere recognizes the disloyalty of Owynn and Broderick and gains a new regard for his father. Eddington's emotional instability drives him to rape Dohrn, who is now engaged to Torrey's son. The traumatized nurse, fearing she might be pregnant, tries to tell him but he doesn't believe her. She then commits suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills. As the truth is about to be revealed, Eddington—still a qualified aviator—commandeers a North American PBJ Mitchell patrol bomber and flies solo on an unauthorized reconnaissance flight to locate elements of the Japanese fleet. Engaged, shot down, and killed by Japanese Zero fighters, he goes down in a fiery death in a redeeming act of sacrifice, finding and giving advance warning of a large Japanese task force centered around the super-battleship Yamato, on its way to blast Torrey's much smaller force off the islands. Despite the new seaborne threat, Torrey nevertheless mounts the invasion of Levu-Vana and proceeds with a nothing-to-be-lost attempt to turn back the enemy force. Tragically, his son Jere is killed during a nighttime PT boat action when he is rammed by a Japanese destroyer. The following morning sees a pitched surface action off the shores of Levu-Vana, with the Americans drawing first blood and the Yamato decimating much of the U.S. force in response. Many lives are lost, Powell's and Burke's among them. Severely injured at the height of the battle, later resulting in the amputation of his left leg, Torrey is rescued by his flag lieutenant, now-Lieutenant Commander McConnell, and is returned to Pearl Harbor aboard a Navy hospital ship under Maggie's care. Expecting to be court- martialed, Torrey is instead congratulated by CINCPAC for successfully repelling the Japanese advance and allowing his Marines to take Levu-Vana. Although Torrey has lost a leg, he is told by CINCPAC he will be sent back to Washington, DC, but not to face court-martial. Instead, he will get a peg leg and be shipped back to CINCPAC, with CINCPAC telling him he will command a task force and "stump his way to Tokyo" with the rest of the Allied forces. CINCPAC and McConnell leave Maggie and a drowsy Torrey. Maggie pulls the blinds on the porthole in Torrey's cabin, which slightly surprises Torrey who calls out "Maggie!" She responds in a calming voice, "I'll be here, Rock", and Torrey lapses into sleep, as Maggie warmly smiles back at him. ===== ===== When Clyde Banks, an Iowan Deputy with a newborn baby and a wife in the first Gulf War, starts looking into odd events in his town, he discovers a plot involving a new Triangle Trade of terrorists, biological warfare, and training. Mixing the events staged in Washington, D.C. and those happening in the Gulf, a strange thread of deceit appears to be winding its way back to Iowa. Although fictional in its narrative, the story includes appearances by Tariq Aziz and George H. W. Bush. Category:1996 American novels Category:Novels by Neal Stephenson Category:Literary collaborations Category:Books about George H. W. Bush Category:Works published under a pseudonym Category:Novels set in Iowa Category:Ames, Iowa Category:Cultural depictions of George H. W. Bush ===== The film is told in eight straight chapters: # In which we happen upon Manderlay and meet the people there # "The freed enterprise of Manderlay" # "The Old Lady's Garden" # In which Grace means business # "Shoulder to Shoulder" # Hard times at Manderlay # "Harvest" # In which Grace settles with Manderlay and the film ends Set in 1933, the film takes up the story of Grace and her father after burning the town of Dogville at the end of the previous film. Grace and her father travel in convoy with a number of gunmen through rural Alabama where they stop briefly outside a plantation called Manderlay. As the gangsters converse, a black woman emerges from Manderlay's front gates complaining that someone is about to be whipped for stealing a bottle of wine. Grace enters the plantation and learns that within it, slavery persists, roughly 70 years after the American Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation. Grace is appalled and insists on staying at the plantation with a small contingent of gunmen and her father's lawyer, Joseph, in order to guarantee the slaves' safe transition to freedom. Shortly after Grace's father and the remaining gangsters depart, Mam, the master of the house, dies, but not before asking Grace to burn a notebook containing "Mam's Law," an exhaustive code of conduct for the entire plantation and all its inhabitants, free and slave. She reads the descriptions of each variety of slave that can be encountered, which include: * Group 1: Proudy Nigger * Group 2: Talkin' Nigger * Group 3: Weepin' Nigger * Group 4: Hittin' Nigger * Group 5: Clownin' Nigger * Group 6: Losin' Nigger * Group 7: Pleasin' Nigger (also known as a chameleon, a person of the kind who can transform himself into exactly the type the beholder would like to see) The principal seven divisions are each populated by a single adult slave at Manderlay, who congregate daily and converse on a "parade ground," with Roman numerals of the numbers 1 through 7 designating where each slave stands. "Mam's Law" contains further provisions against the use of cash by slaves, or the felling of trees on the property for timber. All of this information disgusts Grace and inspires her to take charge of the plantation in order to punish the slave owners and prepare the slaves for life as free individuals. In order to guarantee that the former slaves will not continue to be exploited as sharecroppers, Grace orders Joseph to draw up contracts for all Manderlay's inhabitants, institutionalizing a communistic form of cooperative living in which the white family works as slaves and the blacks collectively own the plantation and its crops. Throughout this process, Grace lectures all those present about the notions of freedom and democracy, using rhetoric entirely in keeping with the ideology of racial equality which most contemporary Americans had yet to embrace. However, as the film progresses, Grace fails to embed these principles in Manderlay's community in a form she considers satisfactory. Furthermore, her suggestions for improving the conditions of the community backfire on several occasions, such as using the surrounding trees for timber, which leaves the crops vulnerable to dust storms. After a year of such tribulations, the community harvests its cotton and successfully sells it, marking the high point of Grace's involvement. Subsequently, she un- enthusiastically has sex with one of the ex-slaves who also steals and gambles away all of the cotton profits. Finally admitting her failure, Grace contacts her father and attempts to leave the plantation only to be stopped by the plantation's blacks. At this point it is revealed that "Mam's Law" was not conceived and enforced by Mam or any of the other whites, but instead by Wilhelm, the community's eldest member, as a means of maintaining the status quo after the abolition of slavery, protecting the blacks from a hostile outside world. As in many von Trier films, the idealistic main character becomes frustrated by the reality he or she encounters. ===== Pendleton University student Michelle Mancini is decapitated by a stranger in the backseat of her car during a rainstorm. Meanwhile at the campus coffee shop, coed Parker regales friends Natalie and Brenda with a story about a massacre that occurred in Stanley Hall, an abandoned dormitory. Journalism student Paul discredits this as an urban legend. News of Michelle's murder quickly spreads the following day, but the Dean Adams and campus police officer Reese seem determined to bury the story. Damon, a jokester fraternity member, attempts to console Natalie, who is notably disturbed by the murder. In Damon's parked car at a bluff, Natalie rejects his sexual advances. When Damon goes outside to urinate, he is attacked by an assailant in a hooded parka who hangs him from a tree. Natalie flees to retrieve help, but Damon's body and car have disappeared when she returns with Reese. Parker and his girlfriend Sasha assure Natalie that Damon has pranked her. Later, Natalie's goth roommate Tosh is strangled to death by the killer while Natalie sleeps. Natalie finds Tosh's body in the morning, along with a message scrawled in blood on the wall. Distraught, Natalie confides to Brenda that Michelle was her high school friend, and that the two had received probation for causing a fatal car accident after driving with their headlights turned off and pursuing the first driver who flashed them. Paul meanwhile investigates local urban legends, and discovers that the Stanley Hall massacre was in fact real, and Professor Wexler, a professor of American folklore, was its only survivor. Dean Adams is murdered in the campus parking garage, and Reese later finds Wexler's office in disarray and covered in blood. Meanwhile, Natalie, Brenda, and Sasha attend a fraternity party coinciding the massacre's 25th anniversary. During the party, Parker is incapacitated by the killer in the bathroom, who murders him by forcing pop rocks and bathroom chemicals down his throat. Meanwhile, Sasha leaves the party to host her late-night talkshow at the campus radio station. During the broadcast, she is attacked by the killer, and her screams are played live on air; the fraternity partygoers assume it is a prank referencing the massacre, but Natalie fears Sasha is in danger. She rushes to the station, where she witnesses the killer murder Sasha with an axe. Natalie soon finds Paul and Brenda on campus. Paul, convinced that Wexler is responsible, escorts them away in his car. They stop at a gas station, and while Paul is inside, Natalie and Brenda find Wexler's mutilated body in the trunk. The two women flee through the woods back toward campus as Paul pursues them. They become separated, and Natalie flags down the university's janitor passing by in his truck. He picks her up, but their car is forced off the road by the killer, who pursues them in a separate vehicle. The crash kills the janitor, but Natalie leaves unscathed and flees on foot. While passing Stanley Hall, Natalie hears Brenda's screams from inside. In the building, she finds her friend's corpses, along with an apparently dead Brenda outstretched on a bed; however, Brenda knocks Natalie unconscious moments later. When Natalie comes to, Brenda reveals herself as the killer, enacting revenge for her fiancé David Evans, the fatality in the road accident Natalie and Michelle caused. Brenda attempts to remove Natalie's kidney, but is thwarted when Reese arrives and holds Brenda at gunpoint. Brenda manages to stab Reese with a switchblade, and Paul comes upon the scene. Natalie gains control of the gun, and shoots Brenda, who falls out a window. Natalie and Paul leave to get help for Reese. As they drive away, the two talk about how this will later be an urban legend and all the facts will be misconstrued. Paul asks, "Well if this is an urban legend, where is the twist?" Brenda then appears in the back seat and attacks them with an axe. Paul crashes the car on a bridge, causing Brenda to go through the windshield and into the river below. Later, a group of students at a different university have recounted the events of Brenda's killing spree, during which they say that her body was never discovered. Most of them disbelieve the tale with the exception of one young woman, who is revealed to be Brenda. She claims that the story was incorrectly told, and begins to tell them "how the story really goes." ===== Having been released from the Army, Chadwick Gates (Presley) is eager to return Hawaii with his surfboard, his beach friends, and his girlfriend Maile Duval (Joan Blackman). His mother, Sarah Lee (Angela Lansbury), wants him to follow in his father's footsteps and take over management at the Great Southern Hawaiian Fruit Company, the family business, but Chad is reluctant and goes to work as a tour guide at his girlfriend's agency. His slightly scatter-brained boss is Mr. Chapman (Howard McNear). The first clients Chad has are an attractive school teacher (Abigail Prentice) and four teenage girls in her charge. One girl, Ellie, is bratty, self-centered, and does not get along with the other three in her group, but still becomes smitten with Chad. Chad's girlfriend, Maile, becomes jealous of the teacher who is quite fond of Chad. After Ellie's flirtatious ways with another tourist cause a wild fight to erupt in a restaurant, Chad is fired from his position as tour guide by Mr. Chapman. Maile quits her job in protest. Maile and Chad independently continue providing tourist activities to Abigail and the four girls. One night Ellie attempts to seduce Chad, but he refuses her advances. Ellie despondently flees in a jeep with the intent to commit suicide. Before Ellie can drown herself, Chad saves her and administers an overdue spanking. Meanwhile, Abigail has found romance with Jack Kelman, a long-time business partner in Chad's father's pineapple company. With Jack's help, Chad and his father resolve their differences about Chad's future. (He and Maile form their own tourism business—Gates of Hawaii—and begin arrangements to provide tourist services for his father's large network of fruit salesmen in the continental United States and Canada.) The film ends with Chad and Maile's lavish outdoor Hawaiian wedding ceremony. ===== Identical twins Antipholus of Ephesus and Antipholus of Syracuse were separated from each other in a shipwreck as young children. Their servants, both named Dromio, are also long-separated identical twins. When the pair from Syracuse come to Ephesus, a comedy of errors and mistaken identities ensues when the wives of the Ephesians, Adriana and her servant Luce, mistake the two strangers for their husbands. Adriana's sister Luciana and the Syracuse Antipholus fall in love. But all ends happily. ===== A Beverly Hills school teacher by day, Kevin Laird (J. Eddie Peck), journeys at night to a warehouse in East L.A, where a group of barrio kids gather to dance the lambada. Using his dazzling dance moves to earn the kids' respect and acceptance, Kevin then teaches them academics in an informal backroom study hall. One of his students, Sandy (Melora Hardin) sees him at the club. The next morning at school while Kevin is teaching, Sandy daydreams that she and Kevin are dancing and he madly kisses her on his motorcycle. It's the best of both worlds, but then Sandy becomes a jealous and lovestruck student and she exposes Kevin's double life, his two worlds collide, threatening his job and reputation. ===== Michael J. "Jay" Cochran (Kevin Costner) is a U.S. Navy aviator, retiring after 12 years in the service. He receives a matched pair of Beretta shotguns and an invitation from his wealthy friend, Tiburon "Tibey" Mendez (Anthony Quinn) to spend time at his hacienda in Mexico. Tibey is also a powerful crime boss, constantly surrounded by bodyguards. In Mexico, Cochran meets Tibey's beautiful young wife, Miryea (Madeleine Stowe) who lives in lavish surroundings, but is unhappy because her much-older husband does not want children, feeling pregnancy would spoil her looks. Jay presents Tibey with a Navy G-1 leather flight jacket. But he rubs Tibey's suspicious right-hand man, Cesar (Tomas Milian) the wrong way by behaving independently and not acting like an employee. After a dinner Tibey conducts a private meeting with business associates, killing one of them, while elsewhere Miryea and Jay get better acquainted, developing a romantic attraction for each other. During a party, with Tibey and his men nearby, Jay and Miryea secretly have sex, the affair continues; until Jay tells her he intends to leave Mexico, worried that Tibey will become aware of the situation. Miryea begs him to stay and they arrange a secret rendezvous at a remote cabin in Mexico. Miryea tells Tibey that she will be visiting her sister in Miami, but Tibey overhears a telephone conversation in which Miryea asks her sister to lie for her. Tibey drives Mireya to the airport, giving her one last kiss. Jay is secretly waiting inside the airport and they drive off to the cabin. At their hideaway, they are surprised by Tibey and his men. Jay's beloved dog is shot dead. Calling Miryea a "faithless whore", Tibey strikes her and cuts her across the mouth with a knife (creating half a Glasgow smile) as Tibey's henchmen viciously beat Jay. After setting fire to the cabin, they dump Jay in the desert, leaving him to die. Miryea is placed in a whorehouse, where she is drugged, abused and relegated to "common use". The young man responsible for keeping her drugged has AIDS. As Miryea no longer wishes to live, she persuades him to share a needle with her, thus; infecting her. An unconscious Jay is discovered by Mauro (Joaquín Martínez) a peasant farmer whose family slowly nurses Jay back to health. Jay returns to the burnt cabin and retrieves some money he had hidden. Mauro drives Jay to town and gives him a knife to "cut the balls off your enemy". Jay encounters a sickly texan (James Gammon) transporting a horse, who offers Jay a ride to Durango. Inside a cantina, Jay notices one of the thugs who had thrashed him; he follows him into the men's room and cuts his throat. After a day on the road, the texan delivers the horse to a wealthy man, who recognizes Jay from an afternoon at Tibey's estate. The friendly texan later dies peacefully in his car, while Jay is driving. At a motel, Jay runs across Amador (Miguel Ferrer) Mauro's brother-in-law. Amador and his quiet friend, Ignacio (John Leguizamo) are willing to help Jay because Amador's sister, was killed after getting mixed up in business that involved Tibey. They capture another of Tibey's henchmen, who tells them where Miryea can be found. Jay barges into the brothel, only to find that she has been moved. No one but Tibey knows where she is. Jay, Amador and Ignacio ambush Tibey, and his bodyguard during Tibey's morning horseback ride. Jay is here for revenge, but first Tibey requests that Jay ask forgiveness for having stolen his wife. When Jay lowers his gun and asks Tibey's forgiveness, Tibey reveals that Miryea is in a convent. Miryea is in a convent hospice, dying of AIDS. Jay arrives in time to tell Miryea that he loves her. He then carries her outside and Miryea then tells Jay that she also loves him; moments before she dies in his arms. ===== Under One Roof stars a multiracial cast of characters. The plot tells the story of a Chinese family, living in Bishan North, Singapore, headed by Tan Ah Teck-the owner of a mini-mart and his family-housewife Dolly and children Paul, Ronnie and Denise along with their neighbours, namely Daisy, a lady of Indian descent and her brother, Michael (played by Rajiv Dhawn) and the married Malay couple Rosnah and Yusof, all living in an apartment building. Tan Ah Teck- Patriarch of the Tan family and a mini-mart owner. He is prompted by any situations that occur to tell his unappreciated and seemingly irrelevant stories with the intent of teaching the other characters some moral lessons. Frequently begins his stories with "This reminds me of a story! Long before your time, in the Southern province of China..." Dolly- A stoic peacemaker and faithful housewife of Tan Ah Teck, she is one of the few characters who are willing to sit through and even appreciate his stories. She is best friends with neighbour Rosnah. Paul- Son of Ah Teck and Dolly, and a hypochondriac accountant who enjoys classical music and adores veteran Hong Kong star Sally Yeh. On the final episode of Season 5, he and Anita got married. Ronnie- Son of Ah Teck and Dolly, he is frequently skirt-chasing and is full of schemes and ridiculous ideas which irk his family, especially Paul, Denise and father Ah Teck. Denise- The University-educated daughter of Ah Teck and Dolly, and the only sensible one in the family who tries to keep the household sane. Yusof- Mee-Rebus seller, husband of Rosnah and friend of the Tan family. Rosnah - Yusof's large and sharp-tongued wife who often dominates her husband. In the first episode of season 6, it was mentioned that she had passed away from over eating that choked her to death in a buffet. Daisy- A single advertising executive, she is excitable, outspoken and constantly bickers with her brother Michael. Seasons Season 1 - 1995 Season 2 - 1995-1996 Season 3 - 1997 Season 4 - 1998 Season 5 - 1999 Season 6 - 2001 Season 7 - 2003 ===== Seven years ago the Kashiwagi couple were killed in a car accident. They left behind six children, who were forced to live in different families of relatives and adopters. Tatsuya Kashiwagi, the eldest son, was a Marathon runner. After retiring injured from running, He opened a small laundry shop and was ready to marry his coach's daughter. However, his biggest wish is to find his five separated siblings and form a family together. However, throughout these years, the six brothers and sisters lead their own lives without communication to each other. While Tatsuya is very eager in uniting the family, his siblings, with the exception of the eldest daughter Koyuki, are apathetic towards his suggestion. They also have very different lives, one son is the heir to a big hospital - owned by his foster father, another is a juvenile delinquent, etc. The youngest brother was also handicapped in an accident. Confronted with all the difficulties, Tatsuya still decides to reunite the family so that they can live "under one roof". To accomplish this wish, he overcame various difficulties, and even sacrificed his own marriage prospects... ===== Jimmy Woods is a young boy suffering from PTSD after his twin sister, Jennifer, drowned two years earlier. He perpetually carries around a lunchbox and mostly only ever says "California." Jennifer's death resulted in a split of Jimmy's family: he lives with his mother, Christine, and stepfather, Mr. Bateman, while his older half-brothers, Nick and Corey, live with their father, Sam. Exasperated by Jimmy's behavior, Christine and Mr. Bateman decide to commit Jimmy to an institution. Intolerant of this development, Corey sneaks Jimmy out, and they start traveling on foot for Los Angeles. Nick and Sam head out to bring the boys back, in competition with Mr. Putnam, a greedy bounty hunter hired by Mr. Bateman and Christine to find Jimmy. At a bus station, Jimmy and Corey meet Haley Brooks, a teenager on her way home to Reno. When they discover that Jimmy has an innate skill for playing video games, Haley informs Corey of "Video Armageddon", a gaming tournament being held in Universal Studios Hollywood, with a grand prize of $50,000. Corey sees the tournament as an opportunity to avert Jimmy's institutionalization by showcasing his talent, and Haley agrees to help take Jimmy to the tournament in return for a share of the winnings. The trio hitchhike cross-country, using Jimmy’s skills to win bets on games. They eventually meet Lucas Barton, a popular but snobbish gamer who demonstrates his ability to play Rad Racer with a Power Glove and informs Haley he will also be competing. Corey and Haley learn that Jimmy's lunchbox contains photos and mementos of Jennifer. The trio arrive in Reno, gaining more money with help from Haley’s trucker friend, Spankey, by having Haley coach Spankey at a casino’s craps table. Jimmy then begins training on arcade machines with help from the Nintendo Power Line. The children escape from Putnam to Haley's trailer, where she reveals she wants her share of the prize money to help her father buy a proper house. Putnam finds Haley's trailer and captures Jimmy, but Haley summons several truckers who barricade Putnam on the road, beat him, and rescue Jimmy. After Spankey gets the children to the tournament, Jimmy enters and becomes a finalist after playing Ninja Gaiden. In between rounds, Putnam makes another unsuccessful attempt to apprehend the children. Jimmy, Lucas, and a third finalist play Super Mario Bros. 3, a brand-new game not yet released in the United States. Cheered on by his family, Haley, and even Putnam, Jimmy wins the tournament at the last second and earns the prize money. On the way home with both sides of his family, accompanied by Haley, Jimmy spots the Cabazon Dinosaurs and gets them to stop the car. They follow him inside, and Corey finds Jimmy looking at his photos of the family, one of which was taken at the tourist trap. They realize Jimmy seeks closure in leaving the lunchbox in a place where Jennifer was happy. Jimmy leaves his lunchbox at the site and the group resumes the car trip, happily riding off into the sunset. ===== King Philip II of Spain (Montagu Love) declares his intention to destroy England, the first step to world conquest. He sends Don Álvarez (Claude Rains) as his ambassador to allay the suspicions of Queen Elizabeth I (Flora Robson) about the great armada he is building to invade England. In England, some of the Queen's ministers plead with her to build a fleet, which she hesitates to do in order to spare the purses of her subjects. The ambassador's ship is captured en route to England by the Albatross and her captain, Geoffrey Thorpe (Errol Flynn). Don Álvarez and his niece, Doña María (Brenda Marshall), are taken aboard and transported to England. Thorpe is immediately enchanted by Doña María and gallantly returns her plundered jewels. Her detestation of him softens as she too begins to fall in love. Don Álvarez is granted an audience with the Queen and complains about his treatment; Doña María is accepted as one of her maids of honour. The "Sea Hawks", a group of English privateers who loot Spanish ships for "reparations", appear before the Queen, who scolds them (at least publicly) for their piratical attacks and for endangering the peace with Spain. Captain Thorpe proposes in private a plan to seize a large caravan of Spanish gold in the New World and bring it back to England. The Queen is wary of Spain's reaction, but allows Thorpe to proceed. Suspicious, Lord Wolfingham (Henry Daniell), one of the Queen's ministers and a secret Spanish collaborator, sends a spy to try to discover where the Albatross is really heading. Upon visiting the chartmaker responsible for drawing the charts for Thorpe's next voyage, Don Álvarez and Lord Wolfingham determine that he is sailing to the Isthmus of Panama and order Don Álvarez's Spanish captain to sail ahead to set up an ambush. When the Albatross reaches its destination, the ship is spotted by a native who reports it to the Spanish governor. Thorpe's crew seizes the caravan, but fall into a well-laid trap and are driven into the swamps. Thorpe and a few other survivors return to their ship, only to find it in Spanish hands. They are taken to Spain, tried by the Inquisition, and sentenced to life imprisonment as galley slaves. In England, Don Álvarez informs the Queen of Thorpe's fate, causing his niece to faint. The Queen and Don Álvarez exchange heated words, and she expels him from her court. On a Spanish galley, Thorpe meets an Englishman named Abbott, who was captured trying to uncover evidence of the Armada's true purpose. Through cunning, the prisoners take over the ship during the night. They board another ship in the harbor, where an emissary has stored secret incriminating plans. Thorpe and his men capture both and sail back to England with the plans. Upon reaching port, Thorpe tries to warn the Queen. A carriage bringing Don Álvarez to the ship which, unknown to him, Thorpe has captured, also brings his niece. Don Álvarez boards the ship and is held prisoner, while Captain Thorpe, dressed in the uniform of a Spanish courtier, sneaks into the carriage carrying Doña María, who has decided to stay in England and wait for Thorpe's return. The two finally declare their love for each other, and María helps Thorpe to sneak into the palace. However, Lord Wolfingham's spy spots Thorpe and alerts the castle guards to stop the carriage and take Thorpe prisoner. Thorpe escapes and enters the Queen's residence, fending off guards all the while. Eventually, Thorpe runs into Lord Wolfingham and kills the traitor in a swordfight. With Doña María's assistance, Thorpe reaches the Queen and provides proof of King Philip's intentions. Elizabeth knights Thorpe and declares her intention to build a great fleet to oppose the Spanish threat. ===== Nancy "Nan" Astley is a sheltered 18-year- old living with her working-class family and helping in their oyster restaurant in Whitstable, Kent. She becomes instantly and desperately enamoured with a "masher", or male impersonator, named Kitty Butler, who performs for a season at the local theatre. They begin a friendship that grows when, after Kitty finds an opportunity to perform in London for better exposure, she asks Nan to join her. Nan enthusiastically agrees and leaves her family to act as Kitty's dresser while she performs. Although Kitty and Nan acknowledge their relationship to be sisterly, Nan continues to love Kitty until a jealous fight forces Kitty to admit she feels the same, although she insists that they keep their relationship secret. Simultaneously, Kitty's manager Walter decides that Kitty needs a performing partner to reach true success, and suggests Nan for the role. Nan is initially horrified by the idea, but takes to it. The duo become quite famous until Nan realises she is homesick after being gone from her family for more than a year. Her return home is underwhelming, so she returns to London early to find Kitty in bed with Walter. They announce that the act is finished and they are to be married. Astonished and deeply bruised by the discovery, Nan wanders the streets of London, finally holing herself in a filthy boarding house for weeks in a state of madness until her funds run out. After spying the male costumes she took as her only memory of her time with Kitty, Nan begins to walk the streets of London as a man and easily passes. She is solicited by a man for sex and begins renting, but dressed only as a man for male clients, never letting them know she is a woman. She meets a socialist activist named Florence who lives near the boarding house, but before she can get to know her, Nan is hired by a wealthy widow with licentious tastes named Diana. Although realising—and initially enjoying—that she is an object to Diana and her friends, Nan stays with her for over a year as "Neville", dressed in the finest men's clothes Diana can afford. The relationship erodes, however, and Diana throws Nan into the streets. Nan stumbles through London trying to find Florence, which she eventually does; Florence is now melancholy, however, with a child. Nan stays with Florence and her brother Ralph, working as their housekeeper. Nan and Florence grow closer during the year they live together, and Nan learns that the previous boarder with Florence and Ralph had a child and died shortly after