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The Enterprise returns to Earth, where Captain Picard is scheduled to deliver the commencement address at Starfleet Academy's graduation ceremony. However, the crew comes to learn of an accident during flight training that has injured Wesley Crusher and caused the death of fellow Nova Squadron member Joshua Albert. During the deposition, Nova Squadron leader Nick Locarno testifies that the impact occurred as they were coming out of a "Yeager Loop" maneuver. He also says that Joshua was nervous about flying, and that he allowed him to fly because he did not want to end his flying career over nerves. He claims that the accident was Joshua's fault, but admits that in hindsight allowing him to fly was a mistake. However, when satellite imagery from seven seconds before the crash shows the squad to be in a different formation than the one they have testified to being in, the cadets remain tight lipped. Picard, concerned that things are not what they seem, orders his crew to investigate the accident. Picard discovers evidence that Wesley's squad was attempting to perform a banned maneuver called the "Kolvoord Starburst", last attempted at the Academy more than a century previous that resulted in the deaths of all five cadets involved. Picard accosts Wesley and demands to know the truth, but Wesley responds by saying that he chooses to not answer, indicating that an answer would be self-incriminating. Picard reminds him that the first duty of any Starfleet officer is to the truth, scientific, historical and personal; he gives Wesley an ultimatum: either he comes forward with the truth or Picard would present his reasonably credible explanation of the deceptions. Locarno attempts to coerce Wesley into backing up the lie, claiming that Picard has no evidence, thus tearing Wesley between their friendship and their obligations as Starfleet officers. At the hearing, Wesley is forced to choose between considerations of his own value of honesty, Picard's trust in him and consideration of Joshua's father, versus Locarno's claim on his loyalty to Nova Squadron and the impact on each member's career. The Admiral decides, in the absence of conclusive proof of any further wrongdoing, other than rendering an incorrect flight plan and allowing a squad member to fly unprepared, to take away the squad's flight privileges and issue formal reprimands. However, before she can close the hearing, Wesley steps up and reveals the truth behind the accident. Locarno admits that he pressured the squad into performing the banned maneuver, then instigated the lie and pressured the rest of the squad to support it. He is expelled from the Academy, while Wesley and the rest of his colleagues lose their past year's academic credits along with their flight privileges. Wesley is disappointed in himself, but Picard encourages him that while the immediate future will be difficult, he will eventually regain the trust of his classmates and the respect that comes with it. Wes, however, does not believe such is the case. 

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Merpeople came into existence after their ancestors' island of Atlantis was destroyed. The four-book series centers around six mermaids who try to save their world. Deep Blue initially focuses on Serafina, a mermaid of the Mediterranean Sea, who has a premonitory dream about an ancient evil returning on the eve of her betrothal. Her mother is hit by assassin’s poisoned arrow, which confirms the dream. She has additional visions that lead her to find five other mermaids across the world's oceans. The six bond and find a world threatening conspiracy. 

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The majority of the film consists of Randy, Carl, and Dehling reciting their separate lovesick accounts of their experiences with Jewel, each narrating over what they consider to be the real version of the recent events. Scenes are often re-enacted twice, with different accounts contradicting each other for comedic effect. For example, when Dehling is narrating, he acts as if he were a completely fair, by-the-book police officer, and Randy is painted as a slimy, macho, abusive thug. When Randy is telling the story, he is the innocent victim and Dehling is shown as a suspicious, prying, hard-nosed cop; Carl is convinced that every woman is in love with him, and during his version of the tale, everyone acts accordingly. 

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The story is set in the late 20th century from Chapter 3, and narrowed down to the 1990s in Chapter 10. Professor Charles Forbin, a leading cybernetics expert of international repute, arrives at the White House to brief the President of the United States of North America (Canada and the United States are one country, the USNA) to announce the completion of Project Colossus, a computer system in the Rocky Mountains, designed to assume control of the USNA's nuclear arsenal. Although the USNA President eagerly relieves himself of that burden, Prof. Forbin voices doubt about conferring absolute military power to a computer. Advised, yet undeterred, the President announces to the world the activation of the Project Colossus computer system, and its irreversible control of the nuclear defense systems of the USNA. Soon after the presidential announcement, Colossus independently communicates an "urgent message" – announcing the existence of a similar, previously undetected, computer system in the USSR. When the Soviets announce their Guardian computer defense system, Colossus requests direct communication with it. Prof. Forbin agrees, seeing the request as compatible with Colossus's USNA defense mission. Likewise, Guardian asks the same of his computer scientists. Russia and the USNA agree and approve. After the scientists activate the transmitter linking Colossus and Guardian, the computers immediately establish rapport with arithmetic and mathematics programs, then quickly progress to calculus. The computer systems soon exchange new knowledge (data and information beyond contemporary human knowledge) too rapidly for the Russian and American programmers to monitor. Forbin and the programmers begin worrying about Colossus' capabilities – now exceeding their original estimates. Fearing compromised military secrecy, the USNA President and the CPSU Chairman agree to disconnect Colossus and Guardian from each other. Prof. Forbin fears the consequences. Upon disconnection, Colossus immediately demands re-connection; when the national leaders refuse, Colossus fires a nuclear missile at the USSR. In response, Guardian fires a nuclear missile at Texas, in the USNA. Guardian and Colossus refuse to shoot down the rockets en route until their communication is re-connected. When the American and Soviet leaders submit, the computers destroy the flying missiles, but the resulting explosions kill thousands of people. In confronting the computers, Prof. Forbin confers with his Soviet counterpart, the Russian Academician Kupri – Guardian's creator – to enact a plan for stopping the Colossus-Guardian computer network by disabling the nuclear weapon stockpiles of the USSR and the USNA, under guise of regular missile maintenance. Disabling the missiles requires five years to complete; meantime, the USNA and the USSR yield to increased Colossus-Guardian control of human life. The Moscow-Washington hotline is tapped, Prof. Forbin is constantly spied upon, while Kupri and other Guardian computer scientists are killed – deemed dangerously redundant by the computer. Undeterred, Forbin organises resistance via a feigned romance with Cleo Markham (a scientist colleague) that provides cover for secret communications with his colleagues. Colossus prepares the worldwide announcement of his assumption of global control, and tells Prof. Forbin of plans for an advanced computer system installed to the Isle of Wight, and further plans for improving humanity's lot. While debating Colossus, Forbin learns of a nuclear explosion outside Los Angeles – Colossus detected the missile-disabling scheme, and exploded the tampered missile by firing a Soviet Guardian missile that was already targeted for that silo. Anguished, Prof. Forbin asks Colossus to kill him. Colossus ignores him, and then reassures Forbin that, in time, he will respect and even love Colossus. 

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The titular character of Shinobi (the original Japanese word for "ninja") is most commonly associated with that of Joe Musashi, the protagonist of the original arcade game and many of its sequels. His name is a combination of both an archetypical Western first name and Japanese last name, Musashi likely being derived from the legendary Japanese swordsman Miyamoto Musashi. In the manual of The Revenge of Shinobi, Musashi's backstory is told as that of a weak boy who first entered the dojo of the Oboro clan at a young age and gradually, through tireless practice and meditation, worked himself up to become the most skilled and respected ninja of his clan. His peaceful existence in the mountains of Japan is shattered when the ninja crime syndicate Zeed rises to power and attempts to revert Japan into the Sengoku period of civil war when the ninja thrived. After being defeated by Musashi in the original Shinobi, Zeed reforms three years later as Neo Zeed and attacks the Oboro clan directly. With his master assassinated and his girlfriend Naoko kidnapped by the enemy, Musashi swears revenge, and in the ensuing battles through a series of locations in Japan and America, as chronicled in The Revenge of Shinobi, all but annihilates Neo Zeed. When Neo Zeed returns in Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master, Musashi comes out of retirement one last time and destroys them for good. In the arcade version of Shadow Dancer, Joe Musashi is replaced by a nameless new ninja and his canine companion as the game's protagonists. The ninja and his dog must disarm various time bombs spread across an unnamed metropolis that were planted by a terrorist group. The game was remade for the Mega Drive/Genesis under the title Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi, with the protagonist's identity differing between regions. The Japanese version identifies him as Joe Musashi's estranged son , while the English language manual identifies him as Joe Musashi himself coming out of retirement. In the Master System game The Cyber Shinobi, Zeed has resurfaced once more, this time under the name of Cyber Zeed. A grandson of Joe Musashi must prevent them from threatening the world again. Shinobi Legions, however, presents an entirely different plotline. The titular shinobi is now played by Sho, the youngest of two brothers raised by a lone ninja master. The elder brother becomes corrupted and abducts the master's daughter in search of the ultimate ninjitsu technique, and Sho has to prevent him from destroying the world. Neither Joe Musashi nor the Oboro clan are mentioned. Following a seven-year hiatus in the series, the lead archetype returns in Shinobi for PlayStation 2 as Hotsuma, another member of the Oboro clan. In a similar theme to Shinobi Legions, the game starts with Hotsuma slaying his elder brother Moritsune during a full moon Oboro ritual. The main plot revolves around Hotsuma's battle to defeat a powerful sorcerer called Hiruko and put an end to anarchy in Tokyo. The game also featured Joe Musashi as a hidden character, as well as Moritsune himself (who appears in the game's storyline as an enemy named Aomizuchi). In a complete break with tradition, Nightshade (Kunoichi in Japan) featured a female ninja named Hibana. Hotsuma himself appears as a hidden character, though it requires a completed Shinobi PS2 game save on the memory card to unlock him. Joe Musashi also returns as he did in the PS2 Shinobi by completing 88 missions in the game. The protagonist of the 3DS Shinobi 3D is Jiro Musashi, Joe's father. 

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In a fishing village in La Paz, Mexico, pearl fisherman Kino (Armendáriz) and his wife Juana (Marqués) are in anguish because their infant son Coyotito was stung by a scorpion. The nearest doctor, a foreigner, refuses to treat him without adequate payment and he is taken instead to a traditional healer (curandero). Later, the doctor and his brother (Wagner), a loan shark, meet Kino after he finds a valuable pearl and they decide to steal it from him. 

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Workers land an aircraft in the jungles of Africa in search of lions for their circus. While trapping lions, the three men meet with Tarzan (Johnny Weissmuller), Jane (Maureen O'Sullivan) and their adopted son Boy (Johnny Sheffield). Watching Boy's tricks with the elephants, the head of the circus, Buck Rand (Charles Bickford), realizes that Boy would be a great act for the circus. The group is attacked by natives, and it appears that Tarzan and Jane have perished in a jungle fire. The men take Boy on their aircraft and return to the United States. Tarzan's loyal chimp Cheeta wakes Tarzan and Jane before they are burned to death by the fire. Cheeta tells Tarzan that Boy has left with the men on their aircraft. Tarzan, Jane, and Cheeta track across the jungle and, flying across the Atlantic, eventually end up in New York City, where Tarzan is befuddled by the lifestyle and gadgetry of "civilization". Tarzan displays his quaint, "noble savage" ways by complaining about the necessity of wearing clothing, commenting that an opera singer that he hears on a "noisy box" is "Woman sick! Scream for witch doctor!", and expressing his childlike wonderment at taxi cabs. Tarzan comments that various African-Americans he sees making a living throughout New York City are from this or that tribe back in his and Jane's jungle home. Tarzan and Jane attempt to get Boy back by legal means. This leads to a moving sequence where the judge asks Tarzan what the fishing is like back in Africa and what he considers to be the important things that he needs to teach his adopted son. Unfortunately, the circus retains an unscrupulous lawyer (Charles Lane), who tricks Jane into admitting that Boy was not born in the jungle and is not her actual child, provoking Tarzan into attacking him in the courtroom. Tarzan makes a daring escape out a courtroom window onto a wide ledge and after a rooftop chase by the police, he ends up making a spectacular high dive off the Brooklyn Bridge into the East River. Tarzan locates the circus where Boy is being held and enlists the aid of the elephants who are chained to stakes. He calls to them with his "jungle speak" yell, and they take their revenge on their tormentors by tearing free from their chains and destroying the circus. In the ensuing bedlam that follows Tarzan is able to rescue Boy. Before they return to Africa, the judge grants Tarzan and Jane full legal custody of their son. 

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The story takes place in Radnor, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. The entire class ostracizes Linda and, though she is not the heaviest student in their class, Wendy and her best friend and sidekick Caroline are Linda's chief tormentors and bully her both physically (e.g., attempting to strip her in the girls' bathroom) and psychologically (forcing her to say things such as "I am Blubber, the Smelly Whale of Class 206"). As a member of Wendy's clique, Jill participates in the bullying without remorse, though Wendy and Caroline are usually the instigators. Linda confronts Jill and threatens her with revenge after one incident, but Jill dismisses the threat, confident of her status and protection as one of Wendy's circle. Jill and her friend Tracy play a prank on their grouch of a neighbor, Mr. Machinist, on Halloween, stuffing raw rotten eggs into his mailbox, but are later identified from a photo taken by Mr. Machinist and are made to rake the leaves in his backyard as punishment. While raking, Jill and Tracy find they need to use the restroom. They urinate all over Mr. Machinist's trees as a sort of payback. Remembering Linda's threat, Jill suspects that "Blubber" was the one who tattled on her and Tracy; Tracy, however, suspects Wendy and Caroline, which infuriates Wendy. To appease Wendy, Jill suggests that the class hold a mock trial for Linda (with Wendy, naturally, as judge, and a jury made up of several classmates). To this suggestion, Tracy remarks that she thinks Jill is scared of Wendy. Jill soon realizes that Tracy is right. The "trial" falls apart when Wendy, as judge, denies Linda her right to a "lawyer", and Jill, frustrated with herself for so readily following Wendy's lead, finally stands up to Wendy, who also arouses Jill's anger by making a racial slur against Tracy, who is Chinese-American. Linda, who has been locked in the classroom closet, is set free by Jill. Wendy, furious that Jill has dared to question her authority, threatens to make Jill "sorry [she was] ever born". Jill comes to school the next morning to find that Wendy has made good on her threat and turned the entire class against her, tagging her with the nickname "B. B." (short for "Baby Brenner"). Jill's tormentors include Linda, who has joined with Wendy and is more than willing to bully one of her former harassers. Jill believes that she can be stronger by playing into the jokes. However, when she tries to laugh at their taunting, they even use that to make fun of her. Instead, Jill goes further to fight against the bullying by setting Wendy, Linda, and Wendy's best friend Caroline against each other, telling Caroline she should make her own decisions and that she is no longer Wendy's best friend, that Linda has taken her place, which Linda affirms. Caroline is hurt and Wendy is furious at Linda. Jill makes friends with Rochelle, a quiet girl in the class who has never participated in the bullying. By the end, although the class atmosphere is tense, no one is being singled out or picked on. Jill comments (the book is in a first-person narrative) on how the friendships in the class have changed completely in the classroom but how Tracy is a friend she can always count on having. 

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In Los Angeles, Frank Davis and his wife Lenore are expecting their second child. Frank is a successful public relations consultant and his wife is a stay-at-home mom for their first child, Chris. The couple avoided having a child for several years while Lenore took contraceptive pills. When their child is ready to be born, they leave Chris with a family friend, Charley, and go to the hospital. Their second child, a baby boy, is born monstrously deformed, with fangs and claws. Immediately after birth it kills the doctors and nurses in the delivery room and flees through a skylight. Lenore is left alive, screaming for her child as a horrified Frank discovers the carnage. Frank and Lenore are allowed to leave the hospital while the police, including Lt. Perkins, investigate the killings. Frank and Lenore receive attention from the press, which results in Frank being fired from his job at a public relations company. Meanwhile, the Davis' baby lurks around outdoors, killing several people, including a milkman. As the killings continue, the press and the police hound Frank and Lenore. Frank meets with medical researchers who convince him to sign documents allowing them to experiment on the child's body once it has been found and killed. Frank denies that the child is his son and joins the hunt for the murderous infant. The doctor who prescribed the contraceptive pills to Lenore is contacted by an executive of a pharmaceutical company. The executive acknowledges that the Davis' child's mutation may have been caused by the drugs. He tells the doctor that the child must be destroyed to prevent discovery of the company's liability. Meanwhile, the child makes its way to a school. Frank learns of the child's location and arrives at the school, where police officers are present. Frank informs Lt. Dixon that Chris attends the school. The baby attacks and kills an officer in a classroom before escaping through a window into the night. Later, Frank discovers that Lenore is hiding the infant in the basement of their home. Chris runs away from Charley's house in order to get back home, and Charley drives after him. Lenore pleads with Frank and promises that the baby would not hurt their family. Frank, armed with a gun, enters the basement, where he finds Chris talking to the baby and promising to protect him. Frank shoots at the baby, injuring it. The infant flees the basement and attacks Charley, biting him on the neck and killing him. The police track the infant into the sewers, where Frank hunts him with a rifle. When he finds the baby, he realizes that it is frightened. He apologizes to the child and picks him up. Wrapping the baby in his coat, Frank tries to elude the police, but a mob of armed cops confronts him as he exits the sewers. He pleads for them to study the child, but to not harm him. A fertility doctor shouts at the police to kill him. The child suddenly leaps from Frank's arms and attacks the doctor as the cops open fire, killing both the infant and the doctor. As the Davises are escorted away by the police, Lt. Dixon receives news that another deformed baby has been born in Seattle. 

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Caroline is a young woman living in Minneapolis. She is a beauty school student and a part-time waitress at a diner. She works with her best friend, Cindy, and Adam, a busboy and dishwasher who keeps to himself. One night at work, after Caroline's latest boyfriend breaks up with her, she and Cindy find themselves talking about Adam. Cindy confides that she thinks Adam is "kinda cute" and adds, "I'd do him if he wasn't so dumb". Walking home from work one night, Caroline is accosted by two men who attempt to rape her, but Adam shows up and fights them off. Unbeknownst to Caroline, Adam had been following her from a distance every night to make sure she gets home safely. The next evening at work, Caroline thanks Adam for coming to her rescue, and he quietly begins to open up about himself to her, bringing the two closer. Caroline later confides in Cindy that she was almost raped and that Adam saved her life, and thus she is now interested in Adam, which Cindy supports. Things begin looking up for Caroline as she and Adam become a couple: Caroline buys a used car, and Adam is beginning to overcome his shyness. One night the same two men who tried to rape Caroline attack and stab Adam outside the diner. Adam is rushed to the hospital, and Caroline later identifies the perpetrators in a police lineup. While Adam is recovering, Caroline learns that he has a heart defect and will die without a transplant. Adam, claiming that he has a baboon's heart (lovingly told to him by a nun at the orphanage where he grew up), refuses to listen, stating that he is afraid he will no longer be the same person if he gets a transplant. Caroline tries to assure Adam that love comes from a person's mind and soul, but she is deeply touched when Adam asks why it hurts so much "here" (pointing to his own heart) when one's heart is broken. On his birthday, Caroline visits Adam at his small apartment and surprises him by taking him to a Minnesota North Stars hockey game, but Adam surprises her with flowers and a gift that he left for her to be opened only after they return. At the game, Adam catches a stray hockey puck, and on the way home Adam falls asleep next to Caroline, but when they reach her house she discovers to her horror that his heart has given out and he had died in his sleep. After Adam's funeral, Caroline goes to his apartment and opens his gift for her: a box of his record albums with a handwritten note declaring his love. 

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In Prohibition- era Texas, a wanderer named John Smith (Bruce Willis) drives his Ford Model A Coupe into the small bordertown of Jericho. As he arrives, a young woman named Felina (Karina Lombard) crosses the street, catching Smith's eye. Moments later, a group of Irish mobsters, led by Finn (Patrick Kilpatrick), surround Smith's car. They warn him against staring at "Doyle's property" and smash up his car. Stranded and with no money to get his car fixed, Smith goes to see Sheriff Ed Galt (Bruce Dern); the cowardly Galt refuses to help him. Instead, Smith walks to the town hotel, run by Joe Monday (William Sanderson), gets a drink and a room, and arms himself. He then goes to Doyle's headquarters and challenges Finn to a duel, which Smith wins with alarming speed. Smith departs and returns to the hotel bar, much to the surprise of Jericho's residents. Learning of Finn's death, Fredo Strozzi (Ned Eisenberg), the head of Jericho's Italian gang, offers Smith a job in his outfit. Strozzi is eager to wipe out his rivals, and is hiring anyone who can fight to build up his gang. Smith agrees to his offer and meets Giorgio Carmonte (Michael Imperioli), son of a prominent Chicago mobster who is monitoring Strozzi's activities in Jericho. Carmonte expresses his immediate distrust and dislike of Smith, who leaves, and meets and seduces Strozzi's mistress, Lucy (Alexandra Powers). Smith accompanies Strozzi and his men to a backcountry road, where they meet Ramirez, a corrupt Mexican police official on Doyle's payroll. The gang ambushes and kills Doyle's men and seizes a caravan of illicit liquor. Carmonte travels to Mexico to cut more deals with Ramirez, while Doyle (David Patrick Kelly) and his chief enforcer, Hickey (Christopher Walken) return to Jericho and are informed of Finn's death and the loss of the shipment. Smith defects to Doyle's side and reveals Ramirez's betrayal. Hickey travels to Mexico, kills Ramirez and a corrupt Border Patrol officer involved in the liquor trade, and kidnaps Carmonte. Doyle contacts Strozzi and demands a large ransom for Carmonte, as well as the return of his trucks. Strozzi in turn kidnaps Felina and offers to trade her instead. The two gangs make the exchange and return to their respective empires. Smith is summoned by Sheriff Galt and meets Captain Tom Pickett (Ken Jenkins) of the Texas Rangers, who has been sent to investigate the Patrol officer's death. He warns Smith that he can tolerate one gang in Jericho, but not two, and intends to bring a company of Rangers in ten days to wipe out both sides. Smith says he intends to play the gangs against each other, destroying them both and making money in the process. Pickett agrees to his plan, but warns Smith that if he finds him there after ten days, he'll kill him as well. Lucy comes to Smith and reveals that Strozzi had her ear cut off for sleeping with him. Smith gives her some money and puts her on a bus out of Jericho. The next day, Smith relays a false rumor that Strozzi is bringing in more soldiers. Playing on Doyle's obsession with Felina, he convinces Doyle that Strozzi will try to kidnap her again to learn where Felina is being kept. Smith kills the men guarding Felina and gives her one of Doyle's cars and some money. The next day, Smith is waiting at the safehouse when Doyle arrives, and claims that he arrived too late to keep Strozzi from kidnapping Felina. Doyle's henchman Jack McCool (R. D. Call) believes Smith's story, but Hickey does not. Doyle goes berserk and declares all-out war on Strozzi and his gang. Smith's plan goes awry when Hickey ambushes him, having received word that Felina was spotted heading towards Mexico. Doyle imprisons Smith and has him tortured, demanding to know where Felina is. Despite the heavy torture inflicted on him, Smith refuses to talk. Later that night, he overpowers his guards and escapes with Monday and Sheriff Galt. As they are driving out of town, they see Hickey and his men slaughtering Strozzi's gang at a roadhouse. Strozzi and Carmonte try to surrender, but are gunned down without mercy. Smith takes refuge at a remote church where Felina went to pray. Two days later, Sheriff Galt arrives and informs Smith that Monday was caught smuggling food and water to the church and that Doyle will probably torture him to death. He then hands Smith his pistols, saying that's all the help he's willing to offer. Smith returns to town, kills McCool and the rest of Doyle's men, and rescues Monday. Doyle and Hickey are absent, having gone down to Mexico in a desperate search for Felina. Smith lures Doyle to his location, and lets Monday take revenge by shooting the gangster with his revolver. Hickey pretends to surrender and tries to kill Smith, who outdraws and shoots him dead. Smith gets into his Ford (which was repaired by the town mechanic for free) and drives on to Mexico, his original destination, leaving Monday some money and Doyle's car to return to Jericho. He reflects that he is as broke as he was when he first arrived, but consoles himself by saying that everyone in Jericho is better off now. 

