From Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ===== Following the break-up of his marriage caused by his wife's affair with another man named Bullen, Smith arranges to live on the Coromandel Peninsula on an island owned by a Maori tribe. Meanwhile, political tension escalates as an oil embargo leaves the country in an energy crisis. Tension boils over into a civil war and guerrilla activity. However, Smith and his dog enjoy peaceful island life, having little interaction with the rest of society. Smith's idyllic life is shattered when a bomb is exploded in a nearby town, and police arrive on his island to arrest him and search for illegal weapons. After they find a cache of explosives that Smith had been unaware of, he is taken to a police station where he is imprisoned, interrogated and tortured. The dog is last seen swimming after the boat that Smith is being taken away in. Smith recognizes one policeman as a former schoolmate, Jesperson, who then takes over the interrogation. Jesperson reveals that the Government regard Smith as a key leader of the guerillas and offers expulsion from New Zealand in return for a confession, or alternatively trial by a military tribunal with a likely death sentence. During a prison transfer, Smith deliberately forces himself to vomit to confuse his captors and escapes. He then flees the city, finding work at a small campground and love with a local girl. Happy to be outside the civil war again, Smith blends in until a US Army unit arrives and takes over the campground. Smith clashes with Willoughby, the commander of the US forces, who suspects Smith of being a rebel sympathiser. The arrival of Bullen, who is now a senior leader of the underground guerrilla movement, complicates matters further. As the US forces capture and kill more rebels, Smith is unwillingly drawn into participating in an attack on the military unit by Bullen. Fleeing the scene of the successful attack, Smith and Bullen are pursued by Government forces and cornered in a nearby forest. After Government forces surround the guerrillas and bomb their encampment, Smith and Bullen escape, only to be cornered by Jesperson and his elite squad. After Bullen is fatally wounded, Smithwishing an end to what is happeningdeliberately provokes Jesperson into shooting him. ===== J. L. "Fatman" McCabe is a Hawaii-born, tough former HPD officer turned Los Angeles district attorney. He is teamed with a handsome, happy-go-lucky special investigator named Jake Styles. They often clash due to their different styles and personalities. "Fatman" hardly travels anywhere without Max, his pet bulldog. The show was set in Los Angeles during the first season. After the end of Magnum, P.I., the show was moved to Hawaii. The second and third seasons and half of the fourth season were filmed in Honolulu. The show then returned to Los Angeles for the remainder of its run. ===== Jupiter is fondling Ganymede, who says that Jupiter's wife Juno has been mistreating him because of her jealousy. Venus enters, and complains that Jupiter is neglecting her son Aeneas, who has left Troy with survivors of the defeated city. Aeneas was on his way to Italy, but is now lost in a storm. Jupiter tells her not to worry; he will quiet the storm. Venus travels to Libya, where she disguises herself as a mortal and meets Aeneas, who has arrived, lost, on the coast. He and a few followers have become separated from their comrades. He recognises her, but she denies her identity. She helps him meet up with Illioneus, Sergestus and Cloanthes, other surviving Trojans who have already received generous hospitality from the local ruler Dido, Queen of Carthage. Dido meets Aeneas and promises to supply his ships. She asks him to give her the true story of the fall of Troy, which he does in detail, describing the death of Priam, the loss of his own wife and his escape with his son Ascanius and other survivors. Dido's suitor, Iarbas, presses her to agree to marry him. She seems to favour him, but Venus has other plans. She disguises Cupid as Aeneas's son Ascanius, so that he can get close to Dido and touch her with his arrow. He does so; Dido immediately falls in love with Aeneas and rejects Iarbas out of hand, to his horror and confusion. Dido's sister Anna, who is in love with Iarbas, encourages Dido to pursue Aeneas. Dido and Aeneas meet at a cave, where Dido declares her love. They enter the cave to make love. Iarbas swears he will get revenge. Venus and Juno appear, arguing over Aeneas. Venus believes that Juno wants to harm her son, but Juno denies it, saying she has important plans for him. Aeneas's followers say they must leave Libya, to fulfil their destiny in Italy. Aeneas seems to agree, and prepares to depart. Dido sends Anna to find out what is happening. She brings Aeneas back, who denies he intended to leave. Dido forgives him, but as a precaution removes all the sails and tackle from his ships. She also places Ascanius in the custody of the Nurse, believing that Aeneas will not leave without him. However, "Ascanius" is really the disguised Cupid. Dido says that Aeneas will be king of Carthage and anyone who objects will be executed. Aeneas agrees and plans to build a new city to rival Troy and strike back at the Greeks. Mercury appears with the real Ascanius (a.k.a. Cupid) and informs Aeneas that his destiny is in Italy and that he must leave on the orders of Jupiter. Aeneas reluctantly accepts the divine command. Iarbas sees the opportunity to be rid of his rival and agrees to supply Aeneas with the missing tackle. Aeneas tells Dido he must leave. She pleads with him to ignore Jupiter's command, but he refuses to do so. He departs, leaving Dido in despair. The Nurse says that "Ascanius" has disappeared. Dido orders her to be imprisoned. She tells Iarbas and Anna that she intends to make a funeral pyre on which she will burn everything that reminds her of Aeneas. After cursing Aeneas' progeny, she throws herself into the fire. Iarbas, horrified, kills himself too. Anna, seeing Iarbas dead, kills herself. ===== Unmarried fifty-four-year-old Virginia Miner (Vinnie), a professor at Corinth University who specializes in children's literature, is off to London for another research trip. She loves England and likes to feel that she fits in well there. She is hoping to produce an important new book about playground rhymes. However, she finds that her work has been trashed by a critic, L. D. Zimmern of Columbia, for whom she imagines monstrous dooms. The author makes a point of telling us that Vinnie is not beautiful -- perhaps rather homely -- but that she has had her share of affairs nevertheless, and a brief marriage. Although she enjoys these flings, she has stopped believing that falling or being in love is a good thing. A 'pro' at long flights, her serenity is ruffled by her seatmate, a garrulous married man from Tulsa, Chuck Mumpson. She puts him off by giving him Little Lord Fauntleroy to read. But smoking, drinking, loudly American Chuck is persistent, and ends up contacting her in London. He has been inspired by Little Lord Fauntleroy to want to trace his own family history. Vinnie slowly becomes involved with his project, and then with him. Meanwhile, her young colleague Fred Turner has left his wife, Roo, at home for his own sabbatical in London, where he is researching John Gay. Fred and Roo have quarreled and he fears the marriage is over. He consoles himself with the affections of a beautiful TV actress, Lady Rosemary Radley, who gives him the entree into London high life. The exquisite but not so young Rosemary has never managed to have a really successful love relationship—though she is not resigned to this, as Vinnie is. Although Fred is very much in love with her, he cannot give her the commitment she wants, since he must return to Corinth to teach summer school. Rosemary also has a concealed side to her personality that her friends wish to keep hidden from the public, and from journalists including contributors to Private Eye, who lampoon her as "Rosalie Raddled". When Fred encounters this side of her, the friends close ranks and shut him out. Quite by accident and with the encouragement of Chuck, Vinnie becomes an emissary for Fred's estranged wife in an improbable midnight walk on Hampstead Heath. What makes this favor more challenging for Vinnie is that Roo's father is the nefarious critic L. D. Zimmern. Just as she begins to think Chuck's affections have cooled, because of his silence of several days duration, Vinnie is visited by his daughter who describes his sudden death while climbing the stairs of a small town hall. When an English friend speaks condescendingly of Chuck, Vinnie realizes with surprise that he loved her and she loved him. She returns to her life in Corinth, solitary and unloved, but altered for having loved and been loved. ===== This novel is part of the series that follows the life of Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom from 1960 to 1990. Rabbit at Rest focuses on the years 1988–89. Harry, nearly 40 years after his glory days as a high school basketball star in a mid-sized Pennsylvania city, has retired with Janice, his wife of 33 years, to sunny Florida during the cold months, where Harry is depressed, dangerously overweight and desperate for reasons to keep on living. Unable to stop nibbling corn chips, macadamia nuts and other junk food, Rabbit nearly dies after a heart attack while sunfishing with his nine- year-old granddaughter, Judy. In a "redemption" of the drowning death of his infant daughter Rebecca in the earlier novel Rabbit, Run, he saves Judy from drowning during their sunfishing afternoon. He is distracted from his own existential worries by the acts of his drug-addicted son, Nelson, to whom Janice (the actual owner of the Angstroms' wealth) has given control of the family's thriving business, a Pennsylvania Toyota dealership. The discovery that Nelson has been stealing from the company to support his drug habit causes Harry to lose the family business. Despite his multiplying difficulties, Rabbit manages to take solace in the presence of Judy, who has matured into a beautiful and charming young lady, reminding him of his high- school glory days. He is less attached to his four-year-old grandson Roy, who seems wary and fearful of Rabbit, much like Nelson. While recuperating from heart surgery, Rabbit recognizes a nurse, Annabelle Byer, as his illegitimate daughter by his old girlfriend, Ruth. He spends time with her without identifying himself as her likely father. Then, his long-term mistress, Thelma Harrison (wife of his high-school nemesis Ron), dies of lupus. Ron confronts Harry at Thelma's funeral, but the men later reconcile over golf. Harry also encounters Cindy Murkett at the funeral, a woman he had once been obsessed with, and is saddened to see she has become an obese and bitter divorcee. After Nelson comes back from a treatment program, and Janice begins work as a real estate agent, the family finds out that Harry has had a one-night stand with Pru, Nelson's wife, on the night after he was released from the hospital. Janice's anger over this betrayal prompts Harry to escape to Florida. While in hiding, Harry has a heart attack shortly after winning a one-on-one basketball game with a local youth (echoing the opening of Rabbit, Run in which Harry impulsively joins a group of teenagers playing basketball). Nelson and Janice reach Harry's bedside while he is still alive. Janice forgives him for his infidelities and he reconciles with his son. His personal business now largely resolved, Rabbit dies. ===== This third novel of Updike's Rabbit series examines the life of Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, a one-time high school basketball star, who has reached a paunchy middle-age without relocating from Brewer, Pennsylvania, the poor, fictional city of his birth. Harry and Janice, his wife of 22 years, live comfortably, having inherited her late father's Toyota dealership. He is indeed rich, but Harry's persistent problems--his wife's drinking, his troubled son's schemes, his libido, and spectres from his past--complicate life. Having achieved an opulent lifestyle that would have embarrassed his working-class parents, Harry is not greedy, but neither is he ever quite satisfied. Harry has grown smitten with a country-club friend's young wife. He worries about Nelson, his indecisive son, a student at Kent State University. Throughout the book, Harry wonders whether his former lover, Ruth, ever gave birth to their illegitimate daughter.Updike, John. Hugging the Shore: Essays and Criticism ===== The Scions of Shannara is set in a land ruled by the cruel military order called the Federation. The Elves have vanished, while the dwarves are imprisoned for having fought the Federation in the past. The Dwarves are sent to dig in mines, and will soon be extinct because of the Federation's wickedness. Magic is forbidden. Par Ohmsford and his brother Coll start the story in Varfleet, telling legends and important histories of the past about the adventures of the Ohmsfords and the druids in a tavern through the use of Par's magic, the wishsong. The wishsong is but an illusion seen when Par sings what he wants to create. However, what Par and Coll are doing is illegal under the law of the Federation because magic is supposedly the cause for various problems that are occurring in the Four Lands. On one night, Rimmer Dall, first Seeker for the Federation, bursts into the tavern, having found out about Par and Coll, and tries to arrest them. Par and Coll are rescued by a mysterious man, who claims to be a leader of the rebel group (or the Movement). The man does not give them his name, though he does hand Par a ring with a hawk insignia. He tells them that when they need help they can go to a certain forge, show the ring, and they will be led to the Movement's base. Thus, the two brothers escape and after much debate decide to travel to Leah to meet up with their friend, Morgan Leah. Upon their way, they are attacked by a frightening woods hag who is a Shadowen, a beast of legend and of great power. Yet they are saved by an old man, Cogline, who was once a Druid, and is now a messenger for the Shade of Allanon. He informs them that they must travel to the Hadeshorn in order to meet with the ancient Druid, Allanon. The fate of the Four Lands lies upon them and the other scions of Shannara: Wren in the Westland and Walker Boh who lives somewhere in the Eastland, and to whom Cogline is to deliver the message also. The Shadowen threaten to overcome all the Races. The two brothers, and later Walker Boh and Wren, travel to the Hadeshorn through much peril. All the scions meet at the Valley of Shale and receive tasks from the shade of Allanon. Wren is charged to return the missing Elves, Walker is charged with returning Paranor and the Druids, and Par is charged with finding the lost Sword of Shannara. Both Wren and Walker see their charges as impossible (Walker even goes as far to say that he would rather lose his hand than recover lost Paranor and restore the druid order) and leave, but Par is determined to fulfill his task. Par heads to the forge, hoping that the Movement will know more of the Four Land in order to find the Sword. He comes to the city of Varfleet with his companions, Morgan Leah, Coll Ohmsford, Steff, and Teel to request for help from an outlaw ally. Upon reaching their meeting point, however, they are pursued by Federation. Hirehone, one of the outlaws, hides them in an underground basement before taking them to the Parma Key, base of the Movement. The company meets the mysterious leader who then tells them that he is Padishar Creel. He says he knows where the Sword is, leaving the Dwarves behind, Creel, Morgan, Coll, a group of outlaws, and Par set out for Tyrsis, the last known place of the Sword of Shannara. Once in Tyrsis, Creel leads them to a hiding place. Padishar Creel goes out to show Par about the truth. They meet with a girl, Damson Rhee. The three of them go for a walk and Creel explains that the Bridge of Sendric and People's Park in Tyrsis where the Sword was said to be placed many years before were destroyed. The ancient Bridge and Park were covered up in the Pit, a place guarded and unseen, and that fake ones were built in their place. They devise a plan so that Morgan, Par, Coll, Padishar, and some of the other outlaws venture into the Pit, where the Sword of Shannara was last seen. Then at night, the group go into out to the pit. They lower a ladder into the Pit, but unfortunately the Federation guards see them. The rebels and Par, Coll, and Morgan are captured and are told that one of the outlaws had betrayed them. Par uses the Wishsong to distract the guards so he could escape. He meets with Damson, and together they make a plan to free their companions. They do just that, and after hiding in another place, they make a plan to go into the Pit again. The second time the company, excluding Damson, makes it to the bottom of the Pit safely. There Par finds out that he can use another kind of magic that can find things that he wants, and he sees through this that the Sword is indeed there. However, they are confronted by Shadowen. Creel and Morgan make a stand in order for Par and Coll to escape. Par and Coll flee and are hidden by Damson, thinking that their friends are dead. Par insists on them to venture into the Pit a last time, and Damson knows a creature that might know another way into it. She leads them to the Mole, who agrees to help them, and escorts them through a series of tunnels and into the Pit. Damson and the Mole stay outside, while Par and Coll go in. This time Par does find the Vault, where the Sword is placed, and goes in, leaving Coll to stand guard outside (Coll wanted to). Par finds the Sword, and meets Rimmer Dall there, who shows him that he is a Shadowen and asks Par to join him. Par does not agree, and Rimmer Dall leaves, saying that once Par comes out of the Vault something precious will be lost. Par takes the Sword and runs out of the Vault to find that while he was gone Coll was possessed by Shadowen and that his brother has become one himself. Par kills him to escape and runs away from the Pit. He finds Damson and they hide in the tunnels that The Mole live in. Par, depressed and confused, becomes sick and Damson slowly but surely nurtures him back to health before vowing to get revenge for what happened to his brother. Meanwhile, Padishar and Morgan are actually not dead, and have fled from the city of Tyrsis, having survived using Morgan's magical Sword of Leah. But the Sword of Leah is broken in the act of breaking free from the Pit and Morgan turns ill because of this. The two of them run to Parma Key, and are closely pursued by an army of the Federation who want to put an end to the Movement once and for all, having found out the base of the rebels from a traitor. The companions come to Parma Key and prepare to battle away the Federation with the Movement. A long battle takes place, in which Morgan finds out who the traitor is - it being Teel the Dwarf, who is now a Shadowen, who is on her way to opening a passageway into Parma Key for the Federation to breach. Creel and Morgan fight her, and both are wounded in the act, while Steff, her lover, is killed by Teel. However, the passageway was opened, since they were too late, and so Morgan and Creel head back. The Movement then escapes using another secret tunnel and are free for the time. The battle ends thus, with the escape of the Movement. Walker Boh believes it is impossible for him to recover lost Paranor and the Druids, until Cogline brings him an old Druid History. Then Walker learns that he must first find the Black Elfstone from the Hall of Kings and with it accomplish his task. He goes to the Hall of Kings, which is an ancient place of great evil. There he goes and upon coming there goes to the location of the Black Elfstone. Using the magic he had mastered, he senses where the black elfstone is. He goes to where he feels something and there he encounters an Asphinx, a snake that turns everything it poisons to stone before becoming rock itself, instead of the black elfstone. The Asphinx bites him and Walker finds that his hand has turned to stone, effectively trapping him. Walker also knows that he is doomed because the poison of the Asphinx will spread until he has been completely turned to stone. ===== During a solar eclipse in 1986, young Naina Shah, while traveling in the backseat of her England-based dad's car, is struck by glass from the shattered windshield during an accident, and loses her eyesight. Her parents do not survive, and she is brought up by her paternal grandmother. Years later, Naina gets a successful corneal transplant, and is able to see. She complains of vision problems, seeing hooded persons, and people dying, which a psychiatrist, Samir Patel, diagnoses as hallucinations. But when Naina reports seeing someone else in her mirror reflection, Sameer decides to investigate who the original cornea actually belonged to. This investigation will lead them to an impoverished village in New Bhuj, Gujarat, where she will find her life endangered by hostile villagers who believe that the donor of her cornea was cursed. ===== Lisa calls in to an unpopular public radio station and wins tickets for four to an Albanian movie called Kosovo Autumn. Homer leaves Maggie with Ned Flanders, who agrees to babysit free of charge, while the rest of the family watches the movie. When Marge picks up Maggie and hastily offers to pay Ned admits to needing extra money as a giant retail store called Left- Mart is threatening his business. Marge suggests he rent out one of his rooms to someone. He agrees, giving the room to Katja and Vicky, two female community college students. Taking advantage of his trusting nature, the two use their room as a staging area for a softcore pornographic website, sexyslumberparty.com. Bart and Milhouse come across a banner ad for the site and share their discovery with Homer, who proceeds to spread the news around town. Marge soon discovers Homer and Bart viewing the website and forces Homer to tell Ned everything. Ned angrily forces the girls to leave, but realizes that everyone has arrived to cheer for them. Horrified at both the town's mockery and Homer's betrayal, Ned leaves town, moving to "Humbleton, Pennsylvania", home of the porcelain "Humble figurines","Humble" figurines are apparently in reference to real Hummel figurines, but Hummelstown, Pennsylvania has no relation to the figurines. which he collects. Angered by Homer's actions, Marge and Lisa tell him to be on his best behavior for their new neighbor, "Coach" Clay Roberts, who becomes a cynical bully towards Homer and litters the Simpsons' yard with Ned's fallen trees, cutting their cable, and siphoning gas from Homer's car. Meanwhile, Ned finds the friendly pseudo- Germanic town of Humbleton to be everything he ever dreamed. However, when applying for a job at the Humbleton Figurine Workshop, the manager requests him to shave his moustache, declaring it "hippie-ish" and distracting. Ned briefly considers it, but soon decides it is more important than the opinions of the townspeople, who shun him. Homer drives to Humbleton and pleads with Ned to return, who, upon seeing the judgmental faces of the Humbleton residents glaring at him, agrees. Clay refuses to leave the house, despite Ned pointing out that his $200,000 check bounced, thus he legally still owns the property, but is persuaded once Ned and Homer overpower him by sheer force. A few hours later, Homer obtains a pipe organ, which Ned believes is from the local church, and places it in Ned's backyard for a welcome-home party, which several Springfield residents attend. Ned is happy at the party, which soon irritates Homer. ===== The title of the film refers to the duration of a relationship between Wall Street arbitrageur John Gray and divorced SoHo art gallery employee Elizabeth McGraw in her early 30s. John initiates and controls the various experimental sexual practices of this volatile relationship to push Elizabeth's boundaries. In doing so, Elizabeth experiences a gradual downward spiral toward an emotional breakdown. Elizabeth first sees John in New York City at a Chinese grocer, and later at a street fair where she decides against buying an expensive scarf. John wins her heart when he eventually produces that scarf. They start dating, and Elizabeth is increasingly subjected to John's behavioral peculiarities; he blindfolds Elizabeth, who is at first reluctant to comply with his sexual demands, but eventually surrenders to them. He gives her an expensive gold watch, and instructs her to use it to think about him touching her every day at noon. She takes this imperative even further by masturbating at her workplace at the designated time. Elizabeth wants to include John in her life and meet her friends, but he makes it clear he only wishes to see her in the evenings, and instructs her to see her friends in the daytime. Elizabeth's confusion about John increases when he leaves her alone at his apartment. She examines his closet until she discovers a photograph of him with another woman, April Tover. John asks her if she went through his things, declaring that he will punish her. He then sexually assaults her. Elizabeth's heightened need for psychosexual stimulation drives her to stalk John to his office. When they have lunch and she mentions she would like to "be one of the guys," he arranges for her to crossdress for a rendezvous. On leaving the establishment, two men hurl a homophobic slur when they mistake John and Elizabeth for a gay couple. A fight ensues. Elizabeth picks up a knife from one of the attackers and stabs one of them in the buttocks and both attackers flee. After the fight, Elizabeth reveals a wet tank-top and has sex onsite with John with intensely visceral passion. Following this encounter, John's sexual games acquire sadomasochistic elements. Rather than satisfying or empowering Elizabeth, such experiences intensify her emotional vulnerability. While meeting at a hotel room, John blindfolds her. A prostitute enters the room, and starts caressing Elizabeth as John observes them. The prostitute removes Elizabeth's blindfold and starts working on John. Elizabeth violently intervenes, and flees the hotel, with John in pursuit. They run until they find themselves in an adult entertainment venue. Elizabeth enters a room where a group of men are watching a couple have sex. Elizabeth, visibly upset, notices John watching her, and she starts kissing the man next to her. This affects John, and he moves towards her. Moments later, John and Elizabeth gravitate towards each other, finding themselves interlocked in each other's seemingly inescapable embrace. Elizabeth's exhibition with the artist Farnsworth finally happens, but it is clear she is falling apart. In a sad scene, Farnsworth, clearly uncomfortable at the party, watches Elizabeth hiding in a corner, crying. Elizabeth leaves the party and calls John. The following morning, we see Elizabeth has spent the night at John's. She gets up, and slowly packs her belongings from his apartment. When John realizes she is leaving, he attempts to share with her details about his life. Elizabeth tells him that it is too late as she leaves the apartment. John begins his mental countdown from 50, hoping she will come back by the time he is finished. ===== 24-year-old Bertie Wooster returns to London from Easeby, his Uncle Willoughby's home, after firing his valet for stealing. An agency sends him Jeeves, who prepares a drink that cures both Bertie's hangover and his fatigue after trying to read a difficult book titled "Types of Ethical Theory", which his fiancée, Lady Florence Craye, expects him to read. Impressed, Bertie hires Jeeves. Bertie receives a telegram from Florence, who is at Easeby, telling him to return at once. Jeeves wants Bertie to wear a simple brown or blue suit with a hint of quiet twill, but Bertie wears his check suit instead. At Easeby, Florence tells Bertie that his uncle is writing a memoir called "Recollections of a Long Life". Many of the stories feature Florence's father, Lord Worplesdon. Florence is appalled by the rowdy stories. She tells Bertie to destroy the manuscript. Bertie does not want to upset his uncle, upon whom he is financially dependent, but Florence is adamant. Bertie steals the parcel, and after running into Florence's young brother Edwin, Bertie locks it in a drawer in his room. Uncle Willoughby tells Bertie that his publishers have not received his manuscript. He fears it has been stolen. Feeling guilty, Bertie tries to take a walk, but overhears Edwin telling Willoughby that he saw Bertie hiding a parcel. Bertie rushes back to his room to move the parcel but finds he has misplaced the key to the locked drawer. Willoughby arrives, and searches. When he reaches the locked drawer, Jeeves appears and provides the key. At first Bertie is angry with Jeeves, but the drawer is empty. After Willoughby leaves, Bertie thanks Jeeves, who moved the parcel. Later, Willoughby reports that his publishers received his manuscript. Florence is furious with Bertie and ends their engagement. Distressed, Bertie questions Jeeves, who admits sending the parcel to the publishers. He says Florence overestimated the offensiveness of Sir Willoughby's "Recollections". When Jeeves shows no sympathy about the broken engagement, Bertie fires him. Jeeves opines that Bertie would not have been happy with Florence. After sleeping on it, Bertie realizes that Jeeves is right. He rehires Jeeves and allows Jeeves to dispose of the check suit. Jeeves thanks him and says he has already given the suit away to the under-gardener. ===== In September 1939, Władysław Szpilman, a Polish-Jewish pianist, is playing live on the radio in Warsaw when the station is bombed during Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland. Hoping for a quick victory, Szpilman rejoices with his family at home when he learns that Britain and France have declared war on Germany, but the promised aid does not come. Fighting lasts for just over a month, with both the German and Soviet armies invading Poland at the same time on different fronts. Warsaw becomes part of the Nazi-controlled General Government. Jews are soon prevented from working or owning businesses, and are also made to wear blue Star of David armbands. By November 1940, Szpilman and his family are forced from their home into the isolated and overcrowded Warsaw Ghetto, where conditions only get worse. People starve, the SS guards are brutal, starving children are abandoned and there are dead bodies everywhere. On one occasion, the Szpilmans witness the SS kill an entire family in an apartment across the street during a round-up, including dumping a wheelchair-bound man out a window. On 16 August 1942, Szpilman and his family are transported to Treblinka extermination camp as part of Operation Reinhard. But a friend in the Jewish Ghetto Police recognizes Władysław at the Umschlagplatz, and separates him from his family. He becomes a slave labourer, and learns of a coming Jewish revolt. He helps the resistance by smuggling weapons into the ghetto, on one occasion narrowly avoiding a suspicious guard. Szpilman eventually manages to escape, and goes into hiding with help from a non-Jewish friend, Andrzej Bogucki, and his wife, Janina. In April 1943, Szpilman watches from his window as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which he aided, unfolds, and then ultimately fails. After a neighbor discovers Szpilman in the flat, he is forced to flee to a second hiding place. The new room has a piano in it, but he is compelled to keep quiet, while beginning to suffer from jaundice. In August 1944, during the Warsaw Uprising, the Armia Krajowa attacks a German building across the street from Szpilman's hideout. Tank shells hit the apartment, forcing him to flee. Over the course of the following months, Warsaw is destroyed. Szpilman is left alone to search desperately for shelter and supplies among the ruins. He eventually makes his way to a house where he finds a can of pickled cucumbers. While trying to open it, he is noticed by Wehrmacht officer Wilm Hosenfeld, who learns that Szpilman is a pianist. He asks Szpilman to play on a grand piano in the house. The decrepit Szpilman manages to play Chopin's "Ballade in G minor". Hosenfeld lets Szpilman hide in the attic of the empty house. Whilst there, he is regularly supplied with food by the German officer. In January 1945, the Germans are retreating from the Red Army. Hosenfeld meets Szpilman for the last time, promising he will listen to him on Polish Radio after the war. He gives Szpilman his greatcoat to keep warm, and leaves. In Spring 1945, former inmates of a Nazi concentration camp pass by a Soviet prisoner-of-war camp holding captured German soldiers and verbally abuse them. Hosenfeld, being one of the prisoners, overhears a released inmate lamenting over his former career as a violinist. He asks him whether he knows Szpilman, which he confirms, and Hosenfeld wishes him to beg Szpilman, to return his favour and help release him. Later the violinist and Szpilman reach the prisoners camp, but find it abandoned. After the war, Szpilman is back at the Polish Radio, where he performs Chopin's "Grand Polonaise brillante" to a large prestigious audience. An epilogue states that Szpilman died in 2000 at the age of 88, whereas Hosenfeld died in 1952, still in Soviet captivity. ===== In this semi- autobiographical tale of his childhood in Swaziland during the last days of the British Empire in Africa in the 1960s, Grant relates the story of Ralph Compton, whose family’s disintegration mirrors the end of British rule. After witnessing his mother's adultery with his father's best friend, Ralph must survive not only boarding school but also his beloved father's remarriage to Ruby, a fast-talking American Airlines flight attendant, and his father's gradual descent into alcoholism. ===== Kiranjit Ahluwalia (Aishwarya Rai), a Punjabi woman, marries Deepak Ahluwalia (Naveen Andrews) in an arranged marriage and moves to Southall, UK with him to be closer to his family. Initially he seems caring and affectionate towards her but soon enough the true colors of her husband begin to show as Deepak gradually reveals a darker, threatening, and even sociopathic side of himself. After enduring ten years of abuse and having two children with him, Kiranjit, unable to bear the brutality and repeated rapes at the hands of her husband any longer, sets fire to his feet while he is sleeping, unintentionally killing him. Charged with murder, her case comes to the notice of a group of South Asian social workers running an under funded organization called the Southall Black Sisters. Kiranjit is sentenced to life imprisonment with possibility of parole in 12 years. She befriends her cellmate, a White woman named Veronica Scott (Miranda Richardson), who teaches her English. Veronica is also friends with several girls in the prison and stands up for Kiranjit against the local prison bully, Doreen (Lorraine Bruce). Veronica enlists her brother, Edward Foster (Robbie Coltrane), a highly respected Queen's Counsel, to aide in Kiranjit's appeal. Edward, in turn, realizes Kiranjit's importance to his sister and the importance of her case. His sister's request has additional meaning