giving birth. Florence was deeply in love with the boarder but her affections were not returned. During an outing to a women's pub, Nan is recognised by former fans, to Florence's astonishment, and Nan divulges her own spotty past to Florence. Cautiously, they begin a love affair. Putting her theatrical skills to use, Nan assists Ralph in preparing a speech at an upcoming socialist rally. At the event Nan jumps onstage to help Ralph when he falters, and is noticed once more by Kitty, who asks her to come back so they can continue their affair in secret. Realising how much shame Kitty continues to feel, how much of herself was compromised during their affair, and that her truest happiness is where she is now, Nan turns Kitty away and joins Florence. ===== The film takes place in a single day and night. The film opens with the two main characters, Harry (Anthony Edwards) and Julie (Mare Winningham), meeting at the La Brea Tar Pits and immediately falling in love. After spending the afternoon together, they make a date to meet after her shift ends at midnight at a local coffee shop, but a power failure means Harry's alarm fails to wake him and Julie leaves for home. When Harry awakes that night he realizes what has happened and rushes to the shop, arriving at 4 AM. Harry tries to call Julie on a pay phone, but only reaches her answering machine, where he leaves an apology. When the phone rings moments later he picks it up, hearing a frantic man named Chip telling his father that nuclear war is about to break out in less than seventy minutes. When Harry finally gets a chance to talk and asks who is calling, Chip realizes he has dialed the wrong area code. Chip then pleads with Harry to call his father and apologize for some past wrong before he is being confronted and presumably shot. An unfamiliar voice picks up the phone and tells Harry to forget everything he heard "and go back to sleep" before disconnecting. Harry, confused and not entirely convinced of the reality of the information, wanders back into the diner and tells the other customers what he has heard. As the patrons scoff at his story, one of them, a mysterious businesswoman named Landa (Denise Crosby), calls a number of politicians in Washington on her wireless phone and finds that they are all suddenly heading for "the extreme Southern Hemisphere". After Harry tells her some launch codes that Chip told him, she verifies that they are real and, convinced of the danger, immediately charters private jets out of Los Angeles International Airport to a compound in a region in Antarctica with no rainfall. Most of the customers and staff leave with her in the owner's delivery van. When the owner refuses to make any stops, Harry, unwilling to leave without Julie, arranges to meet the group at the airport and jumps from the truck. Harry is helped and hindered by various strangers, who are initially unaware of the impending apocalypse. In the process he inadvertently causes several deaths and is deeply shaken by that, yet still he goes on. When he finds Julie and later tells her, she notes that there is no confirmation of the attack. Desperate to reach the airport and not having a car, Harry finds a helicopter pilot (Brian Thompson) and tells him to meet them on the roof of the Mutual Benefit Life Building, where Landa ordered a helicopter and a large amount of supplies to be delivered. Julie has also tried to find a pilot on her own, and in the moments it takes to find her, Los Angeles descends into violent chaos. There is still no confirmation any of this is real, and Harry wonders if he has sparked a massive false panic in the example of Chicken Little. However, when he uses a phone booth to contact the father of the man who called him (using the number of the booth and the area code the man was trying to use), he reaches a man who says his son is a soldier. Harry tries to pass on the message he was given, but the man hangs up before Harry finishes. When they reach the top of the Mutual Benefit building they find the pad empty, and the roof manned only by Landa's drunk co-worker (Kurt Fuller). Any doubts about a false alarm are eliminated when a missile can be seen streaking across the sky. As they fear the end, the helicopter suddenly returns with the pilot badly wounded but fulfilling his promise to come back for them. After they lift off from the roof, several warheads hit and the nuclear electromagnetic pulse from the detonations causes the helicopter to crash into the La Brea pits. As the helicopter sinks and the cabin fills with natural asphalt tar, Harry tries to comfort a hysterical Julie by saying someday they will be found and they will probably be put in a museum, or maybe they will take a direct hit and be turned into diamonds. Julie, accepting her fate, calms down and takes comfort in Harry's words, and the movie fades out as the tar fills the compartment. A final explosion seems to imply a direct hit has taken place. ===== ===== A pair of high school students, Kei Kurono and Masaru Kato, are hit by a subway train in an attempt to save the life of a drunk homeless man who had fallen onto the tracks. Following their deaths, Kurono and Kato find themselves transported to the interior of an unfurnished Tokyo apartment, where they meet Joichiro Nishi, a Gantz veteran, and other clueless participants. The pair soon realizes that they are not allowed to leave the apartment. At one end of the room there is a large black sphere known as "Gantz". After some time in the room, the Gantz sphere opens up, revealing a bald naked man with a breathing mask and wires attached to his head, and various weapons for them to use. These include the custom fitting black suits which give them super-human strength, speed, stamina and damage resistance, a controller which acts as a radar and stealth unit, X-gun, X-Shotgun, Y-Gun. Later on the series the Gantz sword, Gantz Bike are made available as well as much more powerful weapons are awarded in the 100 point menu. When the Gantz sphere opens, green text appears on its surface, informing those present that their "lives have ended and now belong to him". A picture and brief information is shown of some of the Gantz' targets; Gantz orders them to go and kill them. Except for a single mission, all the targets are aliens living on Earth, which take on a wide variety of forms. During the mission, normal people cannot see the players or the aliens. Gantz transports them to the area of the mission, and they cannot leave or return until all the enemies have been killed, or the time limit has run out. If they survive a successful mission, each individual is awarded points for the aliens they have killed. Once a participant has scored 100 points, a "100 point menu" will appear. The menu offers three options: *Option 1: The participant can return to their normal life, never having to be summoned by Gantz again. As a price, their memories of Gantz and the missions will be erased. *Option 2: The participant obtains a unique and extremely-powerful weapon. *Option 3: The participant can revive someone who has died during a mission from Gantz' memory. This option appeared halfway through the series. After a mission has been completed, points are tallied up, the participants are allowed to leave and do as they see fit until their next mission, with the exception of talking about Gantz which would lead to their heads exploding. During Kurono and Kato's third mission, all the participants including Kato are killed, however Kato kills the last boss giving Kurono a chance to survive. Kurono survives the third mission bleeding on the floor with his limbs cut apart. After the third mission Kurono starts to change inside adopting a hero, leader complex similar to Kato. As the series continues, Kurono participates with the objective of reviving his deceased friends with the 100 point reward option. A new team of Gantz players is assembled, which Kurono leads, as the most experienced veteran and one of the best fighters. In the Oni mission it is shown that with Kurono's "will to live" he becomes the most ferocious Gantz hunter in the team. Through his interactions with the other members of the team and his life or death battles, Kurono gradually grows into a responsible leader. After the Oni mission Kato is revived by Kurono, and soon after Kurono meets his demise against the vampires. As the series goes on, the rules of the missions change; they can now be seen by regular people, the aliens they encounter are increasingly more powerful and dangerous, and they participate in a mission with another Gantz team from Osaka. Kato becomes the center of attention in the manga and his quest to revive Kurono. In a desperate attempt to revive his best friend, Kato fights the one hundred point alien Nurarihyon which obliterates both Osaka and Kurono's team. At the end of the mission, similar to the first time Kato died, he defeats arguably the strongest alien in the series and is laid bleeding on the floor. The series depicts both the missions and Kurono's regular life, as well as the daily lives of other Gantz players (to a lesser extent). After several missions, an old participant named Nishi, who knows more than the others about how Gantz works, shows them a "catastrophe countdown" on the Gantz sphere which the other players were unaware of. The countdown reveals that there is one week left until some unknown "catastrophe." At the end of that week, a massive alien force invades the Earth and begins exterminating the human race, while Kurono and his companions try their best to make use of Gantz' advanced technology and weaponry in defense. At the end, Nishi and Kurono are depicted to be similar, both of whom were despised by their family and were sinister; however, unlike Nishi, Kurono has a reason to live. Nishi, in the chapter "The Great Escape", is left for dead by Kurono, vowing vengeance against him and crying out for Gantz and mother for help. It is hinted that Nishi died, but his death seems to be unclear. The Japanese also learn of the existence of Gantz teams all around the world. After a long battle, the humans manage to stop the alien invasion and soon after, it is revealed that it was another, highly advanced alien species that provided mankind with the means to defend itself against the invaders, for reasons they refuse to reveal and calls it a whim. In a desperate last effort, the leader of the alien forces, Eeva, challenges the whole human race, promising to exterminate every inhabitant by himself by crashing their mother ship, killing both races if Kurono does not come to their mother ship to fight him. Prior to this announcement Eeva completely dominates all Gantz teams in his vicinity by killing all the hunters, giving the human race a sense of their mortality. The world calls on Kurono, which is broadcast to the entire world, and, with a revived Kato's help, Kurono bets all his chance of winning and saving the human race on himself. Kurono manages to defeat Eeva, thus preventing the alien mothership from destroying Earth. The series ends with Kurono and Kato returning safely to Earth and being greeted as heroes. ===== Sir Denis Nayland Smith (Lewis Stone) of the British Secret Service warns Egyptologist Sir Lionel Barton (Lawrence Grant) that he must beat Fu Manchu in the race to find the tomb of Genghis Khan. The power-mad Fu Manchu (Boris Karloff) intends to use the sword and mask to proclaim himself the reincarnation of the legendary conqueror and inflame the peoples of Asia and the Middle East into a war to wipe out the "white race". Sir Lionel is kidnapped soon afterward and taken to Fu Manchu. Fu Manchu tries bribing his captive, even offering his own daughter, Fah Lo See (Myrna Loy). When that fails, Barton suffers the "torture of the bell" (lying underneath a gigantic, constantly ringing bell) in an unsuccessful attempt to get him to reveal the location of the tomb. Barton's daughter Sheila (Karen Morley) insists on taking her father's place on the expedition, as she knows where the tomb is. She finds the tomb and its treasures with the help of her fiance Terrence "Terry" Granville (Charles Starrett), Von Berg (Jean Hersholt), and McLeod (David Torrence). Nayland Smith joins them soon afterward. McLeod is killed by one of Fu Manchu's men during a robbery attempt, after McLeod kills one of Fu Manchu's men. When that fails, an emissary offers to trade Barton for the priceless artifacts. Despite Terry's misgivings, Sheila persuades him to take the relics to Fu Manchu without Smith's knowledge. However, when Fu Manchu tests the sword, he determines that it is a fake (Nayland had switched them). Terry is whipped under the supervision of Fah Lo See, who is attracted to him. Meanwhile, Fu Manchu has Barton's corpse delivered to Sheila. When Nayland tries to rescue Terry, he is taken captive as well. Terry is injected with a serum that makes him temporarily obedient to Fu Manchu and released. He tells Sheila and Von Berg that Nayland Smith wants them to bring the sword and mask to him. Sheila senses something is wrong, but Von Berg digs up the real relics, and they follow Terry into a trap. Captured by Fu Manchu, the party is sentenced to death or enslavement, but not before Sheila manages to bring Terry back to his senses. Sheila is to become a human sacrifice, Nayland Smith is to be lowered into a crocodile pit, and Von Berg placed between two sets of metal spikes inching toward each other. Terry is prepared for another dose of the serum, which will make him a permanent slave of the whims of Fu Manchu's daughter. However, Nayland Smith manages to free himself, Terry, and Von Berg. Using one of Fu Manchu's own weapons—a death ray that shoots an electric current—the men incapacitate the arch-villain as he raises the sword to execute Sheila. When Fu Manchu drops the sword, Terry picks it up and hacks him to death. While Terry frees Sheila and carries her away, Nayland Smith and Von Berg incinerate Fu Manchu's followers using the same weapon. Safely aboard a ship bound for England, Nayland Smith tosses the sword over the side so that the world will be safe from any future Fu Manchu. ===== In 1985, identical twins Heather and Heidi Burge are forced by their overly-pushy father to leave their former school and attend a different school to have better chances at college scholarships. Heidi, however, tended to think that she was athletically inferior to Heather, and in an attempt to get out of Heather's shadow, she joined in a school play. Heather and Heidi are both attending the school to play volleyball rather than basketball, but the girls' basketball coach notices Heather because of her height. She seizes this opportunity to play basketball to help her train for the coming volleyball season. Heather meets Nicky Williams, the star of the Palos Verdes High School Sea Kings. Heidi, in the meantime, learns that her father told the coach that both of the girls would play on the basketball team, despite the fact that Heidi had already committed to performing in a school play. Heather and Heidi are both furious over the situation - Heather because she didn't want Heidi on the team and Heidi because she thought Heather put their father up to it. Heidi wanted to be independent of Heather and pursue her own interests. When the twins first start playing for the Sea Kings, they leave a bad impression on the team by lying and implying that they are rich like many of their teammates. Heather and Nicky form a serious rivalry and Nicky even tries to run the Burge twins out of school by telling the school about the Burges' living situation. They both eventually befriend Nicky when they see that her father is too preoccupied with business to attend her basketball games. At their first tournament in New York, they win second, and Heather wins MVP. However, in another game, Heidi is selected to take the game winning free throws. This makes Heather, the usual star, extremely jealous, so she later plays a late- night one-on-one game with Galen, a senior basketball star who lives in their apartment complex. While playing, Heather falls and severely twists her ankle, which prevents her from playing their next game. During that next game, while she's sitting out, Heather sees the need for teamwork rather than the need to be the "superstar" and decides to play again despite being injured. Her effort is rewarded, and with some clever teamwork, they win the game. After the game, their coach approaches the twins and their parents, Mary and Larry Burge, and tells Mr. and Mrs. Burge they should consider putting the girls in summer basketball camps, saying they have a very bright future. Mr. Burge proudly says that his girls are going to play college ball - but the coach says, "Maybe more. There's talk of a women's pro-league." Mr. Burge also apologizes for putting so much pressure on Heather and for forcing Heidi to play basketball in the first place. They forgive him. Mr. Burge says that Heidi has plans for a summer at a drama camp, which pleases her and reveals how important it is to be well-rounded. A clip of the future is then shown, and both Burge twins are playing on professional WNBA teams. Heidi plays for the Los Angeles Sparks and Heather plays for the Sacramento Monarchs. Heather and Heidi talk before the game, and Heather says, "Once second best, always second best." The game begins with a tipoff and they both jump for the ball. In reality, the sisters' time in the WNBA did not overlap and they never faced each other in a WNBA game. ===== The movie begins in Chicago with two 20-something friends and colleagues, Dan Martin and Bernie Litko, discussing their outlandish sexual escapades. Later on, Bernie and Dan's recreational softball team, sponsored by local bar “Mother’s,” plays against a local advertising agency and wins. Attending this game with her girlfriends is Debbie Sullivan, who works at the advertising company and is sleeping with her boss, Steve. Debbie catches Dan's eye and the two flirt at a beer keg. Debbie and her friends, Joan and Pat, decide to attend the game's afterparty at Mother's, where Debbie again runs into Dan, with whom Pat attempts to flirt and Joan takes an immediate dislike to. They wind up back at Dan's apartment and sleep together, after which Debbie hastily leaves. The next day, Dan calls Debbie at work “about last night,” and asks her out on a second date, to which she accepts. After their date, they again wind up in bed together and spend the following day exploring the city, where Dan reveals to Debbie that his dream is to quit his job at a restaurant supply company and open his own restaurant. They begin to date more seriously and decide to move in together, much to the chagrin of Joan and Bernie, who dislike each other as well. Because neither of the two have ever been in a serious relationship before, they attempt to navigate cohabitation without much support from their friends. They experience much throughout their relationship: Dan being contacted by a former lover who is married with children, Debbie's boss Steve having difficulty accepting the end of their affair, Joan softening when she begins dating her new boyfriend Gary, a pregnancy scare, and Dan having difficulties with his boss, who wants him to stop providing supplies to the Swallow, a run-down diner owned by his client- turned-friend Gus. Despite having told each other the “L Word,” Debbie and Dan's relationship becomes strained, and reaches a boiling point at a New Year's Eve party at Mother's, where Debbie witnesses a drunken Pat making advances towards Dan, and Joan discovers her boyfriend is married and returning to his wife. Joan tearfully asks Debbie to take her home, to which she agrees, despite Dan's drunken objections. Upon Debbie's return home, Dan says he's not happy, and ends their relationship. Debbie immediately moves out of their apartment and back in with Joan. Despite getting back on the dating scene quickly, Dan begins to regret his decision regarding Debbie. After a few months he calls her and acts nonchalant; Debbie tells him to get lost and hangs up on him. He starts to lurk around Debbie's social outings, culminating in him telling her he made a mistake and misses her at the St. Patrick's Day celebration at Mother's. Debbie turns him down, saying, "You asked me to leave and I left" and that getting over him was the hardest thing she's ever had to do. Hoping to move on with his life, Dan partners with Gus to revitalize the Swallow into an old-school diner, achieving his dream. The following summer at another softball game, Dan and Bernie see Debbie riding her bike through the park with Joan, who convinces her to go and talk to Dan. She approaches him and they both express regret at how their relationship turned out. As Debbie begins to turn away, Dan asks her out again and suggests they go to a great new place, but she suggests with a smile that they just go to “some old joint,” signifying that she is aware of his new restaurant. As she rides away on her bike, Bernie convinces Dan to run after her, and the camera pans out to see Dan and Debbie walking through the park, hinting at their renewed relationship. ===== Darkover Landfall concerns the crew and colonists of a spaceship that is forced to crash land on Cottman IV, an inhospitable planet in orbit around a red giant. The crew become accidental colonists when the ship loses contact with Earth and they realize rescue is impossible. The book introduces surnames, religious and cultural themes that echo throughout the Darkover series of books. This series spans millennia, as the ship's descendants populate the world and develop unique cultures and psi abilities. Though Darkover Landfall is not the first book written in the series, in the Darkover timeline its events are the beginning for all that follows. ===== Lady Aliciane of Rockraven, barragana to Mikhail of Aldaran, dies giving birth to a daughter, Dorilys. In childhood, Dorilys is discovered to have weather-related laran, causing storms and lightning with her childish temper tantrums. Allart Hastur leaves Nevarsin Monastery, where he has lived for six years, learning to live with a form of laran that causes him to experience premonitions of multiple futures. He meets Cassandra Aillard, the woman his family intends him to marry. He believes that any children they might conceive will cause her death. To avoid this fate, they become celibate tower workers at Hali. Lord Rakhal Aldaran of Scathfell arrives with his son at Castle Aldaran. Scathfell wishes ensure that his son Darren marries Dorilys, who is now eleven. At the handfasting, Darren judges her to be much older than he has been told, and attempts to force her into sexual relations. Dorilys’ self-protective laran strikes Darren dead. Scathfell swears vengeance. Dorilys' half-brother Donal is sent to acquire assistance from Hali Tower for Dorilys. Damon-Rafael Hastur of Elhayln, Allart's brother, arrives at Hali and asks him to undertake a diplomatic mission to Aldaran. Donal Delleray also arrives, asking assistance for Dorilys. Allart and Renata accompany Donal back to Aldaran. After working with Dorilys for a day, Renata warns Aldaran that while Donal has weather- related laran, Dorilys has the gift in a lethal form. She also asserts that Dorilys has already used her ability three times to kill someone she feared. Renata attempts to teach Dorilys control, over both her behavior and her laran abilities. She, Allart, Donal and Dorilys use gliders to reach the fire watch tower. Dorilys explains that she can see the past, present and future of the fire; that Donal has the same ability with storms. Renata learns that Dorilys has the ability to draw power from the magnetic fields of planet. To circumvent demands made by his brother, Lord Aldaran betroths his daughter, Dorilys to her half-brother, Donal. Donal, who has fallen in love with Renata, objects, but cannot alter his foster-father's will. Donal and Dorilys are married on Midwinter Night. Allart uses his gift of seeing multiple futures, but is overcome by visions of death and destruction. He teleports his wife, Cassandra, from Hali Tower, for her protection. He is warned by workers at Hali that Damon-Rafael, his brother, will march on Aldaran, to claim Cassandra for himself. About a week later, Rakhal of Scathfell, who has joined forces with Damon-Rafael Hastur, demands that Aldaran give over Dorilys to be married to one of Scathfell's sons. When Aldaran refuses, the castle is besieged with laran-based weapons, including clingfire. Dorilys is able to avert the attack. After several more attacks, Lord Aldaran decides to use Dorilys' powers at full force against the attacking army, despite the warnings of Allart and the others. Allart's brother Damon-Rafael sends word demanding that Allart hand over Cassandra. After attempting to reason with his brother, Allart telepathically shows him the future he will bring to Darkover if he steals Cassandra and crowns himself king. Rather than be the cause of such a future, Damon-Rafael kills himself. At the feast following the victory, Dorilys realizes that Donal does not love her; rather he is in love with Renata. Acting out of temper, she blasts Donal, killing him instantly. Renata gets Dorilys under control and drugs her. Renata seeks Donal in the Overworld, but instead meets Dorilys as she might have been, self-controlled and emotionally mature. Dorilys tells Renata she must never again awaken, that her power is too dangerous. Renata leaves the Overworld and creates a force field around Dorilys. Her body is interred at Hali. In a later Darkover novel, Sharra's Exile, set some hundreds or thousands of years later, a delegation that goes to retrieve the Sword of Aldones from Hali sees "behind a rainbow of colors... a bier where lay a woman's body ... she had slept there or lain there in unchanging, incorruptible death for thousands of years." ===== On his sister's birthday, a young boy's village of Oakvale is raided by bandits; killing the boy's entire family. An old Hero, Maze, rescues the boy, seeing great potential in him; Maze trains the boy to become a Hero at the Heroes' Guild. Years pass; after honing his skills, Maze informs the Hero of a blind seeress living among a bandit camp near Oakvale, and advises the Hero to infiltrate the bandit camp. To the Hero's surprise, the blind seeress is actually his older sister Theresa who was taken in by Twinblade, a former Hero and the present Bandit King. After a showdown with Twinblade, the Hero is given the choice of killing or sparing the bandit. Later on in the Hero's life, after he has gained more recognition among the people of Albion, he is invited to fight in the Arena, where he meets the legendary Hero named Jack of Blades, who runs the arena battles. As a final challenge, Jack pits the Hero against his rival, which was also once his childhood friend/roommate back in the Guild—Whisper; when the Hero defeats her he may kill or spare her. The Hero learns that Jack of Blades himself destroyed Oakvale during the Hero's childhood; aided by Theresa, the Hero discovers his mother alive in Bargate Prison. The Hero is captured in the rescue attempt and spends a year or more in the prison before finally escaping. Maze is revealed to be a traitor and working with Jack. Maze kidnaps Theresa. After defeating Maze, the Hero is led into a final confrontation with Jack where his mother is killed. Jack reveals that The Sword of Aeons can only be wielded if it receives the blood of Archon. The Sword of Aeons is said to be a very powerful sword of destruction. Upon the death of their mother, the Hero and Theresa are the only two remaining descendants of Archon, and if Jack destroys them both the sword will be even more powerful. After defeating Jack, the Hero must choose whether to keep the Sword of Aeons by killing his sister, or cast it away forever into a portal created by Jack of Blades' death. Depending on the Hero's alignment and the player's choice of using or destroying the sword, there are a total of four different endings. Once the ending credits roll, players can resume their games. In The Lost Chapters special edition, the story continues. After the defeat of Jack, the Hero must find passage to the Northern Wastes to aid a legendary hero named Scythe in stopping an unknown great evil from returning. Should the hero have discarded the Sword of Aeons he will have the opportunity to gain the sword "Avo's Tear", a sword of similar design and equal power but that holds a light alignment rather than dark. Avo is said to be a god that represents the light side alignment. After a series of quests revolving around this new evil, it is learned that Jack of Blades has returned. He must then defeat Jack of Blades a second time, Jack having returned from the dead in the form of a dragon. Upon the death of Jack, the hero then uses Jack's mask to trap Jack's soul, with Scythe telling him that the battle is not over and that he must destroy the mask. The hero then has the final choice of putting on the mask—being consumed by Jack in the process—or destroying it, along with Jack, forever. ===== The drama is centered around the exploits of Detective Mok (Wong) unmasking murderer that seemingly related somehow to either his "rival" Vivi (Choi). or getting critical inspiration from unorthodox sources, such as old television programs that his mother (whose face is not seen until later into the series) starred in, which Mok then translates in his investigative work...sometimes to the chagrin of Vivi, who often finds herself at the butt of Mok's investigations. Thanks to these machinations, Vivi concludes that Mok is the source of her bad luck, which of course leads to her becoming suspected of a number of the murders. However, besides Mok, Vivi has a few thorns of her own: the despicable rival agent and lady-killer Romeo Lo Mat-au (羅密歐, derisively called 蘿蔔歐 lo bak au, which is a derogatory term for Japanese people) by Vivi (played by Marco Ngai), and a clueless smitten admirer in her personal trainer Jim (played by Michael Tong). As the plot goes on, the couple found out they are, in fact, in love with each other. In later episodes, Mok was rendered unconscious by a murderer using a glass bottle which, coincidentally happened to Jim Jim. Reviving a month later because the blood clot moved, he proposed to Vivi right away. Later, his friend Dr. Yu (played by Hu Fung/胡楓) revealed to him that the blood clot in his brain is moving to a spot that will kill him instantly without any forewarning, unlike Jim Jim, whose clot moved to a safe spot, a bit of news that Mok decided to hide the fact as to keep everyone happy. In the last episode, while taking a wedding photo with Vivi, Mok spotted a thief sneaking into another's bag and decided to rush out and chase the thief. After chasing the thief, Mok finally caught a thief for the "first" time