From Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ===== Prior to the beginning of the story, humanity has been expelled from Earth by powerful aliens known as "the Invaders", and scattered across eight planets and satellites of the Solar System, the so-called Eight Worlds. The Invaders originate from a gas giant planet, and have occupied Jupiter, forbidding human access to it. Human expansion to the Eight Worlds has been aided by a broadcast of information from outside the Solar System, named "The Ophiuchi hotline" after the constellation from which it appears to originate. The information received from this includes extensive material on biological modification, and while sex changes and other modifications have become routine surgeries, experimentation with human DNA remains taboo and forbidden on penalty of death. Related to this, while technology has been developed to allow people to back-up their memories, this is only permitted for implantation within a cloned body in case of death. Due to resource scarcity, only one clone of a person is allowed to exist at any one time, and, similarly, reproduction is restricted to one child per person. An exception exists for those people who join the artificially-created symbionts that can live openly in the vacuum of space. The protagonist, Lilo, has experimented with human DNA and, when discovered, is sentenced to death. However, the night before her execution, a powerful lunar politician named Tweed offers her the chance to escape her sentence by replacing her with a clone killed in her place. Lilo accepts and Tweed takes her into hiding. Tweed is the leader of a movement that intends to expel the Invaders and recover Earth, and makes Lilo join this movement under the watch of Vaffa, a guard that has multiple illegal clones, both male and female. Lilo attempts to escape twice, but each time she is killed by Vaffa, and a clone is revived with her original memories. The third clone of Lilo is sent to an outlying moon of Jupiter, Poseidon, within which Tweed pursues clandestine research performed by illegal clones. Lilo bonds with Cathay, the teacher of the colony's children, and they become lovers. She is given a null-field suit — a conforming forcefield with an air generator that protects her from the vacuum — and is tasked with researching how to kill creatures that live in Jupiter's atmosphere. She reveals to Cathay that, when she began her original experiments, she put a clone of herself and a backup of her memories in a secret base in Saturn's rings, to ensure her survival in the event that she was executed. Tweed then acquires a micro black hole with the intention of passing it through Jupiter in an attack on the Invaders. Lilo and Cathay board the ship transporting the black hole and seize it. After a struggle, Lilo and a Vaffa clone fall towards Jupiter. Vaffa dies, but Lilo encounters an Invader and is taken to a future version of Earth almost devoid of humanity. Tweed then awakens another version of Lilo and sends her with a clone of Vaffa to Pluto to research a new message coming from the Ophiuchi Hotline. This one has been translated as a payment demand for the information that humanity has received, but does not specify what form the payment is to take. Lilo and Vaffa find a second clone of Cathay, and the three of them are tasked to lease a ship from navigators dedicated to hunt for black holes, and go beyond the orbit of Pluto to analyze the message. They eventually hire Javelin, one of the most successful black hole hunters. Once in space, Javelin reveals that the black hole hunters have discovered that the beam of the Hotline originates from a point only half a light-year away from the solar system, scrambled to seem to come from much farther, and she will take them to the source of the beam. However, since the trip will take 20 years Lilo, Vaffa and Cathay go in hibernation. In the meantime, the first clone of Cathay uses the stolen ship to reach Lilo's base. There he meets Parameter/Solstice, a human-symbiont pair who also know the location of the base. They revive the clone and use the ship to attack Poseidon, taking it out of orbit and destroying its security systems. To do this they crash Lilo's base into a black hole held in a force field on the moon's surface. They carry out a plan to transform the asteroid into a ship to travel to Alpha Centauri, but reveal Tweed's dangerous activities to the Eight Worlds, forcing Tweed to go into hiding. When Javelin's ship and its passengers reaches the source of the Hotline, they are greeted by seemingly-human extraterrestrials who have been expecting them. They explain that most races in the universe have experienced a similar history with the Invaders: they are expelled from their home planets by the Invaders; they attempt to recover their planets by force, much as Tweed has been doing; and in the ensuing conflict they are driven out of their solar systems entirely. The extraterrestrials have been broadcasting information via the Ophiuchi Hotline to give humanity the tools they need for survival, and the price they ask in exchange is to be allowed to live alongside and within the minds of humans, so that they can add humanity's experience and thoughts to their own pool of knowledge. They suggest that, if humanity does not comply, they will turn the symbionts into an army that will attack humanity on the Eight Worlds. The clone of Lilo previously transported to Earth spends 25 years there. Because of her null-field suit which she can turn on at will, she is worshipped as a god by the surviving humans scratching a living at a pre-industrial technological level. During a dive to hunt a whale, she encounters an Invader, somehow steals a silver cube from it and is instantaneously transported to the source of the Hotline. There she meets her clone, and they find that the memories and knowledge of all of their clones, including those killed by Tweed, are somehow mixed and shared between them. Somewhat surprised by this turn of events, the extraterrestrials explain that the silver cube is a singularity that can be used for space propulsion by canceling inertia. They add that the Invaders only give such a "gift" to races when they're preparing to expel them entirely from their home planetary system. Confronted with this news, Javelin, Cathay, Vaffa and both clones of Lilo return to the solar systems to alert humanity. As the novel concludes, the clone of Lilo traveling in the asteroid towards Alpha Centauri meditates on her shared memories, and realizes that when she arrives there her fellow clones, and most of humanity, will be already be there waiting for her, having used the singularity for faster travel. ===== ===== In Turkey, several prisoners are granted furlough. One, Seyit Ali (Tarık Akan), travels to his house and finds that his wife (Şerif Sezer) has betrayed him and turned to prostitution. She was caught by her family and held captive for eight months in order for Seyit Ali to end her life in an honour killing. Though apparently determined at first, he changes his mind when his wife starts to freeze while travelling in the snow. Despite his efforts to keep her alive, he eventually fails. His wife's death relieves Seyit Ali from family pressure. Another prisoner, Mehmet Salih (Halil Ergün) has been arrested for his role in a heist with his brother-in-law, whom he abandoned as he was being shot by police. His in-laws have disowned him, and he is finally forced to tell his wife Emine (Meral Orhonsay) the truth. Emine and Mehmet Salih decide to run away on a train. On the train, they are caught in the washroom about to have sex. They are saved from an angry mob by the train's officers and held in a cabin. A young boy from Emine's family who has boarded the train shoots both Mehmet Salih and Emine. Ömer (Necmettin Çobanoğlu) returns to his village sitting near the border between Turkey and Syria, and arranges to cross the border to escape prison. Ömer finds his village in a battle between Kurdish smugglers and Turkish soldiers. Though Ömer is clearly determined, he gives up after his brother, who took part in the battle, is shot dead. Through his brother's death, Ömer has inherited the responsibilities of his brother's wife and children as dictated by tradition. ===== Reeves portrays cowboy Mike Sturges, who, along with his younger brother, Roy, is sentenced to Yuma Territorial Prison on a trumped-up train robbery charge. Both endure cruel treatment before Mike escapes to exact revenge on their enemies. ===== While travelling, Hercules is asked to intervene in a quarrel between two brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, over who should rule Thebes. Before he can complete this task, Hercules drinks from a magic spring and is hypnotized by a harem girl who dances the "Dance of Shiva", loses his memory and becomes the captive of Queen Omphale of Lydia. The Queen keeps men until she tires of them, then has them made into statues. While young Ulysses tries to help him regain his memory, Hercules' wife, Iole, finds herself in danger from Eteocles, current ruler of Thebes, who plans on throwing her to the wild beasts in his entertainment arena. Hercules slays three tigers in succession and rescues his wife, then assists the Theban army in repelling mercenary attackers hired by Polynices. The two brothers ultimately fight one another for the throne and end up killing each other; the good high priest Creon is elected by acclaim. ===== Raja (Akshay Kumar), a good-for-nothing loafer trying to get rich quick, impersonates Parimal Chaturvedi, a college professor and enters into a college of beautiful rich women. He falls for rich girl Pooja (Urmila Matondkar), and manages to win her heart. Trouble comes when Pooja's father Prakash (Anupam Kher) mistakes Raja for Rocky (also Akshay Kumar), a ruthless and merciless criminal who blackmails people for money or threatens to kill them, who is a lookalike of Raja. Prakash, who is on Rocky's payroll, asks Raja for help, so Raja impersonates Rocky to get his secrets and Prakash's money. But tables are turned when Rocky finds out about Raja's game. Raja wakes up and finds himself kidnapped in Rocky's mansion. He then realizes he has been drugged for the past seven days, and in these seven days, Rocky has posed as Raja and is set to marry Pooja. Raja is framed and arrested under the name of Rocky. Raja manages to escape and crashes the wedding where he tells the truth and Rocky escapes. Raja follows him to a multi-story building where the two fight brutally. Rocky gains the advantage and knocks out Raja, but he recovers to push Rocky off the building, who falls to his death. Raja and Pooja then get married. ===== Under the pen name David Shane, reporter Rowena Price (Halle Berry) and researcher Miles Haley (Giovanni Ribisi) are investigating senator Stephen Sachs, who has been having secret sexual encounters with his male interns, despite his publicly antigay agenda. However, the story is shut down when the source clams up and Rowena's editor, a supporter of the senator, puts a stop to the story. The editor also insists she take a vacation and will not take no for an answer. While walking home, Rowena meets her childhood friend, Grace Clayton (Nicki Aycox), who seeks her help in taking down Harrison Hill (Bruce Willis), a wealthy advertising executive. Grace gives Rowena her e-mails as proof of their extramarital affair, which Hill recently ended. A few days later, Grace is found dead, drowned and poisoned with belladonna, leading Rowena to suspect Harrison. Grace was revealed to be in her first trimester of pregnancy. With Miles' help, Rowena goes undercover, under the alias of Katherine Pogue, as a temporary worker at Harrison's advertising company, H2A at 7 World Trade Center. While setting up gift bags for a Victoria's Secret collection launch, she meets fellow advertiser Gina (Clea Lewis). Gina gives her information about the questionable lifestyles of the senior management of H2A. Harrison Hill is revealed to be rich because of his wife, Mia Reinhart-Hill (Paula Miranda). If she divorced him, he would be penniless, revealing the reason why he keeps his affairs with female workers secret. Rowena flirts with Hill both online and in real life, but is warned to stay away by Hill's lesbian PA, Josie (Daniella van Graas). And Rowena is not realizing the online Hill is actually Miles, secretly in love with her. One day Hill catches Rowena snooping, thinks she is a corporate spy, and fires her. At Miles's apartment, Rowena discovers a shrine to her and explicit pictures of Miles and Grace. Miles arrives home and Rowena confronts him. He defends himself by providing evidence that Hill had access to belladonna for poisoning. Rowena goes to the police, and Harrison is arrested for the murder of Grace. After Hill's conviction, Miles visits Rowena. He tells her that he knows she is the real killer and has been using this investigation to frame Hill. Rowena flashes back to a memory of her father attempting to molest her, and her mother subsequently bludgeoning him to death with a fireplace poker. A younger Grace watches from her window as they bury the body. Grace has been blackmailing Rowena with this knowledge. Miles describes in detail how Rowena had plotted the murder to end Grace's blackmail and pinned the murder on Hill. Miles asks how she intends to keep him quiet, implying she might sleep with him, since he has long lusted after her. However, Rowena stabs him to death and ransacks the kitchen. She then calls the police, claiming to have been attacked by Miles and that he might have been the real murderer. The film ends with a man looking out of a neighboring window, presumably having witnessed what really happened. ===== The film consists of two stories that are unrelated and have different actors, titled "Fiction" and "Non-Fiction". College and high school serve as the backdrop for these two stories about dysfunction and personal turmoil. ;Fiction "Fiction", starring Selma Blair, "Vi", is about a group of college students in a creative writing class taught by a black professor (Robert Wisdom). ;Non-Fiction "Non-Fiction", starring Paul Giamatti and John Goodman, is about the filming of a dysfunctional suburban New Jersey family as their teenage son (Mark Webber) goes through the college application process, and faces the trials and tribulations of late teenage years. ;Autobiography The original version of the film featured a third story entitled "Autobiography", concerning, among other things, a closeted football player (James van der Beek). The main character has an explicit sex scene with a male partner (Steven Rosen); the entire story was cut from the final version. ===== The vast majority of Earth's population is wiped out by a cataclysmic war known as the "Great Destruction." The harsh conditions that result force the few remaining survivors to live underground for fifty years, during which time corporations come to power. The two largest corporations, Chrome and Murakumo Millennium, constantly battle each other for supremacy, causing significant strife among the populace. However, the competition provides endless opportunities for mercenaries called Ravens, who exist independently of the corporations. The player is a Raven and pilots an Armored Core, powerful mecha robots that fight for the highest bidder. ===== 67 years after Master of Arena, Earth's second largest corporation, Zio Matrix, acquires plans for a research project on Mars, dating back before the Great Destruction. Using these plans, Zio Matrix sends a research team to Mars to begin the Terraforming Project, which causes the Martian surface and atmosphere to approximate that of Earth. Other corporations learn of the project and quickly follow Zio Matrix, bringing with them the competitive environment that existed on Earth, and the employ of the mercenaries of Nerves Concord. As the three companies' war comes to a close, Zio Matrix attempts a coup against the government, which has regained control through its elite mercenary team, The Frighteners, led by Leos Klein. But in the chaos that ensues, the Frighteners turn on the government, assassinate its leader, and take control of powerful technology. The player character is tasked with confronting them and saving the human populace of Mars. ===== It follows the main character Steve York, the son of an astronaut. Steve is a high school student who has had issues with marijuana and has found himself in the counselor's office. The counselor tells him that he is flunking and if he wants to graduate he must write a 100-page paper about anything. Steve is reluctant to do so, at first, but eventually relents and begins the tale about the divorce of his parents, his prickly relationship with his father, and his first real relationship with a girl nicknamed Dub. Told in parallel timelines and bouncing back and forth from his senior year to his sophomore year, through writing the book Steve eventually comes to see his father as he'd never seen him before and understands that many of the things that he thought were true were completely wrong. ===== Armored Core 3 serves as a reboot for the Armored Core franchise but retains many similar elements to the original Armored Core. Set in a post-apocalyptic future, Armored Core 3 depicts a world where humanity has begun to live underneath the Earth's surface after a catastrophic global nuclear war broke out on the surface. The human beings who survived formed a subterranean society called "Layered". Layered is ruled by an artificial intelligence known as "The Controller", which dictates almost everything that happens in the world. The two major corporations, Mirage and Crest Industries, and a relatively more minor one, Kisaragi, all vie for dominance and control over the land and assets in Layered. At the game's outset, The Controller seems to be experiencing frequent errors, which has led to a growth of support for a rebel group, known as Union, that wishes to overthrow The Controller. The player takes the role of a Raven, mercenaries that are registered with the neutral Global Cortex organization. Over the course of the game, the player is provided with missions for the various factions by Laine Meyers, the player's manager, and the player can choose who to support. In later missions, it is revealed that The Controller is manipulating the various factions in order to destroy infrastructure and support systems for Layered, leading to a direct confrontation with The Controller. After the player destroys it, an emergency program opens Layered's blast doors and allows for surface access for the first time in centuries. ===== The film opens with the quote from John Donne: "I run to death, and death meets me as fast / and all my pleasures are like yesterday." Mary Gibson (Kim Hunter), a young woman at Highcliffe Academy, a Catholic boarding school, learns that her older sister and only relative, Jacqueline Gibson (Jean Brooks), has gone missing and has not paid Mary's tuition in months. The school officials tell Mary she can remain enrolled only if she works for the school. Mary decides to leave school to find her sister, who owns La Sagesse, a cosmetics company in New York City. Upon arriving in New York, Mary finds that Jacqueline sold her cosmetics business eight months earlier. Jacqueline's close friend and former employee, Frances Fallon (Isabel Jewell), claims to have seen Jacqueline the week before, and suggests that Mary visit Dante's, an Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village. Mary locates the restaurant, and discovers that Jacqueline has rented a room above the store, without having moved in. Mary convinces the owners to let her see the room, which she finds empty aside from a wooden chair and above it a noose hanging from the ceiling. This makes Mary more anxious and determined to find her sister. Mary's investigation leads her to Jacqueline's secret husband, Gregory Ward (Hugh Beaumont); a failed poet, Jason Hoag (Erford Gage); and a mysterious psychiatrist, Dr. Louis Judd (Tom Conway). Jacqueline had been Judd's patient, seeking treatment for depression stemming from her membership in a Satanic cult called the Palladists. She was lured into joining the cult by her former co-workers. Mary enlists a private detective, Irving August (Lou Lubin), but he is stabbed to death while investigating at the La Sagesse headquarters. Judd eventually helps Mary locate Jacqueline, who has gone into hiding. Gregory Ward falls in love with Mary. Jacqueline is later kidnapped by the cult members and condemned to death for revealing the cult. She would be the seventh person so condemned since the founding of the cult (hence the film's title). The cult members, squeamish about committing acts of violence, decide that Jacqueline, who is suicidal, should kill herself, and offer her a cup of poison. When she refuses to drink it, they let her leave, but send an assassin to follow her. The assassin chases her through the darkened streets with a switchblade, but she eludes him and returns to her apartment above Dante's. She briefly encounters her neighbor, Mimi (Elizabeth Russell), a young woman with a terminal illness. Mimi confesses to Jacqueline that she's afraid to die, and plans to have one last night out on the town. Jacqueline enters her own apartment and hangs herself. The thud of the chair falling over is heard, but the sick woman does not recognize the sound as she leaves for the evening. ===== The game is set on a dystopian Earth, where corporations have conquered the world's governing bodies amidst increasing civil unrest and dwindling resources, and established a new world order named the Pax Economica, forcing citizens to live in oppressively-ruled colonies. Eventually, the member corporations of the Pax Economica begin warring with one another. They begin hiring pilots, known as Lynxes, to fight on their behalf The player character is a freelancer from the civilian colony of Anatolia who is chosen to pilot a NEXT, a highly advanced Armored Core unit, and is assigned Fiona Jarnefeldt as his operator. Initially, the player is hired to counter rebel attacks, culminating in an attack on an anti-establishment group. Amazigh, the group's Lynx, is killed in the battle, garnering significant fame for the player. With this new fame, the player is hired to fight in minor skirmishes between corporations, which escalates until they are hired by Global Armaments to destroy a series of prototypes developed at a seceding company. The mission is successful, but another corporation, Akva Vit, declares war on Global Armaments due to their ties with the seceding company. During the war, the player makes contact with a friend of Fiona, Joshua O'Brian, who is also a Lynx pilot. The player successfully destroys one of the biggest corporations by assassinating the company's leadership, but an unknown corporation sends a weapon to destroy Anatolia in retaliation. After defeating the weapon, Fiona questions who sent it. As the war continues, the player and Joshua independently destroy two other major corporations, including Akva Vit, which ends the war. After the war, Joshua is blackmailed into piloting a prototype NEXT and is sent to destroy Anatolia. The player is forced to kill him, leading the player and Fiona to leave Anatolia. ===== Akira lives in Digital City, a town located in fictional "Directory Continent", a land where digimon used to live peacefully. However, wild Digimon began attacking Akira's hometown, and Akira joins a guard team that is charged with protecting the peace and security of the region. At the start of the game, Akira finishes his last Training Mission and joins one of the Guard Teams (the player has the option of choosing between the Black Sword Team, the Gold Hawks team, or the Blue Falcon team). He receives missions from the Team Leader, which involve entering Domains and hunting down evil Digimon. ===== Stanton Frelaine is the co-owner of a Cleveland company that sells bulletproof vests to players in The Big Hunt, a government-run legalized murder game in which participants alternate between being a "hunter" and a "victim". A hunter attempts to track down and kill an assigned target, their victim. Frelaine is an experienced player, having already played through six rounds of the game. His older partner at the company, E.J. Morger, is a member of the rarefied "Tens Club," a status earned by winning ten rounds of the Hunt. Frelaine receives his seventh assignment as hunter, with his victim being Janet-Marie Patzig of New York. He is somewhat surprised, having never heard of a woman playing the Hunt before. He calls the Emotional Catharsis Bureau to make sure. The Bureau was set up after the Fourth World War to run the Hunt to provide an outlet for aggression and prevent future wars. They confirm he has the right information. Frelaine arrives in New York and goes for a walk to scout the victim's neighborhood. He is surprised when he quickly spots her sitting in the open at an outdoor cafe, smoking a cigarette. He once again contacts the Bureau to make sure she is aware she is playing victim. They assure him that everything is in order. Frelaine feels cheated because he will not receive a full catharsis if the victim does not try to fight back. Seeking a thrill, he places himself in danger by approaching her. He pretends to be in town on business and