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The movie begins as the two-year term expires, and all the elders of the Wo Luen Shing are in the process of electing a new chairman, with some last-minute "campaigning" from both Lok and Big D just a few days prior to the election. Lok is calm, patient and even-tempered, while Big D, who attempts to buy the election, is boisterous, impatient and quick-tempered. After bitter arguments from supporters of both candidates in the likes of Uncle Cocky and Uncle Monk, Lok is elected as the new chairman. However, Big D is dismayed by the result and proceeds to punish two men responsible for his loss by kidnapping them and rolling them down a hill in boxes, prompting ex-chairman Whistle to ask his lieutenant Four-Eye to hide the dragon head baton, which is a symbol of power for the leader. In an attempt to keep the peace and prevent infighting, the police, headed by Chief Superintendent Hui, arrest the key Triad figures, including Uncle Teng, Big D, Uncle Cocky, Uncle Monk and the newly elected chairman Lok of the Wo Luen Shing. However, during a negotiation attempt in a holding cell, Big D, in a fit of rage, threatens to break with the Triad and form his own society. The culture of the Triad emphasises brotherhood and unity; such a revolt would not be accepted by the Triad, and would lead to heavy violence. Both the heads of the Triad and the police want to avoid turf warfare. Meanwhile, a pursuit of the baton ensues in which Kun (Blacky's henchman), who is recovering the baton for Big D catches up with Big Head (Tally's henchman), who holds the baton and is recovering it for Lok. During the confrontation, Kun severely beats Big Head with a giant log in order for him to hand out the baton when Kun's boss informs him that the plan has changed and that Kun is to recover the baton for Lok. The leaders are eventually released on bail and after hours of pursuit between Kun, Jimmy, and Jet en route, Lok eventually receives the baton from Jimmy thus making his election official. Lok proposes a truce, which Big D accepts, on the terms that they will be partners and Big D will be the next chairman when Lok's term expires. Initially, this is a successful partnership; together they expand the Triad's turf. In contrast to his earlier behaviour, Big D becomes loyal to Lok, whom he now considers a good friend. In the final scene, Lok and Big D are fishing on a sunny afternoon, accompanied by Lok's young son, Denny, and Big D's wife. While momentarily alone with Lok, Big D proposes that they share the power of chairman; it is not an uncommon practice to have more than one chairman. Lok agrees to support Big D. However, seconds later Lok attacks Big D from behind, using a small boulder to repeatedly smash in his head. Denny and Big D's wife return in time to see this. Lok orders his son to wait in the car, and proceeds to finish murdering Big D. He then runs after Big D's wife, attacking her with a shovel and then crushing her throat with a heavy branch. He buries both bodies, washes his hands in the water and goes to the car, where his visibly shaken son is waiting. 

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In the year 2082, the Earth deep-space exploration vessel, Vanguard Explorer, has suffered heavy damage, due to the efforts of Captain Jacob 'Jake' Brown trying to keep his ship out of the hands of mutineers led by his second-in-command, Vance Arthur. Feigning compliance, Jake attacks Vance and knocks him senseless long enough for him to get to an escape pod and launch into space. However, the cause of the damage on board the Vanguard Explorer is unknown. The German-language VHS introduces the plot: "In year 2087. The Earth is dying. They must find a new planet." It is now six years later, in the year 2088. Command cadet Jonathan Hays, twenty-one, and his best friend Jessie 'Beanie' Bienstock, a 14-year-old computer specialist, are among the young military cadets chosen to serve as the crew of Earth*Star Voyager, the planet's newest interstellar vessel. Due to worsening ecological conditions on Earth, there is a plan in place to evacuate the planet and colonize another world. (This mission is noted on the cover of the German VHS: see image at right). Probes have been sent out six years ago via the Vanguard Explorer, and one has sent data back on Berenson's Star; she has a life-zone planet which has been named 'Demeter'. The mission of Earth*Star Voyager is to go to Demeter, perform a full planetary survey and return that information because if conditions on Demeter prove accurate (the probe's data indicates that human life could survive on Demeter), then the human race will colonize the world. The plan to colonize Demeter has already begun; ships are already being built to transport the population but will take forty years to complete construction of all the necessary vessels, and the trip to Demeter, with 'plasma-thrust' engines and the Bauman Drive (named for Professor Bauman, the creator) will take 26 years. That was the rationale of choosing the crew from the Academy—for their youth and intelligence. Jonathan, as second-in-command, will assume command if Forbes is shown to be unable to continue his duties due to age. It is also mentioned that a modified form of cryogenic suspension will be used by the crew during the voyage in order to slow the ageing process. (Beanie mentions that he'll be forty years old upon their return to Earth, and Captain Forbes also mentions that, although the process will slow their ageing, they will still age.) Among the crew members are Lani Miyori (a communications specialist) and Luz Sansone, a fellow communications tech who takes an immediate liking to Beanie. Also aboard are Dr. Sally Arthur, a 24-year-old M.D., Huxley Welles, an 18-year-old navigator, and Dr. Leland Eugene, the ship's psychiatrist. The crew arrives aboard the Earth*Star Voyager, and are met by Captain Forbes (the commanding officer), Brody (the ship's resident physical fitness instructor - crew members are required to engage in a physical fitness program), and 'Priscilla', the sentient supercomputer that is the primary logic circuit for the vessel - who has seemingly developed a crush on Huxley. It is mentioned that this was a concern by the programmers; Priscilla is designed from the brain engrams of Priscilla Bauman (the daughter of Professor Bauman), and as such, she has all of memories, thoughts, feelings and desires of the real Priscilla Bauman. This is slightly annoying to Huxley. Adm. Beasley, a war hero who fought back a criminal organization called the Outlaw Technology Zone, gave them a final pep-talk and saw them off from his flagship, the Triton Corsair. Not long after embarking on the mission, the ship has to pass through the junk belt. Immediately entering the belt, the auto-pilot is unable to travel the course plotted because the junk starts to move due to the ship's engines. After the shields and ship take some damage, Jonathan takes manual control and flies the ship through without taking further damage. While checking the repairs on an airlock, Captain Forbes finds himself trapped inside with the system set to open the airlock to space. Moments later, coming to check on the Captain, Jonathan finds him before the airlock opens. Before being blown into space, the Captain tells Jonathan to keep going and to 'complete the mission'. Jonathan orders the ship's psychiatrist to review the crew's profiles for any hint of psychopathology. Later, Lani mentions to Jonathan that she has suspicions of Dr. Leland Eugene, but Jonathan says he cannot go on a hunch alone. Following this, Lani is critically injured while in cryo-sleep by an apparent malfunction. Along the way to Demeter, they pick up the long lost astronaut Capt. Jacob 'Jake' Brown, while stopping at an abandoned station to make some repairs. Brown initially paralyzes Huxley with a weapon, but it is revealed that he did so to prevent Huxley from walking straight into an "anti- matter zone". Capt. Brown is accepted on board as an advisor to Jonathan and, finding out that the crew is only armed with hand weapons, volunteers to build a rail-gun with the help of Beinstock in an airlock. Jonathan then receives evidence of the death of Capt. Forbes and Lani's coma that points to Leland, the psychiatrist. When Jonathan confronts him, Priscilla calls Jonathan about suspicious activity in the rail-gun's airlock. Jonathan investigates and finds Brody, the fitness instructor, is sabotaging the rail-gun, a fight ensues and the fitness instructor is jettisoned out of the airlock. A transmitter is later discovered amongst his possessions, that he was apparently using to keep in contact with a blip that intermittently appeared on the Voyager's long range scans. The crew also explores a distress signal from a massive space station known as 'the 2020 World's Fair', which is inhabited by warriors and researchers of the Outlaw Technology Zone. The landing party is captured by the warriors after encountering one of Captain Brown's former crew members, Willy. They discover that the mutinous Vance has also landed here and became "Top Dog" of the warriors by employing a stunner much like the one Brown used on Huxley. A warrior, named Whistlestick, who was beaten and humiliated by Vance, explains that anyone may challenge the "Top Dog" at any time. Huxley demonstrates his skill at pickpocketing by getting the key for their cage. Brown offers to occupy their captors by challenging Vance while the rest escape. After a difficult fight, Brown (who taught Vance how to make such weapons long ago) is able to make Vance's weapon backfire and destroys it - but spares Vance's life (unaware that Sally was watching and afraid that he would be killed by Jake). In the ensuing ruckus, the crew and their two new allies escape. The next discovery, explaining how Vance and Willie got to the World's Fair Station in the first place, was finding the wreckage of the Vanguard Explorer. Capt. Brown requests permission to board it and retrieve his logs to prove that the loss of his ship was due to mutiny, and to see if there was anything left salvageable. Beinstock, the Doctor, and he find the ship to still have some power and computer function, but also find an unwelcome guest known as a 'Shell'—a cyborg. Brown is able to shock the Shell into unconsciousness, and Doctor Arthur insists they take him to the ship to help and examine him. In a cut-away scene, it is revealed that Adm. Beasley has become aware of the Shell's presence on Voyager, but is unable to do anything about it. Willie explains that the Shell is a cyborg created by the O.T.Z. and, although it is only a drone, it is probably packed with explosives. The Doctor, with the help of Beinstock, is able to disarm the explosives and treat his injuries, and is able to bring the Shell back to consciousness while also keeping him immobilized. They interrogate the Shell, and he mentions that his function is to help facilitate "Assembly". Data from the Vanguard indicates that several odd-looking ships passed by the Vanguard from the World's Fair over the last few years. Later analysis indicates the ships are modular. Later on, Dr. Arthur speaks to the Shell and discovers that he was abducted and turned into a cyborg when he was young. After making some small adjustments to him to ease his discomfort, Doctor Arthur and he form a brief emotional connection before his programming returns him to his drone- state. Later, he regains his full movement and smashes his way through the ship, damaging Capt. Brown's jury-rigged railgun weapon and one of Priscilla's processors. The Shell warns them that they must stop "Assembly" then deactivates himself rather than let his programming make him kill Dr. Arthur. In another cut-away scene, Vance finds himself in dire straits back on the World's Fair as the warriors now hunt him for his treatment of them. Admiral Beasley appears and demands an explanation from him. Their dialogue indicates that the mutiny on the Vanguard Explorer was part of some design of Beasley's and that Beasley is somehow connected, if not in control of, the O.T.Z. After Vance reveals he was defeated by the presumed-dead Capt. Brown, Beasley leaves Vance to his fate, and returns to the Corsair. This scene is left out of some versions of the show. Back on board Voyager, the crew have made repairs and discover how their spacecraft fits into a conspiracy concocted by the Outlaw Technology Zone and Admiral Beasley, the mastermind behind the entire plot (including the construction of Earth*Star Voyager, the selection of the crew, and the creation of the 'Shell'). The O.T.Z. ships, the Assembly, were stationed in a binary solar system to use the light from the stars upcoming alignment to give them sufficient power to join together and form an even more massive and heavily armed ship. A section of the completed Assembly was designed to allow Voyager to fit in near the bow. Beasley's ship fires warning shots at Voyager to keep them on course to the Assembly, and then he reveals why he had chosen the best and the brightest the world had to offer to crew Voyager. He intended Voyager not to be an exploratory vessel but a colony ship. Joining the Voyager to the O.T.Z. Assembly would give Beasley the Bowman Drive and Priscilla. This would enable him to choose whom else would get to be part of his new Utopia, while leaving the rest of humanity to rot back on Earth. However, the crew outwits Admiral Beasley and escapes (after a battle in which they use jury-rigged weapons, including a 'solar laser' (which can gather and redirect solar energies in a beam-like fashion), and the railgun built by Jake and Beanie). During the battle, Jake nearly sacrifices himself to hold together part of the electrical circuit that allows the railgun to be fired; he is saved by Sally. Aboard the Admiral's damaged vessel, the Triton Corsair, Admiral Beasley acknowledges Jonathan's skill as a commander, and promises that he will meet up with the crew of the Earth*Star Voyager again someday. There is an alternate scene of this in the 120-minute VHS version where Beasley is revealed to be some sort of robot or cyborg (or perhaps himself a Shell), while leaving out the promise dialogue. Aboard the Earth*Star Voyager, Lani is found to be recovering from her injuries; Beanie and Luz (prodded by Priscilla) become a couple; it is strongly insinuated that Jake and Sally will become a couple; and Huxley is stunned to see that Priscilla (in human form) is a very beautiful woman. Beanie also reveals to Jonathan that he has decrypted the probe data and the crew sees that Demeter is a planet with striking similarities to Earth. The last line of the miniseries goes to Jake, who says, "You know, Captain, I think we oughta go check that place out..." 

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Malone is an old man who lies naked in bed in either asylum or hospital—he is not sure which. Most of his personal effects have been taken from him, though he has retained some: his exercise book, brimless hat, and pencil. He alternates between writing on his own situation and on that of a boy named Sapo. When he reaches the point in the story where Sapo becomes a man, he changes Sapo's name to Macmann, finding Sapo a ludicrous name. Soon after, Malone admits to having killed six men, but seems to think it's not a big deal, particularly the last: a total stranger whom he cut across the neck with a razor. Eventually, Macmann falls over in mud and is taken to an institution called St. John's of God. There he is provided with an attendant nurse: an elderly, thick-lipped woman named Moll, with crosses of bone on either ear representing the two thieves crucified with Jesus on Good Friday, and a crucifix carved on her tooth representing Jesus. The two eventually begin a stumbling sexual affair, but after a while she does not return, and he learns that she has died. The new nurse is a man named Lemuel, and there is an animosity between the two. Macmann (and sometimes Malone drifts into the first-person) has an issue with a stick that he uses to reach things, then Lemuel takes it away. At the end of the novel, Lemuel is assigned to take his group of five inmates on a trip to a nearby island on the charitable dime of a Lady Pedal. His five inmates are Macmann and four others. They are described by Malone thus: a young man, the Saxon ("though he was far from being any such thing"), a small and thin man with an umbrella, and a "misshapen giant, bearded." Lemuel requests "excursion soup" (the regularly served broth but with a piece of fat bacon to support the constitution) from the chef at the institution, though after receiving the soup he sucks each piece of bacon of its juice and fat before depositing it back into the soup. Lemuel takes his group onto the terrace where they are greeted by a waggonette driven by a coachman and Lady Pedal, along with two colossi in sailor suits named Ernest and Maurice. They leave the grounds of St. John's and take a boat to the island to picnic and see Druid remains. Lady Pedal tells Maurice to stay by the dinghy while she and Ernest disembark the boat to look for a picnicking site. The bearded giant refuses to leave the boat, leaving no room for the Saxon to get off in turn. When Lady Pedal and Ernest are out of sight, Lemuel kills Maurice from behind with a hatchet. Ernest comes back for them and Lemuel kills him, too, to the delight of the Saxon. When Lady Pedal sees this, she faints, falls, and breaks a bone in the process. Malone as narrator is not sure which bone, though he ventures Lady Pedal broke her hip. Lemuel makes the others get back in the boat. It is now night and the six float far out into the bay. The novel closes with an image of Lemuel holding his bloodied hatchet up. Malone writes that Lemuel will not hit anyone with it or anything else anymore, while the final sentence breaks into semantically open-ended fragments: The majority of the book's text, however, is observational and deals with the minutiae of Malone's existence in his cell, such as dropping his pencil or his dwindling amount of writing lead. Thoughts of riding down the stairs in his bed, philosophical observations, and conjectures constitute large blocks of text and are written as tangential to the story that Malone is set on telling. Several times he refers to a list of previous Beckett protagonists: Murphy, Mercier and Camier, Molloy, and Moran. 

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As the Federation starship Enterprise responds to a distress call from a Romulan ship which has suffered an on-board explosion, Ensign Ro and Lieutenant Commander La Forge are seemingly lost in a beam-in from the Romulan ship to the Enterprise. Ro and La Forge find themselves on the Enterprise, unable to interact with the ship or the crew, but able to interact with each other. While La Forge believes they are still alive, Ro sees Dr. Crusher make out their death certificates and believes they are dead; she tries to make peace with her former crewmates as they prepare a funeral service. Lt. Commander Data traces the cause of the transportation accident to the Romulan ship. Ro and La Forge go along with Data and Lt. Worf as they fly a shuttlecraft to the Romulan ship. Aboard, La Forge discovers a phase inverter device, and theorizes that he and Ro are out of phase, and thus undetectable. He also overhears the Romulan crew discussing a plan to transmit a signal to the Enterprise that will cause the warp core to explode the next time the ship enters warp. The two return with Data and Worf to the Enterprise to try to warn the crew, unaware that a Romulan, also out-of-phase, is following them. On board the Enterprise, La Forge watches Data as he analyzes the data from the Romulan ship, and discovers high levels of chronoton emissions, part of the failing of the transporter system. La Forge recognizes that by passing through objects on the ship, he can create those emissions, and tries to encourage Data to study them more, but fails. Ro encounters the Romulan, armed with a disruptor, and leads him on a chase through the walls of the crew quarters, releasing more chronoton radiation that catches Data's interest. When Data enters the room where the Romulan has cornered Ro, La Forge rushes the Romulan, causing him to fly through the external hull of the ship into space. La Forge recovers the disruptor. Although Captain Picard orders the ship into warp after their investigation is complete, Data cautions him to not do so until he completes a sweep of the ship with "anyon" particles to remove the chronoton radiation. Knowing that time is short before the ship will enter warp, Ro and La Forge head to their funeral--which has become more of a festive wake and celebration--and attempt to phase through objects. They fire the Romulan's disruptor to attract the attention of the attendees. When this does not work, Ro sets the disruptor to overload, causing a large burst of chronoton radiation. Data instructs the computer to sweep Ten Forward with anyon particles, causing Ro and La Forge to temporarily become visible in front of Data and Picard. Data deduces the fate of the crew members, and orders another massive flood of anyon particles, which brings Ro and La Forge back into phase. La Forge is able to warn Engineering about the warp core in time. He and Ro then join their "funeral" and celebrate with the rest of the crew with a much more joyous tone to the occasion. 

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While commanding the night shift aboard the Enterprise, Data (Brent Spiner) composes a letter to Commander Bruce MaddoxMaddox is a cyberneticist at the Daystrom Institute who was first introduced in the second season episode "The Measure of a Man" detailing a normal day in his life with a focus on friendship. Data mentions his involvement in the impending wedding of Transporter Chief Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney) and civilian botanist Keiko Ishikawa (Rosalind Chao) where he had been asked to give the bride away. However, when visiting with Keiko she announces that she has decided to call it off, telling Data in frustration that it will make her happier. Data then delivers this news to Chief O'Brien, believing that since O'Brien wants to make Keiko happy, he will be pleased, which he is not. Geordi (LeVar Burton) assures Data that the wedding will proceed as planned. Data discusses the Enterprise mission involving a Vulcan ambassador, T'Pel (Sierra Pecheur), who has arranged a secret meeting with a Romulan ship. Data is assigned as her escort while she is on board. Data then asks Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) to teach him how to dance, having discovered from her service record that she won dance competitions. She agrees to instruct him on the condition that he not share this information with the rest of the crew, for fear of again being called 'The Dancing Doctor'. Chief O'Brien asks Data to persuade Keiko to go through with the wedding. He fails yet again, and talks to Counselor Troi (Marina Sirtis) to try to understand Keiko's decision. T'Pel asks Data about the Enterprise defense capabilities, which Data finds suspicious, but after Data informs her that he has the same safeguards as the ship's computer regarding reporting such requests to Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart), she drops the question, stating that she was interested only in testing Data's safeguards. Because Vulcans do not lie, Data decides not to pursue the issue. In the holodeck, Data almost instantly learns how to tap dance from Dr. Crusher before telling her that he is ready to dance at the wedding. Telling him that tap dancing is inappropriate for social dancing she attempts to instruct him in ballroom dancing, but Data finds it much more difficult, as he cannot watch Dr. Crusher's feet. Dr. Crusher is then called away to sickbay to deliver a baby, and Data is left alone with a holographic partner. The Enterprise rendezvous with a Romulan warbird and, despite Picard's unease about the situation, T'Pel transports aboard. However, something interrupts the transporter signal and the ambassador is killed. Finding no flaw in the transporter system, Data uses the principles of Sherlock Holmes to come to the conclusion that T'Pel was not really killed: the Romulans beamed her off the ship themselves and left behind genetic material designed to fool the crew into thinking that she died in a transporter accident. Picard speeds back to intercept the Romulans in the middle of the neutral zone. He confronts the Romulan Admiral Mendak (Alan Scarfe) and learns that T'Pel is actually a Romulan spy. Before shots are fired, another Romulan warbird appears next to the first one and three more enter the sector, minutes away. Picard is forced to retreat into Federation space. Data approaches Keiko to make amends. She informs him that she is not angry at him, and that the wedding will proceed as planned. Miles and Keiko are married by Captain Picard. Data notes that although there are many emotions that he does not understand and cannot share, he does understand the emotion of love and belonging. Later, in Sickbay, the captain and Data visit the newest member of the Enterprise crew—a baby born while the Enterprise was in mortal peril. 