in his career. After handing the criminal to his colleagues on duty, he told Vivi that he will be returning in 5 minutes on the phone. In the original ending of the show, after he hung up, he falls down looking towards the sky seemingly happy. Scenes of memories and sorrow background music "Someplace Good" kicks in, with the show ending with the wedding photo of the couple turning black and white with Mok slowly fading away, leaving Vivi alone in the photo, which implies that Mok had died after falling down. This ending received a large amount of feedback; in which one side praised it for its groundbreaking, unorthodox dour ending in a comedy drama, in contrast to TVB's usual endings (also known as the "happily-ever-after-plus" ending.) The other side criticized it for the unexpectedly dour ending in a comedy drama, which was too sharp of a contrast to the lightness of the series. The latter opinion won out after they flooded newspapers, internet forums and newsgroups, and TVB claims that it is an original unedited ending, in which Mok still falls down but managed to get back to the photo shoot, albeit pensively. The alternate ending was shown on 27 August 2004 in local entertainment programme TVB Starbiz (娛樂大搜查), and was not included in any subsequent releases overseas. The original reports of a sequel for To Catch the Uncatchable suggest that the 2005 Women On the Run (窈窕熟女) is the sequel, despite Women on the Run not being touted as such. Women on the Run has almost none of the original cast from TCTUC in it. ===== The Pinki gang, consisting of the leader Pinki and her two henchmen Yasu and Gasu, have taken over Pao Pao amusement park. Pinki, an evil toddler, and her gang have filled the park with monsters, robots, and various magnetic contraptions. The amusement park is the professor's favourite vacation destination, so he sends his magnetic robot Neo, who is an AI based on his own personality, to take back the park from the Pinki gang and restore it to its former glory. Neo enters the park and utilises his powers of magnetism to traverse the various platforms, traps and contraptions and to defeat any enemies and bosses in his path. He fights through 4 differently themed areas of the amusement park after which he is able to track down and confront Pinki. The final showdown with the Pinki gang sees Neo battle a giant mechanised ballerina robot. The Pinki gang are controlling the robot from the control centre in its head. When Neo defeats the ballerina, its body explodes and sends the head (still containing Pinki, Yasu and Gasu) flying into deep space. ===== Monroe Clark moves to California to pursue a law career. At the airport, he meets Wiley Hunter, who offers him a ride to the home of his Uncle Max, who assigns Monroe the job of handing homeowners a "pay or quit" notice to either to vacate the premises or pay past rent due and to be back by 6 o'clock. Monroe handles some of the evictions until he meets Zack Barnes's "companion" after they engaged in sexual activities. Monroe is led to Zack's gambling bookmaker, who throws Monroe's suitcase into the ocean. Monroe then meets Samantha, who recovered his suitcase from the ocean. He also runs into Wiley, who shows Monroe the joys of living a carefree lifestyle and the popularity of beach volleyball. Wiley asks a volleyball team of Moothart and O'Bradovich to challenge the duo to a quick game. Monroe forgets his deadline for the evictions. Uncle Max sees through Monroe's lie and tells Monroe he would pardon his mistake if he successfully evicts Zack Barnes out of his home. In a bar, Monroe reunites with Samantha and (with the help of Wiley) finds Zack and tries to hand him the eviction notice, but Zack's former volleyball partner Rollo Vincent teases Zack and a bar fight ensues. Samantha, watching the fight, is invited by Monroe to a date at a "friend's" house (without telling Samantha that it is actually his uncle's). The two share a romantic date until Max reveals he is Monroe's uncle and angers Samantha because Monroe lied to her. Monroe and Wiley hang out at the beaches and try to get better at volleyball by practicing routines and exercising while Monroe tries to apologize to Samantha, who is avoiding him. Wiley tells Monroe that he entered them in a volleyball tournament, where they lose in the first round. Zack, a spectator, offers to coach the two to teach techniques Zack used when he was the "king of the beach" (the title now belongs to Rollo). Each day until the Gold Cuervo Classic, the team trains. Zack fails to show up (because he was having sex with his ex-wife Kate Jacobs). The duo challenge Rollo and his partner Billy Cross to a quick match. During the match Monroe and Wiley fail to use teamwork in the game and results in Wiley having a broken arm. Monroe becomes angered at Zack for not being there for coaching and vows to evict Zack in court (after attempting to dump his records). In court, Monroe at first testifies against Zack and pleading judgment for his side, but then supports Zack after Monroe decided to pursue his own dreams rather than law school. In doing so Max's boss threatens him with negligence and kicks Monroe out for defending Zack. After Monroe left Max's House, Zack offers him a place while training him for the Gold Cuervo Classic volleyball tournament. While doing so, Monroe apologizes to Wiley for his selfishness and they reconcile as well as Samantha for lying to her. Monroe asks why Zack lost his title to Rollo and Zack explains that in the days when they were a team, the duo reached the championship. Zack's agents told him to lose to earn more money but Zack feared his involvement and when the championship arrived, he never came. Each day they trained until the big day finally came for the Gold Cuervo Classic tournament. Monroe and Zack are first up against Moothart and O'Bradovich and they near their loss until Zack tells Monroe to use a technique Zack taught Monroe to win the first round. They beat the team and the duo advance to the championship after multiple victories. Before the championship Zack gets into an argument with Kate telling him to lose to Rollo. As Monroe watches he fears Zack will make the same mistake he made with Rollo many years ago. As they announce the names of the contestants Zack fails to show up and Monroe is scared Zack abandoned him. In a few minutes Zack appears and the game begins but Monroe and Zack lose many points because of Zack not focusing and the team argue. Monroe then gets Zack back in the game and they win the championship thus making Zack and Monroe rich and Rollo and Billy lose. ===== The player takes on the role of an adventurer who is tasked with solving problems and killing monsters in a fantasy-based kingdom. The game is humorous in nature, and most quests, battles and individual item descriptions include jokes, witticisms, or references to popular culture. Many quests parody the tropes found in other role-playing games. The premise is that the Naughty Sorceress has captured and "imprismed" (imprisoned in a prism) the Kingdom's ruler, King Ralph XI. The ultimate objective of the game is to defeat the Naughty Sorceress and free King Ralph. In King Ralph's absence, most of the power in the Kingdom of Loathing is held by the Council of Loathing, which gives quests to characters as they increase in level, with the final quest given when the character has reached level 13 and finished the other quests. Players can also unlock quests from other sources, some of which are available only after ascending. ===== In rural upstate New York, thirty-something-year-old Victor Modino works as a cook at Pete and Dolly's, a small roadhouse founded by and named after his father, now dead, and mother. Dolly, who is in poor health, spends her days sitting in a chair in the back of the kitchen, reminiscing about her husband and antagonizing Delores, a cynical longtime employee who once had an affair with Pete. The daily rhythm of the restaurant is disrupted when Dolly hires Callie, a soft-spoken young woman who has just dropped out of college in Syracuse, as a new waitress. Callie immediately catches the eye of the painfully shy, overweight Victor. Callie's presence is noted by both the employees and the restaurant's regular patrons, particularly Leo, an alcoholic friend of Delores. During working hours, Callie is impervious to Victor's debilitating shyness and attempts to get to know him better. Impressed by Victor's cooking skills, Callie suggests he attend the cooking school across the river—the Culinary Institute of America—a thought which is considered by Victor but swiftly dismissed by both Dolly and Delores. Victor quickly becomes enamored with Callie, and begins subtly trying to gain her attention. One night during work, Callie takes photographs in the kitchen with her Polaroid camera. She asks Victor to take a photo of her while she learns to roll pizza dough; he subsequently brings the photo home with him, unbeknownst to her. He later has vivid daydreams about Callie, one of which has him saving her from drowning in the Hudson River. One night after Callie gets into a fight with her boyfriend, Jeff, she is left stranded at the restaurant. Victor offers to drive her home, and en route he stops the car so they can watch airplanes descend at an airfield. As they watch the airplanes, Callie laments that she feels directionless in her life. She gives Victor a kiss before quickly suggesting he take her home. The following morning, Dolly suffers a heart attack and is hospitalized. Victor tells Delores and Callie that Dolly is having minor surgery, not wanting to cause panic. Several days later, Dolly dies while Victor is eating lunch in the hospital cafeteria. Victor runs the restaurant as usual and deals with his grief by binge eating. Meanwhile, Delores becomes suspicious of Dolly's extended absence. Callie asks Victor to bring her to visit Dolly in the hospital. Unable to confess that Dolly is dead, he agrees. Callie arrives at their house, and notices the Polaroid photo of herself displayed on the refrigerator. When she inquires about where Victor got it, he tells her he found it behind a booth in the restaurant. The two depart, but instead of taking her to the hospital, Victor drives Callie to the local cemetery, and shows her Dolly's grave. Callie becomes hysterical, and fails to turn up for her shift. Victor's frustrations with his self-esteem surface several nights later while alone at the restaurant, and he begins binge eating. He stops himself, and begins smashing items behind the counter in a rage. In the middle of his outburst, Callie arrives with Jeff to collect her check. She spends several moments alone with Victor, explaining that she plans to return home and re-enroll in college, but promises to visit him and Delores. Some time later, Victor musters the confidence to chat with Darlene, a cashier at the grocery market he frequents. ===== Two men and a bear cower in their tree house home, awaiting the arrival of their newly ordered robot. Meanwhile, a bird drives home to his human wife. That night, he dreams about the childhood moment when he realized that he has fingers instead of wings - a discovery that prompted him to become a salesman. A monkey paces in the waiting room of a nearby hospital, as a chicken is called back to see the doctor. The doctor zaps the chicken with a shrinking machine, and after putting the chicken into a syringe, injects her into the monkey. Around this time, a squirrel and an old man play a game together, within their shared apartment complex. The squirrel removes the old man's dentures and hides them from him. The old man then tries to guess where his dentures are. In the apartment above the bird-human couple, lives Mister Smile, whose head is a yellow smiley face. Mr. Smile stamps his face onto sheets of paper, causing the features to disappear from his face completely. The features always regenerate though, as he slips the stamped sheets of paper into envelopes. Each group of characters receives one of these envelopes in the mail. They have been invited to visit Mr. Smile, who is presumably a celebrity. Although the doctor's procedure goes awry, leaving the now normal-sized chicken stuck inside of the monkey's head, all three are delighted to receive their invitation. At the party, Mr. Smile hands out autographs, and the bird explains why he has the words "Love" and "Food" tattooed on his hands. In the bird's estimation, love and food must exist in harmony, for they are the only two things that anyone needs in life. He places the fingers of one of his hands in between the fingers of the other and declares "Flooovde". The end credits inform the audience that the chicken and monkey got married shortly after the end of filming. ===== Marcus Attilius Primus arrives in the Bay of Naples from Rome to take charge as aquarius (hydraulic engineer) of the Aqua Augusta, the aqueduct that supplies water to the towns in the region encompassing the Bay of Naples and Mount Vesuvius. The nine important towns are, in sequential order, Pompeii, Nola, Acerrae, Atella, Napoli, Puteoli, Cumae, Baiae, and Misenum. Attilius' predecessor, Exomnius, has mysteriously vanished as the springs that flow through the aqueduct begin to fail, lowering the supply of water available to the region's reservoir. Attilius is unpopular among the workers, particularly Corax, who resents the young foreigner giving him orders. Attilius's concerns about the water are heightened when he is summoned by a young, wealthy woman named Corelia to investigate water that apparently killed her father's prized fish. Corelia's father is the former slave and land speculator Numerius Popidius Ampliatus, who came to fortune after rebuilding Pompeii from a past earthquake. Ampliatus feeds the slave he deems responsible for the fish's death, to eels for his own amusement. Attilius realizes that, unusually, sulfur poisoned the water. Then, dramatically, the flow of water stops entirely. Attilius concludes that the aqueduct must be blocked somewhere close to Mount Vesuvius, since reports claim a shut down of the system just before Nola, meaning that towns from there through Napoli and Misenum are without any water supply. With aid from Pliny the Elder, whose fleet is docked at Misenum, Attilius assembles an expedition to travel to Pompeii, the closest town still being supplied with water, and then on to the blocked section of the Aqua Augusta. While Attilius' expedition is there, he becomes embroiled as part of a plot by Ampliatus. Ampliatus is planning to offer a cheap water supply to Pompeii, which Exomnius had helped him do while stealing from the imperial treasury. Though Ampliatus tries to persuade Attilius to fill in Exomnius's role, he refuses. Attilius' questions and studies make Ampliatus suspicious, and the latter makes arrangements for Attilius to be assassinated. Attilius begins to suspect Ampliatus of bribery, suspicions supported by what Pliny the Elder and his nephew later discover: thousands of Roman sesterces at the bottom of the reservoir that should have gone to Rome and which Attilius' predecessor had intended to retrieve once he'd emptied the reservoir. Corelia gets Attilius the proof he needs from her father's written records when he is performing repairs to a collapsed section of tunnel in the region around Vesuvius. Attilius also discovers that Exomnius was investigating the phenomena around Vesuvius, having recognized some of them from his hometown of Catania after an eruption of Mount Etna. While exploring Vesuvius on his own, Attilius discovers Exomnius's corpse in a pit of earth choked by noxious fumes, which also kills Corax, who has come to assassinate Attilius. The eruption of Mount Vesuvius on 24 August overwhelms Pompeii, Oplontis, and Herculaneum. Attilius risks his life and comes back to Pompeii to find Corelia. A deranged Ampliatus refuses to evacuate and holds first his family and then Attilius captive, believing that he will become even richer and more powerful by rebuilding the city once more after it is destroyed. Attilius rescues Corelia, but is pursued by Ampliatus and his men even as pyroclastic flows begin to descend on Pompeii. Attilius and Corelia enter the aqueduct and dig their way to safety. Ampliatus is killed by the overwhelming heat of the pyroclastic flow, along with the rest of his family and the remainder of the expedition. Pliny dies from the effects of the fumes when he tries to evacuate the citizens. Pompeii is buried underneath rocks, pumice, ash, and volcanic material, leaving few survivors. The last sentence of the novel reports a local legend that a man and woman had emerged from the aqueduct after the eruption -- implying that Attilius and Corelia likely survived the trip up the aqueduct. The incident of Ampliatus feeding a slave to his eels is based on the actual historical case of Vedius Pollio. ===== ===== During the waning days of the Roman Empire, commander Maximus and his friend Quintus have been commanding the defence of Hadrian's Wall against the Picts and other tribes, who unite under the guidance of Maximus's archenemy, when the news of an impending Germanic invasion across the Rhine breaks. After being promoted to 'General of the West' and his wife's death, Maximus is sent to Moguntiacum (modern-day Mainz in Germany) where he is assigned to defend the entire 820-mile border between Gaul and Germania with just one legion, the XX. Realising the near impossible task, Maximus decides that he and his legion of 6,000 men can succeed by laying out a series of military forts along the west bank of the Rhine to prevent six Germanic nations – 250,000 people – from invading Gaul. After the crossing of the Rhine by a mixed group of Barbarians that included Vandals, Alans, and Suebi, Maximus gains an unlikely ally in Goar, who led a band of Alans into Gaul and then quickly joined the Romans. As Maximus carries out his duties on the border, he battles against a corrupt bureaucracy in the Roman Empire that denies every request he makes that could assist his Rhine campaign. He also, under the growing pressures from his allies--including his former enemies-- who want him to seize the Western Emperorship for himself, finds himself fighting for a dying empire against Christianity that condemns his traditional pagan beliefs. Category:1970 British novels Category:Theodosian dynasty Category:Novels set in Roman Britain Category:Novels set in Roman Gaul Category:British historical novels Category:War novels set in the Roman Empire Category:Novels set in the 4th century Category:Novels set in the 5th century Category:Mithraism ===== Sana Kurata is a cheerful, popular and energetic 11-year-old child actress who enrolls in a regular school only to find out there is chaos in the classroom, led mainly by an aloof boy named Akito Hayama. At first, the two come in conflict with each other because of their opposing ideals, but as they get to know each other, they start helping each other out in Akito's family life and Sana's career, as well as helping their classmates and peers. ===== After a tornado in Kansas causes a loose gate to knock Dorothy unconscious, she re-appears in the Land of Oz with Toto, and encounters a talking Signpost (voiced by Jack E. Leonard), whose three signs point in different directions, all marked "Emerald City". They later meet Pumpkinhead (voiced by Paul Lynde), the unwilling servant of antagonist Mombi – cousin of the deceased Wicked Witches of the East and West. Toto chases a cat to a small cottage where Dorothy is captured by Mombi's pet crow (voiced by Mel Blanc) and Mombi (voiced by Ethel Merman) herself. Pumpkinhead sneaks into the house in Mombi's absence, and discovers her creation of green elephants, to use as her army to conquer the Emerald City. Pumpkinhead frees Dorothy, and they flee. After finding Dorothy gone, Mombi threatens that their warning the Scarecrow will not help when her green elephants "come crashing through the gate". Dorothy and Pumpkinhead acquire Woodenhead Stallion III (voiced by Herschel Bernardi), a former merry-go-round horse (a combination of the Sawhorse from The Marvelous Land of Oz and the title character of the last Oz book of all, Merry Go Round in Oz), who takes them to the Emerald City, where Dorothy warns the Scarecrow (voiced by Mickey Rooney) about Mombi's green elephants. Mombi arrives moments later, and Toto and the Scarecrow are captured. Dorothy, Pumpkinhead, and Woodenhead flee to Tinland to convince the Tin Man (voiced by Danny Thomas, who spoke, and Larry Storch, who sang) to help them. He declines upon being afraid of the green elephants and suggests that they ask the Cowardly Lion (voiced by Milton Berle), who promises to slay the elephants, but suggests consulting Glinda the Good Witch (voiced by Rise Stevens), who appears to them with a "Glinda Bird" that uses its Tattle Tail to show what is occurring at the palace. She then gives Dorothy a little silver box, to open only in the Emerald City, and only in a dire emergency. Mombi, having seen their progress in her crystal ball, brings the nearby trees to life; whereupon Glinda sends a golden hatchet to Pumpkinhead. One of the trees snatches it from him, but changes its fellows and itself into gold and turns them from bad to good. Woodenhead carries Dorothy and Pumpkinhead back to the Emerald City, where Mombi's elephants surprise them. When Dorothy opens Glinda's box, mice emerge, scaring the elephants. Mombi brews a potion to shrink Toto to mouse-size so she can feed him to her cat; but when startled, miniaturizes her crow and cat instead. Thereafter Mombi disguises herself as a rose with poisonous thorns, which the elephants trample over and themselves disappear, prompting the Scarecrow to explain that Mombi's magic has died with her. Unfortunately, Pumpkinhead, another product of Mombi, also dies; however, he is revived by one of Dorothy's tears. The Scarecrow makes Woodenhead the head of the Oz cavalry and knights Pumpkinhead; and Dorothy and Toto leave Oz by another tornado (created by Pumpkinhead and Glinda), promising to return. ===== On September 29, 1998, two months after the events of the first Resident Evil, most citizens of the Midwestern American mountain community Raccoon City have been transformed into zombies by the T-virus, a biological weapon secretly developed by the pharmaceutical company Umbrella. Leon S. Kennedy, a police officer on his first day of duty, and Claire Redfield, a college student looking for her brother Chris, make their way to the Raccoon Police Department. They discover that most of the police force have been killed, and that Chris has left town to investigate Umbrella's headquarters in Europe. They split up to look for survivors and find a way out of the city. While searching for an escape route, Claire meets a little girl, Sherry Birkin, who is on the run from an unknown creature, and Leon encounters Ada Wong, who claims to be looking for her boyfriend John, an Umbrella researcher from Chicago. Raccoon City police chief Brian Irons had been bribed by Umbrella to hide evidence of the company's experiments in the outskirts of the city. He concealed their development of the new G-virus, an agent capable of mutating a human into the ultimate bioweapon. Leon has multiple encounters with a Tyrant, a monster air-dropped into the Raccoon Police Department by Umbrella to seek the G-virus. Irons tries to murder Claire but is killed by a G-virus mutant in the police department. Claire and Sherry escape through the sewers and become separated. After splitting up with Leon, Ada finds Sherry and picks up a golden pendant the girl loses while running away. Further into the sewers, Ada reluctantly teams up with Leon again, after he insists on his duty to protect her. They encounter a middle-aged woman who fires at Ada, but Leon jumps between them and takes a bullet himself. Ada ignores the unconscious Leon and follows the woman, who reveals herself to be Sherry's mother Annette and the wife of William Birkin, the Umbrella scientist who created the G-virus. In an attempt to protect his life's work from special agents sent by the Umbrella headquarters, he injected himself with the virus, which turned him into the malformed creature and is now chasing Sherry because of her genetic make-up. Annette recognizes her daughter's pendant and attempts to take it from Ada. A fight ensues, during which Annette is thrown over a railing. Ada learns that the golden locket contains a sample of the G-virus, and later – taken over by her emotions – returns to Leon, tending to his bullet wound. Meanwhile, Claire is reunited with Sherry and discovers that William has implanted his daughter with an embryo to produce offspring. Leon, Ada, Claire, and Sherry advance through an abandoned factory connected to Umbrella's secret underground research facility. An attack by William leaves Ada heavily wounded, and Leon explores the laboratory to find something to treat her wounds. He is interrupted by a psychotic Annette, who explains to him that Ada's relationship with John was only a means of getting information about Umbrella: Ada is a spy sent to steal the G-virus for an unknown organization. Just as Annette is about to shoot Leon, the Tyrant appears, and she is forced to retreat. Ada returns to save Leon and battles the Tyrant – which falls into a pit of molten metal – seemingly at the cost of her own life. She confesses her love to Leon, who leaves behind her motionless body. Meanwhile, Annette tries to escape with another sample of the G-virus but is fatally wounded by her mutated husband. However, before she dies, she tells Claire how to create a vaccine that will stop the mutations caused by the embryo within Sherry. After preparing the cure, Leon and Claire reunite at an emergency escape train and inject Sherry with the vaccine, which saves her life. En route, Leon is assisted in terminating the now-mutated Super Tyrant by Ada who escapes with the G-virus in the pendant. William—now mutated into an agglomeration of flesh and teeth—follows Leon and Claire, but is destroyed when the train self-destructs. After escaping from the city with Sherry, Leon intends to take down Umbrella, while Claire continues to search for Chris. HUNK, one of the surviving special agents sent by Umbrella, completes his G-virus retrieval mission. ===== The Enterprise rendezvous with the USS Fearless to bring aboard Mr. Kosinski (Kamel), a Starfleet propulsion expert who plans to run tests on the warp engines to improve their efficiency. Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) is skeptical of Kosinski's seemingly nonsensical specifications, suggesting his apparent success on other ships was merely addressing inherent design flaws on older engines, whereas the Enterprise engines are brand new. With Kosinski is his assistant, an alien from Tau Alpha C known as the Traveler. As Kosinski and the Traveler explain the tests to the engineering crew, Wesley Crusher (Wheaton) quickly grasps what the tests are designed to accomplish and the Traveler expresses admiration for his problem- solving abilities. The test quickly goes awry when the Enterprise speeds up, surpassing the known capabilities of warp engines. Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) orders the ship stopped, and the crew finds themselves on the far side of the M33 Galaxy (more than 2.7 million light years from the Milky Way, the Enterprises home galaxy). Although Kosinski is pleased with the results, Picard reprimands him and asks him to simply redo the process to return home. Crusher attempts to warn Riker that during the warp test, the Traveler appeared to "phase", drifting in and out of reality, but Riker dismisses him without listening. However, after Kosinski begins the second test, Crusher and Riker both observe the Traveler again drifting out, appearing more tired. The Enterprise again experiences a burst of speed, and when it stops, the crew cannot determine their position. Picard demands that Kosinski get the crew home. While Kosinski, the Traveler, and the engineering crew work on reversing the process, the rest of the crew begins experiencing lifelike visions of their past. After having a vision of his mother (Herta Ware), Picard surmises that they have arrived at the theoretical Outer Rim of the universe, and issues a red alert to awaken the crew from their visions. Riker suggests that Kosinski may have had nothing to do with the warp jumps, which were more likely to be a result of the Traveler's illness. Picard has the alien moved to sick bay, but Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) cannot evaluate the Traveler's alien biology, and is unable to treat him. The Traveler explains that he has the ability to channel thought into reality, and brought the crew of the Enterprise to the Outer Rim, triggering similar effects in anyone within it to ascertain if they were ready to experience thought as reality. The Traveler confides to Picard that he looks for scientific prodigies such as the young Crusher, and suggests that Picard nurture him. When he returns to the engineering section, the Traveler asks Crusher to assist him in returning the Enterprise to known space. As they concentrate, beginning to return the ship home, the Traveler again phases and finally disappears completely. The Enterprise suddenly stops, and the crew is relieved to find themselves back in Federation space. After the incident, Picard promotes Crusher to acting ensign (following his own unspoken suggestion in "The Naked Now") on the Enterprise for his performance. ===== ===== Dr. Samantha "Sam" Waters (Ally Walker) is a forensic psychologist working for the FBI's (fictitious) Violent Crimes Task Force - "VCTF" - based in Atlanta, Georgia. She is a criminal profiler with her own unique gift to "see" through the eyes of others. This gift gives Sam an added special insight into the workings of the criminal mind. While she performs all of her duties diligently and competently, her drive comes from experiencing both a professional and personal tragedy years earlier in which her husband was murdered by a serial killer known only as Jack of All Trades. (His true identity was not revealed until the middle of the third season.) Due to the dangers of the still at- large violent criminal, "Jack of All Trades," Sam must live under police guard 24/7 in a former firefighter station with her seven-year-old daughter Chloe Waters (Caitlin Wachs and later Evan Rachel Wood), and her best friend Angel Brown (Erica Gimpel), an artist. The VCTF is an elite team of pros who must solve the toughest cases. It is led by Sam's mentor, Bailey Malone (Robert Davi), Detective John Grant (Julian McMahon), computer hacker George Fraley (Peter Frechette), and forensic pathologist Grace Álvarez (Roma Maffia). Other characters included Nathan Brubaker, played by Michael Whaley, a former defense attorney turned detective. He appeared throughout season one. Shiek Mahmoud-Bey played Marcus Payton in season two who was an FBI agent skeptical of Sam's methods. A Martinez appeared occasionally in the first and second seasons playing Nick "Coop" Cooper, an ATF bomb disposal expert, who was Sam Waters love interest. Agent Cooper was later murdered by Jack. (Martínez had previously worked with Walker on the NBC daytime serial Santa Barbara.) Heather McComb appeared frequently in the first and second seasons as Frances Malone, the wayward and rebellious teenage daughter of Bailey Malone. Traci Lords appeared throughout the second season as a violent ex-convict named Sharon Lesher, who became the serial killer "Jill of All Trades" after she was recruited by Jack. In season three, the VCTF thought they finally closed in on "Jack" - Donald Lucas (played by Mark Rolston). With "Jack" seemingly in custody, Sam and her daughter Chloe (now played by Evan Rachel Wood) were able to move out of the fortress-like firehouse where they had lived for the past two years. They settled into an upscale house in the Atlanta suburbs. Shortly after, Sam had a brief romance with Paul Sterling (John Mese), the district attorney prosecuting Donald Lucas. She was also dealing with her estranged father, Walter Anderson (Lawrence Pressman), who had a mysterious connection to the imprisoned Donald Lucas. As it turned out, the arrest of Donald Lucas was a complex ploy and set-up by the real "Jack of All Trades" - Albert Newquay - played by Dennis Christopher. Newquay, or "Jack", a violent career criminal, was hiding in a small California town. (To tease viewers, Newquay, the real "Jack", had first briefly appeared in season one posing in disguise as Ed Boast, the buffoonish sheriff of a small California town, and later discussed only once in season two.) In season four, after finally stopping "Jack", Sam retired from the VCTF, being replaced by a new forensic psychologist, Dr. Rachel Burke (Jamie Luner). Rachel was a former FBI instructor at Quantico who also had Sam Waters' skill of profiling. But unlike Sam, Rachel had a very brusque take-charge manner that alienated some of the team members. Rachel had her own life problems; being single and also dealing with Danny, her self-destructive younger brother who died from a drug overdose near the end of the season. Late in the season, the show established a new overarching (story arc) villain, a shadowy urban legend named Damian Kennasas. Gregory Itzin also had a recurring role as Joel Marks, an unstable FBI agent who stalked Rachel. As the series came to an end, it appeared that the elite VCTF team might be shut down by the U.S. Congress for the high funds it took to operate. ===== North is a child prodigy, skilled in academics, sports, and drama, admired by many for his good work and obedient attitude, but unappreciated, he feels, by his own parents. One day, while finding solace in a living room display at a mall, he complains to the Easter Bunny—a man in a pink bunny suit—that his parents, alone among all the adults in his neighborhood, seem unable to see his talents. The Easter Bunny recommends that North simply tell his parents how he feels; but North says if they can't appreciate him, they don't deserve him. With the help and encouragement of his friend Winchell, who works on the school paper, North devises a plan to "divorce" himself from his parents, and hires ambulance- chasing lawyer Arthur Belt to file the papers. The announcement of his divorce takes North's parents completely by surprise, and renders them comatose. They cannot object when Judge Buckle grants North's petition, and gives him one summer to find new parents; if he cannot, he will have to move to an orphanage. North's first stop is Texas, where his parental candidates attempt to fatten him up, to be more like their first son, Buck, who died in a stampede. They then stage a musical number (set to the Bonanza theme) about the other horrible plans they have for him. Gabby, a sharpshooting cowboy, presents North with a souvenir from his act—a silver dollar with a bullet hole shot through its center—and advises him to move on. His next stop is Hawaii, where Governor and Mrs. Ho, who cannot have children of their own, are eager to adopt him. North is overjoyed; but the governor unveils a new state campaign to encourage mainlanders to move to Hawaii. North learns, to his horror, that billboards featuring him in a mortifying pose will soon be on view throughout the U.S. On the beach, he meets a tourist with a metal detector who explains that parents should not rely on children for their own personal gain. In Alaska, he settles into an Inuit village, where his prospective parents send their elderly grandfather out to sea on an ice floe so that he may die with dignity. As the long, dark winter begins to envelop Alaska, North realizes that his summer is almost up. Meanwhile, his real parents, still comatose, are put on display in a museum. North's quest has stimulated children around the world to leave their parents, and to hire Belt and Winchell, who are both now rich and powerful. North's next family is Amish, but he is quickly discouraged by the size of their family (and the lack of electricity and other conveniences). His experiences in Zaire, China, and Paris are equally fruitless. At last, back in America, he finds the Nelsons, who are an ideal All-American family that give North the attention and appreciation he craves; but he still is not happy. "The Nelsons are good folks,” says a sleigh driver. “They're just not your folks." In despair, North finds himself in New York City, where Winchell and Belt, fearing the demise of their lucrative business, plot to assassinate him. On the run, North receives a videotape from his newly revived parents begging him to forgive them and return home. Standup comedian Joey Fingers encourages him to do so: "A bird in the hand is always greener than the grass under the other guy's bushes." At the airport, his path is blocked by a mob of kids who have followed his example, and are angry that he is giving up and going home, so North is forced to ship himself home in a FedEx box. He reaches his house just in time to beat the orphanage deadline; but as he runs toward his parents, an assassin takes aim. As he squeezes the trigger, North awakens in the mall, now empty. The Easter Bunny takes him home, where he is greeted warmly by his parents, who have been worried while he has been gone. It has all been a dream—but in his pocket, North discovers Gabby's silver dollar with the hole through the middle. North says he has always had it, "for good luck". North goes inside as his parents agree to bring him dinner in bed. ===== Seiji Sawamura is the toughest student in his high school. His grades aren't very good because he fights more than he studies, but he tends to protect the weaker students from bullies. A few classmates idolize him; one (Midori Kasugano from a different school) shyly loves him from afar; but most are just afraid of him, which has made it impossible for him to find a girlfriend. In desperation, he says to himself that he wants a girlfriend no matter who it is. He then notices a miniature Midori attached to where his right hand used to be. Because of this, the pair must learn how to adapt to this sudden and forced closeness. ===== The movie begins with an extraterrestrial humanoid species, the Glegoliths, wandering through space in search of a new world. Encountering an unknown planet (which turns out to be Earth), the Glegolith leader (Cyrillus) sends two "manned" probes to the surface to determine if it is suitable for colonisation. The scouts in the probes think they have arrived at a great city, but in fact they have arrived at a new amusement park that is not yet open to the public. They proceed to explore four amusement rides (all of which having been previously released as separate shorts): * Arctic Adventure (motion simulator ride in a freezing environment); * Magic Carpet (a ride in an Arabian Nights-themed dungeon); * Kid Coaster (a roller coaster set in a gigantic simulation of a child's bedroom); and * Aqua Adventure (an underwater-themed motion simulator ride, complete with animatronic sharks). At each ride the Glegolith scouts become variously excited, frightened, frozen or violently ill, but end up having a lot of fun. On seeing this, Cyrillus decides that the new planet "was too much fun" and would destroy the fabric of his society, and orders his scouts to withdraw. The alien visitors depart Earth without actually making contact with humans. ===== The episode opens with Walter O'Reilly in his cousin Wendell Micklejohn's apartment. They are getting ready for their workday while watching the start of a television interview. The interview shows journalist Clete Roberts following up on the members of the M*A*S*H 4077th. The previous week Roberts had interviewed Hawkeye Pierce, and this week he is catching up with O'Reilly. At the police department and through store windows on the street, O'Reilly and Micklejohn catch pieces of the television interview, giving viewers of the pilot a chance to sample the potential series and to build a bridge between the events of M*A*S*H and W*A*L*T*E*R. Viewers learn that O'Reilly returned to Iowa, where he failed at farming. He sold the farm and the livestock and sent his mother off to live with his aunt. His bride left him for another man during their honeymoon. O'Reilly decided to commit suicide, and went to a drug store to buy sleeping pills for an overdose (as well as aspirin, because sleeping pills give him headaches). The drugstore clerk, Victoria, cheered him up and they became good friends. His cousin Wendell helped him get a job on the police force. Walter solves a dispute between two strippers, and gets his wallet back from a young would-be thief whose father had died in Korea. ===== Traveling salesman Harold Speck is approached by a man in a diner who asks him an uncomfortable question. After leaving the diner, Harold is found dead with his eyelids cut off and clutching a symbol consisting of a circle with a line through it. The murder is investigated by FBI Agent Thomas Mackelway (Aaron Eckhart), who was recently suspended for beating suspected serial killer Raymond Starkey. Mackelway receives a series of taunting faxes from someone who may be Speck's killer. As the investigation proceeds, Mackelway and his partner, Fran Kulok (Carrie-Anne Moss), become aware of the possible existence of Suspect Zero, a "super serial killer" responsible for hundreds of deaths who leaves no evidence behind to link his crimes together. Another body is found in the trunk of a car bearing an M.O. similar to Speck's murder. The ownership of the car is traced to a room in a halfway house occupied by Benjamin O'Ryan. The agents discover that the room is filled with obsessive-compulsive sketches of the crossed-circle symbol, a Bible which contains sketches of missing persons, and a book on ritual. Questioning the other occupants of the halfway house, Mackelway is told by one of them the symbol represents a zero, not a circle. Information sent by the killer leads Mackelway to O'Ryan (Ben Kingsley), who believes himself to be a former member of the FBI. The agents must decide if O'Ryan is the key to catching Suspect Zero, or if he is Suspect Zero himself. Outside a bar, O'Ryan kills a man who attempts to kidnap and rape a young girl. When Mackelway and Kulok arrive, they find that the body belongs to Starkey, who had been released from prison. Evidence reveals that O'Ryan was part of Project Icarus, a secret government project attempting to cultivate telepathic abilities in individuals for military purposes. The experiments gave O'Ryan the ability to see the actions of serial killers, driving him to hunt them down. O'Ryan demonstrates that Mackelway shares his abilities to some degree. Neither Kulok or Mackelway's superiors are convinced by his theories that O'Ryan is chasing the killer rather than being the killer. Suspect Zero is revealed to be a man who drives cross-country in a refrigerated truck. He targets children, whom he abducts and transports to his ranch, where he kills them. Mackelway links these crimes by recognizing that victims had signs of freezer burns while being transported. Mackelway chases one truck driver to a carnival, only to find that the child he saw in his vision as "captured" is free. O'Ryan suddenly appears and captures Mackelway. After refusing to be frightened, O'Ryan spares Mackelway. Eventually, the two men track Suspect Zero to his ranch and find numerous shallow graves. Chasing him, both vehicles crash off the road. Kulok manages to free a child while Mackelway kills Suspect Zero. O'Ryan then tries to convince Mackelway to end his suffering by killing him. When Mackelway refuses, O'Ryan pretends to attack him, prompting Kulok to shoot him to defend her partner. ===== Private school student Liz resurfaces, disheveled and bloody, after disappearing 18 days prior along with her peers Mike, Geoff, and Geoff's girlfriend, Frankie. Liz is interviewed by a psychiatrist, Dr. Phillipa Horwood. Liz recounts how her friend Martyn arranged for the four to spend the weekend in an abandoned underground nuclear fallout shelter to avoid a school field trip. Liz portrays herself as being unpopular but as Frankie is her friend, she was able to convince the others to go down into the shelter. When Martyn fails to return for them, the four belatedly realize they are trapped, and begin to turn on one another. They discover hidden microphones in the shelter which were placed there by Martyn. Attempting to get Martyn's attention, Frankie pretends to be ill, while Mike and Liz feign hatred for one another; Martyn has had unrequited romantic feelings for her since their childhood. Liz claims they woke up one morning and found the hatch opened, allowing them all to finally escape. Phillipa is skeptical of Liz's story. Martyn is subsequently taken into police custody, where he tells an entirely different story: He claims Liz and Frankie orchestrated the scheme in order for Liz to get to know Mike better, and for Frankie to spend time with Geoff. Liz is not the unpopular loner she has portrayed herself as, in fact it is Martyn who is the loner while Liz and Frankie are the popular girls. Meanwhile, Liz returns home, where she experiences disturbing flashbacks about what happened. An enraged Martyn goes to visit Liz, believing she is framing him. She runs from him through the garden and approaches a weir. Martyn cries, and Liz hysterically says that she knew they would let him go because they could not prove anything. At their next meeting, Liz tells Phillipa that she cannot remember what happened in the shelter. Phillipa decides to bring her there, hoping to invoke her memory. Once inside, Liz reveals the truth: She had locked herself and her friends inside in the hopes of winning Mike's affection, with whom she was obsessed. After discovering that both he and Geoff had slept with Frankie, she spontaneously decided to lock the door, isolating them and giving her the opportunity to become closer to him. Initially, the four had planned to drink and do drugs in the shelter, but the realisation that they were unable to escape initiated the group into hysteria. Frankie soon becomes ill and is unable to stop vomiting, this increases her dehydration, tears the lining of her stomach and puts a great strain on her heart (which is weakened by Frankie's bulimia). This causes cardiac arrest and Frankie dies. Liz, Mike, and Geoff gradually ran out of food and water. When Mike discovered that Geoff was hoarding a Coca-Cola can in his backpack, he attacks him in a fit of rage but accidentally kills him from beating Geoff's head repeatedly on the floor. Liz suggested a suicide pact, where upon Mike professed his love for her; this prompted her to climb the ladder toward the shelter's entrance and unlock the door. When Mike discovers she had the key all along, he attempts to chase after her, but falls to his death from the ladder. After Liz finishes recounting the story to Phillipa, Phillipa asks her to make an official statement corroborating Martyn's version of events; Liz refuses, having murdered Martyn when he visited her at her home the day prior. Police arrive at the shelter, and Liz begins screaming for help, pretending Phillipa was attempting to hurt her. Meanwhile, Martyn's corpse is fished out of the river; in his pocket, police find the key to the shelter, which implicates him in the events. The police attribute his death to suicide. Liz is allowed to go free. She leaves the shelter in the back of an ambulance, smirking at Phillipa from the window as it drives away. ===== Chu is an elderly Chinese Taiji Quan teacher who has recently emigrated from Beijing to New York City to live with his son, Alex, and his family. Chu finds life in America difficult and alienating, he doesn't speak English and his American daughter-in-law Martha doesn't speak Mandarin, making mutual comprehension and communication nearly impossible, with the bilingual Alex forced to act as interpreter. Martha, meanwhile, finds Chu increasingly insufferable, his noisy and obscure daily routine distracting her from writing her second novel. Every Sunday, Chu teaches tai chi classes at the local Chinese cultural center. During one such class, he meets Mrs. Chen, a cooking teacher and fellow expatriate from Beijing. The two begin to bond over their shared background and similar stations in life. Tensions between Chu and Martha escalate during an attempt by him to cure her stomach cramp using chi inadvertently causes internal bleeding and forces her to be briefly hospitalized. Martha tells her husband that she can't stand being Chu's de facto caregiver, and tries to convince them to take her mother's offer to buy them a larger house so Chu and her don't have to share a space. Alex explains that he feels obligated to take care of his father in the tradition of Confucian familial relations, where a child will take care of a parent when they grow old as they once took care of them. One night while Alex is out, Chu goes on a walk against Martha's wishes. When he doesn't return home before Alex does, the son assumes he's lost and goes looking for him. When he can't find him, he suffers a nervous breakdown, blaming Martha and trashing his kitchen before leaving.Dariotis and Fung, p. 194. Chu eventually returns home without incident, and despite his and Martha's inability to understand each other, they manage to communicate and clean up the mess in the kitchen. Alex returns home hours later, intoxicated, and attempts to smash his head into the bathroom wall before ranting to Jeremy about how neither Chu nor Martha care about him. After Alex sobers up, he resolves to Martha to send his father to a retirement home, but when he goes to tell his father, he finds him emotionally distraught over a photograph of his wife. Chu admits that during the Cultural Revolution, a roving group of Red Guards attacked his family instead of him because he was a T'ai chi ch'uan master and they feared challenging him. Chu protected Alex but his wife was fatally injured, and he blames himself for her death.Dariotis and Fung, p. 196. The Chu and Chen families go on a picnic. The groups go hiking, but the elderly lag behind. Chen then has a breakdown and admits to the Chu that her daughter does not want her to be around anymore, that she overheard the two parties talking about setting their parents up together so they would leave their families. Realizing his son can't live with him, Chu moves out in the middle of the night, leaving behind a note telling his son he intends to spend the rest of his life alone practicing self-discipline. Chu moves to a small apartment in Chinatown and finds employment at a restaurant as a dishwasher, but is quickly chastised for his age and slow work rate. Eventually, the restaurant owner attempts to fire him, but Chu refuses to leave and challenges the owner to move him half a step. The owner attempts to do so, but quickly realizes that Chu is a tai chi master and can't be moved easily. He orders the rest of his staff to move him, but they are unable to despite their hardest efforts. Already disgusted by the owner's callous treatment of the elderly Chu, they all quit in protest. The owner proceeds to summon a band of local thugs to try and remove Chu, but he easily fends them all off. It takes a small army of police officers several hours to finally remove Chu and take him into custody. Alex sees the story of his father's arrest on the news, and he rushes to the precinct where he's being held to bring him home. Chu steadfastly refuses to live with his son because he doesn't want to be a burden, and Alex emotionally admits that all these years he tried to earn enough money to bring his father to the United States so he could finally have the happy life he was always denied in China. Sometime later, Alex, Martha, and Jeremy have purchased the larger house and moved in, with Alex believing that his father will come to visit so he can see his grandson. Alex, who up until now has displayed ignorance of his father's martial arts, demonstrates a pushing hands technique to his wife. Meanwhile, the elderly Chu teaches a Tai Chi class in Chinatown, where Mrs. Chen comes to visit him. She tells him that his fending off the thugs and police have made him a local hero, and people come from all over the city to attend his classes. She tells him that she's moved out and is living alone in an apartment across the street from him. She leaves, but Chu follows her and asks her if she's doing anything that afternoon. She replies no. ===== Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) is reassigned to teach at the FBI Academy while Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) is given lowly surveillance assignments. After he investigates extraterrestrial cases at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico,Lowry, pp. 161–163 Mulder is given a new partner, Alex Krycek (Nicholas Lea), and meets a secretive informant, X (Steven Williams).Lowry, pp. 169–170 Mulder is recruited to assist in a hostage negotiation when Duane Barry, an alien abductee, captures four people.Lowry, pp. 171–172 Barry eventually kidnaps Scully, believing that if he brings her to his original abduction site, Skyland Mountain, aliens will take her instead of him. Mulder follows but is delayed by Krycek, who is revealed to be a mole working for Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis). When Mulder reaches Skyland Mountain, Scully is gone. Barry, who insists that aliens took him, dies soon after an interrogation by Krycek. When Krycek vanishes, Skinner re-opens the X-Files, claiming that is what the conspirators will fear most.Lowry, pp. 173–174 Scully turns up comatose in a hospital four week later with no explanation about how she got there. X provides Mulder with information allowing him to take revenge on her captors, but Mulder is instead convinced by Scully's sister Melissa to visit her bedside. Scully recovers and returns to work shortly thereafter.Lowry, pp. 179–180 The agents later investigate a case involving alien biology being injected into teenagers in Wisconsin, and once again they encounter Deep Throat's killer, who is killed by the local sheriff.Lowry, pp. 184–185 When investigating a case involving the murder of identical doctors, the agents come across a shapeshifting Alien Bounty Hunter (Brian Thompson) responsible for executing a series of alien clones. During this case a grown woman claiming to be Mulder's sister Samantha appears, telling Mulder of the Bounty Hunter's objectives and that she has the ability to identify him.Lowry, pp. 199–201 When Scully is kidnapped by the Bounty Hunter, Mulder is forced to trade Samantha for her. During a botched attempt to kill the Bounty Hunter, Samantha is killed. However, it is discovered that this was simply one of many alien clones of Samantha. With the help of X, Mulder pursues the Bounty Hunter to a submarine in the Arctic. Mulder is nearly killed when exposed to the Bounty Hunter's toxic blood, but is saved by Scully.Lowry, pp. 202–204 When a hacker downloads decades' worth of classified information about aliens onto a digital tape, he gives it to Mulder, who finds that the entire tape is written in Navajo. Cigarette Smoking Man begins searching for the tape and visits Mulder's father, who calls Mulder to see him shortly afterwards. Before he can reveal anything to Mulder, however, he is murdered by Alex Krycek. Scully brings Mulder to New Mexico, where she introduces him to Albert Hosteen, a code-talker who can translate the digital tape. Albert's grandson shows Mulder a boxcar filled with alien corpses. Cigarette Smoking Man tracks Mulder's location, however, and orders the boxcar burned.Lowry, pp. 225–227 ===== The show centers on FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files. Mulder is later found in the desert following the events of the second season finale and nursed back to health by Albert Hosteen (Floyd Red Crow Westerman). Meanwhile, Scully investigates the possible involvement of the smallpox eradication program in human genetic experimentation, discovering that a Nazi scientist who defected during Operation Paperclip has been conducting human experimentation to create alien- human hybrids. Her sister Melissa (Melinda McGraw), however, is shot by assassins who mistake her for Dana, and dies in hospital that night.Lowry (1996), pp. 225–237 Investigating evidence of an alien autopsy, Mulder infiltrates a secretive government train carriage carrying an alien-human hybrid. Mulder is almost killed by a Syndicate operative guarding the hybrid, but is saved by his informant X (Steven Williams). X had been tipped off about Mulder's activities by the agent's partner Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson). Scully, meanwhile, meets a group of women with abduction experiences similar to her own, and meets another member of the Syndicate known as the First Elder (Don S. Williams), who claims during her abduction she was placed on a similar train car and experimented upon by the Japanese scientists.Lovece (1996), pp. 204–208 The crew of a French salvage ship trying to raise a World War II-era submarine from the sea floor are stricken with massive radiation burns—except for one, who has been infected with a parasitic black oil discovered on the submarine. The oil is controlling the crewman's body, and after passing through several hosts, has overtaken Alex Krycek (Nicholas Lea), whom Mulder has been pursuing. Scully finds that the submarine had been involved in discovering the oil on the sea floor during World War II, under the guise of finding a sunken fighter plane. The infected Krycek makes his way to a missile silo used to hide a UFO, and the oil escapes his body to board the craft. Meanwhile, Scully has tracked down Luis Cardinal, the man responsible for killing her sister.Lovece (1996), pp. 211–212 ===== The show centers on FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), who work on cases linked to the paranormal called X-Files. When the Syndicate suspect that one of their members is passing information to Mulder and Scully, they organize a canary trap to find the leak, using information about the safety of Mulder's mother as bait. X's (Steven Williams) role as an informant is discovered, and he is shot dead, although he is able to pass along the name of another informant who can be of use to Mulder—Marita Covarrubias (Laurie Holden), the Special Representative to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.Meisler (1998), pp. 19–25. Covarrubias' aid is sought when Mulder attempts to reach Tunguska in Russia to investigate the source of a further black oil contamination. Whilst there, Mulder is held in a gulag and used as a successful test subject for a black oil vaccine. He escapes and is able to return to America, having found that Alex Krycek (Nicholas Lea) is working with the Russians.Meisler (1998), pp. 95–110 Having been diagnosed with cancer, Scully is unsure of her future with the FBI. Mulder is convinced that her condition is a result of her earlier abduction ("Ascension"), and is prepared to make a deal with the Syndicate to find a cure. He is dissuaded by Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi), who secretly makes such a deal instead.Meisler (1998), pp. 221–230 While being pursued by an assassin responsible for a hoax alien corpse discovered on a mountaintop, Mulder fakes his own suicide, mutilating the assassin's face to provide a decoy body. He uses the distraction this offers to infiltrate The Pentagon to find a cure for Scully's cancer, while Scully is able to uncover and reveal a Syndicate connection within the FBI.Meisler (1998), pp. 259–270Meisler (1999), pp. 27–46 ===== The show centers on FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files. At the end of the fourth season, Scully is dying of cancer. Mulder is convinced that her condition is a result of her earlier abduction, and is prepared to make a deal with the Syndicate to find a cure. While being pursued by an assassin responsible for a hoax alien corpse discovered on a mountaintop, Mulder fakes his own suicide, mutilating the assassin's face to provide a decoy body. In the fifth season opener "Redux", he uses the distraction to infiltrate The Pentagon to find a cure for Scully's cancer, while Scully is able to uncover and reveal a Syndicate connection within the FBI. Due to the information he learns from Michael Kritschgau (John Finn), Mulder loses his belief in extraterrestrials.Meisler (1998), pp. 259–270Meisler (1999), pp. 27–46 Later, as a rebel alien race secretly attacks several groups of former alien abductees, the agents meet Cassandra Spender (Veronica Cartwright), a woman who claims to be a multiple abductee and wants to deliver a positive message about aliens.Meisler (1999), pp 173–184 Eventually, Mulder has Scully put under hypnosis to learn the truth about her abduction after Cassandra goes missing and her son, Jeffrey Spender (Chris Owens), angrily attempts to push his way up in the FBI. The Syndicate, meanwhile, quicken their tests for the black oil vaccine, sacrificing their own to do so.Meisler (1999), pp. 187–196 Later, the assassination of a chess grandmaster leads Mulder and Scully into an investigation that they soon discover strikes at the heart of the X-Files; they learn that the real target was a telepathic boy named Gibson Praise (Jeff Gulka).Meisler (1999), pp. 269–280 ===== In Washington, D.C., Agent Fox Mulder appears before an FBI panel regarding his experiences in Antarctica. Assistant Director Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) tells Mulder that he and Scully have been denied reassignment to the division. Mulder goes to his former basement office, only to discover that Jeffrey Spender (Chris Owens) and Diana Fowley (Mimi Rogers) have been assigned to the X-Files. Going against orders, Mulder and Scully track down an escaped alien in Phoenix, Arizona while Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis) gives chase. Mulder and Scully eventually discover that Cigarette Smoking Man has been using Gibson Praise to locate the creature. Scully brings Gibson to the hospital, where it is determined that he has the alien virus in his blood. Later, Skinner is mysteriously poisoned by a nanorobot infection. The culprit is revealed to be Alex Krycek (Nicholas Lea), a rogue FBI agent who formerly worked for the Syndicate, who continues to control the potentially debilitating nanotechnology in Skinner's system in order to achieve his goals. Mulder and Scully later learn of reports of rebel aliens burning doctors who were working on Cassandra Spender (Veronica Cartwright), an alien abductee and mother of Jeffrey Spender. Skinner takes Spender to the scene, where Cassandra asks for Mulder. She informs Mulder and Scully that the aliens are here to destroy all life on Earth. She claims that a rebel force of aliens are mutilating their faces to prevent infection by the black oil. Cigarette Smoking Man reveals everything to Diana Fowley, who agrees to help him and betray Mulder. Cassandra later escapes from a hospital and arrives at Mulder's apartment, demanding that he shoot her because she is the embodiment of fifty years of work by the Syndicate—an alien-human hybrid that will trigger colonization if the aliens learn of her existence. Fowley arrives and forcibly takes Mulder, Cassandra, and Scully to a CDC facility at Fort Marlene. There, Mulder runs into Marita Covarrubias (Laurie Holden). Marita tells Mulder that she was subjected to Syndicate-run black oil vaccine tests. Meanwhile, the Syndicate rendezvous at a checkpoint, preparing to be taken away by the Colonists, who are prepping for invasion. However, they are met by the alien rebels, who incinerate them all, including Cassandra; Cigarette Smoking Man and Fowley escape. Jeffrey Spender is then purportedly killed by Cigarette Smoking Man. Several months later, a metallic artifact with inscriptions is discovered on the beach of Côte d'Ivoire in Africa. After Mulder examines rubbings of the object, he begins suffering from a headache, seemingly caused by the rubbings. Mulder's condition worsens, but he gains telepathic abilities. Chuck Burks (Bill Dow) tells them that the symbols on the artifact are Navajo. Eventually, Mulder passes into an aggravated delusional state and is placed under observation at a hospital. Hoping to find an answer, Scully rushes to Africa and finds the massive wreck of a large spacecraft partially buried in the beach. ===== After the events of the season six finale, Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) and Michael Kritschgau (John Finn) are desperately attempting to find the truth behind the so-called alien object. Meanwhile, Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) is still imprisoned by his own frenetic brain activity. Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) and Skinner are unaware of FBI Special Agent Diana Fowley's (Mimi Rogers) duplicity—she is working for Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis). Scully then travels to Africa to unravel the secrets of the alien artifacts, finding something that looks like a spaceship buried under the shoreline off the Côte d'Ivoire coast. The object may prove that life originated elsewhere, and all religion is based on the Navajo contact with alien life.Shapiro, pp. 7–16 Unsuccessful, Scully returns from Africa to revisit Mulder in Washington, D.C., but instead she finds out that he has disappeared. She contacts Kritschgau and Skinner to find her partner. Cigarette Smoking Man has taken Mulder to a place where all his problems seem to have disappeared. Fowley helps Scully locate Mulder, which leads to her death at the hands of Cigarette Smoking Man.Shapiro, pp. 19–28 While investigating a bizarre disappearance of a young girl from her home, Mulder becomes obsessed with the number of children who have vanished in similar circumstances. Scully fears that he is emotionally involved due to his sister's disappearance.Shapiro, pp. 119–128 At the same time it is revealed to him that his mother, Teena Mulder (Rebecca Toolan), committed suicide. He then tries to prove that his mother did not take her own life, but is ultimately forced to accept that his mother's death was by her own hand. He is led by a man whose son disappeared years earlier to another truth—that his sister may be among the souls taken by "walk-ins", saving the souls of children doomed to live unhappy lives. Together they locate evidence that proves that Samantha was abducted by Cigarette Smoking Man and was forced to live in a now- abandoned US Army base. It is later revealed that Samantha had become a "walk- in" spirit.Shapiro, pp. 130–139 Mulder and Scully investigate a case which leads them back to Oregon, the site of their first case together. With a series of Alien abductions taking place, Mulder and Scully are contacted by Billy Miles (Zachary Ansley). Scully falls ill during the investigation and returns to Washington, D.C. Cigarette Smoking Man contacts Marita Covarrubias (Laurie Holden) and Alex Krycek (Nicholas Lea), in an attempt to revive the government conspiracy. With Covarrubias unwilling to assist, and Krycek seeking revenge, they contact Mulder after he visits an alien crash site. Skinner and Mulder return to Oregon, while Scully is hospitalized in Washington, D.C. Mulder becomes trapped by an alien device, and is abducted by an Alien Bounty Hunter (Brian Thompson) together with Miles and several others. Skinner returns to Washington, D.C. where Scully informs him that she is pregnant, though she does not tell him that Mulder is the father.Shapiro, pp. 266–277 ===== Chuck (Tate Donovan), an uptight college student in Los Angeles, is hired by a successful businessman to deliver a Porsche to his daughter in Lake Tahoe, with the promise of a job if the delivery is successful. His fun- loving, girl-obsessed friend and roommate, Wally (Grant Heslov) convinces Chuck to drive him to San Diego first. The Porsche is stolen, and Chuck decides to try to get it back with Wally's help but without involving the police so that the businessman does not find out. Meanwhile, Shawn (Karen Lynn Scott), a fun-loving Texan, has convinced her naive friend Michelle (Danielle von Zerneck) to participate in a beauty pageant. The car thief is a successful local businessman, Greg Krevske (Leslie Nielsen), who pledges the stolen Porsche as part of the grand prize in the contest; Chuck and Wally meet Shawn and Michelle, who are initially skeptical of the boys' story. Rival pageant contestant Blake (Valerie Breiman) has a controlling stage mother who tricks Shawn and Michelle into going to a party on Krevske's boat to try to get them out of the way for the next round of the pageant so that they will be disqualified. Chuck and Wally sneak onto the boat in order to get evidence of the theft. Chuck finds a briefcase full of incriminating evidence, including the Porsche's original license plate. The four flee on WetBikes, steal Krevske's Ferrari, and agree to work together to steal back the Porsche. Chuck and Michelle spend the night together on a catamaran on the beach. The next day, with Michelle's help, Chuck and Wally steal back the Porsche. They present Krevske's Ferrari to the pageant as a replacement grand prize, and give the police the incriminating evidence from Krevske's boat. Wally suggests leaving in order to make it to Lake Tahoe on time, but Chuck refuses to leave without talking to Michelle again. Blake wins the beauty pageant, Shawn invites Wally to stay in San Diego with her to have fun, and Chuck and Michelle get ready to drive to Lake Tahoe. ===== Tomba's bracelet, an heirloom from his grandfather, is absconded following a confrontation with a group of evil Koma Pigs. He ventures to a nearby village in his pursuit, where he is directed to the 100-Year-Old Wise Man. The Wise Man relates to Tomba the story of how the Seven Evil Pigs, the leaders of the Koma Pigs, appeared and used their powers to tarnish the land. He explains that the Koma Pigs have been stockpiling gold (which is later clarified to be the source of their magic powers), and surmises that Tomba will find his bracelet if he seeks out the Seven Evil Pigs hiding throughout the land. To aid in this endeavor, the Wise Man informs Tomba of the Evil Pig Bags capable of revealing the Evil Pigs' hiding places and capturing them, and tells him to seek out the Dwarf Elder in the nearby forest to learn more about the Evil Pig Bags. The Dwarf Elder gives Tomba a blue Pig Bag and tells him that the Evil Pig Bags have the power to manifest the entrance to an Evil Pig's hideout if Tomba is to draw near to it, but also that the individual Evil Pigs do not hide in the same area that they have cast their specific spell. Tomba ventures throughout the continent gathering the rest of the Pig Bags. He cures Phoenix Mountain of its perpetual gale by capturing the Stormy Evil Pig, lifts the curse on Baccus Village (which has turned its citizens into mice) by capturing the Earth Evil Pig, raises Trick Village out of submersion by capturing the Water Evil Pig, extinguishes the inferno in Lava Caves by capturing the Fire Evil Pig, cures Dwarf Forest of its spore infestation by capturing the Forest Evil Pig, cures Masakari Jungle of its hostility by capturing the Deep Jungle Evil Pig, and cures the Haunted Mansion of its foreboding nature by capturing the Haunted Evil Pig. When all of these Evil Pigs have been captured, an eighth Evil Pig Bag manifests within Tomba's possession and reveals the lair of the Evil Pigs' creator and leader, the Real Evil Pig. After defeating the Real Evil Pig in his trove of gold, Tomba recovers his bracelet. ===== The film's central story deals with the organisation of an enormous, chaotic, and expensive wedding that is due to take place in a modern Indian family. Lalit Verma (Naseeruddin Shah) and his wife Pimmi (Lillete Dubey) have arranged a marriage for their daughter Aditi (Vasundhara Das) to Hemant Rai (Parvin Dabas). Hemant is the son of a family friend who lives in Texas, and Aditi has only known him for a few weeks. As so often happens in Indian culture, such a wedding means that, for one of the few times in each generation, the extended family comes together from all corners of the globe, bringing its emotional baggage along. Lalit and Pimmi are helped with the main planning by Pimmi's sister Shashi and her husband C.L (Kulbhushan Kharbanda), who have arrived earlier from Oman. A few days before the engagement, Tej Puri (Rajat Kapoor), Lalit's extremely wealthy brother-in-law, arrives from the U.S.. Tej is married to Lalit's sister and has helped the Verma family regain their financial footing after the Partition of India left them penniless many years ago. Tej offers to pay for Aditi's cousin, Ria Verma (Shefali Shah) to attend university in the U.S., after the family consults him for advice. Ria and her mother live with the Verma family, who took them in after the death of Ria's father. Despite his generous offer, Ria stays away from Tej and is not comfortable in his presence. Lalit begins experiencing difficulty in paying for the final, smaller aspects of the wedding and is embarrassed when he has to borrow money from friends and colleagues. Meanwhile, P.K. Dubey (Vijay Raaz), the eccentric wedding planner, falls in love with Alice, the Vermas' maid. Ria grows concerned after she witnesses what appears to be Tej grooming a younger relative, ten-year-old Aliya. Aditi's younger brother Varun (Ishan Nair) plans an elaborate dance for the pre-wedding party with another cousin, Ayesha (Neha Dubey), but Lalit worries that his son is becoming too effeminate and plans to send him to boarding school. Dubey's workers see Alice trying on Aditi's wedding jewellery, and the men accuse her of stealing. The incident causes her to become withdrawn from Dubey and he grows depressed. A few days before the wedding, Aditi sleeps with an old lover, her married boss Vikram; and confesses this to Hemant. The incident only serves as a reminder to Aditi as to why she stopped seeing Vikram. Though he is initially angry, Hemant is glad for her honesty and is confident that they can put it behind them and be happy together. The workers apologize to Alice and she reconciles with Dubey. The night before the ceremony, Varun refuses to dance due to the comments made by his father, and Ayesha performs with the help of Rahul (Randeep Hooda), Pimmi's nephew from Australia. Aditi and Hemant grow closer and they share a few intimate moments, which re-affirms their faith in the marriage. After a night of jokes, drama and dances, Ria catches Tej trying to take Aliya for a drive alone. Ria stops them from driving off and takes Aliya away from him, revealing to Lalit and others that Tej had molested her as a child. Lalit's sister does not believe her, attributing her accusations to her character and unmarried status. Emotionally distraught, Ria leaves. The next day, Lalit pleads with Ria to return to the wedding, admitting that he can't possibly imagine what she has gone through but also saying that he can't disown Tej, since they are family. Ria is not pleased but agrees to return for the sake of Aditi. Hours before the wedding, however, Lalit changes his mind and tells his sister and Tej to leave the wedding and the family home. Tej's wife insists that Ria's accusation was a small matter but Lalit stands his ground. The Monsoon rains begin as Aditi and Hemant are married in an elaborate wedding, while Dubey and Alice simultaneously wed in a simple ceremony, and later celebrate with the Vermas. Ria moves on from her past life, and is finally able to freely enjoy the festivities. ===== Jill, a young dancer, arrives in London with a letter of introduction to Mr. Hamilton, proprietor of the Pleasure Garden Theatre. The letter and all her money are stolen from her handbag as she waits to see him. Patsy, a chorus girl at the Pleasure Garden, sees her difficulty and offers to take her to her own lodgings and to try to get her a job. Next morning Jill is successful in getting a part in the show. Her fiancé, Hugh, arrives with a colleague called Levet. Hugh and Patsy become very close while Jill is being pursued by a number of rich men, eventually breaking up with Hugh in order to begin a relationship with the wealthy Prince Ivan. Not long after this, Hugh is sent to Africa by his company. Jill moves out of the lodgings she shares with Patsy and becomes more involved with the Prince. As she becomes more successful and used to the rich and famous lifestyle she also becomes more dismissive of Patsy, shunning her and eventually seeing her as a commoner. As Patsy laments the loss of her friend, she is comforted by Levet who convinces her to enter into marriage with him. The couple honeymoon in Italy before he leaves to join Hugh in Africa. After some time Patsy finally receives a letter from her husband in which he says he has been sick for weeks. Patsy is determined to go to take care of him and asks Jill to lend her the fare. Jill refuses as she is preparing for her marriage to the Prince and has no money to spare. Patsy is able to borrow the fare from her landlords Mr and Mrs Sidey. When she arrives at her husband's bungalow, she finds that he is having an affair with a local woman and leaves. Levet tries to drive the woman away but when she refuses to leave him, follows her into the sea and drowns her. Meanwhile, Patsy has found that Hugh really is very ill with a fever and stays to take care of him. Hugh has since discovered from a newspaper that Jill is to marry the Prince and he and Patsy soon realize that they love each other. Levet finds them together and accuses Hugh of making advances to his wife. Patsy agrees to follow Levet back to his bungalow in order to save Hugh. During the night, Levet is stricken with guilt and paranoia over the murder of his mistress and begins seeing ghostly visions of her. Levet becomes convinced that the ghost of his mistress will not stop haunting him until he murders Patsy too. Levet corners Patsy with a sword but he is shot dead before he can kill her. Hugh and Patsy find consolation with each other and return to London. ===== ===== The Faded Sun trilogy can be considered a Bildungsroman, since one of the major themes is the coming of age of Niun, the mri protagonist. At the same time, it is a story of acculturation, as the human protagonist, Sten Duncan, lives among the mri to the point of becoming one of them. The Faded Sun trilogy is the principal account of the Mri Wars era of Cherryh's Alliance-Union universe. At the beginning of the first volume, the regul have just concluded a forty-year war with humanity. As part of the peace, they are ceding the desert world of Kesrith to humanity. However, they have neglected to inform its inhabitants, the mri, who have served them as mercenaries for over two thousand years. The Mri have been nearly exterminated in these wars, and young Niun is one of the few remaining warriors. When the regul seek to double-cross his people, he and his sister Melein, the last of the priestly Sen caste, form an uneasy alliance with the human Sten Duncan to rescue a holy relic that may hold the key to the Mri's survival. The second volume opens with Niun and Melein captives of the human occupation force, kept alive by the human medicine they would refuse if they were not sedated. But the human command has a plan that may thwart the regul's attempted genocide of the Mri. They produce a navigation tape from the data in the holy relic that legend holds leads the way to the Mri homeworld and set Niun and Melein aboard the ship. Duncan comes with them to keep the ship running. Soon after they have left Kesrith, Melein lays down a mandate that nothing that is not mri can make the return to the ancient mri homeworld. As a result, Duncan must become Mri or die. With Niun as his teacher, Duncan learns the stern rules of the Mri warrior caste, the Kel. Retracing the voyages of the Mri takes years, jump after jump, giving Duncan time to become Mri. With each jump, they find evidence of previous Mri civilizations, each one destroyed, further and further back in time. Eventually, they realize that this is not the first time that the Mri have been almost exterminated; in fact, the entire Mri history has been made up of the Mri fighting as mercenaries for other races, then being turned upon once their usefulness has ended, as the race(s) employing the Mri did not wish the possibility that the Mri might go and work for their enemies and be used against their former employers. When the ship lands on Kutath, the ancient homeworld of the mri, the three find other mri, the tribes who remained. They also discover that humans and Regul have followed their ship, and the Regul have not forgotten their determination to commit genocide. After an unprovoked attack, Duncan goes back to the human ship and slays the Regul Elder. When the third volume begins, the regul are in a state of disarray as a result of the assassination. Duncan returns to the mri and joins them in seeking assistance from the Elee, the other surviving race of ancient Kutath. After a new Elder has risen among the regul, they renew their attack on the Mri. This time humanity acts to halt the genocide, breaking the cycle, and forming a new partnership with the Mri. ===== The story continues that of Alex Kidd in Miracle World (1986). Alex lives on Planet Aries which is ruled by his brother, King Igul. After hearing a rumor that his long-lost father, King Thor, is still alive on Planet Paperock, Alex travels to the planet to search for him. ===== The Enterprise is en route to the planet "Parliament" with delegates from two warring planets in the Beta Renner system, the reptilian Selay and the canine Antican, when the ship encounters a strange energy cloud. Unseen by the crew, Lt. Worf (Michael Dorn) is hit with a strange energy discharge as the ship passes the cloud, causing him to become violent. Doctor Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) sedates Worf and brings him to the sickbay, but is also infused with the energy as she examines his body. Crusher begins to act oddly to those around her and goes to the bridge, asking questions about the ship's navigational functions. When she questions Lt. Cdr. Data (Brent Spiner) at one of the science stations, the energy sparks between her and the console, leaving her confused as to why she is on the bridge. The ship suddenly begins to malfunction and Captain Picard sends Assistant Engineer Singh (Kavi Raz) to investigate the cause. Singh is later found dead near a computer link, and Picard orders a murder investigation, considering the alien delegates to be prime suspects. Data investigates the murder in the manner of fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, and determines that the delegates were not responsible. Meanwhile, Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) uses hypnosis on both Worf and Crusher, finding that both recall being invaded by some entity during their blackouts. The ship suddenly drops again out of warp, and as Picard investigates the readouts at a bridge console, the strange energy transfers into him. The bridge crew becomes suspicious of Picard's actions after noting that all Enterprise systems are back to normal and that Picard has ordered them to return to the cloud. The senior officers attempt to plead with Picard to undergo a medical examination and to step down from command, but he refuses. When they return to the cloud, Picard announces that they had picked up an entity previously when they passed the cloud, and now Picard and the entity are one. Under its influence, Picard plans to transport his energy back into the cloud, and he shoots energy at the bridge crew when they try to stop him. The crew are unable to prevent Picard from beaming off the ship. The crew spend hours trying to locate Picard to no avail, so they are forced to accept he is beyond recovery and prepare to leave. However, Troi senses the Captain's essence nearby, and Picard manages to signal the crew through the ship's computers. Data is able to reverse the transport, reconstituting Picard without the entity. After determining that Picard is himself again, lacking the memories since he was taken over by the entity, the Enterprise continues on to Parliament. ===== When the United States National Security Agency's code-breaking supercomputer TRANSLTR encounters a revolutionary new code, Digital Fortress, that it cannot break, Commander Trevor Strathmore calls in head cryptographer Susan Fletcher to crack it. She is informed by Strathmore that it was written by Ensei Tankado, a former NSA employee who became displeased with the NSA's intrusion into people's private lives. If the NSA doesn't reveal TRANSLTR to the public, Tankado intends to auction the code's algorithm on his website and have his partner, "North Dakota", release it for free if he dies, essentially holding the NSA hostage. Strathmore tells Fletcher that Tankado has in fact died in Seville, of what appears to be a heart attack. Strathmore intends to keep the death a secret because if Tankado's partner finds out, he will upload the code. The agency is determined to stop Digital Fortress from becoming a threat to national security. Strathmore asks Fletcher's fiancé David Becker to travel to Seville and recover a ring that Tankado was wearing when he died. The ring is suspected to have the code that unlocks Digital Fortress. However, Becker soon discovers that Tankado gave the ring away just before his death. Each person he questions in the search for the ring is murdered by Hulohot, a mysterious deaf assassin. Meanwhile, telephone calls between North Dakota and Tokugen Numataka (chairman of the Japanese computer company Numatech) reveal that North Dakota hired Hulohot to kill Tankado in order to gain access to the passcode on his ring and speed up the release of the algorithm. At the NSA, Fletcher's investigation leads her to believe that Greg Hale, a fellow NSA employee, is North Dakota. Phil Chartrukian, an NSA technician who is unaware of the Digital Fortress code breaking failure and believes Digital Fortress to be a virus, conducts his own investigation into whether Strathmore allowed Digital Fortress to bypass Gauntlet (NSA's virus/worm filter). To save the TRANSLTR he decides to shut it down but is murdered after being pushed off the catwalk in the sub-levels of TRANSLTR by an unknown assailant. Since Hale and Strathmore were both in the sub-levels, Fletcher assumes that Hale is the killer; however, Hale claims that he witnessed Strathmore killing Chartrukian. Chartrukian's fall also damages TRANSLTR's cooling system. Hale holds Fletcher and Strathmore hostage to prevent himself from being arrested for the murder. It is then that Hale explains that the e-mail he supposedly received from Tankado was in his inbox because he was snooping on Strathmore, who was also watching Tankado's e-mail account. After the encounter, Hale's name is cleared when Fletcher discovers through a tracer that North Dakota and Ensei Tankado are the same person, as "NDAKOTA" is an anagram of "Tankado." Based on Chartrukian's investigation, and further detail from Hale, Fletcher realises that Digital Fortress is a virus, and not an encryption algorithm. Strathmore exposes himself when he kills Hale and arranges it to appear as a suicide. Fletcher later discovers through Strathmore's pager that he is the one who hired Hulohot. Becker manages to track down the ring, but ends up pursued by Hulohot in a long cat-and-mouse chase across Seville. The two eventually face off in a cathedral, where Becker finally kills Hulohot by tripping him down a spiral staircase, causing him to break his neck. He is then intercepted by NSA field agents sent by Leland Fontaine, the director of the NSA. Chapters told from Strathmore's perspective reveal his motives. By hiring Hulohot to kill Tankado, having Becker recover his ring and at the same time arranging for Hulohot to kill him, he would facilitate a romantic relationship with Fletcher, regaining his lost honor and enable him to unlock Digital Fortress. By making phone calls to Numataka posing as North Dakota, he thought he could partner with Numatech to make a Digital Fortress chip equipped with his own backdoor Trojan so that the NSA could spy on every computer equipped with these chips. However, Strathmore was unaware that Digital Fortress is actually a computer worm that, once unlocked would "eat away" at the NSA databank's security and allow "any third-grader with a modem" to look at government secrets. When TRANSLTR overheats, Strathmore commits suicide by standing next to the machine as it explodes. The worm eventually gets into the database, but soon after Becker figures out the password (3, the difference between the Hiroshima nuclear bomb, Isotope 235, and the Nagasaki nuclear bomb, isotope 238, a reference to the nuclear bombs that killed Tankado's mother and left him crippled), and is able to terminate the worm before hackers can get any significant data. The NSA allows Becker to return to the United States, reuniting him with Fletcher. In the epilogue, it is revealed that Numataka was Ensei Tankado's father; Numataka left Tankado the day he was born due to Tankado's deformity. As Tankado's last living relative, Numakata inherits the rest of Tankado's possessions. ===== Romilly MacAran has the laran gift of her family – the ability to merge with the minds of animals. She uses this gift to train hawks and horses. When she reaches the age of fifteen (womanhood, in Darkover’s terms), her father refuses to allow her to continue working with animals on the grounds that it isn’t ladylike. He gives her prized hawk, Preciosa, to her brother, who has no gift. He also refuses her requests for an education. When Romilly learns that her father intends to marry her off to a three-times widower, Garris of Scathfell, she realizes that leaving home is her only option. Dressed as a boy, she escapes with a horse from the stables. Calling herself Rumal, she heads towards Nevarsin. Her hawk, Preciosa, appears in the sky, and provides her with a freshly killed bird, the first meal she has had in several days. Her fire attracts a company of men, headed by Dom Carlo and Dom Orain, who have three sick sentry birds that need care. They, too, are headed to Nevarsin, and Romilly takes over the care of their birds. Romilly reveals that she is a cristoforo. Dom Carlo claims to be a kinsman of the deposed king, Carolin, and is fleeing his cousin, Rakhal, who has taken the throne by force. At Nevarsin, the company enters the cristoforo monastery of St. Valentine of the Snows. Romilly discovers that Caryl, the son of Lyondri Hastur, one of Dom Carlo’s bitterest enemies, is a student at the monastery. Romilly warns Orain. Orain and Carlo believe themselves betrayed, and leave the monastery, taking Caryl Hastur as a hostage. Caryl is put in Romilly’s care. At an inn in Caer Donn, Orain makes a pass at Romilly, believing her to be a boy, and is shocked to discover that she is a girl. He takes her to the hostel of the Sisterhood of the Sword where his cousin, Jandria, lives. He also asks Jandria to take charge of Caryl Hastur. Romilly becomes a member of the Sisterhood. A contingent of the Sisterhood join Carolin’s forces. Romilly’s hawk, Preciosa, reappears. At Jandria’s request, Romilly accompanies Caryl back to his father in Hali city. Romilly returns to Jandria with medical supplies. At Serrais, Romilly is assigned to train horses, among them a black stallion whom she names Sunstar. She and Jandria deliver the horses to Carolin’s camp, where her brother, Ruyven, is also engaged caring for the sentry birds. At that time, Romilly discovers that "Dom Carlo" is actually King Carolin Hastur. Several days later, the two armies engage in battle. Carolin learns that Lyondri is holding Orain and threatening to kill him. Romilly sneaks into the city, and is able to find Orain’s location. She meets Caryl, who out of disgust with his father’s torture of Orain, agrees to help free him. They return to Carolin’s camp. Romilly decides that she must enter Tramontana tower for laran training. ===== The lower middle-class Grove family live in the London suburb of Hendon. Patriarch Bob Grove is a builder, allowing the show to demonstrate basic home security. He lives with his mother, his wife, and their four children. The first episode shows the family making their last