given that Veronica would not let him help her with her own appeal due to their on off relationship since childhood. Before Kiranjit's appeal hearing the Southall Black Sisters bring her plight to the attention of the media by organizing rallies to gather public support for her freedom. She is ultimately freed by the judicial system in a landmark case called R v Ahluwalia, redefining provocation in cases of battered women in the UK. ===== The book opens with an objective narration about a group of five travellers travelling through Exmoor in rural England. They arrive at an inn in a small village, and soon it becomes clear that they are not who they seem to be. The "maid" Louise casually rebuffs the sexual advances of the servant, Dick Thurlow, but then goes to his master's room and undresses before them both. Bartholomew calls his supposed uncle "Lacy" and they discuss Bartholomew's refusal to disclose his journey's secret purpose, as well as fate versus free will. Eventually the narration stops and is followed by letters, interview transcripts, and snatches of more third-person narration, interspersed by facsimile pages from contemporary issues of The Gentleman's Magazine. We learn from a fictional news story that a man has been found hanged near the place where the travellers were staying. The subsequent interviews are conducted by Henry Ayscough, a lawyer employed by Bartholomew's father, who is a Duke. The interviews reveal that Bartholomew had hired the party to travel with him but deceived them about the purpose of his journey. Variations of his story are (1) he was on his way to elope against the wishes of family; (2) he was visiting a wealthy, aged aunt to secure an inheritance from her; (3) he was seeking a cure for impotence; (4) he was pursuing some scientific or occult knowledge, possibly concerning knowledge of the future. He takes Rebecca and Dick to a cave in a remote area. Rebecca's initial tale, retold by Jones, is that he there performed a satanic ritual, and Rebecca herself was raped by Satan and forced to view a panorama of human suffering and cruelty. Rebecca's own testimony admits this was a deception to quiet Jones. She says that she actually saw Bartholomew meet a noble lady who took them all inside a strange floating craft (which she calls "the maggot"). In this craft she sees what she describes as a divine revelation of heaven ("June Eternal") and the Shaker Trinity (Father, Son, and female Holy Spirit or "Mother Wisdom"). She also sees a vision of human suffering and cruelty in this version of her story. Modern readers may interpret her visions as films and her overall experience as a contact with time travellers or extraterrestrials. Rebecca then loses consciousness; she wakes, finds Jones outside the cave, and they leave together. She then tells Jones the satanic version of her experience. Meanwhile, Jones has seen Dick leave the cave in terror, presumably to go and hang himself. Rebecca later finds herself pregnant. She returns to her Quaker parents but then converts to Shakerism, marries a blacksmith named John Lee, and gives birth to Ann Lee, the future leader of the American Shakers. The mystery of Bartholomew's disappearance is never solved, and Ayscough surmises that he committed suicide out of guilt from his disobedience to his father in the matter of an arranged marriage. ===== In the 1970's, James Robert "Radio" Kennedy, a young, 23 year old mentally-disabled man, lives alone with his mother who, as a nurse, spends much of the day at work. Radio spends much of the day roaming the town and pushing a shopping cart, which he uses to collect anything interesting he finds. Radio often pauses to observe the local high school football team in their training sessions, led by Coach Harold Jones. During one such session, the football falls out of bounds, allowing Radio to collect it and haul it away in his cart. The team retaliates the following day by tying Radio's hands and feet and locking him in the gear shed. Coach Jones frees Radio and punishes the team. Jones takes it upon himself to assist in Radio's care, and gives him his nickname due to his penchant for listening to the radio. Radio begins assisting Coach Jones on the football team, and incites the team before each match as a mascot-type figure. Radio's increased attention from Jones is faced with resistance from the football team's parents, who see Radio as a distraction from their own sons' successes. Upon the end of the football season, Jones involves Radio with several activities within the high school, and winds up neglecting his daughter Mary Helen, who is a member of the high school's cheerleading squad. At a Christmas mass, Radio receives several gifts from the townspeople, and Mary Helen confides to her father that while she does not blame him for neglecting her, she cannot understand the reason for his interest in Radio. The following day, Radio distributes the gifts around town. He soon encounters a suspicious police officer, and his impaired ability to communicate leads to his arrest on the charge of possessing stolen property. However, the other officers recognize Radio and he is released. Following the holidays, Radio begins taking classes in the high school to complete his formal education. One day, Radio is instigated by one of the basketball team players to enter the girls' locker room. Radio is reluctant to tell anyone who set him up, but Coach Jones determines the player's identity regardless and punishes him by ordering him to sit out of a decisive basketball match. Radio's mother suddenly dies of a heart attack, and Radio finds himself living alone until his absent older brother Walter finally returns to care for him. That same evening, Jones reveals to Mary Helen that his attachment to Radio and need to assist him stems from a childhood incident in which Jones, as a child making a living off delivering packages, did not help a mentally-disabled boy his own age crying behind barbed wire. Following the death of Radio's mother, pressure from the school board to have Radio put in a specialized institution strengthens. The association between Radio and Coach Jones is further blamed for the team's inability to win. In a meeting with the townspeople, Jones speaks of Radio being a blessing for the community by showing how people should treat one another, and announces his resignation as head coach so that he may spend more time with his family. At Radio's high school graduation, he receives an honorary diploma and a letterman jacket. Clips are shown of the real-life Radio leading the football team well into his fifties. ===== The narrator, Mike Noonan, a bestselling novelist, suffers severe writer's block after his pregnant wife Jo suddenly dies due to a brain aneurysm. Four years later, Mike, still grieving, is plagued by nightmares set at his summer house in TR-90 (an unincorporated town named for its map coordinates), Maine. He decides to confront his fears and moves to his vacation house on Dark Score Lake, known as "Sara Laughs". On his first day, he meets Kyra, a 3-year-old girl and her young widowed mother, 20-year-old Mattie Devore. Mattie's father-in-law is Max Devore, an elderly rich man who will do anything to gain custody of his granddaughter, Kyra. Drawn to Kyra and Mattie, Mike hires John Storrow, a custody lawyer, for Mattie, and things start looking up. Mike begins to write again, and realizes that Jo's ghost is helping him to solve the mystery of Sara Tidwell, a blues singer whose ghost haunts the house. He also learns that Jo frequently returned to the town in the year before her death, without telling him. Mike begins having recurring, disturbing dreams and visions, and realizes he shares a psychic connection with Kyra. Max and his personal assistant, Rogette, try to drown Mike but he survives with the help of his wife's spirit. Max unexpectedly commits suicide that same night. Mike sees a pattern when he sees that local inhabitants have names that begin with "K" or "C" and learns how relatives of townspeople have drowned in childhood. While Storrow and the private detective he hired are celebrating the end of the custody battle, Mattie attempts to seduce Mike. As they are embracing, Mattie's trailer is subjected to a drive-by shooting, injuring Storrow and the detective and killing Mattie. The detective is able to kill the driver and incapacitate the shooter with Mike's help. Mike then grabs Kyra and drives back to his home. The shooter's buddies try to stop them, but refuse to follow him to "Sara Laughs". Under the influence of Sara's ghost, Mike is tormented to drown Kyra and commit suicide himself. Jo's ghost prevents him and calls his attention to the novel he has begun to write. In the pages there are clues that lead Mike to discover documents Jo had hidden, among them a genealogy showing Mike's blood relationship to one of the town families. Several families whose origin lay within the town had firstborn children with "K" names who were all murdered—Kyra, as a descendant of Max Devore, is scheduled to be the next to die. The genealogy also shows that Mike and Jo's child would have been the next firstborn child with a "K" name in the family line. Mike realizes this must be Sara Tidwell's curse for something that had been done to her. He leaves and searches for Sara's grave, stopped by the ghosts of several members of the old families. He learns in a vision that these men had viciously raped and killed Sara, and drowned her son Kito in the lake; all the "K" children who died were descendants of those men. Mike reaches Sara's grave and succeeds in destroying her bones, ending the curse. Upon returning to the house, Mike discovers that Rogette has kidnapped Kyra. He follows them to the lake, where Mattie's ghost appears and knocks Rogette into the water. Rogette tries to pull Mike in with her, but is impaled by wreckage from the dock. Mattie's ghost says her goodbyes to Mike and Kyra. The novel ends with an epilogue, revealing that Mike has retired from writing and is attempting to adopt Kyra. His status as a single, unrelated male complicates things, and the adoption has taken longer than anticipated. The outcome of the adoption is left unresolved at the end, but the reader is given hope that it will be positive. ===== Opening in medias res as the news staff of The Weekly Islander pays for lunch at a restaurant, editor Dave Bowie and founder Vince Teague test young intern Stephanie McCann's powers of deduction regarding their unorthodox tipping procedure. She impresses them by discerning that the restaurant management pools all the tips and splits them equally among the staff, while Dave and Vince want to leave an especially large tip earmarked for their waitress who has fallen on hard times. They discuss some local unsolved crimes and oddities, which have gained circulation in mainland newspapers as far away as Boston during the traditional Halloween season interest in such tales. The friendly assessment becomes more intense as the elderly island natives and Stephanie return to the office, and she asks if the veteran reporters have "ever come across a real unexplained mystery". Dave and Vince take turns recounting a strange incident and investigation. On April 24, 1980, two teenagers stumbled across a man's body, early in the morning. Slumped against a trash can, and carrying no identification, the body bore no clear indicators of foul play. Cause of death was determined to be asphyxiation, as a large chunk of flesh was extracted from the victim's throat. Every potential clue leads to small revelations, but bigger mysteries. Though the investigation is lightly bungled, everything seems inexplicable, from how the fish-dinner stomach contents could line up with his ferry boat crossing, to the single Russian coin in his pocket, and the pack of cigarettes missing one cigarette when the autopsy indicated he was not a smoker. More than a year later, thanks to a sharp-eyed rookie spotting an out-of-state cigarette tax stamp among the man's personal effects, the John Doe becomes known as The Colorado Kid. Eventually the man's identity is traced: James Cogan of Nederland, Colorado. He was a commercial artist living a normal middle-class life with his wife, last seen at a seemingly average workday before inexplicably disappearing. There was no hint of money troubles, adultery, drug addiction or mental illness -- the factors normally associated with someone leaving home so suddenly. Everyone involved with the case is at a loss as to how or why the man could have traveled over 2000 miles (3000 km) in the five hours between when he was last sighted in Colorado and first sighted in Maine, when there was at the time no direct airline flight to account for his arrival. In the Weekly Islander offices, the three friends, old and new, ferret out all the answers they can from the facts of the 25-year-old investigation, then speculate on what might have happened, and meditate on the nature of true mysteries. Despite the lack of clear evidence, Dave and Vince hypothesize the Colorado Kid was murdered. He probably flew to Maine on a chartered jet under an uncertain but pressing emergency and carried the Colorado cigarettes as a clue to his origins should he come to harm. Though Dave and Vince shared other unsolved crimes and oddities with outsiders, they have kept the Colorado Kid a secret due to their belief that a big-town newspaper or glossy travel magazine would tell the story inaccurately by wanting to provide resolution to the account that stubbornly defied a clean culmination. They inform Stephanie that while they were "the last people alive who know the whole thing", having heard the tale of The Colorado Kid, "Now there's you, Steffi." The warm proclamation seems to signal the young woman's final approval by the old guard of the Islander. ===== On a visit to Moe's, Homer has no money to pay for his beer and Moe will not give him any freebies. As a result, he goes around town trying other things to feel drunk, such as breathing thin air on top of a mountain, licking toads and giving blood. Moe feels guilty about refusing to serve Homer and gives him a free beer, but Homer is already heavily intoxicated. Moe, Lenny and Carl put Homer in a taxi to take him home. In the cab he is secretly videotaped for a reality show called Taxicab Conversations, and says some unpleasant things about Marge and the kids, as well as revealing his dream of becoming a rock star. His family is not impressed with him, but soon realize that they do somewhat burden him. To make up for this, the family takes Homer to a Rock 'n Roll Fantasy Camp, run by the Rolling Stones. At the camp, Homer and a bunch of other Springfield citizens learn about rock music, from instructors Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, Elvis Costello, Lenny Kravitz, Tom Petty and Brian Setzer. Finally, the wannabe-rockstars have a mock rock concert, with Homer as the lead guitarist and singer. When Homer learns that the camp is just a one-week only camp, he is bitterly disappointed and refuses to leave. Mick Jagger eventually placates Homer by offering him a chance to perform at a benefit gig, the "Concert for Planet Hollywood". An excited Homer gets passes for his friends so they can see him at the concert. Homer's glee turns to embarrassment when he is asked to perform the duties of a roadie. When he goes on stage to test the microphone, seeing his family and friends out there rooting for him, he sings a rock song and steals the show. This angers the rock stars, who attempt to run Homer off the stage with a big mobile fire-breathing devil's head. The devil's head goes out of control and plows into the audience. The performers, feeling sorry about their actions, offer Homer an opportunity to perform at another benefit concert (for the victims of the recently messed-up gig), but he declines and prefers to perform at home instead. However, at the end of the episode he replaces his car with the big devil's head (given to him by the band) using it to take Bart and Lisa to school. Principal Skinner tells Homer that he is not allowed to stop his car in the school bus zone. In retaliation, Homer activates the devil's fire breath, burning off Skinner's clothes, much to the delight of the kids. ===== Homer buys a satellite system with over 500 channels. He and Bart become addicted to it, and Bart does not study at all for an important upcoming achievement test, even as Lisa is spending all her time preparing. Once the test is done, Principal Skinner announces the results at a school assembly. Not only does Bart fail the test and is demoted to the third grade, but Lisa aces the test and gets promoted to the third grade, where they meet their new teacher, Audrey McConnell. Interestingly during class, Bart performs well on tests (having memorized the answers from his previous experience in the third grade), while Lisa has a hard time adjusting to the class. Audrey decides to clamp their desks together after Bart answers a trick question he had seen the previous year, as the teacher thinks Lisa needs Bart's help. Later, Bart gets an A on a map test while Lisa only gets an A–. Bart says that the test was easy and recites all of the answers to Lisa, which he had memorized from last year in third grade (because he claims that the answer key never changes). Lisa proclaims that Bart cheated but the teacher did not hear Bart's recitation and tells Lisa to stop being jealous. Bart and Lisa are made field trip partners as part of the buddy system on a field trip to Capital City. When they are there, they hear that the flag for the state Springfield is an embarrassment (it contains a Confederate flag, despite the state being from the North), and their teacher assigns for homework an assignment to design a new flag. Lisa calls Marge as she designs her flag, which says "To Fraternal Love". On the phone, she complains about and makes fun of Bart, unmindful of the fact that Bart is overhearing the conversation on another phone and getting very angry about her comments. The next day, Bart, Lisa and the other third-graders hand over their flag designs to the Governor. When the Governor sees Lisa's design, she starts to cry and displays the flag which now reads "Learn to Fart". This appalls Lisa, as Bart innocently admonishes her for making the Governor cry. Later, Bart again teases Lisa and they get in a fight and miss the bus heading back to Springfield. The fight brings them out of the parking lot and into the forest. As a result, the two wind up getting lost. Lisa tells Bart she is hurt by his behavior and Bart sounds somewhat apologetic, though he also adds in the interest of full disclosure that he wants to say he is sorry for using Homer's steamroller a while back to crush Lisa's bike, which he then blamed on Gypsies. Back in Springfield, Principal Skinner informs Homer and Marge that Bart and Lisa are missing. They go to Capital City to find them. Meanwhile, Bart and Lisa have been confronted by a family of hillbillies, who save them by driving them back to Capital City. Marge is ecstatic on seeing her children safe and sound. Principal Skinner, worried about the effects of placing Bart and Lisa in the same class, suggests that they return to the "status quo ante" – both Simpson kids go back to their proper grades. ===== Donald Duck is beckoned by his uncle Scrooge McDuck from a curse which has puffed him up into a floating balloon. ===== Alpha Kimori's story takes place 50 years after the alien invasion of Earth. The newly discovered planet Kimori plays host to two warring human factions – the Bidarians, who want to reclaim Earth, and the Jinrians, who are contented with their new home. The Bidarians are equipped with Robotic Intelligent Cybernetic Armor (RICA) technology while the Jinrians have the ability to transmute into colossal indigenous creatures. Despite the technological background story, the core is about a young Bidarian warrior, Rick, who falls in love with Jinrian princess, Yuki. ===== Bertie receives a letter from his cousin Eustace, who is with his twin Claude and Bertie's friend Bingo Little at Twing Hall. Eustace invites Bertie, claiming there is an opportunity to make money. The letter includes a baffling list of ministers, times, and prices. Bertie goes to Twing, where he talks to a friend, Lady Cynthia. Bertie later sees Bingo, who confesses to being in love with Cynthia. The next morning, Bingo enters Bertie's bedroom to share his poetry about Cynthia. Claude and Eustace follow. Eustace says that an acquaintance, Steggles, came up with a fun variation on the standard horse race: the Sermon Handicap. Each local parson's Sunday sermon will be timed, and the parson who preaches the longest wins. Steggles made the list of parsons, their handicaps, and their current odds being taken for bets. One parson, Heppenstall, gives long sermons, but has a moderate handicap since Steggles underestimated him; Bertie funds bets on Heppenstall for a syndicate made of himself, Bingo, Claude, and Eustace. Eustace invites Jeeves to join them but Jeeves declines. Later, Claude and Eustace alert Bertie that another parson, G. Hayward, also gives long sermons. To protect their bets, Bertie asks Heppenstall to preach his long sermon on Brotherly Love. However, Heppenstall falls ill; his succinct nephew Bates will take his place. Bertie's syndicate placed ante-post (pre-event) bets; consequently, they will lose their wagers when Heppenstall fails to appear at the event. They bet on G. Hayward to make up for their anticipated losses. On Sunday, G. Hayward gives a long sermon. Bertie and Bingo return to the Hall, where Bingo chastises Jeeves, who placed an S.P. (starting price, i.e. price at start of event) bet on Bates. Jeeves gives Bertie a letter, delivered earlier by Heppenstall's butler Brookfield, informing that Bates will give the full sermon on Brotherly Love. Jeeves had heard this from Brookfield. Jeeves adds, to Bingo's dismay, that Bates is engaged to Lady Cynthia. ===== When the famed explorer Louis Rondelle (Hobart Bosworth) requests the U.S. Navy's assistance in reaching the South Pole, officer Jack Bradon (Jack Holt) convinces Rear Admiral John S. Martin (Emmett Corrigan) to offer his dirigible, the USS Pensacola, for the attempt. Jack asks his best friend, "Frisky" Pierce (Ralph Graves), to pilot the biplane that will be carried on the airship. Frisky, who is adventurous to the point of recklessness, is eager to go even though he has just completed a record-setting coast-to-coast flight and has barely spent any time with his wife, Helen (Fay Wray). Basking in the acclaim, he has even forgotten to read the sealed love letter she gave him to open when he arrived. Helen loves Frisky but cannot make him believe how much she is hurt by the risks he takes. She sees Jack without her husband's knowledge and begs him to drop Frisky from the expedition, and for the sake of their marriage, not tell him why. Jack, who also loves her, agrees. Frisky, assuming Jack does not want to share the fame, ends their friendship. The expedition soon ends in disaster: the Pensacola breaks in two and crashes into the ocean during a storm. Frisky participates in the rescue of the expedition by aircraft carrier. He now gets a leave of absence from the Navy to pilot a Fokker Trimotor transport aircraft for Rondelle's next attempt at the South Pole. This proves too much for Helen. When she is unable to get Frisky to change his mind, she gives him another sealed letter (to be read when he reaches the Pole), but this time it says that she is divorcing him and will ask Jack to marry her. Frisky, Rondelle, Sock McGuire (Roscoe Karns), and Hansen (Harold Goodwin) reach the South Pole. When Frisky suggests landing on the snow, Rondelle accepts his judgment that there will be no danger. But in fact the aircraft flips over and bursts into flames, destroying most of their supplies. Rondelle's leg is broken and Sock's foot is injured. After radioing their base camp, they attempt to walk the 900 miles back to it, dragging Rondelle on a sled. Rondelle soon dies and is buried. Later, Frisky has to amputate Sock's foot. When Sock realizes he is too much of a burden, he drags himself away to die while the other two are sleeping. They carry on, but Hansen breaks down when he finds they have been going in a circle and have returned to Rondelle's grave. Frisky refuses to give up and forces Hansen to continue on. When Helen hears the news of the crash, she realizes no longer wants a divorce and wishes she could go to Frisky. Jack realizes he can, and talks Rear Admiral Martin into letting him attempt a rescue with his new dirigible, the USS Los Angeles. The two survivors are found and rescued. On the way back, Frisky remembers that he has again forgotten to read Helen's letter, but he has snow blindness and asks Jack to read it to him. Jack quickly substitutes his own improvised version, in which Helen is proud of his accomplishment and waiting for her husband with undiminished love. He then destroys the letter. When they return, Frisky uncharacteristically skips a ticker tape parade through New York City to be with his wife. He is the first to mention the contents of the letter; to Helen's great relief, she realizes that Jack has not only brought Frisky back to her but also saved their marriage. ===== In the town of Socorro, New Mexico, Professor Shepherd was forced to relinquish an experimental transdogmafier technology to General Parvo in exchange for his lost dog, but instead Parvo gives him a bomb that destroys his laboratory. One year later, as normal dogs begin to mutate into monsters, Shephard, who miraculously survived the attack, takes measures to stop Parvo who is behind this. Shepherd selects five different dogs and in his new, secret underground lab, he uses his new transdogmifier on the five, turning them into "Cano-sapiens". These dogs are the pets of world leaders and when called to action they are a team of crime fighters known as The Road Rovers. ===== After being tricked into evacuating the house by Homer, who had set off the fire alarm early in the morning, the family goes to a festival sponsored by Duff Beer. While there, they see Moe Szyslak enter a "Beer-tender" competition. Moe wins the contest during the "Toss Your Drunk" challenge and gets his photo taken for a calendar, only to have it censored out with stickers. Realizing this is because of how ugly he is, Lenny and Carl suggest that Moe gets plastic surgery. He agrees, but is reluctant while there. After his surgery, Moe has a very handsome face. Vindicated, he confronts old adversaries, including the producers of a soap opera, It Never Ends, complaining that he never got the part of Dr. Tad Winslow because of his ugliness. When the actor portraying the role is fired after demanding a salary increase, the producers hire Moe to replace him. Meanwhile, while Moe is acting, Bart and Lisa discover that Maggie's Duff Days elephant balloon has blown away in the wind. They go after it until it ends up in a gay Republican coalition's office where the members are discussing what their mascot should be, one member dismisses the pink elephant as being too "on the nose". They then give Lisa a bumper sticker telling her to vote for "A Gay President in 2084", to which they say "we're realistic" when Lisa appears puzzled. Taping of It Never Ends goes well until Moe reads in a top-secret book of future plot lines that his character is to be killed off. Infuriated, he gets revenge by revealing all the plots on the air, with help from Homer. The producer angrily interrupts to tell Moe that his character's death was meant to be part of a dream sequence, as indicated by the book's color-coding of pages that Moe had remembered incorrectly, and fires him. Moe confidently states that he can get a role on any other soap opera he wants, but as he is leaving, a set piece falls on his face and crushes it back to its original appearance. His life returns to normal at the bar, but his musings about why the accident left him with his original face instead of an entirely new one are quickly cut off by the ending credits. ===== On a trip to the mall, Homer sees an optometrist to get his eyes examined and gets laser surgery after rejecting a number of eyeglasses. After the surgery, Homer rejects the optometrist's advice to take eye drops to keep his eyes from crusting over—and ends up blind from his eyes scabbing over and kidnapped tricked into driving to the liquor store to buy Jack Daniel's and "a carton of smokes" for Dolph, Jimbo, and Kearney (the latter of whom fools Homer into thinking he's Marge). However, he does get his vision back for the unknown. At the same time, Marge and Lisa find items for Bart's school camping trip. Marge sees a poster for the film Tango de La Muerte at the mall's cineplex and she and Lisa decide to see it. Lisa identifies with the main female character, a bookworm named "Lisabella" whom the tango champion asks to be his partner and with whom he then falls in love. This inspires Lisa to enroll at a dance school, where she wants to take tango classes. She is pushed into tap lessons by an obnoxious former child star named Vicki Valentine. Lisa's hopes of being a dancer are crushed when she finds that she is the worst dancer there, even being out-performed by Ralph Wiggum. She continues to attend the tap classes because she does not want to upset Homer and Marge. When the school organizes a dance recital, Lisa finds that she will not be dancing and has been relegated to pulling the curtain to open the show (Vicki eventually decides that the curtain-pulling is too important for Lisa and instead does it herself). Professor Frink, overhearing, devises a plan to attach a device to Lisa's shoes that will make them automatically tap at any percussive sound. This allows her to mimic the other dancers and take part in the recital. She becomes a star at the show, even upstaging an enraged Vicki Valentine, but when the audience applauds her, her shoes go out of control. Homer stops the shoes from going haywire by tripping Lisa. Vicki finally seems to empathize with Lisa's desperation to be a star (though she notes, to the bemusement of Homer and Marge, that this involved Vicki's destroying the credit rating of Buddy Ebsen). Lisa walks off with her parents, having decided that tap dancing is not for her. Meanwhile, Bart and Milhouse sneak out of their camping trip after discovering that Nelson Muntz will be there with them with plans to beat them both up on the reg. They decide to hide in the mall and spend the night there, having shoe fights and causing havoc once the mall has closed. The next morning, the mall manager and Chief Wiggum see the mess that Bart and Milhouse have created and blindly jumps to the conclusion that it was caused by a giant rat, closing the mall as a result. He releases a puma inside the mall to catch the rat, but Bart and Milhouse use a ball of yarn to distract the puma and escape. Chief Wiggum later sees a piece of red yarn hanging from the mountain lion's mouth and thinks it is the rat's tail, which prompts him to declare that the case is closed and to not focus on putting the puma back in its cage. ===== Each student in Bart's class is given a video camera for a school project to create a movie. Otto drives the school bus to a drive- through restaurant where his girlfriend Becky works. Otto proposes to her, and she accepts. On Bart's suggestion, they decide to have the wedding at the Simpson house and sends out flyers. Marge reluctantly agrees, since she still has everything from Apu's wedding. The wedding is a success up until the point when Otto gets a Poison tribute band (called Cyanide) to play "Nothin' but a Good Time". Becky admits to Marge that she hates heavy metal music. At the wedding, Marge suggests to Becky that she gives Otto an ultimatum: either her or heavy metal. Otto chooses heavy metal, and breaks up with Becky. Becky stays with the Simpson family, on Bart's suggestion. Marge consoles her, but when Becky begins to help out around the house and is praised for her contribution, Marge begins to worry that her family likes Becky more than her. Eventually, she becomes paranoid and suspects that Becky is trying to kill her, after her car will not stop on a steep road. Later, Becky and the rest of the family meet without Marge at an ice cream parlor, and Becky tells everyone that she has found a new apartment and is moving out. After she buys an unusually large bowl of ice cream, Homer freaks out upon the presence of so much ice cream and suddenly collapses. Becky gives him mouth-to-mouth but Marge comes in, thinking she is kissing him. She grabs a cone and smashes it like a glass bottle, to attack Becky. Marge is arrested and declared insane. When Marge escapes from the courtroom and goes to the library to see who Becky really is, she realizes that she is insane and being unfair to Becky, after finding nothing bad about her and a newspaper tablet of how Marge ruined Becky's marriage. Finally, she returns home, only to find the family and Becky enacting an S&M; scene: Lisa is stuck to the wall, Maggie is stuck in a cage, and Becky about to sacrifice a tied-up Homer with a knife. Before she can kill him, Marge snatches the knife from her and attempts to strangle her, but the scene is revealed to be a sequence Bart is filming for his school project. Homer also reveals that while he was fixing Marge's car, he accidentally drained the brake fluid. Marge apologizes to Becky, who admits that she did intend to kill Marge and steal her family, but decided not to after she could not get a shovel. Suddenly, the mental hospital doctors show up and shoot three tranquilizer darts into Marge's neck, which do not take effect; Marge tells them that she has too much work to do to take a nap. She instructs Lisa to take Maggie out of the cage, and tells Homer to scrub and mop the room, since he is dressed for the job. As Marge giggles, Homer fires a dart borrowed from the doctors into her, which sends her straight to sleep. ===== Julia and her husband, Roddy Davenant, along with their young son, Oliver, and Roddy's cousin, Eleanor, are temporarily living at Mrs. Lippincote's, a house filled with old mahogany furniture and other reminders of earlier wealth. Julia and the others have joined Roddy, who is an officer in the Royal Air Force. She must be mother and, above all, an officer's wife. Roddy, a "leader of men," requires that she fulfill her role impeccably. Julia accepts the pompousness of Armed forces service life, but her honesty and sense of humour prevent her from taking her role too seriously. ===== K9 has lost his voice, and the Fourth Doctor is confused as to why a robot would have laryngitis. Romana, for reasons unknown, regenerates, eventually choosing the form of Princess Astra of the planet Atrios, in spite of the Doctor's disapproval of it, as well as several "test bodies" she tries on beforehand. The TARDIS lands on a rocky planet with breathable air but dangerously high levels of radioactivity. The Doctor and Romana explore and see a group of ragged-looking humans burying one of their dead, followed by a spaceship landing and half-burying itself in the ground in a valley. Just as the Doctor and Romana are about to investigate, underground explosions force them back towards the ruins. Whilst exploring them, another explosion occurs, trapping the Doctor. Romana returns to the TARDIS to