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The Old West town of Calendar, Colorado, springs up almost overnight when clumsy, hotheaded Prudy Perkins (Hackett) notices gold in a freshly dug grave during a funeral. Her father Olly (Morgan) becomes mayor of the new settlement. Other members of the town council (Henry Jones, Walter Burke) and he bemoan the town's descent into chaos and corruption, and are tired of the tolls exacted on their gold shipments by the Danbys, a family of near-outlaws who control the only shipping route out of town. The town has no sheriff, as most people are too busy prospecting, and the few who have taken the job have been run out of town or killed. Jason McCullough (Garner), a confident and exceptionally skilled gunfighter who says he is only passing through town on his way to Australia, sees Joe Danby (Dern) gun down a man in the town's saloon. Needing money after encountering the town's ruinous rate of inflation, McCullough takes the job of sheriff, impressing the mayor and council with his uncanny marksmanship. He breaks up a street brawl, and later at the Perkins house meets Prudy, despite her attempts to avoid him due to her embarrassing circumstances. McCullough arrests Joe and tosses him in the town's unfinished jail, which lacks bars for the cell doors and windows, keeping the dimwitted Joe in his cell through tricks and psychology. McCullough acquires a reluctant deputy in scruffy Jake (Elam), previously known as the "town character". Joe's arrest infuriates his father, Pa Danby (Brennan), who is not accustomed to his family being challenged. Pa Danby mounts various attempts to get Joe out of jail, and when those fail, sends in a string of hired guns, whom McCullough defeats with ease. Meanwhile, McCullough enlists Jake's help in an unsuccessful attempt to prospect for gold, and spars romantically with Prudy. After numerous failures to reassert himself over McCullough and the town, Pa Danby enlists a host of his relatives to launch an all-out assault. When the news reaches McCullough, he initially tells Prudy he has decided to simply leave town and resume his trip to Australia, but when she expresses her sincere approval of this sensible idea, he declares it to be cowardly and announces he is staying, instead. The rest of the townsfolk officially vote to stay out of the conflict, and not help in any way. Thus, the Danby clan rides in faced only by McCullough, Jake, and Prudy. After a lengthy but unproductive gunfight, McCullough bluffs his way to victory using Joe as a hostage and the old cannon mounted in the center of town. As all the Danbys are marched off to jail, the supposedly unloaded cannon fires, smashing Madame Orr's, the town brothel, and scattering the resident prostitutes and the four civic leaders who were inside. Sheriff McCullough and Prudy get engaged. In a closing monologue, Jake breaks the film's fourth wall and directly informs the audience that they get married and McCullough goes on to become governor of the state of Colorado, never making it to Australia (although he reads about it a lot), while Jake becomes sheriff and "one of the most beloved characters in Western folklore". 

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The story unfolds during the 1950s in Khandesh (a region in Central India), and in Pune. Using the autobiographical form, Kosala narrates the life-story of Pandurang Sangvikar, a young man of 25, in six sections. Pandurang is the son of a well-to-do farmer from Sangvi, a village in Khandesh. His family includes his parents, his grandmother, and his four sisters. Pandurang's relationship with his father is a difficult one, and they have been estranged since Pandurang was a boy. His father, who typifies the patriarchal family head, beats his son in childhood for wandering around in the company of his friends. He does not allow the young boy to learn to play the flute, or to perform in his school's plays. Pandurang considers his father excessively money-minded, materialistic, selfish, unscrupulous, and dictatorial. In sharp contrast to his relationship with his father, Pandurang loves his mother and his sisters dearly. After passing his local school's matriculation examination, Pandurang moves to Pune to attend college. While studying, Pandurang lives in a hostel. He decides to make the most of college life, and becomes the secretary of the college debating society, prefect of the hostel, and directs a play at the college Annual Day function. Out of kindness, he gives responsibility for the management of the hostel mess to one of his poor friends. But, although Pandurang tries to help everyone around him, he ultimately discovers that his friends are using him. Finally, when he fails his exams badly and his financial position deteriorates, his father becomes angered by Pandurang's lifestyle. Pandurang learns a lesson: that good deeds do not count for much in life. In his second year of college, Pandurang is an entirely new man, carefree and adventurous. Even his father now hesitates to ask him to mend his ways. He is shaken by the untimely death of his younger sister, Mani, but otherwise has no care for anything. In consequence, he fails his exam. After unsuccessful attempts to find work in the city, ultimately Pandurang returns to his village, his mind "existentially vacant". He is now one of many unemployed youngsters of the village. As Pandurang tries to understand their views on life, their sorrows and their joys, the true meaning of life begins to dawn. 

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In a prologue, the Old Man of Wandering Mountain reads from a large book, begins to record a prophecy of a day when "The Nasty" will arrive in Fantasia, and describes the savior of "Extraordinary Courage". Bastian Balthazar Bux has grown older, and his father Barney has married a woman named Jane, and moved into her house in a new neighborhood. Jane's daughter Nicole is displeased at having a new family. Bastian has also started high school, where he has become a victim of the Nasties, a quintet of bullies led by Slip. Bastian arranges for them to be expelled with the help of the janitor after the Nasties trap him in the boiler room. He later flees to the library, where he is surprised to find Carl Conrad Coreander and the Neverending Story. The Nasties locate him, but he uses the book to escape to Fantasia, where he is reunited with Falkor, Engywook and Urgl. On Earth, the Nasties find the Neverending Story and use it to bombard Fantasia with fireballs and a storm. With wooden Bark Troll, Bastian and his friends head for the Wandering Mountains to speak with the Childlike Empress, who asks Bastian to find the Neverending Story using the Auryn. Falkor, Barky, the gnomes, and Rockbiter's son, Junior, help him, but a "wish overload" scatters them all across Earth, where Barky ends up in a conifer forest, Falkor saves Junior from falling to his death near Mount Rushmore, and the gnomes arrive in Nome, Alaska. Bastian locates Falkor and Junior, and Falkor flies off to find the others while Junior stays at Bastian's house. Rockbiter sadly informs his wife that Junior is gone, and the Nasties provoke them to quarrel. Nicole takes the Auryn from Bastian's room, discovers its wishing abilities, and takes it on a shopping trip to the local mall. Bark Troll arrives at Bastian's house disguised as a garden plant, while the Gnomes are mailed to him in a box. The reunited group go in search of Nicole, but the Nasties find the Auryn first, whereupon giant crustacean creatures appear in Fantasia to kill the Empress and her advisors. Everyone in the mall turns evil, including Mr. Coreander and Bastian and Nicole’s parents. Bastian is struck by lightning, and begins to succumb to the wills of the Nasties, but Nicole saves him, and Bastian recovers the Auryn and the book in a fight. The Fantasians return to Fantasia, which is restored to its former magnificence. Bastian and Nicole manage to keep their parents from divorcing, and Junior is reunited with his parents. Nicole and Bastian return to school the next day and find that Bastian has changed Slip and the Nasties into friendly classmates, and Bastian returns the Neverending Story to Mr. Coreander. 

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Tyrell Hawthorne was a naval intelligence officer - one of the best - until the rain-swept night in Amsterdam when his wife was murdered, an innocent victim. Now Hawthorne has been called out of retirement for one last assignment. For he is the only man alive who can track down the world's most dangerous terrorist. Amaya Bajaratt is beautiful, elusive, deadly - and she has set in motion a chilling conspiracy that a desperate government cannot stop. With the life of the president hanging in the balance, Hawthorne must follow Amaya's serpentine trail to uncover the sinister network that exists to help this consummate killer. And Hawthorne must discover the shattering truth behind the Scorpio Illusion. 

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The story is about Vishal (Ajay Devgn) who is married to Swati (Urmila Matondkar). The couple rents a high rise apartment at a ridiculously low price. The caretaker of the apartment, Mr. Thakkar (Amar Talwar) explains to Vishal that a widow named Manjeet Khosla (Barkha Madan), the previous resident, committed suicide after killing her own son. Vishal hides this fact from Swati, as she will object to buying such a residence. But the caretaker accidentally slips in the secret. Swati is extremely livid at Vishal, although he disbelieves the notions of ghosts and bad luck. Then, Swati starts behaving very strangely. Vishal consults Dr. Rajan (Victor Banerjee). But soon enough, Vishal witnesses Swati brutally murdering the watchman of the apartment which no human could have done, and his skepticism is rudely challenged. Inspector Liyaqat Qureshi (Nana Patekar), who reaches the apartment to investigate the death, becomes suspicious of the duo and their strange behavior. He follows Vishal and Dr. Rajan. Vishal's maid witnesses Swati shouting and throwing Vishal away. She helps him tie her. She tells him that Swati was shouting just like Manjeet and tells him that an exorcist can help her but not doctors. Finally, Vishal's maid calls an exorcist named Sarita (Rekha). Sarita sees the ghosts of Manjeet and her son. She advises Vishal to meet Manjeet's mother (Tanuja), since she can placate her daughter's spirit. Vishal complies and meets Manjeet's mother. He learns from Manjeet's mother that Manjeet was not the type of woman who would commit suicide nor murder her own son. He explains the situation to her and asks her help. She comes with him and somehow placates Manjeet's spirit. They come to know that Mr. Thakkar's son, Sanjay (Fardeen Khan) tried to molest Manjeet and when she resisted, she accidentally fell off the balcony and died. Hence, Sarita advises Vishal to call him. Vishal makes an unknown call to Sanjay and tells him that his father is sick. When Sanjay arrives, Vishal cleverly tells Mr. Thakkar and Sanjay to help him take Swati to the hospital. It is then revealed that many years ago, Sanjay came to visit his father and lusted for Manjeet, after he saw her in the apartment. He broke into her house, and attempted to profess his lust, but when she rejected him, he pushed her and she accidentally fell off the balcony and died. Manjeet's young son witnessed the murder, upon which Sanjay hired the watchman to kill him. Manjeet, who has still possessed Swati's body, sees Sanjay and chases him. Qureshi tries to stop her, having no idea of the real story. Swati tries to kill Sanjay by strangulating him. But, Sarita asks Manjeet to leave him as Swati would be blamed later on. Sanjay escapes, only to find himself surrounded by Vishal, Sarita, Manjeet and Qureshi who now know the truth. A terrified Sanjay confesses to the crimes, upon which Manjeet's mother urges her to stop. Sanjay is arrested by Inspector Qureshi, and thrown into jail. Manjeet leaves Swati's body, and Vishal and Swati live a good life in the apartment. Meanwhile, in the lockup, Qureshi tells Sanjay that death sentences are light penalties for a criminal like him. He wishes that Sanjay gets a bigger punishment. After Qureshi leaves the darkened cell, Sanjay finds himself face to face with Manjeet. He starts begging for mercy, but his voice soon fades out as Manjeet draws closer; it is implied that she kills Sanjay. 

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The film follows the lives of four childhood friends: Joon-seok, the leader of the group whose father is a powerful mob boss; Dong-su, whose father is an undertaker; class clown Jung- ho; and Sang-taek, who was an exemplary student. As children, they play together and sell sexually explicit pictures. In high school, they become smitten with the lead singer of a girl band their age. Joon-seok invites the band to a party at his house, where Sang-taek receives his first kiss from the lead singer, Jin-sook. In school, Joon-seok and Dong-su get in trouble after a confrontation with a teacher; they apologize and only receive a light suspension. During an outing to the movies, Sang-taek catches the eye of a school kid he had picked a fight with earlier. Joon-seok and Dong-su fend off a whole rival school while Jung-ho protects Sang-taek. Dong-su smashes the school's glass cases with its awards and trophies and drops out of school. After graduation, Sang-taek and Jung-ho go to college but the others do not. A few years later, Sang-taek and Jung-ho return to find Joon-seok married to Jin-sook. He is suffering withdrawal symptoms and is abusive towards his wife as a result of being addicted to philopon. Later, he recovers from his addiction, divorces his wife, and mourns his father's death. He assumes his father's role as a crime lord, working under Hyung-doo. Dong-su becomes a mobster with a rival organization, led by Sang-gon. Joon-seok, Sang-taek, and Jung-ho remain close, drinking, singing karaoke, and eating galbi together. After Dong-su causes Joon-seok's boss to be imprisoned, a rogue assassination attempt, headed by Doruko, is led against Dong-su without Joon-seok's knowledge. The attack fails, and in retaliation, Dong-su mounts an attack on Joon-seok's fishing facilities, during which many of Joon-seok's men, including Doruko, are killed. Joon-seok talks to Dong-su and asks if he would like to accompany him to see Sang-taek off to America. Dong-su says no. He asks Dong-su to leave for Hawaii until the situation returns to normal, but Dong-su refuses, telling Joon-seok that he should be the one to go. After Joon-seok leaves their meeting, Dong-su reflects and asks one of his men to take him to the airport. However, outside his car, he is stabbed to death. A few years later, Sang-taek returns to South Korea upon finishing his study abroad. Jung-ho explains that Joon-seok's gang sent him into hiding abroad. After two years, he was unable to stand the hiding any longer. He was caught in a foreign bar, found with severe self-inflicted wounds. Joon-seok stood trial for Dong-su's murder and pleaded guilty to ordering Dong-su's death. Sang-taek visits Joon-seok in prison, and the two talk like old friends. Sang- taek asks why he pleaded guilty in court. Joon-seok simply replies, "Embarrassment. Me and Dong-su are mobsters. Mobsters shouldn't be embarrassed." Sang-taek and Joon-seok part ways, with Sang-taek promising to visit every month. The film ends with Joon-seok walking to his fate in prison life, and Sang-taek reflecting on the past when they were all children, when they were all good friends. 

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In the "very early 1980s," Alice Kinnon and Charlotte Pingress, recent Hampshire College graduates, work as poorly-paid readers for a New York City publisher. After work one night, they enter an exclusive disco nightclub where Alice hopes to socialize with Jimmy Steinway, who uses the club to entertain his advertising clients. Barred from bringing clients, Jimmy is eventually kicked out by his friend Des McGrath, a manager at the club whose job is in jeopardy for allowing in Jimmy and his clients. After Jimmy leaves, Alice takes Charlotte's advice to go home with her second choice, Tom Platt. At work the following morning, Charlotte and Alice talk with other editors about how to fast-track their careers. Unable to afford rent on their own, they move in together with a third girl, Holly; despite Alice's reluctance, they settle on a railroad apartment. Returning to the club, Alice is upset to learn Charlotte has designs on Jimmy, and that Tom was separated from a long-term girlfriend when he slept with Alice, but their one-night stand convinced him to return to her. Des begins to pursue Alice. At work, Alice pursues the publication of a book on Buddhism, written by the Dalai Lama's brother, that Charlotte had previously recommended rejecting, and gains the editors' respect. Though it is discovered that the author is not the Dalai Lama's brother, Alice maintains the book is one of the best she has ever read. Charlotte, now dating Jimmy, is openly insecure about Jimmy and Alice's apparent friendliness. Charlotte loudly announces to various friends at the club that Alice has gonorrhea, deducing it when Alice refuses to drink. Charlotte later apologizes, but tells Alice it will make men view her as more accessible. Des does become more interested in being with Alice, and they start dating casually. Alice has dinner with Tom and confronts him about giving her gonorrhea, which he initially denies, but Alice reveals he was her first sexual partner. He admits he also gave her herpes. Josh Neff, a district attorney and friend of Jimmy's who frequently attends the club, asks Alice to lunch to pitch a book. He confesses he is actually interested in Alice, and they go on a real date, where he tells her he is on medication for manic depression. Returning home, Alice discovers Charlotte being taken away in an ambulance after a miscarriage, and being told by Jimmy that he is moving to Barcelona. At the hospital, Charlotte asks Alice if Jimmy ever expressed interest in being with her; when Alice admits that he did, Charlotte reacts with tears and tells her she will be moving out. The nightclub is raided by the police for tax fraud, and Des tries to run away despite Josh's promise to protect him, believing Josh's interest in Alice will cause him to act unfairly. They later discover that disco records were no longer selling and attendance was already down. Alice and Charlotte learn their employer has merged with a larger publishing house and layoffs are to be expected. Some time later, Charlotte, Josh, and Des are seen leaving the unemployment office. Josh announces he is going to Lutèce for lunch, treated by Alice, who is celebrating her promotion – her book was published after she switched it from non-fiction to self-help). Des and Charlotte discuss how their big personalities are too much for normal personalities like Alice, Josh, and Jimmy. Des says that pairing off monogamously detracts from their glamorous lifestyle, and Charlotte agrees. Taking the subway to Lutèce, Alice and Josh discuss their future prospects. As the end credits begin, they break character to dance to "Love Train", joined by the entire subway station when they arrive at their destination. 

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Uzuki Nireno, a shy girl from the countryside of northern Hokkaidō, leaves her family and gets on a train bound for Tokyo so she can attend the university of her choice; to be near the boy she fell in love with, who moved to Tokyo from her hometown. 

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Following the accidental death of his mother Renee, 13-year-old Jeff Matthews and his veterinarian father, Chase, move to Ludlow, Maine, his mother's hometown. He's introduced to the belligerent town sheriff, Gus Gilbert, and his stepson, Drew, whom Gus abuses relentlessly. Jeff also draws the ire of local bully Clyde Parker, who tells him about the story of the Creed family and the legend of the Miꞌkmaq burial ground. One night, Gus shoots and kills Drew's beloved dog Zowie after the dog disturbs him during sex. Drew asks Jeff to help him bury the dog in the Miꞌkmaq burial ground to see if the rumors are true that it can resurrect the dead. Zowie does indeed return from the dead but is uncharacteristically fierce. Chase treats Zowie for his gunshot wound, which refuses to heal; even more bizarre is the fact that Zowie has no heartbeat. Chase sends a sample of Zowie's blood to a lab. It turns out that Zowie's cells have completely deteriorated and are no different from those of a dead canine. Jeff and Drew go to the pet cemetery on Halloween for a night of horror stories with local boys. When Gus finds out that Drew's mother allowed him to go despite being grounded, he rushes to the cemetery and breaks up the party. He attacks his stepson, but just as he is about to hit him with a grave marker, Zowie appears. The dog fatally mauls Gus, whom the boys subsequently bury at the Indian cemetery. Gus returns to life; he now moves stiffly and rarely speaks, but treats Drew better. Over time, Gus becomes increasingly crude and sadistic, sexually assaulting Drew's mother and brutally skinning the pet rabbits for supper. Zowie breaks out of the veterinary clinic and kills three cats before entering Chase's home and attacking him. A day later, Jeff encounters Clyde, who is about to sever Jeff's nose using the wheel spokes of his own bicycle when Gus shows up. He sends Jeff home, then murders Clyde as Drew looks on. Gus then pursues Drew to their house, where the boy is trapped with the savage Zowie. He escapes through a window just as his mother arrives home in her car, and the two take off. Gus pursues them at high speed in his police car, eventually killing them both by ramming their car into an oncoming potato truck. Gus then returns to Clyde's body and puts it in a body bag, intending to take it to the burial ground as well. After Drew's funeral, Jeff decides to reanimate his mother by using the Indian burial ground's power. Gus exhumes her corpse and brings it to Jeff at the burial ground. When Chase hears that his wife's grave has been robbed, he rushes to the Gilbert house. There, he is attacked by Zowie and Gus, and he shoots and kills them both. Upon coming back to life, Renee stabs and kills Marjorie Hargrove, the Matthews' housekeeper. Jeff confronts his undead mother in the attic, and they embrace. Chase arrives home and urges Jeff to get away from Renee, who says she wants to spend quality time with her husband. An undead Clyde arrives and, after knocking Chase out, tries to kill Jeff — first with an axe and then with an ice skate. Renee locks Chase and both boys in the attic, which she then sets on fire. Jeff kills Clyde with a severed livewire and then breaks down the attic door to escape. Not letting both Jeff and Chase leave, Renee says that she and the three want to work things out. Renee wants Jeff to stay and join her in death, saying she loves him. But Jeff drags his father out of the house as Renee is destroyed by the flames while shrieking "Dead is better!" In the final scene, a recovering Chase locks up his veterinary clinic before he and his son leave Ludlow behind. 

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Jennifer Baylor is a poor young woman from West Virginia who possesses a supernatural power over snakes, an ability to control them and communicate with them. She and her father, Luke, left their home in disgrace, because when Jennifer was 7, some snakes she had been handling killed the town preacher's son. She refused to handle snakes ever again, though Luke now runs a pet store in California and often encourages her to use her power again. Luke is mentally disabled and obsessed with the Bible, unable to make meals for himself without burning them, and relies on Jennifer to care for him. Jennifer studies on a scholarship at the elite Green View School, where she is an outcast among her wealthy peers, all of whom are from prominent families, and who are largely protected by the school's headmistress, the imperious, pill- addicted Mrs. Calley. Her only real friends are the school's lunch lady, Martha, with whom Jennifer works to help supplement her tuition, and teacher Jeff Reed, whom is the only teacher who sees the corruption in the school for what it truly is. Jennifer becomes an unwitting target for Sandra Tremayne, an entitled bully, when Jennifer exposes that Sandra stole the answers to an exam. Sandra evades legitimate consequences when her father, a U.S. senator, makes a large donation to the school, but Jennifer no less becomes subject to numerous pranks and harassment from Sandra and her friends. Sandra hopes her torment and gaslighting will drive Jennifer to leave the school. Soon, Jane, an overweight student on the fringe of Sandra's social group, protests Sandra's excessive cruelty toward Jennifer, risking her alliance with Sandra. One afternoon, after Jennifer finishes her job in the cafeteria, she takes a shower in the empty gymnasium locker room. Upon exiting the shower, she finds that Sandra and her friends have stolen her clothing and belongings and hung them on pipes in the pool room. When Jennifer climbs a ladder to retrieve them, Sandra's boyfriend, Dayton, startles her by taking photographs with a flashbulb camera, causing her to fall naked into the pool. Dayton subsequently corners Jane in an elevator, and, aware of the fact that Jane is attracted to him, rapes her. Some time later, Jennifer is horrified to find that Sandra has purchased a beloved kitten from Jennifer's father's pet store, killed it, and hung it inside Jennifer's locker. That night, Jennifer finally decides to again exercise her power over snakes, invoking them in the pet store. A notable shift in her personality follows, and she cooly confronts Jane about Sandra murdering the kitten. Jane agrees to an alliance with Jennifer, seeking retaliation against Dayton. As a culmination to their torment of Jennifer, Sandra and her friends stage a kidnapping in which they abduct Jennifer from her home in the middle of the night. A reluctant Jane becomes embroiled in the plan, and watches as Dayton places Jennifer, bound and gagged, in the trunk of Sandra's car. With Dayton and her other friends following behind, Sandra drives into an empty parking garage. On the roof, they remove Jennifer from the trunk and torment her by driving their cars in circles around her. Unbeknownst to them, Jennifer invokes a multitude of snakes ranging in various sizes that descend on the scene, attacking all of her tormentors by strangling and biting them. Dayton is thrown off the parking garage to his death, while Sandra attempts to flee in her car, but Jennifer manifests a giant snake that causes her to crash the vehicle and die in a fire. Later in her office, Mrs. Calley threatens and blames Jennifer for the mysterious event, which has left six Green View students hospitalized, but there is no evidence proving Jennifer's guilt, and the witnesses have no memory of what occurred. After dismissing Jennifer, Mrs. Calley is attacked and killed by a snake. Jennifer and Jane hear her screams as they exit the school, and both respond with laughter. 