mortgage payment, and over the course of the series Bob tries to grow his business and attain prosperity in postwar Britain. The fourth episode shows Gran buying the family a television set, a sign of the new consumerism. ===== In 1899, 17-year-old Jack "Cowboy" Kelly is one of many struggling newspaper hawkers in New York City, selling copies of the New York World on the streets of Manhattan ("Carrying the Banner"). When David Jacobs and his younger brother Les join the "newsies", Jack notices David's intelligence and Les's marketable cuteness and self-servingly takes them under his wing. Unlike most of the newsies, David and Les are not orphans or runaways; they have a home and family, and go to work in order to help their family get back on their feet financially, as their father was fired from his factory job due to an injury. Jack is invited to the Jacobs' home for dinner, where he becomes enamored with their sister Sarah. Later, Jack laments his isolation due to lacking a family of his own; he fantasizes about traveling to New Mexico, about which he has heard many romantic stories ("Santa Fe"). Attempting to outdo his business rival William Randolph Hearst, New York World publisher Joseph Pulitzer raises the prices that the newsies must pay to buy newspapers from his distribution centers. Angered, Jack and David galvanize the other Manhattan newsies to go on strike ("The World Will Know"). While the others spread the word to newsies in New York's other boroughs, Jack and Les confront Pulitzer and are thrown out of his office. Bryan Denton, a reporter for The Sun, takes an interest in the boys' story. Jack and David take their cause to the Brooklyn newsies, but their leader, "Spot" Conlon, is reluctant to join the strike. This dejects the Manhattan newsies, but David riles them up ("Seize the Day"). As a result, they ambush the distribution center and destroy all of the newspapers. Disabled newsie "Crutchie" is captured by Pulitzer's enforcers, the Delancey brothers, and placed in an orphanage and juvenile detention center called the Refuge, run by the sketchy Warden Snyder, who neglects the orphans so that he can embezzle money given to him by the city for their care. The newsies try to ward off strikebreakers, but the struggle turns violent and turns out to be a trap set by the Delancey brothers. Just as the newsies are about to be arrested, Spot Conlon arrives with the Brooklyn newsies and the two groups unite to repel the police. Denton puts the story on the front page of The Sun. Thrilled, the newsies all rejoice at making the headline and imagine what it would be like to be famous ("King of New York"). They then plan to hold a rally. Snyder informs Pulitzer that Jack is an escapee from the Refuge, giving Pulitzer legal cause to have him arrested. Jack has breakfast with Sarah on the roof of the Jacobs' apartment building; he tells her of his desire to flee to Santa Fe, and wonders if she would miss him. Newsies from around New York gather at Medda Larkin's Bowery. Jack, David, and Spot give speeches, encouraging the newsies to stick together and not give up on their cause. Before they all go back to their own boroughs, Medda cheers them up with a song ("High Times, Hard Times"). The police then break up the rally and arrest the newsies, but Denton steps in to pay their legal fines. Snyder testifies against Jack and reveals to the others that Jack's real name is Francis Sullivan; his mother is deceased and his father incarcerated. Jack is sentenced to four years of rehabilitation in the Refuge. Denton is reassigned as a war correspondent and can no longer report on the strike. Jack is taken to see Pulitzer, who offers to waive his sentence and pay him a salary if he will work as a strikebreaker. When Pulitzer threatens to have the other newsies thrown into the Refuge, Jack complies. The boys attempt to rescue Jack, but he tells them to leave. The newsies are shocked and dismayed to see Jack report for work the next day. When the Delanceys attack the Jacobs children, Jack steps in to save them, knowing this will break his deal with Pulitzer. The newsies learn from Denton that their strike has had little effect on public opinion, since the city thrives on child labor and Pulitzer has ordered newspapers not to report on the strike. Using an old printing press of Pulitzer's, they publish a "Newsie Banner" which they distribute to child workers citywide ("Once and For All"). Denton shares the paper with Governor Theodore Roosevelt, exposing the mistreatment of children at the Refuge. Numerous child laborers join the strike, bringing the city's workforce to a standstill. Jack and David confront Pulitzer, who finally gives in to their demands. Roosevelt has Snyder arrested, releases the children from the Refuge, and thanks Jack for alerting him to the situation. He offers Jack a ride, and Jack asks to be taken to the train yards so he can head to Santa Fe. The newsies are disheartened by this, but Jack returns shortly, having been convinced by Roosevelt that he still has things to accomplish in New York. As the newsies celebrate his return, Sarah and Jack kiss, and Spot gets a ride back to Brooklyn from Roosevelt. ===== Paul is a young womanizer living in a small Southern town, where he earns a living fixing cars for his uncle. Paul still lives with his mother, Elvira, who works as a clown cheering up children at the local hospital. He spends most of his time hanging out with his best friend and self-proclaimed partner-in-crime, Tip, and their friends Bo and Bust-Ass. Among his friends, Paul has a reputation as a ladies' man, but he is not at all known for being involved with long-term relationships; most of Paul's romances last only a few weeks, and he's slept with nearly every girl in town. Paul is beginning to reach a point where he would like to lead a different life, and that feeling becomes all the more clear when he meets Noel, Tip's teenage sister who returns home after attending a boarding school. Noel is more thoughtful and mature than the girls Paul is used to. Paul and Noel soon fall in love, but for Paul this is a different sort of relationship than he's accustomed to — Noel is still a virgin, and her contemplative nature gives him a desire to be a better, stronger person, but Tip does not approve of Paul dating his younger sister, which leads to a rift between these longtime friends. ===== Mob boss Paul Vitti and his consigliere Manetta are discussing an upcoming meeting and the Mafia's present-day problems over lunch. Just as Manetta warns Paul to look out for Primo Sindone (an up-and- coming mafioso who wants to be capo di tutti capi), gunmen drive past and kill Manetta. Paul narrowly escapes. Psychiatrist Ben Sobel is stressed: his son from his first marriage spies on his sessions, his patients are not challenging enough, and his wedding to Laura MacNamara is upcoming. Ben rear- ends a car belonging to Paul and the trunk opens, revealing a man bound and gagged inside, which Ben and his son do not notice. Jelly, one of Paul's men, takes the blame, but Ben gives Jelly his business card in case he changes his mind regarding compensation. During a meeting, Paul has a panic attack and tells Jelly that he needs to see a psychiatrist, but it has to be kept a secret, and Jelly recommends Ben. Paul visits Ben, claiming his friend needs therapy, but Ben sees through the lie and realizes Paul is talking about himself, impressing Paul enough to want to see him constantly, to Ben's frustration. Ben goes to Miami for his wedding and Paul, Jelly, and the crew follow. Paul explains he has been suffering from erectile dysfunction and Ben suggests the source of the problem might be stress. The next day, Paul has another panic attack and requests to see Ben. Paul explains his history with his father to Ben, who thinks this might have something to do with Paul's anxiety. The wedding is interrupted when an assassin is killed by Jelly. Ben confronts Paul and causes him to lose his temper. Ben suggests he resolve his anger by calling Primo and telling him how he feels. Paul phones Primo and starts by telling him how he feels, but ends up threatening to kill him. Ben and his family return to New York, where they find a fountain in their garden, a gift from Paul. The FBI arrive and request Ben inform on Paul, but he refuses despite the FBI's threats. He changes his mind when the FBI play a tape in which Paul reveals his intention to kill Ben after the meeting (which the FBI had altered: Paul was actually saying he would kill anyone who threatened Ben). At his next meet-up with Paul, Ben wears a wire, but discards it when he learns that, as a child, Paul witnessed his father murdered. Paul, informed that Ben was working with the FBI, takes him to a secluded place to kill him. Ben and Paul get into a heated argument, and Paul breaks down as he admits that he blames himself for his father's death. Just then, two hitmen arrive to kill Paul, but Jelly kills them both. Paul apologizes for planning to kill Ben, and the two part ways. The day of the meeting arrives, but Paul has a severe panic attack. Jelly interrupts Ben's wedding, requesting Ben attend the meeting as Paul's consigliere. Ben is reluctant, but his ego causes him to patronize Primo until Primo finally pulls a gun. Paul arrives, orders Primo to stand down, and announces he knows a traitor in his own family killed Dominic, but will not seek revenge and instead retire from the Mafia. Outside, a standoff ensues between Paul's and Primo's men, during which Ben sacrifices himself for Paul. The FBI intervenes, the mobsters are arrested, and Ben is taken to the hospital. Ben visits Paul in prison, and Paul thanks Ben for his help before informing him that Primo is dead. At home, Ben dances with his new wife as Tony Bennett serenades them. ===== Tired of being rejected by the beautiful women he lusts after, Chuck Barris moves to Manhattan to become an NBC page with dreams of becoming famous in television but is eventually fired. He moves back to Philadelphia and becomes Dick Clark's personal assistant on American Bandstand in 1961. He writes the successful song "Palisades Park" and becomes romantically involved with a woman named Penny Pacino. Chuck is given permission to pitch the concept for The Dating Game at ABC. He is given $7,500 to create a television pilot, but ABC abandons the idea in favor of Hootenanny. One night after Barris is kicked out of a bar for fighting, he is approached by CIA agent Jim Byrd, who recruits him as an assassin. Returning from a mission in Mexico, Barris finds that Penny has become a hippie. Meanwhile, ABC green-lights The Dating Game, and by 1967 the show is a phenomenon. On a CIA mission in Helsinki, Finland, he meets female operative Patricia Watson. He finds more success back home when The Newlywed Game goes on air. He and Penny decide to move to Los Angeles, but Barris is cautious of marriage, much to Penny's dismay. In 1970, Byrd convinces Barris to go on a mission to East Berlin to assassinate Hans Colbert. Barris is introduced to German-American agent Keeler, whom he helps to kill Colbert. However, he is captured by the KGB and, after some weeks, freed during a west–east spy exchange. In 1976, Barris creates The Gong Show and becomes famous as its host. Keeler is murdered and Byrd warns Barris of a mole in the agency. His TV shows are canceled due to poor ratings, and Penny threatens to leave after catching him cheating on her. One night, Barris finds Byrd sitting atop the diving board of his backyard pool. Byrd reveals to Barris why he was chosen by the CIA to become an assassin: he is the son of a serial killer and had been raised as a girl by his mother, so he "fit the profile". Barris threatens Byrd, and after Byrd is killed moments later, Barris is seen pointing his gun at him. Faced with the unpleasant truth about himself, Barris begins to spiral out of control. After almost having a nervous breakdown on one of his shows, Barris shuts himself away in a New York City hotel. Penny manages to find him and tries in vain to convince him to return to California to get married. Barris finally leaves his room and meets Patricia in Boston. After a cup of coffee with her, Barris collapses, seemingly poisoned. Patricia reveals that she is the mole. Barris has tricked Patricia into drinking from the poisoned cup, and she falls dead. After her death, he returns home and begins writing his autobiography, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. He finally decides to marry Penny. At the end of the ceremony, he sees some of the people he killed in the crowd. Distraught, he confesses to her his double life as a CIA assassin, but she merely laughs, assuming he is joking, and he decides not to correct her. ===== At a Louisiana assisted-living home in 1999, elderly retiree Paul Edgecomb becomes emotional while viewing the film Top Hat. His companion Elaine becomes concerned, and Paul explains to her that the film reminded him of events that he witnessed in 1935, when he was a correctional officer at Cold Mountain Penitentiary's death row, nicknamed "The Green Mile". In 1935, Paul supervises officers Brutus Howell, Dean Stanton, Harry Terwilliger, and Percy Wetmore, reporting to chief warden Hal Moores. Paul is introduced to John Coffey, a physically imposing but mentally challenged African-American man, who has been sentenced to death after being convicted of raping and murdering two white girls. He joins two other condemned inmates on the block: Eduard "Del" Delacroix and Arlen Bitterbuck, the latter of whom is the first to be executed. Percy, the nephew of Louisiana's First Lady, demonstrates a sadistic streak, but flaunts his family connections to avoid being held accountable; he is particularly abusive towards Del, breaking his fingers and killing his pet mouse Mr. Jingles. After John seemingly heals Paul's severe bladder infection by touching him, and later apparently resurrects Mr. Jingles, Paul gradually realizes that he possesses a supernatural ability to heal others. Suspecting that John is endowed with the power to perform divine miracles, Paul begins to doubt whether he is truly guilty of his crimes. Meanwhile, the correctional officers are forced to deal with psychotic inmate "Wild Bill" Wharton, who frequently causes trouble by assaulting the guards and racially abusing John, forcing them to restrain him in the block's padded cell on one occasion. In exchange for resigning from the penitentiary and accepting a job at an insane asylum, Percy is allowed to oversee Del's execution. At the execution, Percy deliberately avoids soaking the sponge used to conduct electricity to Del's head, leading to Del suffering a gruesome and agonizing death. As punishment for his actions, Paul and the other correctional officers bind Percy and force him to spend a night in the padded cell. While Percy is locked away, they secretly smuggle John out of the prison so that he can use his powers to heal Warden Moores' wife Melinda of a brain tumor, saving her life. Later, John uses his powers to "release" Melinda's affliction into Percy's brain, causing him to shoot Wharton to death. Shortly after, John psychically reveals to Paul that Wharton was the true culprit of the crimes for which he was wrongfully condemned, releasing his supernatural energy into Paul in the process. Having apparently suffered a mental breakdown, Percy is committed to the same insane asylum where he had planned to work after resigning. Finally realizing that John is innocent, Paul is distraught at the thought of executing him, and offers to let him go free. John, however, tells Paul that he wishes to die, as he views the world as a cruel place, and feels constant pain at the cruelty of humanity. Mentioning that he had never seen a movie before, John watches Top Hat with the other guards as a last request. Before being executed later that night, he only asks that the customary hood not be placed over his head, as he is afraid of the dark. Back in the present, Paul tells Elaine that John's was the last execution that he and Brutus witnessed, as they both subsequently resigned from the prison and took jobs in the juvenile system. Concluding his story, Paul reveals that Del's mouse Mr. Jingles is still alive, having been blessed with supernaturally long life thanks to John's healing touch. He also reveals that he himself is well over 100 years old, having already been middle-aged in 1935. While Elaine sees Paul's long life as another of John's miracles, Paul speculates that it may be a divine punishment, and that he has been condemned to linger on Earth and outlive all of his loved ones for the crime of killing an innocent man chosen by God to perform miracles. Paul is later shown attending Elaine's funeral, and muses on how much longer he has left to live before he can finally be granted rest. ===== Bob Wiley has great work ethic and treats people well, but he suffers from multiple phobias which makes it difficult for him to leave his apartment and is divorced because his ex-wife likes Neil Diamond. Despite regular therapy, he makes little progress and his fears compel him to seek constant reassurance from his therapists. Exhausted by Bob's high-maintenance conditions and invasions of personal boundaries, his current therapist refers him to the egotistical Dr. Leo Marvin, who believes his recently published book Baby Steps will make him a household name. Bob feels good about their initial session, but Dr. Marvin dismisses Bob in a rush to his long-standing, month-long family vacation. Unable to cope, Bob follows Leo to Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire. Leo is annoyed, but sees Bob's desperation and tells him to "take a vacation" from his problems. Bob seems to have made a breakthrough, but the next morning, he tells Leo that he will also be vacationing at Lake Winnipesaukee as a guest of the Guttmans, who hold a grudge against Leo for purchasing the lakeside home they had been saving for years to buy. Leo dismisses Bob's attempts at friendship as he believes being friends with a patient is beneath him, but Bob ingratiates himself with Leo's family and relates to the problems of Leo's kids, Anna and Sigmund, in contrast with their father's clinical approach. Bob begins to enjoy life, going sailing with Anna and helping Sigmund dive, which Leo had been unsuccessfully trying for years. After Leo angrily pushes Bob into the lake, Leo's wife Fay invites Bob to dinner and he accepts, believing Leo's slights against him are either accidental or part of his therapy. After dinner, a thunderstorm forces Bob to spend the night. Leo wants Bob out of the house early the next morning before Good Morning America arrives to interview him about Baby Steps. The TV crew, oblivious to Leo's discomfort, suggest having Bob on the show as well. Leo makes a fool out of himself during the interview while Bob is relaxed and speaks glowingly of Leo and the book, unintentionally stealing the spotlight. Leo throws a tantrum and attempts to have Bob institutionalized, but Bob is soon released after befriending the hospital staff and telling them jokes, demonstrating his sanity and showing that he has made real therapeutic progress due to his time with Dr. Marvin's family. Forced to retrieve Bob, Leo abandons him in the middle of nowhere, but Bob quickly gets a ride back to Leo's house while various mishaps delay Leo. Returning after nightfall, Leo is surprised by the birthday party Fay has secretly planned for him and is delighted to see his beloved sister Lily. When Bob appears and puts his arm around Lily, Leo becomes completely psychotic and attacks him. Bob remains oblivious to Leo's hostility until Fay explains Leo's grudge against Bob, who agrees to leave. Leo breaks into a general store, stealing a shotgun and 20 pounds of explosives and kidnapping Bob at gunpoint. Leo leads him deep into the woods and ties him up with the explosives, calling it "death therapy", and returns to the house, gleefully preparing his cover story. Believing the explosives are props as a metaphor for his problems, Bob applies Leo's "Baby Steps" approach and manages to free himself of his restraints and remaining fears; he reunites with the Marvins and praises Leo for curing him. The Marvins' vacation home detonates after Bob reveals that he left the explosives inside. Horrified, Leo is rendered catatonic and institutionalized while his medical license is revoked for attempted murder. Some time later, the still-catatonic Leo is brought to Bob and Lily's wedding. Upon their pronouncement as husband and wife, Leo regains his senses and screams, "No!", but the sentiment is lost in the family's excitement at his recovery. Text at the end reveals that Bob went back to school and became a psychologist, then wrote a best-selling book titled Death Therapy and that Leo is suing him for the rights. ===== After a nuclear power plant in Mississippi explodes, it was soon realized that a previously unknown form of radiation was released. The radiation caused all men on Earth to become sterile, even boys who were still inside the mother's womb. However, ten months after the explosion in Mississippi, a doctor delivers a perfectly healthy baby girl. It's soon discovered that the child's father, who has the surname Adam, was more than a mile under the surface of Earth inside an old silver and lead mine during the explosion. It would appear that Mr. Adam is humanity's only hope to stave off extinction.Crowther, Florence (15 September 1946). Mr. Adam v. the Atom, The New York Times Book Review, pp. 5, 43.(11 September 1946). Kirkus Review, Kirkus Reviews ===== The book begins with the pixie Opal Koboi faking a coma inside a hospital to avoid incarceration by the Lower Elements Police (LEP) after her failed rebellion and attempt of world domination (which took place in Artemis Fowl and the Arctic Incident). Opal Koboi, who had been under 24-hour surveillance, had DNA tests done every 4 hours, a seeker-sleeper planted in her arm (a device that can make the criminal faint, it also giving their position away) and had her in a net trapped with monitoring pads by the LEP to ensure that Opal was actually in the asylum cell, with help from the Brill Brothers manages to replace herself with a clone, which is identical to herself (the only difference being that the clone is brain dead). Opal lures Commander Julius Root and Captain Holly Short of the LEP into a lava chute alone by putting General Scalene under the mesmer there. Koboi then kills Commander Root by using a 30 centimeter metal box packed with explosive gel and covered in stealth ore (framing Captain Holly Short as the murderer by blocking the LEP camera and changing the video to Holly shooting her commander), and launches a bio-bomb at Artemis Fowl, which fails to kill him and his bodyguard Domovoi Butler because Butler jumps from the three-story hotel with Artemis. Artemis Fowl was mindwiped in the third book of the series, Artemis Fowl and the Eternity Code and has no memory of meeting the fairies. This has also caused him to revert to his former self - the one cruel enough to kidnap a fairy. But he has a conscience that he chooses not to listen to. Artemis is rescued from the scene of the bio-bomb attack by Holly. She tells him who she is, in hopes to ignite his memory. He does not regain his memories of the past adventures but agrees to help her for a fee. They are then recaptured by Koboi and thrown into a troll-infested abandoned fairy theme park known as the "Eleven Wonders of the Human World" (containing scale-models not only of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World but also the additions of Abu Simbel, Borobodur, Rapa Nui and the Throne Hall at Persepolis). After a desperate battle against the troll hordes on a model of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, they are rescued by former criminal Mulch Diggums and Butler. Holly and Artemis become friends "bonded by trauma" and Artemis says he feels that he doesn't need money to help a friend. Opal then proceeds with her plan to help renowned Italian billionaire environmentalist Giovanni Zito send a probe downward by mesmerising him that she is his pampered adopted daughter Belinda Zito, which, according to Koboi's plan, will cause the humans to find the fairies and start an inter-species war, leading to fairy genocide. The plan is to blow his fields with several megatons of TNT and then wait for the 118 million tons of iron, with a probe in it, to sink to the core at a rate of per second. After being rescued, Mulch gives Artemis the disk that had been passed off as a gold medallion, which Butler was given earlier in the book. Artemis views the disk and regains his memories. He is overcome with the guilt of what he had done to the fairies but to Holly the most and for the first time, he apologizes for kidnapping her. He realises that Holly, Butler, and Mulch were the only friends he had. Together, the four friends take on Opal Koboi, knowing that they are the only ones that know she's escaped. It becomes a more difficult task with the LEP on their tail, who still thinks Holly is the one who killed the Commander. The new Commander refuses to believe anything, despite the fact that everyone knows Root was like a father to Holly. Afterwards, the story follows the struggle over the probe, which is closing in on the E7 chute. The probe eventually misses the chute, and Koboi crashes into a woman's vine field. She uses her last bits of magic to mesmerize the woman that she is Belinda, her child. However, a week later, Koboi is detained by the LEP, and Holly is cleared of all charges over Commander Root's murder. However, she is frustrated by Commander Root's replacement, Ark Sool, so she resigns and starts a private investigation firm with Mulch Diggums. It is also apparent that Artemis has had a change of heart, as he anonymously donates the famed painting The Fairy Thief, which he had stolen directly before Koboi's bio-bomb attack, to the Louvre museum. ===== On the final screen of each level, Mario and Pauline are reunited. Donkey Kong is considered to be the earliest video game with a storyline that visually unfolds on screen. The eponymous Donkey Kong character is the game's de facto villain. The hero is a carpenter originally unnamed in the Japanese arcade release, later named Jumpman and then Mario. Donkey Kong kidnaps Mario's girlfriend, originally known as Lady, but later renamed Pauline. The player must take the role of Mario and rescue her. This is the first occurrence of the damsel in distress scenario that provided the template for countless video games to come. The game uses graphics and animation for characterization. Donkey Kong smirks upon Mario's demise. Pauline has a pink dress and long hair, and a speech balloon crying "HELP!" appears frequently beside her. Mario, depicted in red overalls and a red cap, is an everyman character, a type common in Japan. Graphical limitations and the low pixel resolution of the small sprites prompted his design: drawing a mouth with so few pixels was infeasible, so the character was given a mustache; the programmers could not animate hair, so he got a cap; to make his arm movements visible, he needed colored overalls. The artwork used for the cabinets and promotional materials make these cartoon-like character designs even more explicit. Pauline, for example, is depicted as disheveled (like King Kong Fay Wray) in a torn dress and stiletto heels. Like 1980s Pac-Man, Donkey Kong employs cutscenes to advance its plot. The game opens with the gorilla climbing a pair of ladders to the top of a construction site. He sets Pauline down and stomps his feet, causing the steel beams to change shape. He moves to his final perch and sneers. A melody plays, and the level (or stage) starts. This brief animation sets the scene and adds background to the gameplay, a first for video games. Upon reaching the end of the stage, another cutscene begins. A heart appears between Mario and Pauline, but Donkey Kong grabs her and climbs higher, causing the heart to break. The narrative concludes when Mario reaches the end of the rivet stage. He and Pauline are reunited, and a short intermission plays. The gameplay then loops from the beginning at a higher level of difficulty, without any formal ending. ===== The story centers on Hart, a young law student from Minnesota who attends Harvard Law School and becomes obsessed with one of his teachers, Professor Charles W. Kingsfield Jr. Hart becomes an expert on Kingsfield's subject, contracts; he reads everything about the subject, including all of Kingsfield's papers, most of which are not on the reading list. He goes so far as to break into the law library to read Kingsfield's original law school notes. Hart becomes such an expert that Kingsfield asks him to contribute to a paper. At the same time, he begins a relationship with Susan Field, who turns out to be Kingsfield's daughter. Susan stands aloof from the law school rat race and dismisses all the things Hart cares about most. After much effort preparing for final exams, Hart's grades are delivered to him, but he simply makes a paper airplane out of the envelope, and sends it sailing into the Atlantic Ocean without looking at it. ===== The film begins in 1935 in Florence, Italy, where a group of cultured expatriate English women – called the "Scorpioni" by the Italians – meet for tea every afternoon. Young Luca (Charlie Lucas) is the illegitimate son of an Italian businessman (Massimo Ghini) who shows little interest in his son's upbringing; the boy's mother, a dressmaker, has recently died. Mary Wallace (Joan Plowright), who works as the man's secretary, steps in to care for him, turning for support to her Scorpioni friends, including eccentric would-be artist Arabella (Judi Dench). Together, they teach Luca many lessons about life and especially the arts. Elsa Morganthal (Cher), a brash rich young American widow whom Scorpioni matron Lady Hester Random (Maggie Smith) barely tolerates, sets up a financial trust for Luca when she learns of the death of his mother, whom she was fond of and to whom Elsa still owes money for her dressmaking services. One day when the ladies are in a restaurant for afternoon tea, it is vandalised by Fascists, reflecting the increasingly uncertain position of the expatriate community. Lady Hester, widow of Britain's former ambassador to Italy, retains an admiring faith in Benito Mussolini (Claudio Spadaro) and takes it upon herself to visit him, receiving his insincere assurances of their safety, and proudly recounts her "tea with Mussolini". But the political situation continues to deteriorate and the Scorpioni find their status and liberties diminishing. Luca's father decides that Italy's future is with Germany rather than Britain and sends Luca to an Austrian boarding school. Five years