reassemble K9 so he can assist, but finds the TARDIS half-buried in rubble. She goes back to find the Doctor has vanished. As she turns to leave, a man who has been following her blocks her path. She backs away, falls down a rubble chute, and loses consciousness. She recovers only to have three Daleks burst through the wall and capture her, and command her to work at a drilling site. Meanwhile, the Doctor is thanking the white-clad, silver-haired humanoids who have rescued him, remarking on their strength. He asks their leader, Commander Sharrel, where he is, and is told that the planet is D-5-Gamma-Z-Alpha, otherwise known as Skaro. The Doctor is astonished to hear that the Movellans are here to wage war against the Daleks. Two Movellans bring in a new prisoner, the man who has been following the Doctor and Romana. He identifies himself as Starship Engineer Tyssan. He reveals that the Daleks used him as slave labour as part of a search operation for two years. He tells the Doctor about what has happened to Romana, and they set out to rescue her. The Doctor, Tyssan and three Movellans find Romana and head into the Dalek headquarters. The Doctor establishes that the Daleks are searching for something on a level that they have yet to access, and remembers an alternative route to this area, so they make their way to this floor. There they discover Davros, the creator of the Daleks, who was in suspended animation and now slowly comes to life. The Doctor moves the revived Davros into a blocked-off room in the ruins of the Dalek city. The Doctor and Davros talk about the Daleks' "accomplishments" during the thousands of years he has been in suspended animation, and whilst the Doctor comments on the countless lives the Daleks have ruined, Davros replies that the Daleks have only just begun their conquest of the cosmos. The Daleks find them both, and the Doctor holds Davros hostage with a makeshift explosive he has just concocted, bargaining with the Daleks to free all their prisoners, and to let him escape. Davros makes them see that the Doctor's logic is "impaired by irrational sentiment" and the Daleks comply. The Daleks remove the explosive and Davros vows to make them invincible, and the supreme power of the universe. Romana reaches the Movellan spaceship; but learns that the Movellans are not as altruistic as they appear when they knock her out. The Movellans test their nova device: a weapon which changes air molecules so that a planet's atmosphere becomes flammable and can be set alight, killing all life. The Doctor meets up with Tyssan and they find a female Movellan scout. The Doctor confirms his suspicion that the Movellans are actually robots, by removing the power pack on her belt and deactivating her. He finds Romana but is captured by the Movellans. The Doctor learns that the Daleks and Movellans have been in a stalemate for over two centuries, and that both sides' battle computers have been calculating the best strategy and precise moment at which to attack. So far, not a single shot has been fired. The Daleks want Davros to help them gain an advantage. The Movellans want the Doctor to do the same for them, which the Doctor refuses to do. Davros, on the other hand, is all too eager to give the Daleks the upper hand. He orders them to make a suicide bombing attack on the Movellan craft upon realising that the Doctor might do the same thing for the Movellans. Meanwhile, Tyssan leads the prisoners in an attack on the Movellans, deactivating them all, while Romana is able to disable the Movellan's Commander before he can set off the nova device. The Doctor makes his way to the city to confront Davros. The Doctor informs Davros that the Movellans have been disabled; unfortunately Davros does not believe him and intends to destroy the Movellan ship anyway. As the Daleks approach the ship, the Doctor goes to detonate the bombs but is ambushed by a Dalek, which holds him at gunpoint. The Doctor throws his hat on the Dalek's eyestalk, blinding it, then destroying it. He then detonates the bombs and destroys the Dalek squad before it reaches the Movellan ship. The Doctor then puts Davros into the custody of the former slave workers. Davros is placed in cryogenic suspension and taken to Earth to stand trial for his crimes. The Doctor and Romana leave, remarking on the fact that whoever makes mistakes often wins. ===== In 1953, Joe Morelli is traveling rural Sicily, offering to take screen tests of wannabe actors for a fee. He claims to work for big Roman film studios, but in reality he is a fraud. He meets several people who express their deepest feelings and secrets in front of the camera. At one of his stops he meets a young girl, Beata, a convent girl who becomes attached to him despite his protestations. Joe and Beata's relationship gradually evolves into a romantic one, when he's exposed as a fraud, beaten, and arrested. After serving his prison term, Joe comes back to seek Beata, but finds her in a mentally disturbed state assuming Joe died. Pretending to be Joe's friend, he conveys to her a message that she was the love of his life, and promises he shall come back with money and take care of her. ===== Valentine's Day approaches, and Wendy suggests to her boyfriend Stan ways to spend time together. However, when their schoolteacher Mr. Garrison decides to get a rhinoplasty, a new substitute arrives named Ms. Ellen (Natasha Henstridge) and all the boys in class find themselves inexplicably enamored with her, including Stan. Wendy becomes incredibly jealous and warns Ms. Ellen to stay away from Stan, unaware that the substitute teacher does not return Stan's affection. Concerned about the children's education, Ms. Ellen reveals she will buy dinner for the winner of a spelling test. The boys actively try to court Ms. Ellen, but Chef (having beaten them to it) warns them she is a lesbian and thus only likes other lesbians. The boys do not realise what this means and try to become lesbians in order to attract Ms. Ellen. Meanwhile, Mr. Garrison's nose job makes him a "hot and sexy" man, with his face resembling David Hasselhoff, and he decides to quit teaching to pursue women. Stan wins the dinner (much to Wendy's dismay), but finds out that Ms. Ellen has no intention of making love with him. Wendy however sees them through the window and leaves distraught. The next day, several Iraqi men burst into the classroom and declare that Ms. Ellen is actually an Iraqi fugitive. As she resists arrest, she inadvertently kills Kenny by impaling him with a sword to his face. The soldiers take her into custody and shoot her into the center of the Sun via a rocket. Mr. Garrison becomes a successful model, but he soon finds himself being chased throughout the streets by a large group of women attracted to him. Frightened by all the attention, Mr. Garrison decides to return to his normal looks. Wendy reclaims Stan as her boyfriend, and it is made clear that she encouraged the town's women to pursue Mr. Garrison so relentlessly that he decided to return to teaching. Wendy speaks with the Iraqi men in fluent Arabic and pays them with a wad of American money. Later, Wendy watches joyfully as the rocket blows up in the sun, and Kyle realizes Wendy hired the Iraqis to kill Ms. Ellen. Outraged by this, Kyle angrily confronts Wendy for this, but Wendy declares (with deranged eyes), "I told her: 'Don't... fuck... with... Wendy... Testaburger!'" Kyle looks shocked. ===== thumb|right|350px|The alternate world of Bring the Jubilee in 1952 \---- The narrator of the novel is Hodgins "Hodge" McCormick Backmaker, who writes a diary of his life in our timeline, year 1877. Hodge was born in 1921 in the alternate timeline in Wappingers Falls, Dutchess County, New York. In 1938 at age 17, he travels to New York City, the largest city of the United States (and yet a backwater compared to some Confederate cities), in a desperate attempt to gain admittance to a college or university. After being robbed of his few possessions, he comes into contact with the "Grand Army", a nationalistic organization working to restore the United States to its former glory through acts of sabotage and terrorism. One of the Grand Army's operations involves counterfeiting Spanish currency, with the goal of provoking war between the Confederacy and the German Union in Spanish territories, sparing the U.S. from becoming the two superpowers' battlefield. Despite remaining critical of the organization's activities, Hodge accepts work and lodging with a Grand Army member working from a bookshop. Content to work for food and the opportunity to read at every waking hour, Hodge stays in the bookshop for six years. (Young Hodge's life is largely autobiographical of Ward Moore.) One friend he meets during this time is Consul Enfandin, an emissary of the Republic of Haiti, the only independent country south of the Mason–Dixon line, other than the Confederacy itself, located in the Western Hemisphere. Hodge leaves New York in 1944 for rural Pennsylvania, where his aspiration of becoming a historian, specializing in the war between North and South, becomes a reality when he is invited to join a co-operative society named Haggershaven. The society was founded by the children of a Confederate Major named Herbert Haggerwells, who settled after the war in the land he had helped defeat. He becomes acquainted with his recruiter Barbara Haggerwells, an emotionally disturbed research scientist on the verge of developing time travel. Many secondary characters with their own subplots are introduced during this part of the story, including some of the last few Asian-Americans alive (after a series of horrifying pogroms against their kind throughout North America) and a mysterious Spanish refugee woman who forms a love triangle with Hodge and Barbara. In 1952, the time machine has been perfected, and Hodge takes the opportunity to finally see in person the Battle of Gettysburg which was fought not far from Haggershaven. Wearing a special watch to keep track of the differences in time, he travels back in time to 1863, where he then inadvertently causes the death of Captain Herbert Haggerwells ("never to be Major now", remarks Hodge when he recognizes that the dead man was a younger version of the exalted portrait on Haggershaven's living room walls), who would have occupied Little Round Top for the South during the battle. In Hodge's timeline, Haggerwells' men held the hill so that the Confederates won the Battle of Gettysburg, paving the way for their victory over the Union in Philadelphia a year later; in the resultant timeline (our own), Union Colonel Strong Vincent's 83rd Pennsylvania Infantry and Colonel Joshua Chamberlain's 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment occupy the hill early on and successfully repel Confederate advances. In the novel, Hodge asserts that Little Round Top is the key to the battle, and thus the war. Hodge's actions have led to Union control of the hill, so events play out as they did in our timeline, much to the surprise of Hodge, who witnesses Pickett's Charge having a different outcome than he read about. The South loses the battle, and eventually the war. With history changed to make the world we know, Hodge discovers he is unable to return to his previous reality since the circumstances that had made the development of time travel possible have been unalterably changed: technology evolves along different lines, and Haggerwells has died before siring any descendants including Barbara, so Haggershaven and the time machine will never exist. Hodge, stranded in our timeline, hires himself out as a farmhand at the estate which would have been Haggershaven but is now owned by the Thammis family. Between 1863 and 1877 (when he is writing this story), Hodge comes to realize that the changed post- war United States is in some ways superior to the equivalent timeline in his past. He also finds it fascinating that people always talk of the Civil War rather than the War of Southron Independence, since the victors' name for the war takes precedence. However, he has an ominous feeling about the inauguration of Rutherford B. Hayes, suspecting that it will end the Reconstruction Era prematurely and weaken the cause of civil rights. Hodge then explains why he felt his story had to be written down, because he has considered the possibility of other timelines existing in parallel universes but has come to the conclusion that by preventing the future he was born in, he destroyed the only dimension where travel between them was possible. With this, the story ends abruptly in mid-sentence. An "editorial note" following the story relates how one Frederick Winter Thammis had found Hodge's diary while remodeling his house in 1953, the year the real life book came out. Frederick's father had grown up knowing Hodge as a beloved ex-servant kept on a pension after he was too old to work. The family enjoyed listening to Hodge's stories of the world he was born in, but had not thought him fully sane. Thammis junior says the story reminds him of The Wizard of Oz. Thammis notes that he has found a watch of a unique, two-dialed design with the manuscript, and ends the book by quoting from a recent history book which asks what could possibly have caused the Confederates' failure to occupy Little Round Top, "an error with momentous consequences". ===== Jean Arthur as Bonnie Lee Geoff Carter (Grant) is the head pilot and manager of Barranca Airways, a small, barely solvent company owned by "Dutchy" Van Ruyter (Sig Ruman) carrying airmail from the fictional South American port town of Barranca through a high pass in the Andes Mountains. Bonnie Lee (Arthur), a piano-playing entertainer, arrives on a banana boat one day. After making her acquaintance, Joe Souther (Noah Beery Jr.) crashes and dies trying to land in fog later that day. Bonnie becomes infatuated with Geoff, despite his fatalistic attitude about the dangerous flying, and stays on in Barranca (not at his invitation, as he insists on telling her). The situation is complicated by the arrival of pilot Bat MacPherson (Richard Barthelmess) and his wife (and Geoff's old flame) Judy (Rita Hayworth). McPherson cannot find work in the United States because he once bailed out of an airplane, leaving his mechanic — the brother of "Kid" Dabb (Thomas Mitchell), Carter's best friend — to die in the ensuing crash. When Geoff is forced to ground the Kid because of failing eyesight, he hires MacPherson on the understanding that he will get the most dangerous assignments. Dutchy will secure a lucrative government contract if he can provide reliable mail service during a six-month trial. On the last day of the probation period, bad weather closes the mountain pass. Geoff decides to try to fly a new Ford Trimotor over the mountains instead. The Kid asks to go with him as co-pilot. Geoff refuses, but then lets the Kid toss a coin to decide the matter. When it lands on the floor, Geoff discovers that the coin has two heads. Geoff still agrees to take him along. Just before leaving, Bonnie tries to talk Geoff out of going. She takes his gun out of his holster and points it at him. When she realizes that she cannot stop him, she drops the gun on the table, but it accidentally fires, hitting Geoff in the shoulder. Unable to fly, Geoff lets MacPherson take his place. However, MacPherson and the Kid are unable to climb high enough; the plane stalls and drops thousands of feet before leveling off. Geoff tells them to turn around, but they decide to try to fly through the fogged-in pass. In the pass, they encounter a flock of condors. One crashes through the windshield, paralyzing the Kid; another hits the No. 1 engine, setting it on fire. Later the No. 2 engine also catches fire. The Kid tells MacPherson to bail out, but he refuses. He turns around and returns to Barranca, managing to crash-land the burning Trimotor on the field. The Kid dies from a broken neck, but not before telling Geoff what MacPherson did. As a result, MacPherson is finally accepted by the other pilots. Confrontation between MacPherson and the Kid Bonnie is torn between leaving and staying, and confronts Geoff in the hope he will ask her to stay. However, Geoff does not. Then, with mere hours to spare on the trial period, the weather clears and Geoff has to rush off to secure the all- important contract. Before he goes, he offers to toss a coin to decide: heads, she stays; tails, she leaves. Discouraged, Bonnie gives up. As he leaves, however, Geoff gives her the coin as a "souvenir." At first, she is distraught, but then she discovers that the coin has heads on both sides. ===== The plot is set in the 1960s, which chronicles the awakening of the hippie stoner Divine Right (alter ego of the main character D.R. Davenport) as he travels from Kentucky with his girlfriend Estelle across the country, in a patient and introspective 1963 VW Bus, Urge. Divine Right has no idea where he is or where he is going. D.R. and Estelle take turns sleeping and driving, but D.R.'s constant straddling between waking and sleeping makes the journey as much an inner trip as it is a physical seemingly random trip from Urge to anywhere. The first helper character to be encountered is the Lone Outdoorsman who is a non-moving object in this road-trip story, stuck camping on the same site since years ago, watching TV in his solitude. He is a suspicious soul. The next helper is the Greek, who is named for his talking. The Greek is on a journey back to Norman, Oklahoma, to destroy the last remaining record of himself, which is an autobiographical Master's thesis. He wants to erase himself and forget his name, and hopes to come closer to Nirvana by doing this. It seems D.R. and the Greek have a lot in common in this quest, but while the Greek is moving toward some goal, D.R. is only running away from home. Next up is the Native, whom D.R. meets while attending a funeral for his friend Eddie. After this D.R. heads for his sister and tells Estelle he would prefer to see his sister's family without her. He is reluctant to mix his two identities; with Estelle he is D.R. and with his sister he is David Ray. This results in Estelle leaving D.R., and the story, for good. D.R. settles in at his sister Marcella and Doyle's house as if he were born there, and he finds out about a person called Emmit, his chance for salvation. While Marcella's family is at church, D.R. gets his own message from what he perceives as God (Mrs. Godsey) over the phone. She tells him to come home and take care of Emmit. As D.R. crosses the Ohio River, the narration suddenly shifts from Divine Right's journey home to David Ray's weekend trips as a boy from Cincinnati back to the old homeplace. When we change back to Divine Right he is at a crossroads in Kentucky and so is the story: the two D.R.'s are about to converge. D.R. struggles with his two selves as he gets closer to home. He hallucinates in the back of the van, meets a dragon with "seven horns". He perceives himself as the "monster". Even so, when he gets to Mrs. Godsey's, he exits the van as David Ray and the two identities finally converged into one after a face off in a nearby coal mine. D.R. psychically returns home, helping his dead grandmother with the laundry and sharing tea with his Uncle Emmit. D.R. becomes a part of his Uncle Emmit, a part of his family, and a part of the hillside where he will live and where his Uncle Emmit will be buried. Emmit is planted in the ground "like a seed," and D.R. sleeps in Emmit's bed. Emmit is in the box marked "past," and D.R. is in the one marked "present." Everything seems to be in harmony, except for the fact that Estelle is missing. She returns and D.R. marries her, and the story is completed. Divine Right has found himself travelling back to his Appalachian roots. ===== The novel's protagonist, Henry Bowman, shows an early proficiency with firearms, practicing whenever he can find the time. Encouraged by his father, he gathers an impressive firearms collection and gains extensive experience in piloting small aircraft. During college, Bowman is robbed, beaten, and sodomized by a rural gang. The incident nearly destroys him and causes him to become an alcoholic for a period. While at a gun show in Indianapolis, Indiana with friend Allen Kane, Bowman publicly embarrasses an agent of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Wilson Blair. One of Blair's men was trying to trick and entrap a fellow firearms dealer. Blair takes the offense personally, and with the support of the ATF's director, begins to plan revenge. Several years later, Blair and subordinate agents of the ATF plan to frame Henry and his friends as terrorists, smugglers, and counterfeiters. They plan to plant "evidence" when the men are away on vacation. Unbeknownst to Blair, Bowman delays his departure at the last minute due to a work commitment, and is on a friend's property when the agents arrive. Bowman assumes the agents are burglars and engages in a gun battle with them, killing or capturing all and in the process discovering the truth about the raid. Bowman realizes that his life has been irrevocably changed. He makes Blair record a video taped confession of his illegal actions, kills Blair, and disposes of all forensic evidence of the agents' presence. Afterwards, he hunts down and kills Blair's remaining subordinates. Bowman and his closest friends begin to systematically kill ATF agents around the nation – whom Bowman views as supporting the infringement of citizen's constitutional rights, and abusing government powers – as well as politicians who had supported unconstitutional gun control legislation. Simultaneously Bowman releases the video tape of Blair to CNN, which claims that Blair and his companions have had a change of heart, realize what they are doing is wrong, and are now dedicated to killing other ATF agents. Amidst the national search for Blair and company, Bowman continues to rack up the body count. Eventually, as the ATF and FBI are unable to effectively track down those responsible for the killings, the President of the United States is forced to give an address to the nation relating his intent to repeal the unconstitutional laws, including the National Firearms Act of 1934 and Gun Control Act of 1968. ===== Don Johnston (Bill Murray), a former Don Juan who made a small fortune in the computer industry, wants to live in quiet retirement. He is content to lounge around watching old movies and listening to classical or easy listening music. His current girlfriend, Sherry (Julie Delpy), is ending their relationship and moving out of his house when a letter in a pink envelope arrives. After she walks out, Don reads the letter; it purports to be from an unnamed former girlfriend, informing him that he has a son who is nearly nineteen years old, and who may be looking for him. Initially, Don does not intend to do anything about it, but his busybody neighbor Winston (Jeffrey Wright), who is a mystery novel enthusiast, urges Don to investigate. Winston researches the current locations of the five women most likely to have written the letter and gives Don the information along with maps and flight reservations, and persuades him to visit them. Ultimately Don meets with four women (the fifth one had died before the events of the film), each encounter worse than the last and each woman damaged in some way: * Laura (Sharon Stone) works as a closet and drawer organizer and is the widow of a race car driver. She is very warm and receptive to Don's visit, but has a very forward teenage daughter, Lolita (Alexis Dziena), who parades nude in front of him before her mother arrives. That night, Laura sleeps with Don. * Dora (Frances Conroy) is a realtor. Once a "flower child" of the 1960s, she has reversed to the opposite extreme and is now living a suburban conservative middle class existence married to Ron (Christopher McDonald). The encounter, while friendly on the surface belies a great deal of tension with Ron coming across as threatening, and Dora as pained and nervous. * Carmen Markowski (Jessica Lange) works as an "animal communicator." Don recalls how she was formerly so passionate about becoming a lawyer. She is cold to Don and seems to have a close relationship with her secretary (Chloë Sevigny), who is very protective of her and unimpressed by Don's sudden visit. * Penny (Tilda Swinton) lives in a rural area amongst bikers. She appears to still harbour a great deal of resentment against Don, and when he asks if she has a son, she becomes furious. Two of the men appear after the commotion and punch Don out. The next morning, Don finds himself in his car, in the middle of a field, with a nasty cut near his left eye. Later, Don stops at a florist to buy flowers from a young woman named Sun Green (Pell James) who treats his cut. Don leaves the flowers at the grave of the fifth woman, Michelle Pepe. Finally, Don returns home where he finds a pink letter from Sherry, admitting she still likes him. He discusses the trip and second letter with Winston, who theorizes that Sherry might have written the original letter as a hoax. He then goes home to compare the two letters. Don then meets a young man in the street (Mark Webber) who he suspects may be his son. He buys him a meal, but when he remarks that the young man believes that Don is his father, the young man becomes agitated and flees. Don attempts to chase the man but gives up, standing in the middle of a crossroads. Don watches a Volkswagen Beetle drive past from which a young man (Bill Murray's son, Homer Murray) in the passenger seat makes eye contact with Don, while the same music Don has listened to on his trip plays from the passing car. ===== A German high school student, Sonja (Lena Stolze as a fictionalized version of Anna Rosmus) wins an essay contest and goes on a trip to Paris. Martin Wegmus begins teaching physics at Sonja's school and one of Sonja's classmates falls in love with him. Almost by luck, Mr. Wegmus and Sonja kiss. The teacher promises to return for her. The next year, she enters the contest again. She chooses "My Town During the Third Reich" from the possible topics. Her research leads her to discover that her picture-perfect town had been intimately involved in the Third Reich and that nearly all of the city's prominent families were members of the Nazi party long before it came to power. As she digs further, local authorities stonewall her efforts. Sonja persists and learns that there had been eight concentration camps in the area and that all the Jews were forced out of the town and had their property confiscated. Sonja marries Martin and the townsfolk think Sonja has dropped the issue of Nazi involvement. Sonja bears two daughters and studies history at the University. She resumes her research into the town's Nazi past and wins court cases granting her access to archives. She still has to employ trickery to get the information she wants. The townsfolks' hostility grows from verbal abuse, to death threats to physical assaults as they attempt to silence her with increasing desperation but nothing deters her. Her husband feels emasculated as he's forced to take care of the children. The family survives a bomb attack but Sonja keeps up her research. At the end, the townspeople change their tune, even putting a bust of Sonja at the town hall. Sonja sees this as a means to silence her and rejects the honor. ===== The book tells of the adventures of Dr. Michael Ong, a paranormal scientist and former seminarian, who is assigned by the United States government to a head researcher's position at an Area 51-esque laboratory in his hometown of Turlock, California, called Research Technical Institute. In exchange for granting the government the lease to build the facility, the City of Turlock demanded for it to be staffed primarily by locals. Ong's task is to open the hundreds of crates in the facility's warehouse, then to catalog and classify the items in each crate. Many of these artifacts are proven to be highly dangerous and thoroughly insane, as they all cover a wide range from Russian teleportation technology to aliens and mutants, even a were-pig. As such, the town nicknames the facility "Creature Tech". During what is just another ordinary day at the office, the ghost of the evil Dr. Jameson looses a slug-beast from its stasis capsule. Jameson was killed a century prior, after making a deal with a demon named Hellcat in exchange for the power to bring a "giant space eel" to Earth. Jameson succeeded a little too thoroughly, and he was crushed when the eel crash-landed into gold-rush-era Turlock. The ghost of Dr. Jameson, generations later, seeks an artifact in one of the crates at Creature Tech, the authentic Shroud of Turin, and released the slug-beast in order to distract the facility staff to abscond with the shroud. During the ensuing battle, Ong is stabbed through the heart by a parasite attached to the slug-beast. The parasite detaches itself from the beast and attaches to Ong's chest, replacing his heart, but creating a permanent symbiosis. Using the Shroud, Jameson resurrects his old body and begins a search for the remains of the space eel that killed him, so that he can resurrect it and use its power to destroy the world. In the meantime, he uses his demonic powers to unleash an army of demon-possessed cats upon Turlock. It's a race against time as Ong, the parasite on his chest, the human residents of Turlock and the monsters of Creature Tech defend their town against the demon onslaught and attempt to stop Jameson from destroying the world. ===== ===== The Fifth Doctor, Peri and Erimem attempt to discover the secret of the domain of the dead. ===== A cat named "Pufftail" (he says that he truly has no name) tells his life story to his daughter Tabitha and his grandson. He tells of his life on the streets, in a pet shop, at a convent, with a kind grandmother, and with the cruel "June and Jim," among others and says that he has three tragic parts in his life. In chronological order, the most important events of Pufftail's life are: # Being born # Separated from his mum with his brother # Being taken to a pet shop # Being taken in by Grandma Harris, until she dies # Being taken in by June and Jim Harbottle # The death of his brother # Being taken in by a convent of nuns # Joining the gang called "The Commune" # Being used to test a shampoo # Meeting his "wife" # The birth of his children # The death of his "wife" # Meeting his daughter, Tabitha # The birth of his grandchildren Category:1987 British novels Category:Novels by A. N. Wilson Category:English novels Category:Novels about cats ===== London Fields is set in London in 1999 against a backdrop of environmental, social and moral degradation, and the looming threat of world instability and nuclear war (referred to as "The Crisis"). The novel opens with Samson explaining how grateful he is to have found this story, already formed, already happening, waiting to be written down. > This is the story of a murder. It hasn't happened yet. But it will. (It had > better.) I know the murderer, I know the murderee. I know the time, I know > the place. I know the motive (her motive) and I know the means. I know who > will be the foil, the fool, the poor foal, also utterly destroyed. I > couldn't stop them, I don't think, even if I wanted to. The girl will die. > It's what she always wanted. You can't stop people, once they start. You > can't stop people, once they start creating. What a gift. This page is > briefly stained by my tears of gratitude. Novelists don't usually have it so > good, do they, when something real happens (something unified, dramatic, and > pretty saleable), and they just write it down?London Fields, p. 1. The characters have few, if any, redeeming features. Samson Young (Sam), the narrator of the novel (who twice emphasizes that he is "a reliable narrator"), is an American, a failed non-fiction writer with decades-long writer's block, and is slowly dying of some sort of terminal disease. Recently arrived in London, he immediately meets Keith Talent, a cheat (small-time criminal) and aspiring professional darts player, at Heathrow Airport where Keith is posing as a minicab driver. Keith gives Sam an extortionately priced ride into town. The two converse in Keith's car, and Keith invites Sam to the Black Cross, a pub on the Portobello Road, Keith's main hangout. At the Black Cross, Sam meets Guy Clinch, a rich upper-class banker who is bored with life, with his terrifyingly snobbish American wife, Hope, and his out-of-control toddler, Marmaduke. Shortly after, the two both meet the anti-heroine, Nicola Six, a 34-year-old local resident, of uncertain nationality, who has entered the pub after attending a funeral. Later that day, Sam sees Nicola dramatically dumping what turns out to be her diaries in a litter bin outside the flat where he is staying (it belongs to Mark Asprey, a wildly successful English writer). The diaries tell Sam that Nicola believes she can somehow see her own future, and, bored with life and fearing the ageing process, is plotting her own murder for midnight on 5 November, her 35th birthday. Sam, who considers that he lacks the imagination and courage to write fiction, realises he can simply document the progress towards the murder to create a plausible, lucrative, story. He assumes that Keith, the bad guy, will be the murderer. Sam enters into a strange relationship with Nicola where he regularly interviews her and is updated on the "plot". The novel proceeds on the basis that Keith Talent, the known criminal, will kill Nicola Six, with Guy Clinch as the fall guy necessary to provoke him into doing it (and, incidentally, to provide funds to help Talent avoid being beaten up by loan sharks, and to further his darts career so he can appear in the Sparrow Masters darts final the day before the planned murder). But there is an unexpected twist at the finale. Amis hints at a false ending, in one of Samson Young's terrifying dreams, simply to confuse the reader. ===== The game is set in an alternate year of 1964, in which World War I never ended. The Baron Nikolai Alexsandrovich von Ugenberg seized Mongolia in 1921 in an uprising following the Russian Revolution, and later invaded Russia itself to crush the Bolsheviks. His plan was to establish a Russo-Mongolian Empire stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic. With the help of the United States, the Allied nations of Europe were reformed as the United States of Western Europe, or the Alliance, in 1933 to counter Ugenberg's plan. Instead of the Great War ending in 1918, it was continued for almost half a century, with the battlelines drawn down Europe's center in 1929 shifting little for either side for the next several decades. As the USWE could no longer independently contribute to the war, the Alliance army was introduced into the American stock market, allowing private investors to speculate on the lives of the soldiers who carried on the war. The outcome of the war now depended almost entirely on the economy of the Alliance's member nations. The player takes on the role as Lieutenant James Anderson, only 19 when he joined the Alliance in 1943, and now a legend among the soldiers in the field. Anderson is recruited for a possibly suicidal mission: to breach enemy defenses and stop the Russo-Mongolians from developing a deadly weapon that could devastate the world. Captain Cecile Newcastle of the British Royal Highlands