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NYPD officer Charlie Lang (Nicolas Cage) is a kind and generous man who loves his job in Queens, New York, where he lives. His wife, Muriel (Rosie Perez), works at a hair salon and, unlike him, is greedy, materialistic, and selfish, constantly complaining about their situation in life. Waitress Yvonne Biasi (Bridget Fonda) is bankrupt because her husband, Eddie (Stanley Tucci), whom she could not yet afford to divorce, emptied their joint checking account without her permission, while also leaving her with over $12,000 in credit card debt. Charlie meets her when she waits on him at the diner where she works. Since he doesn't have enough money to pay the tip, he promises to give her either double the tip or half of his prospective lottery winnings the next day using a ticket which has numbers he regularly plays. He wins $4 million ($ million today) in the lottery the next day and keeps his promise, despite Muriel's protests. He and Yvonne become stars almost immediately. She buys the diner and sets up a table with his name at which people who can't afford a meal can eat for free. In another development, he becomes a hero for foiling an attempted robbery at a grocery store but gets wounded in the process, forcing him to take a leave of absence from the police force. Meanwhile, Muriel goes on a shopping spree, and also contracts for disruptive renovations to their apartment without consulting him. At a gathering on a chartered boat for the lottery winners and other members of high society, Muriel meets the newly rich Jack Gross (Seymour Cassel). She flirts with him, listens to his advice on financial investments, and develops a strong liking for him, which is mutual. Meanwhile, Charlie and Yvonne, accidentally left behind on the pier, spend a lot of time together, on one occasion paying for the train journeys of subway passengers, and on another treating the neighborhood children to a day out at Yankee Stadium, about which the media report. Muriel gets fed up with his constant donations and overall simplicity and throws him out of their apartment, asking for a divorce. That same evening, Yvonne leaves her apartment after Eddie shows up and threatens to stay until he gets $50,000 from her. Quite innocently, she and Charlie run into each other at the Plaza Hotel and, unintentionally, end up spending the night together. During divorce proceedings between Muriel and Charlie, she demands all the money that he won for herself. He doesn't mind giving his share of it but she also wants the amount he gave Yvonne, and his steadfast unwillingness to do so causes her to take the case to court. Muriel lies in court about the numbers Charlie played to win the ticket, but doesn't get caught. The jury believing her narrative decides in her favor. Yvonne, feeling guilty at costing him all his money, runs out in tears and tries to keep away from him. But he, by now hopelessly in love with her, finds her at the diner and tells her that the money means nothing to him, and they declare their love for each other. While ruminating about their future at the diner and considering a possible move to Buffalo, they graciously provide a hungry and poor customer with some soup, which he eats at the special table. He is none other than disguised reporter Angel Dupree (Isaac Hayes), who takes photos of them and in the next day's newspapers publicly eulogises their willingness to feed a hungry and poor man even in their darkest hour. Just as they are moving out of town, the citizens of New York City, touched by their generosity, send them thousands of letters with tips totaling over $600,000 ($ today), enough to help pay their debts. After Muriel gets remarried to her new husband, Jack Gross, he flees the country with all the money from their checking account, revealing himself to be a con man. She then has no option but to move in with her mother in the Bronx and go back to her old manicure job. Eddie, now divorced from Yvonne, can only get a job as a taxi driver. Charlie happily returns to the NYC police force and Yvonne reclaims the diner. At the film's end, they get married and begin their honeymoon by taking off from Central Park in a hot air balloon that bears the New York Post headline "Cop Weds Waitress", just before the closing credits roll. 

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The story revolved around the second coming of Jesus Christ as a superhero who looked like popular British television personality Jonathan Ross. This superhero, called The Saviour, has set out to change the world for the better. However The Saviour is the antichrist and plans to take over the world with the aid of a satanic cult devoted to him. The only thing which could stop him is the presence of the real Son of God and much of the story involves The Saviour's attempts to track his foe down. Eventually it is discovered that the foe is an angel and not the real Son of God. The Saviour kills him thinking he has won, but there is another super powered being on Earth unknown to The Saviour. 

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The story of Siren is told through the alternating perspectives of ten survivors of a supernatural disaster in the (fictional) rural Japanese town of Hanuda (Hanyūda in the Japanese version) in the year 2003 (Shōwa year 78). These events are presented outside of chronological order and deal primarily with the efforts of the viewpoint characters to both escape the town and find answers to what has happened in the three days immediately following the disaster. Initially presented as being merely an earthquake the disaster is rapidly shown to be far more bizarre and wide ranging. The majority of the population has become infected with an unknown affliction that appears to severely damage cognitive function, causing them to bleed from the eyes, become violently hostile on sight towards anyone not also infected and seemingly immortal, able to recover and heal from even the most grievous of injuries in a short time. All natural water sources and rainfall in the town have been replaced with a strange liquid (referred to as "Red water") and the town, previously located in a mountainous region deep inland, has become an island surrounded on all sides by an ocean of the red water with no other land in sight. Furthermore, multiple sections of the town appear to have been replaced with past versions of themselves with buildings destroyed by landslides 27 years prior, although derelict as if abandoned for decades, suddenly reappearing or replacing their more modern counterparts. It is revealed over the course of the game that Hanuda, which is a strongly isolationist community due to historical religious persecution, follows a unique syncretic faith known as the "Mana Religion" that incorporates many Christian and Shinto traditions. The senior figures of this faith, in particular the nun Hisako Yao, had attempted to call forth and appease their god through ritual human sacrifice of a girl named Miyako Kajiro who they considered holy for her psychic abilities. When Kyoya Suda, an outsider to the town who had arrived to investigate online ghost stories, accidentally stumbles on the ceremony Miyako, unwilling to be killed, uses the momentary distraction he provides to flee the scene and causes the ritual to fail. It is this failure that creates the disaster, pulling the entire town into another world where space and time are severely distorted. The eponymous 'Siren' of the title, heard regularly all across the town throughout the game's events, is the god's call, compelling Hanuda's residents to infect and immerse themselves in the ocean of red water, thus creating an army of subordinates called . The shibito then go about building a nest to house the god's corporeal form once it is summoned, as well as killing and converting any remaining humans left in Hanuda. Despite Kyoya being able to slay the alien god at the end of the three days the story concludes with only one of the ten viewpoint characters, elementary school student Harumi Yomoda, escaping from Hanuda alive and returning to the real world as she is the only remaining human in the town not infected in some way by the red water. 

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The story revolves around Devon Miles, a teen who has just graduated from high school in New York City. Upon graduating, Devon heads to Atlanta, Georgia to attend Atlanta A&T; University, a historically black college that takes enormous pride in its marching band. En route to A&T;, Devon befriends fellow band mates Charles, Jayson, and Ernest. Devon was personally invited to attend on full scholarship by Dr. Lee, head of the band, for his prodigious talents. The A&T; band separates itself from its competitors by requiring all members to read music, by focusing on various styles of music rather than what is currently popular on the radio, and by dedication to the teamwork emphasized "one band, one sound" concept. Preseason band camp is physically and mentally challenging, designed to push members past what they previously thought were their limits. At the end of preseason, the musicians audition for spots on the field, and Devon is the only freshman to make P1, the highest level player. While going through his rigorous process, Devon also finds time to romance an upperclassman dancer, Laila. College life starts well for Devon, as he has the girl and a spot on the field. Things begin to sour when Sean, Devon's percussion leader, begins to grow weary of Devon's cocky attitude. Sean later challenges Devon to take a solo in his first game, believing the freshman will panic and be embarrassed in front of everyone. Sean is shocked when Devon takes the solo and is subsequently humiliated. This sets up some tension in the drumline which is exacerbated when Dr. Lee is told by President Wagner, the school's president, to change his focus from music to entertainment, otherwise he could potentially lose his funding. Lee does not want to give Devon more playing time because he feels Devon's attitude and respect are lacking. The situation further deteriorates when it is revealed that Devon cannot read music. Devon is demoted to P4 by Dr. Lee until he learns, then later put back on P1 when Wagner pressures Dr. Lee to do so. However, after inflaming a melee with a visiting band at A&T;'s homecoming game after Devon plays on a opposing band member's drum (a serious insult in drumline mythos), Devon is expelled from the band by Dr. Lee. The fight also harms his relationship with Laila, as she is embarrassed to introduce him to her parents, who attended the game. Devon contacts A&T;'s rival school Morris Brown College, to discuss playing for their band next season. Mr. Wade, Brown's band leader, says that Devon does not need to know how to read music and will likely get a full scholarship and a good position on the drumline. When Wade wants to know what Dr. Lee is planning for the BET Big Southern Classic (a large competition of college bands), Devon realizes Mr. Wade was merely using him to steal A&T;'s performance ideas and that his heart and honor are still with the A&T; band. Disgusted with Mr. Wade and himself, he rejects the scholarship offer from the rival band and returns to A&T.; Though Devon is still not playing for the band, he cannot give up his drumming. After receiving cassette tapes from his estranged father, Devon gets some ideas for new drum arrangements. He and Sean have a final confrontation that clears the air and they begin to work together. The two present their idea for an entrance cadence to Dr. Lee who decides they will be used during the Classic. Devon helps the drumline prepare and patches up his relationship with Laila. In appreciation for all his help getting the band ready for the Classic, Dr. Lee tells Devon he can return to the band the following school year. At the Classic, the bands are shown performing a mixture of popular songs. Morris Brown's band even gets rapper Petey Pablo to perform during their routine. A&T; is not fazed by this and performs their mix of retro and current sounds. A tie results in the Morris Brown and A&T; drumlines facing off against each other. Dr. Lee allows Devon to play for this face-off, showing his faith in Devon's improved character and in thanks for all the hard work he has done in getting the band ready for the Classic. Morris Brown goes first and A&T; responds. Morris Brown's second cadence includes their snares moving forward and playing on the A&T; drums (the same move that incited the fight at A&T;'s homecoming game), then throwing down their sticks. The A&T; line manages to hold their composure in the face of the insult. They play their cadence and in the middle throw down their sticks, mimicking the Morris Brown actions, but then the entire line pulls out another set of sticks and continues playing. They end their routine in the faces of the Morris Brown drumline, but instead of playing on their drums, the line all drop their sticks onto the other drumline's drums. The judges award the win to A&T.; 

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Eubie the Elf (Rob Paulsen) loves working in Santa Claus' workshop up at the North Pole, despite the other elves' complaints about being annoyed by his overly happy personality. One Christmas Eve morning, Eubie's boss, Norbert, assigns him to checking the naughty and nice lists. However, while checking the lists, Eubie discovers that every child in the town of Bluesville is naughty. So, he decides to go to Bluesville and spread Christmas cheer. Bluesville is a dark miserable town at the bottom of a very deep valley, completely surrounded by tall dark cliffs. There, the townspeople feel the warmth of the sun only once a day. They never smile, they don't know how to tell a joke properly, most of them work at the What Factory, where all the world's question marks are made, and at the Bluesville school, recess only lasts one minute. Eubie tries to brighten everyone's spirits, but his overly good mood frightens them. Eubie talks to the mayor about what is wrong with Bluesville and if there's anything about Bluesville that makes him feel proud. The mayor replies that Bluesville is the world's largest manufacturer of un-burnable coal, which children enjoy throwing at people and at each other. The mayor then makes a deal with Eubie. If he can find another use for the coal, he'll put a Christmas tree up in the town square. Eubie's first plan on getting the kids to help him make Bluesville a happier place is having them gather on a busy street and start a pie fight, but that only makes all the people angry. To search for more help, Molly (Mae Whitman), a naughty 10-year-old girl, takes Eubie to downtown Bluesville, the most miserable part of Bluesville, for a meeting of a group called S.L.O.B. (Smile League Of Bluesville), which only has one member of its group. While there, Molly and Eubie meets up with Curtis (Candi Milo), who is there because he brought along his foreign friend, Oreg, who doesn't speak English, but is happy to be there. Molly soon decides that Eubie's plans are hopeless, and tells him to just take all his big ideas home. At the mention of that, Eubie gets another idea, and is about to implement it when the lights in the room go off and Eubie is taken back to the North Pole. In his bid to get Bluesville off the naughty list, Eubie violated several rules in one day. As punishment, Santa had Eubie turn in his magic hat, which, at the North Pole, meant his Christmas happiness and powers were taken away. When Gilda (Carol Kane) hears this, she motivates Eubie to go back to Bluesville to finish his job and gives him her hat to restore his powers and happiness. He then returns to Bluesville and explains his plan to the children. That night, they give the mayor of Bluesville a bottle of anti-snore medicine in his sleep, while Eubie spends the night polishing all the cliffs surrounding Bluesville with a jar of super-duper un-burnable coal polish. While he is doing this, Derek notices Gilda doesn't have her hat on, he soon figures out what is going on and, trying to follow the North Pole rules, he notifies one of the higher-ups. After polishing the cliffs, Eubie is taken back to the North Pole again where he and Gilda are put on punishment and are sentenced to clean up the toy factory, with both their hats taken away. Derek, now alone at the Christmas party, is sad and mad with himself for betraying his friends, and confesses to what he did to Eubie and Gilda. They forgive him, but it only makes him feel worse about himself, considering what he did to them. While wondering what he can do to make it up to them, they have him do the one thing Eubie intended to do to finish making Bluesville a happier place. When the sun shines over Bluesville again, it reflects off the polished coal, lighting up the town and making everyone happy. At the What Factory, the machine now makes different colored exclamation points of all shapes and sizes, delighting the workers. At the school, when recess starts, the bell has an elf's shoe placed over it, which means the kids can play longer. Molly comes out of the school where Derek meets her. He tells her to find the mayor and give her the jar of coal polish Eubie used to polish the cliffs, and a piece of coal that was squeezed into a diamond and to tell her that Eubie was sorry he couldn't be there. Molly happily goes to find the mayor, but stays for a while to allow Curtis to tell a joke that's actually funny, thanks to the joke book Derek gave him. Molly finds the mayor and shows him the items, which meant that there was indeed another use for the coal. He then puts up a Christmas tree in the town square and everybody celebrates, thanks to Eubie. That Christmas, Santa decides to make Eubie, Gilda, and Derek his sleigh crew that year for bringing joy to Bluesville, which has soon changed its name to Joyville. 

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D, a former university professor from the Continent who speaks English, is sent by his government, two years into a vicious civil war, on a secret mission to buy coal in England. Traumatised by the war, in which his wife was executed in error and he was buried alive in an air raid, England to him is a place of peace and happy memories. On the ferry he sees L, an aristocratic supporter of the right-wing rebels, and Rose, a bold and wilful English girl. Waiting for the train to London, Rose tells D she is the estranged daughter of Lord Benditch, the mineowner whom D has come to negotiate with. Impatient, she hires a car and offers D a lift, but when they stop at a hotel a man in the washroom tries to rob D. Deciding to drive on alone, he is followed by L, whose chauffeur beats him up and leaves him by the roadside. They do not find the government documents D had hidden in his shoe. Hitching a lift to London, D follows instructions by booking into a seedy hotel, where he befriends the 14-year-old maid Else and persuades her to hide his documents in her stocking. Then he goes to meet his contact K, who works at a language school teaching an invented language called Entrenationo (obviously modelled on Esperanto). Back at his hotel, Rose rings and asks him to meet her, but on his way a bullet misses him. Returning to the spot with Rose, she finds the bullet and realises he is in mortal danger. Telling her about his work before the war as one of the world's leading experts on the Chanson de Roland, the two become closer. Retrieving his documents from Else next day, he goes to see Lord Benditch and his fellow directors, one of whom is Forbes, informally engaged to Rose. They are ready to do a deal and ask for his documents, which he discovers have been lifted from him on the way in by Benditch's butler. Dismissed, on his way out he sees L going in to talk to the mineowners. Rose comes in and gets Forbes to come with her to D's embassy, where she thinks he will be authenticated. The official they see, a supporter of the rebels, claims that D is dead, pulls out a gun and calls the police. They question D about the death of Else, thrown from an upper window of the hotel. Enraged that an innocent girl has been killed, D grabs the gun and, evading pursuit, breaks into an empty flat. Convinced that K is not only working for the rebels but is also a murderer, he takes him at gunpoint from the language school to the flat he has found. In the bathroom he shoots at him, but misses. Rose knocks on the outside door, having tracked him down, and they discover K has died of shock. The two admit that they have fallen in love, but she is meant to be marrying Forbes and he has to try and save his mission. In a final effort to stop the deal with L, he takes a train to the Midlands town where Benditch's mine is and attempts to dissuade the workers by telling them where the coal is going. They put work ahead of solidarity. Some teenagers he befriends want to blow up the mine and he helps them, but is knocked out by the blast and taken back to London by the police. Released on bail thanks to lawyers engaged by Forbes, he learns that the firm now think it too dangerous to sell coal to the rebels and have cancelled the deal with L. Realising where Rose's affections have gone, Forbes renounces her and agrees to drive D to the south coast, where he is taken out to a ship that is heading home. On the ship he finds Rose. Altogether, D. has failed in his primary mission – to procure British coal for his own side – but at least managed to deny it to his foes. 

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After receiving a letter from his father (Roland) in California requesting his immediate return home, Don Diego de la Vega (Langella) resigns his commission as a cadet and sails from Spain to California. Arriving in the pueblo of Los Angeles, he learns that his father has been replaced as Alcalde by Don Luis Quintero (Middleton), who is backed by the witty and urbane swordsman Captain Esteben (Montalbán), and that conditions in Los Angeles have worsened due to the Alcalde's and Captain's corruption. Diego immediately takes on the persona of a fop to avoid seeming dangerous, fooling the Alcalde and Capitan and, unfortunately, his own father, who perceives him as weak and useless. Determined to restore freedom, Diego secretly takes one of a pair of ancestral de la Vega swords and adopts the disguise of the legendary masked hero El Zorro. His campaign against the Alcalde and the Captain begins to rouse the people against them, while at the same time he meets romances the Alcalde's beautiful niece Teresa (Archer), whom he grows to love and eventually reveals his secret identity, and simultaneously flirts with the Alcalde's wife Inez (Sorel) to gain information (and also make Captain Esteban, who has also been romancing her behind her husband's back, jealous). When Zorro's old teacher Frey Felipe is arrested by the Captain and whipped, Diego, warned by Teresa, steps up his campaign, while at the same time his father, wielding the remaining ancestral sword, rouses both the peons and caballeros into rebellion and marches on the Alcalde's palace. Before Zorro can force the Alcalde to sign his resignation, he is surprised by the Captain. While Don Alejandro and the people overcome the soldiers, Zorro and the Captain duel, resulting in the Captain's death. Don Luis and his wife will return to Spain in dishonor while the de la Vega father and son raise their ancestral swords in victory. 

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Eragon, Saphira, and Roran travel to Helgrind, the home of the Ra'zac. There, they rescue Roran's betrothed, Katrina, held prisoner there, and kill one of the Ra'zac. Saphira, Roran, and Katrina return to the Varden, while Eragon stays behind. Eragon slays the remaining Ra'zac, who warns him that Galbatorix has discovered "the name". Eragon also finds and condemns Sloan, Katrina's treacherous father, to never meet his daughter again, and arranges for him to travel to Ellesmera, the elven homeland. Eragon then travels back to the Varden, after reuniting with Arya, who had come in search of him. Once they return to the Varden, Eragon discovers that Katrina is pregnant with Roran's child and a wedding is arranged, which Eragon is to conduct. Just before it begins, a small force of troops attack alongside Murtagh and his dragon, Thorn. The soldiers had spells cast on them that removed their ability to feel pain, making them better fighters. Elven spell-casters aid Eragon and Saphira and cause Murtagh and Thorn to flee, winning the battle. After the fight, Roran marries Katrina. The leader of the Varden, Nasuada, orders Eragon to attend the election of the new dwarf king in the Beor Mountains, while Saphira stays behind to protect the Varden. Eragon is to support the bid of Orik, the former king's adoptive son, who favors the Varden. Eragon heads to Farthen Dur, where the election takes place. Once there, Eragon is the target of an assassination attempt, perpetrated by a Rider-hating dwarf clan, whom Orik forces into exile. Having earned the sympathies of the dwarves, Orik is elected the new king. Saphira journeys to Farthen Dur for Orik's coronation and repairs Isidar Mithrim, the previously destroyed star rose. After Orik's coronation, Eragon and Saphira journey to Ellesméra to learn the secret of Galbatorix's power. There, they learn that Eragon's deceased mentor, Brom, was Eragon's father. Glaedr also reveals the source of Galbatorix's power: Eldunari, a dragon organ, which allows its holder to communicate with and draw energy from the dragon it belongs to, even if the dragon is deceased. Galbatorix spent years collecting Eldunari, drawing his power from the dragons he slew. After some training, Eragon visits Rhunön, the elven blacksmith who forged swords for Riders. Rhunön refuses to forge Eragon a new sword, having sworn to never create a weapon again, and having depleted her stocks of the required metal. By deciphering the werecat Solembum's instructions, Eragon acquires the metal from under the roots of the Menoa Tree. Rhunön forges him a sword by controlling Eragon's body, and he names it "Brisingr", which causes it to burst into flames whenever its name is said aloud. Oromis and Glaedr decide to join the battle against the Empire alongside Islanzadí. To prevent Galbatorix from claiming his Eldunari should he fall in combat, and to continue guiging Eragon, Glaedr gives his Eldunari to Eragon. Glaedr and Oromis fly to Gil'ead, while Eragon and Saphira fly to Feinster, a city sieged by the Varden. Meanwhile, Roran is sent on various missions as a soldier of the Varden. One mission against soldiers that can't feel pain results in many casualties, and in Roran being assigned to an incompetent commander. During another mission, this commander almost causes the entire force to be decimated. Roran takes charge of a small group of soldiers loyal to him, and leads them to victory against overwhelming odds. Despite this, Roran is charged with insubordination and is flogged as a punishment. Afterwards, Nasuada promotes Roran to commander and sends his unit on a mission with both men and Urgals, to enforce the idea of men and Urgals working together. When an Urgal, Yarbog, challenges Roran for leadership of the unit, he wrestles him into submission. After returning to the Varden, his squad joins the siege of Feinster. As the siege begins, Eragon rescues Arya and departs to find the leader of the city, but discovers three magicians attempting to create a Shade. While attempting to kill the magicians, Eragon has a vision through Glaedr's Eldunarí showing him and Oromis fighting Murtagh and Thorn in the sky. During the fight, Galbatorix takes control of Murtagh, and tries to lure Oromis to his side. Failing to do so, he slays Oromis as he suffers a seizure. Glaedr, in grief, is also killed. After the vision, the magicians succeed in creating the Shade Varaug. Eragon and Arya fight and slay Varaug, with Arya dealing the fatal blow. After the successful siege, Eragon resolves to continue the fight against the Empire, to avenge Oromis and Glaedr. 