looking for a date, but expects she will see through the deception and shoot him at any moment. Patzig initially brushes off Frelaine's advances, saying she will probably be dead soon. She explains that she is in New York trying to become an actress, without much success. Looking for some excitement she signed up for the Hunt, but on her first mission she could not find the courage to kill her assigned victim. Now, taking her turn as victim, she is unable to contemplate shooting her hunter. So she is simply waiting to be killed. Happy for his company, she and Frelaine spend the afternoon together. But Patzig cannot stop thinking about her impending murder and laments that she will soon be dead. Frelaine realizes he has fallen for her and admits to being her hunter, but says he would rather marry her than kill her. Greatly relieved, she kisses him and then lights a celebratory cigarette. She then shoots him with a gun concealed in her cigarette lighter. As she aims for a killing shot, he hears her joyfully state that she can finally join the Tens Club. ===== On their way home from an orchestra performance, Homer and Marge pass through a seedy part of town. Snake entices Homer to play his Three-card Monte game and cheats him of $20. When Marge exposes the con, Snake flees. Marge chases after him and knocks him unconscious with a garbage can lid, giving her a sense of exhilaration. Finding her everyday routine dull and boring, she joins the Springfield police force. At first Marge enjoys being a police officer, but she is soon discouraged by the rampant law-breaking behavior of Springfield's citizens, including her husband. When Homer illegally parks across three handicapped spaces, Marge tries to ticket him. She arrests him after he takes her police hat and taunts her. Upon his release from jail, Homer hosts an illegal poker game and stumbles across Herman running a jean- counterfeiting operation in the Simpsons' garage. Marge arrives and arrests Herman and his henchmen as they are about to assault Homer. While Marge is handcuffing his minions, Herman takes Homer hostage and flees to Bart's tree house. Herman tries to escape using a pair of counterfeit jeans as a rope, but he falls to the ground when they rip. Marge knows Herman's attempted escape is doomed because of the jeans' shoddy stitching, which she recognizes from years of buying jeans for her husband and children. After Wiggum and the other officers confiscate the counterfeit jeans for their personal use, the chief informs Marge that they cannot detain Herman because the evidence has mysteriously disappeared. Upset at the corruption on the force, Marge resigns. ===== The plot revolved around the notion that the Professor had accidentally enlarged three sea monkeys to human size, and plotlines followed their ensuing comical ineptness in the world. Each Sea Monkey displayed a certain odd character trait: Aquarius could not keep a secret, Bill was afraid of Imperial style beards, and Dave would grow excited at the sound of polka music. They occasionally come into contact with their next door neighbours, the Brentwoods, whose daughter Sheila (Eliza Schneider) becomes the Sea- Monkeys' best friend. After the show's cancellation, it was replaced by Beakman's World, with Schneider playing the lead female role in that series as well. ===== The film is narrated by a troubled Edgar Allan Poe (Klaus Kinski). It begins with Poe's attempts to confirm a ghost story by examining the ghosts' tombs. However, he doesn't go too far to avoid being haunted and killed. Later, a journalist named Alan Foster (Anthony Franciosa) visits Poe to drive him out of madness, but he is forced to challenge the horror writer on the authenticity of his stories. This leads to Foster's accepting a bet from Lord Blackwood to spend the night in a haunted castle on All Soul's Eve. Foster is surprised by ghosts who appear to be half-humans, in very effective and horrifying special effects. Ghosts of the murdered inhabitants appear to him throughout the night, re-enacting the events that led to their respective deaths and driving Foster to madness. He meets the following ghosts: Elisabeth Blackwood (Michèle Mercier) who falls in love with Foster; the annoying and easy-to-hate Julia (Karin Field); the rough criminal William Perkins (Silvano Tranquilli); and the most despicable one of all, Dr. Carmus (Peter Carsten). Near the end of the film, the ghosts reveal their true nature: they aren't actually ghosts but vampires with ghostly powers, and they need Foster's blood in order to maintain their existence. Because she loves him, Elisabeth tries to save Foster by aiding his escape. He succeeds in escaping the castle, but not the garden. Distracted and careless, he pushes the door so hard that he is impaled by the metal spikes on the main gate. ===== Bobby begins on the territory of Veelox, with Gunny, where they land in the dark room outside the Veelox flume. Bobby and Gunny encounter Saint Dane and believe they have him cornered, however, twenty realistic holograms of the villain suddenly appear around him, but Bobby found the right one and fought him, but Saint Dane called out Eelong and Bobby was scared that he was going with Saint Dane so he let go, allowing Saint Dane to escape. Bobby and Gunny decide to split. Gunny will immediately go to Eelong and report back later with news while Bobby stays on Veelox because Saint Dane had mentioned that it is on the verge of destruction. Bobby hates the darkness and is worried if the inhabitants of Veelox are floating giants after meeting Aja Killian, the local Traveler, in the form of a massive holographic face. Bobby doesn't know if the huge hologram is life-sized. He meets up with a very ordinary, humanoid Aja in a city much like those on Second Earth, called Rubic City. The only differences are that it is deserted, and there is a huge structure called the Lifelight pyramid looming over the town. Aja explains that Lifelight is a virtual reality world—a computer that gives people's desires the appearance of being real. Almost everyone on Veelox is in it, living out their own perfect virtual lives. She takes Bobby through it, and he is amazed at the vedders, who are the "physical" caretakers of the bodies, and the phaders, computer geniuses running the place. She is one of the latter. Bobby experiences his own fantasy "jump"; he meets his family, plays with his dog, Marley, and plays a basketball game where he and his team simply cannot lose. It's a tight game, though. He has to be dragged out by Aja after going into OT. Aja then explains that, because Lifelight is so perfect, hardly anyone leaves. No food is being made. The territory is dying. However, she has a way to stop Lifelight....a Reality Bug that preys on fears to make it all less-than-perfect. She then takes Bobby to where he left off in his fantasy, but uses her virus to make it different. His opponents are taller, his coach has a heart attack, and he is injured. While in the locker room Aja tells him is this is how to save the territory. However, a Saint Dane hologram appears and tells them that the bug is working "far better than you could imagine". Saint Dane is right. The Reality Bug has become far too realistic; its use of fears to dilute the jumps has a placebo effect on people, in that if they die in their fantasy, the death is real. Aja put Lifelight into suspense to keep the jumpers safe and to try to find a solution. Only one man can stop the rapidly evolving virus; Dr. Zetlin, who invented Lifelight and the only one to know of the origin code, the key to purging the bug from the processing code. Zetlin is in Lifelight. He is in the alpha grid, which can be brought online independently of the rest of Lifelight. However, he can't simply be pulled out. Bobby would need help in the danger to come. Bobby goes to Zadaa and convinces its Traveler, Loor, to come along to help him defeat the nightmares. She agrees, and they start the alpha grid up again, with Aja acting as phader- vedder. They plan to get the origin code from Dr. Zetlin and purge Lifelight of the Reality Bug. However, the software is malfunctioning. Rather than send them into Zetlin's fantasy, it sends them into the "Wild West" and thence into Aja's own residence. They meet Saint Dane twice therein before they are pulled out. Aja takes them to Zetlin's fantasy, where Zetlin resides in a massive building called the 'Barbican', which can either stand upright or on its side. The first level of its structure is a tropical jungle filled with plant-animal life forms. The second level is a sort of large pool, with racing motorboats following lights. The level after that is a snow-covered landscape, where Bobby has to finish a race called slickshot in which six skaters need to pick up red balls and put them into buckets. Unfortunately, only four people can finish the race. Bobby finishes the race (with a bit of intervention from Loor) and sees that Zetlin is actually one of the racers, a popular sixteen- year-old called the "Z" in his fantasy. Bobby, Loor and Aja convince him to spill the code, which turns out to be "zero." When Aja enters the code, it turns out that Saint Dane sabotaged it. The Reality Bug takes physical form (a black ameoba-like shapeshifter), and chases Bobby, Zetlin, and Loor around Zetlin's fantasy home, and even into the real world when it grows too powerful to be contained by Lifelight. They leave Zetlin's jump and shut down all of Lifelight, and the Reality Bug is destroyed. The Travelers feel they have beaten Saint Dane--again. But at a ceremony congratulating Aja and explaining the loss of Lifelight, Dr. Sever, prime director of the program, steps up. She turns out to be Saint Dane in disguise, and she stirs up the crowd, promising to bring Lifelight back online. He/She succeeds, everyone reenters Lifelight, and Saint Dane receives his first victory. ===== Private eye Lew Archer finds himself the confidant of a wealthy, violent family with a load of trouble on their hands - including an oil spill, a missing girl, a lethal dose of nembutal, a six figure ransom and a stranger afloat, face down, off a private beach. ===== The members of the Tribulation Force have discovered that their pastor, Bruce Barnes, has been killed during the bombing of a hospital in World War III. Rayford Steele is quickly called to meet Global Community Supreme Potentate and Antichrist Nicolae Carpathia in Dallas, Texas to fly him to New Babylon, Iraq. Meanwhile, Cameron "Buck" Williams and Chloe Steele go to New Hope Village Church to inform Loretta about Bruce. Chloe is in downtown Chicago, Illinois when it is bombed by the Global Community. Buck is eventually able to rescue her after she crashed her Range Rover into a tree. Rayford hears about this and sends Amanda White back to Chicago to help them and to keep her safe because Nicolae was dropping bombs on major cities and he says to her, "If your flight doesn't leave before mine, board my flight", because Ray is piloting the flight that Nicolae is on. On the flight back to New Babylon, Rayford learns much about Nicolae's secret plans through a secret intercom device installed by his former boss at Pan-Continental Airlines, Earl Halliday. Rayford eventually arrives back in New Babylon. Having heard from his friend Chaim Rosenzweig about Tsion Ben-Judah's loss of his wife and children to murder, Buck goes to Israel with charter pilot Ken Ritz. He is led by the two witnesses, Eli and Moishe in Jerusalem, to a boat near the Sea of Galilee. After proving that he is who he says he is, Buck is taken to the shelter where Tsion is hiding for his protection. Tsion has been accused of murdering his family, although he did not do so. Buck and Tsion are given a worn-out bus to drive to Egypt to meet Ritz for the escape to the United States. They meet many obstacles along the way, but are supernaturally protected and arrive in Chicago safely. During this time, Rayford meets with his friend Hattie Durham, and tries to discourage her from having an abortion of her baby that she conceived with Carpathia. Because both Buck and Tsion are international fugitives, Rayford flies back to Chicago for the funeral service for Bruce. The service mainly consists of an evangelical message and predictions of what is to come, all outlined by Rayford himself. Rayford then returns to New Babylon to be joined by his wife later. The stateside Tribulation Force meets Hattie Durham on her journey to see her relatives. After this, Amanda flies to New Babylon to join Rayford. Buck is driving to see Tsion at the hideout where he is when the worldwide earthquake predicted at the funeral begins. The sun goes dark, the moon turns blood-red, and meteors fall from the sky. A quarter of the world's population dies. Buck finds Tsion alive but trapped in the shelter. Condor 216 first officer Mac McCullum flies Carpathia and Rayford to Baghdad International Airport just as Global Community headquarters collapses. As the book ends, only Buck, Tsion, and Rayford are accounted for and safe among the Trib Force. Loretta is confirmed dead. Chloe and Amanda are missing. ===== A gunfight breaks out between the police and Charlie Burns' (Guy Pearce) gang, which ends with the deaths of all of the gang members except for Charlie and his younger brother Mikey. Captain Morris Stanley (Ray Winstone) makes a proposition to Charlie: with Mikey in custody, Charlie has 9 days to kill his older brother, Arthur (Danny Huston), then he and Mikey can go free. During a raid, the police capture some Aborigines who, when questioned, claim that the "white man" (Arthur) they seek is actually a "dog man" and no one goes near his cave. Charlie rides in search of Arthur. He comes to the charred remains of the Hopkins home, a family that was murdered and the wife raped by the Burns gang. Along the way, he encounters an inebriated old man named Jellon Lamb (John Hurt) in a cantina where the owner has been speared to death. Charlie realizes that Lamb is a bounty hunter in pursuit of the Burns brothers and knocks him out. Later on, Charlie awakes and is speared in the chest by a group of Aboriginal men standing over him. Just before passing out, he sees the man who speared him get shot in the head. In town, Eden Fletcher (David Wenham), who hired Morris to "clean up" the area, orders that Mikey be given one hundred lashes as punishment for the rape and murder of the Hopkins family. Stanley is aghast at this, not only because he believes Mikey is not responsible for his actions and the flogging will kill him, but also because it will break his deal with Charlie and bring the Burns gang's revenge upon him and his wife. Stanley sends Sergeant Lawrence away with tracker Jacko (David Gulpillil) and other men to "investigate" the reported slaying of Dan O'Riley (the dead man in the cantina) by a group of Aboriginal people. Charlie wakes up in the camp of his brother Arthur, located in caves among desolate mountains. Arthur's gang consists of Samuel Stoat (Tom Budge), a woman named Queenie (Leah Purcell) who tends to Charlie's wound and a muscular Aboriginal man called Two-Bob (Tom E. Lewis). As he recovers from his wounds, Charlie has several opportunities to kill his brother, but does not. He lies and tells Arthur that Mikey is not with him because he has met a woman. Captain Stanley attempts to defend Mikey at gunpoint from the bloodthirsty townspeople, but is overruled once Martha arrives, insisting on revenge for her dead friends. Mikey is flogged and fatally wounded. The townspeople grow tired at the excessive display, Martha faints and Morris flings the bloody whip at Fletcher, who fires him. Back at the abandoned cantina, Sergeant Lawrence and his men have found and butchered a group of Aboriginal people. Arthur and Two-Bob find Lawrence's group while they sleep and kill Jacko and Sergeant Lawrence. Before Arthur stomps Lawrence to death, Lawrence tells Arthur that Charlie has been sent to kill him. Jellon Lamb enters Arthur's camp and ties up Samuel and Charlie, both of whom are sleeping. Lamb is shot in the stomach by the returning Two-Bob. Arthur stabs Lamb in the heart; Charlie points his revolver at Arthur, but instead shoots Jellon in the head, putting him out of his misery. He finally informs Arthur that Mikey is in custody and is set to hang. Charlie decides to break out Mikey; Arthur, Samuel and Charlie ride into town dressed in the clothes taken from the officers Arthur and Two-Bob had killed, while Two-Bob poses as an Aboriginal man they have captured. Once at the jail, the men free Mikey, and Charlie and Two-Bob ride off with him. Arthur and Samuel remain to behead the two officers inside the jail. The badly injured Mikey dies in Charlie's arms. Morris fears retribution and loads several guns, but he and Martha let their guard down to have a peaceful Christmas dinner. Once they begin, Arthur and Samuel shoot open the door and invade their home. Arthur pulls Morris into another room and brutally beats him. Samuel drags Martha inside, and Arthur has Morris watch as Samuel begins to rape Martha. Charlie walks in and informs Arthur of Mikey's death; Arthur ignores him and encourages Charlie to listen to Samuel's beautiful singing. Charlie shoots Samuel point blank in the head, then shoots Arthur twice, disgusted by his conduct. Arthur staggers out of the house and Charlie follows a trail of blood to find him seated on the ground. Arthur asks Charlie what his next move is, and dies. ===== The four-issue series revolves around the Punisher hunting down a former 1960s radical who was released from prison only to be horribly disfigured when a bomb he and his friend were working on exploded. After exposure to toxic waste, the disfigured radical becomes almost unkillable due to the chemicals mutating him, giving him an accelerated healing factor. ===== Fourteen-year-old Matt Cruse is a cabin boy for the Aurora, an airship that stays afloat using a gas called "hydrium". While on lookout duty, he spots a damaged balloon carrying an unconscious old man. Matt saves the man, whose name is Benjamin Malloy, only to have him die shortly after being taken aboard. His last words ramble about "beautiful creatures" that he supposedly saw on his ill-fated voyage. One year later, Matt leaves his home in Lionsgate City to accompany the Aurora on its voyage to Sydney, Australia. Despite loving his mother and sisters dearly, Matt is relieved to be in the air where he feels closest to his father -- a former sailmaker who died in an accident aboard the Aurora. Matt is disappointed to learn that the Junior Sailmaker position he was promised has been given to the airship fleet's heir, Bruce Lunardi. One day into the voyage, an ornithopter delivers two passengers to the ship: Kate de Vries and her chaperone Marjorie Simpkins. Kate tells Matt that she is Benjamin Malloy's granddaughter and shows him detailed drawings of flying panther-like creatures from Malloy's journal. Intrigued by the possibility that they live their whole lives in the air, Kate reveals that she is on a mission to prove that such creatures are real. A few nights later, the ship is raided by a notorious criminal named Vikram Szpirglas. His gang of pirates plunder the ship of all valuables and kill the chief wireless officer. The pirates proceed to leave, but both ships are caught in a storm. The pirate vessel crashes with the Aurora and tears the Aurora's hull, seriously depleting its supply of hydrium. As the sailmakers scramble to repair the falling Aurora, Matt spots an island and the crew steers toward it. The ship crash lands on the island, which Kate realizes is the island from her grandfather's journal. Kate convinces Matt to help her explore the island, where they discover the skeleton of a large winged creature. A few minutes later, they find an injured member of the same species which they decide to call a "cloud cat". Miss Simpkins tries to lock Kate in her room for associating with Matt. As the repairs near completion, Kate drugs her and takes one last chance to photograph the island's wildlife. Matt and Bruce begin looking for her until they find Kate hidden in a tree saying she found the cloud cat's nest. After luring the cloud cat into a clearing with a fish, the shutter of Kate's camera provokes it into attacking. Bruce suffers severe wounds on his leg from the cloud cat, but Matt and Kate escape into the forest. The two of them stumble upon the pirates, who had set up a secret base on the secluded island. Unrecognized, they ask for shelter in the pirate camp and make a plan to sneak away during the night. During their escape, Kate and Matt are apprehended and thrown into a hydrium pit where there is no oxygen. They use Kate's harem pants as a balloon to lift themselves to ground level as Szpirglas' crew sets out to silence the passengers of the Aurora. Kate begins crying in the forest, blaming herself for putting everyone else in danger. Acting on the feelings he has developed for her, Matt kisses her. She asks him to kiss her again and stops crying. Once Kate and Matt find Bruce, the three make their way to the Aurora, which is being held hostage by eight pirates. They are able to undo the landing lines and cause the ship to take off. Matt's innate knowledge of the flight system allows them to temporarily take control and steer the ship away from the island. After tending to Bruce's wounds in the infirmary, Matt brings a sleeping elixir to the cook so that it can be added to the pirates' soup. Szpirglas' crew murders Bruce in the engine room and chases Matt onto the hull of the Aurora in the open air. Szpirglas pushes Matt off the edge but Matt is able to grab hold of the ship's tail fin. Before attempting to dislodge Matt again, Szpirglas is attacked by a group of cloud cats and is thrown into the sea. The passengers are saved when Matt steers the Aurora back on course. Six months later, Matt meets Kate in Paris, where she is exhibiting her cloud cat skeleton and photographs. Matt reveals that he will attend the Airship Academy, with the help of the reward money for finding Szpirglas' base of operations. Kate plans to begin her zoology studies at a university. ===== Katya Morgan is a rich, pampered heiress who spends her days shopping, partying, and chasing guys until she is disinherited from the family fortune by her father. With no money to her name, and no job skills, Katya takes a job as a maid at the plush Royal Palmetto hotel in Scottsdale, Arizona. But when she falls for Alex Sheridan, the general manager of the hotel, Katya learns that getting what you don't want can sometimes be the best reward of all. ===== In 1947, a United States congressional committee which includes prim Phoebe Frost of Iowa (Jean Arthur) arrives in post-World War II Berlin to visit the American troops stationed there. Phoebe hears rumors that cabaret torch singer Erika von Schlütow (Marlene Dietrich), suspected of being the former mistress of either Hermann Göring or Joseph Goebbels, is being protected by an unidentified American officer. She enlists Captain John Pringle (John Lund), another Iowan, to assist in her investigation, unaware that he is Erika's current lover. After seeing Erika with Adolf Hitler in a newsreel filmed during the war, Phoebe asks John to take her to army headquarters after hours to retrieve the singer's official file. In order to distract her, John woos Phoebe, who initially resists his romantic advances but eventually succumbs to his charms. Colonel Rufus J. Plummer (Millard Mitchell) advises John he is aware of his relationship with Erika and orders him to continue seeing her in the hope she will lead them to another of her ex-lovers, ex-Gestapo agent Hans Otto Birgel (Peter von Zerneck), believed to be hiding in the American occupation zone. Meanwhile, Erika and Phoebe are arrested during a raid designed to catch Germans without proper identification papers at the Lorelei, the nightclub where Erika performs. At the police station, Erika claims Phoebe as her cousin in order to secure her release. Phoebe, grateful for Erika's intercession on her behalf, goes with her to her apartment, where Erika confesses that John is her lover just before he arrives. Humiliated, Phoebe leaves. Colonel Plummer attempts to reconcile Phoebe and John. John is targeted by a jealous and armed Birgel at the Lorelei, but Birgel is killed by American soldiers who shoot him first. Erika is arrested and sentenced to serve time in a labor camp, and Phoebe and John are reunited. ===== "This film is set in 1970s Hollywood, California. This film follows two primary characters, Elijah Starr and Blaze Jones, played by Shaw and Thompson. These two characters are Hollywood Private investigators who attempt to help a newly arrived actress from Hong Kong who is being tracked down by a cult of Vampires." "Vampire Blvd. is like pore without sex scenes, skit without comedy, action-horror with neither." "A mad scientist has created bondage-clad vampires, an Asian babe thinks she being stalked by vampires, a black and white face painted ninja gal writhes in a fast food restaurant, wiggled skate freaks zoom through a canal, Joe Estevez sings and lights a candle, a robot Robert Z'Dar beats his female robot equivalent, Shaw fights invisible bat things in an effect sequence that might have been created with a dot matrix printer, and porn star Jilly Kelly wriggles on a toilet." ===== A Redwall