Regiment is Anderson's immediate supervisor and is responsible for guiding him through his mission. Colonel Mitchell is the commander of the operation, but has an ulterior motive for wanting the mission to succeed. ===== The Seventh Doctor, Ace and Bernice investigate the legendary Cult of the Dark Flame. ===== The Sixth Doctor and Evelyn confront the feared pirate captain Red Jasper, and the Doctor sings "I am the very model of a Gallifreyan buccaneer..." ===== While Princess Dejiko is reading a book, she realizes that she "needs" to help people all over the world. Dejiko takes Puchiko with her and tries to leave the castle, but Dejiko's tutor interrupts because it is her study time. Dejiko uses her laser eye beam and attempts to escape the castle numerous times, each time being thwarted by traps and gadgets set up by the tutor. Eventually, the duo are caught. A very petulant Dejiko stands her ground, and the tutor finally relents and lets Dejiko and Puchiko go outside the castle grounds, on the condition that they take Gema with them as a chaperon. In the following episode the trio arrive at the popular Rinna's Cake Shop. The shop is closed, and people are in line in front of the shop, waiting patiently for it to open. Dejiko, Puchiko, and Gema forcibly enter the shop and find that the owner, Rinna, is asleep. Dejiko decides that she and her friends will make the cakes for Rinna while she is sleeping. Everything seems to be okay until the cakes fall in the oven. When Dejiko laments, Rinna suddenly awakens to make the cakes. As she bakes, she sings that the missing ingredient in Dejiko's cake recipe was love and the anticipation of seeing her customers' happy faces, which she calls "baking powder of the heart." Confident again, Dejiko says that she will help Rinna make the day's cakes, but Rinna is asleep again. Later on, Rinna decides to close the cake shop to take an extended break and join Dejiko and her friends. A cat appears and jumps on Dejiko's head. A girl named Meek, appears in pursuit of the cat, but Dejiko mistakes Meek for the devil. Later, at a fish shop, where the group again runs into Meek, the cat appears and steals some fish. Meek, this time with the help of Dejiko and friends, tries again to catch the cat, but fails once more. When it appears that the cat is cornered, her kittens emerge from a hole in the wall. Meek finally realizes that the cat only wanted to feed its family and blithely decides to blame Dejiko and friends for stealing the fish. Meek joins the merry band not long after. ===== The story recounts the tragic love of Lucy Ashton and Edgar, Master of Ravenswood. Edgar's father was stripped of his title for supporting the deposed King James VII. Lucy's ambitious father, Sir William Ashton, then bought the Ravenswood estate. Edgar hates Sir William for this usurpation of his family's heritage, but on meeting Lucy, falls in love with her, and renounces his plans for vengeance. Sir William's haughty and manipulative wife, Lady Ashton, is the villainess of the story. She is determined to end the initial happy engagement of Edgar and Lucy, and force Lucy into a politically advantageous arranged marriage. Lady Ashton intercepts Edgar's letters to Lucy and persuades Lucy that Edgar has forgotten her. Edgar leaves Scotland for France, to continue his political activities. While he is away, Lady Ashton continues her campaign. She gets Captain Westenho, a wandering soldier of fortune, to tell everyone that Edgar is about to get married in France. She even recruits "wise woman" Ailsie Gourlay (a witch in all but name) to show Lucy omens and tokens of Edgar's unfaithfulness. Lucy still clings to her troth, asking for word from Edgar that he has broken off with her; she writes to him. Lady Ashton suppresses Lucy's letter, and brings the Reverend Bide-the-bent to apply religious persuasion to Lucy. However, Bide-the-bent instead helps Lucy send a new letter, but there is no answer. Lady Ashton finally bullies Lucy into marrying Francis, Laird of Bucklaw. But on the day before the wedding, Edgar returns. Seeing that Lucy has signed the betrothal papers with Bucklaw, he repudiates Lucy, who can barely speak. The wedding takes place the next day, followed by a celebration at Ravenswood. While the guests are dancing, Lucy stabs Bucklaw in the bridal chamber, severely wounding him. She descends quickly into insanity and dies. Bucklaw recovers, but refuses to say what had happened. Edgar reappears at Lucy's funeral. Lucy's older brother, blaming him for her death, insists that they meet in a duel. Edgar, in despair, reluctantly agrees. But on the way to the meeting, Edgar falls into quicksand and dies. ===== The book focuses on several key events that happen after Nafai, Elemak, Issib, Mebbekew, Zdorab and the father Volemak leave for the desert. Elemak has a dream from the Oversoul, foretelling Volemak's sons going back to the city of Basilica to get wives. The sons proceed to Nafai's and Issib's mother, Rasa, who is attempting to keep order within the city. However Hushidh, a raveler under Rasa's care, makes the disastrous mistake of severing the ties between Rashgallivak and his men, leading to widespread riots across the city. At the same time, General Moozh, leader of the "Wetheads" nation (Gorayni), is attempting to conquer cities around Basilica. He sees a strategic chance, and taking only 1000 soldiers, marches across the desert to conquer the city. He arrives in time to help the local city guard quell the uprising, and slowly begins taking control of its affairs. The remainder of the book deals with Nafai and his brothers' (Elemak and Mebbekew, who had come) attempts at finding wives. In the end, they are all forced into a house arrest along with Rasa, where Elemak takes Eiadh as his wife, Mebbekew takes Dol, Nafai takes Luet, the waterseer, with Rasa and Hushidh deciding to come as wives for Volemak and Issib, respectively. Shedemei (a Basilican geneticist) is dragged along with enough plants and animals to populate the future earth with new species, also as a wife to Zdorab. The ending comes when Moozh decides to marry Hushidh to politically tie himself with the city. Hushidh's original mother arrives to stop the ceremony, since Hushidh is actually the daughter of Moozh. Nafai's party is escorted out of the city with the women and supplies for the camp. Moozh ends up conquering the "Wetheads" he had been working for, while his Basilican second-in-command defends the city against the rival nation, Potokgavan. In the end he is killed during an invasion and Basilica falls, scattering the citizens to various other nations and cities on Harmony. Earlier in the book, the Oversoul had revealed the purpose of this dispersal was to force people with a strong connection to it to breed with people who had a weak connection, and so delay the eventual time when the Oversoul loses control of the people of Harmony. ===== Quasimodo being offered water by Esmeralda. The story is set in Paris in 1482. Quasimodo is a deaf, half-blind, hunchbacked bell-ringer of the famous Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. His master is a man named Jehan, the evil brother of Notre Dame's saintly archdeacon Dom Claude. One night, Jehan prevails upon Quasimodo to kidnap the fair Esmeralda, a dancing gypsy girl (and the adopted daughter of Clopin, the king of the oppressed beggars of Paris' underworld). The dashing Captain Phoebus rescues Esmeralda from Quasimodo, while Jehan abandons him and flees (later in the film, Quasimodo hates Jehan for abandoning him and is no longer loyal to him). At first seeking a casual romance, Phoebus becomes entranced by Esmeralda, and takes her under his wing. Quasimodo is sentenced to be lashed in the public square before Esmeralda and Dom Claude come to his aid. Dom Claude restrains Quasimodo from violence. To their dismay, Jehan and Clopin learn that Phoebus hopes to marry Esmeralda, despite being engaged to Fleur de Lys. Phoebus persuades Esmeralda to accompany him to a ball celebrating his appointment as Captain of the Guard by King Louis XI. He provides her with rich garments and introduces her to their hostess, Madame de Gondelaurier, as a Princess of Egypt. Clopin, accompanied by his beggars, crashes the festivities and demands Esmeralda be returned. To avoid bloodshed, Esmeralda says that she does not belong with the aristocracy. Later, however, Esmeralda sends the street poet Pierre Gringoire to give Phoebus a note, arranging a rendezvous at Notre Dame to say goodbye to him. Phoebus arrives and is stabbed in the back by Jehan. After Esmeralda is falsely sentenced to death for the crime, she is rescued from the gallows by Quasimodo and carried inside the cathedral, where he and Dom Claude grant her sanctuary. Later that night, Clopin leads the whole of the underworld to storm the cathedral, and Jehan attempts to take Esmeralda, first by guile (telling her that Phoebus's dying wish was for him to take care of her), then by force. Quasimodo holds off the invaders with rocks and torrents of molten lead. Meanwhile, the healed Phoebus is alerted by Gringoire and leads his men against the rabble. When Quasimodo finds Jehan attacking Esmeralda, he throws his former master off the ramparts of Notre Dame, but not before Jehan fatally stabs him three times in the back. Phoebus finds and embraces Esmeralda. Witnessing this, Quasimodo rings his own death toll, and Gringoire and Dom Claude enter the bell tower just in time to see him die. The last image is of the great bell swinging silently above Quasimodo's corpse. ===== The Talisman takes place at the end of the Third Crusade, mostly in the camp of the Crusaders in Palestine. Scheming and partisan politics, as well as the illness of King Richard the Lionheart, are placing the Crusade in danger. The main characters are the Scottish knight Kenneth, a fictional version of David of Scotland, Earl of Huntingdon, who returned from the third Crusade in 1190; Richard the Lionheart; Saladin; and Edith Plantagenet, a relative of Richard. Other leading characters include the actual historical figure Sir Robert de Sablé The One To Ever Serve As The Eleventh One To Be Known As The Grandmaster of the Order of the Knights Templar/The Grandmaster of the Templar Order and as well as Conrad Aleramici da Montferrat/Conrad Aleramici di Montferrat/Conrad Aleramici de Montferrat, referred to here whilst as "Conrade of Montserrat", due to an admitted misspelling on The Author Sir Walter Scott's respective part. ===== Jack Sawyer, twelve years old, sets out from Arcadia Beach, New Hampshire in a bid to save his mother, who is dying from cancer, by finding a crystal called "the Talisman." Jack's journey takes him simultaneously through the American heartland and "the Territories," a strange fantasy land which is set in a universe parallel to that of Jack's United States. Individuals in the Territories have "twinners," or parallel individuals, in our world. Twinners' births, deaths, and (it is intimated) other major life events are usually paralleled. Twinners can also "flip" or migrate to the other world, but only share the body of their alternate universe's analogue. When flipped, the Twinner, or the actual person, will automatically start speaking and thinking the language of where they are flipping into subconsciously. In rare instances (such as Jack's), a person may die in one world but not the other, making the survivor "single-natured" with the ability to switch back and forth, body and mind, between the two worlds. Jack is taught how to flip by a mysterious figure known as Speedy Parker, who is the twinner of a gunslinger named Parkus in the Territories. In the Territories, the beloved Queen Laura DeLoessian, the twinner of Jack's mother (a movie actress known as the "Queen of the B Movies") is dying as well. Various people help or hinder Jack in his quest. Of particular importance are the werewolves, known simply as Wolfs, who inhabit the Territories. These are not the savage killers of tradition: they serve as royal herdsmen or bodyguards, and can sometimes under stress voluntarily change to wolf form, in addition to facing an involuntary transformation that lasts about three days at the time of the full moon. A sixteen-year-old Wolf, simply named Wolf, is pulled into America by Jack Sawyer and adopts Jack as his pack, serving as his companion. Wolf is extremely likeable, kind, loyal and friendly, much like a dog, though his wolf nature shows through on occasion. On the other hand, some Wolfs have joined the malevolent faction which is trying to stop Jack. As the story goes back and forth between the Territories and the familiar United States, or "American Territories" as Jack comes to call them, Jack escapes from one life-threatening situation after another. Accompanied by Wolf and later by his childhood friend Richard, Jack must retrieve the Talisman before it falls into the hands of evil schemer Morgan Sloat, Richard's father, who, we later learn, was Jack's father's business partner before arranging to have the latter murdered. He wants to seize their business from Jack's mother. Morgan Sloat's twinner, Morgan of Orris, also plans to seize the Territories in the event of Queen Laura's death. ===== Due to an administrative error two male college students, the shy and intellectual Eddy (Josh Charles) and the All-American jock Stuart (Stephen Baldwin), end up with a female roommate. The university thought that Alex (Lara Flynn Boyle) was a man (based on her name) and thus the three students are forced to live with each other until the university can move Alex to a female residence hall. Alex falls in love and tries unsuccessfully to seduce Eddy, who is gay; Eddy falls in love with Stuart; and Stuart is in love with Alex. The trio become good friends and scare off anyone who tries to seduce the other. Eventually, Alex, Stuart and Eddy agree to have an actual threesome that seems to destroy the friendship, and raises the possibility that Alex might have become pregnant. After the threesome, they start to drift apart. Three weeks later the semester ends; Alex moves to an apartment, and Eddy gets a single dorm. Eddy (who acts as the film's narrator) eventually finds a boyfriend, Stuart finds happiness in a monogamous relationship with a woman, and Alex remains single. While they now only see each other for lunch occasionally, they do not seem to regret the friendship they had while in college. ===== In the desert outside of San Angelo, California, a huge meteorite crashes and explodes, scattering hundreds of black fragments over a wide area. The next day, Federal geologist Ben Gilbert (Phil Harvey) brings one of the fragments to his office, where he and local newspaper publisher Martin Cochrane (Les Tremayne) examine it. That night, a strong wind blows over a full water container onto the black rock, starting a chemical reaction. When Dave Miller (Grant Williams), the head of San Angelo's district geological office, returns from a business trip, he finds Ben's corpse in a rock-hard, petrified state and the office's lab damaged by large rock fragments. Dave's girlfriend, teacher Cathy Barrett (Lola Albright), takes her students on a desert field trip; young Ginny Simpson (Linda Scheley) pockets a piece of the black meteorite rock, later washing it in a large tub outside her family's farmhouse. In town Dr. E. J. Reynolds (Richard H. Cutting) performs Ben's autopsy and cannot explain the body's condition; he informs Dave and Police Chief Dan Corey (William Flaherty) the body is being sent to a specialist. Martin returns to the wrecked office with Dave where he recognizes the large fragments as the same type of black rock Ben had been examining. Cathy joins them, also recognizing the fragments. She goes with the two men to the Simpson farm; they find the farmhouse in ruins under a large pile of black rocks and Ginny's parents dead. The girl is still alive but in a catatonic state. At Dr. Reynolds' request, they rush her to Dr. Steve Hendricks (Harry Jackson) at the California Medical Research Institute in Los Angeles. He later reports that Ginny is slowly turning to stone; her only hope lies with identifying the black rock within eight hours. Dave brings a fragment to his old college professor, Arthur Flanders (Trevor Bardette), who determines that it came from a meteorite. Back at the Simpson farm, both men notice a discoloration in the ground: The black rock is draining something from everything it touches, including people. Later, tests show that silicon is that substance; in humans it is normally just a trace element. Dr. Reynolds explains that research indicates that one possible function of silicon in the human body is to maintain human tissue flexibility. They suddenly realize that the meteorite's absorption of silicon was the cause of Ben's death, Ginny's condition, and the death of her parents; Steve then prepares and administers a silicon solution injection to the girl. Returning to the desert, Dave and Arthur trace the fragments to the crashed meteor. Arthur deduces that the meteorite's atomic structure has been radically altered by the intense heat of atmospheric friction. Back in the lab, a rainstorm blows up while Dave and Arthur continue their investigation. A piece of black rock falls into the sink and begins to react when hot coffee is poured on it; the men then realize that water is the culprit. With it raining outside, they hurriedly return to the desert and see the black fragments now growing into stories-tall monoliths that rise up and then crash back to Earth, breaking into hundreds more fragments, each fragment then repeating that cycle. Dave quickly realizes that the monoliths' advancing path will take them directly through San Angelo, and from there the monoliths could spread and possibly threaten all life on Earth. They report and explain the threat to Dan, who then makes plans to evacuate San Angelo. The governor is notified, and declares a state of emergency in the San Angelo area. At the hospital, Ginny finally revives, and Dave deduces that something in the silicon solution will check the fragments' growth. More locals are soon rushed to Dr. Reynolds' office in various stages of petrification. With little time left, and the telephone and electricity cut off, the monoliths continue to multiply and advance, soaking up water from the rain-soaked soil. Dave and Arthur struggle to find the correct formula; they finally realize the monoliths can be stopped with a simple saline solution, a part of Steve's silicon formula. Dave plans to dynamite the local dam and flood the nearby salt flats, creating a large supply of salt water. Because the dam is private property, however, Dan attempts to contact the governor for permission to blow up the dam. Knowing they must halt the monoliths at the canyon's edge, Dave acts without waiting for the governor's approval and the dynamite is detonated. The group watches as a huge torrent of water flows over the salt deposits at the canyon's edge, reaching the monoliths; their growth is finally halted when the last huge formation of monoliths crashes down into the salty water. Dan reveals to the group that he had finally reached the governor who told him not to blow up the dam, pauses, and adds unless Dave was absolutely certain of success. As they all laugh, Dave then comments, first repeating Martin's earlier assertion that the region's salt flat was "Mother Nature's worst mistake", then pointing out, ironically, that this near-disaster has just proved otherwise. ===== Cartman attempts to fly by jumping off of his roof with cardboard wings attached to his arms, to which only Kyle roots for knowing what’s going to happen while everyone else is against it. He emerges from a brief coma in the hospital, where he shares a room with a victim of a serial killer who cuts off his victims' left hands. When Cartman makes a lucky guess and manages to deduce some obvious routine things, like the food the hospital is serving, a gullible local police detective, Sergeant Yates, believes that Cartman has developed psychic powers. Cartman plays along and is taken to the scene of one of the murders. Where Yates asks him if he is "seeing anything" Cartman closes his eyes and vocalizes his cravings for ice cream and Oreo cookies, prompting Yates to arrest ice cream shop owner Tom Johannsen with extreme brutality. Cartman receives a cash reward. At school, Kyle angrily confronts Cartman over his fraudulent psychic abilities, but Cartman defiantly insists that he has such powers, and convinces the other frightened school children of this, though not Kyle, Stan, and Kenny. The left-hand murders resume, but instead of realizing his mistake, Yates rationalizes that these are copycat killings. At the next crime scene, the boys meet a disturbed man named Michael Deets who is quite obviously the murderer, but Yates refuses to listen to Kyle's pleas, focusing instead on Cartman's fake visions. Cartman's involvement in the case makes him famous, resulting in a visit from a group of "psychic detectives" who demand he join their group and pay a fee. Cartman laughs off their pretensions, resulting in a "psychic battle" in which the "detectives" indulge in the same histrionics as Cartman, terrifying his mother. Failing to intimidate Cartman, the psychics leave with a threat of class action lawsuit. Cartman solves this problem by telling Sergeant Yates that the group is behind the copycat murders, leading the members of the group to be arrested, beaten, and in one case, fatally shot. Meanwhile, Kyle has followed Deets to his home and obtained fingerprint and blood samples and had them analyzed, but he is completely ignored by the police. Deciding the police will listen to him only if he himself claims psychic powers, Kyle imitates Cartman's attempted flight and is rendered comatose. When he awakens he claims to have psychic powers and gives the police his original findings. Yates is skeptical but goes to investigate Deets anyway, who, by this point, has abducted Cartman, furious that the self-proclaimed psychic has credited his work to others. When Yates arrives, he prepares to arrest Deets upon finding many severed hands pinned to a wall in Deets' home, but stands down upon realizing that the hands on the wall appear to be right hands, not left hands, because the thumb on Yates' own left hand points to the left, cluelessly failing to realize that he is looking at his hand with its palm facing up, in the opposite orientation of those on the wall. Yates, leaves, not knowing that Cartman is bound and gagged in Deets' basement, but he questions his own observation about the hands. He goes back to the station, and after a montage depicting running elaborate criminology tests, exercising, and even losing track of what he was doing, he figures out his mistake, and returns to Deets' house, where he shoots Deets just before Deets kills Cartman who begs Deets not kill him and confesses his sins to him. At the hospital, Johannsen and the psychics have been released from prison, and Kyle is praised as a real psychic. Kyle, however, tells them that there are no psychics, and that there is a logical explanation for every psychic story ever heard. The other "psychics", however, decide to reignite their conflict with Cartman, and engage in a "final battle". Kyle becomes annoyed and loudly yells at them to stop, at which point the light bulbs in the room explode and a shelf becomes partially detached from its wall, spilling its contents on the floor. Everyone is surprised by this, but Kyle sheepishly insists there is a logical explanation for this. ===== Edward Baltram, a college student living in London, gives his best friend Mark a sandwich laced with a hallucinogenic drug for a joke. After Mark, still high, falls to his death from a window, Edward is wracked with guilt and depression -- worsened by daily letters from Mark's mother cursing him as a murderer. In search of his father, Jesse, Edward sets off for Seegard, the family home, away from the harsh reality of London. As Edward progresses through the novel, he revives somewhat, thanks to the love of his eccentric father and his extended family of supportive women. He eventually finds, however, that he must come to terms with Mark's death. Meanwhile, Edward's stepbrother Stuart Cuno decides to give up his studies and goes in search of the "pure" life of an aesthete, to his family's bewilderment. Stuart has a close bond with thirteen-year-old Meredith, the son of Thomas and Midge McCaskerville. While Edward seeks redemption and Stuart salvation, Midge is having an affair with her husband's best friend, Harry Cuno - stepfather to Edward and father to Stuart. Her passionate love affair comes to a head after two years when she is disgraced publicly and falls unexpectedly in love with Stuart. Left with a difficult decision, Midge turns to Edward for support. ===== In the midst of negotiations with the United States Secretary of State, the Prime Minister of Canada dies in a canoeing accident. His son Tom McLaughlin (Paul Gross) returns from overseas to deliver the eulogy at his father's state funeral. The attention it receives propels him into politics and he ultimately becomes Prime Minister. The investigation into his father's death, however, reveals that it was no accident and raises the possibility of assassination. McLaughlin accepts the U.S. President's plan to develop the Great Recycling and Northern Development Canal to help the United States with their water shortage. Sgt. Leah Collins (Leslie Hope) and Member of Parliament Marc Lavigne (Guy Nadon) slowly piece together evidence of a conspiracy that threatens Canada's existence. ===== The OVA focuses mostly on the girls of St Ignacio's School for girls than the mecha itself. There are two clubs to join: , where admission is said to lead to ultimate success; or , which is said to teach the values of common courtesy in the world. Three freshmen join the Etiquette club rather than the popular Debutante Club and soon discover its founding members are part of a secret task force called Exters (ExStars in the dubbed version). Fan service is a predominated feature in the transformation sequence. The battles are not only for school hierarchy, but to save the world. ===== Jacques Saunière, a Louvre curator, is pursued through the Grand Gallery by an albino Catholic monk named Silas, who demands the location of the Priory's "keystone" to find and destroy the Holy Grail. Saunière gives him a false lead and is murdered. The police find his body posed like Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man. Police captain Bezu Fache has his lieutenant, Jérôme Collet, summon American symbologist Robert Langdon, who is in Paris for a lecture on the interpretation of symbols, to examine Saunière's body. Langdon is shown the body and a secret message, readable only by blacklight. It contains an out-of-order Fibonacci sequence. Sophie Neveu, a police cryptographer and Saunière's granddaughter, tells Langdon that Fache planted a tracker on him after finding the words, "P.S. Find Robert Langdon" at the end of Saunière's secret message. Fache believes Langdon murdered Saunière. Sophie throws away the tracker, distracting the police while they sneak around the Louvre, finding more clues in Leonardo da Vinci's works. Langdon deduces that Saunière was the grand master of the Priory of Sion. Silas works for an anonymous person referred to as "the Teacher", along with members of Opus Dei, led by Bishop Aringarosa. Langdon and Sophie travel to the Depository Bank of Zurich and access Saunière's safe deposit box by using the Fibonacci sequence. Inside is a cryptex, a cylindrical container that contains a message on papyrus. It can only be opened without destroying the contents by turning dials to spell a code word. As police arrive, bank manager Andre Vernet helps Langdon and Sophie escape, then attempts to steal the cryptex and murder them. Langdon and Sophie escape with the cryptex. They visit Langdon's friend, Sir Leigh Teabing, a Holy Grail expert. Teabing claims the Grail is not a cup but instead is Mary Magdalene. He says she was not a prostitute but the wife of Jesus Christ. Teabing argues that Mary was pregnant during His crucifixion, and the Priory formed to protect their descendants. The Opus Dei have been trying to destroy the Grail to preserve the credibility of the Vatican. Later, Silas breaks into Teabing's house, but Teabing, who uses crutches, uses one to disable him. The group escapes to London via Teabing's private plane, along with his butler, Remy Jean. Their misinterpretation of the clue that dropped from the cryptex leads them to the Temple Church, where they find nothing. Remy, who claims to be the Teacher, frees Silas. Remy takes Teabing hostage, dumping him in the car trunk, and taking Silas to hide out in an Opus Dei safe house. Teabing, who is revealed as the Teacher, later poisons Remy and sends the police after Silas. Police shoot Silas after accidentally wounding Aringarosa, who is promptly arrested by Fache, who resents being used to hunt Langdon. Teabing, who wants to bring down the Church for centuries of persecution and deceit, confronts Langdon and Sophie. Now understanding the true meaning behind the clue to unlock the cryptex, the trio goes to Westminster Abbey to the tomb of Isaac Newton, a former grand master of the Priory. Teabing demands that the pair open the cryptex. Langdon tries and seemingly fails before suddenly tossing the cryptex into the air. Teabing dives for it, catches it, but the vial breaks, and the papyrus is thought destroyed. The police arrive to arrest Teabing, who realizes Langdon must have solved the cryptex's code and removed the papyrus before throwing it. The code is revealed to be "APPLE", after the apocryphal myth of the apple which led Newton to discover his law of universal gravitation. The clue inside the cryptex, which tells of the Grail hiding neath the rose," leads Langdon and Sophie to Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland. Inside the chapel, they discover a secret room where Magdalene's tomb has been removed. Langdon, after searching through documents, realizes that Sophie's family died in a car crash, that Saunière was not her grandfather but her protector, and that she is the last descendant of Jesus Christ. The two are greeted by several members of the Priory, including Sophie's grandmother, who promises to protect her. Langdon and Sophie part ways, the former returning to Paris. While shaving, he cuts himself and has an epiphany when his blood curves down the sink, reminding him of the Rose Line. Realizing the true meaning of the cryptex clue, he follows the line to the Louvre, concluding the Holy Grail is hidden below the Pyramide Inversée. Langdon kneels atop it and the sarcophagus of Mary Magdalene is seen in a secret underground chamber. ===== Toadsworth has invited Mario and all of his friends to go on a luxury cruise around the world due to all the hard work; however, Bowser was not invited. Furious at being omitted, King Koopa vows revenge. When the cruise ship arrives at its first destination, the passengers discover that Bowser has turned their vacation paradise into a stress-filled madhouse. Mario tries to gain as many stars as possible to end this. ===== Maggie Carpenter (Julia Roberts) is a spirited and attractive young woman who has had a number of unsuccessful relationships. Maggie, nervous about being married, has left a trail of fiancés waiting for her at the altar on their wedding day. All of these were caught on tape, earning Maggie tabloid fame and the dubious nickname "The Runaway Bride." Meanwhile, in New York, columnist Homer Eisenhower Graham or "Ike" (Richard Gere), writes an article about her that contains several factual errors, supplied to him by a man he meets in a bar who Ike later learns was one of Maggie's former fiancés. Ike is fired for not verifying his source, but is invited to write an in-depth article about Maggie in a bid to restore his reputation. He travels to Hale, Maryland, where he finds Maggie living with her family and on her fourth attempt to become married. The fourth groom-to-be, Bob Kelly (Christopher Meloni), is a local high school football coach who uses sports analogies to help Maggie with her concerns. He constantly makes references to Maggie "focusing" on the goal-line in reference to their pending nuptials. As Ike starts going around town to meet her friends, family, and former fiancés, Maggie becomes frustrated and feels he is getting the story wrong again. Ike begins to cooperate with Maggie on the story, Maggie being interested in getting him to publish the truth, and the two become closer to each other the more time they spend together. During his research for the story, Ike realizes that Maggie is adjusting her interests to mimic those of her fiancés in order to please them. This is signified most prominently by her choice of eggs, which changes with each fiancé. At a pre-wedding celebration for her and Bob, Ike defends Maggie from the public mockery she starts receiving from her family and guests, and Maggie walks outside due to the embarrassment. Ike then confronts Maggie outside about his realization regarding her relationships. During the wedding rehearsal, Bob tries to quell Maggie's wedding anxieties by walking her down the aisle. Ike is standing in at the altar, playing the groom. After Bob gets her to the altar, Ike and Maggie share a passionate kiss and admit to each other their feelings. Bob is chagrined, becomes jealous and punches Ike in the face before he storms out of the church. In the aftermath, Ike proposes that he and Maggie get married since the wedding is arranged. At the altar, Maggie gets cold feet and flees. Ike pursues her but she hitches a ride away on a FedEx truck. Later, we see Ike living in New York and Maggie trying to discover herself, trying different types of eggs, and putting her lighting designs up for sale in New York. She shows up unexpectedly at Ike's apartment one night where he finds her making friends with his cat, Italics. Maggie then explains that she had been running because every other guy she was engaged to was only engaged to the idea she had created for them rather than the real her, but with Ike she ran because, even though he truly understood her, she didn't understand herself. She "turns in" her running shoes just before proposing to Ike. Ike hides his eyes, but she persists. The two are married in a private ceremony outside, on a hill, avoiding the big ceremonies that Maggie notes she never actually liked. In the end, they are shown riding away on horseback while everyone in Hale and New York (clued in via cell phone by Ike and Maggie's family) celebrates the fact that Maggie finally got married. A post credit scene shows Maggie and Ike playing in the snow signifying that the relationship is going strong well after the wedding. ===== The Imperial Order continues to bring an undesired war upon the New World. Its mission is to enslave the world in a system in which no human being can aspire to anything more than mediocrity. Meanwhile, Richard, Cara and Kahlan return to Westland. Richard believes that if he leads the armies of the New World directly into a confrontation with the armies of the Imperial Order, he will lose the battle and the New World will fall prey to the grasp of death and slavery. Kahlan is nursed back to health after a brutal beating