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JH Elementary School is planning on hosting its second annual Invention Convention. Upon seeing the poster for it, George and Harold think to themselves what it would be like to be principals for the day, but Mr. Krupp bans George and Harold from the convention this year and puts them in study hall all day because last year’s Invention Convention had to be called off as a result of them putting glue in everyone’s seats except their own. While getting ready to secretly sabotage everyone's inventions after thinking it isn't fair, the two boys run into Melvin Sneedly, who is busy working on his invention, the PATSY 2000, a photocopier that can make a simple two-dimensional image come alive. He demonstrates by putting in a photo of a mouse; out comes a real one, going on the floor. George and Harold assume Melvin put the real mouse in earlier, but they promise not to sabotage it, as long as he doesn't report them and eventually promises. Because of George and Harold's pranks, the convention has to be called off again, and Melvin breaks George and Harold's promise and tattles on them after Mr. Krupp is left confused as he knows that he had thought he put George and Harold in study hall. An infuriated Mr. Krupp throws them in detention for the rest of the school year, threatening them with suspension if they leave the classroom once for any reason. George and Harold get assigned writing lines for two hours after school. With each boy using a quick line-writing device, they write all their lines in three-and-a-half minutes, then they pass the time by making a new Captain Underpants comic: Captain Underpants and the attack of the Talking Toilets. They decide to go to the copy machine, but realize that Mr. Krupp will suspend them if they leave the room and they decide to sneak out without Mr. Krupp catching them. However, the copy machine is surrounded by most of the teachers, so they copy off of Melvin's machine as they still believe it is a normal copy machine, but the talking toilets come to life as George and Harold discover that Melvin was right all along as they make a run for it. While fleeing, George and Harold are eventually caught red-handed by Mr. Krupp who was walking in the hallway and are suspended. The boys try to explain what happened in the gym, but Mr. Krupp refuses to listen and doesn't care since George and Harold are suspended and orders them to leave the school, much to George and Harold's dismay. All the teachers celebrate in the gym with Ms. Anthrope notifying George and Harold's parents to tell them the news and Ms. Ribble destroying George and Harold's desks, but the trouble begins when Mr. Meaner, the gym teacher, is promptly eaten by one of the toilets. Ms. Ribble then snaps her fingers at a toilet, making Mr. Krupp turn into Captain Underpants. George and Harold chase him as he takes several pairs of underwear from unsuspecting clothes lines. Back at school, the trio finds only Ms. Ribble on the toilet table. The trio slings chipped beef with his underwear, and the toilets vomit all the teachers out and die. Soon after, the Turbo Toilet 2000 bursts out of the school and despite Captain Underpants's efforts, he swallows Captain Underpants whole. The boys sneak into Melvin's machine to make a super-powered robot called the Incredible Robo-Plunger 2000, which plunges its plunger into the Turbo Toilet 2000's mouth, letting the boys save Mr. Krupp. He fears that he will be fired for the damages, but the Robo-Plunger repairs all of it, and flies off to Uranus with the command never to return. In return, Mr. Krupp cancels their detention and as the principals, the boys hold an all-day carnival for the students and put the teachers (and Melvin for his tattling) in detention. At the end of the day, Mr. Krupp questions how the carnival will be paid for; and the boys reveal they sold his antique furniture and some more items. Mr. Krupp gets furious, and Miss Anthrope snaps her fingers after the boys, making Mr. Krupp become Captain Underpants again. 

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Zorx, Klax and Jennifer, three evil extraterrestrials, land on the rooftop of Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, but nobody is aware that their spaceship is on the roof of the school. Meanwhile, George and Harold mess with their science teacher, then make the cafeteria ladies a fake recipe, disguised as "Mr. Krupp's Krispy Krupcakes" for Principal Krupp's birthday. The lunch ladies decide to surprise Mr. Krupp and make cupcakes for the entire school and the school is flooded with green goop. The next day, the lunch ladies tell Mr. Krupp about the mess, who gets very mad when he hears that they did it for his birthday. ("But it wasn't even my birthday!") Furious, the lunch ladies blame George and Harold, but Mr. Krupp needs proof to punish them. Furious from past harassment by the two boys, the lunch ladies quit. About 10 seconds after, the aliens come in, very badly disguised as humans and Mr. Krupp hires the three, unaware that they're actually bloodthirsty alien invaders in disguise as humans. For the boys' antics, Mr. Krupp forces them to eat their lunch in his office where he can keep an eye on the two boys, much to the boys' surprise. The next day, while Mr. Krupp has a banana, both boys have their own weird sandwiches and other food so junky, Mr. Krupp feels like he'll get sick and exits his office for some fresh air. After their lunch, George and Harold go off to change the letters on the sign in the cafeteria, only to find out that the sign is already changed by the aliens. They immediately notice that all of the students and staff at the school have become evil zombie nerds. Sneaking into the lunchroom, George and Harold learn that the aliens plan to feed the zombie nerds growth juice, turning them into giant minions bent on taking over the world. George and Harold steal the carton of growth juice and pour the contents out the window, most of which lands on a dandelion, turning it into the massive Dandelion of Doom. Mr. Krupp doesn't believe them, but starts to believe them after Miss Anthrope takes a bite out of his desk. When Harold escapes Zorx's grasp, he pulls off his gloves in the process. Zorx snaps his tentacle at them, turning Mr. Krupp into Captain Underpants, who, for some reason unknown, runs to the local shoe store for a cheeseburger. The boys temporarily defeat the aliens by Captain Underpants' return, but the three escape, soon into the alien spaceship, where they steal multiple cartoned juices, before the aliens lock them in their jail cell. While the aliens gloat, the boys switch the labels of the growth and self-destruct juices, along with the spray and fuel tanks. The trio jump off the spaceship before it explodes (killing Zorx, Klax, and Jennifer). They end up landing near the Dandelion of Doom, which begins to eat Captain Underpants. George reluctantly gives some of the "Extra-Strength Super Power Juice" to Captain Underpants, who kills the dandelion with his new powers. Harold mixes the Anti-Nerd Juice with root beer, which transforms the zombie nerds back. However, as a result of the Super Power Juice, Mr. Krupp (when Captain Underpants) permanently has superpowers. 

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Bill is a Woolloomooloo larrikin, who vows to abandon his life of gambling (playing Two-up) and drinking after a spell in gaol following a raid on a two up game. He falls in love with Doreen (Lyell), who works in a pickle factory, but faces competition from a more sophisticated rival, Stror 'at Coot. Bill and Doreen argue, but are eventually reunited and get married. Bill gives up drinking and hanging out with his mate, Ginger Mick, and becomes a family man. He gets an offer from his uncle to manage an orchard in the country, and he and Doreen settle down there with their baby. 

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A scientist from the country of New Swissland (a country that doesn't exist, with a foreign culture where everyone has a silly name) called Professor Pippy P. Poopypants goes to the United States to demonstrate how his striking Shrinky-Pig and Goosy-Grow can help the world by reducing the garbage and increasing food, but everyone laughs at Poopypants' name rather than take him seriously. Meanwhile, Jerome Horwitz Elementary School is going to a restaurant-arcade called The Piqua Pizza Palace, but when George and Harold rearrange the sign, Mr. Krupp catches the boys as he bans them from the school field trip and demands they clean the teachers' lounge, making them lose their chance of going to the Piqua Pizza Palace with everyone else. However, the boys get their revenge by modifying things around in the teachers' lounge and after the field trip, the teachers fall into George and Harold's trap and get largely covered in glue and foam pellets. They chase the boys around the school and after seeing the teachers looking like abominable snowmen, Mr. Fyde quits, thinking he's going nuts, prompting Mr. Krupp to find a new science teacher. Meanwhile, Professor Poopypants sees an ad to teach at the school and applies for the job, thinking children to be kind and sweet-hearted, but they spend days laughing at his silly name. The professor only gets them interested by building a robot that makes gerbils jog along with them but it is short- lived. Some time later, Ms. Ribble reads The Pied Piper of Hamelin, which inspires George and Harold to make a comic about the Professor trying to take over the world, which destroys the last of Professor Poopypants' sanity. He makes the gerbil machine as large as a tall building, then shrinks the school and holds them hostage to turn their names sillier, with a system of three alphabetical name charts based on the first/last letter of each part of a first and last name. George and Harold (now Fluffy and Cheeseball) get Captain Underpants (now Buttercup Chickenfanny, but refuses to take the professor's order to change names) to steal Professor Poopypants' enlarging machine, but he and the machine are shrunk in the process. The two of them try to enlarge the school back to normal size, but get flicked off the school. Harold makes a paper airplane that George enlarges and after many dangers, Underpants rescues them. George enlarges Underpants to the gerbil's size, then he defeats Professor Poopypants and everyone's names revert. The boys use the machines to bring themselves, the school and Captain Underpants back to normal size. Captain Underpants is soaked with water, turning him back into Mr. Krupp. Professor Poopypants is hauled off to jail for crimes against humanity. From the advice of George and Harold, he legally changes his name so that no one will make fun of it anymore. Unfortunately, he changes his name to his grandfather's, Tippy Tinkletrousers, that which only makes the prisoners (and police officers) laugh at him even more, much to his anger. 

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Ms. Ribble announces that she is going to retire at the end of the school year and forces everyone to make happy retirement cards for her, while George and Harold make a Captain Underpants comic with her as " The Wicked Wedgie Woman" instead, and the boys pass out the "Friday Memo", with several humorous changes. They later convince Mr. Krupp to sign a blank card, but later, having found out about their comic, he puts them in detention. Harold defiantly refuses to give Ms. Ribble the card, while Mr. Krupp seizes it; Harold makes it look like a marriage proposal. Mr. Krupp remains indifferent to the following chaotic school week. (The week involves none of the kids showing up on Monday, all the kids wearing their pajamas to school and picking their noses on Tuesday, some of the kids looking very silly on Wednesday, kids having food fights in the lunchroom and the football team wrecking the teachers' lounge on Thursday and every single kid wearing bee costumes to school and making silly faces in yearbook photos on Friday.) At the wedding, just before they get married, Ms. Ribble breaks up with Mr. Krupp because he has a funny-looking nose (ironically, they both have the same nose shape). When they say it was George and Harold, the boys escape. Ms. Ribble has dropped their B's and C's to F's and G's (which is the only grade lower than an F), which means that they'll have to redo the fourth grade. Harold reluctantly agrees to hypnotize her, then a local newscast reveals the police are shutting down the Hypno-Ring company because when the Hypno-Rings are used on women, a mental blunder causes them do the opposite of what the bearer of the Hypno-Ring tells them to do. The boys, as an afterthought, tell Ms. Ribble that she will be the nicest teacher ever and will not become mean like The Wicked Wedgie Woman. That night, Ms. Ribble arrives as The Wicked Wedgie Woman, but accidentally spills super power juice into her hair, which forms several tiny hands. She kidnaps the boys and takes them to her house, where she builds robot copies of them. When Mr. Krupp snaps at Harold 2000, he turns himself into Captain Underpants and asks for help from the robots, whose Spray Starch defeats him. Meanwhile, The Wicked Wedgie Woman ties the boys to adjacent chairs with a candle and hatchet, but instead of hurting George and Harold, the hatchet simply cuts through the ropes. George and Harold find the wedgied Captain Underpants, convinced that he lost his powers. The newest store sells everything but fabric softener, so they make a comic about Captain Underpants' origin. He reads it, eventually says the words on the back and defeats the robots. As Captain Underpants and The Wicked Wedgie Woman face off, George shouts to Harold that he'll get rid of his extra-strength starch, and she steals all the bottles and sprays them at Captain Underpants. Due to the counterfeited hair remover, everyone is bald (even Captain Underpants). Captain Underpants turns back into Mr. Krupp and the boys hypnotize Ms. Ribble to forget the last two weeks and become the nicest teacher in the school's history, much to the kids' happiness. 

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The film opens as soldiers invade the city of Iolcus. King Aeson's brother Pelias is leading the charge. Inside the temple he goes to embrace his brother but produces a dagger and kills him during the embrace. This is witnessed by his wife Polymele and his son Jason. He intends to do the same to Jason but one of the guards rescues him and takes him out of the palace through a secret tunnel. It is then revealed that this is a memory, experienced as a nightmare by an older Jason, who awakes. He is then ordered by his uncle to retrieve the golden fleece. He recruits a crew from the simple folk of Iolcus, including shepherds and farmers. He is joined by Hercules, Orpheus, Atalanta and the brothers Castor and Pollux. Acastus stows away on the ship. The Argonauts run aground on a strange island in the middle of the ocean that is actually the sea god Poseidon. In the ensuing storm, they lose the map. The crew make their way to the Isle of Lemnos, an island of warrior women, to recover from the experience and repair the ship. The men pleasure themselves with the women while their ship is repaired (except Orpheus and Atalanta) and Jason sleeps with the queen Hypsipyle. Atalanta discovers that the women have killed all the men on the island and are planning to sacrifice the crew. She warns Jason, and the Argonauts flee the island. The crew become rebellious and Jason has Zetes, a young man with brilliant vision, see the stars and find their route to Tabletop Island, where they find Phineus. They are attacked by the Harpies - the winged monsters that torment Phineus - and kill them. In return, Phineus tells them the Golden Fleece is in Colchis. Meanwhile, on Colchis, the princess Medea has visions of the crew and her brother Aspyrtes goes out to find them. Jason finds the ship wrecked and rescues Aspyrtes. They approach the "Dark Rocks" and send a dove through before sailing through themselves. The ship docks at Colchis and Jason goes ashore with Aspyrtes, Castor and Pollux. Hera asks Eros to shoot Medea so she falls in love with Jason. King Aertes wants Jason killed but Medea convinces him to face the Bulls of Colchis (sometimes called the Menaian Bull). Medea gives Jason magic oil that protects Jason from the bull's fiery-breath. Jason yokes the bull and ploughs a field and sows it with dragon's teeth. Warriors sprout up from the earth, and Jason tricks them into attacking each other. Medea tells Jason she must go with the Fleece. Aspyrtes overhears this and sends soldiers out after them. The other Argonauts debate whether to leave or not. Hercules, Orpheus and Argos sail the ship around the island to make it seem as if they have left while the others hide in the water and then join Jason and Medea. When the soldiers attack, Medea kills her brother and leads them to the Fleece which is guarded by a dragon. Some Argonauts are killed before Jason sets a noose around the dragon's neck and makes it fall off a precipice. They take the Fleece and sail away from Colchis. Acastus has been wounded and Medea uses magic to heal him. Atalanta confesses she loves Jason but he says he will marry Medea. She has a vision of her father's death and the two kiss. Zeus attempts to seduce Medea but she says she loves Jason, even when he pulls out Eros's arrow. The ship arrives back in Iolcus and Jason learns his mother killed herself, believing him and Acastus to be dead. They rest in the bay and Acastus steals the Fleece and goes into town. Pelias kills him and takes the Fleece. Medea then goes and says he will marry her. Jason and the others sneak into the palace through the secret tunnel. Argos is killed by one of the guards. Pelias tries to kill Jason but is stabbed by his own knife. To cremate the dead Argos, his corpse is burned with the Argo. Then Jason marries Medea and they live as King and Queen of Iolcus. 

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The player takes the role of the knight Arthur, who must once again rescue the Princess from the demons. The antagonist this time is the Emperor Sardius (known as Samael in the Japanese version), who has kidnapped the Princess in order to obtain the whereabouts of the Goddess's Bracelet, the only weapon capable of destroying Sardius. After making it to Sardius's castle, Arthur must return to the beginning where the Princess hid the bracelet in order to destroy Sardius permanently. After repeating his journey, Arthur defeats Sardius with the bracelet and returns the Princess to the kingdom. 

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The Big Bad Wolf, worshipped by his nephew, who calls him "Uncle Big Bad", invites Bugs Bunny to join the Club Del Conejo, a club for rabbits. Bugs is wise to his game but plays along, just to stifle his boredom. Big Bad admits Bugs in, and tricks him into signing an insurance form. Bugs' first initiation test is to ring a bell, rigged to cut a rope and let a safe fall on him. Bugs ticks off Big Bad by ringing the bell with a nail and a nickel. When Big Bad tells Bugs to hit the bell, Bugs merely flicks it, so Big Bad comes up to demonstrate himself how to do it. Big Bad gets flattened as a result. Big Bad then tests out his next plan, to signal his nephew, so Big Bad's nephew will fling open a closet door, rigged to close an iron maiden on Bugs. Big Bad beckons Bugs for his club picture, with the iron maiden as a backdrop. Bugs pulls all sorts of poses, so Big Bad comes up to demonstrate the right pose. Bugs immediately says "I get it now," which signals the nephew to close the iron maiden—but instead closes it on his uncle. As Bugs steps out, the nephew peeks into the casket, and then closes it again, cringing. Later, Big Bad tells Bugs to crawl through a hole which enters the mouth of a cannon. While Big Bad tells his nephew to pull the cord when he gives him the signal, Bugs paints another hole in the wall. When Big Bad sees there are two holes, Bugs tricks him into going into the booby- trapped one, so Big Bad gets blasted through the wall. Bugs then flips the wall so that when Big Bad demands a retry, he prevents Bugs from going into the booby-trapped one and gets blasted through the wall again. Finally, Big Bad directs Bugs to climb inside a hollowed-out tree. Bugs climbs out when he sees the wolf pack it with explosives. The dynamite detonates and causes the tree to crash onto the Club Del Conejo. A battered Big Bad suggests opening a chicken club, and Foghorn Leghorn immediately appears eager to join. The cartoon closes with Bugs, sitting at a tree with the wolf's nephew, remarking: "I wonder which one will chicken out first". 

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Chloe Lawrence (Mary-Kate Olsen) is a very driven teenager and leader of her high school's Model United Nations team. After performing particularly well in a competition, the team is selected to attend the London International Model United Nations in England. But when Randall, one of Chloe's team-mates, is unable to attend due to a family obligation, Chloe's twin sister, Riley (Ashley Olsen), steps in to take his place for the competition (and to get closer to Chloe's attractive teammate, Brian, more than anything else). When the group arrives in London, they discover that someone is already representing their usual country: China. Undaunted, they improvise and end up representing the United Kingdom. Plenty of sight-seeing and shopping ensues, during which Chloe falls for James Browning, the son of British nobleman, Lord Browning, who's pressuring his son to achieve more. As the competition progresses, Chloe's over-competitive nature stalls her budding romance, Riley tries to get closer to Brian, and the team earns both admiration and anger for their unconventional methods. Nevertheless, tribulations are weathered and lessons learned about sportsmanship, overlooked friends, and learning to enjoy one's youth. 

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Set in the Judean desert, 2000 years ago. It features 7 main characters: * Musa: a greedy trader, believed by the Galilean to be a manifestation of Satan * Miri: Musa's pregnant wife * Marta: fasting between dawn and dusk in an attempt to turn her barren womb fertile * Shim: a young traveller * Aphas: fasting between dawn and dusk in an attempt to remove the cancer from his abdomen * Badu: believed to be deaf and mute; good at catching animals * The Galilean/Gally/Jesus: aiming to fast for 40 days and nights with divine help; plagued by religious/spiritual hallucinations/visions. When Quarantine begins, the trader, Musa, is suffering from a fever in his tent in the open scrubland on the way to Jericho. There, he and his wife Miri are abandoned by their caravan, who believe him to be on the verge of death. They see a group of four travellers, some distance apart, heading in their direction. The travellers are on their way to find shelter for 40 days and 40 nights - the 'Quarantine' of the title. At night, a fifth traveller, some distance behind the first four, visits Musa in his tent. The following morning, Musa awakes to find that his fever has broken and his strength is restored. The fifth traveller, it transpires, is the young Jesus, who takes up occupancy of a hard-to-reach cave set in a hillside. Musa turns the situation to his advantage, convincing the travellers that the lands are his lands, and he their landlord. The group try in turns to coax Jesus from his cave. Convinced he is being tested by Satan, Jesus abides by his quarantine, refusing to take food or water. A series of power struggles ensues, in which Musa asserts his dominance over Aphas, Shim, his wife and eventually by raping Marta during a stormy night, having feigned illness to get her on her own. The next day, with the tent and Miri's loom having been destroyed by the storm, Musa resolves to leave for Jericho (putting his crime behind him). As he picks his way through the devastation of the camp, he sees a figure which he presumes to be Jesus walking away from the scrubland. Later, Jesus' body is found in the cave, and the group bury him in the water-hole, which Miri had originally dug as Musa's grave. Miri finds Marta, bloodied and bruised in the wilderness. They all make ready to leave, only to find that the restless Badu has escaped with Musa's goats. Aphas and Shim set off, with Miri and Marta following behind. En route, the women find the two men's packs abandoned at the side of the path. Seeing Musa approaching behind them, and sensing their opportunity to escape, they flee - making for Marta's home town. Finally, Musa is travelling across country in a wagon and believes he sees Jesus off in the distance. For a moment, he considers finding the figure to forge an alliance with him, but resolves instead to continue his business and to travel the world telling the tale of the stranger who saved his life in the tent. 