later, Luca (now played by Baird Wallace) returns to Florence with the intention of using Elsa's trust fund to study art. He finds that most British nationals are fleeing the country, anticipating Mussolini's declaration of war on Great Britain, and that Mary has moved in with Lady Hester and the other English hold-outs. He arrives at the house just as they – and Hester's ineffectual grandson Wilfred (Paul Chequer), disguised as a young woman for his safety – are being rounded up and put onto a transport truck, which he follows to the nearby Tuscan town of San Gimignano. Because the United States is not at war, Elsa and her American compatriot Georgie Rockwell (Lily Tomlin), an openly lesbian archaeologist, remain free. Elsa uses Luca to deliver forged orders and funds to have the ladies moved from their distressingly barracks-like quarters to an upper class hotel. Believing that Mussolini himself issued the orders, Lady Hester is delighted, proudly brandishing the newspaper photo of her tea with Il Duce. The Piazza Cisterna in San Gimignano, where many of the film's scenes were shot. As the war progresses, oppression of Jews increases and Jewish Elsa – protected somewhat by her citizenship and wealth – provides a group of Italian Jews with fake passports, enlisting Luca – who has become enamored of her – to deliver them. However Luca becomes jealous when she forms a romantic alliance with Vittorio (Paolo Seganti), a shrewd Italian lawyer. When the United States enters the war in 1941, Elsa and Georgie are interned with the British women. Elsa falls for Vittorio's scheme to embezzle her art collection and money, which would deliver her to the German Gestapo in a phony escape to Switzerland. Luca is aware of the deception but does not tell anyone out of jealous spite against Elsa. Mary learns of it from Elsa's art dealer (Mino Bellei) and scolds Luca. His attitude changes and he gives his trust fund money to members of the Italian resistance movement, which Wilfred has joined. Elsa still refuses to believe Vittorio's betrayal and is ultimately convinced only when Lady Hester, informed by Mary and Luca of what Elsa has secretly done for all of them, repents of her contempt for Elsa and offers her gratitude and help. Elsa consents to an escape plan hatched by Mary, Luca and Wilfred. Before she departs, Elsa tells Luca how she once helped his young mother choose to go through with her pregnancy, thus allowing him to be there for her. In July 1944, as the British Army advances toward San Gimignano, Arabella frantically defends her beloved frescoes from demolition by German troops and is heroically joined in the line of fire by Georgie and the English women, including Lady Hester. They are saved when the Germans receive orders to retreat, leaving the women and the towers untouched. The city rejoices as the Scots arrive, with Luca now serving as their commander's Italian interpreter. The major has orders to evacuate the Scorpioni but Lady Hester refuses to cooperate, resolved that they will resume their former lives in Italy. Mary is delighted to see that Luca – now in British uniform – has become the "English gentleman" his father wished him to become. Closing texts explain the mostly happy fates of the characters, concluding with the remark that Luca went on to become an artist and "helped in making this film" – in other words, as writer and director. ===== The story begins on "the strangest day" of Larry Burrows' (James Belushi) life (his 35th birthday) consisting of a series of comic and dramatic misadventures. Larry blames all of his life's problems on having struck out during a key moment of his state high school baseball championship game on his 15th birthday. When he wishes he had done things differently, his wish is granted by a guardian angel-like figure named Mike (Michael Caine), who intermittently appears a bartender, a cab driver, and so on. Larry soon discovers that Mike has transferred him into an alternative reality in which he had won the pivotal high school game. He now finds himself rich and (within his company) powerful, and married to the boss's (Bill McCutcheon) sexy daughter Cindy Jo Bumpers (Rene Russo). At first, his new life seems perfect, but he soon begins to miss his best friend Clip Metzler (Jon Lovitz) and wife Ellen (Linda Hamilton) from his previous life; he also discovers that his alternative self has created many enemies, like Jewel Jagger (Courteney Cox) who was a forklift operator and now she is his secretary and lover, and as Larry's problems multiply, he finds himself wishing to be put back into his old life. The story begins with Larry's car, an old Ford LTD station wagon, stalled out in a dark alley. Suddenly the pink lights of "The Universal Joint," a bar, come on. Larry goes inside to call a tow truck, and tells bartender Mike his troubles. He reviews the day he just had, which ended with his getting fired after discovering his department head Niles Pender's (Hart Bochner) scheme to sell the company under the nose of its owners to a group of naive Japanese investors. He tells Mike that he wishes he'd hit that last pitch out of the park, after which Mike fixes him a drink called "The Spilt Milk." The Spilt Milk was a drink that gave him his wish that he hit that home run in that championship game. Larry leaves the bar, walks home (his car apparently towed) and discovers someone else living in his house, which is now fixed up (previously his yard and driveway were muddy and unfinished). Mike appears as a cabdriver and drives him to his "new" home, a mansion in Forest Hills, explaining that he did in fact hit the last pitch and won the game. He soon discovers that Cindy Jo is his wife and he's the president of his company, Liberty Republic Sporting Goods. Being a classic car buff, he's shocked to find that he owns a collection of priceless antique automobiles. Larry soon discovers that Clip has a low-level job in the accounting department and is quite insecure, as opposed to the joker he previously was. Ellen is shop steward (in both realities) and is married to another man. Jewel, a forklift operator in the previous reality, is now Larry's mistress and his secretary. Ellen hates Larry and he discovers that the union is threatening a walkout due to massive layoffs and increased production, since Niles is selling Liberty Republic in both realities. Seeing Ellen, he realizes how much he misses her and agrees to all the union's demands, providing Ellen agrees to dinner at his favorite restaurant. She reluctantly agrees, and Larry eventually convinces her that they were married in a previous life. After discovering that Larry has agreed to union demands, Niles takes revenge, by telling both Cindy Jo and Jewel of Larry's dinner date with Ellen. He then plots to kill Larry at the office that night. However, company owner Leo Hansen arrives to deliver a note to Larry, announcing his termination at Cindy Jo's request, and Niles kills him by mistake. Discovering the note, Niles calls the police who attempt to arrest Larry for Leo's murder. Larry escapes while jealous Jewel creates pandemonium outside in her attempts to shoot him (and shoots out a number of police cars in the process), leading to a police chase. Larry is eventually cornered in a dark alley, but the pink glow of "The Universal Joint" comes on and he runs into the bar. Unable to find Mike, Larry attempts to make the "Spilt Milk" himself, the ingredients clearly aged. What appears to be flashing police car lights appear and Larry surrenders. However, it is a tow truck driven by Duncan. Confused at first, Larry sees Mike back behind the bar and realizes he has been returned to his old life. Larry thanks Mike for everything and, upon exiting the bar, suddenly realizes that the deal with the Japanese investors is happening shortly. Driven by Duncan to company headquarters, Larry barges into the boardroom, decks Niles and exposes his scheme just as Leo is about to sign the deal. Thinking everyone forgot his birthday, Larry returns home (which still has the muddy driveway and lawn) to a surprise party with his family and friends. Soon after, Cindy Jo and her husband Jackie Earle (Jay O. Sanders), the company president, arrive. Jackie offers Niles' job to Larry, plus a company car, a new Mercedes, and Larry accepts. In the past, young Larry is about to leave the stadium, still upset about the loss, when he is approached by a mysterious stranger (Mike) who reassures him that everything will be all right. Larry thanks him for the reassurance, but walks off wondering who Mike thinks he is kidding. ===== Major Bennett "Ben" Marco (Denzel Washington) is a war veteran who commanded a famous U.S. Army raid during the 1991 Gulf War. For his role in that mission, Sergeant First Class Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber) was awarded the Medal of Honor for single-handedly defeating the enemy and rescuing all but two of his men. Raymond has gone on to become a famous U.S. Congressman. Thanks to the influence of his mother, United States Senator Eleanor Prentiss Shaw of Virginia (Meryl Streep), Raymond is nominated as a candidate for vice president over the favorite, U.S. Senator Tom Jordan (Jon Voight). Raymond is withdrawn, but he opens up to his mother and to his childhood sweetheart, Jocelyn (Vera Farmiga); Jocelyn is the daughter of Sen. Jordan. One of Marco's former soldiers, Corporal Al Melvin (Jeffrey Wright), contacts him and says that he experiences confusing memories and "dreams" about their lost army unit. He is clearly mentally ill, but he shows Marco some images he has drawn from his dreams. Marco begins to also have dreams about being captured on that raid, of being brainwashed by scientists led by a mysterious South African man (Simon McBurney), and of himself and Raymond murdering their fellow soldiers. Marco begins investigating what really happened during the war and travels to New York. A woman named Eugenie (Kimberly Elise), an outgoing supermarket clerk with whom Marco interacts frequently, sits with him on the train and ultimately offers him a place to stay. As Marco investigates, after a confrontation at campaign headquarters, he discovers an implant in Raymond's back. After having the implant he took from the latter analyzed, Marco realizes that it is a nanotechnological experiment connected with Manchurian Global, a powerful private equity firm with major political connections. Marco researches Manchurian Global and recognizes the South African man from his nightmares as Dr. Atticus Noyle, a former Manchurian geneticist-turned- mercenary. Marco brings his findings to the attention of Sen. Jordan. Although he doesn't entirely believe the story, Jordan confronts the Shaws and suggests that Raymond bow out of the campaign. Instead, Eleanor "activates" her son and orders him to kill Jordan. Jocelyn is also killed when she tries to stop an entranced Raymond. Eugenie reveals herself to be an FBI employee. The FBI has been monitoring the conspiracy for years. The agency found an implant in Melvin, who—like all of Raymond and Marco's squadmates—died under mysterious circumstances. The FBI arranges a meeting between Marco and Raymond to convince the latter of his condition. The meeting takes place just as Governor Arthur and Raymond win the White House, and Raymond receives a phone call from his mother intended for Marco. Eleanor, who is deeply linked with Manchurian, uses trigger words to control Marco's mind, giving him commands to assassinate the President-elect so that Raymond can become President. Eleanor admits to her son that she voluntarily gave him to the brainwashers for the good of the country. However, the trauma of Jocelyn's death gives Raymond the strength to resist the mind control. At the climactic moment, Raymond deliberately places himself between the entranced Marco and the President-elect. As Eugenie rushes through the celebration crowd trying to find Marco, Raymond looks up at the vent where Marco is and gives a nod of clearance to kill him. Raymond then dances with his mother and steers them both into the marked position, where Marco kills both of them with a single shot from his rifle. Marco prepares to kill himself, but Eugenie, who saw Raymond's nod, arrives and prevents him from harming himself by wounding him with a gunshot. The FBI frames a deceased Manchurian Global contractor as the shooter. The Manchurian executives watch their entire conspiracy revealed on television but make no attempt to flee, knowing that the truth's exposure has left them nowhere to run. In the last scene of the film, Eugenie takes Marco to the compound on a remote island where he was conditioned. Reflecting on his time at the compound, Marco proceeds to drop a photo of his Army unit and Raymond's Medal of Honor into the sea. ===== ===== King Acrisius of Argos imprisons his daughter Danaë, jealous of her beauty. When the god Zeus impregnates her, Acrisius banishes his daughter and his newborn grandson Perseus to sea in a wooden chest. In retribution, Zeus kills Acrisius and orders Poseidon to release the last of the Titans, a gigantic sea monster called the Kraken, to destroy Argos. Danaë and Perseus safely float to the island of Seriphos, where Perseus grows to adulthood. Calibos, the spoiled and rebellious son of the sea goddess Thetis, is betrothed to Princess Andromeda, daughter of Queen Cassiopeia of Joppa; but for committing several atrocities against Zeus, including destroying Zeus's sacred flying horses (excepting only Pegasus), Zeus transforms Calibos into a deformed monstrous satyr-like creature. In revenge, Thetis transports an adult Perseus from Seriphos to an abandoned amphitheater in Joppa, where he befriends a soldier, Thallo, and an elderly poet named Ammon and learns that Andromeda is under a curse and cannot marry unless her suitor, upon the threat of execution if he fails, successfully answers a riddle concocted by Calibos. Zeus sends Perseus a god- crafted helmet from Athena which makes its wearer invisible, a magical sword from Aphrodite, and a shield from Hera. Perseus, wearing the helmet, captures Pegasus and follows Calibos's giant vulture carrying off Andromeda's spirit during her sleep to learn the next riddle. Perseus is discovered and nearly killed by Calibos, but manages to sever one of Calibos's hands, losing his helmet in the process. The gorgon Medusa The next morning, Perseus presents himself as the next husband to be and correctly answers the riddle, winning Andromeda's hand in marriage. Finding that Thetis cannot act against Perseus, Calibos instead demands that she takes vengeance on Joppa. At the wedding in Thetis' temple, Queen Cassiopeia declares Andromeda's beauty greater to that of Thetis herself, whereupon an earthquake shakes the temple, causing the head of the statue of Thetis to break off and crash to the floor. Thetis, using the statue's head to speak through, demands Andromeda be sacrificed to the Kraken on pain of Joppa's destruction. Perseus seeks a way to defeat the Kraken, but Pegasus is captured by Calibos and his men. Zeus commands Athena to give Perseus her owl Bubo, but she orders Hephaestus to build a golden replica of Bubo instead, who leads Perseus, Andromeda, Ammon, Thallo and some soldiers to the Stygian Witches. By taking their magic eye, Perseus forces them to reveal that the only way to defeat the Kraken is by using the head of the gorgon Medusa whose gaze can turn any living thing into stone, who lives on an island in the River Styx at the edge of the Underworld. The next day, the group continues on their journey without Andromeda and Ammon, who return to Joppa. The Kraken comes to claim Andromeda. On the Gorgon's island, most of Perseus' men are killed. Perseus fights and kills Medusa's guardian, a two-headed dog named Dioskilos. Perseus then enters the Gorgon's lair, where he uses the reflective underside of his shield to deceive Medusa, decapitate her, and collect her head; but the shield is dissolved by her caustic blood. As Perseus and his party set to return, Calibos enters their camp and punctures the cloak carrying Medusa's head, causing her blood to spill and produce three giant scorpions. Calibos and the scorpions attack and kill Perseus's remaining escorts, including Thallo, whose death Perseus mourns. Perseus overcomes the scorpions and thereafter kills Calibos. Weakened by his struggle, Perseus sends Bubo to rescue Pegasus from Calibos's henchmen and reaches the amphitheater in Joppa, where he collapses from exhaustion. Andromeda is shackled to the sea cliffs outside Joppa, and the Kraken itself is summoned. Bubo diverts the Kraken's attention until Perseus, whose strength was secretly restored by Zeus, appears on Pegasus. In the subsequent battle, Perseus petrifies the Kraken with Medusa's head, causing it to crumble to pieces. He then tosses the head into the sea, frees Andromeda, and marries her. The gods predict that Perseus and Andromeda will live happily, rule wisely, and produce children, and Zeus forbids the other gods to pursue vengeance against them. The constellations of Perseus, Andromeda, Pegasus and Cassiopeia are created in their honor. ===== In the summer of 1957, Danielle ”Dani” Trant is a 14-year-old girl in Louisiana who, according to her father, is "too big to be running off by herself." Dani and her older sister Maureen, who is going off to college in the fall, are very close. Maureen helps take care of their younger sister, Missy, while their mother Abigail is pregnant. Dani however prefers to listen to her Elvis Presley records and run off to the neighbor's creek to go skinny dipping. It is here that she meets her new neighbor, 17-year-old Court Foster. Court kicks Dani out of his creek. When Dani goes home, her mother tells her to wash up because an old childhood friend is coming for dinner with her children. The Trants' old friend turns out to be a widow, Mrs. Foster with her three sons Court, Dennis, and Rob. When Dani realizes who Court is, the two dislike each other. Court calls Dani "a little girl". When Dani's father Matthew tells Dani to accompany Court into town for groceries, Dani and Court drive into town and start to get along. Dani finally realizes that she is in love with Court. Maureen goes on a date to a dance with her boyfriend Billy Sanders. When they leave the dance, Billy wants to park his car and have sex. Maureen gets angry and breaks up with Billy because she believes "love should be beautiful". The next day, Dani asks Maureen for advice on how to kiss a boy. Maureen demonstrates by practicing on her hand. Dani and Court continue to go swimming during the hot sunny days and become very close friends. The two agree to meet to go swimming at night, since Court has too much work to do during the day. Dani sneaks off and swims with Court until they reach the point where they are about to kiss. Court pushes Dani away and says she is a little girl that doesn't know what she's doing, and runs off home. Dani leaves too just as a thunderstorm is breaking out. Abigail wakes up, knowing Dani isn't home, and runs outside looking for her. Just as Dani gets home, and runs to her mother, her mother also runs and trips on a root, falls and hits her head. Dani's father races her to the hospital, where she is kept for treatment (concussion and toxemia). When her father returns home from the hospital, he spanks Dani with his belt. The next day, Court brings food to the Trant house and apologizes to Dani for the other night. Dani, still hurt, just ignores him at first, until Court says he would still like to be friends. The next time they go swimming the two share Dani's first kiss. Dani is still hurt and angry at her father for hitting her. When he tries to talk to her the next day feeling remorseful for using his belt on her, she only replies with "Yes Sir" or "No Sir" to his questions. Once Dani has made up with her father, he tells Dani to invite Court over once in a while so he can get to know him better. When Court comes over for dinner, he finally meets Maureen. Dani can tell it is love at first sight for the two of them. While Dani visits her mother in the hospital, Court comes over to the Trant house and kisses Maureen. Over the next few days, Dani is getting pushed away by Court. While the rest of the family goes to pick up Abigail and the new baby from the hospital, Court and Maureen claim their love for each other, consummating their love in a field. When Maureen leaves for home, Court goes back to plowing the fields and falls off the tractor, and is badly injured. Dani sees this, and races home to tell her father. When Matthew returns home, he has some of Court's blood on his clothes and the family realizes that Court has died. Maureen hides her pain at first, while Dani bursts into tears. After Court's funeral, Dani continues to be angry at Maureen for stealing Court away from her. Matthew tells Dani that although she has a right to be hurt, being mad won't bring Court back, and Maureen will be her sister for life. Dani comforts Maureen as she weeps on Court's fresh grave, and the film ends with Maureen and Dani talking outside on the porch at night as the summer draws to a close, looking up at the moon becoming close again. ===== A mafia hitman is engaged to be married and his fiancee doesn't know his true profession while his future father-in-law has a contract out on him. ===== The film opens with newspaper photojournalist Audrey Aimes (Peggie Castle) accidentally stumbling upon a small town (Ludlow, Illinois) which has been inexplicably destroyed. All 150 people in the town are missing, and the evidence indicates they are dead. Incredibly, the local fields are also barren, as if a swarm of locusts had eaten all the crops. Aimes suspects that the military is covering something up, and travels to a nearby United States Department of Agriculture experimental farm to learn what creature might have caused the agricultural destruction. She meets Dr. Ed Wainwright (Peter Graves), who is experimenting with radiation as a means of growing gigantic fruits and vegetables to end world hunger. Wainwright reports that there have been a number of mysterious incidents nearby, and that locusts have eaten all the radioactive wheat stored in a nearby grain silo. Gigantic mutant locusts rampage over the countryside. Wainwright and Aimes begin to track down the source of the mysterious occurrences, and quickly discover that the locusts which ate the grain have grown to the size of a city bus. The monsters have eaten all the crops in the area, and now are seeking human beings as a means of sustenance. It is also clear that they are headed for Chicago. Wainwright and Aimes meet with General Hanson (Morris Ankrum), Colonel Sturgeon (Tom Browne Henry), and Captain Barton (James Seay) to strategize a solution. Machine gun and artillery fire seem ineffective against the creatures, and there are far too many to effectively deal with all at once. The United States Army and Illinois National Guard are called upon to help protect the city. But the monsters quickly invade Chicago, and begin to feast on human flesh as well as several buildings. General Hanson concludes that the only way to destroy the beasts en masse is to use a nuclear weapon and destroy Chicago. However, Wainwright realizes that the locusts are warm-weather creatures. He concludes that he might be able to lure the locusts into Lake Michigan. There, the cold water will incapacitate them, and they will drown. The lure itself will be a decoy locust mating call, generated electronically with test-tone oscillators. The plan is put into effect, and it works at the last possible moment. The monstrous locusts drown, but Wainwright and Aimes wonder if other insects or animals might have eaten other radioactive crops. They ponder whether the whole world might be facing an attack of monstrous creatures. ===== Prague opens on the afternoon of May 25, 1990 with five North American expatriates living in the city of Budapest. The expatriates are, for the most part, optimistic about their prospects in the Central European city. John Price seeks a reconciliation with his older brother, Scott, who has come to Budapest to separate himself from his earlier life in the United States. Emily Oliver, an idealistic worker at the American Embassy, hopes to begin a distinguished diplomatic career. Mark Payton, a Canadian researching a history of nostalgia, relishes the chance to be immersed in a place with interesting history. Only Charles Gábor, a Hungarian- American venture capitalist who resents his co-workers and has contempt for his fellow Magyars, displays any pessimism at the story's outset. The five young expatriates enjoy the nightlife and new opportunities in the historic city. John is instantly attracted to Emily, and plots to win her love, but she ignores him. He finds a job as a columnist for an English-language newspaper, BudapesToday. Still a virgin at the age of 24, he is initiated by his co- worker Karen, but finds the experience to be quite anticlimactic. He later commits "fradultery" with his brother's future wife, Mária. Part II presents the complex history of the Horváth Kiadó (Horvath Press), a family-run publishing company – which also serves as a history of Budapest from the early nineteenth century to the present day. Presently, the head of the publishing house is Imre Horváth, who until recently had been exiled in Vienna. In the mid-nineteenth century, during the Revolution, the Horváth business is affected by the April Laws, a collection of laws legislated by Lajos Kossuth with the aim of modernizing Kingdom of Hungary into a nation state. During the Communist regime, the Horváth Kiadó was a state-owned enterprise; after the fall of communism, it is due to be privatized. Imre seeks an investment from Charles' venture capital firm in order to buy the press's assets and restart it in Budapest. John frequently fraternizes with an elderly jazz bar pianist named Nádja. He is entranced by the romantic stories she tells of her past, but his friends are less than convinced of their veracity. In particular, John is dismayed by Emily's dismissal of Nádja as an "amazing liar". He is also dismayed that Emily pulls away when he tries to kiss her. John becomes involved with Nicky, a photographer and artist who wants a physical, but not an emotional, relationship. Charles' firm rejects his proposal to fund the Horváth Kiadó. With the help of John, who writes supportive newspaper columns and serves as Charles' aide, Charles secures independent funding for this venture. He resigns from his firm and becomes a partner in the new Horváth Kiadó. Mark Payton's research into nostalgia becomes a personal obsession. He takes an inordinate interest in gramophone music and riding in a funicular carriage. He later becomes preoccupied with the contemporary Gulf War and its continuous coverage on CNN. In September 1990, Mark leaves Budapest suddenly, due to his declining mental health. In autumn 1990, Scott marries Mária and moves to Romania with her, telling John that he never wants to see him again. John continues to desire Emily and be jealous of other men she talks to. Charles and John learn that other parties may want to bid for the Horváth Kiadó assets. In January 1991, Imre Horváth suffers a stroke and goes into a coma. Charles Gábor effectively becomes sole head of the publishing company. He accepts a takeover bid by a multinational media corporation, headed by the Australian billionaire Hubert Melchior (a parody of Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation). Horváth recovers, but not in time to prevent his historic publishing firm from being absorbed into the multinational publishing empire. In March, John says that he loves Emily, even though he knows she is a "spy." The next day, John is fired from his job for having accused an embassy employee of being a spy. Emily, who was having a lesbian relationship with Nicky, leaves the city to escape the accusation. Charles plans to return to America but is shot dead in the airport by Krisztina Toldy, Imre Horváth's loyal assistant. Finally, John leaves Budapest as well, traveling by train to the more promising city of Prague. ===== Born without an immune system, Jimmy Livingston is forced to live in a sterilized dome in his bedroom, earning him the nickname "Bubble Boy" by his neighbors. Jimmy's overbearing and devout Christian mother only exposes him to Highlights magazine and the Land of the Lost for entertainment. When he is a teenager, a girl named Chloe moves in next door. Jimmy is immediately taken with her, and eventually befriends her despite his mother's discouragement. Chloe visits Jimmy and tells him that she is leaving for Niagara Falls to marry her boyfriend, Mark, in three days. Jimmy realizes that Chloe cares for him. Realizing how much he cares for her, Jimmy builds a mobile bubble suit and runs away from home, determined to stop the wedding. On the first day of his journey, he's unable to afford a bus ride to Niagara Falls, but is picked up by an overly enthusiastic cult on a pilgrimage towards enlightenment. By this time, Jimmy's mother has discovered her son missing, so she and her husband set off to find Jimmy. While traveling through the desert, Jimmy meets Slim, a biker with a flat tire. Jimmy offers to fix the flat with some patches and the two become friends. Elsewhere, Gil, the leader of the cult Jimmy met, has revealed that their messiah is "the round one," and that whoever rejects him will suffer. The group who abandoned Jimmy set off to find him. Jimmy and Slim have traveled to Las Vegas for traveling money. However, Slim gets caught up in the Vegas life so Jimmy goes on without him. The cult runs into Slim in Vegas while asking for directions. Slim recognizes them from Jimmy's story and threatens them, only to have his bike destroyed by the cult bus. Soon Jimmy accidentally boards a train belonging to Dr. Phreak, a small man who collects freaks and shows them off to the public for money. When Dr. Phreak tries to recruit Jimmy to his show, Jimmy knocks him unconscious; allowing for Jimmy and the freaks to go their own way. Jimmy then wanders into a restaurant where an Indian man named Pushpop is being antagonized by the ignorant townspeople. When Jimmy tries to defend him, the townspeople begin to probe him about his suit, but panic and evacuate the restaurant when they misunderstand his illness. Pushpop thanks Jimmy for his earlier kindness and agrees to take him to Niagara Falls. However, Pushpop accidentally hits and kills a cow with his ice cream truck and Jimmy is forced to continue on foot. Meanwhile, Jimmy's parents have met up with Dr. Phreak, whom Jimmy's mother mistakes for a child and brings along with them. Elsewhere in Niagara Falls, Chloe is apprehensive about marrying Mark and can't stop thinking of Jimmy. To earn money for a taxi