she received at the hands of Anderith's messengers at the end of the last book, Soul of the Fire. Just as she achieves her recovery, Nicci, a long time slave of Jagang and the Imperial Order, arrives to take Richard away. Kahlan and Cara pack their things and decide to return to the D'Haran armies. There they, too, will battle with the Imperial Order. ===== A dysfunctional and sometimes violent romance happens between Mathieu (Fernando Rey), a middle-aged, wealthy Frenchman, and a young, impoverished, and beautiful flamenco dancer from Seville, Conchita, played by Carole Bouquet and Ángela Molina. The two actresses each appear unpredictably in separate scenes, and differ not only physically, but temperamentally as well. Most of the film is a flashback recalled by Mathieu. The movie opens with Mathieu travelling by train from Seville to Paris. He is trying to distance himself from his young girlfriend Conchita. As Mathieu's train is ready to depart, he finds that a bruised and bandaged Conchita is pursuing him. From the train he pours a bucket of water over her head. He believes this will deter her, but she sneaks aboard. Mathieu's fellow compartment passengers witness his rude act. These include a mother and her young daughter, a judge who is coincidentally a friend of Mathieu's cousin, and a psychologist who is a dwarf. They inquire about his motivation for such an act, and he then explains the history of his tumultuous relationship with Conchita. The story is set against a backdrop of terrorist bombings and shootings by left-wing groups. Conchita, who claims to be 18 but looks older, has vowed to remain a virgin until marriage. She tantalizes Mathieu with sexual promises, but never allows him to satisfy his sexual desire. At one point she goes to bed with him wearing a tightly laced canvas corset, which he cannot untie, making it impossible to have sexual intercourse. Conchita's antics cause the couple to break up and reunite repeatedly, each time frustrating and confusing Mathieu. Eventually, Mathieu finds Conchita dancing nude for tourists in a Seville nightclub. At first he becomes enraged. Later, however, he forgives her and buys her a house. In a climactic scene, soon after moving into the house, Conchita refuses to let Mathieu in at the gate, tells him that she hates him, and that kissing and touching him make her sick. Then, to prove her independence, she appears to initiate sexual intercourse with a young man in plain view of Mathieu, although he walks away without witnessing the act. Later that night he is held up at gunpoint as his car is hijacked. After this, Conchita attempts to reconcile with Mathieu, insisting that the sex was fake and that her "lover" is in reality a homosexual friend. However, during her explanation, Mathieu beats her (she then says "Now I'm sure you love me"), causing her bandaged and bruised state seen earlier in the film. Just as the fellow train passengers seem satisfied with this story, Conchita reappears from hiding and dumps a bucket of water on Mathieu. However, the couple apparently reconcile yet again when the train reaches its destination. After leaving the train, they walk arm in arm, enjoying the streets of Madrid. Later in a mall in Paris, loudspeakers announce that a strange alliance of extremist groups intends to sow chaos and confusion in society through terrorist attacks. The announcement adds that several right- wing groups plan to counter-attack. As the couple continues their walk, they pass a seamstress in a shop window mending a bloody nightgown. They begin arguing just as a bomb explodes, apparently claiming their lives. ===== Los Angeles police sergeant Tom Valens is on a stakeout near an upscale apartment complex when he is forced to defend himself from a mysterious figure who aims a gun at him on a foggy night. The trouble is, the dead man turns out to be a prominent physician and pillar of the community, Dr. James Ruston, and there is no gun to be found. Valens is in trouble with his department, specifically Roy Klodin, his captain. It doesn't help that Valens is still carrying the memory of having been shot while on duty nearly a year earlier. He is placed under suspension by the force while Frank Sanderman, a prosecutor with a grudge against trigger-happy cops, files manslaughter charges against this one. Setting out on his own to clear his name, Valens meets resistance from many including Ruston's financial adviser, Calvin York, and the doctor's alcoholic and flirtatious widow, Doris Ruston. Also unwilling to be of help to Valens is the doctor's nurse, Liz Thayer, who knew Ruston only as a humanitarian who made many trips to Mexico to unselfishly aid people in need. The controversial cop's lone defender in public is acerbic television personality Perry Knowland, who turns out to be doing so only to increase his viewership (upon learning this Valens acidly tells Knowland, "Be against me, I'd feel cleaner"). Even the elderly lady whom Dr. Ruston often came to visit, Alice Willows, speaks only with devotion to the doctor, who was very kind to her beloved dog. While trying to find some reason why Ruston would have been skulking in the fog near the apartments and brandishing a gun, Valens meets Alice Willows again after her dog passes away and she has him buried with all of his toys at a nearby pet cemetery. Among the few offering a sympathetic ear are his estranged wife, Joanie, and another apartment resident, Walt Cody, a playboy pilot. Cody volunteers to fly Valens down to Mexico to see first-hand why Dr. Ruston commuted there so often. Complications arise when Liz Thayer is found dead in Ruston's ransacked office, obliging Valens' partner, Sgt. Ed Musso, to try to place his friend under arrest. But upon learning that Ruston's office was ransacked, Valens realizes what has been happening, and also what happened to the gun he knew he saw Rustin brandishing. He overpowers Musso, locks him in his closet, then goes to the pet cemetery where, once again, Valens must decide whether to pull the trigger on someone who is pointing a gun directly at him. ===== Lieutenant Bret Taylor married his wife after knowing her only over a single overnight drinking binge while on shore leave during the war. His ship is bombed out of the water and he returns home to find his wife freshly murdered in the home he bought but had never seen. The shock of the two events sends him into a mental lapse, and he's in an asylum. The woman who loves him, a successful screenwriter, calls in a specialist who jogs his memory—and his sense of duty. Taylor hits the streets of Los Angeles, digging through his wife's lies and lovers in an attempt to avenge her murder. The book is a psychological thriller, with the main action being the unraveling of the story within Taylor's mind. The reader is denied information that other major characters obviously have throughout the whole novel, and is meanwhile treated to long passages of theories from the main character. Alfred A. Knopf, Jr., who functioned as an editing publisher, asked for revisions in what he considered a slow-paced novel. Millar cut '10,000 good words' and concentrated the action into four days. The 1980 movie Deadly Companion (or Double Negative) was based on this novel. Category:1948 American novels Category:American novels adapted into films Category:Novels by Ross Macdonald Category:Thriller novels Category:Novels set in Los Angeles Category:Alfred A. Knopf books ===== 2004\. Having discovered the cure to the Forge Virus, the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn travel to Norway seeking Cassie. They find her, but much time has passed and she now works for the Forge and goes by the name of Artemis. At the Forge on Dartmoor, Nimrod conducts a terrible experiment on the Doctor, attempting to force him to regenerate by electrocution. Evelyn talks to Cassie about her son, whom she had forgotten due to Nimrod's brainwashing, and making her realise Nimrod's evil intentions. Cassie tells Evelyn that she knows the secret that she keeps from the Doctor — she has a heart condition and had had an attack just before travelling with the Doctor. She had been afraid to tell him as she thought the Doctor would not allow her to travel with him as his companion. Cassie frees the Doctor, but is killed by Nimrod. Evelyn is distraught, and upset at the Doctor for leaving Cassie behind. Nearly four years later, the Seventh Doctor detects an anomaly in the vortex, which leads him to the Forge. There he meets his sixth self who is now working as the Forge's scientific advisor and Nimrod is conducting an experiment on the alien Huldran. Other Huldran creatures attack the Forge, and the Sixth Doctor is injured losing his arm. Knowing that he had never lost an arm, the Seventh Doctor makes mind contact and realises that it is in fact only a clone, his DNA taken from him when he endured Nimrod's regeneration experiment. As the Seventh Doctor and the clone Doctor uncover Nimrod's awful experiment, it is revealed that clone is just one of many — Nimrod has lost count of the total. The clone Doctor uses his perfect mimicry of Nimrod's voice and instigates the Hades protocol causing the Forge to shut down, ending all of Nimrod's experiments. The Seventh Doctor apparently escapes with the Forge's human staff and the Huldran, however, Lysanda Aristedes suggests to Ace in Project: Destiny that many of her colleagues were killed on Dartmoor. The Forge is not totally destroyed however, as the Oracle computer is heard stating that the back up facility has been created. ===== Attorney Harold Fine (Sellers) is forced into setting a date for marriage by his secretary/fiancée Joyce. Because of a fender bender, he ends up driving a hippie vehicle, a psychedelically-painted station wagon. At the funeral of his family's butcher he encounters his brother, Herbie, a hippie living in Venice Beach. Herbie's girlfriend, an attractive flower power hippie girl named Nancy (Leigh Taylor-Young), takes a liking to Harold and makes him pot brownies. However, she departs without telling him, and not knowing what they are he eats them and feeds them to his father, mother, and fiancée, who dissolve in laughter and silliness. Harold considers the "trip" a revelation, and begins renouncing aspects of his "straight" life. He tells his fiancée "no" at the chuppah, starts living with Nancy, and tries to find himself with the aid of a guru, whose name is Guru. Ultimately he discovers the hippie lifestyle is as unfulfilling and unsatisfying as his old lifestyle—Nancy says that monogamy "isn't hip"—and once more decides to marry Joyce. At the last minute, he again leaves her at the altar and runs out of the wedding onto a city street saying he doesn't know for sure what he is looking for but, "there's got to be something beautiful out there." ===== ===== ===== During a school field trip, Bart notices a change in Milhouse's behavior. Milhouse talks back to Mrs. Krabappel and wanders away from the group. He causes mischief with Bart, and tells him that he does not care what anyone thinks of him anymore. Finally, Milhouse reveals that he is moving to Capitol City with his mother. Bart visits Milhouse in Capitol City, only to find that Milhouse has dyed his hair blonde, is wearing fashionable clothes, and is cultivating a "bad-boy" image, even going so far as to give Bart a wedgie in front of his new Capitol City friends. At home, seeing how depressed Bart is (who even cries), Marge suggests he spend more time with Lisa. The two begin to bond by washing the car and riding bikes, and after they discover an Indian burial mound together, they become best friends. Meanwhile, at Moe's Tavern, Apu and Manjula are celebrating their anniversary, and Homer realizes he does not have a gift for Marge for their anniversary. After being thrown out of the bar, Homer sits on the street and people start giving him money. He dances and earns enough money to buy Marge some flowers. He also does a rendition of the song "Mr. Bojangles" and asks for money. Homer continues his panhandling, and eventually makes enough money to buy Marge a pair of diamond earrings. When he continues panhandling afterward, angry bums bring Marge to see what Homer is doing. Marge is mortified and angry, but cannot bring herself to throw the earrings away. Milhouse returns to Springfield when his father wins custody of Milhouse via court order. After she finds out Bart told Milhouse about their secret Indian burial mound, Lisa feels that Bart is acting like their friendship never existed and that he has been using her to fill a void. Bart, however, shows her that he still values her as a sister by giving her a set of cards with nice things he will do for her on them, and the two hug. The episode ends with Isabel Sanford at the TV and Radio museum, pointing out how sitcoms usually resort to using sappy endings for their episodes. ===== In 1797, the humane Captain Crawford (Alec Guinness) is in command of the warship HMS Defiant during the French Revolutionary Wars. He soon finds himself in a battle of wills with his first officer, the sadistic and supercilious first lieutenant, Mr. Scott-Padget (Dirk Bogarde). The lieutenant believes that Crawford is too soft on his crew, and also disagrees with the captain's decision to follow his orders to sail to Corsica despite word that Napoleon's army has overrun much of Italy. Scott-Padget has powerful family connections, which he has used in the past to "beach" two previous commanding officers with whom he disagreed. Knowing that Crawford is helpless to intervene, Scott-Padget subjects the Captain's son, Midshipman Harvey Crawford (David Robinson), to excessive daily punishments so as to gain leverage over the captain. Meanwhile, some of the crew, led by seaman Vizard (Anthony Quayle), are preparing to mutiny for better conditions, in conjunction with similar efforts throughout the British fleet. They eventually pledge virtually the entire crew. In the Mediterranean, the Defiant encounters a French frigate escorting a merchant ship. After a sharp engagement, a boarding party from the Defiant captures the French frigate, and the merchantman surrenders. Crawford dispatches his son as part of the prize crew tasked to sail the captured merchantman to a British port, thereby placing him out of Scott-Padget's reach. Crawford tells Scott-Padget that bringing his son with him was a mistake, but now he's "put it right!" He further vows to take actions that will "astound" his second-in-command. Before long, Scott-Padget is confined to quarters as punishment for insubordination. His humiliation is compounded by the requirement that he appear on deck every two hours in full dress uniform, a punishment usually reserved for young midshipmen. Soon, Defiant fights and captures a Venetian frigate, taking on many prisoners. Crawford is severely wounded in the action and eventually loses his arm. Discovered among the prisoners is a key aide to Napoleon, from whom the British learn important information about a planned invasion of Britain. With Crawford incapacitated, Scott-Padget takes command, but his brutality goads the crew into a premature mutiny. Appealing to their patriotism, Crawford convinces Vizard and the other mutineers to sail for the main British fleet blockading Rochefort to warn them of the impending invasion. Crawford promises to intercede for the crew as best he can, on the condition that none of the officers are harmed. As the Defiant reaches the fleet at Rochefort, they receive word that the main British fleet has already mutinied, with the Admiralty agreeing to most of the sailors' demands. The crew's jubilation at the news is cut short when a hot-headed seaman, Evans, murders Scott-Padget. Realising that they are now all doomed to punishment as mutineers, an enraged Vizard kills Evans. Their only course now is to try to escape with the ship. Just then, the French fleet sallies out from port, and a French fireship is sighted heading straight for the British flagship. As the only ship under sail, the Defiant has the unique opportunity to save the flagship. Once again, Crawford appeals to the crew's patriotism, making no promises but convincing them to intercept the fireship. Vizard is killed in the ensuing action, living just long enough to hear a message from the British admiral thanking Defiant for their gallant actions. The mutiny is over. ===== In the year 20XX, robots developed to assist mankind are commonplace thanks to the efforts of renowned robot designer Dr. Light. However, one day these robots go out of control and start attacking the populace, among them six advanced humanoid robots made by Dr. Light for industrial purposes: Cut Man, Guts Man, Ice Man, Bomb Man, Fire Man, and Elec Man. He realizes the culprit is his old rival Dr. Wily (who plots to take over the world), but is unsure of what to do. His helper robot Rock, having a strong sense of justice, offers to be converted into a fighting robot to stop Dr. Wily's plan, becoming Mega Man.Rockman manual, December 17, 1987, Capcom Entertainment, Inc. In time, he defeats the six robots and recovers their central cores, then confronts Dr. Wily within his Pacific-based robot factory (which happens to be mass-producing Light's robots). After a final showdown, Wily is defeated and Mega Man returns to his family. The initial Western release of the game, while keeping the basic plot the same, significantly changed some details from the original Japanese manual. In this version, Dr. Light and Dr. Wily (here Light's assistant turned disloyal) co-create the humanoid robot Mega Man alongside the six advanced robots, each of whom were designed for the benefit of Monsteropolis's citizens (no such place existed in the original plot). Dr. Wily grows disloyal of his partner and reprograms these six robots to aid himself in taking control of the world, creating the seven empires of Monsteropolis. Dr. Light sends Mega Man to destroy his fellow creations and stop Dr. Wily. ===== Dr. John Carter is back in the States to wrap up his affairs. He purchases half a dozen pizzas for the ER staff, as well as some refreshments. He also treats a patient who has injured her wrist. Ray is dealing with whether he wants to go into his residency as a doctor. Dr. Archie Morris and Dr. Ray Barnett leave for another party. This party is held on several floors in the back of an apartment building on the balconies at each level. Morris promptly becomes intoxicated, and begins vomiting. Barnett goes to help him. Suddenly the porches collapse, one on top of each other. Carter then leaves with Dr. Kovač for his "surprise" farewell party, where most of the attending doctors and his friends are waiting for him. County General then stops accepting trauma patients after further problems with the sewer pipes in the hospital leaves them with only one operating room, coupled with the fact that the majority of the ER staff is at Carter's party. 6 people are killed in the porch collapse, and some are not hurt too badly. Five more are critically injured in the accident. Barnett surprises his friends with his handling of the situation. The paramedics on the scene tell Barnett that they are going to take the critically injured to St. Rafe's Hospital because County is closed. County is the only Chicago hospital that has Level I Trauma Status in the show, making it the first choice for such situations. Barnett uses the radio to call County and demands that Abby reopen the ER, otherwise the five critical patients would probably not make it to the hospital. Dr. Lockhart initially refuses, as there are no attending physicians and only one OR, but when one of the critical patients dies, she relents. Unable to reach Dr. Kovač by pager, they send a student over to fetch him. The party immediately evaporates, as everyone runs back to the ER to help the victims of the porch collapse. A surprised Carter returns from the restroom to empty tables, except for an orderly he doesn't know. They spend some time watching a slideshow of his time at County. The presentation features past ER doctors, including Dr. Doug Ross (George Clooney), Dr. Mark Greene (Anthony Edwards), and Dr. Peter Benton (Eriq La Salle). Eventually Dr. Susan Lewis brings Carter back to the ER. Life comes full circle for Carter when he treats one last patient before leaving County General. He is surprised to learn that he delivered the young girl with the broken wrist 11 years ago in Season 1. Before he leaves he stops by to see Ray, Neela and Abby and shares the letter he wrote to himself as an intern under Dr. Greene, that had sat in his locker until this point. As Carter is leaving the hospital for the last time, Dr. Greene and Dr. Benton (his primary mentors) and Nurse Carol Hathaway are heard in voice-overs. Outside, he finds a fatigued and partially sober Morris crouching outside. Carter repeats the advice that was given to Dr. Greene by Dr. Morgenstern to the new chief resident: "You set the tone." However, Morris, still suffering from the hangover, barely registers the advice and Carter, with a chuckle, goes to catch his train. And Carter leaves the ER and Chicago to be with his wife, Kem. ===== Following Jin Kazama's victory against his great-grandfather, Jinpachi Mishima, in the previous King of Iron Fist Tournament, he is now the new head of the Mishima Zaibatsu special forces. Jin uses the company's resources to declare independence, becoming a global superpower, severing its national ties and openly declaring war against all nations over the following year. This action plunges the world into an extremely chaotic spiral, with a large-scale civil war erupting around the globe and even among the space colonies orbiting the planet. Meanwhile, Kazuya Mishima, Jin's father, who has risen to lead G Corporation, places a bounty on his son's head. In retaliation, Jin announces the sixth King of Iron Fist Tournament to lure Kazuya out. As the war continues to erupt, the field leader of Mishima Zaibatsu's Tekken Force, Lars Alexandersson, has rebelled from the army along with several of his soldiers. However, Lars loses his memory during an attack by the G Corporation and spends some time recovering it. Accompanied by an android, Alisa Bosconovitch, Lars ventures throughout the world, avoiding the Mishima Zaibatsu's manhunt for him while also trying to recover his past. It is eventually revealed that Lars is actually the illegitimate son of Heihachi Mishima, who has gone into hiding since his supposed demise in the last tournament, and has been trying to take the Mishima Zaibatsu from Jin's hands. After coming into contact with several allies, including his adoptive brother, Lee Chaolan, Lars confronts the G Corporation and Mishima Zaibatsu's headquarters. Jin reveals he had sent Alisa to spy on Lars' actions all along. Disabling Alisa's safe mode, Lars is forced to confront his former teammate, who leaves with Jin to Egypt. Helped by one of his allies, Raven, Lars goes to Egypt. He meets an astrologist named Zafina who provides them with information about the clash of two evil stars that will awake an ancient evil who will destroy the world. This evil, Azazel, is a demonic monster responsible for giving birth to the Devil Gene and is currently bound in an ancient temple. Lars confronts his half-brother Kazuya in front of the door leading to Azazel's chamber and fights him. Lars and Raven enter the chamber and confront Azazel, whom they seemingly defeat. Outside the temple, Lars confronts his half-nephew Jin, who admits that his reason for launching the war was to awaken Azazel and destroy him, freeing the world from a greater threat than the war itself. Also, in doing this, he would free himself from the Devil Gene, as Azazel can only have a physical form through negative energies of the world. Revealing Azazel can only be destroyed by someone with the Devil Gene, Jin confronts and attacks the revived Azazel, sending them both plummeting to the desert. Lars is reunited with a now safe Alisa, who has been fixed by Lee since her previous destruction, and goes on another mission. Raven unearths Jin's body in the desert and notes that Jin still has the Devil mark on his arm, implying that Azazel's demise did not free him from the Devil Gene. ===== The space shuttle Olympus is on a routine mission, but with a far-from-routine payload: "Project Viper", an experimental hybrid of human genes and computer chips, designed to adapt to any environment, particularly that of the planet Mars. But as the shuttle crew prepares to launch the first prototype, referred to as "Viper", into space, an unexpected power glitch occurs, causing the container housing the prototype to break open. Soon the astronauts are killed by Viper, and the Secretary of Defense orders the remaining second prototype Viper destroyed - which is stored in a secure NovaGen Science facility, the manufacturer of the prototype. To do the job, he calls on special agent Mike Connors. Unaware of these proceedings, Project Viper head Nancy Burnham and her team at NovaGen - Steve Elkins, Sid Bream and Alan Stanton - are celebrating the fruition of their scientific dream. One more member, Cafferty, is on her way - but is killed by a rogue police officer, who is planning to steal the second prototype. Along with his wife, he steals the second Viper from the NovaGen high security lab, shooting several guards and technicians in the process. Mike Connors arrives at the scene, only to chase the thieves into a nearby forest, Thought the rogue police officer is killed, his wife escapes along with Viper's container unscathed and unseen by Connors and military personnel. Along with another accomplice, the thieves steal a small cargo plane and head towards their base, but a catastrophic engine failure causes their aircraft to crash into a forest 50 miles north of the Mexican border near a small town of Lago Nogales. In the crash, Viper's container is broken open and ends up into the environment, killing and devouring the thieves and a couple. Connors, Burnham and crew arrive at the crash site to investigate and trace Viper's trails of gray, gelatinous remains to the small town. After carrying out tests and experiments, investigating human disappearances caused as Viper feeds, they reach the conclusion that Viper is attracted to the uranium-contaminated town water system, where it has a concentrated point in an abandoned uranium mine. Connors orders an electromagnetic pulse bomb, though he encounters Viper at the police station and battles and kills Steve Elkins who revealed that he deliberately programmed Viper to kill humans and in doing so, rid himself of Bream and Stanton. Along with Burnham and a former suspicious sheriff Morgan, they successfully destroy Viper with the EMP bomb at the mine and escape unharmed, with the exception of the sheriff. Back at the NASA tracking facility, Connors, Burnham and the Secretary of Defense learn that the first prototype Viper aboard the shuttle Olympus re-enters atmosphere and crashed into the Pacific Ocean. ===== Nadina, a dancer in Paris, receives a visit from Count Sergius Paulovitch. Both are in the service of "the Colonel", an international agent provocateur and criminal. "The Colonel" is retiring, leaving his agents high and dry. Nadina has a plan to blackmail the Colonel. Anne Beddingfeld is an orphan after the sudden death of her archaeologist father. Longing for adventure, she jumps at the chance live in London. Returning from an unsuccessful job interview, Anne is at Hyde Park Corner tube station when a man falls onto the live track, dying instantly. A doctor examines the man, pronounces him dead, and leaves. Anne picks up the note he dropped, which reads "17.1 22 Kilmorden Castle". The inquest of L B Carton brings a verdict of accidental death. Carton carried a house agent's order to view Mill House in Marlow, and the next day the newspapers report that a dead woman has been found there, strangled. The house belongs to Sir Eustace Pedler MP. A young man in a brown suit is identified as a suspect, having entered the house soon after the dead woman. Anne realises the examination of the dead man was oddly done, and becomes suspicious. At Mill House, she finds a canister of undeveloped film and she learns that Kilmorden Castle is the name of a sailing ship. She books passage on it. On board the ship, Anne meets Suzanne Blair, Colonel Race, and Sir Eustace Pedler. In addition to his secretary, Guy Pagett, Pedler employs Harry Rayburn. Colonel Race recounts the story of the theft of a hundred thousand pounds' worth of diamonds some years before, attributed to the son of a South African gold magnate, John Eardsley, and his friend Harry Lucas. John and his friend were arrested and John's father, Sir Laurence, disowned his son. The war started a week later. John Eardsley was killed in the war and his father's huge fortune passed to his next of kin. Lucas was posted as "missing in action". The two men were not tried for the theft. Race reveals that he is the fortunate next of kin. Anne and Suzanne examine the piece of paper Anne obtained in the Underground station. The paper could refer to cabin 71, Suzanne's cabin, originally booked by a woman who did not appear. Anne connects finding the film roll in Mill House with a film canister containing uncut diamonds that was dropped into Suzanne's cabin in the early hours of the 22nd. They speculate that Harry Rayburn is the Man in the Brown Suit. Anne is attacked as she walks the deck of the ship; Harry Rayburn saves her. In Cape Town, Anne is lured to a house at Muizenberg, where she is imprisoned. Anne escapes the next morning and returns to Cape Town. There she finds that Harry is wanted as the Man in the Brown Suit and has gone missing. Pedler offers Anne the role of his secretary on his train trip to Rhodesia; she accepts at the last second, and is reunited on the train with Race, Suzanne, and Pedler, who has another new secretary named Miss Pettigrew. In Bulawayo, Anne receives a note from Harry which lures her out to a ravine near their hotel. She is chased and falls into the ravine. Almost a month later, Anne awakens in a hut on an island in the Zambezi with Harry Rayburn, who rescued her. Anne and Harry fall in love. Harry tells her his side of the story. Harry's island is attacked, but the two escape, and Anne returns to Pedler's party. They exchange codes to be used in future communications so that neither can be duped again. Reunited with Suzanne, Anne learns that the diamonds are with luggage sent on with Sir Eustace. She receives a telegram signed Harry telling her to meet him, but not using their code. Anne instead meets Chichester, alias Miss Pettigrew. She is led to Sir Eustace. Pedler forces Anne to write a note to Harry to lure him to his office. Harry turns up and Pedler is exultant until Anne pulls out a pistol and they capture Pedler. Race turns up with reinforcements and Pedler tries to bluff, but Race lists his crimes and the evidence. Sir Eustace escapes overnight. Anne is somewhat pleased, having a fondness for him. Race tells her that Harry is John Eardsley, not Harry Lucas, and the heir to a fortune he does not want. Harry has found his happiness with Anne, and they marry and live on the island in the Zambezi. Anne receives a letter from Sir Eustace, now living in South America. ===== The book sees Thursday return from the world of fiction to the alternative Swindon that Fforde introduced in The Eyre Affair; she is accompanied by Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, whose excursion from the world of fiction with Thursday forms the main sub-plot. The title is taken from Hamlet I.iv: "Something is rotten in the State of Denmark". ===== Larry Cook is an aging farmer who decides to incorporate his farm, handing complete and joint ownership to his three daughters, Ginny, Rose, and Caroline. When the youngest daughter objects, she is removed from the agreement. This sets off a chain of events that brings dark truths to light and explodes long-suppressed emotions, as the story eventually reveals the long-term sexual abuse of the two eldest daughters that was committed by their father. The plot also focuses on Ginny's troubled marriage, her difficulties in bearing a child and her relationship with her family. ===== The game opens in an unspecified year in the 21st century ("20XX AD"), several months after the events of Mega Man IV and another failure by the infamous Dr. Wily to conquer the world. Mega Man and his sister Roll are strolling through a grassy field, when they are confronted by a mysterious robot who calls himself Terra. Mega Man attempts to fight Terra, only to find that his "Mega Buster" arm cannon has no effect on him. Mega Man is knocked unconscious, and powerful robots calling themselves the "Stardroids" attack Earth, defeating numerous robots, including Robot Masters from previous Mega Man games. Waking up in Dr. Light's laboratory, Mega Man is presented with the new and powerful "Mega Arm" to help him fight the Stardroids in his newest mission to save the planet. After defeating all the Stardroids, including Terra, Mega Man finds out that his archenemy Dr. Wily was ordering them to dominate Earth. Mega Man sets off to the mad scientist's new base, the Wily Star (a reference to the Death Star) to stop him. In the base, Mega Man has rematches with four foes from his previous adventures (Enker, Quint, Punk, and Ballade). Wily releases an ancient robot called Sunstar to destroy Mega Man. However, Sunstar attacks Wily instead, and then turns his attention to Mega Man. Mega Man wins the battle and tries to convince Sunstar to be repaired by Dr. Light. However, Sunstar is already too badly damaged, and minutes later he explodes, taking the Wily Star with him. Mega Man escapes using Rush. He walks through a field, pondering the recent events, when Wily makes one last, unsuccessful attack. The game ends with Mega Man chasing Wily off the screen. ===== Kronos, a humanoid extraterrestrial (Richard Yesteran), has been sent to planet Earth in order to help humanity against its own threats. Setting on in New York City, he becomes a superhero, Supersonic Man. He confronts nefarious Dr. Gulik (Cameron Mitchell) who plans to take over the world. ===== Unable to find employment at home, young Wellingborough Redburn signs on the Highlander, a merchantman out of New York City bound for Liverpool, England. Representing himself as the "son of a gentleman" and expecting to be treated as such, he discovers that he is just a green hand, a "boy", the lowest rank on the ship, assigned all the duties no other sailor wants, like cleaning out the "pig-pen", a longboat that serves as a shipboard sty. The first mate promptly nicknames him "Buttons" for the shiny ones on his impractical jacket. Redburn quickly grasps the workings of social relations aboard ship. As a common seaman he can have no contact with those "behind the mast" where the officers command the ship. Before the mast, where the common seaman work and live, a bully named Jackson, the best seaman aboard, rules through fear with an iron fist. Uneducated yet cunning, with broken nose and squinting eye, he is described as "a Cain afloat, branded on his yellow brow with some inscrutable curse and going about corrupting and searing every heart that beat near him." Redburn soon experiences all the trials of a greenhorn: seasickness, scrubbing decks, climbing masts in the dead of night to unfurl sails, cramped