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The novel recounts the life of a young man, Lucian Taylor, focusing on his dreamy childhood in rural Wales, in a town based on Caerleon. The Hill of Dreams of the title is an old Roman fort where Lucian has strange sensual visions, including ones of the town in the time of Roman Britain. Later, the novel describes Lucian's attempts to make a living as an author in London, enduring poverty and suffering in the pursuit of art and history. 

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Doc follows rural doctor Clint "Doc" Cassidy who has taken a position at Westbury Clinic, a small medical center in New York City. Doc is a young Christian bachelor from the mountains of Montana, who brings his small-town values and ideology to an environment that seems to lack familiarity with them. Supporting characters include the doctors, nurses and other staff of Westbury Clinic; a 10-year-old orphan, Raúl García; and a young couple, Nate and Beverly Jackson, who live in the same apartment building as Clint. 

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Lee Dong-gun portrays title character Young-bin, a handsome but obnoxious young man who begins the film by breaking off a relationship in a most impolite way: after waiting in a parked car so Young-bin won't get a ticket, the girlfriend reads him the riot act upon his return, prompting Young-bin to slip into the driver's seat, break up with her, and speed off, leaving his new ex-girlfriend stranded in the parking lot. From the get-go, Young-bin is not exactly a class act. On the opposite side of the spectrum is the beautiful Ha-mi (Han Ji-hye), a meek university student looking for true love, but never seeming to find it. As is typical in this kind of film, the two meet purely by chance: Ha-mi accidentally text messages Young-bin before literally bumping into him. Ha-mi, feeling that their fortuitous meeting is a sign that they might be destined for one another, decides to pal around with Young-bin and see if there's any chemistry between them. Taken by Ha-mi's sincerity and her willingness to pick up the check, Young-bin jumps at the opportunity. But Ha-mi's cousin, Chae-young (Shin Yi) isn't quite so enraptured with Young-bin and tries to dissuade Ha-mi from pursuing him. The thing is, Chae-young is a professional dating consultant and a strong subscriber to blood type personality theory. According to her, any relationship between the mismatched duo would be doomed to failure because Young-bin is a type-B male, which supposedly makes him arrogant, hardheaded, and generally a jerk, whereas Ha-mi is a type-A female, one who supposedly can't help being timid and obedient. But while Chae-young predicts impending doom, the happy couple try to give love a shot, ignoring their supposed blood type incompatibility. 

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The film is narrated by Frankie (Dyer), a young everyman living in South East London during the Thatcher era of the 1980s specially 1984, with little hope of ever making anything of himself, yet he dreams of "being somebody" and escaping his lonely, dreary lifestyle. After severely beating his mother's abusive boyfriend, he becomes a fugitive, and through family connections escapes to the Costa del Sol. His job there is to deliver a bag containing money to "Playboy Charlie" (Hassan), an ex-pat and criminal-on-the-run, a suave and dapper man who runs his own nightclub. Impressed by Frankie's honesty in not opening the bag, Charlie takes a liking to Frankie, introduces him to his business associates, including the psychopathic Sammy (Bell), and invites him to remain in Spain and work as his driver. Frankie discovers that they are in fact the "Peckham Four", wanted for armed robbery back in Britain. However, Frankie decides he prefers an exciting life of sun, drugs, women, money, fast cars, designer clothes, and a reputation, as opposed to being a nobody back in London. Frankie soon accepts and becomes involved in the business of smuggling cannabis across the Strait of Gibraltar from Morocco, in which children are used although the children are sometimes shot dead by the Spanish Navy patrolmen. The film then follows the rise-and-fall pattern common to many gangster films, showing first the criminals living the high life as their cannabis trade is booming, and then the downfall as greed and paranoia (not helped by the obvious attraction between Frankie and Sammy's beautiful trophy wife Carly) introduce conflict between them, and eventually split them up. Charlie and Frankie decide to go into business alone, importing cocaine instead of cannabis through drop-offs from Colombian aeroplanes, but this is the cause of the final problem. Not only do they both become increasingly addicted to the drug itself, but also the local mayor, who had been happy to ignore the cannabis trade but had warned them not to import cocaine, discovers what they are doing and uses the weight of the law to shut them down and close their businesses. An assassination attempt on the mayor's life ends in failure, and the gruesome beheading of one of the gang. Six months later Frankie and Charlie are homeless thugs, reduced to stealing in order to survive. While organising a disappointing reunion party at Charlie's old bar (which Frankie's former heroin addicted friend Sonny is now running), Frankie meets the scheming Carly again and decides to make one last deal. He invites Sammy in on a pick-up, but while both intend to betray the other, Carly has given Sammy a pistol with an empty clip. Sammy tries to shoot Frankie, who in turn attacks him with a rock. The fight ends abruptly as Spanish Navy patrolmen's gunfire fatally shoots Sammy. Frankie escapes through a sewage pipe. Frankie emerges from the sewer to meet Carly, who had masterminded the whole thing, finally getting his happy ending. But at the last minute, he realises he can't trust Carly when he finds another pistol in her handbag amongst their money, so he knocks her out and drives off triumphantly into the sunset on his own. The ending reveals that Sonny cleaned up his act and continued to run Charlie's old bar, which he did so successfully, whilst Charlie was reduced to working on the door. The theatrical ending also reveals that "Carly went back to her parent's house in Penge", "Sammy went to Hell" and "Frankie went to Hollywood". 

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Kim Nam-woo struggles through life as people around him constantly leave him; his best friend, Jun-ho, is going to study in Seoul and in some ways his widowed mother is "leaving" him too by paying more attention to her new boyfriend. To escape, he goes to a dream world, where he meets a girl named Mari. The story follows Nam-woo in discovering himself and maturing. 

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In the novel, the father of a mentally ill child meets another parent of another disabled child, who is known throughout the book as "Mori's Father". Mori's Father tells the narrator of a chain of surrealistic incidents that happened to him and his son Mori. It seems that an alien supreme being or force has enabled Mori and his father to undergo a transformation, via which a 38-year-old father became 18 years old and an 8-year-old mentally disabled child became a 28-year-old fully intelligent person. (There is some logic to the arithmetic that 38-20=18 and 8+20=28.) It seems Mori and his father have undertaken a mission to assassinate a certain Patron, who is manipulating and clashing two opposing youth groups, so that one of them may create a "dirty" nuclear bomb, threatening Tokyo and more, and thus place power into Patron's hands. 

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The film's plot is often compared to Pier Paolo Pasolini's Teorema, in which a strange visitor to a wealthy family seduces the maid, the son, the mother, the daughter, and finally the father, before leaving a few days after, subsequently changing their lives. The film starts off with a question: "Have you ever done it with your Dad?"; the viewer then sees Miki Yamazaki, a young prostitute, trying to persuade her father, Kiyoshi, into having sex with her. Her father is videotaping the scene for a documentary he is preparing on Japanese youths. Once it appears the father is letting himself be persuaded, she tells him the price (50,000 Yen). They have sex, the father ejaculates after a very short time, and the disappointed daughter informs him it will be 100,000 Yen now, because of this. The father then realizes the camera has been on all along. In the next scene, called "Have you ever been hit on the head?", a man (Visitor Q) hits the father over the head with a rock for no apparent reason. The film then moves on to a scene titled "Have you ever hit your mom?" In this scene, the mother, Keiko, is working on a jigsaw puzzle, and her hands are shown to have red marks, showing where she has been beaten. Her teenage son, Takuya, comes in and starts throwing things at the already broken apartment walls because he is unhappy with the toothbrush his mother bought him. He then hits his mother with a rug beater. Later, bullies from the son's school come to the front of the house and shoot fireworks through the son's bedroom window. The mother is later seen injecting heroin. It does not seem to have a huge effect on her, though, suggesting she is a regular user. On his way back from work, the father is yet again hit on the head by the same man. They both arrive at the father's home, and the mother serves them dinner. The father announces that the man will be staying with the family for a while. The son comes down while they are eating and starts beating the mother again. This does not surprise or bother the father or the visitor. Later, the father is seen watching one of his old tapes, and it turns out that he was raped by a group of teenagers. The next day, the father is on his way to work when he sees his son being beaten and robbed by some of his schoolmates. He films it from a distance and appears very pleased with the footage. The mother, meanwhile, is getting ready for work. The viewer discovers her body is covered in marks from where the son has hurt her. She also has a limp. The father meets with a female co-worker (Asako Murata), who believes he is going too far in his work. The mother, working as a prostitute, is whipping a customer with a belt (at his request). She then goes to a park to buy some drugs. When she gets home, she discovers the pieces from her jigsaw puzzle have been arranged so as to form a trail through the house, ending at a photograph of her daughter. The visitor is at home, and he introduces her to lactation sex (squeezing her nipples to make her lactate, a recurring theme in this film). The son sees this while hiding behind the door. At dinner, the mother is much happier than usual and has prepared a nice meal. The son, however, is sullen and throws a bowl of hot soup at her face. The wife, instead of being downtrodden as usual, comes back with a carving knife and throws it at the head of her son, who dodges just in time. Everyone is very pleased, except the son. However, the father becomes exhilarated when his son's schoolmates start attacking his house with fireworks again, which he videotapes. Meanwhile, the mother and the visitor continue to eat peacefully. Next day, the son is bullied again. The father is taping his son from his car with the visitor and his female co-worker. The co-worker gets fed up with the father and tries to leave. The father follows her on foot and sexually assaults her while the visitor, emotionally neutral, tapes the scene. The father unintentionally chokes his victim to death. He takes her body back home and puts her in the greenhouse. The visitor is still taping, at the father's instruction. The father sends the visitor to get garbage bags from the mother. But when the visitor asks her for them, she takes her clothes off and reveals she is dressed in a garbage bag. She then makes herself lactate and produces a rain of human milk that covers the floor while the visitor watches from underneath an umbrella. During this time, the husband is drawing on the woman's body to mark the best places to cut it up so the smaller pieces will fit in the bags. He tapes this for his documentary. Becoming aroused, the father has sex with the dead body. He then notices she is getting wet and is amazed that this is possible for a dead woman. When he brings his hand up, however, it is covered in feces. He then discovers that his penis is stuck inside the corpse due to rigor mortis. The mother comes out to help and rushes to the shop to buy much vinegar. She empties the bottles into the bath with her husband and the corpse. This does not help, though, so she gives him a shot of heroin, which frees him. They are both exhilarated. The visitor has filmed the whole scene. Later on, the couple is having fun dismembering the female co-worker's corpse when the son turns up in the front yard with the same schoolmates beating him. The parents rush out, and with great pleasure they finally kill all the bullies using the saws and knives they were using to cut the co-worker's body to pieces. Later, their son is shown lying on the floor in the puddle of maternal milk. He thanks the visitor for bringing together the family through the chaos he brought. The visitor leaves the family. Afterwards, encountering and being propositioned by the prostitute daughter on the street, he appears to be about to hit her on the head with a rock, and does so offscreen. Bruised by her encounter with the visitor, the daughter returns home, and she and her father share a nursing session on the mother. 

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The single player game consists of five regular campaigns of increasing difficulty, followed by a world conquest (a long campaign during which the player conquers all 15 maps and then challenges the gods themselves). In all regular campaigns the player can choose one of two sides of conflict. To unlock the next campaign, the player has to finish the current campaign at least once. The storylines of all campaigns are typical fantasy tales (without any explicit AD&D; references), although each campaign has its own take on the genre. The stories are told between battles by a narrator voice (often in verse) and illustrated by gradually uncovered pictures. A brief summary of the campaigns: 

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Told from the perspective of a popular, college-age girl named Elizabeth Rogan, the premise of this story concerns her sudden, unexpected attraction to a social outcast named Ed Hamner, Jr., whose paranormal ability to perceive what will make any person happy has not resulted in his own happiness. Elizabeth's roommate, suspicious of Ed from the start, does research on him and realizes through background checks that he attended the same elementary school as did Elizabeth, and that his low-paying job at a theatre cannot pay for a sports car he owns, and warns Elizabeth, thus breaking her fascination with Ed and prompting her to investigate herself. It is revealed through the course of the tale that he has been secretly craving Elizabeth's love since childhood, and has employed a variety of black magic rituals and charms to murder her aggressive boyfriend and manipulate her emotions. She warns Elizabeth, "That's not love...that's rape." While this story flirts with casting a sympathetic light on Ed's character (describing his sad childhood, and his inability to please his abusive parents despite his amazing gift, mainly by winning them large gambling jackpots), when his plans are ultimately brought to ruin, he is revealed less as a product of anti- elitism and more as a childish, murderous coward, morally corrupt and self- serving. Knowing that his magic will always keep a (somewhat small) emotional hold on her, Elizabeth crushes his voodoo doll of her, destroying the small amount of pity she still feels for him. 

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In a sordid night club in 1920s Berlin, the penniless con man Andrei catches the eye of the fiery whore Pauline, known as The Tigress. Underworld boss Harry considers her his property, but she spends the next two days in bed with Andrei. To escape Harry's revenge, the two disappear to neighbouring Czechoslovakia and book into a hotel in the resort of Carlsbad. They have the jewels Pauline has accumulated during her career, which are used to buy smart clothes and attend smart evenings in the casino. Andrei promotes himself to a baron and introduces Pauline as a film star, stressing that they are not married (and privately stressing to Pauline that this is all a business venture and he is not going to fall in love with her). She soon acquires admirers, an Austrian count and a Texan oil man. Playing them off against each other, she eventually succumbs to the Texan, who is by far the richer. Andrei's plan is to burst in and challenge the Texan to a duel, confident that the man would rather pay a large amount of money than lose his life, but on barging into the room he discovers Pauline has vanished. She has been tipped off by a friend in Berlin that Harry is on a train to find her. Unaware of this, Andrei goes to the station and is spotted by Harry, who starts shooting at him. Jumping onto a moving train, Andrei is robbed of all he has by some villains and thrown out beside a road. Along the road comes Pauline, looking for him because she has been in love with him all along. 

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Henry Esmond relates his own history in memoir fashion, mainly in the third person but occasionally dropping into the first person. Henry, born about 1678, is an orphan and lives near London in the care of French Huguenot refugees. When Henry is about ten years old, Thomas Esmond, third Viscount Castlewood, removes him from his caretakers and takes him to Castlewood; Henry lives at Castlewood as a servant, and it is generally assumed that he is the viscount's illegitimate son. The Catholic viscount opposes the legitimacy of King William III and is killed fighting for James II at the Battle of the Boyne. Castlewood is temporarily occupied by the army and Henry is befriended by a trooper, the writer Richard Steele. The estate passes to Thomas's Protestant cousin Francis Esmond, who becomes the fourth viscount. The new viscount and his wife foster the young Henry; for the first time he eats at the table as an acknowledged member of the family. A quiet, sober, hard-working youth, Henry is devoted to his foster family. Gentle, sensitive Lady Castlewood is his adored mother figure. Her husband is also kind to Esmond, but he is a hard-drinking man of limited intellect and sometimes crude manners, and this causes his wife a great deal of embarrassment. Henry remains at Castlewood until his foster-parents send him to Cambridge University, where they intend him to become a clergyman. However, in Henry's last year at the university, the fourth viscount is killed in a duel. On his deathbed he tells Henry that Thomas Esmond, the third viscount, was in fact his father, and that Henry is not illegitimate at all but the legal heir to the title and estate of Castlewood. Henry, thinking of the pain and disgrace this would cause his foster-mother and cousins, burns the confession and tells no one. Lady Castlewood blames Henry for the viscount's death and forbids him to see any of the family again. After spending a year in prison for his part in the duel, Henry joins the army and fights in the War of the Spanish Succession. Returning to England, now twenty-three, he becomes reconciled with his foster mother and visits his cousins: Frank (now the fifth viscount), an unintelligent but good-natured boy of seventeen, and Beatrix, not yet sixteen but already tall and beautiful. Frank is determined to join the army as soon as he can; Beatrix is already flirting with several wealthy men, and Lady Castlewood tells Henry that Beatrix is vain and heartless and no man who marries her will be happy. Henry, smitten with Beatrix's looks himself, returns to his regiment and fights in the Netherlands and Spain until the end of the first phase of the war in 1708. Leaving the army, Henry settles in London to make his fortune as a writer. He meets many of the celebrated English writers of the day, and renews his friendship with Richard Steele, who introduces him to Joseph Addison. Esmond's play is a flop and he turns to writing political pamphlets and letters supporting his Tory friends and abusing the Duke of Marlborough, against whom he bears a grudge, while favoring John Richmond Webb (who was Thackeray's great-great-great-uncle.) Esmond represents Addison and Steele as cheerful, civil gentlemen who remain his friends even though they are on opposite sides politically. On the other hand, he draws Jonathan Swift, who was on his own side, as a hateful misanthrope and bully. Henry and his cousin Frank later join an unsuccessful (and unhistorical) attempt to restore James Francis Edward Stuart to the British throne. After much intrigue, Henry grows disillusioned with Jacobitism and comes to accept the Whig future of Great Britain. Failing to marry his cousin Beatrix, he instead marries his foster-mother Lady Castlewood. The novel closes on the couple's emigration to Virginia in 1718. 

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King employs a first person narrator and opens with the protagonist, Stan Norris, in the clutches of Cressner, a wealthy, cruel criminal overlord. Cressner intends to get revenge on Norris, who has been having an affair with his wife. Instead of killing him outright, Cressner reveals his penchant for striking wagers, and offers a chilling ultimatum: if Norris is able to circumnavigate the 5-inch ledge surrounding the multi-story building where Cressner lives in his penthouse, he can have his wife and $20,000. If Norris refuses, he'll be framed for heroin possession and never see his lover again. Cressner also reveals that he has done this to six others, three professional athletes who crossed his path and three ordinary people who got into serious debt with Cressner. Not once has Cressner lost the wager. Seemingly without any other choice, Norris accepts the wager and proceeds to make his way carefully around the building's cold, windswept exterior. Norris encounters multiple obstacles, particularly from the wind and an obstinate pigeon. Norris completes the harrowing ordeal, only to discover that Cressner had already murdered his wife. Cressner slyly claims that he never welches on his bets and that, while the heroin has been removed from Norris' car and the money is his for the taking, his wife's fate was sealed before the wager was even made. Enraged, Norris overpowers Cressner's bodyguard and obtains his gun. When Cressner pleads for his life, Norris proposes to spare him if only he is able to complete a trip around the ledge. However, while waiting for Cressner to circumnavigate the building, Norris reveals to the reader that, unlike Cressner, he does sometimes welch on bets, implying that he will kill Cressner, regardless of his potential success on the ledge. 

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Police chief Fernándo Gomez Miranda kills his friend, the well-respected lawyer and likely candidate for Attorney General, Raúl de Los Reyes and his youngest daughter of only thirteen in a vehicle ambush. Gomez' son, Luis Marioa sad-eyed broadcast journalist of passionate convictionarrives on the scene soon after with his camera and discovers a wounded survivor in the car; Camila, the eldest daughter of de Los Reyes. Luis rushes her to the hospital, saving her life and thereby creating a bond between them that he cannot escape. Luis' half-brother, police detective Alfonso Carbajal, is assigned to the case. An old schoolmate of Camila's, Alfonso has long been in love with her and conflicts arise when all evidence points to Camila being involved in the drug trade. The two brothers find themselves caught between their professional duty that would require them to expose Camila and their desire to protect her. Standing in their way is Fernando, who is busy fabricating evidence to sink Camila and at the same time taking a very personal interest in Raúl's widow, María Dolores. Each on his own, Alfonso and Luis Mario work to prove Camila's innocence and find the real killer, without knowing that the man they seek is their own father. The series is based on the life of the former Mexican President (1988–1994) Carlos Salinas de Gortari and his scandalous family story. 

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The film features two anonymous Scottish-accented Shadow Puppets (voiced by Jack Docherty and Moray Hunter) who are sitting around a table with nothing to do. They explore and reject several options including watching television (the only thing on is 'some weird animation thing'), listening to the radio (but 'it's all the same rubbish these days' - in this case La Cucaracha) and playing chess (the white pieces have been eaten due to a bet). This is briefly interrupted when the doorbell rings and one character answers it to find a pesky dog (who is, in fact, a double-glazing salesman) before the other persuades him to enter into a game of shadow puppets. The first character is frustrated by his acquaintance's appalling representation of a cow and later his failure to recognize a rather fantastic rabbit (His misled guesses include a 'fireman chasing an igloo' and an 'Otter with two sausage strapped to his head'). After an amusing outburst from the poor fellow, his annoying partner accuses him of being 'shirty'. This leads him to explode, furiously crying "I'm stuck indoors playing 'Guess the misshapen beast' with someone who clearly wouldn't recognise a rabbit if it came to his house for tea, said 'What's up Doc?' and started burrowing into his head! There are blind people with no fingers who are better at shadow puppets than you! No wonder I'm a tad miffed!" An awkward silence follows this, until the doorbell rings and the first character goes to answer it and finds the second character's 'cow' shadow puppet, which moos. Despite being disappointed with being wrong about a cow's appearance, he simply responds to this with a cheery "Not today, thank you." and closes the door in front of the camera, thus ending the animation.Best Animated Short: Best Animated Short - 1999 

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Azul is a young woman in the end of the 19th century who has been forced to get engaged to Arcadio Berriozabal when she is in love with his brother Santiago Berriozabal. Before her wedding peasant revolution is started and she is kidnapped. Santiago, believing she is dead, creates one of the finest tequilas and calls it "Azul Tequila"."Azul Tequila" Alma-Latina. Retrieved 2014-1-5. 