Winter's Tale is the second Redwall picture book. It features the 'molebabe' Bungo and the inhabitants of Redwall trying to decipher more clever riddles. ===== The film follows the novel in presenting a first-person narrative from the point of view of Billy Pilgrim (Sacks), who becomes "unstuck in time" and experiences the events of his life in a seemingly random order, including a period spent on the alien planet of Tralfamadore. Emphasis is placed on his experiences during World War II, including the firebombing of Dresden, as well as time spent with fellow prisoners of war Edgar Derby (Roche) and the psychopathic Paul Lazzaro (Leibman). His life as a husband to Valencia (Gans) and father to Barbara (Near) and Robert (King) are also depicted, as they live and sometimes even enjoy their life of affluence in Ilium, New York. A "sink-or-swim" scene with Pilgrim's father is also featured. The scenes of extraterrestrial life on Tralfamadore feature Hollywood starlet Montana Wildhack (Perrine). ===== In the seaside town of Rochefort, a caravan of trucks arrives, bringing the fair that is coming to the town square over the weekend. The story centers on twin sisters Delphine and Solange. Delphine teaches ballet classes and Solange gives music lessons, but each longs to find her ideal love and a life outside of Rochefort. When the fair comes to town, Delphine and Solange meet two smooth-talking but kind-hearted carnies, Étienne and Bill. The twins' mother Yvonne, who owns a café in the center of town, pines for the fiancé she left impulsively 10 years earlier because of his embarrassing last name, Dame. Yvonne's café becomes a central hub for Étienne and Bill, as well as most of the other characters in the film, including a waitress named Josette. In the café, Yvonne meets Maxence, a sailor about to be demobbed from the navy. Maxence is a poet and painter, and is searching for his ideal woman. Meanwhile, Delphine is unhappy in her relationship with egotistical gallery owner Guillaume, so she ends it. As she is leaving the gallery, she notices a painting that looks remarkably like her, and was in fact painted by Maxence. Delphine becomes determined to meet her secret admirer. Unbeknownst to Yvonne, her former fiancé Simon Dame has recently opened a music store in Rochefort. He knows his fiancée had twins from a previous relationship, but he never met them. Solange, an aspiring composer, enlists Simon's help—unaware of his relationship with her mother—and he promises to introduce her to his successful American colleague Andy Miller. On her way to pick up her younger brother Booboo from school, Solange bumps into a charming foreigner, who turns out to be Andy, though the two do not exchange names. Back in the square, the two female dancers in Étienne and Bill's show run off with sailors, so they ask Delphine and Solange to perform, offering them a free ride to Paris in return. The day after the fair, as the twins are packing, Simon stops by and urges Solange to meet Andy at the music store. Maxence stops by the café to say goodbye to Yvonne before departing for Paris. Moments after he leaves, Delphine shows up to say goodbye as well. Once Yvonne learns that Simon volunteered to pick up Booboo from school, she asks Delphine to watch the café and rushes over to see Simon. Maxence briefly returns to retrieve a bag he had forgotten, but he and Delphine again miss each other. At the music store, Solange realizes that the foreigner is Andy; the two dance and kiss. The truck caravan is leaving, and tired of waiting for Yvonne to return, Delphine takes the road to Paris with Étienne, Bill and Josette. Along the road, Maxence tries to hitchhike his way to Paris. One of the trucks stops to pick him up and is revealed to be the one in which Delphine is, though the long-awaited meeting between the two does not occur on-screen. ===== An unnamed African American hunter walks over to a rabbit hole where Bugs is eating his carrots. Bugs is led to a trunk where he tricks the hunter into destroying the tree. Bugs distracts the hunter after introducing himself, and digs underground and when the hunter realizes that Bugs has his gun. Bugs has the hunter run far enough so he can go down the rabbit hole. Realizing that he has been fooled, the hunter uses a toilet plunger to catch Bugs. However, Bugs tickles the hunter and flees into another rabbit hole. The hunter grabs the plunger, only to find a skunk under him. Next, Bugs lures the hunter into a cave, where they encounter a black bear. All three of them run into the rabbit hole and when Bugs and the hunter realize the bear is in the hole, they run off in fright. Realizing that Bugs is on the hunter while walking, the hunter fires off a swarm of anthropomorphic birdshot bullets. In a madcap chase, the bullets chase Bugs into a series of holes, including a "fake" golf hole and the cave where the skunk is at. Bugs then lures the hunter into a log sitting on the edge of a cliff, through which the hunter runs numerous times (each time running to the other side as Bugs spins the log around so that the hunter keeps running off the cliff) until he falls to the ground. Bugs is confronted by the angered hunter and, in a desperate plea for his life, baits the hunter into playing what turns out to be a "strip" dice game. Bugs wins the game and walks off mocking the hunter's speech and wearing the hunter's clothes, leaving the man with a leaf covering his crotch to quip "Well, call me Adam." Adding further insult to injury, Bugs grabs the leaf during the "iris out". ===== Marie (Anne Parillaud) is a vampire in modern Pittsburgh, with a moral code that limits her bloodsucking to the criminal elements of society. After feasting on mafioso Tony Silva (Chazz Palminteri), she shoots him in the head with a shotgun to cover up the bite marks on his neck and to prevent him from coming back as a vampire. Undercover cop Joseph Gennaro (Anthony LaPaglia) visits the crime scene but is taken off his assignment of infiltrating the crime family of Salvatore "Sal the Shark" Macelli (Robert Loggia) and put into protective custody by District Attorney Sinclair (Angela Bassett) for being seen at the crime scene by the media. The next night, Marie seduces Sal, who takes her back to his mansion for "dinner". She is warded off when Sal serves garlic mussels, and she tries to escape through the bathroom window but finds it barred up. Sal attempts to rape her but Marie overpowers him and drains his blood. Before she can finish him off, Sal's limousine driver, Lenny (David Proval) intervenes and she is forced to flee. Gennaro investigates the scene and follows a trail of blood to a nearby church, where he finds and chases Marie. When Gennaro gets back to his car, Marie finds him and demands that he drive her to the morgue where Sal was taken. Sal, now a vampire, awakens in the morgue and steals a car to drive to the home of his attorney, Manny Bergman (Don Rickles), being seen by police and reporters in his escape. Outside the morgue, Gennaro leaves Marie with his colleagues Detectives Dave Finton (Leo Burmester) and Steve Morales (Luis Guzman) and goes to Bergman's house to pursue Sal. Marie escapes from custody and follows him. At Bergman's home, Sal drinks Bergman's blood and Gennaro is captured by Lenny and Jacko (Tony Sirico). The three mobsters take Gennaro to the docks and attempt to kill him using the compactor of a garbage truck. Marie arrives, saves him and kills Sal's men but Sal manages to escape. Gennaro and Marie attempt to pursue him but the sun rises and Marie has to retreat into a motel. Sal hides in a meat factory that he owns. Bergman is transferred to a hospital but after becoming a vampire, he is burned alive when a nurse opens the window and lets the sunlight in. In the motel, Gennaro and Marie confess their feelings for each other and have sex. The next night, Sal travels to a strip club that he owns and begins turning his men into vampires like him. Gennaro and Marie begin searching Mafia hangouts for Sal. Finton and Morales track him down to the strip club but Sal's men kill Finton. Marie and Gennaro arrive in time to save Morales and kill Sal's men by shooting them in the head. They chase Sal out onto the street, where he causes a collision between a taxi and a bus. Gennaro kills him by igniting him with the leaking gas tank of the bus and then shooting him in the head. Marie can no longer handle being the monster she is, and attempts to commit suicide by the sunlight, stating that she "died a long time ago". Gennaro talks her out of it, telling her that he loves her. Gennaro books her into a nearby hotel and Marie states in a voiceover that he "made [her] feel alive". ===== The ancient monks who preserve the wisdom of the Lost Lands have been frozen in stone by Draxos and his minions. Young Rohan must plunge into the Risky Woods to release them. Only then can wisdom triumph once again. ===== Stan, Cartman, Kenny, and Timmy have joined Mountain Scouts troop number 69 and are on their way to their first meeting. When they arrive, they find that their scoutmaster is Big Gay Al. The boys enjoy themselves at the meeting and decide that they like Mountain Scouts, but some parents fear that Big Gay Al will be a poor influence on the boys and that he may be a pedophile. After a lifetime of membership, Big Gay Al is thrown out of Mountain Scouts by the Head. A new, masculine, scoutmaster named Mr. Grazier is appointed and he promises the parents he will whip the boys into line and make them good scouts, but proceeds to force them to pose for naked pictures with a threat to beat them up if they let this slip. Meanwhile, Jimmy, a new handicapped boy, comes to town and also joins Mountain Scouts. Jimmy is a stand-up comedian and immediately becomes very popular. Timmy, the other handicapped boy in town, becomes incredibly jealous of the adoration given to the new kid. Timmy tries to undermine Jimmy in any way possible, including offering him an orange parka as a gift, in order to make him resemble Kenny (playing off the running gag that Kenny dies in almost every episode in the first few seasons) and even though Jimmy is nearly killed by a falling safe, a hawk, a fire, a stampede of cows, one of the American Space Shuttles, and gunshots from Jimbo and Ned, his efforts proved futile. In an attempt to get rid of Mr. Grazier without giving away his secret, the boys assemble their own protest march all the way to the grocery store parking lot, and use Jimmy's stand-up comedy to draw in a crowd. However, the performance goes sour when he tries to enlist Timmy's participation, and Timmy refuses. Quickly, they break out into a lengthy fistfight. A very excited Cartman calls it a "cripple fight" and quickly gathers everyone to watch. From the outside, the crowd seems to be for the boy's protest, so it is picked up by the South Park media. A national controversy erupts as the Mountain Scouts are called a hate group by the media and prominent supporters like Steven Spielberg withdraw their support. Big Gay Al sues the Mountain Scouts, while Mr. Grazier is revealed to be a pedophile who goes by the name "Mr. Slippyfist" and is arrested. Although the Colorado State Supreme Court rules in Big Gay Al's favor and orders the Mountain Scout Elders to take him back and be put in stocks for three days so they can feel like outcasts, Al refuses, saying that while he appreciated what the boys have done for him, he feels "it isn't right to force them to think our way," and while they should be talked into changing their minds, he begs people not to cut their funding or support for the Scouts, adding that he loves the Scouts for the work they do and that they are a private organization. This causes Big Gay Al's lawyer Gloria Allred to brand him as a homophobe. At the same time, Kenny is carried off by an eagle (so it looks like, but in the end of episode, Kenny is in the Mountain Scout meeting with other kids totally alive and healthy). At the scouts meeting at the end of the episode, with the Head now in charge, Timmy brings up a photoshopped picture of Jimmy's head on an actual, non-animated man's body, embracing another man. Due to the scouts' views on homosexuality, Jimmy is booted out of the scouts. The episode ends with Timmy declaring "Timmy!" in delight. ===== ===== Brute Force takes place in the year 2340, when the human race has spread out across the galaxy and settled around 50 star systems, which are collectively known as the "Known Worlds". The major colonies and some alien races are governed by what is known as the Confederation of Allied worlds (usually referred to as the "Confed"). They patrol borders, protect their people, and keep watch on hostile alien races, as well as humans who wish to work for the aliens. The game begins with a scene showing a sandstorm and the first character known as Tex fighting off an unknown force when suddenly a dropship he was about to board takes off without him. When he defends himself from what now looks like snakes, they overrun and kill him. His memory chip is re-obtained and he is cloned. He then gets his mission briefing from his commander on invading a small base on a planet named Estuary, occupied by former mercenary allies known as Red Hand. After he successfully completes his mission, he is sent on another mission on a planet called Ferix where new allies to the Confederation are located, he is told to find the second member of the Brute Force, a Feral alien named Brutus, who is trying to defend himself and his fellow colonists against uprising by exiled feral outcasts. After that situation, Brutus wants to kill his clan leader who is evidently now an Outcast. The next mission has the team recover a briefcase on another planet called Caspian, but the Colonists that control the station have been mutated by exposure to toxic chemicals into Mutants. So the team clear out the zone and find the briefcase. They are assigned to find a third member of the team named Hawk, whom Tex is surprised to find out is female. They find her on a planet called Osiris where natives known as Seers and reach their leader known as Shadoon. They find a spy who tells them information about the Outcast operation on Ferix saying that Shadoon was behind the situation. After guiding the spy, they find out that the Seers are also being helped by the Fire Hounds. They clear out everything and then return to Estuary where there are still reports of Red Hand on the planet, they intend to find some computers and destroy them to stop the Red Hand from transferring data to an unknown location, they are however backed up by Mutants, it is however unknown how they got there (likely Estuary's colonists have the same problem as Caspian's). After clearing out the last of the Red Hand on Estuary, they return to Caspian to meet the last member of the team, Flint. They are tasked to track down someone known as Edward Kingman, who was funding the Red Hand. However, they must battle their way through Mutants who have slaughtered the Militia and are now guarding the Outline Perimeter for Kingman's zone. After taking out Kingman, they return to Ferix to locate a crashed Confederation ship which was shot down, then return to Osiris to destroy a spire in which the Seers are using for something unknown. They stop this, however, and then return to Ferix one last time to find that the Seers are on a ship to Ferix. The Confederation manage to shoot it down, but the Outcasts locate the crash site. The Seers and Outcasts team up to defend themselves against the team, meaning that Brute Force have to fight Seers as well as Outcasts. On the next mission they are tasked to find a traitorous Confed colonel, named Gunther Ghent, who trained with Hawk's recon unit, only to find out he was selling weapons to the Red Hand. They then head back down to Caspian to take out a Super Mutant in one last encounter with the Mutants. They return to Osiris one last time to finally kill Shadoon, who is guarded by millions of Fire Hounds, Seers, and Psionic Artillery. They find out that a Commset has crashed on a planet called Singe. The Commset is being guarded by Fire Hounds, as well as Red Hand, who are working together to guard the Commset. They are then sent to Caspian to find a Synthetic traitor named Ty Mctavish, who is identical to Flint, the team has one last battle with Kingman's associates before heading out. They are sent to an asteroid named LB-429 where Mctavish was sending unknown data to an unknown contact on the planet, they investigate and find out the asteroid is infested by a race called the Shrikes. They find their leader, a Hunter Lord. The Shrikes are now invading Caspian, then later on, the team returns to Estuary one last time after so many missions not on Estuary. Now occupied by Shrikes, the team is now tasked to find some Alien Technology of unknown origin so the Confed can examine it. Then they return to LB-429 where they find the last of the Shrikes, and plan to finally destroy the Asteroid. They manage to kill the Hunter Lord and get evacuated, while several Confed jets destroy the asteroid. After the end, the team is seen walking into a dazing sunlight on an unknown planet (most likely Estuary), meaning they are finished with their jobs and are free to go. ===== In the early 1980s, retired Marine Colonel Jason Rhodes is obsessed with finding his son Frank, an Army Lieutenant listed as "missing in action" (MIA) since 1972. After 10 years of searching Southeast Asia and turning up several leads, Rhodes believes that Frank is still alive and being kept in Laos as a prisoner of war. After petitioning the United States government for help, but receiving none, Colonel Rhodes brings together a disparate group of Vietnam War veterans, including some who were a part of Frank's platoon: Wilkes, a "tunnel rat" who suffers from PTSD; "Blaster", a demolitions expert; and "Sailor", a crazed, yet loyal machine gunner. Called Sailor for his tendency to get high and just "sail away", he had a hand grenade tied around his neck with the idea that if life ever got too difficult he'd pull the pin and see what's on the other side. Additionally, two helicopter pilot acquaintances of Rhodes, Distinguished Flying Cross recipient Johnson and Charts, join the group. Former Force Recon Marine Kevin Scott joins the team and later turns out to be the son of a pilot who was shot down in Vietnam and listed as MIA. With the financial backing of good friend and rich oil businessman McGregor, whose son served in Frank's platoon and is also listed among the missing, the men train near Galveston, Texas in preparation to undertake a rescue mission at a remote POW camp in Laos. As the team arrives in Southeast Asia, the CIA, fearing an international crisis from Rhodes' actions, intercepts him in Bangkok and confiscates his weapons and equipment. Still determined to rescue their comrades, the team members put together their expense money given to them by McGregor to purchase replacement weapons and supplies. Rhodes contacts an acquaintance, deposed local drug baron Jiang, who joins the expedition with his two daughters Lai Fun and Mai Lin. Jiang manages to supply them with outdated but capable World War II-era weapons. In the course of the expedition, Charts gradually forms a relationship with Lai Fun. Near the Laotian border, the group is attacked by a border patrol unit and Mai Lin is killed. Later, the group divides: Rhodes leads Charts, Sailor, Johnson and Lai Fun as the "air team" to a helicopter compound to secure escape transportation, while Jiang, Blaster, Scott and Wilkes scout out the prison camp as the "ground team." The ground team later discovers four Americans among the prisoners, but are unable to ascertain Frank's whereabouts. The teams spend the night preparing before commencing the attack the next morning. Blaster sets up demolitions, while Rhodes and his team discover that the air base is not where they expected it to be. Hiking through the jungle, they find it, get the choppers and take off, but are late in arriving at the camp. Blaster makes the decision to blow his charges to prevent the prisoners from leaving the camp, even though the choppers haven't arrived. In a heated battle, they manage to spring the prisoners, among them McGregor's son, but Frank is not among them. Blaster, Sailor and Jiang are killed in the process. Sailor, standing atop a tower is mortally wounded, then sees the soldiers about to use a RPG to take out the remaining helicopter. He pulls the pin on his grenade and leaps onto the soldiers, killing all of them. From McGregor's son, Rhodes learns that Frank became ill soon after his capture and died, despite McGregor's son's best efforts. It is revealed that Frank was the soldier who stopped to carry a wounded McGregor during the platoon's evacuation to the helicopters in Vietnam in 1972 (as seen in the opening scene), but they were left behind as the helicopter carrying Blaster, Sailor and Wilkes departed the hot landing zone. Stateside, the group is joyously welcomed by their families with media attention and fanfare. Rhodes finds that in learning the fate of his son, he has gained some closure for his wife and himself. ===== Rupert Marshetta (Keanu Reeves) has a mind of his own, he's frustrated with his parents, especially his dad (Fred Ward), and doesn't fit in with other youth. He is also in love with an older woman, Carla (Amy Madigan). One day the dad tells Rupert he sees himself as the king of Pennsylvania, his wife as the queen, and Rupert as the prince who will inherit his kingdom. He shows Rupert an old trailer and asks him if he sells the land, what he would do with the money. Increasingly frustrated with how life is going, Rupert schemes with Carla to kidnap the father to get money to enjoy a future together. He is held in the old trailer. Meanwhile, Rupert discovers the land has already been sold and the money is nowhere to be found. The dad is then taken to the mine where he works and held near a portable toilet. Rupert eventually thinks the money has been hidden in the toilet, which is chained closed. He prepares dynamite to blow open the toilet. Mine rescue workers and police arrive on scene. ===== Ward stars as 1948 hardboiled private detective H. Philip Lovecraft, in a fictional Los Angeles where magic is real, monsters and mythical beasts stalk the back alleys, zombies are used as cheap labor, and everyone—except Lovecraft—uses magic every day. Yet, cars, telephones and other modern technology also exist in this world. Lovecraft is hired by wealthy Amos Hackshaw to find Hackshaw's former chauffeur Larry Willis, who has stolen a mysterious grimoire called the Necronomicon, and recover the missing book within forty-eight hours. However, what seems like a simple "Forty bucks a day and expenses" case turns out to be not so simple, and things take a chilling turn as he finds himself embroiled in a plot involving magical hitmen, pure damsels, old flames and enemies and ancient evils, all connected by the Necronomicon, that may lead to the destruction of the world. ===== In 1871, William Blake, a wealthy man suffering from leprosy arranges to purchase half of Antonio Island, off the coast of Oregon, to establish a leper colony for his afflicted people. However, island residents Patrick Malone, Norman Castle, Richard Wayne and David Williams double cross Blake. During a foggy night, they loot his clipper ship, the Elizabeth Dane, and set it on fire, killing all aboard. One hundred and thirty-four years later, the residents of Antonio Island prepare to honor their founding fathers—the same men who burned the Elizabeth Dane—and a statue of them is to be unveiled on the town's anniversary. During a boating trip, Nick Castle and his friend Spooner unwittingly disturb a bag containing a pocket watch and a hairbrush from the Elizabeth Dane lying on the seabed. That night, Nick meets his former girlfriend, Elizabeth Williams, who has returned after six months. Elizabeth is shown the antique pocket watch by Machen, an old man who found it washed up on the beach. He warns her ominously "if you touch it, things will change." The watch begins ticking as Elizabeth holds it. She sees a hallmark on it, which includes a set of scales. Later, supernatural occurrences start to plague the town. Objects move by themselves, power outages occur, and the windows in Nick's truck inexplicably shatter. Nick and Elizabeth then encounter drunken priest Father Malone, who is ranting about murderers and retribution. Meanwhile, at the local radio station, host Stevie Wayne gets a phone call from weatherman Dan about a large fog bank off the coast. Out at sea on Nick's boat, Spooner and Nick's cousin Sean are partying with two young women, Mandi and Jennifer. As the fog reaches them, the boat's engine stops, and the instruments break. An old clipper ship appears in the fog next to them. Seemingly possessed, Jennifer draws a set of scales on a misted window inside the boat. Unseen forces then kill Mandi, Jennifer, and Sean. At Nick's beach house, Elizabeth has been dreaming about the Elizabeth Dane. She searches the Internet for information about the hallmark symbol she saw earlier, but her computer malfunctions, and the word "Dane" appears on the screen. She hears a knock at the front door, goes outside but finds nothing. Walking down to the beach, the fog begins approaching, but Nick brings her back