quarters, and bad food. Launcelott's Hey, 1843 When the ship lands in Liverpool he is given liberty ashore. He rents a room and walks the city every day. One day in a street called Launcelott's Hey he hears "a feeble wail" from a cellar beneath an old warehouse and looking into it sees "the figure of what had been a woman. Her blue arms folded to her livid bosom two shrunken things like children, that leaned toward her, one on each side. At first I knew not whether they were alive or dead. They made no sign; they did not move or stir; but from the vault came that soul-sickening wail." He runs for help but is met with indifference by a ragpicker, a porter, his landlady, even by a policeman who tells him to mind his own business. He returns with some bread and cheese and drops them into the vault to the mother and children, but they are too weak to lift it to their mouths. The mother whispers "water" so he runs and fills his tarpaulin hat at an open hydrant. The girls drink and revive enough to nibble some cheese. He clasps the mother's arms and pulls them aside to see "a meager babe, the lower part of its body thrust into an old bonnet. Its face was dazzlingly white, even in its squalor; but the closed eyes looked like balls of indigo. It must have been dead for some hours." Judging them beyond the point at which medicine could help, he returns to his room. A few days later he revisits the street and finds the vault empty: "In place of the woman and children, a heap of quick-lime was glistening." On the docks he meets Harry Bolton, a dandy who claims to be a sailor looking for a job, and Redburn helps him procure a berth on the Highlander for the return voyage. They become fast friends and make a trip to London where they visit a luxurious private club, Aladdin's Palace, with an exotic environment Redburn struggles to make sense of, concluding it must be a gambling house. The ship soon departs for New York and Bolton's deficits as sailor become apparent. Redburn suspects that Bolton has never been to sea before and Bolton is tormented by the crew. Jackson, after being ill in bed for four weeks, returns to active duty: he climbs to the topsail yard, then suddenly vomits "a torrent of blood from his lungs", and falls headfirst into the sea and disappears. The crew never speak his name again. Reaching port, Redburn heads for his home and Bolton signs on a whaler. Redburn later hears that Bolton, far out in the Pacific, fell over the side and drowned. ===== The film's narrative unfolds in a long flashback. David Carr has died at an old age and his granddaughter discovers old letters, newspapers and other documents in his room: what we see in the film is what he had lived. Carr, a young unemployed worker and member of the Communist Party, leaves Liverpool and travels to Spain to join the International Brigades. He crosses the Spanish border in Catalonia and coincidentally ends up enlisted in a POUM militia commanded by Lawrence, in the Aragon front. In this company, as in all POUM militias, men and women – such as the young and enthusiastic Maite – fight together. In the following weeks and months he becomes friends with other foreign volunteers, like the French Bernard and the Irish Coogan, and the latter's girlfriend Blanca – with whom David Carr later falls in love – also a member of POUM, and also the ideologue of his group. After being wounded and recovering in a hospital in Barcelona, he finally joins – in accordance with his original plan and against the opinion of Blanca – the government-backed International Brigades, and he encounters the Soviet propaganda and repression against POUM members and anarchists; he then returns to his old company, only to see them rounded up by a government unit requiring their surrender: in a brief clash Blanca is killed. After her funeral he returns to Great Britain with a red neckerchief full of Spanish earth. Finally the film comes back to the present, and we see Carr's funeral, in which his granddaughter throws the Spanish earth into his grave after speaking lines from "The Day Is Coming",Chants for Socialists by William Morris – 1. The Day is Coming, Marxist Internet Archive a poem by William Morris. > Join in the battle wherein no man can fail, > For whoso fadeth and dieth, yet his deed shall still prevail. Afterwards she performs a raised fist salute, honouring his beliefs. ===== In 1950s Iowa, Mary Weatherford sacrifices her sister Elizabeth in front of a large mirror, stabbing her to death on a bed. Decades later, Megan Gordon, a shy teenage goth, moves into the home from Los Angeles with her recently widowed mother, Susan. In her new bedroom, Megan finds the large mirror in the corner left behind by the previous owners. Emelin, the auctioneer in charge of the house clearance, finds a cache of journals that describe the mirror's apparent possession by a demonic force able to grant wishes. At her new school, Megan is taunted mercilessly by her peers, apart from the friendly Nikki as well as handsome, athletic Ron. Charleen, a bully running for class president against Nikki, quickly targets Megan. Meanwhile, as Megan becomes drawn to the mirror in her room, she's plagued by bizarre incidents at home; her mother's dog mysteriously dies, she's visited by a gruesome apparition of her dead father, and the mirror begins inexplicably dripping blood. Megan becomes convinced that the mirror is responsible for a series of misfortunes involving those around her, including Charleen experiencing a massive nosebleed in the cafeteria, and her teacher, Mr. Anderson, having a severe asthma attack during class. Realizing the mirror's powers, Megan begins harnessing them herself, using them to manipulate Jeff, Charleen's love interest, into developing a crush on her instead. When Jeff stops a sexual encounter, the demon in the mirror brutally murders him before making his body disappear. The next day, Emelin attempts to retrieve the mirror from the house while Megan and Susan are gone, but her hands are mysteriously impaled, leading her to flee. When Nikki loses the student council race to Charleen, Megan harnesses the mirror's powers to scald Charleen to death in the girls' locker room showers, before killing Charleen's friend Kim in a bathroom. Nikki becomes discomforted by Megan's change in personality, and is disturbed when Megan suggests she "helped" her usurp the class presidency. Nikki meets with Mrs. Perfili, the local real estate agent, and Emelin to inquire about the history of Megan's house and the mirror. Emelin reveals the content of the journals to Nikki, and explains that Mary Weatherford sacrificed her sister in front of the mirror decades ago hoping to appease it. After Nikki leaves, Emelin is impaled to death with a shard of glass at her antiques store. That night, Ron is attacked by a doppelgänger of Nikki in his house and brutally murdered. After finding Ron's body, Nikki receives a phone call from Megan asking her to come to her house. Meanwhile, Susan has her hand mangled in the garbage disposal in the kitchen and bleeds to death, leading Megan to turn against the mirror. Nikki arrives armed with a dagger and attempts to shatter the mirror, but it is resistant. She and Megan attempt to flee as a torrent of wind fills the house, but are unable to escape. Megan sacrifices herself to the mirror, thus ending its reign of terror. Nikki invokes the mirror, begging it to restore things back to how they were before. She awakens in the room on the bed, dagger in hand, with Megan's corpse beneath her, in the same position as Mary Weatherford, having been subjected to an apparent time loop. The demon shows itself in the mirror before retreating, and Nikki fearfully covers it with a sheet. ===== The story revolves around Ned Beaumont, a gambler and best friend of the criminal political boss Paul Madvig. Ned finds the body of a senator's son on the street, and Madvig asks him to thwart the D.A.'s investigation, his motive being that he wants to back the corrupt senator in order to marry his daughter, Janet. Ned goes to New York searching for Bernie, a bookie who owes him a great deal of money from a gambling debt but ends up getting beaten up. Someone sends a series of letters to people close to the crime, hinting that Madvig was the murderer. Suspicion for this falls on Madvig's daughter Opal, the victim's girlfriend. Madvig's political base begins to crumble when he refuses to spring a follower's brother from jail. The follower goes to rival mob boss Shad O'Rory, who eliminates a witness to the brother's crime. Madvig then declares war on O'Rory, who offers to bribe Beaumont to expose Madvig in the newspaper. Beaumont refuses, is knocked unconscious and wakes captive in a dingy room where he is beaten daily. Hospitalized after his escape, Beaumont tells Madvig and Janet that he was laying a trap for O'Rory; he then struggles out of bed to stop the newspaper from printing its expose. Beaumont confronts O'Rory, the publisher, and Madvig's daughter Opal. The publisher commits suicide, after Beaumont seduces his wife. Next Beaumont interviews Janet, discovering that she wrote the letters and that the Senator knew about the murder before Beaumont found the body. A new clue points to Madvig and when confronted he confesses but he cannot account for the victim's hat, a detail Beaumont pointedly repeats throughout the novel. This impasse and Beaumont's growing interest in Janet, Madvig's love interest, cause a second rift between the men. Beaumont and Janet pair up to solve the murder. Beaumont uncovers evidence proving the senator killed his own son and turns him over to the police. Beaumont confronts Madvig with his new discovery, and the two depart, not enemies but no longer friends. ===== An old flame (Mae Busch) of businessman Titus Tillsbury (James Finlayson) threatens to expose their past, destroying both his marriage and career. He sends his aide (Stan Laurel) to keep her away from a dinner party he and his wife are hosting that evening. ===== Tir Na nÓg, Irish for "Land of Youth", is the eponymous location for the game. The protagonist, Cuchulainn, has departed the land of the living and finds himself at an altar in this land, essentially an afterlife. His goal is to reunite the four fragments of the Seal of Calum and place it on the altar, all while avoiding the sídhe. ===== Colonel William F. Guile is the leader of the "Street Fighters", an international undercover peacekeeping force composed of martial artists from around the world. They often face off against the ruthless General Bison and his Shadaloo criminal empire. They follow a code of honor involving the keywords "discipline", "justice" and "commitment". All 17 fighters from Super Street Fighter II Turbo appeared in some form throughout the entire series, with Guile, Chun-Li, Blanka, Ryu, Ken and Cammy serving as the show's primary characters, while M. Bison, Sagat, Vega and Zangief serve as primary antagonists. Since the arcade version of Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors' Dreams was only recently released when the show began airing, most of the new fighters that were introduced in that game only make a cameo in one episode ("The Medium is the Message") during the first season. The second season (which aired after the release of Street Fighter Alpha 2) would feature the Alpha roster more prominently, with characters such as Rose (in "The Flame and the Rose") and Sakura (in "Second to None") being the focus of certain episodes. ===== The TARDIS suffers an energy drain and crash-lands on the planet Exxilon. The Third Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith go to investigate the cause of the interference, and become separated. The Doctor is captured by the planet's inhabitants, the savage Exxilons, but escapes. Sarah is attacked by one of the creatures in the TARDIS, and flees, finding a huge city with a flashing beacon. At dawn the Doctor is found by a party of the Marine Space Corps; they take him to their ship, which has been stranded by a power drain. They are on an expedition to mine "Parrinium" – a mineral abundant only on Exxilon – which can cure and give immunity from a deadly space plague. If the expedition does not leave the planet with a supply of Parrinium within a month then millions will die. They show the Doctor photos of the nearby city – which the Exxilons worship, sacrificing anyone who ventures too close. Sarah does so and is captured and taken to the Exxilons' caves to be sacrificed by their High Priest. A ship containing four Daleks arrives; both the ship and their weapons have been rendered useless by the energy drain. The Daleks encounter the Doctor and attempt to exterminate him, but their weapons do not work. The Daleks claim that several of their planetary colonies are suffering from plague; thus they need Parrinium for the same reason as the humans. The Daleks, the Doctor, and the humans form an uneasy alliance to obtain Parrinium and escape Exxilon. While the allies are making their way to the humans' mining dome, the Exxilons ambush them. A massive battle ensues and the Exxilons end up killing a human and a Dalek and capturing the others. The prisoners are taken to the Exxilon caves where the Doctor interrupts Sarah Jane's sacrifice; therefore, he is also condemned to death. When the dual sacrifice commences, a second party of Daleks, who have replaced their energy weapons with firearms, attack in force, killing a number of Exxilons. They force the Exxilons and humans to mine Parrinium. The Doctor and Sarah flee into tunnels. The other party of Daleks arrive and they discuss their actual plan to use Parrinium to create a plague and spread it across every planet except their own. The Doctor and Sarah meet a group of subterranean, fugitive Exxilons. Their leader, Bellal, explains that the city was built by the Exxilons' ancestors, who were once capable of space travel. They built the city to be capable of maintaining, repairing, and protecting itself. Fitting the structure with a brain meant that the city no longer needed its creators. On realising this, the Exxilons had tried to destroy the city, but the city destroyed most of them; the savage surface dwellers and Bellal's group are the only survivors. Bellal's people seek to complete their ancestors' last, failed act – to destroy the city and ensure their race's survival. Bellal sketches some of the markings on the city wall; the Doctor recognises the markings from a temple in Peru deducing that the ancient Exxilons visited Earth. Bellal also explains that the city supports itself through underground "roots" and the aerial beacon. The Doctor realises that the beacon must be the cause of the energy drain and decides to go to the city and resolve the problem. The Daleks come to the same conclusion and create two timed explosives to destroy the beacon. One Dalek supervises two humans placing the explosives, but one of the humans, Galloway, secretly keeps one bomb. Two other Daleks enter the city to investigate the superstructure, but the Doctor and Bellal enter the city just before them. The two parties then proceed through the city, passing a series of progressive intelligence tests. The Doctor reasons that the city has arranged the tests so that only lifeforms with knowledge comparable to that of the city's creators would reach the brain, allowing the city to add the knowledge of the survivors to its databanks. On reaching the central chamber, the Doctor begins to sabotage the city's computer brain; the machine responds by creating two Exxilon-like "antibodies" to "neutralise" the Doctor and Bellal. The pair are saved when the Daleks enter and fight the antibodies, and the Doctor and Bellal escape as the city's sabotaged controls begin to malfunction. The two Daleks inside are destroyed. When the bomb on the beacon explodes, all power is restored. The Daleks order the humans to load the Parrinium onto their ship. On leaving Exxilon, the Daleks intend to fire a plague missile onto the planet, destroying all life and making future landings impossible, so that they will have the only source of Parrinium. Their true intention for hoarding Parrinium is to blackmail the galactic powers to accept their demands; refusal would mean the deaths of millions. As their ship takes off, Sarah reveals that the Daleks have only bags of sand while the real Parrinium is on the Earth ship, which is now ready to take off. Galloway has smuggled himself and his bomb aboard the Dalek ship; he detonates the bomb, destroying the Dalek ship before it fires the plague missile. Back on Exxilon, the City disintegrates and collapses, the Doctor sadly commenting that the Universe is now down to 699 Wonders. ===== While waiting for the school bus, Kyle shows his friends his new Dawson's Creek Trapper Keeper. He is joined by Cartman who reveals he has a special, advanced Dawson's Creek Trapper Keeper Ultra Keeper Futura S 2000, which has incredibly advanced computerized features including a television, a music player with voice recognition, OnStar and the ability to automatically hybridize itself to any electronic peripheral device. Kyle accuses Cartman of having purchased it to make him envious. On the bus, a mysterious white man calling himself "Bill Cosby" asks about Cartman's Trapper Keeper, which the man then attempts to steal. He succeeds by buying Cartman's trust, despite Cartman saying "I'm not supposed to have male friends over 30; I kinda got screwed over on that once." When "Bill Cosby" is caught by Officer Barbrady and Cartman, he explains his actions: the Trapper Keeper binder is destined to gain sentience and hybridize into a supercomputer to conquer the world in the future, and wipe out all traces of humanity. Cosby himself is a cyborg from the future named BSM-471, sent back in time to destroy the binder before it could rise to power; Cosby manages to destroy it, but Cartman buys another one and refuses to allow it to be destroyed. Meanwhile, Mr. Garrison has been demoted to a kindergarten teacher, and his class holds an election for class president. Kyle's brother Ike has been admitted to kindergarten two years early because of his supposed intelligence (despite not being able to speak properly). Ike is chosen by Mr. Garrison to run against a boy named Filmore, resulting in a tie that is broken by the vote of a little girl named Flora. At first, Flora can't decide whom to pick. After she picks Ike, Filmore's side demands recounts and then involves Rosie O'Donnell, who comes to protest that Filmore (her nephew) has not won. While this is happening, Stan, Kyle and Kenny accompany their robotic companion to Cartman's house to convince his mother to help them, but she goes off with Bill Cosby to have sex. Meanwhile, Cartman's Trapper Keeper integrates itself into Cartman's computer and most of his belongings, and then absorbs Cartman himself. Cartman is transformed into a giant, cybernetic blobby monster that retains most of Cartman's features, similar in style and execution to the movie Akira. It kills Kenny and destroys the house, and sets off to Cheyenne Mountain to absorb the secret military base's computer. Bill Cosby warns that if the Trapper Keeper assimilates with the supercomputer at Cheyenne Mountain, it will become unstoppable. Kyle sneaks into the huge Cartman-Trapper Keeper hybrid through a ventilation pipe; but before he can disable it, the Trapper Keeper incapacitates him. Rosie O'Donnell appears in front of the Trapper Keeper and yells at it for blocking the road. The Trapper Keeper then absorbs her, but fusing with her ultimately makes the behemoth sick. Kyle is freed and disconnects the Trapper Keeper's CPU, and the beast returns to its powerless state. The destruction of the Trapper Keeper causes Bill Cosby to disappear, and Stan tells Cartman to thank Kyle, who just saved his life. Cartman starts to thank Kyle just as the episode ends, but the credits roll before he can finish and cuts him off at "Kyle..." As for the kindergarteners, after countless lawyers come in and legal forms and endless meetings, Filmore concedes because "this game is stupid". With Ike as president, the kids decide to go fingerpaint, much to Mr. Garrison's delight. ===== In 1917, "Baby Jane" Hudson is a spoiled and capricious child actress who performs in vaudeville theatres across the country with her father, who acts as her manager and accompanies her on stage as a pianist. Her success is such that a line of porcelain dolls is made in her image. Meanwhile, her shy older sister Blanche lives in her shadow and is treated with contempt by the haughty Jane. As the sisters pass adolescence, their situations undergo a reversal; Jane's style of performing falls out of fashion, and her career declines as she descends into alcoholism, while Blanche becomes an acclaimed Hollywood actress. Mindful of a promise made to their mother, Blanche attempts to maintain a semblance of a career for Jane, going as far as to impose on producers to guarantee a number of acting roles for her. One evening in 1935, Blanche's career is cut short when she is paralyzed from the waist down in a mysterious car accident that is unofficially blamed on Jane, who is found three days later in a drunken stupor. Joan Crawford as Blanche Hudson In 1962, Blanche and Jane are living together in a mansion purchased with Blanche's movie earnings. Blanche's mobility is limited by a wheelchair and the lack of an elevator to her upstairs bedroom. Jane, psychotic and resentful of Blanche's success, regularly mistreats Blanche and prepares to revive her old act with hired pianist Edwin Flagg. When Blanche informs Jane she intends to sell the house, Jane rightly suspects Blanche will commit her to a psychiatric hospital once the house is sold. She removes the telephone from Blanche's bedroom, cutting her off from the outside world. During Jane's absence, Blanche desperately drags herself down the stairs and calls her doctor for help. Jane returns to find Blanche on the phone and beats her unconscious before mimicking Blanche's voice to dismiss the doctor. After tying Blanche to her bed and locking her in her room, Jane abruptly fires their maid Elvira when she comes to the house. While Jane is away, the suspicious Elvira sneaks into the house and attempts to access Blanche's room. Concerned by the lack of a response, Elvira tries to break open the door with a hammer. Jane returns home and reluctantly gives Elvira the key. As soon as Elvira enters Blanche's room, Jane takes the hammer and kills Elvira. A few days later, the police call to tell Jane that Elvira's cousin has reported her missing. Jane panics and prepares to leave, taking Blanche with her. Before they can leave, an inebriated Edwin casually enters the house and discovers Blanche bound to her bed. Edwin flees and notifies the authorities. Jane, in a fit of infantile regression, takes Blanche to a beach where she sang as a child, attracting the attention of nearby beach-goers. Blanche — lying starved, dehydrated and near death on a blanket — confesses to Jane that she is paraplegic through her own fault: on the night of the accident, Blanche tried to run Jane over because she was angry at Jane for mocking her at a party earlier that night. Blanche's spine broke when her car struck the iron gates outside their mansion, and she dragged herself in front of the car's hood to stage the accident and frame Jane. Blanche took advantage of Jane's shock and subsequent bender removing the real dynamics of the accident from her mind, and subjected Jane to a life of guilt, loneliness and servitude. After Jane buys ice cream for herself and Blanche from a nearby kiosk, she is recognized by two police officers, who ask her to lead them to Blanche. Jane dodges the officers' inquiry and dances before a crowd of bemused onlookers, while the officers find Blanche and rush to confirm her condition. ===== Murdered by criminals, Detective Yokoda's body is retrieved by Professor Tani and taken to his laboratory. There, Tani performs an experiment that has failed seven times; Yokoda is the eighth subject to have his life force transferred into an android body. For the first time, the experiment succeeds. Yokoda is reborn as the armor-skinned android 8 Man, able to dash at impossible speeds, as well as shape-shift into other people. He shifts himself into Yokoda, this time christening himself as "Hachiro Azuma". He keeps this identity a secret, known only to Tani and his police boss Chief Tanaka. Even his girlfriend Sachiko and friend Ichiro do not know he is an android. As 8-Man, Hachiro fights crime (even bringing his own murderers to justice). To rejuvenate his powers, he smokes "energy" cigarettes that he carries in a cigarette case on his belt. In Japan, the character's origin actually varies significantly between the original manga, the TV series, and the live-action movie. In the original Japanese manga and TV series, the character's name does not change when he is reborn as 8 Man. The "Detective Yokoda" name was created for the live-action version. In the manga, Detective Azuma is trapped in a warehouse and gunned down, while the TV series has him killed when he is run over by a car. Also, in the Japanese story, the character is called "8 Man" because he is considered an extra member of the Japanese police force. There are seven regular police precincts and 8 Man is treated as an unofficial eighth precinct all to himself. The Japanese manga was presented as serial novella stories along with a set of one-shot stories. Many of the stories were edited down and adapted for the TV series, but not all of them. The novella stories were originally printed on a weekly basis in Shukuu Shōnen Magazine in 16-page increments that consisted of 15 story pages and one title page. Ten additional one-shot stories were presented in seasonal and holiday specials of Shuukuu Shōnen Magazine. These stories were generally between 30-40 pages in length. In the North American version of the series the resurrected detective/android is known as "Tobor" or the word "robot" spelled backwards. Tani is referred to as "Professor Genius" and the sobriquet of 8-Man is changed slightly to "8th- Man", the name explained as he is the 8th attempt at such a super-robot. The story content was clearly directed toward a wider audience of both young and adult viewers. As such much of the violence was toned down for Western audiences. Due to changes in cigarette advertising laws in the 1960s, television characters were not allowed to be seen smoking. As this was a major plot device in the series, the show was forced to be removed from broadcast in the United States. ===== ===== Lizabeth Scott in Dead Reckoning (1947) Leaving a church, Father Logan, a well known ex-paratrooper padre, is approached by Captain "Rip" Murdock (Humphrey Bogart). Murdock needs to tell someone what has happened to him in the past few days in case his enemies get to him. A flashback follows. Just after World War II, paratroopers and close friends Captain Murdock and Sergeant Johnny Drake (William Prince) are mysteriously ordered to travel from Paris to Washington, D.C. When Drake learns that he is to be awarded the Medal of Honor (and Murdock the Distinguished Service Cross), he disappears before newspaper photographers can take his picture. Murdock goes AWOL, follows the clues and tracks his friend to Gulf City in the southern United States, where he learns Drake is dead - his burned corpse is recovered from a car crash. Murdock finds out that Drake joined the Army under an assumed name to avoid a murder charge. He was accused of killing a rich old man named Chandler because he was in love with his beautiful young wife Coral (Lizabeth Scott). Murdock goes to a nightclub to question Louis Ord (George Chandler), a witness in the murder trial. Ord reveals that Drake had given him a letter for Murdock. Murdock also meets Coral and Martinelli (Morris Carnovsky), the club owner, there. Seeing Coral losing heavily at roulette, Murdock not only recoups her losses at craps, he wins her $16,000. For some reason, however, she is uncomfortable with the situation. When they go to collect the money in Martinelli's private office, Murdock accepts a drink; it is drugged. When he wakes up the next morning, he finds Ord's dead body planted in his hotel room. He manages to hide the corpse before police Lieutenant Kincaid (Charles Cane), responding to an anonymous tip, shows up to search his room. Murdock teams up with Coral. Suspecting that Martinelli had Ord killed in order to get the letter, Murdock breaks into his office, only to find the safe already open. Just before he is knocked unconscious by an unseen assailant, he smells jasmine, the same aroma as Coral's perfume. When Murdock awakens, Martinelli has him roughed up by his thug, Krause (Marvin Miller), to try to find out what is in the coded letter. However, Murdock is able to escape his captors when taking him back to his hotel, the police arrive. The flashback ends, and Murdock slips away. Now suspicious of Coral, he goes to her apartment to confront her. She claims to be innocent, but finally admits that she shot her husband in self-defense. She went to Martinelli for advice and gave him the murder weapon to dispose of, but he has been blackmailing her ever since. In love with her himself, Murdock agrees to leave town with her, but insists on retrieving the incriminating weapon first, despite Coral's objections. He threatens Martinelli with a gun, eliciting some startling revelations. The club owner reveals that Coral is his wife. He killed Chandler (having learned the man had lied about having only six months to live) and framed Drake so that Coral could inherit the estate. Murdock gets what he came for and forces Martinelli to precede him out of the building. As he opens the door, Martinelli is shot and killed. Murdock jumps into the waiting car and drives off with Coral. As they are speeding away, he accuses her of having just tried to kill him. When she shoots him, the car crashes. He survives, but she suffers fatal injuries. In the hospital, Murdock comforts her in her final moments. ===== Set ten years after the events of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (referred to as the "Great Tomato War"), the United States is once again safe, and tomatoes have been outlawed (although authorities still deal with "tomato smugglers" who sell to people who cannot live without ordinary tomatoes). Wilbur Finletter (Steve Peace) has been praised as a hero of the Great Tomato War and parlayed his fame into opening Finletter's Pizzeria, which serves tomato-less pizzas. Working for Wilbur is his nephew Chad Finletter (Anthony Starke) who is a delivery boy. Also with Chad is his roommate Matt Stevens (George Clooney), a suave ladies' man. However, trouble returns with a misanthropic villain, Professor Mortimer Gangreen (played by John Astin) and his assistant Igor (Steve Lundquist - who also is an Olympic swimming gold medalist) seek to unleash another wave of tomato terror. Professor Gangreen was perplexed at being defeated by "Puberty Love", the worst song ever created, and says that this time music will aid, rather than hinder him. Gangreen has created a tomato transformation chamber by which he can turn ordinary tomatoes into replicas of men and women. By dipping ordinary tomatoes into vats of toxic waste and then placing them into the chamber, Gangreen uses music to his advantage, as the juke box that is hooked up to the chamber syncs up with the tomato transformation chamber, allowing him to create virtually anything by the use of whatever song he has picked (Michael Jackson music seems to make tomatoes into a clone of Jackson, the Miami Vice theme seems to make replicas of Don Johnson and seductive music apparently turns tomatoes into beautiful women). Gangreen's preferred music is rock, which creates soldiers. With his tomato commandos, Professor Gangreen seeks to attack the nearby prison where he will break out his imprisoned ally Jim Richardson (Rick Rockwell), then take over the United States under the subjugation of his killer tomatoes and installing Richardson as President of the United States. Gangreen has also used his device to create an attractive female replica named Tara (Karen Mistal), who serves Gangreen (as she straightforwardly informs a visitor: "I'm his lover. I also cook and clean.") until she realizes his abusive attitude towards a wrongly mutated tomato whom she dubs FT, or Fuzzy Tomato. Tara defects to Finletter's Pizza where she starts dating Chad. The quirky plot line partially breaks the "fourth wall" as the characters relate to the audience that the production has run out of money. Matt suggests "product placement" – at that time an emerging practice in film and television – as a solution for the financial problems. From that point forward, the film's characters comically showcase and promote various products as the film's plot line continues. Chad and Tara have a whirlwind romance where everything seems to be going magically except for Tara's strange behavior and extreme aversion to any form of music. Chad's dislike of tomatoes eventually causes a rift between himself and Tara and after an extremely caustic remark at a romantic dinner Tara dumps a drink in Chad's lap in retaliation. While Chad is in the bathroom cleaning up a violinist comes by and begins to play for Tara, who changes back into a tomato. Panic ensues and the restaurant empties as the other patrons flee in terror at the sight of the tomato. The sound of a chiming grandfather clock turns her back into a human as Chad returns to the now-deserted restaurant and they leave. Tara continues to protect FT while living with Chad (and Matt). Chad notices the garbage truck Igor is driving while Igor tries to find Tara and follows it to the dump (where Igor picks up more toxic waste) and back to Dr. Gangreen's house where Chad watches as they transform a tomato into a person. Going home Chad finds Tara consuming plant food—they both scream and she runs away, only to be kidnapped by Igor and returned to Dr. Gangreen. Chad, who has found a tomato at a grocery store he believes to be Tara, returns with Matt to use Dr. Gangreen's equipment to restore the woman he loves. They find the machine can create a wide range of people depending on the music used, including more beautiful women (of great interest to Matt) but they do not get Tara back. They are captured by Dr. Gangreen who squishes the tomato and has Igor throw Chad and Matt into the dungeon. There they find Tara undamaged and in human form and she and Chad reconcile. Outside the locked door they hear FT, to whom they pass a message that FT is to deliver to Wilbur who gathers the team of heroes from the first movie to rescue the captives. But while they are en route Dr. Gangreen forces Chad and Matt into the transformation chamber and starts a countdown that at the end will transform the two into tomatoes. He and Igor then leave with a captive Tara to raid the prison and start Dr. Gangreen's plan for world domination but Wilbur and his team rescue them just in time. At the prison Dr. Gangreene transforms a bag of tomatoes into a massively-muscled and well-armed assault team and they storm the prison. While fighting Tara breaks away and Gangreen and Igor chase her, who are in turn chased by Chad, Matt, Wilbur and the others. They find Gangreen and Igor have imprisoned Tara in a gas chamber and threaten to gas her if the pursuers do not surrender. Also Igor has a hand grenade. In the ensuing fight FT throws himself on the live hand grenade before it explodes and Gangreen successfully triggers the gas. As the fumes envelope Tara behind the door she and Chad have a tearful farewell and it appears Tara is finished. Matt presses a button to clear the gas from the chamber. A distraught Chad opens the door to find an unharmed Tara; she isn't human so the gas didn't hurt her. Dr. Gangreen triumphantly plays music to transform Tara back into a tomato but nothing happens; exposure to the gas has made Tara permanently human. The town celebrates the heroes again, including and especially FT, as people wonder where Matt went and it is remarked that he returned to Gangreen's lab to destroy it but he instead is using the equipment to produce beautiful women. ===== The novel focuses on the protagonist, Henry Chinaski, between the years of 1920 and 1941.Calonne, David Stephen. Charles Bukowski. Reaktion Books, London, 2012. 