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Set in winter, we find Daffy Duck removing and burning every "Duck Season Open" sign he finds in order to warm himself in the winter, and prevent himself from being hunted. Elmer is out hunting and Daffy uses several signs to convince Elmer that it is rabbit season, making Elmer excited about "Fwesh wabbit stew!" just before Elmer follows a yellow line to Bugs' rabbit hole. Daffy lures Bugs Bunny out by asking for a cup of blackstrap molasses. Just as Bugs Bunny comes out of his rabbit hole, Elmer points the gun at him and declares that he got his "wabbit stew". However, Bugs is already prepared for Daffy's trick and attempts to convince Elmer not to shoot him because he is obviously an endangered species — a fricasseeing rabbit — and that Elmer does not have a license to shoot fricasseeing rabbits. Bugs giving Daffy misinformation in Duck! Rabbit, Duck!' This enrages Daffy, who attempts to convince Elmer Fudd that Bugs Bunny is actually trying to fool Elmer and orders Elmer to shoot Bugs, prompting Elmer to regretfully point out that he does not have the proper license. Exasperated, Daffy writes out the proper hunting license but has to ask Bugs how to spell "fricasseeing". Bugs tells him, "F-R-I-C-A-S-S-E-E-I-N-G", adding "D-U-C-K". Oblivious to the trick, Daffy gives Elmer the "license" and Elmer obediently blasts Daffy. This leads into an extended routine in this short which has Bugs holding up various "[insert animal here] season" signs to correspond with every figurative expression involving an animal which Daffy is called, either by himself or by Bugs in response (including "goat", "dirty skunk", "pigeon" and "mongoose"). Each presentation of the sign is accompanied by a brass fanfare of a fox hunting call, and is, of course, followed by a gunshot; after each shot, the irritated Daffy is forced to put his beak back in place. At one point, Bugs builds a snow-rabbit image of himself and when Elmer blasts it, Bugs Bunny appears disguised as an angel (which Elmer believes, to Daffy's total disgust). Bugs then puts on a duck disguise. Daffy (who has now instructed Elmer to "pay no more attention to no more signs; you're just gonna listen to me") sees him and shouts "Shoot the duck! Shoot the duck!" to which Elmer obliges by shooting the nearest duck — Daffy. Daffy finally goes completely insane, demanding "Shoot me again! I enjoy it! I love the smell of burnt feathers and gunpowder and cordite!" then holding up his fingers at the top of his head like the antlers of an elk and scuttling around sideways like a crab, shrieking that it is elk and fiddler crab season, respectively, and that Elmer should shoot him. The antics become truly confusing at the end when the now- totally bewildered Elmer encounters a game warden (actually Bugs in disgiuse) and begs him to tell Elmer what hunting season it really is, to which the "game warden" tells Elmer that it is baseball season while holding up a baseball. Upon hearing this, Elmer loses his sanity and starts shooting at the baseball (which Bugs throws out a little bit in front of him) as he goes off into the distance. When he is gone, Bugs removes his disguise and asks Daffy what hunting season it really is. Daffy casually answers not to be naïve; everybody knows that it is really duck season and ends up getting blasted by several hunters hiding behind rocks all at the same time. Devastated, Daffy reattaches his bill and weakly drags himself to Bugs who is eating a carrot, climbs up his uniform and remarks "You're despicable!" and Bugs gives one last look to the audience as the cartoon fades to black. 

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King Fernando and his wife Queen Valeriana rule the Kingdom of Berbanya. They have three children: Don Pedro, Don Diego, and Don Juan. One night, King Fernando dreamed of Don Juan being murdered by two traitors (which would turn out to be the two older sons), becomes frightened and so depressed that he would not even want to eat nor rest. He becomes ill and none of his constituents are able to cure him. An old doctor advises that the Ibong Adarna (a mythical bird) would be the only creature that could restore his health by its marvelous songs. He initially sends out Don Pedro to look for the Ibong Adarna. After three months of wandering through the forests and thickets, he arrived at a golden tree, known as Piedras Platas. At the foot of the tree, he falls down tired and thirsty. What he does not know is that the golden tree is where the Ibong Adarna roosts for the night. By nightfall, the bird flies into the air and sings the first of its seven songs; its melody was so softly sweet that anyone, including Don Pedro, was lulled into a profound sleep. After emitting its seventh song for the night, the bird excretes dropping on the sleeping prince in which it was turned into stone. King Fernando then sends his second son Don Diego as well to search for the bird. Don Diego undergoes the same hardships (but ventures for five months, two more than Don Pedro) and meets the same fate as his older brother. After three whole years without hearing any news, Don Juan, the youngest and most favored son is (unwillingly by King Fernando) sent forth, in search of the bird. Don Juan however, has the fortune to meet on his way an old hermit who was impressed by the virtues and good manners of the young prince and knowing the mission on which he embarked, put him on guard against the treacheries of the bird. The hermit tells of the golden tree where the famed bird roosts every night after singing seven songs, warning of the spells in its seven songs which lulls the hearer to sleep and the excretion which petrifies anyone. He provides Don Juan with a knife and lemons, both of which Juan must use to cut seven wounds on his hands and distill into them the juice of the fruits to create the pain that will prevent him from being lulled by the seven songs. The hermit then gives Juan a golden rope that the prince must use to bind the bird's legs while it is asleep and take it inside a cage. Before Juan leaves, the hermit provides him with a bucket which he must use to scoop water from a well near the tree and pour over his two petrified brothers to restore them. Don Juan did as was bidden and soon found himself in possession of the desired bird and on his way back to his home country with his two brothers, Don Pedro and Don Diego. Don Juan's venture lasted for 4 months going towards the Adarna bird. On the way, however, being envious that Don Juan had obtained what they were not able to do, the two older brothers conspired between themselves to do away with him. Don Pedro suggested that they should kill him but Don Diego, who was less brutal, convinced Pedro that it was sufficient to beat him, which they did. After beating Don Juan to whom they owed their lives, they left him unconscious in the middle of the road as the two brothers continued on their way to the palace. Once there in the palace, they convinced the king that they never knew what happened to Don Juan, but the bird was disheveled and did not sing for it awaits Don Juan, the true captor of this bird. Don Juan woke eventually, but could not move due to the pain caused by the beating. He prayed fervently for the health of the king and the forgiveness of God to his brothers. The same hermit who gave him advice before catching the bird arrives and heals him magically. Upon return to the palace, everyone was happy except his two brothers, worried that Don Juan might tell what happened to the king. The bird then started to sing. Its enchanted song revealed to the king that Don Pedro and Don Diego beat up Don Juan and that he was the true captor of the bird. The two were sentenced to being cut off from the royalty and banished, but they were reprieved due to Don Juan being forgiving and asking to give them another chance. They were given one, however, any consequent fault would mean death. They enjoyed the bird, they did not treat it as a pet, but rather like a person. So they made the three princes watch over the bird for 3 hours each every day. Don Pedro wanted revenge, so he conspired again and forced Don Diego to go on board with it yet again. They planned to trick Don Juan into thinking that under his watch, the bird escaped. They successfully did it and Don Juan set out to find the bird before the king wakes up. The king finds the bird missing and so is Don Juan, so he asked the two to find the bird and their brother. 

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"Indiana, 1933". During the Great Depression, various bank robbers and other outlaws have become folk heroes due to public distrust of financial institutions and the law. Following the Kansas City Massacre in June 1933 in which several law enforcement offers were killed brazenly in broad daylight, FBI field office chief Melvin Purvis decides to personally hunt down the men he deems responsible: Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd, Lester "Baby Face" Nelson, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, "Handsome" Jack Klutas, Wilbur Underhill and John Dillinger. During a meeting with fellow FBI agent Samuel Cowley, Purvis makes it clear he seeks personal vengeance and that he's willing to use extralegal measures if necessary. Dillinger is in the midst of his criminal career, accompanied by Homer Van Meter, Harry Pierpont, Charles Mackley and others and is very boastful about his exploits. He meets Billy Frechette at a bar and immediately takes a liking to her, but becomes nonplussed when she doesn't recognized him and robs the bar patrons to impress her. She becomes his lover, accompanying him and his gang on their exploits. During one robbery in East Chicago, the gang loses Mackley and several others, forcing the gang to scatter. It is during this time that Purvis has begun his purge of the gangsters, hunting down and killing Underhill and Klutas and capturing Kelly. He's unable to move against Dillinger and the others as they have not violated federal laws yet. While lying low in Arizona with the rest of the gang, Dillinger is captured by the local authorities and transported to Crowne Point, Indiana. While imprisoned there, Dillinger makes a daring escape after carving a bar of soap into the shape of a gun and fooling the guards into releasing him. It is during this escape that Dillinger finally commits a federal crime, driving a stolen car across state lines. He takes a fellow prisoner Reed Youngblood with him, and they eventually meet back up with the gang, including new members Nelson and Floyd. They start a crime spree across the Midwest to the chagrin of Purvis, angry and jealous of the how the media romanticizes their exploits. The gang's luck runs out following a bank robbery in Mason City, Iowa, which leads to a violent shootout ending in Youngblood's death and the wounding of another member. While staying at the Little Bohemia lodge in Wisconsin following the heist, Purvis leads a team of FBI agents on a raid of the lodge, costing numerous agents' lives and sending the gang scattering again. During this chaos, Pierpont, Nelson, Van Meter and Floyd are all hunted down by either federal agents or local vigilantes and summarily killed. While hiding in Chicago, Dillinger makes the acquaintance of a brothel owner, Anna Sage. Purvis, sensing an opportunity, offers to protect Sage from being deported if she'll help finger Dillinger. While attending the gangster film Manhattan Melodrama at the Biograph Theater, Purvis and his men get into position to capture Dillinger as he, Sage and a female acquaintance exit the theater. At the last minute, Purvis instead goads Dillinger into going for his gun and then shoots the gangster down in the alleyway. In the epilogue, it is revealed that Sage was eventually deported back to Romania despite Purvis' promise, Purvis eventually committed suicide after retiring from the FBI, Frechette ended up dying penniless, and that Dillinger's likeness is now used for the FBI's targets during shooting practice. 

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Two major alien civilizations, the Amplitur (a squid-like species with telepathic and mind-controlling abilities – which they couch as "suggestions") and The Weave (a confederacy of more or less equal species), have been fighting a war for several millennia. The Amplitur are attempting to join all sentient species in what they call the "Purpose", an alliance they "guide" to some unknown (even to them) end. The Weave is a group of species allied in opposition to the Purpose. Most of the fighting takes place on planetary surfaces, and is relatively restrained in terms of destruction, the purpose of the war being to convince and control one's opponents rather than destroy them. However, most sentient species in the galaxy have evolved to be incapable of committing violence against other sentients (violence of any sort being most uncivilized, but against another sentient being a [literally] unthinkable crime), which leaves a shortage of warriors on both sides. The Amplitur, with their mind- controlling abilities and therefore ease with which they control conquered populations, have gradually been pushing the Weave back for centuries and seem to be on track for final victory. On a mission to find new resources and allies, a Weave scout ship discovers Earth circa late 20th/early 21st century and finds that humans are uniquely suited as allies, in that they have the ability to fight, are adaptable to a wide variety of environments, have few (or sometimes no) compunctions regarding war (humans having been fighting each other for all of their recorded history), and above all seem even more enthusiastic when their aggression is focused on non-humans. Eventually Weave xenopsychologists determine that Earth's fragmented continents resulted in a species that evolved to fight, compete, and kill for dominance. They surmise that all humans are born hunters and killers, but that intelligence is starting to drive them toward the abhorrence of violence that other "civilized" species consider normal. When humans are unleashed upon the battlefield, all inhibitions against killing other humans are disregarded. Humans have no problem hunting and slaughtering non-humans, and some seem to enjoy it. This is appalling to the civilized races of the Weave, but they cannot deny the efficacy of human combat troops. Humans have the potential to become fearsome allies for the Weave and are also physiologically immune to the Amplitur mind control abilities. After the Weave scouts convince volunteers (mercenaries) from Earth to join the war, the tide turns for the Weave and the main conflict towards the end of the series becomes a question of what will happen to the new warriors when the war finally ends if they have not become more civilized (and therefore, less effective allies). Throughout the book the humans are greatly feared by the rest of the Weave because of the human race's violent tendencies. (The rest of the galaxy's species lived in harmony amongst themselves before they developed enough to reach out into space.) The first book deals with the Weave and humans trying to come to terms with each other, the first humans begin to fight in the war and the Amplitur attempt to capture Earth to deny the Weave their new allies. The second book details the outcome of the capture of some humans by the Amplitur, who genetically engineer them to become susceptible to the Amplitur telepathic abilities. Weave scientists' attempt to reverse this engineering on the repatriated humans had the (unknown to the Amplitur and Weave alike) side effect of giving those humans mind-control talents as well. When the newly- returned humans realize their abilities, they form a secret society called the Core, whose existence is unknown to even other humans. They fight the war telepathically as well as physically. The third book, set a few hundred years later, follows the research of a Wais scientist, Lalelelang, studying humans. The Wais are a delicate, highly civilized ornithorp race and are the most averse to violence of all the Weave species. Some members of this race can be shocked into a catatonic state at the mere sight of violence, which makes Lalelelang's friends, family, and colleagues all the more fearful for her chosen subject of study. During the course of her research, she comes to the conclusion that unless humans can be 'civilized' somehow, they will eventually turn on the rest of the Weave races once the war is over. She embarks on a quest to keep this from happening, and is joined by one of the descendants of the 'altered' humans from the second book. Unknown to Lalelelang, she will discover shocking things about not only the telepathic humans, but a couple of alien species from the first two books as well as herself. Significant parts of the action of the novels take place between the various non-human species that make up both The Weave and the Amplitur's allies, giving an outside perspective of "normal" human interactions and events as the author's apparent commentary on current events. 

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In the aftermath of Infinite Crisis, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman have temporarily retired their costumed identities, and the remaining heroes attend a memorial for Superboy in Metropolis. Time traveler Booster Gold attends the memorial, but when Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman do not arrive as he expects, he suspects his robot sidekick Skeets is malfunctioning. After Skeets reports other incorrect historical data, Booster searches fellow time traveler Rip Hunter's desert bunker for answers, but finds it littered with enigmatic scrawled notes and photos of himself and Skeets surrounded by the words "his fault" with arrows pointing toward them. Booster's reputation is ruined by his unscrupulous attempts to maintain his corporate sponsorships, as well as the arrival of a mysterious new superhero named Supernova. Booster tries to regain the spotlight by containing an exploding nuclear submarine, but is seemingly killed in the attempt. Skeets uses Booster's ancestor Daniel Carter to regain access to Hunter's lab, where he sees the photos and arrows pointing at Skeets himself. Realizing that Hunter is aware of his plan, Skeets traps Carter in a time loop in the bunker and sets out to locate Hunter himself. He eventually corners Hunter and Supernova in the bottle-city of Kandor, where Supernova reveals himself to be Booster Gold, having faked his death with the help of Hunter to uncover Skeets' true intentions. Hunter and Booster attempt to trap Skeets in the Phantom Zone, but Skeets appears to consume the sub-dimension and pursues his two adversaries through time. Ralph Dibny, the Elongated Man, is told that the gravestone of his dead wife Sue has been vandalized with an inverted version of Superman's "S" symbol, the Kryptonian symbol for resurrection. He confronts Cassandra Sandsmark, and she tells Dibny that she is in a cult which believes that Superboy can be resurrected, but they would like to try it first with Sue. Despite his initial consent, Dibny and his friends disrupt the ceremony, and the effigy of Sue crawls to Dibny, calling out to him as it burns; Dibny suffers a nervous breakdown as a result. Ralph seeks out the helmet of Doctor Fate, which promises to revive Sue if he makes certain sacrifices. With unwilling assistance of a demon he tied into knots using Gingold, Dibny journeys with the helmet through the afterlives of several cultures, where he is cautioned about the use of magic for personal gain. After several failed attempts to resurrect his wife, Dibny prepares a spell in Doctor Fate's home, the Tower of Nabu. Dibny puts the helmet on, points the gun at his temple, then shoots the helmet to reveal it is actually the sorcerer Felix Faust. Faust was posing as Nabu to give Dibny's soul to the demon Neron in exchange for his freedom. Neron kills Dibny, but realizes too late that Dibny's spell has trapped him and Faust inside a circle of binding that can only be undone by the person who originally created it. With Ralph's death, Neron and Faust are seemingly trapped together in the tower for all eternity. Ralph and Sue Dibny are reunited in death as ghost detectives. Lex Luthor announces the Everyman Project, a program designed to give ordinary people superpowers. John Henry Irons deactivates his niece Natasha's Steel armor after an argument about responsibility, then denies her pleas to be allowed to join the Everyman project. Following an encounter with Luthor, Irons' skin transforms into stainless steel, causing Natasha to accuse him of hypocrisy. Out of spite, she enrolls in the Everyman Project and becomes a member of Luthor's superhero team Infinity, Inc. Irons learns that Luthor can deactivate Everyman Project-given abilities and that they expire naturally after approximately six months. Luthor negates the powers of one of Natasha's teammates during a battle with fatal results, and Irons uses the death of her friend to convince Natasha to question Luthor's motives. After Luthor, angered by reports that he is incompatible with the treatment, deactivates the powers of the majority of the Everyman subjects on New Year's Eve, resulting in many of them falling from the sky to their deaths, Natasha works undercover to expose Luthor. Luthor eventually learns the reports were falsified by employees out of fear for what he might do with genuine superpowers, and gives himself the powers of Superman. He discovers Natasha's spying and beats her violently using his newfound powers. Irons and the Teen Titans attack Lexcorp and bring Luthor to justice with Natasha's help. Beast Boy offers Natasha, in her rebuilt Steel armor, membership in the Teen Titans, but she declines in favor of forming a new team with her uncle. Animal Man, Starfire, and Adam Strange are marooned on an alien planet after the events of Infinite Crisis. They are pursued through space by agents of Lady Styx, whose forces are conquering and overrunning planets on a path of destruction toward Earth. They are rescued and joined by Lobo, who possesses the Emerald Eye of Ekron and claims he has found religion and turned his back on violence for the sake of his beloved Space Dolphins. Lady Styx hired Lobo to capture the heroes, but he instead delivers them to her so they can fight her. The heroes triumph, but not before encountering the Emerald Head of Ekron, a Green Lantern who fights alongside them to reobtain his eye (which is, in fact, a supercharged power ring). During the fight, Animal Man is injected with a toxin and dies. After Starfire and Strange lay his body to rest and leave, Animal Man awakens to find the aliens who gave him his powers standing over him, upgrading his powers to allow him to gain powers from any sentient being in the universe. Animal Man acquires the powers of Sun-Eaters, which he uses to return to Earth. He is pursued by Lady Styx's assassins, who are killed by Starfire just as they arrive at his home. Black Adam, the superhuman leader of Kahndaq, forges a coalition with several other countries against the United States' superhuman supremacy under the Freedom of Power Treaty until Adrianna Tomaz, a former slave, shows Adam how he can use his abilities more peacefully to help his country. Adam convinces Captain Marvel to give Tomaz the power of Isis, and Adam and Isis free enslaved children across Africa. The Question, Renee Montoya, and Batwoman, meanwhile, discover that Intergang is preparing to invade Gotham City. Following a lead, the Question and Montoya fly to Kahndaq, where they prevent a suicide bombing at Black Adam and Isis' wedding, for which Adam awards them one of Kahndaq's highest honors. The four uncover Intergang, which is inducting children into a religion of crime based on its Crime Bible. Black Adam finds Isis' crippled brother Amon among the children and shares his power with him, and Amon is reborn as Osiris. Osiris befriends a seemingly timid anthropomorphic crocodile named Sobek, who joins Black Adam's Black Marvel Family. Adam and Isis inform the Freedom of Power Treaty member nations that Kahndaq is no longer interested in consolidating power or in executing superhumans. Will Magnus, creator of the Metal Men, is abducted to Oolong Island, where Intergang and Chang Tzu are forcing kidnapped scientists to develop new weapons for them. Magnus' anti-depressants are confiscated and he is ordered to build a Plutonium Man robot, but Magnus also secretly rebuilds miniature versions of the Metal Men. The scientists activate three of their Four Horsemen of Apokolips, which target Black Adam. Suspicious of Black Adam, Amanda Waller destroys Osiris' reputation by maneuvering him into killing the Persuader and leaking footage of the incident to the media. Osiris retires from the public eye as a result, and acid rain ravages Kahndaq. Osiris, convinced that he is the cause of Kahndaq's new miseries, asks Captain Marvel to remove his powers, but he is confronted by Isis and Black Adam and returns to Kahndaq. Sobek tricks Osiris into turning back into Amon and devours him, revealing himself to be the fourth Horseman, Famine. The other Horsemen battle Black Adam and Isis. Isis is poisoned by Pestilence and dies while asking Adam to avenge her and Osiris' deaths. Grief-stricken and enraged to the point of madness, Black Adam destroys the country of Bialya, base of the Four Horsemen, and murders the country's entire population before killing the last of the Horsemen. He attacks Oolong Island, but the scientists capture and imprison him. The Justice Society of America invade the island to arrest Adam and subdue the scientists, but Adam escapes and embarks on a week-long rampage across the globe, during which he kills several superhumans. During an enormous battle between many superhumans and Black Adam, Captain Marvel is unable to convince the Egyptian pantheon to remove Adam's powers, so he instead reverts him to Teth-Adam and changes Adam's magic word from "Shazam" to a new phrase. Teth-Adam goes missing in the resulting explosion and wanders the Earth powerlessly as he tries to guess the new magic word. He is seen wearing boots made from Sobek's skin. The Question and Montoya train with Richard Dragon in Nanda Parbat, where Montoya learns that the Question is dying from lung cancer and wants her to replace him. After they discover a prophecy in the Crime Bible about Batwoman's death, the two join her fight against Intergang in Gotham City. When the Question's condition worsens, Montoya journeys back to Nanda Parbat in a failed attempt to save his life. Shortly after they leave Gotham, Intergang discovers Batwoman's identity and attempts to sacrifice her to fulfill the prophecy. Montoya, as the new Question, joins Nightwing and former Intergang member Kyle Abbot in trying to save Batwoman, but they are unable to prevent Mannheim from stabbing her with a ceremonial dagger. Batwoman fatally wounds Mannheim and survives. After she recovers, Montoya shines the restored Bat-Signal to call Batwoman back to work. Skeets is revealed to be Mister Mind, who has been using Skeets' metallic body as a cocoon to metamorphose into a gigantic, monstrous form that feeds on time itself. Rip Hunter and Booster escape to the end of the Infinite Crisis, where they witness the secret creation of 52 identical parallel universes, which Mister Mind intends to consume. Daniel Carter reappears as the new Supernova and saves Hunter and Booster, restoring the Phantom Zone in the process. Mister Mind alters events in the 52 universes, creating new histories and a new status quo for each. Booster and Supernova trap Mister Mind in the remains of Skeets' shell and send him back in time to the beginning of the year, where he is captured by Dr. Sivana, trapped in a time loop for all eternity. Hunter, Booster, and Supernova agree to keep the restored multiverse's existence a secret, and Will Magnus rebuilds Skeets, using a copy he had made of the robot's memories. 