inside. The next day, Nick's Uncle Hank telephones him about the disappearance of his boat. Nick and Elizabeth sail out and find the vessel and the three corpses. Elizabeth goes into the hold and finds Spooner alive in a freezer. They return to the island where Mayor Tom Malone—Father Malone's father—suspects Spooner of the murders. In the morgue, Sean's corpse briefly rises up and accosts Elizabeth. At the library, Elizabeth researches the scales symbol seen on the watch's hallmark. It represented an old trading colony north of Antonio Island, which generated substantial wealth through intercontinental trade but was abandoned due to a leprosy outbreak. At the docks, Elizabeth finds the buried journal of Patrick Malone from 1871. She and Nick learn the story of the Elizabeth Dane and realize the founders built the town with the fortune they had stolen from the ship, but kept this secret from their families and the townsfolk. The ghosts of the Elizabeth Dane seek revenge against Antonio Island's residents for the past crimes of its founding fathers. After killing Dan at the weather station, they pursue Stevie's son Andy and his Aunt Connie at home. Connie is killed, but Nick and Elizabeth rescue Andy. In her car, Stevie is also attacked, but she escapes. They travel to the Town Hall where the founders' murderous secrets are exposed. The spirits kill Hank Castle, Kathy Williams and the Malones. The ghost of Blake then seeks Elizabeth. Despite being a descendant of David Williams, Elizabeth is the reincarnation of Blake's wife and was one of her ancestor's victims, thus; her mysterious dreams about the Elizabeth Dane. Blake kisses Elizabeth, she transforms into a spirit and disappears as Nick watches helplessly. The next day, the survivors try to cope with their traumatic experiences and the truth about their ancestors. As Stevie reflects on the night's events with her listeners, Nick throws Patrick Malone's journal into the sea. ===== Krasicki's novel is the tale of Nicholas Experience (Mikołaj Doświadczyński), a Polish nobleman. During sojourns in Warsaw, Paris, and the fictional island of Nipu (based on Japan, known to natives as Nippon), the protagonist gathers numerous experiences that lead him to a rationalist outlook and teach him how to become a good man, and thus a good citizen. This rationalist outlook, often emphasized in Krasicki's writings, constitutes an apologia for the Enlightenment and physiocratism. The Adventures of Nicholas Experience offers a portrayal both of the 18th-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and of the broader European culture of the time. ===== While in her house alone teenager Screw Frombehind (Aimee Graham) is attacked by "The Killer". While being chased, Screw accidentally runs into a bug zapper and is electrocuted. The killer's disappointed he was not the cause of her death, lights a cigarette, leading to melting his Jason Voorhees mask, revealing a Scream mask underneath. The next day new kid Dawson Deery (Harley Cross) registers at Bulimia Falls High School, meeting a new group of friends including Boner (Danny Strong), Slab (Simon Rex), Barbara (Julie Benz) and Martina (Majandra Delfino), to whom Dawson takes a liking, though he is unsure if she is a lesbian. While the group discusses the death of Screw, they remain certain they are safe at school, not noticing the chaos that surrounds them, including a nuclear bomb being built and the killer attempting to murder a student as well as making an attempt on the presidents life. The group encounters EmpTV News reporter Hagitha Utslay (Tiffani-Amber Thiessen), who is covering a series of murders, having already written a best-selling pop-up book about them, and accuses Dawson as being the killer. They then meet Barbara's brother Doughy (Tom Arnold), an inept security guard who recently lost his job patrolling a shopping mall and is working to find the killer. However, he believes Screw's death was a harmless prank. As the group talks, they do not notice Hagitha's cameraman being murdered. As the day progresses, more and more students are murdered. While in class, each of the group receives a letter from the killer, revealing he knows a secret about them. Each of the group recalls a time when they were drunk-driving and hit a deer, before dumping it in the sea. This event leads them to keep their own secrets; Martina not giving her grandmother laxatives, Boner accidentally causing his brother to be killed in prison, Slab smoking his uncle's ashes, and Barbara accidentally removing the "do not remove tag" from a mattress. Meanwhile, Hagitha and Doughy continuously flirt with each other. As the group meets up, Dawson gets a letter too, as he was in fact run over by the others while dressed up in a deer costume due to a hillbilly forcing him to wear it and do salt lick. The hillbilly died in an explosion caused by him farting in the fire place. The group decides they should spend the night in a secluded house, so they decided to go to Slab's after school. As the day progresses, each of the group members are attacked but manage to escape. The killer confronts Principal Interest (Coolio), but he electrocutes himself in a bathtub. At night, everyone goes to Slab's party. Boner takes an unconscious girl up to a bedroom, attempting to lose his virginity. The killer attacks him, but Boner suffers a heart attack before the killer can murder him. Martina goes over the rules of a parody movie, before Barbara is chased outside by the killer. However, Barbara suffers an allergic reaction to bee stings before the killer can murder her. As the rest of the party people leave, Martina makes a move on Dawson, before they find Slab has abused steroids, which causes his head to explode. Martina and Dawson are then chased by the killer, as Hagitha and Doughy play strip poker nearby instead of investigating the murders. Martina and Dawson defeat the killer as Hagitha and Doughy arrive. The killer is revealed as Hardy, Doughy's "evil twin cousin", whom Doughy is going to let get away with the murders, but Hagitha accidentally shoots Hardy before leaving Doughy for a pizza boy. Martina, Dawson and Doughy leave the house, where they find Boner still alive, due to him taking an entire bottle of viagra, allowing his blood to continue to pump after his heart attack. As Martina and Dawson leave, they get a call from the killer, but Dawson hangs up on him and he follows them. After the end credits, there's a tag called "Where The Hell Are They Now?" that reveals events about Dawson and Martina, Slab, Barbara, Nurse Kevorkian, Mr. Buchanan and Resusci-Annie, Boner and his doctor (who's a transgender), Mr. Hasselhof, Hagitha, Doughy, the Killer, and the movie's film crew, and that the high school has a new and improved killer. ===== The storyline follows Nanoha Takamachi, a nine-year-old Japanese girl attending elementary school, who lives with her parents and her older siblings. Nanoha's regular daily life ends when she rescues an injured ferret who reveals himself as a young shapeshifting mage named Yūno Scrya. An archaeologist from a parallel universe called Midchilda, Yūno came to Earth to collect a set of 21 dangerous ancient artifacts named the that he first discovered in his own world. Jewel Seeds give living beings who come into contact with them unnatural powers, often turning them into monsters. Yūno, injured while trying to collect them, must now rely on Nanoha while he convalesces in ferret form. He gives Nanoha an "intelligent device" (magical wand) called , and she unexpectedly shows strong aptitude for magic. As the two gather the Jewel Seeds, Nanoha learns magic from Yūno while continuing with her ordinary everyday life. In retrieving her sixth Jewel Seed, Nanoha encounters another magical girl named Fate Testarossa and her familiar named Arf. More than a year before the story began, Fate's mother, Precia Testarossa, went insane when her daughter Alicia died, initiating "Project Fate", an illegal research program of cloning and resurrection, making her a fugitive from the inter-dimensional police known as Time-Space Administration Bureau (TSAB). Precia cloned Alicia to create Fate and implanted her with Alicia's memories; nevertheless, she cannot care for Fate as she did for Alicia and abuses her regularly. Despite this, Fate is extremely loyal to her due to Alicia's happy childhood memories, which she takes as her own. In the series, Precia uses Fate to collect Jewel Seeds to reach Al Hazard, a mythical world where Alicia could be truly brought back to life. Nanoha and Fate repeatedly face off over each new Jewel Seed they find, and the TSAB soon interferes to prevent the collateral damage caused by their battles. Nanoha eventually manages to overpower Fate and brings her to the TSAB, prompting Precia to abandon her and attempt a dimensional jump to Al Hazard with the power of the few Jewel Seeds that Fate has managed to gather. Gathering her resolve, Fate decides to aid the TSAB and Nanoha in their fight to stop Precia. Although they minimize the destructive side-effects of using the Jewel Seeds, they fail to prevent Precia from finishing the spell, and her final whereabouts remains unknown. Fate and Nanoha decide to become friends, but Fate must first back to Midchilda to prove that she was an unwilling accessory in Precia's crimes. ===== Six months following the events of the previous series, Nanoha Takamachi and Fate Testarossa have been exchanging video mails to tell each other of their situations on Earth and in the Time-Space Administration Bureau respectively. However, on the night Fate returns, Nanoha and her friends come into conflict with the Belkan Knights, Signum, Vita, Zafira, and Shamal, who are tasked with filling the pages of the Book of Darkness to protect their master, a wheelchair bound girl named Hayate Yagami. It is up to Nanoha, Fate and the Time-Space Administration Bureau to solve the mystery of the Book of Darkness, the Belkan Knights and their master. ===== All of the invitations for the Fifth World Fighting Tournament have been sent. And now, the 17 best fighters in the world begin their final phases of preparation. They must learn from their prior mistakes and perfect every aspect of their mind, body, and soul - for there is no room for mistakes in this competition. They are unaware that J6, the organization funding the tournament, has sinister ulterior motives for the contest and the company's top secret Dural program is already underway. In the organization's quest for world domination, the scientists at J6 are creating the ultimate fighting machine with human features. Their first model was defeated in the Fourth World Fighting Tournament, which drove them to kidnap Vanessa. She was able to escape with the help of an insider, but not before they captured her combat data and transferred it to the new advanced Dural model named V-Dural. J6 is determined to find out the traitor that released Vanessa and see if V-Dural is ready to defeat the world's best fighters. The Fifth World Fighting Tournament will reveal both. Let it begin. ===== The novel tells the story of Florence Waters, a free-spirited, quirky fountain designer on her quest to create a unique and beautiful fountain for the children of Dry Creek. Through a series of misunderstandings and funny situations, the kids uncover a scandal that shocks the entire town. They end up with a fantastic fountain and a new friend. But suddenly Sam N's class finds out the truth on what really happened that day when the creek dries up. Two people named Sally Mander and Delbert "Dee" Eel capped off the pipes that lead to the spring and redirected them back to Dee's waters company and Sally's swimming pool in their scandal to make thousands of dollars until one day a few fifth-graders caught them, and threw them behind bars. The city that was once known as Spring Creek, then Dry Creek was renamed Geyser Creek. ===== "Ai Shite Knight" is set in Osaka and tells the story of Yaeko "Yakko" Mitamura, an 18-year-old girl working in her father's Okonomiyaki restaurant. One day Yakko meets a little boy named Hashizo and his odd cat Juliano. Hashizo had lost both parents when still a baby and has been brought up by his elder brother Go. Go Kato is the lead singer of the emerging rock band "Bee Hive." When Yakko meets Go and his friend and "Bee Hive" member Satomi Okawa, an unexpected series of events and a tangled romance unfold. The main narrative of "Ai Shite Knight" is essentially a love story, but has interesting and innovative elements introduced to it by Kaoru Tada, most notably the portrayal of the Japanese music scene in the early '80s. In creating characters such as Go, Satomi and their band "Bee Hive", Tada was inspired by well-known bands of the time such as "The Stalin", "Novela", "Primadonna" and "44Magnum." Tada also plays with sexual provocation and sexual ambiguity, mainly embodied by the character of "Kiss Relish" vocalist Kazuma Kataoka/Sheila, although these elements were considerably toned down in the anime version of the story. ===== This action series focused on a group of commandos recruited from stateside prisons to use their special skills against the Germans in World War II. They had been promised a parole at the end of the war if they worked out (and if they lived). The alternative was an immediate return to prison; if they ran, they could expect execution for desertion. The four were: "Actor" (Cesare' Danova), a handsome, resonant-voiced con man; "Casino" (Rudy Solari), a tough, wiry safe-cracker and mechanic; "Goniff" (Christopher Cary), a slender, likable cat burglar; and "Chief" (Brendon Boone), a rugged, somber American Indian who handled a switchblade like he was born to it. No real names were ever used, only their "monikers" or aliases. Led by West Pointer First Lt. Craig Garrison (Ron Harper) and headquartered in a secluded mansion in London, this slippery group ranged all over Europe in exploits that often took them behind enemy lines. Other recruits were sometimes brought in where special skills were required. In the episode "Banker's Hours", Jack Klugman's character is recruited to help loot a vault. In "The Magnificent Forger", comedian Larry Storch plays a con brought in to help 'doctor' a Gestapo list of American agents. And in the two- parter "War And Crime/Plot to Kill", a con played by Richard Kiley is recruited because he is a dead ringer for a German field marshal who was part of a plot to assassinate Hitler. The episodes are set in 1941, 1942, 1943 and 1944. ===== Set during World War II, the film is about students in Leiden, the Netherlands: Erik Lanshof, Guus LeJeune, Jan Weinberg, and Alex. Robby Froost is Erik's friend; Esther is Robby's girlfriend. Some collaborate; others join the Dutch resistance. It begins with a flashforward: an immediately post war newsreel of Queen Wilhelmina returning to the Netherlands. The film then moves to the late 1930s in Leiden, where freshmen undergo the initiation rites of their fraternity. Erik is picked out by Guus, the chair, who drops a bowl of soup on his head, injuring him. Guus apologises and offers a room in his student house. There, the students (Erik, Guus, Jacques, Jan, and Alex) drink to their friendship. In September 1939, an English radio broadcast interrupts their tennis, announcing the declaration of war against Germany. Initially, they are unalarmed, believing the Netherlands will remain neutral as in World War I. Jan, a Jew, and Alex, who is half German, join the Dutch Army. In May 1940, Germany invades. Erik and Guus try to join up, but are fobbed off. Soon, the Netherlands capitulates after the Rotterdam Blitz. Robby is in contact with the Dutch government-in-exile via a radio transmitter in his garden and offers Erik a flight to London. Jan, a boxing champion, assaults two fascists harassing a Jewish hawker, so Erik offers his seat to Jan. However, the Germans intercept the pick up: Jan is captured but Erik escapes. Erik sees Alex marching in a departing military parade of the Waffen-SS. Later, Erik is also captured. Jan tells him, based on his interrogator's comment, that a Van der Zanden in London betrayed them. Jan, who resists interrogation, is executed on the Waalsdorpervlakte dunes. Robby's radio is discovered, and he is forced to work for the Gestapo by their threat of deporting Esther, a Jew, to a Polish labour camp. Erik and Guus flee for London on the Swiss cargo ship St. Cergue.ST. CERGUE History, swiss-ships.ch In London, Erik meets Van der Zanden (modelled after general François van 't Sant) and tries to kill him. However he is not a traitor, but head of the Dutch Central Intelligence Service and a private secretary to Queen Wilhelmina. Guus begins an affair with Susan, a secretary in British intelligence. Erik and Guus agree to rescue resistance leaders for post-war roles. Guus is taken ashore and meets the leaders. As Guus' radio has been damaged by seawater, they use Robby to contact London. Erik then follows to arrange Guus and the resistance leaders' departure by sea. However, Robby has infiltrated the group and so the Germans have followed them. Erik sees Robby with them and tries unsuccessfully to warn them. After ducking into the beach mansion party for cover, seeing Alex and dancing ballroom tango with him, Erik meets the others on the beach. When Robby realises Erik knows about his collaboration, he fires a signal flare. Despite German warnings, the group tries to flee but the leaders are killed. Guus escapes by swimming, but only Erik reaches the ship. Guus later shoots Robby in the street. He flees, but is caught and guillotined. On the Eastern Front, Alex is killed in a latrine by a hand grenade from a boy he had mocked when the boy begged for food. Erik becomes an RAF bomber pilot and is later appointed aide to Queen Wilhelmina, and accompanies her home. Erik finds that Dutch citizens have cut off Esther's hair as punishment for her and Robby's collaboration. She says she bears no grudge. Finally, Erik celebrates the end of the war with a fellow student, Jacques ten Brinck, who also survived. ===== Gerald Tilson, a finance executive, finds himself thrown out by his wife when she discovers women's underwear in their flat; in fact the clothes belong to him. He takes lodgings with Monica, who gradually discovers his alter ego, "Geraldine". A subplot deals with his boss' plan to defraud their Japanese clients, and how the couple thwart it. ===== An anthropologist, Professor Robert Orville Sutwell, is secretly studying the "wild mating habits" of Southern California teenagers who hang out at the beach and speak in strange surfing-jargon. After he temporarily paralyzes Eric Von Zipper, the leader of the local outlaw motorcycle club, The Rats, who was making unwanted advances on Dolores, she develops a crush on the Professor. Her surfing boyfriend Frankie becomes jealous and begins flirting with Ava, a Hungarian waitress. Meanwhile, Sutwell's assistant Marianne further develops her crush on the Professor. Von Zipper and his gang plot to bring down Sutwell, only to be thwarted in the end by the surfing teenagers. ===== Ruthless East End gangster Vic Dakin has plans for an ambitious raid on the wages van of a plastics factory. This is a departure from Dakin's usual modus operandi and the job is further complicated by his having to work with fellow gangster Frank Fletcher's firm. The film's intricate sub-plots explore Dakin's sadistic nature, his relationship with small time associate Wolfie and his irritation at having to work with Frank Fletcher's seemingly weak brother-in-law Ed Lowis. Other parts of the story follow Wolfie's bisexual liaisons with Venetia and Dakin, the blackmail of MP Gerald Draycott to provide a cast-iron alibi for Dakin and the dogged detectives Bob Matthews and Tom Binney pursuing Dakin. ===== A couple on an airline trip are in trouble when the plane crashes into the ocean. The husband Nick Arden (James Garner) survives the crash, but his wife Ellen Wagstaff Arden (Doris Day) is never found and declared lost at sea. The couple have two young daughters, Jenny and Didi. After five years of searching Nick decides it is time to move on with his life. He has her declared legally dead so he can marry Bianca (Polly Bergen), all on the same day. However, Ellen is alive; she is rescued and returns home that particular day. At first crestfallen, she is relieved to discover from her mother-in-law Grace (Thelma Ritter) that her ("ex") husband's honeymoon has not yet started. When Nick is confronted by Ellen, he eventually clears things up with Bianca, but he then learns the entire time Ellen was stranded on the island, she was there with another man, the handsome, athletic Stephen Burkett (Chuck Connors) – and that they called each other "Adam" and "Eve". Nick's mother has him arrested for bigamy. All parties appear before the same judge who had married Nick and Bianca earlier that day. Bianca and Ellen request divorces before the judge sends them all away. Bianca leaves Nick, while Ellen storms out, still married to Nick, declared alive again. Ellen returns to Nick's house unsure if her children will recognize her. Her children welcome her home, and so does Nick. ===== The series is set in Circus Town, a self-sufficient city whose cultural center is the "Big Top" tent. The story focuses on JoJo Tickle, a young female clown, and Goliath, JoJo's pet lion. She and Goliath learned at the Little Big Top Circus School, where all young soon-to-be circus performers learn under their teacher Mrs. Kersplatski. Along with her friends, JoJo explores and learns while dealing with challenging situations. ===== The time has come for Frogger to go through his "rite of passage." He has reached an age where every frog must make the transition from boy-frog to teenage-frog. In order to make that transition, Frogger will journey to the Chamber of the Elders on his most significant birthday and stand before the eight venerable members of the Elder Council. Upon meeting the council, Frogger will be asked to enter a magic portal that will warp him into each one of the elder's worlds. These worlds serve as a personal test for Frogger to prove that he is a teenager. Category:2002 video games Category:GameCube games Category:PlayStation 2 games Category:Xbox games Category:Windows games Category:Frogger Category:Video games developed in the United States Category:RenderWare games ===== Mutant pop-star Lila Cheney organizes a free concert in Central Park to promote diversity in society and invites Professor Charles Xavier to speak at the concert. His speech is interrupted by Stryfe who, disguised as his doppelganger and nemesis Cable, shoots Xavier with a bullet that infects the professor with a lethal strain of the Techno-organic virus. Meanwhile, War and Famine, the Horsemen of Apocalypse, attack Iceman and Colossus, distracting them from Caliban, who kidnaps Cyclops and Jean Grey. The Horsemen are working for Mr. Sinister, who is impersonating the Horsemen's former master Apocalypse. Mr. Sinister organized the kidnapping as part of his newly formed alliance with Stryfe. Stryfe trades Mr. Sinister a canister containing the past and future Summers family DNA history, and receives Jean Grey and Cyclops in the exchange. While Xavier is rushed to the hospital, X-Factor and the Blue X-Men strike team go after X-Force, Cable's team of mutants. X-Force, however, is in the dark about Cable's current location (having been separated from him during a S.H.I.E.L.D.