144. It begins with Chinaski's early memories. As the story progresses the reader follows his life through the school years and into young adulthood. Chinaski relates that he has an abusive father, and his mother does nothing to stop his father's abuse. She is, in fact, a victim of her husband's brutality as well. Henry is not athletic but wants to be and therefore tries hard to improve. Football is difficult for him, but he enjoys the violence that comes with it. He has only slightly better results in baseball. As Chinaski progresses through grammar school, the focus of Henry's attention is on sports, violence, and girls. As Henry grinds his way through Junior High School, he discovers the manifold pleasures of alcohol and masturbation. As Henry begins High School, his father, who is experiencing downward inter-generational socioeconomic mobility, makes him go to a private school where he fits in even less amongst all the well-heeled, spoiled rich kids with their flashy, colorful, convertible sports cars and beautiful girlfriends. To make matters worse, Chinaski develops horrible acne so severe that he has to undergo painful, and mostly ineffective, treatments, essentially becoming a human guinea pig for various experiments thought up by his uninterested doctors. The reader eventually follows Chinaski to college and reads of Henry's attempt to find a worthwhile occupation. ===== Irish sailor Michael O'Hara meets the beautiful blonde Elsa as she rides a horse-drawn coach in Central Park. Three hooligans waylay the coach. Michael rescues Elsa and escorts her home. Michael reveals he is a seaman and learns Elsa and her husband, disabled criminal defense attorney Arthur Bannister, are newly arrived in New York City from Shanghai. They are on their way to San Francisco via the Panama Canal. Michael, attracted to Elsa despite misgivings, agrees to sign on as an able seaman aboard Bannister's yacht. They are joined on the boat by Bannister's partner, George Grisby, who proposes that Michael "murder" him in a plot to fake his own death. He promises Michael $5,000 and explains that since he would not really be dead and since there would be no corpse, Michael could not be convicted of murder (reflecting corpus delicti laws at the time). Michael agrees, intending to use the money to run away with Elsa. Grisby has Michael sign a confession. Welles as Michael O'Hara in The Lady from Shanghai (1947) On the night of the crime, Sydney Broome, a private investigator who has been following Elsa on her husband's orders, confronts Grisby. Broome has learned of Grisby's plan to murder Bannister, frame Michael, and escape by pretending to have also been murdered. Grisby shoots Broome and leaves him for dead. Unaware of what has happened, Michael proceeds with the night's arrangement and sees Grisby off on a motorboat before shooting a gun into the air to draw attention to himself. Meanwhile, Broome, mortally wounded but still alive, asks Elsa for help. He warns her that Grisby intends to kill her husband. Michael makes a phone call to Elsa, but finds Broome on the other end of the line. Broome warns Michael that Grisby was setting him up. Michael rushes to Bannister's office in time to see Bannister is alive, but that the police are removing Grisby's body from the premises. The police find evidence implicating Michael, including his confession, and take him away. At trial, Bannister acts as Michael's attorney. He feels he can win the case if Michael pleads justifiable homicide. During the trial, Bannister learns of his wife's relationship with Michael. He ultimately takes pleasure in his suspicion that they will lose the case. Bannister also indicates that he knows the real killer's identity. Before the verdict, Michael escapes by feigning a suicide attempt (swallowing pain relief pills Bannister takes for his disability), causing a commotion in which he slips out of the building with the jury for another case. Elsa follows. Michael and she hide in a Chinatown theater. Elsa calls some Chinese friends to meet her. As Michael and Elsa wait and pretend to watch the show, Michael realizes that she killed Grisby. Michael passes out from the pills he took just as Elsa's Chinese friends arrive; they carry the unconscious Michael to an empty fun house. When he wakes, he realizes that Grisby and Elsa had been planning to murder Bannister and frame him for the crime, but that Broome's involvement ruined the scheme and that Elsa had to kill Grisby for her own protection. The film features a unique climactic shootout in a hall of mirrors involving a multitude of false and real mirrored images in the Magic Mirror Maze, in which Elsa is mortally wounded and Bannister is killed. Heartbroken, and ignoring Elsa's pleas to save her life, Michael leaves presuming that events which have unfolded since the trial will clear him of any crimes. "Maybe I would live so long I'd forget her. Maybe I'd die trying". ===== While stopping at the Roman Camp of Compendium, Prefect 'Odius Asparagus' wants one of the indomitable Gauls as a present for Julius Caesar. Because none of the others can be captured, Centurion Gracchus Armisurplus decides on Cacofonix the bard. Soldiers sent by the centurion, although driven away by Cacofonix's singing at first, counteract this by stuffing parsley in their ears and capture him easily. A young boy from the village raises the alarm to Asterix and Obelix, and the Gauls attack Compendium; but learn that the prefect has already left in his galley with Cacofonix. Asterix and Obelix therefore board a ship with Ekonomikrisis the Phoenician merchant, who agrees to take them to Rome after they save him from the pirates. In Rome, after Cacofonix has subjected the slaves in the prefect's galley to his bad singing, the prefect presents him to Julius Caesar; but when Caius Fatuous, the gladiators' trainer, declares Cacofonix unfit to serve as a gladiator, Caesar decides to throw the bard to the lions. Upon arrival in Rome, Asterix and Obelix befriend Instantmix (a Gaulish cook working in Rome) and visit the public baths. There, Caius Fatuous decides they would be perfect candidates for the gladiators' fights in the Circus Maximus, and he arranges to have them captured. That night, Asterix and Obelix visit Instantmix in his insula, where he identifies the location of Cacofonix. The next morning, the Gauls' first attempt at rescuing the bard fails when they raid the Circus prison and discover that Cacofonix has been transferred to a lower basement. Caius Fatuous has his men try to ambush them in groups of three, but Asterix and Obelix defeat them with ease, and apparently without taking notice. Caius Fatuous then offers a reward of 10,000 sestertii to any citizen who captures Asterix and Obelix; but the two of them volunteer as gladiators to infiltrate the following Games, and Fatuous places them in training under his assistant Insalubrius. Soon, the Gauls demoralize Insalubrius and irritate Caius Fatuous by having the other gladiators play guessing-games instead of training. Later, when Fatuous plans the Games to Julius Caesar, the Gauls go on a stroll, with Caius Fatuous (reluctantly) as their guide. On the eve before the games, Asterix and Obelix visit Cacofonix in his cell and inform him of their intentions to free him and the gladiators. The next day, during the chariot races, Asterix and Obelix substitute themselves for an inebriated contestant, and win the race. As Cacofonix is put into the arena to be killed by the lions, he sings to the Romans, and thus frightens the lions into retreat; whereupon Caesar orders the gladiators' competition to begin. When Asterix, Obelix, and the gladiators introduce Caesar to their guessing-game, and Caesar insists on a martial contest, Asterix challenges a cohort of Caesar's own guard, and the two Gauls win easily. Seeing that the audience are amused, Caesar releases the three Gauls and grants them Fatuous as a prisoner. Soon afterwards, the four men meet back up with Ekonomikrisis, and Asterix surprises him and his men by having Caius Fatuous row the ship back to the Gaulish Village alone. After a brief journey (plus a second run in with the pirates, which sinks their ship), the Gauls arrive home and Ekonomikrisis keeps his promise to return Caius Fatuous to Rome. The villagers then celebrate the return of their heroes with a banquet, only with Cacofonix having to sit it out bound and gagged after offering to sing a song to celebrate his triumphant return. This book is noteworthy in the Asterix series as the first in which Obelix says his famous catchphrase "These Romans are crazy!" An audiobook of Asterix the Gladiator adapted by Anthea Bell and narrated by Willie Rushton was released on EMI Records Listen for Pleasure label in 1988. ===== George H. W. Bush and his wife Barbara move into the empty house across the street from the Simpsons and take a liking to Ned Flanders. Although Barbara takes a liking to Bart, Bart's pranks and irreverant spirit annoy George, who spanks the boy after he accidentally shreds his memoirs and trashes the house with an outboard motor. Despite Barbara's suggestion that he apologize, George refuses after Homer confronts him for spanking Bart. Homer launches bottle rockets at George's window after Bush displays a banner reading "Two Bad Neighbors" to refer to Bart and Homer. Homer tears down cardboard likenesses of George and Barbara's sons, George Jr. and Jeb, displayed on their porch. He also glues a rainbow-colored wig on George's head as he is about to give a speech at a local club. George retaliates by destroying the Simpsons' lawn with his car. George spots Homer and Bart moving through underground sewers to release locusts in his house. He climbs below the street to confront them. After Homer and George brawl, Bart releases the locusts, which attack George. Former Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev arrives to deliver a housewarming present for the Bushes. After pressure from his wife, George reluctantly apologizes to Homer in front of Gorbachev. The Bushes eventually move and sell their house to former President Gerald Ford. Ford invites Homer for beer and nachos during a football game broadcast at his house. Homer and Gerald find they share common ground because they are both accident-prone. ===== !HERO is a rock opera modernizing Jesus's last two years of life, as described in the Bible. The story takes place in New York City, in Brooklyn. The world government in this near-future dystopic Earth is centered under the International Confederation of Nations (ICON). Under the iron fist of I.C.O.N., nearly all religion in the world has been wiped out, except for small occult and mystic sects. Only one synagogue in Brooklyn exists. Currently, New York City is a police-occupied warzone between ethnic gangs and small, isolated revolutionary groups fighting I.C.O.N. Of all the ancient world religions, only Judaism survives and flourishes, at least, as much as it can. In Bethlehem, PA, a child named Jesus, but referred to as HERO, is born and forced to flee with his family to the small Jewish section of Brooklyn. Jesus grows up and begins to preach and teach the principles of Christianity to the people of New York City, teaching people to love their enemies and care for each other. I.C.O.N. realizes HERO is a threat, and the Chief of police Devlin (a derivative of the Devil or Satan), with the help of chief Rabbi Kai (Caiaphas), conspire to end HERO's revolutionary teachings. The Opera is narrated by "Agent Hunter", a former I.C.O.N. agent who met HERO and was soon thrown into prison for joining him against I.C.O.N. The opera also features Petrov (Peter), Maggie (Mary Magdalene), and Jude (Judas Iscariot) the latter who conspires with Kai and Devlin to betray HERO. The storyline progresses through several stories about Jesus' miracles and sermons, using references from the Bible's four gospels, continues through Jesus' execution, at the hands of I.C.O.N's angry mob, and eventually ending with his resurrection. ===== Captain Joe Ryan is salvaging for treasure off the coast of Ireland, when a volcano erupts, nearly sinking his ship. Ryan and his first officer, Sam Slade, take the ship to Nara Island for repairs. As they enter harbour, they discover the floating carcasses of ancient marine animals, the first hint that something dangerous was awoken by the volcano eruption. Ryan and Slade consult the harbour master, who also has archaeological pretensions: he has been salvaging in the harbour. Some of his men have disappeared mysteriously; it turns out that one has died of fear. After dark, a monstrous creature surfaces, attacks a group of fishermen, then comes ashore to wreak havoc on the island. This dinosaur-like creature is supposedly 65 feet tall. The people of the island finally drive it off. Ryan and his crew manage to capture the monster and haul it aboard their ship, tying it to the deck. Soon, university scientists arrive on Nara, hoping to collect the monster for study, but Ryan has been offered a better deal by the owner of a circus in London. When the ship arrives in London, the circus owner names it "Gorgo", after the snake-haired woman, the Gorgon Medusa. It is exhibited to the public in Battersea Park. The scientists examine Gorgo and conclude that he is not yet an adult and that his mother must be at least 200 feet tall. Then, an even larger sea monster attacks Nara Island and trashes the buildings, sinks a Royal Navy vessel and is impervious to attacks from other warships. Later, Ogra, now identified as probably Gorgo's mother, comes ashore in London and rampages through the city, destroying buildings including Tower Bridge, despite being bombarded by tanks and infantry and jet fighters, all having no effect. Having demolished a swathe through London, Ogra finds Gorgo and both return to the sea. ===== Maya is an orphan who is to marry her closest childhood friend Rishi Talwar. The two have been raised by Rishi's fun-loving millionaire father Samarjit. Dev is a successful football player who lives in New York City with his wife Rhea, his son Arjun and his mother Kamaljit. Maya meets Dev moments before she is to marry Rishi. Although the two are strangers, they connect instantly. Right after they part, Dev is hit by a car and permanently injures his leg. As a result, he can no longer play football ever again. Four years later, Dev, who now walks with a limp, is extremely short-tempered and embittered because of his inability to play football; Rhea's successful career makes him feel inferior to her. Meanwhile, Maya is infertile and does not love Rishi, seeing him as childish. Dev and Maya meet again and Rhea and Rishi strike a professional relationship. Sam and Kamal, having lost their spouses, become friends to help one another through their loneliness. Dev and Maya decide to do the same; they become friends and try to give each other ideas to salvage their marriages, all of which comically fail. Dev and Maya realise they have feelings for one another and not toward their partners. Rhea mentions that she has received a promotion and Dev goes into a rant, sneering that she is trying to show off. Rhea accuses Dev of being jealous of her professional success and makes him realise his failure of being a good husband and a good father because he cannot come out of his bitterness. At the same time, Rishi expresses his frustration at Maya's lack of affection and his resentment toward her infertility. Feeling worthless, Maya meets a disheartened Dev and the two confess that they have fallen in love with each other. Dev and Maya begin an affair but feel guilty for playing with their spouses' feelings, as both Rhea and Rishi try their best to make their marriages work. Nevertheless, Dev and Maya give in and make love. They are later caught in an embrace by Sam and Kamal, who are shocked and upset that they have cheated despite both Rhea and Rishi trying to make it work. That night, Sam has a heart attack. On his deathbed, he advises Maya to leave Rishi as she is depriving both Rishi and herself of happiness in life. After Sam's death, Dev and Maya decide they must end their relationship and go back to their spouses, but first, they must tell them the truth about their extramarital affair because neither of them will be able to move on in the shadow of lies. Shocked, Rhea and Rishi divorce their spouses. Dev and Maya lie to each other and say that everything is fine, believing they'll never meet again. Three years later, Dev and Maya have been living alone, both miserable. Rishi visits Maya and says that he has fallen in love again and is remarrying. He invites Maya and Rhea to his wedding. Rhea attends with her boss Jay, whom she is now dating. Rhea confronts Maya about the affair and reveals that she left Dev. However, as Rhea and Rishi have both moved on, they encourage Maya to as well, revealing that Dev is about to leave for Toronto by train. At the train station, Dev sees Maya but avoids her, believing she is still with Rishi. However, as the train pulls away, the two make eye contact. Seeing her tears, Dev pulls the emergency brake and comes back; the two reunite and start a new life together. ===== Physics professor Zach Shefford (Grayson McCouch) has regarded his telekinetic gifts as a curse rather than a blessing. This sentiment is obviously not shared by ruthless Pentagon agent Raymond Addison (Louis Gossett Jr.), who recruits Shefford for a dangerous mission in which his "second sight" talents will be taxed to the utmost. It seems that, back in 1977, Addison had overseen Project Momentum, wherein dozens of telekinetics were brought together ostensibly for the purpose of benefiting mankind. But the project got out of hand when the participants' powers became too powerful and deadly, forcing Addison to kill them all. However, one of the participants, Adrian Geiger (Michael Massee), managed to escape, and is now at large, with a vast telekinetic army at his beck and call. It is Shefford's job to infiltrate Geiger's camp and finish the job that Addison had started. Upon falling in love with fellow telekinetic Tristen Geiger (Nicki Aycox), Shefford finds that his loyalties are wavering—and begins to suspect that the villains in this particular melodrama may in fact be the heroes, and vice versa. FBI agents Jordan Ripps (Teri Hatcher) and Frank McIntyre (Carmen Argenziano), who have been investigating an armored-car hijacking, follow Zach to Geiger. A telekinetic tug-of-war leads to a psychic showdown at the complex where Project Momentum was developed. Zach must finally choose the side to be on when telekinetic war breaks out. With Tristen prepared to follow in her father's footsteps and telekinetic sleeper cells in place across the nation, the momentum is building. ===== Two years after Tom Baker resigned from his head coaching position, his family begins to undergo many changes, beginning with his daughter Lorraine's internship with Allure magazine in New York City. The Bakers’ oldest daughter, Nora, is now married to Bud McNulty and pregnant with their first child; Bud and Nora intend to move to Houston because of Bud's new job. Feeling the family is breaking apart as the children grow up and move away, Tom persuades them to take one last family vacation all together at Lake Winnetka, a fictional lake in Wisconsin. The family finds that their old cabin is currently owned by a man named Mike Romanow. Tom's old rival, Jimmy Murtaugh, his new wife Sarina, and their large family (with "only" eight kids) are also staying at the lake for the summer; Jimmy is also friends and neighbors with Mike Romanow. Jimmy constantly flaunts his wealth and success to Tom, as well as the accomplishments of his children, often suggesting to Tom that his are less successful because of his parenting style. They get into many incidents, several of which are accidental: Mark Baker, along with Kenny Murtaugh, crashes into a tennis court with a golf cart, Sarah Baker is caught shoplifting from a gift shop, and Mark accidentally sets off a backpack of fireworks, causing widespread panic, especially when it is thrown into a boat, igniting its engine and causing it to explode. Jimmy again brings up the topic that Tom needs to be more strict with his kids. Tom is angered by this, and he and Jimmy decide to settle the matter at the Annual Labor Day Family Cup. Tom trains the kids for days, not realizing they are miserable. Sarah and Elliot Murtaugh watch Ice Age together, but are spied on by their fathers, which ultimately results in them getting into an argument and humiliating their children. Upon returning to the Bakers’ cabin, Sarah is furious and refuses to compete for Tom in the Cup. The children are angry with him, not only for spying on Sarah, but also for ruining the entire trip because of his competitiveness with the Murtaughs, and Tom's wife Kate laments that his and Jimmy’s conflicting parenting styles have torn the two families even further apart. The next morning, Tom goes to the Cup to compete with Nigel and Kyle, the only two still willing to go. However, after discovering an old "Team Baker" flag, Kate and the rest of the kids show up, showing they forgive him and are willing to compete. After the events, however, the Bakers and the Murtaughs are tied for first; a tiebreaking canoe race is announced, in which every family member must compete. During the canoe race, Nora goes into labor; the Murtaughs want to help, but Jimmy, sensing the opportunity to defeat Tom once and for all, refuses to do so. The Murtaugh children jump out of the canoe to help the Bakers. While arguing with Sarina, Jimmy reveals that he was jealous of Tom being the popular one when they were younger. Eventually, Sarina convinces him to help and the two families work together to get Nora to the hospital. Bud, Lorraine, and Kate go with Nora in the delivery room, while Tom, Jimmy, Sarina, and the rest of the kids stay in the waiting room. While talking with Jimmy, Tom realizes that he has to let his kids grow, but wherever they go, they will always be with him, and he will always be with them. Nora then gives birth to a baby boy whom she and Bud name Tom in honor of his grandfather, who has shown them that "there is no way to be a perfect parent, but a million ways to be a really good one." Bud announces that he and Nora have bought the cabin that the Bakers had been renting. Nora, Bud, and baby Tom leave for Houston a few days later. ===== Mason Tarwater, an outspoken evangelist and self-ordained prophet, dies many years after kidnapping his great-nephew Francis, raising him in a backwoods cabin and preparing him to someday take his place as a prophet. Prior to his death, Mason asked the now-teenaged Francis to give him a proper Christian burial with a cross marking the grave so that his body would be resurrected on Judgment Day. Francis starts to dig the grave but suddenly hears a "Voice" in his head telling him to forget about the old man. Francis obeys and gets drunk instead. When Francis wakes from his drunken sleep, he sets the cabin on fire with his great-uncle's body still inside. He leaves for the city and gets a ride from a salesman, who drops him off at his Uncle Rayber's house. Rayber, a well-educated schoolteacher, is amazed to see young Francis, whom he had long ago given up on after his kidnapping by Mason. Francis is also greeted at the door by Rayber's young son Bishop, who (it is implied) has Down syndrome and low intelligence. Bishop is Rayber's child with Bernice Bishop, a meddlesome social worker whom Mason had referred to as "the welfare woman". The old man had previously told Francis that Bernice was much older than Rayber and only able to give him one disabled child, and that God had mercy on the child by making him "dim-witted", which was the only way to protect him from his evil parents. Mason had commissioned Francis to baptize Bishop at some point, in order to save the little boy's soul. Due to this history, Francis is immediately put on edge when confronted with Bishop, but decides to stay with his uncle anyway. Francis does not think of Bishop as a human being and finds him repulsive. The three begin to live together as a family for a while, and Rayber is excited to have his nephew back in order to raise him as a normal boy and provide him with a proper education. However, Francis resists his uncle's attempts at secular reform very much the same way he resisted Mason's attempts at religious reform. Rayber understands what Francis is going through, as he himself had been kidnapped as a child by Mason, but Rayber's father had managed to rescued him. After many attempts by Rayber to "civilize" the reluctant Tarwater, and many attempts by Tarwater to figure out his true destiny (either as a prophet, which was his great-uncle's wish, or as an enlightened, educated modern man, which is his uncle Rayber's wish), Rayber devises a plan to take Tarwater back to the farm where Tarwater had been raised in the hope that confronting his past will allow him to leave it behind. Under the guise of taking the two boys out to a country lodge to go fishing, Rayber finally confronts Tarwater, telling him that he must accept an ordinary life and ignore the superstitious Christian upbringing and the false destiny with which his great-uncle has corrupted him. Tarwater, however, is not so easily convinced. While at the lodge, he again hears the "Voice" (the devil) who tells Tarwater to forsake his great-uncle's command to baptize Bishop and to drown the boy instead. One evening, Tarwater takes Bishop out on a boat to the middle of the lake, with Rayber's reluctant blessing. Rayber cannot see them on the lake but can still hear their voices. Tarwater ends up drowning Bishop while at the same time baptizing the boy, thereby fulfilling both destinies simultaneously. Rayber realizes what has happened and faints, not out of fear for his son's life, but because he feels nothing at his son's death. Tarwater runs away into the woods and tries to make his way back to his great-uncle's house to confront his demons once and for all. He eventually hitches a ride with another man, who entices Tarwater to get drunk. Tarwater takes the man's offer and passes out, eventually waking up naked against a tree with his clothes neatly folded beside him. He dresses hurriedly and sets fire to the area. Burning his way through the forest, Tarwater finally makes his way back to Powderhead, his great-uncle's old farm, where he finds the cabin has burned to the ground. Tarwater had assumed that his great-uncle had been burned up with it, but Buford, a black man who lived nearby, had actually rescued old Mason Tarwater's body from the house while Tarwater was drunk at the beginning of the novel, and gave the old man a proper Christian burial just as he had requested. Tarwater realizes that his great-uncle's two main requests (that he be given a proper burial and that Tarwater's nephew Bishop be baptized) have been realized, which convinces Tarwater that he can no longer run away from his calling to be a prophet. The story ends with Tarwater heading toward the city to fulfill his calling to "Go warn the children of God of the terrible speed of mercy." ===== The film is divided into five days. On the first day the protagonists, screenwriters Lars and Niels lose the only copy of a film script (Kommisæren Og Luderen, "The Policeman and the Whore", a reference to The Element of Crime). They begin to write a new script about an epidemic: the outbreak of a plague-like disease. The protagonist is a doctor, Mesmer, who, against the will of the Faculty of Medicine of an unknown city, goes to the countryside to help people. During the next days, the facts of the script join the real-life events in which a similar disease starts to spread. Lars and Niels go to Germany, where they meet a man who describes the Allied bombing of Cologne during the Second World War. After the trip, Niels goes to a hospital where he undergoes a minor surgical procedure and while there tells Lars to go to see Palle, a pathologist who is performing an autopsy on a man who has recently died of an unknown disease. The last day, Lars and Niels have a dinner with their producer, to whom they reveal the end of the film, that Mesmer and his medical kit have spread the disease. The producer doesn't like the short twelve-page script, which has no violence, few deaths, and no subplots (which are common in Danish cinema). After that a hypnotist and a woman arrive in the house, to "help" writing the script, but the woman is overpowered by the visions of the script which are becoming real. She commits suicide, then another woman who shares the house with Lars and Niels dies too, and Niels begins showing the signs of the disease. ===== Arriving in London from Warsaw in December 1981 are master electrician Nowak, who understands the language but not the inhabitants, with three workmen who know no English. Their task is to gut and renovate a house, for which they have brought what tools they can carry, while Nowak has cash to buy materials. Since the whole operation is illegal, Nowak keeps them working indoors while he goes out to get food and supplies. As his money runs out, he takes to stealing so that the four can survive. In the meantime, Poland is undergoing the traumas of demonstrations and strikes followed by the declaration of martial law, banning of Solidarity and mass arrests. All this Nowak conceals from the men, in order to finish the job. With no money left, they have a six-hour walk to the airport and a flight home to an uncertain future. ===== The master of ceremonies opens proceedings by telling the audience that they will see various episodes in the endless waltz of love. A prostitute takes a soldier under a bridge. The soldier picks up a chambermaid at a dance hall. The chambermaid willingly succumbs to the son of her employers. The young man starts an affair with the young wife of an older businessman. She then has an edgy discussion in bed with her husband. The husband takes a shopgirl to a private dining room and gets her drunk. The shopgirl falls for a poet, who is pursuing an affair with an actress. The actress invites a count to visit her in bed next morning. That evening, he gets drunk and ends up in the bed of the prostitute, so completing the circle. ===== A demonstration by unilateral nuclear disarmament protesters from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in London is interrupted when one of the protesters is violently killed. British security forces learn that a terrorist group attached to CND has been planning a significant act of terrorism for the near future. The person killed during the protest demonstration was an undercover intelligence officer who had infiltrated the terrorist group. The commanding officer of the Special Air Service, Colonel Hadley, suggests a new line of inquiry for the investigation. Two foreign officers arrive to train at the SAS's headquarters: Captain Hagen is a member of the US Army Rangers and Captain Freund is a member of the West German GSG 9. They are taken to the close quarter battle house and witness an SAS room entry assault. Colonel Hadley introduces them to the SAS man playing the hostage, Captain Peter Skellen, and informs them they will be with Skellen's troop, consisting of Baker, Dennis, and Williamson. During an exercise in the Brecon Beacons, Hadley and Major Steele discover Skellen's troop torturing Hagen and Freund. Skellen is dismissed from the Regiment. The torture and dismissal are a ruse to repaint Skellen as a disgraced former SAS operative, and Hagen and Freund as innocent victims in the scheme. Skellen's intelligence contact, Ryan, advises him to meet Frankie Leith and Rod Walker, the two people who lead the People's Lobby (PL), the terrorist group believed to be planning the act of terrorism. Skellen tells his wife that he will be going away for a while on a mission. A foreign man, Malik, arranges with a city banker for the distribution of large sums of money to various left organisations, including the PL. Skellen arranges to meet Leith at a bar frequented by PL members and initiates a romantic relationship with her, to the annoyance of Walker and his cohorts Helga and Mac. Leith takes Skellen to the organisation's offices and introduces him to the group. Leith appreciates Skellen's SAS background, and offers him a job as security consultant to the PL; she also allows him to move in with her. To strengthen Skellen's cover story, Hadley informs Hagen and Freund of Skellen's location; the wronged men attack Skellen at Leith's home and inflict a severe beating. As a result, Leith's few remaining doubts about Skellen vapourise, but Walker and his cronies still are not fully convinced. Helga observes Skellen meeting the same unknown individual (Ryan) in various locations. Their scrutiny intensifies when Walker and his associates witness Skellen's meeting with his wife and daughter. They use photos from their surveillance to convince Leith that Skellen is not all he seems. Walker orders Helga to kill Ryan, cutting Skellen's link to Hadley. Hadley has no choice but to trust Skellen's abilities to uncover the group's plans and escape alive. He orders police protection for Skellen's family. Despite his official advisory capacity, Skellen is denied details about the upcoming PL operation. On the day of the operation, Leith and Walker instruct Helga and Mac to take Skellen's family hostage. Leith uses this to blackmail Skellen into unconditional co-operation. The terrorists and Skellen arrive at the US Embassy in a hijacked coach. Wearing stolen US Air Force uniforms, they gain entry to the secure compound and take hostages of the US Ambassador, US Secretary of State, US Commander- in-Chief of Strategic Air Command, and British Foreign Secretary, along with their wives and the embassy staff. Hadley and his police counterpart, Commander Powell, arrive at the Embassy to receive the demands of the terrorists: unless a US nuclear missile is launched at Holy Loch naval base, all the hostages will be killed. Currie questions Leith's motivations, and Leith responds that her ultimate goal is the disarmament of the whole world. This opens a debate about method and political philosophy that only antagonizes the terrorists. Meanwhile, Dennis and three fellow SAS troopers arrive at Skellen's home. They set up in the attached house next door, using sensing devices to covertly observe