driver named Pappy to take him to New York, Jimmy goes into a Chinese casino nearby and enters a mud wrestling competition for a prize of $500. Having won the prize, Jimmy is spotted and picked up by the cult bus as he heads back to the taxi. Luckily, the freaks have followed Jimmy and realizing he's in danger, disguise themselves as members of the cult and trick them into believing they're mutating for their earlier crimes against Jimmy. As Jimmy and the freaks try to escape, Slim and his gang arrive in Pushpop's ice cream truck (which they took after the cult bus destroyed all their bikes) and take Jimmy from the freaks thinking they belonged to the cult. A fight breaks out between the cult, Slim's gang and the freaks which Jimmy uses as a distraction to escape with Pappy. On the last day of his journey, Pappy and Jimmy have now arrived in New York, but Pappy is unresponsive, having apparently died behind the wheel overnight, forcing Jimmy to abandon the moving taxi before it crashes. Jimmy tries to call Chloe to tell her of his success, only to reach her fiance Mark, who rudely convinces him that Chloe doesn't really love him. Jimmy becomes depressed at this assumed rejection and calls Dr. Phreak, ready to assume his role as a freak like the others. Learning Jimmy contacted Dr. Phreak about his location, Jimmy's parents throw Dr. Phreak out of their car realizing he was a rude man. When his parents pick him up, Jimmy and his father are sitting alone in the car. His father regrets that Jimmy is giving up when he is so close. Jimmy's father then looks the other way while Jimmy escapes to finish his mission. With the help of Pappy's twin brother Pippy, Jimmy flies to the wedding. His mother tries to stop him from taking off, but the cult, the freaks and Slim's gang collide in helping Jimmy and stop her. It's revealed that Slim and Jimmy's mother knew each other in the past as she's the "Wildfire" he kept mentioning. Like Pappy, Pippy apparently dies at the wheel, and Jimmy ends up falling out of the plane and over Niagara Falls, but he survives. Jimmy manages to escape the water and arrives just in time to stop the wedding. He then removes his bubble suit, allowing him to touch the girl he loves for the first time. Jimmy then collapses and seemingly dies. Jimmy's mother then confesses that Jimmy had developed an immune system when he was four, revealing that he is not actually dead at all and is perfectly fine. Finally, Jimmy and Chloe are married with all of Jimmy's new friends in attendance. Pushpop has become the new leader of the former cult who are apparently now followers of Hinduism. Dr. Phreak has befriended his band of freaks, and Jimmy's mother has reunited with Slim and embraces a more rebellious lifestyle with both Slim and Mr. Livingston. Pippy and Pappy, both of whom merely fell asleep instead of dying, drive off with Jimmy and Chloe to their honeymoon. ===== This is the first modern-age TV drama in Hong Kong history, where the story is told in reverse chronological order In medias res. The story starts at present time (in reality, the future: 7 June 1994), where The Day of Big Miracle happened, where the stock market rebounded after the market became volatile and crashed for the weekend. After the stock market stopped trading for the weekend, the Tings make the wrong bet and their entire fortune is wiped out, compounded by ending up in billions of dollars in debt. Ting Hai forces his sons to commit suicide by jumping off from the top of the stock exchange building before following suit himself, at the beginning, Ting Hai's fate was unknown. ===== The play is a one-act "dialogue" derived, with small variations, from the novella La Morte Adosso (1923). The dialogue takes place in a bar, late at night, between a man who is dying of an epithelioma (il fiore in bocca) and a peaceful businessman who has missed his train. In other words, between someone who intensely lives the little time left to him and someone who is rich with time to spend idly and irresponsibly, waiting for the morning train and entirely absorbed by the banal contretemps. The exceptional nature of the moment, for the man who feels death upon him—to use Pirandello's phrase—and the normality of it, for the one who is absorbed in the usual affairs of life with its small daily commitments, mark the two ends of the dialectic which is animated in the grand soliloquy of the protagonist. He lucidly analyses his last sensations on earth, evoking scenes of common life, particulars of a quotidianity which are receding from him irremediably and which, for this reason, make precious the memories of even the most trivial events. In the solemnity of his solitude, he seems to have gained unexpected awarenesses of the life that is leaving him and of death. With no sense of regret or repentance, he almost seems to bitterly enjoy his unrepeatable experience marked by the echo of the end, which allows him to dedicate himself with interest to observing the anonymous life of others, in order to grasp its sense. ===== In the NES version, Bullwinkle learns that his ancestor left sums of money for him to collect. Rocky and Bullwinkle need to go through perilous levels that feature their enemies Boris and Natasha, before they could reach the home of the moose's ancestor. In the Genesis and SNES versions, three artifacts are stolen from a museum. It is up to Rocky and Bullwinkle to get them back. ===== A spoiled, rich kid named Edgar Ektor was a regular attendant at The World of Amusement Circus and Funpark, but was banned after a failed prank almost killed a lion. 20 years later, Edgar became a powerful and evil industrialist. Aided by Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel and his Psycho Circus gang, Edgar sabotages the funpark and kidnaps all the circus performers. Aero the Acro-Bat is the circus' greatest star and the only hope for rescuing the performers (including his girlfriend Aeriel) and putting a stop to Edgar's evil schemes. ===== The story starts directly after the events of the original game, where Aero had knocked Edgar Ektor off of the highest tower of his Museum of Horrors. After knocking him off, Aero leaves to explore Ektor's museum, finding a magician's box which brings him to an ancient castle. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Aero, Ektor's henchman Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel manages to save him before he hits the ground, and Ektor tells Zero to prepare a 'Plan B'. ===== Precipitated by separate personal tragedies, two poor families flee their rural homes to share a "great continent of a house", Cloudstreet, in a suburb of Perth. The two families are contrasts to each other; the devoutly religious Lambs find meaning in hard work and God's grace, while the Pickles hope for good luck and don't share the Lambs' appetite for hard work. "Over 20 years, their lives become entwined and the shared family experiences, birth and death, marriage and adultery, joy and loss, bind them together in ways they could not have anticipated." ===== ===== Joan Webster (Wendy Hiller) is a 25-year-old middle-class Englishwoman with an ambitious, independent spirit. She knows where she's going, or at least she thinks she does. She travels from her home in Manchester to the Hebrides to marry Sir Robert Bellinger, a wealthy, much older industrialist, on the (fictitious) Isle of Kiloran. When bad weather postpones the final leg of her journey (the boat trip to Kiloran), she is forced to wait it out on the Isle of Mull, among a community of people whose values are quite different from hers. There she meets Torquil MacNeil (Roger Livesey), a naval officer trying to go home to Kiloran for some shore leave. They are sheltered for the night in the nearby home of Torquil's friend, Catriona Potts (Pamela Brown). The next day, on their way to catch a bus to Tobermory to find a telephone, they come upon the ruins of Moy Castle. Joan wants to take a look inside, but Torquil refuses to go in. When she reminds him that the terrible curse associated with it only applies to the laird of Kiloran, Torquil introduces himself: he is the laird, and Bellinger has only leased his island. On the bus the locals tell many disparaging tales of Bellinger. At the coastguard station in Tobermory they are able to contact Bellinger on Kiloran. They stay in separate rooms at the Western Isles Hotel in Tobermory and eat at separate tables to avert gossip. As the bad weather worsens into a full-scale gale, Torquil spends more time with Joan, who becomes increasingly torn between her ambition and her growing attraction to him. Joan moves out of the hotel into a castle on the island owned by a friend of her fiancé. From there they go to Achnacroish, where Joan is surprised to re-encounter Torquil, who feigns not to know her in the presence of others. They attend a ceilidh celebrating one of the workers' diamond wedding anniversary (the Campbells). The pipers at the ceilidh are there by default as they are also trapped en route to Kiloran and were to play at Joan's wedding. Joan suggests to Catriona that she could sell her property to get money. Catriona says, "money isn't everything". Desperate to salvage her carefully laid plans, Joan tries to persuade Ruairidh Mhór (Finlay Currie) to take her to Kiloran immediately, but he knows conditions are far too dangerous. Joan manages to bribe young Kenny (Murdo Morrison) into attempting it by offering him £20: enough money to buy a half-share in Ruairidh's boat and marry Ruairidh's daughter Bridie (Margot Fitzsimons). Torquil learns of the scheme and tries to talk Joan out of it, but she is adamant. After Joan has gone down to the boat, Catriona tells MacNeil that Joan is actually running away from him. He races to the quayside and invites himself aboard. Joan gets seasick. En route, the boat's engine is flooded and they are nearly caught in the Corryvreckan whirlpool, but Torquil is able to restart the motor just in time and they return safely to Mull. At last the weather clears. Joan asks Torquil for a parting kiss before they go their separate ways. Torquil enters Moy Castle, and the curse takes effect almost immediately. Centuries earlier, Torquil's ancestor had stormed the castle to capture his unfaithful wife and her lover. He had them bound together and cast into a water-filled dungeon with only a small stone to stand on. When their strength gave out, they dragged each other into the water, but not before she placed a curse on the lairds of Kiloran. From the battlements, Torquil sees Joan, accompanied by three bagpipers, marching resolutely toward him. They meet in the castle, and embrace. We're told the curse: if a MacNeil of Kiloran dares step over the threshold of Moy, he shall be chained to a woman to the end of his days, "and will die in his chains". Torquil and Joan walk away together along the lane arm in arm. "I Know Where I'm Going" is sung as the end credits roll. ===== A general's son is taken hostage and used as leverage to free a bandit leader. The general's other offspring, a girl named Golden Swallow, is sent to rescue the son. When the bandit gang encounter the Golden Swallow in a local inn, the prisoner negotiation escalates to bloodshed and the goons are swiftly defeated. A local drunk beggar named Fan Da-Pei acts as Golden Swallow's guardian angel, secretly helping her avoid being ambushed at night. That morning Fan Da-Pei, whom we now know only as "Drunken Cat" tips off Golden Swallow to the bandits’ whereabouts. They have occupied a Buddhist monastery. In the guise of an acolyte, Golden Swallow penetrates the temple and confronts the man who has taken her brother hostage. During the brawl she is injured by a deadly, poisoned dart. She escapes and is rescued in the woods by Fan who nurses her back to health. While she's convalescing, Golden Swallow learns that Fan is actually a martial arts master and a leader of a Kung Fu society, which he otherwise keeps a secret. The monastery is led by an evil abbot, Liao Kung, who is also a kung fu master and has allied himself with the bandits. On finding out that the beggar carries a bamboo staff, he realises that the beggar is a former student of the same master. The abbot has in fact killed their master in order to get this same bamboo staff, which was rescued by Fan Da-Pei. Now Liao Kung sees an opportunity to gain control of the staff. Fan Da-Pei is hesitant to confront Liao Kung for two reasons. First, Liao Kung's kung fu skills are unparalleled, and Fan Da-Pei thinks he has no chance against him, or at the very least, one of them would not survive a confrontation. Second, despite his evil ways, Liao Kung has actually done a good deed for Fan Da-Pei: he persuaded the master to accept Fan Da-Pei into the Green Wand Kung-Fu school when he was a mere homeless orphan, thus giving him a chance in life. For this reason, Fan is reluctant to fight the abbot even though Fan knows about the abbot's criminal deeds. To release the General's son, Fan stages a prisoner exchange. During the exchange, the government soldiers receive the General's son, but Fan prevents the bandits from releasing their leader. As the government soldiers march the bandit leader back to prison, the bandits attack the procession. Golden Swallow, leading her female warriors, fights off the bandits. The evil abbot forces a showdown with Fan Da-Pei, who defeats and kills him. ===== This volume of The Wheel of Time depicts several distinct plots. Unusual Trolloc attacks, the dead walking, ripples in the fabric of the world and other events seem to indicate that the Last Battle is drawing near; several characters using different evidence confidently state that Tarmon Gai'don is close at hand. ===== Angus Bethune is an overweight teenage boy living in Minnesota who, despite his talents as a football player and in science class, holds deep insecurities about himself. Since kindergarten, he has been regularly harassed by handsome but cruel Rick Sanford and his complacent cohorts, for not being "normal". His only friend is Troy Wedberg, who is also a social outcast. Angus has feelings for Melissa Lefevre, though he is fearful of expressing it because she is dating Rick. Eventually, tired of the abuse from Rick, Angus applies to a magnet school where he hopes to be free of the constant humiliation. However, well aware of his feelings for Melissa, Rick rigs an election so that they will dance together in the upcoming freshman Winter Ball as King and Queen, respectively. After the stunt, the principal forbids Angus to lay a hand on Rick, or he would be expelled and lose his chance to go to the magnet school. To prepare for the dance, Angus gets help from Troy, his mother, Meg, and his narcoleptic grandfather, Ivan. Angus takes dancing lessons with Madame Rulenska, but the lessons go badly. Later on, despite his request for a black tuxedo, Ivan purchases him a plum suit and tells him that he can be normal and an individual at the same time. He tells him that running away to another school will not solve anything and that he needs to stand up against Rick. One day after school, Rick and company kidnap Troy and ask him for anything that would embarrass Angus at the Winter Ball. Troy refuses to help them and tries to escape, only to break his arm as he trips to the floor while Rick gives him an ultimatum. At home, Meg tells Ivan that Angus' transfer to a magnet school would be for the best. Ivan accuses Meg of over-mothering Angus and warns her that letting him run away from his bullies is a mistake. Angus helps Ivan prepare for his and his fiancée April's wedding. As Angus waits outside Ivan's room on the day of the wedding, he confides with him about his love for Melissa and how wishes he could stand up to Rick and tell Melissa how he feels. When he tries to wake him, Angus quickly discovers that Ivan has died and tells the wedding guests there. Distraught, Angus opts to stay home for a few days trying to cope with Ivan's death. Fearing a reprisal from Rick, Troy gives him a videotape containing footage of Angus practicing his dancing with an inflatable doll while confessing his feelings for Melissa. Troy then visits Angus at home to offer his condolences, and an argument ensues. When Troy calls him out for not understanding how it feels to be ostracized by Rick, Angus snaps and tells Troy that he knows better. He also tells Troy that he won't go to the Winter Ball mainly because he still plans to transfer, to escape Rick's humiliation and to better cope with his grandfather's death. Later that week, Angus receives a box from April and opens it, revealing the plum suit that he had earlier rejected. She wishes him luck in the future and leaves. In that moment, Angus realizes that Ivan was right all along: he needs to stand up for himself and face Rick or nothing will change. Resolved to follow Ivan's advice, he rejects an interview from the magnet school, wears the plum suit, and marches to the dance in the school gymnasium. Outside, Troy warns Angus that Rick has a terrible prank planned for him, and advises him to turn around and return home at once. Angus rebuffs his warning and meets Melissa inside, and they converse for the first time. As they are introduced to the students, Rick plays Troy's videotape on the monitors, and the students laugh. A humiliated Melissa punches Rick in the face and runs out in tears. Angus follows her, infuriated with Troy for betraying him to Rick. Angus apologizes to Melissa, but she does not blame him. Instead, she reveals her disgust with Rick and confesses to Angus that she is bulimic. She also mentions that Rick is very controlling and abusive towards her and the other students. Angus learns that Melissa likes him more than Rick because he is kind and respectful of others. Finding common ground, they go back inside and dance, even as she helps him out with some of the steps. After receiving a mild reception from the students, Rick scolds her, while Angus comes to her defense. Rick begins aggressively shoving Angus and follows up with a hard punch to the face, breaking Angus's nose and sending him crashing through a table. Angus defiantly rises to his feet and shouts back, "I'm still here, asshole!" Angus then repeatedly pushes Rick until he falls to the ground, telling him that no matter how many times Rick knocks him down, he will always get back up. Angus petitions him to realize that there are many people that don't fit his idea of "normal," and are unwittingly ostracized for it, and are fed up with the humiliation. He gives Rick a choice to join them and accept them as individuals, or continue to think of himself as normal. Rick selfishly replies, "Whatever I am, it's something you're never gonna be," to which Angus retorts, "Thank God!" The students congratulate Angus and even Rick's former friends abandon him. Melissa dances with Angus again and Troy enacts revenge on Rick by breaking his nose with his cast and impressing a girl upon whom he has a crush. Melissa asks Angus to walk her home, and they kiss before Melissa retires for the night. Angus rejects the offer to transfer to the magnet school, realizing that his grandfather was right and that he doesn't have to run away anymore. Angus mentions that Rick was suspended for his video prank and for breaking Troy's arm. He also mentions that Rick's popularity with the other students suffered since Angus stood up to him and thus they have no reason to fear him anymore. ===== Sarah Morton, a middle-aged English mystery author, who has written a successful series of detective novels, is having writer's block that is impeding her next book. Sarah's publisher, John Bosload, offers her his country house near Lacoste, France, for some rest and relaxation. Sarah takes him up on the offer, hinting that she hopes John may come and visit as well. After becoming comfortable with the run of the spacious, sun-filled house, and meeting the groundskeeper Marcel, Sarah's quietude is disrupted by a young woman claiming to be the publisher's daughter, Julie. She shows up late one night explaining that she is taking time off from work herself. She eventually tells Sarah that her mother used to be Bosload's mistress, but that he would not leave his family. Julie's sex life consists of one-night stands with various oafish men, and a competition of personalities develops between the two women. At first, Sarah regards Julie as a distraction from her writing. She uses earplugs to allow her to sleep during Julie's noisy nighttime adventures, although she nonetheless has a voyeuristic fascination with them. Later, she abandons the earplugs during one of Julie's trysts, beginning to envy Julie's lifestyle. Sarah sneaks into Julie's room and steals her diary, using it in the new novel she is working on. The competition comes to the fore when a local waiter, Franck, is involved. Julie wants him but he appears to prefer the more mature Sarah, having struck up a relationship with her during her frequent lunches at the bistro. An unexpected tragedy occurs after a night of flirting among the three. After swimming together in the pool, Franck refuses to allow Julie to continue performing oral sex on him, once Sarah, who watches them from the balcony, throws a rock into the water. Franck feels frightened and tells Julie he is leaving. The next day, Franck is missing. While investigating Franck's disappearance, Sarah learns that Julie's mother died years earlier, though Julie had spoken of her mother as if she were alive. She returns to the villa, where a confused Julie thinks that Sarah is her mother and has a breakdown. Julie eventually recovers and confesses that Franck is dead because she repeatedly hit him over the head with a rock as he tried to leave her at the pool. His body is in one of the sheds. When Marcel becomes suspicious of the mound of fresh soil where Sarah and Julie have buried Franck's body, Sarah seduces the elderly gardener to distract him. Julie leaves, thanking Sarah for her help and leaving her the manuscript of an unpublished novel written by her late mother, which she had previously claimed that John made her mother burn. Sarah uses the mother's manuscript in her novel-in-progress. Sarah returns to England and visits John at his publishing office with her new novel. His daughter, Julia, also shows up just as Sarah is leaving, but is revealed to be a completely different person than the girl Julie that the viewer was introduced to as John's daughter. The viewer now must question whether the story that took place at the country house was a fictional plot dreamed up by Sarah. ===== The episode begins in medias res: Homer and Bart are chased through the streets of Springfield by an angry mob while carrying the head of the statue of their town founder, Jebediah Springfield. Surrounded by the mob, Bart begins to explain the events of the previous day. After going to church with his family, Bart is forbidden by Marge to see the violent movie Space Mutants 4. Later on, he runs into three of Springfield's bullies: Jimbo, Kearney, and Dolph. The three invite Bart to sneak into the movie theater to watch Space Mutants 4. After being thrown out of the theater by the manager, the gang shoplifts from the Kwik-E-Mart, throw rocks at the Jebediah Springfield statue, and watch clouds. Bart remarks that one cloud resembles the statue of Jebediah Springfield, but without a head. His new friends remark that they wish someone would decapitate the statue, saying it would be funny to see the town upset over it. When Bart disagrees, the bullies make fun of him. Bart is conflicted and asks Homer whether it is okay to compromise one's beliefs to be popular. Homer tells Bart that popularity is the most important thing in the world, as long as Bart is not talking about killing someone. That night, Bart sneaks out of the house and decapitates the statue. The town is shaken by the crime, which causes Bart to feel guilty about their actions. The act also does not make him popular with Jimbo, Dolph, and Kearney, who tell Bart they did not actually mean what they said about cutting off the head, and that they would attack the culprit if he were with them. Bart begins to fear the consequences were his actions revealed, and his conscience manifests itself as the statue's severed head, which begins speaking to him. Unable to go on, Bart finally confesses to his family, explaining that he thought being popular was the most important thing in the world. Homer realizes it was his advice that had caused Bart to commit the crime in the first place, and takes responsibility by accompanying Bart as he takes the head back to the statue. They are found by the mob, returning the story to the beginning. Bart realizes his act has actually brought the town closer together, and the mob agrees. The head is then returned to the statue and everyone forgives Homer and Bart. ===== Dr. John Markway narrates the history of the 90-year-old Hill House, which was constructed in Massachusetts by Hugh Crain as a home for his wife. She died when her carriage crashed against a tree as she approached the house for the first time. Crain remarried, but his second wife died in the house from a fall down the stairs. Crain's daughter Abigail lived in the house for the rest of her life, never moving out of the nursery. She died calling for her nurse-companion. The companion inherited the house, but later hanged herself from a spiral staircase in the library. Hill House was eventually inherited by a Mrs. Sanderson, although it has stood empty for some time. Markway wishes to study the reported paranormal activity at Hill House. He is allowed to begin his investigation on condition that he has Mrs. Sanderson's heir Luke Sanderson come with him. Among several prospective choices only two individuals accept Markway's invitation to join the investigation—a psychic, Theodora and Eleanor Lance, who experienced poltergeist activity as a child. Eleanor spent her adult life caring for her invalid mother, whose recent death has left Eleanor with severe guilt. The group find the mansion's walls were constructed with angles askew, resulting in off-center perspectives and doors that open and close by themselves. The library contains the ramshackle spiral staircase from which the previous owner hanged herself. During their first night in the house, Eleanor and Theo are terrified by supernatural occurrences outside Theo's bedroom door. Banging is heard against the door and the voice of a young girl is heard echoing with laughter. Despite this, Eleanor feels a tentative affinity to Hill House. The team explores the house the next day, discovering a cold spot outside the nursery (but still within the house). Following another night of loud disturbances the team discovers the words "Help Eleanor Come Home" scrawled on a wall, which causes Eleanor distress. That night, Theo moves into Eleanor's room and they fall asleep in the same bed. Eleanor is awakened by the sounds of a man speaking indistinctly and a woman laughing. Fearful, Eleanor asks Theo to hold her hand and soon she feels a crushing grip. As Eleanor hears the sound of a young girl crying, she shouts at whoever is causing the child pain. Theo awakens to find that Eleanor has moved from the bed to the couch, and realizes it was not her hand she held. The following day Dr. Markway's wife Grace arrives at Hill House to warn Dr. Markway that a reporter has learned of his investigation there. Grace announces that she plans to join the group for the duration of the investigation and demands a room in the nursery despite her husband's warning that it is likely the center of the disturbances. That night the group experiences loud banging and an unseen force attempting to force its way through the living room in which they are staying. The banging then proceeds to move towards the nursery, where sounds of destruction are heard. Eleanor runs towards the source and discovers Grace is missing. The next morning, Eleanor's mental instability worsens as she enters the library and climbs the dilapidated spiral staircase. Once she reaches the top, Grace appears at a trap door, startling Eleanor, who nearly falls to her death when she is rescued by Dr. Markway. Markway becomes alarmed at Eleanor's obsession with Hill House in spite of the dangers it poses. Eleanor pleads to stay, while Markway insists that she leave. Eleanor then drives off and speeds down towards the front gates. The steering wheel moves as she struggles to regain control but then surrenders to the unseen force. Grace appears from behind a tree and steps in front of the car leading Eleanor to die by crashing into a tree. Luke observes that Eleanor deliberately aimed the car at the tree, but Markway asserts that something was in the car with her, noting that the tree was also the one that killed Mrs. Crain. Theo remarks that Eleanor got what she wanted—to remain with the house. ===== The Blieder drive, a faster- than-light drive system, has permitted the population of Earth to colonize the galaxy. Each planet has become the home for a particular social group. Four hundred years after the diaspora (the "Great Explosion" of the title), a spaceship from Earth visits three of the planets, the first steps to unifying the galaxy under a new Empire. The ship contains two thousand Terrans including many pompous officials, an army of bureaucrats, a military force and the ship's crew, including some misfits. Things do not go entirely as hoped, as the incompetent military authoritarians of the ship encounter three very different societies. The first planet was a penal colony; it is now many independent kleptocratic despotisms preying on each other. The second planet, Hygeia, is populated by health and fitness fanatic nudists. The third planet, Kassim, was colonized by a religious group, but when the ship arrives, the Terrans cannot find any human life, only empty villages overgrown by jungle. They decide not to land on the planet, because the captain fears that the colonists could have been killed by a disease and he doesn't want to endanger the crew. The final planet, K22g, has developed an unusual social system. The population call themselves Gands (after Gandhi) and practise a form of classless, philosophically anarchic libertarianism, based on passive resistance ("Freedom - I won't!" and "Myob!"); and a moneyless gift economy based on barter and favor-exchange, using "obs" (obligations). To perform a service for somebody "lays an ob" on them; they can then "kill the ob" by returning the favor. As the planet's population are demonstrably non-hostile, the officials have to approve shore leave, which brings the crew into contact with the anarchist natives. Many find reasons to stay on the planet, refusing to return to the ship. The officials have to get the ship back into space before they lose so many that the ship will never fly again. ===== =====