-organized raid of their headquarters). But mutual distrust causes the two groups to attack and ultimately capture X-Force. Meanwhile, Mr. Sinister doublecrosses Stryfe by revealing to the X-Men that Stryfe, under the guise of Cable, was the shooter. While the Blue X-Men strike team, X-Factor, Boom Boom and Cannonball go after the Mutant Liberation Front, Storm's Gold X-Men strike team, along with Quicksilver, confront Apocalypse over Scott and Jean's kidnapping, hoping as well to gain a cure for the virus that is threatening Xavier's life. Apocalypse is incredibly weak, having been nearly killed by Cyclops in their previous encounter and prematurely awoken from his regeneration chamber by his minions the Dark Riders. After learning from the Dark Riders that someone had been impersonating him, and ordered his old minions to kidnap Jean and Scott, Apocalypse barely escapes with his life. Archangel finds himself becoming more and more consumed with punishing Apocalypse for his crimes, most notably Apocalypse's converting Archangel into the blue-skinned, metal winged angel of death. The Mutant Liberation Front is defeated, though at the cost of Rogue being blinded by MLF member Strobe. Meanwhile, Bishop and Wolverine locate Cable and after a brawl, decide to give him the benefit of the doubt and work together to find Jean and Scott. Apocalypse is ambushed by Stryfe, who declares that he is out for revenge for unknown wrongs committed against him as a child by Apocalypse. After Stryfe stabs him in the chest, Apocalypse escapes and seeks refuge amongst the X-Men, ultimately curing Xavier of the techno-organic virus as payment for sanctuary. Cyclops and Jean are systematically tortured by Stryfe, who blames the two mutants for ruining his life, a claim that leaves the two X-Men stunned since they never encountered Stryfe before their kidnapping. Stryfe and his new minions the Dark Riders, who pledge their allegiance to Stryfe after he defeats Apocalypse, move the two to Apocalypse's former base on the Moon. Scott and Jean escape, entering the vacuum before realizing they are not on Earth. Her powers no longer blocked, Jean sends a frantic SOS to Wolverine. The X-Men, knowing Xavier will live now that Apocalypse has purged the techno- virus from him, head into space to save their teammates. Cable, Wolverine, and Bishop head out to Stryfe's base on the Moon too and arrive there first, decimating Stryfe's defenses just as the X-Men (Storm, Psylocke, Polaris, Cannonball, Havok, Iceman and Archangel) and Apocalypse arrive. Splitting up, Apocalypse is ambushed by the Dark Riders, who beat their former master to the brink of death. Apocalypse is later confronted by Archangel who refuses Apocalypse's request for a mercy killing. Upon catching Jean and Scott Summers outside the moonbase, Stryfe takes them to a giant time portal he had constructed on the Moon. As Cable, Cannonball, Havok and Polaris make their way to the tower, a forcefield is activated that prevents any without the Summers DNA from approaching the tower just as Stryfe activated the tower's time portal technology. Stryfe planned this so he could confront Cable alone, and though Havok has enough genetic similarity to Scott to pass through the forcefield, doing so renders him unconscious. Cable finds himself hopelessly outmatched by Stryfe, but as they battle, Jean Grey and Cyclops break free and Havok regains consciousness. Driven to despair, Stryfe tries to collapse the active tower upon the X-Men. Cable grabs Stryfe and orders Cyclops to activate the time vortex, a plan that would kill both Stryfe and Cable. Cyclops reluctantly does so; both men are sucked into a massive vortex that is created as the tower explodes. Cyclops and Jean Grey begin to suspect that either Stryfe or Cable is Cyclops' son Nathan Christopher Summers, who Cyclops was forced to abandon and send into the future after Apocalypse infected him with a techno-virus. Mr. Sinister has a minion, Gordan, open the canister given to him by Stryfe, only to find it apparently empty. Though not revealed in X-Cutioner's Song, the canister in fact contained the Legacy Virus. Of note, in X-men issue #303 Illyana Rasputina, the sister of Colossus, died of the Legacy virus, prompting him to eventually leave the X-men and join Magento for a time. ===== The X-Men are attacked by the Phalanx, mutant-hating humans who have used the alien Warlock's techno-organic virus to turn into techno-organic beings themselves. With these powers, the Phalanx are able to change their shape and assimilate organic matter. The Phalanx are also a hive mind and they are programmed to destroy all mutants. The Phalanx Covenant was told in three separate storylines: *Generation Next: With the X-Men gone, Banshee, Emma Frost, Jubilee and Sabretooth have to save the next generation of mutants from the Phalanx agents led by Harvest. This storyline also planted the seeds for Marvel's next mutant title, Generation X. *Life Signs: X-Factor, Excalibur and X-Force discover that the Phalanx are losing their hive-mind programming and are becoming more and more independent and alien. The rogue Phalanx Douglock takes Forge, Wolfsbane and Cannonball on a mission to prevent the Phalanx Shinar from contacting the alien Phalanx. *Final Sanction: Cable, Wolverine, Cyclops, and Phoenix reunite to rescue the X-Men by infiltrating the main base of the Phalanx. ===== Jet (Jet Li) returns to his hometown of Qingdao after the fighting the Japanese. He and his fellow soldiers discover that much has changed since the end of the war, and American soldiers are taking all the glory for the victory achieved, and they feel unappreciated. Jet eventually meets with his old friend Zhang (Zhao Erkang), a fellow soldier who saved Jet's life in battle, but was seriously injured with shrapnel. Zhao makes a living as a rickshaw driver. Jet decides to stay at Zhao's house for a while. Jet asks Zhang about his daughter. Zhang replies that she died. One day, an American Navy Captain named Hans (Kurt Roland Petersson) is driving recklessly through Qingdao's streets, causing a mob to become angry and surround his car. Jet and Hans fight briefly, with Hans being impressed with Jet. The angry mob proceeds to burn his car, causing a riot. Jet and his fellow band of soldiers and rickshaw-drivers retreat during the chaos to a bar, which they discover now caters primarily to foreigners with a boxing ring and is frequented by prostitutes. Jet and his friends are angry at the insults hurled at them by American Navy patrons, which leads to an American soldier named Bailey (Paulo Tocha) challenging Jet to a formal boxing match. During the match, Jet struggles with only being allowed to use his fists, and frequently breaks the rules due to his ignorance of American boxing. Frustrated, Jet attempts to leave the ring, but Bailey kicks him to prevent him from leaving. Jet continues the fight using both kung-fu and boxing techniques, and even demonstrates that he has finally adapted to boxing and shows superiority over Bailey. Jet wins the fight, along with a lot of money, and the Chinese in the crowd are proud of him. Later, Bailey and a Chinese prostitute (Song Jia) approach Zhang for a rickshaw ride. The woman is apprehensive around Zhang, and pleads with Bailey to go home. Bailey, furious at Zhang's slow speed and at the fact that the woman keeps staring at Zhang, repeatedly kicks Zhang to make him go faster. Furious, Zhang tips over his rickshaw and insults the woman, causing her to leave in tears. Bailey assaults Zhang, leaving him severely injured. Jet takes over for Zhang's rickshaw. After one of his rickshaw trips, the American soldiers (led by Bailey) deliberately destroy his rickshaw, forcing Jet to take a job at the bar where he fought Bailey the other day. The job requires Jet to be a "sparring partner" for Bailey, where he cannot fight back and must sustain many blows. When Jet initially refuses, the soldiers threaten to beat the bar-owner. Seeing no other way, Jet reluctantly agrees to be Bailey's sparring partner. The prostitute, named Rui (or "Na"), approaches Jet and informs him that the bar-owner was actually a part of the scheme to force Jet to be a sparring partner. Jet returns to the bar the next day with the intent of fighting back against Bailey (regardless of the consequences to the bar and the bar owner). However, he learns that will be fighting Captain Hans instead. Hans goads Jet into a formal fighting match. The match goes on for a long time, which eventually leads to chaos in the bar as crowds of Chinese and American soldiers fight each other until American soldiers to come and enforce order. The match basically ends in a draw, with Jet barely able to stand. Rui takes Jet to her house, removes his wet clothes to prevent him from catching pneumonia, and helps him rest and recover. Later, Rui approaches Zhang at the hospital to inform him of what happened to Jer. When he sees that Xiao is naked in the bed, he is furious and hits Rui. He reveals to Jet that Rui is his daughter and that he is ashamed of her because she's a prostitute. Jet pleads with him to change his mind about his daughter but Zhang only gets more furious, and angrily tells Jet to find another place to stay. Later, Jet comes back to Zhang's house, and gleefully tells him that he fell in love with a girl after Zhang kicked him out. However, he asks Zhang for advice: if his new girlfriend is a prostitute, but promises to quit, should he give her a chance? Zhang tells him that he should. Jet then offers to introduce him to his girlfriend right away. The "girlfriend", it turns out, is Rui herself. Zhang is initially angry at Jet and Rui's deception, but Jet makes them reconcile, and they do. While Rui goes out to buy some food and wine, the American soldiers kidnap Rui. Jet and Zhang are informed of this by local rickshaw drivers. While looking for Rui, Jet is confronted by Hans, who wishes to continue the fight from the other night. The Navy soldiers eventually throw both Rui and Zhang off the roof, killing them both. Captain Hans appears shocked and angry at what they've done. While in jail, Jet is severely beaten by the local police for "causing trouble," and the American soldiers are let go. Jet is furious. Later, he escapes from jail by tying a wet shirt against two loose bars. He later finds the American soldiers (with Captain Hans and Bailey) driving by a warehouse. Jet sets a trap that forces them to stop. He lights their car on fire with a molotov cocktail and lures them into the warehouse. He severely injures one of the soldiers and ties up another one to the ceiling. Jet then finds Bailey and traps him on a conveyor belt that leads to a furnace, where he burns Bailey to death. Then, he confronts Hans. Hans and Jet fight for a long time. Hans eventually gains the upper hand, but their movements cause the mechanisms of the warehouse to eventually knock a bunch of barrels into Bailey. With Bailey severely beaten on the ground, Jet picks up an axe, screams, and swings it downward. He chooses to spare Hans. Hans is relieved. Jet walks out of the warehouse. ===== Five young warriors from an ancient civilization of are awakened during the present day after 170 million years of suspended animation when their sworn enemy, Bandora the Witch, is inadvertently released from her magical container on Planet Nemesis by two astronauts. The five warriors, the Zyurangers, must summon the power of mechanical-looking deities known as Guardian Beasts, each modeled after a different prehistoric beast, in order to protect mankind from Bandora's evil forces. A sixth warrior, Burai the Dragon Ranger, later becomes involved with the conflict between the Zyurangers and Bandora's forces. ===== Paul Rayment, a man of late middle-age, loses part of a leg after his bicycle is hit by a car driven by a reckless young man. He becomes reclusive and retreats to his flat where he is cared for by a succession of nurses. None suit him until Marijana, with whom he shares a European childhood (hers in Croatia, his in France), comes along. Paul's feelings for Marijana, and for her teenage son Drago, become more complex. When Paul offers to finance Drago's education, Marijana's husband becomes suspicious of Paul's relationship with Marijana, which causes trouble in their family and culminates in Drago fighting with his father and moving in with Paul. It is not until the famed author Elizabeth Costello shows up unexpectedly and uninvited at Paul's doorstep that he confronts his feelings for Marijana and his resentment at the state of his life following his bicycle accident. Costello's sudden presence in his life confounds Paul, who believes she is merely using him as a character in her next novel. The book can be read as a metafictional discourse on the inter-relationship between the literary author and the characters, and with reality. ===== Martin Loader works at the local radio station, that just hired a new scriptwriter, Pedro Carmichael. Martin's Aunt Julia, not related by blood, returns home after many years away and Martin falls for her. Once Pedro finds out about this romance, he starts incorporating details of it into the script of his daily drama series. Soon, Martin and Julia are not only hearing about their fictional selves over the radio, but they hear about what they are going to do next. ===== Dhanakpur village farmers Thakur Jaswant Singh and Dhanraj Singh are brothers. They have a younger sister Madhumati, who was impregnated and dumped by Ratan Singh, the son of Thakur Raghuveer Singh from a rich Rajput family. The family refuses Jaswant Singh's request to get his sister married to Ratan and refuses Ratan's role in Madhu's current situation as they are interested in their status. Insulted, Jaswant leaves the village. Unable to tolerate the events, Madhumati commits suicide. Frustrated, Dhanraj kills Ratan at his wedding and gets imprisoned. The two families are now bitter enemies. Jaswant moves to Delhi develops his business, and reaches good status; he also raises Dhanraj's kids. Years later, Dhanraj gets released from the prison and receives a letter from his son, Raj, an ardent music lover, who completes his education in Rajput College. An emotional Dhanraj sneaks into Raj's college farewell party and is glad to see his son fulfill his dreams. In a twist of fate, Raj and his cousin go to Dhanakpur to clear his family's land deal. While returning home, Raj falls for Rashmi, a relative of Raghuveer Singh. Raj sneaks into Rashmi's birthday bash. The two meet again at a holiday spot. They become lost in the forest and fall in love while finding a way out. Raj finds out about Rashmi's family but is unable to tell her the truth. When Randhir Singh, Rashmi's father, finds out about the affair, he immediately arranges Rashmi's wedding to another man. The lovers take on their families and elope, dreaming of an idyllic life together. Furious, Randhir hires a contract killer to target Raj. The lovers have a brief interval of happiness. They stay in a deserted fort, happy in their own paradise. When Randhir learns their whereabouts, he goes there to bring Rashmi home and ensure that Raj is killed. Randhir's mother does not wish for this so she goes to Dhanraj and tells him to save the lovebirds. Raj leaves the fort to bring firewood for their house. While Raj is away, Randhir meets Rashmi and tells her to come home, assuring her he has "accepted their love". Rashmi is overjoyed at her father's words, not knowing the truth. In the forest, Raj is chased by the henchmen. Dhanraj reaches the fort and repeatedly asks about his son's whereabouts. They get in a fight and a gunshot is heard. Rashmi leaves the scene to make sure that Raj is okay. He is about to be shot but, on seeing Rashmi, the henchman shoots her instead. She is shot twice and rolls down the hill. Raj overpowers the henchman and reaches Rashmi's side, crying. They promise never to leave each other. On saying it that, rashmi breathes her last in Raj's arms. A grief-stricken Raj is devastated by Rashmi's death and vows to not let anything separate them. He commits suicide by stabbing himself in the stomach with a knife, and dying beside the woman he loved. The final scene is both families running toward them; the lovers are together, never to be separated, as the sun sets behind them. ===== What seems like a normal day at Dōmori Elementary is disrupted by some weird phenomenon, usually targeting one of Nūbē's own students. Nūbē is forced into action, most often using the power of the Demon's Hand to assist in solving the problem, but occasionally the solution lies either in another of his spiritual weapons, or somehow reasoning with or appeasing the threatening entity. By the end, things always seem to get back to normal, with Nūbē and his students having learned something from the experience. Most of the series retains an episodic formula, forgoing an overarching storyline in favor of more character-driven action, although there are several recurring antagonists throughout, as well as some longer story arcs towards the end of the series. ===== The title involves twin sisters, Amatsu Ai (天津亜衣) and Amatsu Mai (天津麻衣), who become virgin priestesses that must watch over the boy, Onimaru (鬼麿), a distant relative of theirs. It becomes his choice to make the world a hellhole of debauchery or to keep as it is. Onimaru (鬼麿) is the descendant of a line of men whose founder was betrayed by the Japanese government, and whose spirit seeks revenge by making Onimaru a sexually depraved demon king. The founder is the younger brother to the twin sisters. The three of them are the result of a union between a fisherman and an Angel (Tennyo) of the Buddhist tradition. As in traditional Japanese folklore, the man acquired his angelic wife by stealing her angelic robes while she bathed, so that she could not return to heaven, and blackmailing her to marry him. (This is also the basis for the anime Ayashi no Ceres/Ceres: Celestial Legend). The folklore originates in ancient China, known as "Tian Xian Pei", the love legend between an angelic girl and an ordinary cowherd boy. The two original girls were the founders of a temple and order that rein in the descendants of the betrayed boy, their younger brother. The twin sisters of the anime, older sister Ai (with a long ponytail) and younger sister Mai (with short hair), descendants of that Angel and her two girls, fight the forces of sexual perversion, in the demonic minions of the founding son, with the help of grandmother Amatsu Genjuu (天津幻舟), and Onimaru's guardian Dekonobu (木偶の坊). ===== Dr. Alan Feinstone is a successful dentist. However, everything changes on the day of his wedding anniversary, when he discovers his wife Brooke is cheating on him with the poolman, Matt. After they finish, Alan retrieves his pistol and follows Matt in his car. He is led to Paula Roberts's house, a friend of Brooke's. Alan invents a story about a surprise party for Brooke and watches Paula invite Matt inside. Paula's dog attacks Alan, and he shoots it in self-defense. After returning to his car, he drives to work. At his dental practice, Alan's first appointment goes poorly when he hallucinates a child has rotten teeth and accidentally stabs him. As Detective Gibbs investigates the death of Paula's dog, Alan sees his second patient, April Reign, a beauty queen. Alan hallucinates she is his wife, and, while she is unconscious, takes off her pantyhose and fondles her before choking her. As she wakes, Alan snaps out of it and hides her pantyhose. Alan tells her manager, Steve Landers, she is still dizzy from nitrous oxide. When Steve realizes what really happened, he returns, punches Alan, and threatens a lawsuit. Alan ends the day early and sends his staff and patients home, including Sarah, a teenager who wants to have her braces removed. Later that night, Brooke meets Alan at a new opera-themed room at his practice. After sedating her under the premise of cleaning her teeth, he pulls out her teeth and cuts off her tongue. Detective Gibbs and his partner Detective Sunshine arrive at Alan's house the next morning to ask him questions. After the policemen leave, Matt discovers Brooke, who is still alive but sedated. Alan stabs Matt to death. Sarah and Paula are waiting for Alan at his practice. Alan sees Paula first, much to Sarah's disappointment. When Paula's conversation turns to how good a job Matt does for her, Alan overly- aggressively drills into her tooth, destroying it. His assistant, Jessica, questions what he is doing, and he snaps out of it. Alan asks Jessica to finish for him, but after he discovers she has sent Paula home, he fires Jessica. When she pulls out April's pantyhose and threatens to expose him, Alan kills her. At the police station, Detective Sunshine discovers that the bullet pulled from Paula's dog's only matches one gun in the area: Alan's. IRS agent Marvin Goldblum, using Alan's tax problems as leverage, extorts a free dental exam and a payout. Instead, Alan tortures him. Detective Sunshine and Detective Gibbs drive to the Feinstone house to question him further. Near the pool, they discover Matt's body. They quickly break into the house and find the mutilated Brooke, tied to the bed but still alive. Later, Alan's other dental assistant, Karen, finds Marvin still in the dental chair. Alan attacks her, then kills her by injecting a needle full of air into her jugular vein. After Alan removes Sarah's braces, he imagines her teeth rotting. He pulls his gun, but she escapes and hides in one of the dental rooms, where she finds the blood-soaked Marvin, who attacks Alan. When Alan recaptures her, Sarah hysterically promises to brush her teeth three times a day and to never eat candy. Satisfied, Alan leaves. The two detectives arrive and rescue Sarah, but are too late to capture Alan. They follow Alan to a university, where he teaches dentistry classes. There, Alan maniacally instructs all of his students to pull all of the teeth out of all their patients. As he hallucinates and shoots a dental student that he mistakes for Matt, the detectives burst into the room, but Alan uses a hostage to escape. Eventually, he wanders into an auditorium where an opera singer is practicing. Enchanted, he watches her from behind. When he reaches out to touch her, she transforms into Brooke, who laughs at him. Defeated, he falls to his knees and is arrested by the detectives. Alan, now in a psychiatric hospital, is carted off to his regular dental appointment. The dentist working on him is revealed to be his toothless wife Brooke, who works violently on his mouth. ===== The story revolves around Mary Jo Walker, a single mother whose usual reaction to trouble is to pack her car with her belongings and take her pre-teen daughter Ava in search of greener pastures. The film commences with a strong-willed Mary-Jo in an altercation with a man. As this is something which is routine in Ava's life, she packs a suitcase as she prepares herself for their inevitable departure. Mother and daughter embark upon a journey. When a reunion with an old beau in Missouri proves to be less successful than anticipated, Mary Jo accedes to Ava's desire to see the Pacific Ocean and heads west. Mary Jo wishes to separate herself from her old life, which is manifested when she and her daughter throw the former's clothing from the car window. En route they are assisted by long-distance trucker Jack Ranson, who coincidentally re- enters their lives after they have settled in San Diego. Once again, Mary Jo forgoes both her independence and daughter's well-being in favor of having a man in her life. She quits her office job. On face value, Ava's life has changed for the better. For example, she makes friends with a girl in her class (although they later part ways when the girl becomes jealous of Ava's acting talents). Ava also secures a starring role as Romeo in the school play, "Romeo and Juliet". Lastly, Ava is ecstatic when she finds a boyfriend, who takes her to watch a movie. Matters, however, become complicated when Jack becomes verbally aggressive towards Mary Jo. Jack exhibits his true personality when he takes Mary Jo and Ava to a fine dinner and becomes infuriated by Ava's attitude. Ava, however, is just excited about the prospect of having a leading role in the play. When Ava and Mary Jo flee the restaurant, they spend the night in a motel, a scenario with which both mother and daughter are familiar. The next day, Mary Jo is adamant that the two leave town, with only their clothing on their backs. Ava decides to put her foot down and rebel. She tells her mother that she is tired of moving from state to state and is frustrated by her mother's carefree attitude. Although Mary Jo is at first furious at Ava's refusal to cooperate, Mary Jo then realizes that there is the need to make significant changes in their lives. She finally accepts that her behavior has had severe negative repercussions on her daughter. Toward the end of the movie, Ava and her mother stay at a house that a friend of Mary Jo's has loaned to them. Ava rebuilds her friendship with the same girl in her class. Lastly, both she and her mother start to rebuild their lives together. Mary Jo gets a job at a plant nursery and also moves in with her former office boss, a sympathetic widower who had been concerned about them. ===== Psychoanalyst Saul Benjamin takes on a patient temporarily as a favor to a colleague friend, Otto Jaffe, who is infatuated with her. After her doctor dies, Chloe Allen comes to see Dr. Benjamin and immediately he is smitten with her, too. The doctor- patient relationship is violated by Dr. Benjamin's romantic impulses toward Chloe and by his intense jealousy of anyone who comes near her, including Ted Caruso, an arrogant Broadway actor with whom she has become involved. The psychiatrist's wife also is carrying on an affair with Jac Applezweig, an artist. The ghost of Dr. Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychology, visits Dr. Benjamin from time to time to dispense warnings and wisdom. Benjamin's work begins to suffer as he abandons patients like Mrs. Mondragon, finding her tedious, and treats the paranoia of another, Marvin Zuckerman, by designing a peculiar handmade hat for him to wear. A board of inquiry calls in Dr. Benjamin to consider revoking his license. In the end, he admits his feelings to Chloe and concludes that he prefers true love to treating the sick. In the film Sigmund Freud (Guinness) says, "It is in my professional opinion, as the man who invented psychoanalysis, that you are not Faign.", who is counseling Saul Benjamin (Moore). ===== The film follows the Lin family in a coastal town near Taipei, Taiwan, from 1945 to 1949, the period after the end of 50 years of Japanese colonial rule and before the establishment of a government-in-exile in Taiwan by Chiang Kai- shek's Nationalist Kuomintang forces once the Communist army captured mainland China. The film starts on August 15, 1945, with the voice of Emperor Hirohito announcing Japan's unconditional surrender. Meanwhile, Lin Wen-heung, who runs a bar called "Little Shanghai" and is the eldest of the Lin's four sons, awaits the birth of his child. The second son died in the Philippines during the war. The fourth and youngest son, Wen-ching, is a photographer with leftist leanings who became deaf following a childhood accident; he is close friends with Hinoe and Hinoe's sister, Hinomi. The third son, Lin Wen-leung, returns to Taiwan from the war but suffers a nervous breakdown. He begins to engage in illegal activities, including the theft of Japanese currency notes and the smuggling of drugs with Shanghaiese drug dealers. Wen-heung eventually learns of this and stops Wen-leung. However, this leads the Shanghaiese mob to arrange for Wen-leung's imprisonment on false charges of collaboration with the Japanese. While in prison, Wen-leung is tortured and suffers a brain injury that leaves him mentally ill after his release. The February 28 Incident of 1947 occurs, in which thousands of Taiwanese people are massacred by Kuomintang troops. The Lin family follows announcements related to the event via radio, in which Chen Yi, the chief executive of Taiwan, declares martial law to suppress dissenters. The wounded pour into the neighborhood clinic, and Wen-ching and Hinoe are arrested. Upon their release from prison, Hinoe heads for the mountains to join the leftist guerillas. Wen-ching expresses his desire to join Hinoe, but Hinoe convinces Wen-ching to return and marry Hinomi, who loves him. When Lin Wen-heung is gambling at a casino one day, a fight breaks out with one of the Shanghainese who previously framed Wen-leung. This results in Wen-heung being shot and killed by a Shanghaiese mafia member. Following Wen-heung's funeral, Wen-ching and Hinomi marry at home, and Hinomi later bears a child. The couple support Hinoe's resistance group, but the guerilla forces are defeated and executed. They manage to inform Wen-ching of the fact and encourage him to escape, but Hinomi later recounts that they did not have anywhere to go. As a result, Wen-ching is soon arrested by the Kuomintang for his involvement with the guerillas. ===== Misty of Chincoteague begins with an account of the wreck of a Spanish galleon on the shores of Assateague Island off the coast of Virginia. The ponies in the hold of the galleon swim to Assateague and become feral as the years and eventually the centuries pass. The book then tells the story of two orphan children, Paul and Maureen Beebe, who move in with their grandparents after their parents die. Paul and Maureen work to earn money to buy a Chincoteague pony mare named the Phantom, who has escaped the roundup men on Pony Penning Day for the past two years. Paul and Maureen save enough to buy Phantom, and Paul is able to capture her on the roundup because she is slowed down by her new foal, Misty. However, a man from the mainland buys the pair of ponies for his son before Paul and Maureen can give their money to the fire chief. Paul and Maureen are distressed, but they end up being able to buy Phantom and Misty because the original buyer's son won a colt in the yearly raffle and then decided he didn't need another pony, and chose the colt from the raffle. Paul and Maureen eventually break the Phantom to ride, and the next year Paul races her on Pony Penning Day. Phantom wins, but the next day becomes distressed when she sees the herd she once belonged to, led by a stallion called Pied Piper, being released to swim back to Assateague. Paul releases Phantom, and she gallops to join Pied Piper and the herd as they return to freedom on their ancestral island. Misty remains behind with Paul and Maureen. ===== Seaman "Bake" Baker (Fred Astaire) and Sherry (Ginger Rogers) are former dance partners, now separated, with Baker in the Navy and Sherry working as a dance hostess in a San Francisco ballroom, Paradise. Bake visits the ballroom with his Navy buddy "Bilge" (Randolph Scott) during a period of liberty, reuniting with Sherry (but costing her job), while Bilge is initially attracted to Sherry's sister Connie (Harriet Hilliard). When Connie begins to talk about marriage, Bilge quickly diverts his attention towards a friend of Sherry's, Iris (Astrid Allwyn), a divorced socialite. The sailors return to sea while Connie seeks to raise money to salvage her deceased sea-captain father's sailing ship. When the boys return to San Francisco, Bake attempts to get Sherry a job in a Broadway show, but fails amidst a flurry of mistaken identities and misunderstandings. He redeems himself by staging a benefit show which raises the final seven hundred dollars needed to refurbish the ship – although he has to jump ship in order to do so. Bilge, now a Chief Petty Officer, is ordered to locate and arrest him, but allows Bake to complete the show. After the concert, Bake and Sherry are offered a show on Broadway, which A.W.O.L. Bake accepts on the proviso that Sherry asks him to marry her. Of course, he first has to be sent to the brig and take his punishment. ===== The narrator, a version of Borges himself, meets Ireneo Funes, a teenage boy who lives in Fray Bentos, Uruguay, in 1884. Borges's cousin asks the boy for the time, and Funes replies instantly, without the aid of a watch and accurate to the minute. Borges returns to Buenos Aires, then in 1887 comes back to Fray Bentos, intending to relax and study some Latin. He learns that Ireneo Funes has meanwhile suffered a horseback riding accident and is now hopelessly crippled. Soon enough, Borges receives a note from Funes, requesting that the visitor lend him some of his Latin books and a dictionary. Borges, disconcerted, sends Funes what he deems the most difficult works "in order fully to undeceive him". Days later, Borges receives a telegram from Buenos Aires calling for his return due to his father's ill health. As he packs, he remembers the books and goes to Funes's house. Funes's mother escorts him to a patio where the youth usually spends his dark hours. As he enters, Borges is greeted by Funes's voice speaking perfect Latin, reciting "the first paragraph of the twenty-fourth chapter of the seventh book of the Historia Naturalis" (by Pliny the Elder). Funes enumerates to Borges the cases of prodigious memory cited in the Historia Naturalis, and adds that he marvels that those are considered marvellous. He reveals that, since his fall from the horse, he perceives everything in full detail and remembers it all. He remembers, for example, the shape of clouds at all given moments, as well as the associated perceptions (muscular, thermal, etc.) of each moment. Funes has an immediate intuition of the mane of a horse or the form of a constantly changing flame that is comparable to our (normal people's) intuition of a simple geometric shape such as a triangle or square. In order to pass the time, Funes has engaged in projects such as reconstructing a full day's worth of past memories (an effort which, he finds, takes him another full day), and constructing a "system of enumeration" that gives each number a different, arbitrary name. Borges correctly points out to him that this is precisely the opposite of a system of enumeration, but Funes is incapable of such understanding. A poor, ignorant young boy in the outskirts of a small town, he is hopelessly limited in his possibilities, but (says Borges) his absurd projects reveal "a certain stammering greatness". Funes, we are told, is incapable of Platonic ideas, of generalities, of abstraction; his world is one of intolerably uncountable details. He finds it very difficult to sleep, since he recalls "every crevice and every moulding of the various houses which [surround] him". Borges spends the whole night talking to Funes in the dark. When dawn reveals Funes's face, only 19 years old, Borges sees him "as monumental as bronze, more ancient than Egypt, anterior to the prophecies and the pyramids". Borges later finds out that Funes died from "congestion of the lungs". ===== Lubji Hoch, the son of an illiterate Czech Jewish peasant, escapes the Nazis, changes his name to Richard Armstrong, and becomes a decorated British Army officer. After the war he is posted to Berlin as head of press relations in the British sector. He appropriates a floundering newspaper, his entrée to the business of publishing. On his return to the UK, he builds a publishing empire. On the other side of the world, in Australia, Keith Townsend, son of a millionaire newspaper owner, is groomed to follow in his father's footsteps. Private schools, an Oxford degree, and a position at a London newspaper prepare him to take over the family business. He quickly becomes the leading newspaper publisher in Australia. As Armstrong and Townsend battle to seize control of existing publishers on the world stage, they become fierce competitors. Hubris and overreach finally lead to financial disaster and tragic consequences. ===== James Bond is doing a karate move against one of his opponents. The game begins with Bond in a Chinese village, ruled by a female martial arts warlord called Zhong Mae. After Bond infiltrates her dojo, steals the plans given to her and defeats her, Bond escapes the ninja clan by speedboat and returns to London. M, head of MI6, tells Bond that the plans are for a secret weapons cache somewhere in an unknown part of the world. Bond heads to Kurdistan to find 008, who is missing in action. Bond manages to rescue 008 after killing Iqbal, who rules the town. 008 instructs Bond to go to Marrakech to find one of Bond's old enemies, Oddjob, who is working for someone that is smuggling the weapons. After a little bickering within the black market, betting at a casino, and meeting the Rat Man, Bond receives a sleeping dart gun which he uses on Oddjob's henchman. After stealing the henchman's room key, Bond is ambushed by Oddjob inside his hotel room and taken to the Sahara Desert. A traveler gives Bond a canteen, which Bond uses to sustain himself as he goes through the desert, which slowly begins to kill him. Bond makes it to a nearby airport, which has been instructed by M to take him to Tibet, where he must scale a mountain, defeat Sumos and get captured by Oddjob again. While awaiting torture in the secret weapons base, Zhong Mae arrives and tells Bond that she has changed sides, stating that she was only trying to aid her village financially. With her help, Bond defeats Oddjob and interrogates him on who is behind the plot. Oddjob gives the name: General Golgov, a top general in Russia. Oddjob tells Bond to return to Kurdistan where he finds Golgov's two associates, Saddam and Khatar, while Zhong Mae tells Bond to find her friend, Mustafa. After Bond defeats Khatar and Saddam, Mustafa thanks him for stopping the war that destroyed Iqbal's village and gives him a mirror. With aid from a guide, Bond makes it to the edge of Golgov's base which Bond manages to infiltrate. Inside, Bond kills Jaws and begins to unravel the general's true intentions: a nuclear holocaust with the general emerging as the ruler of the world. Bond uses a bazooka to destroy the General in his robot and aids Zhong Mae in shutting down the base. Bond and Mae take a boat out to sea where a British sub rescues them and congratulates Bond. ===== The movie follows two distinct plot lines until the two eventually merge: the first is that of the bored middle-aged man seeking a departure from monotony in his life; the second is that of the blind man and the little boy, his grandson, who are interdependent. None of the characters have been given names and are therefore referred to only by description. The film opens with a middle-aged man lying on his couch with a look of discontent as his wife finishes cooking their dinner on a rather uneventful night. As she rushes back and forth setting the table, he sluggishly rises and walks across the room to the window and gazes out onto the busy streets. His wife eventually walks over and gazes too, but quickly sits at the table and begins to eat dinner. The man takes one look at the food and then casually leaves the apartment and begins to wander the streets in search of something exciting. The scene switches to a man sitting in a chair holding a little boy about four or five years old. Another, younger-looking man enters the room through a door on the left of the screen towards another door on the right of the screen. The little boy jumps from the man's arms to the younger man, and the older man reaches out for him; it is here that we see that the older man is blind. The little boy runs to the younger man and grasps his leg, saying, "Daddy!" He looks at him briefly, then makes a hasty exit. The little boy begins to cry and the blind man sits him up on his lap and comforts him, stroking his hair and talking to him. Then the little boy helps the blind man put on his coat and hat to go out. Max Schreck as the blind man. The little boy helps him get dressed to go out. The middle- aged man eventually encounters a pimp and a harlot. The middle-aged man, the harlot, and the pimp run all around town getting into all sorts of scenarios: scuffling over a seat on a park bench, falsely claiming to have been robbed, going to a dance, and gambling in a card game. They all end up at a party and are seen eating at a table all together. The middle-aged man looks at his wedding ring, and inside of it he sees an image of his wife walking backwards away from him. He begins to miss her and his regular life. Around the same time, the blind man and the little boy have left the house and are standing outside a shop along the busy street. The blind man is holding the little boy's hand, but he is distracted by a dog and breaks his grip to chase the dog. The blind man is startled and calls out for him in a slight panic. The little boy is stranded on an island in the chaotic, bustling street, surrounded by horses, bicycles, pedestrians, and cars. A police officer stops traffic and walks the little boy across the street into the police office. Meanwhile, the blind man is sliding along a wall, looking desperately for the little boy. He mistakenly steps too far into the street and falls down onto the sidewalk after being nearly run over by a car. He pants heavily, upset and disoriented. A passing pedestrian stops and helps the blind man up and offers to help him get home. The police take the little boy home and put him to bed. Later, the blind man arrives home and sighs in relief at finding the little boy safe at home. The harlot takes one of the men home and when another man sees him in the house, the other man is murdered. Unbeknownst to both parties, both the middle-aged man's group and the blind man's group are in the same house. The little boy wakes up and hears his father's voice and runs out to him. He again leaves in a haste, but this time the little boy follows him. The blind man wakes up hearing the little boy's cries and stumbles upon the murdered man. He is visibly frightened and breathes heavily. A policeman finds the little boy and brings him home again and the murder scene is discovered. The blind man comforts the little boy as the police take in suspects. The middle-aged man is imprisoned, after being surprised by the murder scene. He is about to commit suicide by hanging himself from the window with his tie, when the little boy reveals that it was his father who committed the crime. A policeman enters and lets the middle-aged man go. He returns to his home and leans upon the shoulder of his wife, defeated. She reheats the soup from the night before and domesticity returns. ===== Charles Dalgleish Forrester is revived from cryopreservation in the year 2527, having been killed in a fire 500 years earlier. Thanks to his insurance, after the expenses of his revival are paid he has a quarter of a million dollars, a fortune in his eyes. He can afford the luxuries of 26th century life, such as a joymaker, a scepter-like portable computer terminal with some extra features like a drug dispenser. After a heavy night partying, with some distant memory of an argument with somebody, he wakes in his new apartment, and over a 20th-century breakfast, checks in with his Joymaker. The Joymaker communicates by voice, and addresses him always as "Man Forrester". He is informed that he has a message from a woman whose name he doesn't recognize, and that someone called Heinzlichen Jura de Syrtis Major has taken out a hunting license on him. Baffled, he eventually encounters the woman from the party who he believes is called Tip. She maintains she is Adne Bensen, the woman whose messages he has been ignoring. Apparently she got on so well with Forrester that she is ready to begin a relationship. She takes him back to her apartment, where he finds she has two children, around 8 years old, who seem somewhat precocious for their years. With names like "Tunt" and "Mim" flying around, he mistakenly assumes those are the children's names, baffling them when he uses them that way. Later Forrester encounters Heinzlichen with a few friends, who without much ado beat him up so badly he goes to the hospital. It transpires that Heinzlichen's hunting license allows him to kill Forrester providing he pays for the revival, and the whole vendetta is over some insult at the party, which Forrester can barely remember. It's possible Forrester trod on Heinzlichen's foot. Since Heinzlichen is from the human colonies on Mars and is adapted to low gravity, this is a major faux pas. Mistake follows on mistake, compounding confusion. Forrester comes to believe that Adne is attempting to entrap him in fatherhood, presumably for his money, when she leaves a message saying that "we have to choose a name". He is equally disdainful of a friend who keeps asking him to join his Club, expecting that also to be just a ruse to get at his money. Eventually Adne sets him straight. Firstly, he'll be broke soon because, unbeknownst to him, all the 20th century foods he likes are very expensive, as are all the other Joymaker functions he enjoys. He needs to get a high-paying job. Secondly, the "name" she was asking about was a "reciprocal name," one used only between two close friends or intimates. Each uses it only to address the other, as "Tunt" was the children's name for each other, and "Mim" was the name used between Adne and the children. Tip was the name she and another close friend used, so Forrester could not use it. The friend wanting Forrester to join his Club was in fact offering him a paying position in the organization, though Forrester is not sure he likes what the Club stands for. However, Forrester's woes are not over. He first takes a high- paying job for what turns out to be an alien life form. The alien is known to all as a Sirian, but only because that's the star system in which he was captured (Sirius). Earth is in a state of preparation for a Sirian attack it is expecting. When the alien ship was first encountered, the Earth ship shot first and asked questions later. The only thing stopping an attack, it is believed, is that the Sirian's home world population has no idea where Earth is. The captured Sirians live on Earth in a state of virtual house arrest, with their movements restricted and monitored. Forrester's job is to be the Sirian's guide to Earth culture and history, and is paid handsomely for it. Unfortunately Adne and the others shun him for working for the alien. The Sirian asks many questions about seemingly arbitrary topics of human history. When Forrester fails to respond to one of the Sirian's requests in time, he is promptly fired by the Sirian. He then takes a high-paying job which is an apparent sinecure, watching over some machinery, until he learns that all the previous holders of the post are in cryopreservation after being blasted with radiation. Against the warnings of the Joymaker, he quits in the middle of a shift. In this time, this is a huge error, and all his funds are taken in fines. He is reduced to nothing, and forced to live with all the other bums on Skid Row. The existence is actually quite comfortable. Nobody can afford a Joymaker, but rich people pass through doling out money to 26th century panhandlers, and there are cash-only eating places with coin-operated Joymakers at the tables. However, there are also people looking for thrills on the cheap, wanting to kill someone without having to pay for the revival. After a near miss, he runs into the Sirian again, who drugs and hypnotizes him. Under the delusion that he is helping Adne take a trip, Forrester places the Sirian in control of a spacecraft. The ship heads into space and escapes, but not before the whole world learns that the alien escaped, though not Forrester's role in the affair. The entire human population goes into a panic. Most commit suicide in order to hide in the cryopreservation banks. Heinzlichen comes after Forrester one more time, and Forrester kills him. This was simply Heinzlichen's way of getting into the freezer. Eventually Forrester is almost alone. At this point the Club he had been asked to join goes into action. They are a 26th-century version of Luddites and are bent on dismantling the world's technological base by subverting central computing systems, believing this will improve human welfare. Ominously, they are "helped" by the Sirians in doing so. In the end, medical technicians and the Luddites are the only people left awake. Forrester learns about the conspiracy of the Luddites. Forrester cannot reach the technicians because all the computer terminals have been programmed against him. His only hope is to kill himself. He walks up to one of the automated medics, and cuts his throat. Fortunately the medic, reacting to its programming to save lives over that set up by the Luddites, gets him to a medical facility in time, and he is able to abort the revolution. Eventually people start being revived, and he is reunited with Adne. ===== 65,000,000 years ago, aliens known as the Dragozaurs came from space to Earth in order to absorb the planet's life force. The planet responded by converting a select number of prehistoric animals, including dinosaurs, into the Dino Knights in order to defend it. The Dragozaurs resurface in the present day to collect the planet's life force, and the Dino Knights re-awaken from their long slumber in order to stop them. ===== One of the major themes of the novel is the way in which the title character attempts to come to terms with taking part in the murder of a reserve police officer by his friend Crilly, an operation for which he was the getaway driver, while at the same time trying to fend off the anti-Republican "Orangemen". To make matters worse, Cal finds himself falling in love with the slain man's wife, Marcella. Cal lacks self-esteem, one source of which is the death of his mother, who held him in high regard; following her death, Cal seems to be only capable of thinking of himself in a bad light. Another factor adding to Cal's initial unhappiness is being a Catholic on a mainly Protestant estate and being part of the minority in Northern Ireland. He is afraid of Crilly, his friend from school who is a bully, who works for the IRA and uses Cal as a driver. Cal chooses not to follow his father's line of work as he cannot stand the smell of the abattoir. This contributes to, in the general opinion, his feeling of weakness and inferiority. Cal's self-hatred and depression manifest themselves in a number of ways, such as swearing at himself "You big crotte de chien", hatred of his name, even a hatred of his own reflection. When seeing Marcella with her daughter Lucy, he feels this self-loathing again, believing that this bond between mother and daughter is a "pure love" that he is not worthy of intruding upon, or even observing. Cal's self-hatred is intensified by his feelings of guilt, even sickness, at the part he played in the murder, describing it as "a brand stamped in blood in the middle of his forehead which would take him the rest of his life to purge". As his love for Marcella grows, so too does his guilt. From this he develops a sense of acceptance at his arrest and brutal treatment, grateful that at last someone is going to beat him "within an inch of his life”, giving him the ability to feel able to repent and allowing the mental anguish within to be transformed into a physical act that he can more readily deal with. ===== The Baudelaire orphans, Violet, Klaus and Sunny are travelling with pregnant V.F.D. member Kit Snicket to Hotel Denouement, the last safe place for volunteers to gather. She tells them that, prior to V.F.D.’s gathering in two days, they will be disguised as concierges to observe the mysterious 'J.S.,’ in order to identify him as a volunteer or a villain of V.F.D. The hotel's managers are identical triplets Frank, Dewey and Ernest - Frank is a volunteer, while Ernest is on the opposing side as a villain, and Dewey is someone of legend who many do not believe exists. He has created a book cataloging all information of the V.F.D. During their first day of disguised employment, the Baudelaires split up to assist the hotel's guests - Violet assists Esmé Squalor and Carmelita Spats by bringing them a harpoon gun, Klaus assists Charles and Sir (the owners of the Lucky Smells Lumbermill) by escorting them to the sauna while also hanging flypaper outside a window for one of the managers, and Sunny assists Hal (an employee at Heimlich Hospital), Vice-Principal Nero, Ms. Bass and Mr. Remora (teachers at Prufrock Preparatory School) while locking a V.F.D device onto a door of the laundry room, converting it into a Vernacularly Fastened Door - all the guests discuss the mysterious J.S. and together the siblings discuss