Helga, Mac, and their captives through the wall. Skellen manages to separate himself from the group by feigning a need for the toilet. He uses a shaving mirror to heliograph floodlights and signal Hadley via Morse code, telling him to attack at 10 a.m. while Skellen creates a diversion. Hadley cannot get permission for an SAS attack because the British Home Secretary insists that Powell resolve the situation through negotiation. As the tension mounts inside the embassy, a mistake by one of the terrorists causes the death of the SAC C-in-C. This enables Powell and Hadley to get the permission for their assault. The SAS operatives in the house adjoining Skellen's remove a large area of the bricks separating the attached houses. Meanwhile, Helga's temper at the Skellen's crying baby escalates into a fight with Skellen's wife. The operatives work fast to attach a charge to the exposed wall, cut the lights and blow the wall so two SAS soldiers can shoot through the gap and kill both Helga and Mac. As the SAS mount an assault on the embassy, the terrorists panic. Skellen overpowers and kills three terrorists. The SAS, deploying from helicopters, force open doors and enter through windows. As they methodically clear the embassy, Skellen kills more terrorists including Walker. Skellen joins with Baker and his troop to search for Leith, as the other troopers bundle the hostages to safety. When Skellen hesitates to kill Leith on sight, Major Steele kills her before she can kill Skellen. The ambassador thanks the troopers as they leave the embassy. Skellen and his troop apologise to Hagen and Freund, explain the reason for their actions, and make peace. Skellen departs on one of the helicopters with his colleagues. In a government building, Sir Richard, a politician, complains to a colleague about the violent end to the siege. He then meets the financier Malik, and they discuss future similar actions. An on-screen list of notable terrorist incidents appears over the closing credits, accompanied by a rendition of The Red Flag. ===== Charles Reece is a serial killer who commits a number of brutal mutilation- slayings in order to drink blood as a result of paranoid delusions. Reece is soon captured. Most of the film revolves around the trial and the prosecutor's attempts to have Reece found sane and given the death penalty. Defense lawyers, meanwhile, argue that the defendant is not guilty by reason of insanity. The prosecutor, Anthony Fraser, was previously against capital punishment, but he seeks such a penalty in the face of Reece's brutal crimes after meeting one victim's grieving family. In the end, Reece is found sane and given the death penalty, but Fraser's internal debate about capital punishment is rendered academic when Reece is found to be insane by a scanning of his brain for mental illness. In the ending of the original version of the film, Reece is found dead in his cell, having overdosed himself on antipsychotics he had been stockpiling. In the ending of the revised version, Reece is sent to a state mental hospital, and in a chilling coda, he sends a letter to a person whose wife and child he has killed, asking the man to come and visit him. A final title card reveals that Reece is scheduled for a parole hearing in six months. ===== A riot breaks out in Springfield after a boring soccer match between Mexico and Portugal. Fearing for her family's safety, Marge tells Homer to buy a Home Security System, but after learning it would cost $500, he buys a handgun instead. After a five-day waiting period per the Brady Act, Homer shows his firearm to Marge, who is horrified and demands he get rid of it. Homer brings her to a local National Rifle Association meeting hoping to change her mind, but she remains unconvinced. After a near accident at the dinner table, Marge again begs Homer to get rid of the gun. He promises to, but later, Bart and Milhouse find it in the refrigerator's vegetable crisper. Marge discovers this and berates Homer, then leaves with the children and checks into a motel. That night, Homer hosts an NRA meeting at his house, but the other members kick him out of the association after seeing how recklessly he uses his pistol. Realizing what his behavior has cost him, Homer goes to the motel and tells Marge he got rid of the gun. While leaving, Snake arrives to rob the desk clerk. Homer pulls out his gun and Marge is angry he lied again, but as he tries to apologize, Snake snatches the gun. The other NRA members arrive and foil Snake, who escapes. Homer then says he does not trust himself and asks Marge to throw the gun away herself. However, Marge sees a reflection of herself holding it in the trash can and decides to keep it. ===== On May 10, 2010, the United States Army's TRAT unit is deployed to investigate the disappearance of Edward City and its surrounding countryside. Their mission: Travel through the Time Gate, locate 1300 survivors and collect data remnants on the Third Energy Project. Intelligence operative Regina is brought along as an adviser due to her past experiences. During insertion, the team's camp is attacked by a pack of Velociraptor, leaving Lieutenant Dylan Morton, Regina and TRAT operative David as the only survivors. The velociraptors flee when a Tyrannosaurus rex attacks the group. David damages the tyrannosaur's eye with a rocket-propelled grenade to ensure Dylan and Regina's escape. Regina returns to the transport ship while Dylan heads into the jungle, spotting a mysterious helmeted figure while investigating a military facility. Upon arrival, he is confronted by the wounded T. rex. While escaping to the barracks, he is shot at by helmeted attackers. Later, he attempts to retrieve a key card, triggering a security alert that imprisons him. Regina receives Dylan's distress call and rescues him. While rescuing Dylan, Regina captures one of the mysterious attackers, a blonde teenage girl who is unable to speak. When they return to their ship, they find the engine room ransacked, stranding the heroes in the past, while the teenage girl exhibits a familiar connection to Dylan. At the Research Facility, Dylan discovers human containment chambers and a starter battery for the ship in order to get it mobile. Dylan returns to find the girl has escaped, and theorizes that the helmeted attackers could be from a different time period. They use the repaired ship to reach the offshore Third Energy facility. Regina uses a diving suit at the facility to investigate the underwater reactor. Once topside, she and Dylan receive a distress call from David, who has found survivors at Edward City. However, Dylan and Regina arrive too late. Upon splitting up, Dylan engages the T. rex with a tank before being jumped by another helmeted figure. The blonde girl saves Dylan and runs away. Deciding they have no business at Edward City anymore, Regina heads to a missile silo in the jungle. Regina discovers the Third Energy data at the silo, but is confronted by the Tyrannosaurus. Her savior is a Giganotosaurus that kills it. The Gigantosaurus follows Regina inside the missile silo, causing damage that triggers a countdown to launch. Regina ignites gas vents to incinerate the Giganotosaurus's head, rendering it comatose. Regina stops the countdown, but the beast awakens and smashes the missile to the ground, destroying the base. While evacuating Regina, Dylan is attacked and injured by an Allosaurus. In order to save him, David sacrifices himself by throwing Dylan into the river before getting eaten. Dylan arrives at another research facility and encounters the blonde-haired girl. Inside, she plays a hologram recording of an elderly Dylan from 2055 and learns the origins of the disaster. The overload in 2009 caused time alterations to the Cretaceous Era, affected earth's history dramatically, creating an alternate timeline where humanity did not exist. To fix this, an international organization enacted the "Noah's Ark Plan": utilizing the Timegate technology, they would transport the living organisms of the Cretaceous to a different time period, three million years in the future, with similar environments, where they could thrive unaffected by the alterations. With the distortions prevented, the organisms would then be returned to their original time period. However, when the Noah's Ark team attempted to return, the gate overloaded and was destroyed, stranding both the dinosaurs and humans in the future. The helmeted attackers are revealed to be the only remaining children of the survivors, who were brought to the safety of a facility and placed in special life support chambers for growth and learning. The side-effects of the chambers cost the children's ability to speak and allowed them to co-exist with the dinosaurs, attacking anyone who threatened them. Dylan also learns at this point that the blonde girl is his future daughter, Paula. The hologram instructs Dylan there is a basic gate they can use to go home, but it will work only once, asking Dylan take Paula with him. The facility's self destruct system is activated by the sole surviving helmeted figure, causing the Giganotosaurus to appear. The helmeted figure is killed, while Dylan incinerates the Giganotosaurus with an orbital laser. While attempting to evacuate with Regina, an earth tremor leaves Paula trapped by falling equipment. Unable to free her and with the building ready to explode, Dylan stays with his daughter, telling Regina to return home with the Third Energy data and save them at an earlier time period. ===== A year after his brother Lyam's coronation as king, Arutha returns to his city as the new Prince of Krondor, to begin plans for his wedding. Jimmy the Hand, a young thief, foils an assassination attempt on the prince by a fellow thief, and feeling loyalty toward the prince from previously aiding his escape from the city with Princess Anita (in Magician), he chooses to warn the prince of the attempt on his life instead of reporting the traitor to the Mockers, Krondor's powerful and highly organized guild of thieves. Arutha seeks the Mockers' cooperation to obtain more information on the assassins, and at their request, makes Jimmy a squire of his court. Setting a trap, they capture two agents, who are revealed to be operating out of the temple of Lims-Kragma, Goddess of Death, one of whom is a moredhel whose appearance has been altered. During interrogation, both prisoners will themselves to death rather than divulge their plans. As the High Priestess of Lims-Kragma seeks the truth by bringing them back from beyond the grave, one of the prisoners rises by the power of an unknown enemy, and attacks his captors, slaughtering many royal guards, and addressing Arutha as "Lord of the West" before being destroyed by Father Nathan, a priest of Sung. Injured in the attack, the High Priestess warns Arutha that the forces which opposed him were so powerful that they held the gods in contempt. Arutha leads a strike on the assassins' hideout in Krondor, but even as the assault appears to be going in their favor, the assassins begin rising from the dead and renewing their attack. Many of Arutha's men are slain, and the Black Slayers are only defeated when the entire building is burned to the ground. Believing the threat to be over for the time being, Arutha proceeds with his wedding. Just before the ceremony, Jimmy senses something is wrong, and finds the same assassin from the first attempt on Arutha's life hiding on the roof. He manages to disrupt the assassin just as he is firing at Arutha, but the poisoned bolt strikes Anita instead. The assassin is interrogated, and reveals the enemy to be Murmandamus, a moredhel chieftain and powerful sorcerer. According to a prophecy, Arutha is the only force that stands in the way of Murmandamus's total destruction of the Kingdom and domination over the realm. The assassin also reveals that the poison was given to him by a moredhel agent, who called it "silverthorn". Pug is able to keep Anita under a spell that slows the passage of time, giving Arutha time to search for an antidote. With scant clues, he secretly leads a party to the one place most likely to have the answer to any question, the great library at Sarth Abbey. All along his journey, he is tracked by Murad, one of Murmandamus's top generals. They manage to reach the abbey, but their enemies strike again with powerful sorcery, both attacks barely repulsed by the mighty defenses of Sarth Abbey and its priests. From information gathered at the abbey, Arutha's quest turns to the elves of Elvandar for more information. Meanwhile, Pug returns to Stardock to seek the aid of a scryer, whose vision of the future reveals a dark force behind Murmandamus, a powerful enemy speaking in ancient Tsurani, who is even capable of perceiving the scryer past the barriers of time and probability. Believing the threat therefore to be a danger to both worlds, Pug seeks more information from the Tsurani Assembly of magicians, and with the help of research from the books of Macros, creates a new rift to Kelewan and returns to his old estate with two companions, posing as priests. In Elvandar, Arutha is told that the silverthorn plant can also serve as the cure, and grows only around the lake Moraelin, in moredhel-held territory, surrounded by a barrier the elves are unable to pass. He and his band set out for Moraelin. In Kelewan, Pug arrives to find himself removed from the Assembly and declared an outlaw. His old friend and fellow Great One Hochopepa is willing to aid him, but they are captured by a Great One loyal to the current Warlord, who seeks to gain control of the Empire. Tortured by the Warlord and his inquisitors, and with his Greater Path magic neutralized, Pug turns to the Lesser Path, becoming the second magician ever to master both paths after Macros the Black. He is able to overcome his captors, and explains his reasons for returning to the Emperor, who grants him reprieve to continue his search in the Assembly's vast libraries. He arrives at the conclusion that the ancient Tsurani enemy has returned, posing a grave threat to both worlds. Pug is reinstated by the Assembly, and following a clue, travels to the northern polar wastelands of Kelewan, discovering a lost race of elves living in a forest under the ice, twin to Elvandar on Midkemia. Their leader, Acaila, offers to instruct Pug in magic over the course of the following year, in order to better face the coming trials. Meanwhile, Arutha and his band manage to sneak past the moredhel sentries, and discover several silverthorn shrubs in the lake, and make their escape back towards Elvandar. Just as they are about to reach the safety of the Elven forest, they are overtaken by Murad and a band of black slayers. With the help of Tomas, they manage to defeat their enemies and return safely to Elvandar. With the antidote made by the elven Spellweavers, Anita is saved, and Arutha's enemies set back by the death of one of their generals. But Murmandamus vows to regather his armies the next year, when the long-awaited invasion into the Kingdom will commence. Category:1985 American novels Category:1985 fantasy novels Category:American fantasy novels Category:Books with cover art by Kinuko Y. Craft Category:Doubleday (publisher) books Category:Novels by Raymond E. Feist Category:Sequel novels ===== Arutha, Prince of Krondor, uses an attempted assassination as a ruse to fake his own death so that he may travel north to confront Murmandamus. In his travels to the Northlands, Arutha finds his father's former enemy, Guy du Bas-Tyra, as the Protector of the city Armengar, the first location to be invaded by the dark army under Murmandamus. In an attempt to destroy a majority of the army, Guy orders the evacuation of the city, and ignites the naphtha mines below the city. Murmandamus escapes unscathed, and the army marches towards the border of the Kingdom of the Isles. Meanwhile, Pug and Tomas begin searching the world, and eventually beyond, for the famed sorcerer Macros the Black, thought killed when he helped to destroy the rift (at the end of Magician). Macros reveals that he had put into motion a grand plot to instill Tomas with the powers of the Valheru, Ashen-Shugar, in order to turn the tides of the coming battle in their favour. Murmandamus, having successfully overrun the border city of Highcastle, marches towards his final objective: the town of Sethanon, which lies above an ancient ruins containing an artifact of power known as the Lifestone. Murmandamus lays siege to Sethanon, causing wholesale slaughter regardless of his own soldiers, in order to draw his necromantic power from their deaths. Steeped in power, he descends into the chamber of the Lifestone, and is confronted by Arutha, where they begin to duel. A rift begins to form within the chamber, held closed only by the magical efforts of Pug and Macros. Arutha manages to kill Murmandamus, revealing his true form as a Pantathian impersonating a moredhel. With his death, the escaped magical energy causes the rift to open briefly, releasing a Valheru, and a life-stealing Dreadlord. Tomas, now fully embracing his Valheru heritage, battles his ancient kin, while his dragon mount fights the Dreadlord. At the climax of the battle, Tomas stabs his sword through his enemy, and into the Lifestone, inadvertently releasing the spirits of all other Dragonlords. Their combined might, however, is no match for the Lifestone, the nexus of all life on Midkemia. They are drawn into the Lifestone and trapped for all eternity. The invasion is over. Afterwards, Macros entrusts the guardianship of the world to Pug and Tomas, saying that his task to protect Midkemia is finished, and disappears. Category:1986 American novels Category:1986 fantasy novels Category:American fantasy novels Category:Books with cover art by Kinuko Y. Craft Category:Doubleday (publisher) books Category:Novels by Raymond E. Feist ===== The series opens with Jerry Seinfeld (Jerry Seinfeld) and George Costanza (Jason Alexander) seated at Pete's Luncheonette, debating the placement of one of George's shirt buttons. Jerry tells George about a woman he met in Lansing, Michigan, Laura (Pamela Brull), who is coming to New York, and the two discuss whether or not she has romantic intentions. The next evening, Jerry tells his neighbor Kessler (Michael Richards) that he thinks he misunderstood the situation with Laura. However, he then receives a telephone call from Laura, who asks if she can stay overnight at his apartment. Though Jerry agrees, he is still unsure whether or not her visit is intended to be romantic. George and Jerry continue to debate the issue, with Jerry determined to find the true nature of her visit. While waiting at the airport for Laura to arrive, Jerry and George try to identify the possible signals Laura might give upon her arrival, with George explaining the meaning of various greetings. However, when Laura arrives, her greeting is ambiguous. Upon arriving at Jerry's apartment Laura removes her shoes and some excess clothing to get comfortable, asks for wine, and turns down the light and asks if she can stay over a second night. As Jerry removes his own shoes and begins to grow confident, the phone rings for Laura. When Laura gets off the phone she tells Jerry: "Never get engaged." Jerry then realizes that he has no chance with Laura, but has already committed himself – and his one-bedroom apartment – to an entire weekend with her, including a five-hour sightseeing boat ride around Manhattan. ===== A fantasy, Bogus tells the story of seven-year-old Albert Franklin (Haley Joel Osment), the son of a Las Vegas magician's widowed assistant (Nancy Travis). His mother dies suddenly in a car accident and Albert, who is now an orphan, is sent to New Jersey to live with his mother's foster sister, Harriet (Whoopi Goldberg). The plot is about Albert, and his imaginary friend named Bogus (Gérard Depardieu), a French magician, who helps the boy cope with his transition. Gradually Harriet, who can also see Bogus, comes to terms with her new situation as well. ===== Jonathan Safran Foer (Elijah Wood), a young American Jew, goes on a quest to find the woman, Augustina, who saved his grandfather, Safran Foer, during the Holocaust in a small Ukrainian town called Trachimbrod that was wiped off the map when the Nazis liquidated Eastern European shtetls. His guides are a cranky, antisemitic grandfather (Boris Leskin), his deranged Border Collie named Sammy Davis, Jr., Jr., and his over-enthusiastic grandson, Alex (Eugene Hütz), whose fractured command of English, passion for American pop culture, and constant chatter threaten to make the worst of every situation. The guides are not very knowledgeable about the subject of finding Jews, and usually just attempt to scam them by taking them on long journeys, but after hearing about Jonathan's compelling story, they decide they actually want to help him. After traveling through much of rural Ukraine, they eventually find Augustina's sister, Lista (Laryssa Lauret), who leads them to where Augustina was killed by Nazi soldiers after her father refused to spit on the Torah. Alex's grandfather kills himself after it was revealed he was Jewish and managed to survive the war himself by hiding his religion. Jonathan returns home after saying farewell to Alex, to whom he has grown close. Both Jonathan and Alex sprinkle soil gathered from the site of the massacre on their respective grandfathers' graves. Alex's grandfather is given a Jewish burial. ===== Reed Richards and Victor Von Doom are college friends who use the opportunity of a passing comet to try an experiment; however, the experiment goes wrong, leaving Victor believed dead. Susan and Johnny Storm are two children living with their mother, who has a boarding house where Reed lives. Ben Grimm is a family friend and a college buddy of Reed's. Ten years later, Reed, Sue, Johnny and Ben go up into an experimental spacecraft of Reed's as the same comet passes by Earth. They are hit by cosmic rays from it, due to a necessary diamond being exchanged for an imitation by the Jeweler. Upon crash-landing on Earth, the four discover that the cosmic rays gave them special powers: Reed's bodily structure has become elastic, Sue can become invisible, Johnny can generate fire on demand and Ben has transformed into a creature with stone-like skin: the Thing. They are later captured by Victor's men, who pose as Marines, and meet villainous monarch Dr. Doom. After escaping from Doom's men, the four regroup at the Baxter Building, trying to decide what to do now that they have gained superpowers. An angry Ben leaves the group to go out on his own, feeling he has become a freak of nature. He is found by homeless men and joins them in the lair of the Jeweler. The Jeweler has his henchmen kidnap blind artist Alicia Masters, whom he plans to force into being his bride and intends to use the stolen diamond as his wedding gift to her. Doom has his own plans for the diamond and sends his henchmen to the Jeweler's lair to make a deal with him, to no avail. Doom, displeased, seizes the diamond himself as a gun battle breaks out between The Jeweler's and Doom's men. Ben enters the fray, only for Doom to take Alicia as his hostage. Ben threatens to 'clobber' Doom, only for Alicia to beg his not to risk it and confesses her love for him. Her confession reverts Ben to human form, causing him to flee out onto the city streets. Frustrated at his helplessness, he reverts to the Thing. Ben returns to his friends; by now, Reed has learned that Doom is actually Victor. Doom contacts them and threatens to use the diamond to power a laser cannon that will destroy New York City, unless they surrender to him. Realizing they are the only ones who can stop Doom, they don costumes and travel to Doom's castle. There, the Fantastic Four battle a series of Doom's military. Doom fires his laser as Reed has a final battle with him, which ends with Doom being knocked off a balcony wall. He manages to grab hold of the wall and Reed attempts to rescue him, only for Doom's gauntlet to come loose and him falling into the fog below. His gauntlet, still on the balcony, starts to move on its own. Johnny becomes the Human Torch and flies off to stand between the laser's shot and the city, pushing the beam into outer space. Ben frees Alicia and finally introduces himself to her. She feels the rocky surface of his face but is not fazed by his altered appearance. Thereafter, the Four dedicate themselves to fighting evil, and Reed and Sue marry. ===== After being stabbed in the chest by his mother, Kyosuke Date returns from the dead to find out he has a twin sister named Runa, and the ability to transform into the amazingly strong, powerful and dangerous superhuman mutant known as the SoulTaker. As he seeks out his twin sister, he is being pursued by the strange mutant doctors and nurses of the hospital, led by his own father, Richard Vincent, as well as the evil Kirihara corporation, led by Yui Kirihara, who are also tracking down Runa for their own malevolent purposes. Assisting him along the way are the mysterious Shiro Mibu and the nurse mutant girl Komugi Nakahara, who betrayed the Hospital out of strong romantic love for Kyosuke. ===== 'Heavenly Blues' is the leader of the Angels motorcycle gang from San Pedro, California. 'Loser' is his best friend. 'Mike' is Blues' "old lady". The story begins in a quest to find Loser's stolen motorcycle. The plot is simply a buildup to a climax in the last half-hour of the film which is Loser's funeral. Loser's funeral is the showpiece of the film. In between sprees of sex, drugs, rock and roll, booze, loud revving Harley chopper motorcycle engines, bongo drums and fights, the Angels ride out to Mecca, California in the desert to look for Loser's stolen motorcycle. One of the Angels finds a brake pedal, which he says is a piece of Loser's motorcycle, in a garage that is the hang-out of a Mexican group. The two groups brawl, with the Angels apparently winning. The police arrive and the Angels escape but Loser gets separated from the others and is left behind. He steals a police motorcycle but is not able to lose the policeman who is pursuing him or evade the roadblock that the police have in place. Eventually one of the officers shoots Loser in the back, putting him in the hospital. Blues leads a small group of Angels to sneak Loser out of the hospital. A nurse hears a noise and comes into the hospital room. One of the Angels assaults her. Blues pulls the Angel away, forcing him to stop. The nurse having seen Blues and identifies him to the police. (It is never resolved whether the nurse identifies Blues in error as the man who attacked her, or if she identified him only as one of the people who got the Loser out of the hospital). Without proper medical care, Loser dies. The Angels forge a death certificate for Loser and arrange for a church funeral in Sequoia Grove, Loser's rural hometown. Blues tells The Angels to go to Sequoia Grove on their bikes, in ones and twos, using different roads and do not show their club colors while traveling. The Angels arrive at Sequoia Grove, assemble at the church and carry in Loser's casket which is draped with a Nazi flag. The funeral preacher arrives at the church; he looks at the assembled motorcycle gang and Loser, lying in repose in his coffin, with disdain. He undertakes a funeral sermon; it is a eulogy consisting entirely of funeral oratory cliches. This pathetic eulogy angers Blues and he interrupts the preacher's gibberish shouting, “Oh no, preach, not children of God, but Hell’s Angels”. Whereupon, the Angels decide to have a "party" in the church. They remove Loser from his coffin, they sit him up as "a guest of honor" and place a joint in his mouth. They tie up the preacher and put him into the casket. A wild orgy ensues. Blues disappears behind the church's pulpit and apparently has sex with a woman. Finishing his business, he rises up from behind the pulpit, perfectly attired, and he tells his gang that it is time to bury Loser. The Angels, some riding their bikes, others walking and carrying Loser's casket, move through the town in a funeral procession to the Sequoia Grove Cemetery. At the cemetery, the people from the town mysteriously show up outside the gate. While the Angels were peacefully gathering around Loser's grave, a town youth throws a large rock, hitting one of the Angels, which provokes a brawl between the Angels and the townspeople. Police sirens are heard approaching in the background. Everyone scatters. The Angels mount their bikes and rapidly leave. Blues' girlfriend, Mike, begs him to leave. She tells Blues that his reaction to Loser's death is, “It’s like you went with him”. But Blues refuses to leave and tells her to get on the bike of another member of the gang and go. With resignation, Blues says to Mike, "There's nowhere to go." Blues, left alone in the graveyard, puts on a pair of gloves and takes a shovel in hand. He slowly begins shoveling dirt into the open grave to bury his friend Loser. ===== In a post- war society wherein a zombie invasion has been narrowly averted, humanity is left scrambling to cope with the remaining zombie "demographic" that now forms a part of daily life. When a grasping-at-straws advertising campaign for "Brains Cola" turns into a runaway success, zombies become the new target for all manner of brain-themed products, as companies rush to capitalize on their untapped buying power. Eric is an apathetic video store clerk trafficking in black market classic horror movies. Ashley is a frustrated life insurance agent deluged with undead policy holders. Sam and Bridget are freelance zombie hunters desperate for a gig. And Bruce is an irritatingly cheerful previously- deceased-rights activist. All five characters struggle to find their place in this strange new world and collectively uncover a sinister plot by a multinational corporation looking to plunge the world into another zombie- human war, regardless of the cost. ===== Set in the Northwestern United States in 1875, the film focuses on taciturn widower Matt Calder (Robert Mitchum), who has recently been released from prison after serving time for killing one man while defending another. He arrives in a boomtown tent city in search of his nine-year-old son Mark (Tommy Rettig), who was left in the care of dance hall singer Kay (Marilyn Monroe) after the man who brought him there, as Matt had arranged, abandoned him. Matt promises Mark, a virtual stranger to him, the two will enjoy a life of hunting, fishing and farming on their homestead. Robert Mitchum with Tommy Rettig in a scene from the film Kay's fiance, gambler Harry Weston (Rory Calhoun), tells her they must go to Council City to file the deed on a gold mine he won in a poker game. They head downriver on a log raft, and when they encounter trouble in the rapids near the Calder farm, Matt and Mark rescue them. Harry offers to buy Matt's rifle and horse so as to reach Council City by land. When Matt refuses, Harry knocks Matt unconscious and steals both horse and rifle. Kay chooses to stay behind to take care of Matt and Mark, and the three are stranded in the wilderness. When hostile Indians attack the farm, the three are forced to escape down the river on Harry's raft. That night they set up camp by the river, and Matt and Kay argue about the wisdom of pursuing Harry. Matt asks why Kay would choose to marry a man who had endangered a child, whereupon she reminds him that Harry never killed a man like Matt did. Mark overhears their discussion, and Matt is forced to reveal the truth about his past to his son, who is unable to comprehend why his father acted as he did. As the three continue their journey, Kay comes to appreciate Matt's bravery and the tender way he cares for both her and Mark. Along the way, they are forced to deal with a series of trials and tribulations, including a mountain lion attack; gold prospectors Sam Benson and Dave Colby, who are after Harry for stealing their claim; and a second Indian war party. After a difficult ride through the worst of the rapids, the three arrive in Council City and confront Harry. Harry shoots at Matt, prompting Mark to shoot Harry in the back, using a rifle that he was inspecting in the general store. As a result, Mark comes to understand why his father had to shoot a man in a similar fashion so many years before. Afterwards, Kay finds a job at the local saloon. While she is singing there, Matt walks into the saloon and throws Kay over his shoulder to take her back to his farm along with Mark. She happily leaves with him. The final scene is Kay throwing her high heeled showgirl shoes from their buckboard into the street, a renunciation of her old life. ===== The game revolves around a young boy (the player can name the protagonist in the beginning of the game), the protagonist, who is drawn into the Digital World through his V-Pet device. Jijimon greets and asks him a few questions, the answers to which determine whether he begins with an Agumon or Gabumon. His goal is to travel around File Island, locating all of the resident Digimon of File City who have turned feral and bring them back, raising Digimon partners in the process. He must train his Digimon and battle his way through all of Digimon World until the once sparsely populated city is flourishing with different Digimon from all of Digimon World. He must eventually go to Infinity Mountain (the final location) to confront the antagonist, Analogman, and the mega Machinedramon, and save the Digital World from destruction. ===== 14,000 light-years from Earth in a stellar system in the Scorpio Cluster, lies the planet of Boazan. Their social system revolves around oligopolistic politics by the nobles, with a caste system. Those with horns are considered noble and have high status, while the hornless are treated as slaves. But when La Gour is about to ascend to the throne, he was exposed as hornless by his ambitious bastard cousin Zu Zambajil and enslaved by the empire. La Gour led a rebellion against the empire, but his ragtag troops of former slaves were simply no match against the superior might of the Boazanian military. His desperate comrades sacrificed themselves in order for him to board their last remaining space saucer, leading him to planet Earth. He was found wounded and unconscious near his ship's wreckage by a local woman, Mitsuyo Go, who he later marries. Fearing Zambajil's interplanetary conquest ambitions, La Gour, who now goes by the name Professor Kentaro Go, collaborated with his wife as well as premier Earth scientist Professor Hamaguchi and Earth International Defense Force commander General Oka to design and construct the ultimate defense against the potential incoming Boazanian invasion. Ten years later, the Boazanians had finally invaded Earth under the orders of Prince Heinel and launches their "beast fighters" all over the world, defeating most of the world's armed forces. In order to fight back and to honor Kentaro's wishes who had vanished, Professor Hamaguchi gathered the three children of Kentaro: Kenichi, Daijiro and Hiyoshi alongside two new members: Ippei and Megumi at the fortress island base "Camp Big Falcon". While not an easy task, they were tasked to pilot Kentaro's latest creation and humanity's final hope: "Voltes V" in order to repel back the impending Boazanian invasion, and for the Go Siblings; to find out the whereabouts and mysteries surrounding their father. =====