who asked for what, as each of them run into a separate manager. Klaus concludes that Carmelita Spats requested the harpoon gun to shoot down a bird carrying the sugar bowl, as Sunny mentioned that Hal and a manager were discussing the sugar bowl (an object both volunteers and villains are seeking for unknown reasons) and the Medusoid Mycelium (a deadly fungus parasite they encounter in the previous book) - the flypaper would retrieve the bird's body, and the sugar bowl would fall into the laundry room, in which the room's door was converted into a Vernacularly Fastened Door. Shortly after his proposal, a man encounters them and reveals himself as Dewey Denouement, the third of the secretly three brothers. He also tells them that a pool reflection of the hotel is the actual safe place, as the hotel's words and structure were designed backward to reflect the actual words onto the pool - beneath the pool is an underwater catalog containing crucial information concerning V.F.D. They are then encountered by Jerome Squalor and Justice Strauss, who have joined V.F.D. after believing messages being sent to J.S were being addressed to them. While the four re-enter the hotel, Count Olaf intercepts them, and threatens Dewey with a harpoon gun for the code needed to access the door. While the children attempt to prevent the killing, Mr. Poe suddenly enters, causing Olaf to shove the weapon into the Baudelaires' hands — surprised, they drop the gun, causing it to discharge and kill Dewey. As a crowd arrives, the Baudelaires and Olaf are sent to court; however, everyone except for the judges must be blindfolded for it to be legal. The other two judges are later revealed to be The Man with a Beard But No Hair and The Woman With Hair But No Beard. During the hearing, however, the Baudelaires realize that it was a trick for Olaf to kidnap Justice Strauss, pursue the sugar bowl, and burn the hotel and its inhabitants. Klaus, realizing that the sugar bowl was actually underneath the pool, reveals the door code to Olaf. Violet gains access to a boat for all of them to escape the authorities, while Sunny assists in burning the hotel as a signal to V.F.D. that the gathering has been canceled due to the invasion of enemies. The Baudelaires, along with Justice Strauss, attempt to alert everyone about the fire; it is unknown whether anyone escapes. Shortly after the authorities arrive, the orphans, along with Olaf, are about to disembark by sea; however, Justice attempts to intervene. Sunny apologetically bites her hand, and the four sail away from the area, and out to sea. ===== Whilst preparing for a magical act, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck discover a magical box. However, this turns out to belong to an evil magician (Pete) who sends Mickey and Donald to a magical world. Mickey and Donald must now work together in order to find a way back home.SEGA, World of Illusion instruction manual, pp. 6-10 ===== Sir Gerald Tarrant, head of a secret service department in the British Government, and good friend of Modesty Blaise, is being driven by his chauffeur along a narrow road on the edge of the gorge of the Tarn River in S. France. His chauffeur stops to help two nuns change a tire on their car, and Sir Gerald is taken prisoner – by the nuns, no less. On the other side of the gorge lies Quinn, only semi-conscious after having stumbled and fallen while hiking. But he is sufficiently aware that he sees the two cars stopped on the road, and he tries to summon help by waving his handkerchief. Unknown to him, he is spotted by Mr. Sexton, who is the leader of the kidnapping operation. This starts a long chain of events. Modesty rescues Quinn the next morning, and then later Quinn provides the missing information that convinces Modesty that Sir Gerald has been kidnapped. (Until now everyone had believed that Sir Gerald had died together with his chauffeur when his car went tumbling down into the Tarn River.) Modesty and Willie Garvin have by chance already determined the probable location of Sir Gerald's captivity: Chateau Lancieux in the foothills of the Pyrenees in S. France. A hasty rescue mission is set in action. Modesty and Willie gain access to the chateaux via a deep cave, but on entering into the basement they are captured by the formidable Mr. Sexton, who prides himself on being the world's greatest unarmed combat man. Now Modesty and Willie are scheduled to die at Mr. Sexton's hand, one at a time, to further the process of softening Sir Gerald up for interrogation. ===== Willard (Norm Macdonald) is an overworked, underpaid chauffeur who works for a mean-spirited pie heiress named Mrs. Crock (Elaine Stritch), just as his father did before him. All Willard wants for Christmas is a new uniform, as the one he currently wears is the one his father was buried in, but Crock gives him a cheap pair of cuff links and a pie instead, while lavishing expensive gifts on her business partner Chip Oswald (Sherman Hemsley) and her prized dog Muffin. Finally fed up with being mistreated, Willard and his best friend, local chicken restaurant owner Rusty (Dave Chappelle), concoct a scheme to kidnap the dog and hold it for a $1,000,000 ransom. Muffin attacks him, leaving a great deal of destruction and Willard's blood at the scene, and the plan fails when the dog later escapes. However, Crock and the Pittsburgh police misinterpret the hastily scrawled ransom note and believe that Willard himself has been kidnapped. Crock refuses to pay up initially until met with public protests led by Willard's on-again off-again girlfriend Hillary (Sarah Silverman). Willard and Rusty come up with a new scheme, in which Willard films a fake ransom video and releases it to the media, putting pressure on Crock to come up with the money to preserve her public image as a kindly old grandmother. The plan calls for Willard to mug his boss as she goes to drop off the ransom money, and to have a dead body left behind dressed as Willard to throw off the police. They enlist the services of a creepy morgue employee named Grover Cleaver (Danny DeVito) to find an appropriate corpse and schedule a meeting at night in the park. This plan also goes wrong, however, when Willard succeeds in getting the money, only to lose it to two small children who attack him with a taser and a shiv and steal the suitcase. Willard is found by the police and sent to a hospital, as the children have soundly brutalized him. The police then find the dead body that was supposed to take the place of Willard as he made his getaway, and Willard claims that it was his captor. The police are suspicious, as Grover used the body of an old homeless dwarf, but Willard claims he was "more ferocious when he was alive." Willard dejectedly returns to work for Mrs. Crock (who claims that he now owes her the ransom as well) until the mother of one of his attackers shows up and returns the briefcase. Overjoyed, Willard and Rusty plan to go on a long vacation only to find that the briefcase was filled with newspaper and cabbage. After interrogating Willard and Rusty (during which Rusty reveals his habit of striking people with desk lamps when nervous), the police go after Grover, who goes on a rampage, kidnapping Mrs. Crock while waiting for the share of money Willard promised him. Willard goes to Grover and confronts his employer, finding out that the money was actually in the briefcase but was stolen by Chip Oswald, who planned to double-cross them all and make off with his boyfriend. He also discovers to everyone's disgust that his father was also Mrs. Crock's lover as well as manservant. After the police converge on Grover's place, Crock convinces them that the trio are actually her rescuers. In the end, Willard leads the police to Chip's house, where the ransom money is discovered. When Chip pulls a gun, Rusty panics and knocks him unconscious by hitting him in the head with a lava lamp. Mrs. Crock expresses her gratitude by paying for Willard to attend college at the University of Southern California and buying him a new Armani suit, and paying for Rusty to open a new Chicken Hole on the beach. Willard finally reconciles with Hillary, while Crock herself ends up in a romantic relationship with Grover. ===== Lisa is home from school with the mumps, so Marge teaches her to sew. While Homer is at the mall buying magazines for Lisa, he splurges on a $125 pair of Assassins athletic shoes after seeing Ned sporting them. Santa's Little Helper promptly destroys Homer's Assassins. Marge shows Lisa a patchwork quilt, a family heirloom, which Santa's Little Helper chews apart. When Homer and Marge want to rid themselves of the dog, Bart and Lisa promise to train him so they may keep him. Santa's Little Helper attends an obedience school run by Emily Winthrop, an English woman. After seeing how misbehaved the dog is, she sternly suggests Bart use a choke chain to correct his behavior. Since Bart is reluctant to use firm discipline to train him, the dog fails to master basic commands like sitting and heeling. Emily grows more exasperated with Bart and his dog at each class. Thinking it will be their last time together, Bart plays with Santa's Little Helper the night before the final exam. The dog is finally able to understand Bart's commands and passes obedience school, to Homer's chagrin. Lisa marks the occasion by starting a new quilt to replace the one the dog destroyed. ===== In the novel, the cities and regions are each ruled by their own gods. In the city of Gibil, however; the god Engibil has gotten lazy and does not monitor his city. As such the inhabitants have developed technology such as writing and smelting, and have started to lose respect for Engibil and his power. The other gods have gotten angry at Gibil for reasons they keep to themselves, and have started to refuse to trade with Gibil. It becomes the task of the main character, Sharur, a merchant, to travel the land and find out why the gods are angry and try to solve the problem. ===== The plot of Urban Assault is set in the future, where a set of hazardous natural disasters involving ozone depletion, termed The Big Mistake, results in destruction of the ocean's phytoplankton, causing the Earth's food chain to collapse. Scarce food supplies results in a resource war, and plasma formation technology -- the ability to form solid constructions using only energy -- allows military commanders to create entire armies of military drones to subjugate their foes. The technology was leaked to enemy factions, destroying fragile political alliances and launching the planet into a third world war. Citizens are forced into domed communities, which shield them from dangerous levels of UV radiation (to an extent) and filters the toxic air. However, most of the adult population had already consumed contaminated food, and most died within five years - regardless of location, domed or not. The surviving humans had divided into warring factions: The Resistance, Ghorkovs, Taerkastens, and the Black Sect. A group of alien invaders, the Mykonians, view humans as being unworthy of such a resource-rich planet, and implant their Parasite Machine into the crust of the planet to draw energy directly from the Earth's core. The Parasite Machine is causing the Earth's core to cool, weakening its magnetic field. This will eventually cause solar radiation levels to rise and obliterate all of the planet's biomass, making it suitable for Mykonian colonization. In the campaign, Mykonian forces are usually present in northern Europe, where the cool temperatures allow for more efficient data transfer. A second group of alien invaders, the plant-like Sulgogars, have invaded northern Africa, where the warm climate creates a suitable spawning ground. It has been mentioned that Sulgogars eat humans and extract minerals from the ground, and the fact that humans killed the ocean may have contributed to their animosity against the human race. In the original campaign, the Sulgogars are rarely encountered and only appeared in 4 missions including the final confrontation. In addition to the in-game mission briefing texts, a significant portion of comprehensive, in-depth background lore of the game are scattered and hidden deep inside the game's Help files. One could access these fragmented storyline materials by clicking the special glowing button that appears on numerous help pages. ===== The events in part one of the novel all take place in South Africa. In a busy South African street, Julie Summers' car breaks down. She goes asking for the nearest garage, where she meets Abdu. He accompanies her to where she left the car. The events in part two of the novel all take place in Abdu's homeland. In the airport of an unnamed Arab country Julie and Abdu pass through the usual paper work. ===== The plot is of the "story within a story" format. The actual story is told as an answer to a question asked at school at a lesson about the patterns of the development of societies. The story goes as follows. :Some 3000 years in the future, a Communist Earth has just developed faster-than-light space travel based on the experiment of Ren Boz (from the Andromeda novel). Using the new technology, Earth constructs "straight-beam" starships which travel by sliding on the edge between our Universe ("Shakti") and the Anti-Universe ("Tamas"). The second ship of that kind, Dark Flame, departs from the Solar System on a mission to a habitable planet Tormance (named after the planet in A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay—whom Yefremov erroneously refers to as Arthur Lindsay) in the Lynx constellation, which was reported by alien space voyagers from Cepheus to be colonized by humans, thought to be Earth escapees from the Age before World Unification. :The society of this distant planet is labelled by Efremov as "an amalgamation of a Capitalism in its worst form and of a Chinese pseudo-socialism" and a part of "Inferno" (a deep philosophical concept of Efremov's relating to the Nature and the natural way of things, always as he claims infernal towards the living thinking sentient beings), a society in which ordinary workers' lives are limited to 26 local years ("short-living", KJI, or КЖИ for ) while scientists, engineers and other selected qualified professionals live out their natural lives ("long-living", DJI, or ДЖИ for ), with artists, sportspeople and "models" given somewhat longer life-spans than that of KJI (up to about 34 years). Both KJI and DJI are under the ruthless totalitarian control of the ruling class of government bureaucracy ("snake-carriers", similar to the prototypical "inner-party members" of Orwell's 1984) and the police forces ("the lilac"), which in turn are under the direct command of the Council of Four and its Chairman, the actual Ruler of the planet. The most shocking aspect of its civilization for the Earthlings is its total control of information, maintaining separate information systems for separate social strata, with full and true information available ultimately only to the Supreme Leader (who, for example, is the only one on the whole planet knowing that Tormance people are, in fact, from Earth). :The plot follows the Communist crew as they establish contact and explore the planet's society, eventually sacrificing some lives including that of the expedition leader, female historian Fay Rodis, for the sake of free future of the planet and its people's children. Their influence is predominantly through providing full and true information freely to all people about Earth's past and present, and their views of the situation on the planet. They also provide a selective short memory-eraser (a modifier of social and behavioural skills) to be used against the system's spies by the nascent resistance. Also, some of the crew (esp. Rodis) have the mental capacity to do the same sort of influence without use of the device. Every member of the crew was also accompanied by a nine-legged discoid robot called SDF (Servant, Defender and Freighter). :When the Earth ship is on its way home, astronavigator Vir Norin volunteers to stay and help the resistance fighters. After the story of Tormance was told, it was clarified that the contact with the Earth people had eventually helped to overcome the crisis; some 130 years after the Earth received a message from Tormancians, and a starship from one of the Earth colonies was about to be sent to Tormance. ===== The plot contains some storylines which are intertwined. We can name these storylines according to their setting places. The first one is the Soviet Storyline and is about the medical doctor and psychophysiologist Ivan Girin, who studies the hidden possibilities of human brain and is interested in human beauty. The second storyline is about a group of Italians who go to Africa to find diamonds, but find Alexander The Great's Crown with mysterious crystals in it. The third storyline is about Dayaram Ramamoorty, the sculptor from India, and Amrita Tillottama, the dancer. The characters meet each other in the end of the novel. ===== A noble mouse named Despereaux saves a princess named Princess Pea. ===== Two years after the previous movie, Marnie Piper (Kimberly J. Brown) prepares to begin a new school year. She asks the Halloweentown Council to work toward openness between Halloweentown and the mortal world. She proposes bringing a group of Halloweentown students to her own high school in the mortal world. The Council is initially apprehensive, mostly due to the legend of the Knights of the Iron Dagger: a fanatical order of knights who wanted to destroy all things magical. The Halloweentown High Council, however, agrees to accept the plan after Marnie mistakenly bets "all the Cromwell magic" that her plan will work. If she does not prove she is right by midnight on Halloween, then her entire family will lose their magical abilities. Marnie, regretting what she said to the Council, wants to cancel the program she has made, but her grandmother Aggie (Debbie Reynolds) opposes, saying that they have nothing to fear. The Halloweentown students arrive and are magically given human appearances to disguise their true non-human natures. School begins with Marnie acting as a tour guide for the exchange group, claiming they are from Canada. Aggie substitute teaches so she can be available in case of need. Cody (Finn Wittrock), a new student, shows a romantic interest in Marnie. While Aggie proves unable to teach any subject effectively, the Halloweentown students keep to themselves, hiding in the refuge that Aggie magically creates for them in a remote student locker. Marnie gradually encourages the students to join sports teams, school activities, and to make new friends. Marnie's progress is interrupted by a warning that appears to be from the Knights of the Iron Dagger, then by a magical incident at the mall that results in the Halloweentown students assuming their natural appearances in public. This is followed by a break-in at the secret magical locker and the disappearance of Cassie (Eliana Reyes). Meanwhile, Marnie's developing relationship with Cody parallels an unexpected romance beginning between Aggie and the school's principal Phil Flannigan (Clifton Davis). Aggie suspects Cody of being the cause of the trouble and tries to convince Marnie to halt their relationship, but Marnie in turn suspects Flannigan. They eventually discover that Flannigan is the Knight in question; he was told prior to the students' arrival that he was the last of the Order. Edgar Dalloway (Michael Flynn), head of the Witches' Council and father of one of the students, is the real root of their problems. He wants to keep Halloweentown isolated from the mortal world, and used Flannigan to ensure the failure of Marnie's project. This, he hoped, would cause a negative reaction in Halloweentown and keep the portal between Halloweentown and the mortal world closed. The Halloweentown students use the school's Halloween carnival to improve mortal attitudes toward magical folk. Their haunted house depicts the ordinary lives of creatures that have typically been seen as monsters in the mortal world, including displays like the "Monster Tea Party" and ogres "picnicking in their natural setting", which winds up boring the carnival goers. Meanwhile, Marnie's mother Gwen (Judith Hoag) uses a Witch's Glass to hunt down Cassie. At the school carnival, Dalloway launches magical attacks against the mortal students by bringing the inanimate monsters in the haunted house to life. The ensuing panic spirals beyond Marnie's and Aggie's ability to contain the monsters. Flannigan incites a mob to corner the Halloweentown students. Cody shames the crowd, the students reveal themselves, and the crowd accepts them for who they are. Flannigan also renounces being a knight and accepts Aggie. Dalloway claims the Cromwell magic and explains that his son Ethan (Lucas Grabeel) helped with most of the things that happened, but Gwen has shown the evening's events to the Halloweentown High Council. They return the Cromwell magic, Gwen returns with the imprisoned student, and the Council imprisons Dalloway in another Witch's Glass taking his disagreement with them as a form of resignation. The portal between Halloweentown and the mortal world opens inside the haunted house, and crowds of children from Halloweentown cross over to enjoy the carnival together with children of the mortal world. Marnie flies off for a romantic broom ride with Cody. While flying over the carnival, they kiss. ===== The world has entered a Cold War-like setting in which nuclear holocaust appears imminent. In the hope of staving off an apocalyptic military confrontation between nations, an idealistic group of scientists working at United Labs plans to stage a fake alien invasion of Earth in an effort to unite all humanity against a perceived, common enemy. The scientists have managed to study the planetary conditions on the planet Theta. They draw lots, and physicist Dr. Allen Leighton is chosen to undergo radical surgical procedures that will transform him into an inhabitant from the planet Theta. Leighton's death is faked, and the bizarre series of transplants and modifications to his body proceed. His wife, Yvette, persists in not believing he is dead; she even feels sympathetic pain as Allen suffers on the operating table. Complications arise when the effects of Leighton's transformation extend beyond his physical appearance and begin to affect his mind, a situation compounded by the scientist's strong emotional connection with his now pregnant wife. The scientists' plan is for Dr. Leighton, as the Thetan creature equipped with an energy weapon and spaceship, to land at the United Nations in an effort to create initial panic. This panic, in theory, will be resolved as the world unites to fight the invader. Leighton, now a perfect simulation of an inhabitant of the planet Theta, is launched into orbit as a weather satellite, but the mission goes awry when the spaceship comes down off course and lands in a wooded area near the United Labs facility. After disintegrating their station wagon with his laser pistol, Allen is severely wounded by three armed hunters as he emerges from the underbrush. With no where else to go, Allen stumbles back to the lab. Yvette, sensing trouble, hurries to the lab looking for her husband. She arrives as Allen, now hideously transformed, enters and collapses to the floor. Before dying of mortal wounds, Allen makes a sign in the air with his hand, one familiar to his wife, and she then realizes the horrifying truth that the alien is, in fact, her husband. ===== The film opens with a green- skinned man (Franne Schacht) wandering aimlessly through the desert with a mysterious laser cannon attached to his arm. Nearby, an alien spacecraft lands and two reptilian creatures carrying weapons emerge. After a brief firefight, the aliens disintegrate the man, then return to their spacecraft and fly away, leaving behind the laser cannon and a metallic pendant the man was wearing. Elsewhere, teenager Billy Duncan (Kim Milford) wakes up in his bed, seemingly disturbed. He goes outside to find his mother (Janet Dey) has been invited to a trip to Acapulco and, despite her son's protests, she leaves her son behind. A dejected Billy goes to visit his girlfriend Kathy (Cheryl Smith), but her grandfather Colonel Farley (Keenan Wynn), a disheveled military veteran, spouts wild conspiracy theories and paranoid rants at Billy until he goes away. It becomes clear Billy despises the town he lives in and everybody around him, and for good reason; he is soon harassed both by a teenage bully named Chuck Boran (Mike Bobenko) and his nerdy friend Froggy (Eddie Deezen), and by two police deputies (Dennis Burkley and Barry Cutler), who give him a speeding ticket. Billy wanders into the desert alone and discovers the laser cannon and pendant. He starts playing with the cannon, making "pow, pow, pow" noises and pretending to shoot things. However, while wearing the pendant and using the cannon simultaneously, the weapon actually fires, and Billy starts firing randomly at things in the desert. Meanwhile, on the alien spacecraft, the two aliens converse (in an unsubtitled alien language) with their leader, who orders them to return to Earth and recover the cannon: it is implied that the aliens left the cannon and pendant behind under the presumption that no other human would be able to use them as the green-skinned man had. Meanwhile, Billy and Kathy attend a pool party with other teens, where Chuck makes an unwanted advance on Kathy, resulting in Billy fighting with Chuck and Froggy. That night, from a hidden vantage point, Billy fires at Chuck's car with the laser cannon, resulting in a huge explosion that Chuck and Froggy barely escape. A government official named Tony Craig (Gianni Russo) arrives to investigate both the explosion and the desert where Billy found the cannon. Tony informs the local sheriff (Ron Masak) that the town must be sealed off due to his investigation. Meanwhile, Billy feels sick due to an unusual growth on his chest. At Kathy's urging, he visits Doctor Mellon (Roddy McDowall), who surgically removes a metallic disc from Billy's chest. He calls the police laboratory technician Mike London (Rick Walters) to arrange for the disc to be investigated. However, later that night, a green-skinned and seemingly crazed Billy opens fire on Mellon's car, killing him in an explosion. The next day, Tony investigates the wreckage and recovers unusual material, which he brings to Mike London. After some experiments, Mike concludes it is an alien material and cannot be destroyed. Later that night, Billy, once again appearing deranged and grotesque, attacks and kills the two police deputies who harassed him earlier. Elsewhere, Billy and Kathy lay together outside next to Billy's van. While he is sleeping, Kathy discovers his alien pendant and puts it on Billy's chest, which turns his skin green and his eyes and teeth hideously deformed. Billy attacks the horrified Kathy, but she escapes. Billy goes on a rampage, shooting things at random with the laser cannon. A small airplane with law enforcement officials opens fire on Billy, but he destroys the plane. Next, he comes across Chuck and Froggy and kills them by destroying their new car with the cannon. Meanwhile, Tony Craig questions Colonel Farley and Kathy about Billy, while elsewhere the two aliens land on Earth and begin searching for Billy themselves. After killing a hippie (Michael Bryar) and stealing his van, Billy travels to a city block where he fires indiscriminately at his surroundings, screaming like an animal. Kathy and Tony arrive in their car and find Billy in an alley. Before they can speak to him, however, one of the aliens shoots him from atop one of the nearby buildings. Billy is killed and the alien departs in the spacecraft, once again leaving behind the laser cannon and pendant. The film ends with Kathy crying over Billy's corpse as Tony looks on. ===== Young newlyweds Max and Bonnie Lamb, on their honeymoon at Walt Disney World in Orlando, are taken aback by news of a hurricane making landfall in South Florida. To Bonnie's surprise, Max is possessed by a fervent desire to visit the disaster scene after it has passed through. Once they arrive, Bonnie is appalled to see Max hopping through hurricane debris and gutted houses with his video camera, treating the devastation as a tourist attraction. She stalks away from him to regain her temper, and is not present when Max is snatched up by "Skink," an ex-governor of Florida now living wild on Key Largo, who attempts to teach him some manners and respect for nature. At the same time, con artist Edie Marsh and her sometime partner, an ex-convict nicknamed "Snapper," travel to the hurricane zone to work a personal injury scam. However, the house they pick belongs to mobile home salesman Tony Torres. A bit sharper than the average hurricane victim, Tony quickly sees through them and takes them hostage with a shotgun. Instead of killing them, he invites them in on his own scam: he's expecting a large settlement from his insurance company, but needs his estranged wife Neria's signature to collect. If Edie poses as the wife, Tony can cut out his real wife, and Edie gets a slice of the take. Meanwhile, after searching fruitlessly for Max, Bonnie is befriended by Augustine Herrera, an independent young man who is searching for exotic animals loosed from his deceased uncle's wildlife farm by the hurricane. Edie and Snapper's scam falls apart when Tony is murdered by Ira Jackson, a mob enforcer whose mother was killed in one of Tony's sub-standard trailer homes during the hurricane. After parting ways, each of them discovers a new angle to work: Edie seduces Fred Dove, the insurance adjuster sent to Tony's home, and convinces him to help her pose as Neria for the insurance payoff. Snapper partners with Avila, a corrupt building inspector, to run a phony roofing company and con desperate homeowners. Snapper scores a $7,000 cash "deposit" from the wife of construction mogul Gar Whitmark. Later, during a traffic stop, he ambushes and beats Trooper Brenda Rourke, the girlfriend of Skink's best friend Jim Tile, and steals her .357 revolver. Growing bored with the roofing scam, Snapper blackmails Edie and Fred into letting him in on their insurance scam by posing as the now-deceased Tony. Ira next targets Avila, but is killed and eaten at the last second by an escaped African lion. Gar Whitmark traces the roofing scam back to Avila, and threatens to expose him unless Avila pays him back the money Snapper stole, plus the cost of replacing Gar's roof. Meanwhile, Skink hands Max over to Bonnie, who by this time has become attracted to Augustine while falling out of love with Max. When Augustine volunteers to help Skink in his new mission of tracking down Snapper, Bonnie impulsively decides to stay in Florida and go along. Max, preoccupied with a new crisis at his job, flies back to New York City without her. The three track Snapper's car to Tony's house, where they find that another of Tony's disgruntled customers, Levon Stichler, has shown up looking to get even. Snapper, thinking Levon is an insurance agent, identifies himself as Tony, only to be attacked with a metal spike in return. The two quickly realize that both have made a mistake. Fearful that the scam will be exposed, Snapper quickly concocts a plan to drive Levon south and dump him at a hotel in the Florida Keys. As he and Edie are loading Levon into a stolen Jeep Cherokee, Skink intervenes, only to be taken hostage along with Bonnie. Augustine misses the abduction, but quickly deduces what happened. By hitting the redial button on the house phone, he learns of their hotel destination in the Keys and notifies Jim. Jim catches up to the Jeep and begins to shadow it, but loses the tail when he gets cut off by an opening drawbridge. The sudden involvement of three more unwanted people into the scam has puts Snapper on edge. He and Edie argue during the drive, causing Snapper shooting a hole in the roof of the Jeep. Snapper forces them to stop at a liquor store, making the situation even worse. However, it delays him long enough for Augustine to reach the hotel ahead of him. Upon reaching the hotel, Snapper checks Levon into a room and hires a pair of prostitutes to keep him "entertained." Unknown to Snapper, the two women blabbed their part in the plan to Avila earlier in the day, and he has also come to the hotel to demanding Snapper fix the fallout from the roofing scam. Snapper chases Avila away, forcing him to jump off a bridge into the ocean. Augustine uses this opportunity to conceal himself inside the Jeep with the rifle. When Snapper and the rest of the hostages attempt to leave, Jim arrives and is immediately shot by Snapper. Because he has a bulletproof vest, Jim survives. Convinced he has killed Jim, Snapper transfers everyone into a carjacked Cadillac. Following them in the dumped Jeep, Augustine manages to steer alongside and shoot Snapper through the window with a tranquilizer dart, rendering him unconscious. Knowing that Jim's shooting will bring the police out in full force, the party abandons the vehicles and retreats into the Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge. Around a campfire that night, Skink enacts revenge on Snapper before knocking him out with another tranquilizer dart. Edie, Bonnie and Augustine are led back to civilization by Skink while Snapper is left to fend for himself in the wild. ===== The backstory takes place in 12th-century England, where Count Thibault Malféte (Jean Reno) is about to marry Princess Rosalind, the daughter of the reigning King. At the wedding banquet, by mistake, an enemy known as the Earl of Warwick gives Thibault a potion which makes him hallucinate (and which was actually intended for Rosalind by a witch hired and paid by the Earl), and under its influence, he kills his own bride believing she is a ferocious monster. While under sentence of death, he asks his servant, André Le Paté (Christian Clavier) to find a wizard (Malcolm McDowell) to help him. The wizard gives him a potion that will send him back to the moment before he killed Princess Rosalind. The incompetent wizard botches the spell, and instead, Thibault and Andre are sent into the 21st century. They end up in a museum in Chicago where they are arrested by the police after causing much panic, mischief, and chaos. They are rescued by Julia Malféte (Christina Applegate), a museum employee who closely resembles Princess Rosalind. She thinks that Thibault is her distant French cousin who drowned while yachting a couple of years ago. However, Thibault soon finds out that Julia is descended from his family and realizes he must return to the 12th century to correct the past. Julia introduces them to the modern American style of life where norms from medieval times no longer apply. Before the return to his time, Thibault decides to protect Julia from her money-hungry fiance, Hunter (Matt Ross). Meanwhile, Andre falls for a pretty gardener, Angelique (Tara Reid) who presents him with the world of equal rights for all people. The wizard realizes his mistake and decides to time travel into the future to help Thibault, who is also getting accustomed to 21st-century life. After he finds him, he successfully prepares a potion for returning to the past. André confronts Thibault, that he does not want to return to the 12th century, after Julia convinces Thibault that he should set him free, Thibault agrees. Hunter decides to prevent Thibault from interfering with his plans but Julia finds out his real intentions and breaks up with him. Before he leaves, Thibault tells Julia that she will meet a new and better man to marry. Then, he and the wizard drink the potion in the museum and return to the past just before the murder of Princess Rosalind. Hunter finds the remainder of the potion which sends him to the 12th century where he is captured. Julia decides to reclaim her ancestral castle, much to the firm's delight, and meets a man named Francois Le Combier, who knows much about her family's history. In the last scene, André and Angelique are seen driving in a hot rod towards Las Vegas, which makes André wonder one thing, who would protect him from the Devil. Angelique simply replies "Hey, at least you got me, babe", to which André happily agrees. ===== The novel takes the form of an autobiography by a twenty-fifth century soldier, Brigadier General Sir Robert Mayfair Bruce, of the Yukon Confederacy, as edited by a prudish, bigoted academic of the twenty-sixth century, Professor Roland Modesty Van Buren. Bruce's story chronicles (and criticizes) the career of Lord Isaac Prophet Fitzpatrick, a consul of the fictional Yukon Confederacy whose life closely parallels that of Alexander the Great. This unique style allows the reader to simultaneously learn the "official history" of Fitzpatrick as well as the revisionist version of Bruce's purported work.Borders.com feature on Fitzpatrick's War. ===== Set in Detroit, Gridlock'd centers around heroin addicts Spoon (Tupac Shakur), Stretch (Tim Roth) and Cookie (Thandie Newton). They are in a band – in the spoken word genre – called Eight Mile Road, with Cookie on vocals, Spoon on bass guitar (plus secondary vocals) and Stretch on piano. Spoon and Stretch decide to kick their habit after Cookie overdoses on her first hit. Throughout a disastrous day, the two addicts dodge police and local criminals while struggling with an apathetic government bureaucracy that thwarts their entrance to a rehabilitation program. ===== Kyle Watson is a talented basketball player who is about to graduate from high school. While he waits to find out if he will receive a scholarship to Georgetown University, he finds himself in a difficult dilemma over a playground basketball tournament. He must decide whether to play for and follow his widely beloved basketball coach Mike Rollins, or Birdie, a local thug in the neighborhood. Thomas "Shep" Sheppard, a former standout player himself, now works as a high school security guard. Kyle feels resentment towards the security guard, because Kyle's own mother is falling in love with Shep. Coincidentally, Kyle's coach also wants Shep to coach his team when he feels it is time for him to retire. It is later revealed to Kyle that Shep is Birdie's older brother. Kyle makes a decision to run with Birdie's team until he decided to come back to his old team, because of Birdie's wrongful actions against Flip and Kyle's friend Bugaloo. In the tournament, both Kyle's and Birdie's teams march to the finals, with Kyle's team playing solid team basketball, while Birdie's team plays a very thuggish style. Before the finals, Birdie threatens Kyle, demanding Kyle to throw away the game, so that Birdie's team would win. Kyle is brutalized throughout the game, with Birdie's team having a solid lead, and is injured. Shep, unable to watch any longer, replaces Kyle in the game - despite being aggressively attacked throughout, Shep helps the team come back, and in the final seconds, passes the ball to Kyle, who hits the game winner. After the loss, Birdie orders Motaw, his star player and gang member, to kill Kyle. Shep protects Kyle and is shot, while Motaw is shot dead by security. Birdie is later killed by Bugaloo as revenge for previous humiliations. In the end, Kyle is revealed to have gotten the scholarship to Georgetown University - during a televised game, Kyle hits the game winner, while a recovered Shep watches with a smile. ===== The film tells of Che Guevara (Omar Sharif), a young Argentine doctor who proves his mettle during the Cuban guerrilla war in the late 1950s. He gains the respect of his men and becomes the leader of a patrol. Fidel Castro (Jack Palance) is impressed by Guevara's tactics and discipline and makes him his chief adviser. When Castro defeats Cuban dictator Batista after two years of fighting, Guevara directs a series of massive reprisals, yet, Guevara dreams of fomenting a worldwide revolution. After Castro backs down during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Guevara accuses Castro of being a Soviet tool and decides to leave Cuba. Guevara lands in Bolivia, where he attempts to begin his dream of a worldwide peasant revolution, but the Bolivian peasants do not follow his lead and the Bolivian Army pursues him. ===== ===== Shepard and Kaidan are sent to the human colony of Eden Prime to recover an unearthed Prothean beacon. They repel an attack by the geth, rescuing Ashley in the process. Rogue turian Spectre, Saren Arterius, activates the beacon before escaping. Shepard reaches the beacon and receives a vision showing scenes of war and death. The SSV Normandy and its crew are summoned by Ambassador Donnel Udina to the Citadel Station, but Shepard is unable to convince the Citadel Council of Saren's treason without solid evidence. Shepard meets Garrus and Wrex, and rescues Tali, who possesses a recording of a conversation between Saren and asari Matriarch, Benezia. The two discuss their victory while also mentioning an artifact called the "Conduit" and the return of the Reapers, a highly advanced machine race of synthetic-organic starships believed to eradicate all organic civilization every 50,000 years. The Council revokes Saren's Spectre status and makes Shepard the first human Spectre. Shepard is also handed command of the Normandy by Anderson, and begins to follow several leads provided by him and Udina. On the world of Therum, Shepard rescues Benezia's daughter Liara T'Soni, who joins Shepard's squad because of her biotic abilities and expertise of the Protheans. On the colony of Feros, Shepard fights off Saren's forces and learns that his flagship, Sovereign, possesses unique mind-control capabilities. On the world of Noveria, Shepard tracks down and defeats Benezia, who reveals that she and Saren are being indoctrinated by Sovereign. Meanwhile, the Council informs Shepard that a salarian infiltration unit has uncovered Saren's main base on Virmire. Upon arrival, Shepard learns that Saren has discovered a cure for the krogan genetic disease, the genophage, and plans to breed an army of unstoppable krogan warriors. Wrex clashes with Shepard over whether to destroy it, which results in him either standing down or being executed. After this conflict, Shepard assists the salarians in destroying the base by planting a bomb in it. Inside, Shepard is confronted by Sovereign, who reveals itself to be an actual Reaper. Sovereign reveals that the Reapers remain outside the Milky Way waiting for organic life to develop and discover the Mass Relays, before harvesting them when they reach their peak. Afterwards, Shepard must choose between saving Ashley or Kaidan, who have both been pinned down with the bomb about to explode. Shepard also finds Saren, who claims that his allegiance to Sovereign will save organic life forms by demonstrating their usefulness to the Reapers. Liara is then able to pinpoint the Conduit's location back on the Normandy: a Prothean world known as Ilos. There, Shepard learns that the Citadel Station is actually a huge Mass Relay that the Reapers use to invade the galaxy. During the last extinction cycle, a few Protheans survived on Ilos via cryopreservation and then re-entered the Citadel Station via the Conduit, a reverse-engineered miniature Mass Relay disguised aboard the station as a statue. The Protheans sabotaged the Citadel to prevent the Reapers from remotely activating the Citadel Mass Relay, which Saren plans to undo to allow Sovereign to trigger the Reaper invasion. After fighting through heavy geth forces at the Conduit, Shepard confronts Saren at the Citadel. Saren is either killed by Shepard or commits suicide if Shepard convinces him to rebel. The Destiny Ascension, the Citadel's flagship with the Council on board, then requests assistance; Shepard must either risk heavy human casualties to save them or sacrifice them to pursue Sovereign. Sovereign then reanimates Saren's corpse to attack Shepard, while simultaneously fighting off the Alliance. Eventually, Saren's corpse is destroyed, and Sovereign is dispatched by the Normandy. For prevailing, Humanity is either invited to join the Council if it was saved, or becomes its new leader if it was left to perish. Regardless, Shepard can nominate either Anderson or Udina to this new leadership position before leaving the proceedings, vowing to end the Reaper threat. ===== ===== Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister tells the story of Iris, the plain younger daughter of Margarethe Fisher, as she takes care of her mentally challenged older sister Ruth and her beautiful stepsister Clara. Having fled from the Fens of Cambridgeshire, England to Haarlem, the Netherlands, upon her father's death, Iris is slightly at odds with the world and often contemplates the value of beauty and ugliness. While caring for her sisters and keeping the peace between Clara and Margarethe, Iris develops a painter's eye and spends time studying under a local painter known as The Master, and his apprentice, Caspar. Margrethe makes Iris and Ruth go to the ball in the hopes of making the prince fall in love with Iris. Iris secretly helps Clara get to the ball and the prince immediately falls in love with her. While at the ball, Ruth does the unthinkable out of jealousy and love of Clara and Master, burning down the Master's magnum opus, a painting of Clara. That night, the fairy tale of Cinderella and her pumpkin carriage is spun, and the next morning her prince comes to collect her. At the end of the tale, the characters' eventual fates are revealed: Iris marries Caspar and paints at his side, sometimes under his name; Caspar "dutifully" cares for Ruth; and Clara eventually dies in New Amsterdam from a complaint of the heart. ===== The story follows the adventures of a teenage girl Julia (Helga Anders) who leaves Belgrade to spend a holiday on a stud farm run by her Uncle Dimitri (Helmuth Schneider), where with the help of head groom Hugo (Franz Muxeneder), white Lipizzaner horses are raised. In the first episode, stallion Boris is stolen by gypsies who dye his white coat brown so that no one will recognise him. Julia and Hugo set off to find Boris and upon his recovery an affinity is formed between girl and horse. ===== Venetia Aldridge is a brilliant criminal lawyer who is set to take over as the Head of Chambers in Pawlet Court, London. She successfully defends Garry Ashe against the charge of the murder of his aunt but is unprepared when her daughter flaunts her emotional involvement with him. Venetia is murdered in her office soon after her trial. Adam Dalgliesh investigates what appears to be an inside job. Things are not as simple as they seem as all the suspects appear to have unbreakable alibis. A second murder occurs later in the narrative and there is a tantalising ending when one of the "murderers" appears to confess with the knowledge that the case could never come to trial because of a lack of evidence. ===== At Fallbrook Central School, the annual student-elected Teacher of the Year award ceremony is held. Every year for the last 43 years, Norman Warner, fondly called Stormin' Norman, has won the award. During the ceremony, he collapses and dies, saying "Take Your shots" and "It takes more than death to kill a man", greatly confusing his son, Matt Warner. The burden of carrying the legacy falls to Matt, who has always lived in the shadow of his father. Determined to keep the family tradition of being Teacher of the Year alive, Matt focuses all his attention and efforts in winning the coveted title. But the new history teacher, Michael D'Angelo becomes the new student favorite, telling Matt's son to "Fall with a thunk for a woman" when he accidentally trips while watching Chase Witherspoon. He is called, even by fellow and senior teachers, "Mr. D". Young and funny, with unconventional methods of teaching and an uncanny ability to connect with his students, Mr. D. quickly wins the hearts not only of the students but also the teachers, especially the young art teacher, Ms. Davies. Now that Mr. D. is the most popular teacher on campus, Matt feels that he has no chances of winning against Mr. D. Now obsessed with discrediting Mr. D, Matt soon forgets what it means to be a teacher. Desperate to find a flaw in "Mr Perfect", Matt follows Mr. D around town and discovers a secret the alarmingly perfect teacher is hiding: Mr. D has been diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer and does not have long to live. Shocked by the startling discovery into realizing his own pettiness, Matt slowly changes his ways of teaching and in the process wins the hearts of his students. When Mr. D stops coming to teach because of his worsening illness, the students become depressed by the situation. Matt steps in to cheer up the student's spirits and leads the basketball team to a victory, with a special guest appearance with 30 seconds left in the game by Mr. D. Chase Witherspoon, being a cheerleader, accidentally falls, and Matt's son retells her of Mr. D's quote "Fall with a thunk", and the two share a kiss, though it was quickly interrupted by the referee. The film concludes after three years have passed and Matt's own son is now in high school, and Matt is teaching a brand new year of pupils in his life science class. He has won the Teacher of the Year for the last two years, teaching similarly to Mr. D, who won the award in the school year of 2003. The art teacher, Ms. Davies, inherited Mr. D's car and even put a Hawaiian girl on the car. The film ends with a close-up of a photo in Matt's classroom of himself, Mr. D, and the basketball team with "Michael D'Angelo 1967-2003" inscribed on the bottom of the frame. ===== Edward, a scientist doing research in an attempt to read and record people's thoughts, has a relationship with his artist girlfriend Britt. The extensive time he puts into his research leaves him little time for his relationship with Britt. Just as Edward is about to give up on his research, he is contacted by the mysterious Everett Longstreet who offers Edward both a place to do his research and unlimited funding. As Edward gets closer to making a breakthrough with his research he becomes suspicious of Everett and his ulterior motives as he realizes that he is getting closer to not only unlocking the mind but also the secrets of eternal death. ===== Donald applies for a job as the Sheriff of Bullet Valley and his nephews plan on helping him, despite how dangerous he tells them it is. They investigate the mysterious cattle theft from the Diamond Brand Ranch and find out that the thief is none other than Blacksnake McSquirt. It's a fight to the finish when Donald finally defeats Blacksnake. =====