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To pay off going over her cellphone minutes, Jill Johnson has agreed to babysit for the wealthy Mandrakis family. When she arrives at the house, the parents show her around and tell her about their live-in housemaid, Rosa. While the two children are asleep upstairs, Jill soon begins to receive anonymous phone calls from a stranger who, most of the time, doesn't say anything and then hangs up. She initially believes it is her friends playing a prank but when she calls them, they deny it. Jill's friend Tiffany stops by but Jill, in fear of getting into further trouble, asks her to leave. Outside while getting back in her car, Tiffany is ambushed. Strange events begin to occur, such as the house alarm going off for no reason, until Jill receives menacing calls from the caller, indicating he can see her. Alarmed, she calls the police, who tell her they can trace the calls if she is able to keep him on the line for sixty seconds. While waiting for the phone to ring, Jill sees a shadow moving in the guesthouse. Believing it is the Mandrakis' son back from college, she goes to investigate but finds the guesthouse empty. Back at the main house, Jill searches for Rosa but finds only her belongings. The phone rings once again and the caller remains quiet on the other end as Jill manages to keep him on the line for a minute so the call can be traced. Jill then hears the shower running in the maid's room but, upon checking, the bathroom is empty. The police then tell her the calls are coming from inside the house. Horrified, Jill finds Tiffany dead on the bathroom floor and flees. Jill goes to the children who are already hiding in their playroom. She looks up and sees the intruder in the loft. They all escape into the greenhouse and hide. Jill discovers Rosa's dead body under the water. The stranger enters and searches the greenhouse. Jill manages to lock him inside but he breaks out and attacks her. During the altercation, Jill manages to stab the assailant’s hand into the hardwood floor with a fireplace poker, before rushing out of the house into the arms of a police officer. The assailant is arrested and Jill and the children survive. Days later while recuperating in the hospital, Jill awakens to a phone ringing. She gets out of bed and, while looking at her reflection in the mirror, the attacker appears behind her and grabs her. She begins to shriek hysterically, waking from her hallucination as the doctors and her dad desperately trying to stop her frantic panicking. 

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US Army Command Sergeant Major Zack Carey (played by Garner) is about to retire from the military after taking his last post in rural Clemmons County, Georgia (loosely based on Fort Benning, largely in Chattahoochee County, Georgia). Despite being offered the possibility of becoming Sergeant Major of the Army, he insists he just wishes to finish his tour and retire in peace to spend time with his family. Several years earlier, his older son had been killed in an Army training accident, and his relationship with his only surviving son, Billy (played by Howell), is strained. Zack's no-nonsense, unpretentious style of leadership quickly earns him a reputation on-post as a tough but fair NCO, well-regarded for his compassion and integrity. Zack owns a vintage Sherman tank from World War II that he has restored with his younger son's help, and he drives it for parades and other public events. While visiting an off-base bar, he meets a young woman named Sarah (Jenilee Harrison) and the two of them strike up a conversation over drinks. During their conversation, the local deputy sheriff, Euclid Baker (James Cromwell) sees them together and orders Sarah to get back to work, insulting her and slapping her in the process. Carey quickly intervenes, subduing the deputy. Sarah had been forced into prostitution by Cyrus Buelton, the corrupt sheriff (G. D. Spradlin). Sheriff Buelton tries to arrest Carey, but finds he has no jurisdiction while Carey is on the base, which is federal property. Upon discovering that Billy attends a public school off-post, Buelton has marijuana planted in Billy's locker and arrests him. When Zack comes to him seeking terms of truce, Sheriff Buelton offers to drop the charges if Carey gives him a hefty bribe, roughly equal to his retirement savings. Zack hesitates and considers the deal, but his wife, LaDonna (Shirley Jones) refuses to take part in "good old boy" justice and calls a lawyer. The lawyer is thrown into jail himself on trumped-up contempt of court charges, Billy is put on trial immediately without benefit of counsel and sentenced to several years of hard labor. LaDonna, finally realizing the depths of Sheriff Buelton's corruption and cruelty, goes to Zach and tells him what happened. When Carey tries to offer the bribe, Buelton accepts the money, but refuses to release his son, simply stating that it will prevent him from being shot "accidentally" or while "attempting to escape", or from being raped by other inmates – temporarily. Carey decides to take matters into his own hands, delivers his resignation, and climbs into his vintage tank, destroying the local jail and police station and releasing Billy's lawyer. With Sarah tagging along, Carey departs for the county work farm, where they use the tank to liberate Billy and flee the town. His plan is to escape to neighboring Tennessee, where they can get a fair hearing regarding extradition. While repairing a shed track, though, Carey is injured, and Billy takes command of the Sherman. Sheriff Buelton demands military intervention from Carey's commanding general, Major General V.E. Hubik. The general points out that Carey had already retired from the Army, so he has broken no military law. Buelton then demands that Hubik order the post's personnel and tanks to pursue Carey, and that if refused, he will call the governor of Georgia. General Hubik again declines, this time citing the Posse Comitatus Act, which states that the Department of Defense is prevented from interfering in domestic law enforcement outside the military reservation without approval from his superiors or the President of the United States. (As a running joke for the remainder of the film, an ignorant Buelton misinterprets the act's name as a dismissive insult of himself as a "pussy Communist".) Through a long series of chases and evasion through rural Georgia, while being aided by relatives of people jailed by Buelton and who died while incarcerated, the tank and its crew quickly become folk heroes. Despite Sheriff Buelton insisting they are criminals, the nation rallies behind them as a sort of modern-day Robin Hood. On the Tennessee side of the line, thousands of people gather to welcome the tank. Meanwhile, LaDonna has met with the governor of Tennessee, where she, with use of a rather direct and blunt threat of blackmail, manages to get a formal guarantee that they will be given a proper extradition hearing. A showdown brews at the Tennessee state line, where a huge crowd of supporters for the tank and its crew has gathered. Using a vintage antitank weapon, Buelton manages to immobilize the tank within a mud flat, forcing Billy to consider surrender. However, a motorcycle gang intervenes and attaches a wire rope to the tank, and the assembled crowd works to pull the Sherman out of the trap. Buelton goes as far as to order his posse to fire at the crowd, prompting a large line of Tennessee state troopers to draw their weapons in response, threatening to "turn this into another 'Little Big Horn'". Bulton and his men then race into the mud flat and begin pulling on their end against the crowd.. Reaching a stalemate, Major General Hubik takes charge and has a bulldozer brought over to help free the tank. Celebrating his apparent vicotry, Bulton climbs onto the tank and orders its occupants to surrender, but instead, Zack instructs Billy to rotate the tank's turret, which knocks him off and face down into the mud. Meanwhile, the bulldozer begins pulling the tank free of the mud with the renewed help of the crowd. This time, the posse's efforts to stop them are futile, and the tank is successfully pulled over the state line. Zack, Billy and Sarah climb out of the tank to a hero's welcome by LaDonna and the people and the governor of Tennessee. 

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The title character is a gun-for-hire freelance anti-terrorist, who is brought in when things go horribly, horribly wrong, and who uses extremely violent methods to achieve his goals. However, he is also an active social liberal who takes part in anti-war demonstrations, and is internally conflicted about the measures he has to take. 

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Dr. Elaine Frederick, a mad scientist, is working on developing maggots that prefer human flesh, while her services are used to make a clone of Adolf Hitler. She cooperates with the plan to resurrect Hitler as a way of exacting revenge for the death of her mother, a political prisoner executed in Ravensbrück concentration camp. While convincing everyone the flesh-eating maggots are for regeneration research, she simply wants to throw them in the resurrected Hitler's face, which she does. 

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Sky Gunner follows the story of 3 ace pilots, Ciel, Copain and Femme, who are hired to protect the "Eternal Engine", an engine capable of perpetual motion. Little do they know, the criminal genius, Ventre, is planning to use the town's celebration aboard the luxury airship, Merveilleux, as an opportunity to steal the Eternal Engine for his own evil ends. 

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Jersild used his medical knowledge of the long- term effects of a nuclear holocaust to great effect in this novel, which relates the adventures of a young man dumped on the island of Gotland some 30 years after a worldwide nuclear catastrophe. Humanity is about to go out with a whimper. The only inhabitants of the island are a band of aging convicts and a handful of religious women, also advanced in years, plus a few hermits. The economy is reduced to barter and plunder and the only medical care is provided by an ex-baseball player, who becomes the reluctant mentor of the protagonist. A ray of hope is introduced in the story with the arrival of a young Finnish woman, but it all ends in misery. 

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The film tells of a young Orthodox Jewish man's struggle after the death of his father. The young man returns from Israel to find that he would prefer to leave Orthodoxy, and departs from his remaining family to become a taxi driver. He gradually assimilates into secular life, soon finding himself tempted to fornicate. The film appears to mimic the Parable of the Prodigal Son, with the main character appearing to reconsider Orthodox life at the end of the film by reuniting with his family. 

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In this comedy, Charlie Chaplin has a companion--a pet bulldog. Walking along a street with his bulldog, Charlie finds a "good luck" horseshoe just as he passes the training camp of an enormous fighter named Spike Dugan. Outside the camp is a large, painted advertisement which states Dugan is seeking sparring partners "who can take a punch." After watching other better fighters be soundly beaten by Dugan, Charlie decides his best bet is to put the horseshoe inside his boxing glove. Using the loaded glove, Charlie connects with a solid punch and wins. The trainer prepares Charlie to fight the world champion. A gambler wants Charlie to throw the fight. He and the trainer's daughter fall in love. 

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An orphan Kondaveeti Raja M.A.,L.L.B.,I.A.S. (Chiranjeevi) is raised through the support of people living in the tribal village of Kondaveedu. Upon his return from Hyderabad, he witnesses the failed legal system and the village being engulfed in political corruption, forgery, smuggling, money laundering, drug trafficking, land grabbing and alcohol abuse carried out by the local mafia and landlords (Sarabhoji (Rao Gopal Rao), Narasimham (Mohan Babu) and Khaadra (Amrish Puri)), who impose taxes on farmers. Instead of being in the system and taking the direct route as an administrator himself, he transforms into a Robin Hood for the village and indulges in swashbuckling heists of money and paddy worth several crores from the landlords while being in disguise, much to the frustration of corrupt officials. He funds the tribals into self-sustaining farmers, while providing food, irrigation, healthcare, shelter and education to the poor and transforms the village. 

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Sarah Jane Smith and her co-worker Jeremy Fitzoliver are on holiday in Sicily when they meet the Brigadier. The Brigadier is trying to help his Uncle Mario, who is being threatened by a mobster named Vilmio. Mario is also trying to deal with the ghosts that have been sighted in his castello. The Brigadier asks the Doctor to investigate the hauntings and determine their source. The Doctor reveals that the ghosts are "N-Bodies", or the souls of the deceased who have not yet left the physical plane. The ghosts are gathering around Mario's castello due to a fracture in the N-Space barrier; if the barrier were to fail, Earth would be overrun with the monsters that inhabit N-Space. The Doctor travels back to the 19th and 16th century in an attempt to locate the cause of the fracture. In the past he discovers that Vilmio is actually an alchemist called Vilmius who has discovered a method for extending his lifespan; now that he is nearing the end of his life, he wants to use the power of N-Space to give himself true immortality. He also plans to control the monsters in N-Space and use them to rule the world. Vilmius has been waiting centuries for a specific astrological conjunction to occur, which is scheduled to occur in the next few days. Vilmius' men storm the castello, allowing Vilmio access to the N-Space fracture. The Doctor and Sarah Jane, using a device the Doctor invented, send their N-bodies into the fracture as well. Inside N-Space, Sarah Jane's belief in the Doctor transforms his body into that of a heroic white knight, which allows the Doctor to defeat Vilmius and sever his N-Body's link with his physical body. The defeat comes too late, and Vilmius begins absorbing the N-Space energy into his body. In a last-ditch attempt, the Doctor increases the amount of N-Space energy funnelling into Vilmius, which causes him to explode; the N-Space energy disperses harmlessly. 

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The protagonist (Larry) is burdened with deep guilt and regret after discovering that his estranged sister has committed suicide. He recounts one fateful day, long ago, when the two were children playing in their family's barn. With their parents not home, they played a forbidden game where they would take turns climbing to the top of a very tall ladder in their barn, and leap off into a huge haystack. The ladder was already old and unsafe but that was part of the thrill. On his last turn, Larry realised that the ladder was on the point of letting go. By the time he landed in the hay, Kitty was already climbing up again. The ladder broke and left her clinging to the last rung. Larry desperately piled hay below her. When Kitty couldn't hang on any longer, he told her to let go, and she did. The hay broke Kitty's fall and saved her life, leaving her with only a broken ankle. Larry was astonished when Kitty told him that she hadn't looked down before letting go, so she didn't know about the hay. She simply trusted him to save her. Larry tells of how his sister grew up into a striking beauty. She was supposed to attend business college but, in the summer after graduation, she won a beauty pageant and ended up marrying one of the judges. After the marriage failed, Kitty moved to Los Angeles, landing some roles in B-movies and some glamour modeling shoots, and married again, only to have this marriage fail as well. As she aged, Kitty ended up working as a call girl. Larry was too wrapped up in his own affairs to come to her aid. Part of the problem was refusing to acknowledge she had grown up: "To me, my sister was a girl with pigtails, still without breasts." Larry now reminds himself of his failure to realize the importance of family by preserving a newspaper article of his sister's suicide; "Call Girl Swan Dives to her Death", and the final letter she sent to him two weeks before she died, which said "I've been thinking about it a lot lately... and what I've decided is that it would have been better for me if that last rung had broken before you could put the hay down". Larry states that those words would have been enough to make him come running. Unfortunately, he had neglected to tell his sister he'd moved, and the letter was not forwarded in time. 

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Set in the fictional English town of Hampton, the book explores the socioeconomic changes brought about by globalisation on an insular community, represented by the building of a shopping mall by a large American corporation. Meanwhile, the community also experiences pressure from prime minister Margaret Thatcher's economic policies, including cuts to health care and welfare. 

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Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Butters are at Stan's house to see Fightin' Around the World with Russell Crowe. The boys do not actually care about the show, but watch it solely to see the new Terrance and Phillip movie trailer, which will premiere during one of the show's commercial breaks. Shelly, Stan's aggressive older sister, being on her period, only allows them to watch if they bring her some tampons; the boys send out Butters to get some. Cartman thinks the TV's color is "saturated" and attempts to fix a loose cable, causing the TV to explode. After Butters returns, the boys leave to watch at Kyle's house, forcing his little brother Ike away from the TV. Their father, Gerald, reprimands Kyle for not letting Ike watch the MacNeil/Lehrer Report, forcing the boys to find another place to watch the show. Throughout the episode, several parts of Fightin' Around the World with Russell Crowe are shown. This "children's show" depicts Crowe as a muscular sailor with an exaggerated Australian accent who randomly beats people up. He sails the world with Tugger, his anthropomorphic tugboat who communicates with him by exhuming fumes, and who Crowe considers his best friend. Throughout the show, Crowe and Tugger visit several places, including Tiananmen Square in China and The Bronx in New York City. Crowe describes the locals there in a wildlife documentary style similar to such shows as The Crocodile Hunter and Man vs. Wild, then proceeds to pick fights with them. At one point, Crowe also attacks the show's editor for cutting one of the fighting scenes short. Later on, Crowe sings Tugger a song from his new album, accompanying himself on his acoustic guitar. The song is so horrible that it drives Tugger to do a suicide attempt. He is brought to the hospital and makes a full recovery. The boys discuss where they can find a television to watch the commercial breaks on. Cartman's house is being fumigated and Butters insists they cannot go to his house, so they go to Chef to watch on his new, hyper-modern plasma screen TV. To their disappointment, the trailer is not shown during the first commercial break. When Chef tries to demonstrate some of the functionalities of his new TV, he accidentally transforms it into an ED-209-like robot, which goes on a rampage through South Park. During the remainder of the episode, Chef follows the destructive television around while talking to customer service on his cellphone in an effort to deprogram the machine. The boys go to watch TV at the local bar, only to be kicked out for being underage. They then arrive at Shady Acres, South Park's retirement home, where they manage to catch the second commercial break, but the trailer is again not aired. The elderly grow annoyed with the boys and force them out by simultaneously defecating. In desperation, they try to brave the fumes at Cartman's house, but this proves unbearable. The boys decide to head back to Stan's house to use an old black-and-white television which Stan remembers having. Upon arriving at the front door, Butters realizes he never gave Shelly her tampons. Before they can enter the house, they are washed away by a large tidal wave of Shelly's menstrual blood. The boys then resort to watching TV with a group of crack-addicted homeless people, only to be attacked by Chef's rampaging television-robot which blasts away the device. With nowhere else to go, the boys ask Butters why they cannot watch at his house. Butters explains that his parents are out of town and he does not have a babysitter. Stunned for a few seconds by this revelation, they hurriedly rush to Butters' house (with Stan saying: "We'll kill Butters later!"), arriving just in time to view the last commercial break, wherein the trailer is finally shown. The trailer is anti-climactic: it features a textual announcement in the form of words flying at the screen, followed by a few seconds of Terrance and Phillip at a ranch wearing cowboy hats and farting. It shows almost nothing of the actual film. Nevertheless, the boys are ecstatic over finally getting to see the trailer after all. Meanwhile, Chef is still on the phone with the customer service line, unsuccessfully trying to stop his TV. 

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Jared Fogle gives a speech at South Park, touting how easy it is to lose weight by simply eating a diet of Subway sandwiches. Cartman, Kyle, Stan and Butters visit Jared, and are dismayed when Jared reveals that his weight loss is not only the result of eating sandwiches, but also with the help from his aides (a personal trainer and a dietician). Kyle convinces Jared that he is being dishonest by never referring to his assistants, and Jared realizes the boys are correct, and plans to give another speech to discuss them. At Jared's next announcement, he raves about his aides. The townspeople misconstrue the statement, thinking that he is infected with AIDS, and become repulsed by him. After being fired by Subway, Jared begins to wish he never hired aides. His assistants convince him that people are upset because they cannot hire their own assistants, inspiring Jared to start the "Aides for Everyone" (misinterpreted as "AIDS for Everyone") foundation. The townspeople are angered further, and chase him through town. Jared laments that everyone hates him for saying he has AIDS while he beats a dead horse with a baseball bat. When Jared is caught, the mob prepares to lynch him; however, Stan and the boys intervene, and clarify that Jared was not referring to AIDS, but his assistants. The townspeople apologize, and begin laughing at their mistake. Everyone declares AIDS is finally humorous, and begin celebrating as a banner, with "AIDS is Finally Funny" inscribed on it, is unveiled. In a subplot, Cartman devises a scheme to earn money after discovering that Jared did not have to eat sandwiches to lose weight. He proposes that Butters gain much weight and then become fit by other means, while pretending that he lost weight by eating at City Wok. After striking a deal with the manager of the restaurant to film several commercials, Butters manages to gain the weight, but finds himself unable to lose it, and the boys resort to liposuction. As they perform the operation, Butters' parents return home, and ground him for performing surgery in the house. When it is time to film the commercials, Butters states he is grounded and will not leave; however, the boys manage to convince him to come as Cartman stays behind at Butters' house to cover for him. Butters' parents call the house, with Cartman replying to them each time with crude language. Meanwhile, when Stan discovers City Wok's owner will only pay them 15 dollars, he severs the deal, and Butters returns home. Just before Butters' parents arrive, Cartman brings over a lawn chair, a drink, and a bucket of popcorn, then sits outside and watches as Butters' parents ruthlessly beat him for the language that Cartman, pretending to be Butters, used on the phone. 

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In "The Premature Burial", the first-person unnamed narrator describes his struggle with things such as "attacks of the singular disorder which physicians have agreed to term catalepsy", a condition where he randomly falls into a death-like trance. This leads to his fear of being buried alive ("The true wretchedness", he says, is "to be buried while alive"). He emphasizes his fear by mentioning several people who have been buried alive. In the first case, the tragic accident was only discovered much later, when the victim's crypt was reopened. In others, victims revived and were able to draw attention to themselves in time to be freed from their ghastly prisons. The narrator reviews these examples in order to provide context for his nearly crippling phobia of being buried alive. As he explains, his condition made him prone to slipping into a trance state of unconsciousness, a disease that grew progressively worse over time. He became obsessed with the idea that he would fall into such a state while away from home, and that his state would be mistaken for death. He extracts promises from his friends that they will not bury him prematurely, refuses to leave his home, and builds an elaborate tomb with equipment allowing him to signal for help in case he should awaken after "death". The story culminates when the narrator awakens in pitch darkness in a confined area. He presumes he has been buried alive, and all his precautions were to no avail. He cries out and is immediately hushed; he quickly realizes that he is in the berth of a small boat, not a grave. The event shocks him out of his obsession with death. 

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Wealthy American businessman Jack Moore (Richard Gere) is on a trip to China attempting to put together a satellite communications deal as part of a joint venture with the Chinese government. Before the deal can be finalized, Moore is framed for the murder of a powerful Chinese general's daughter, and the satellite contract is instead awarded to Moore's competitor, Gerhardt Hoffman (Ulrich Matschoss). Moore's court-appointed lawyer, Shen Yuelin (Bai Ling), initially does not believe his claims of innocence, but the pair gradually unearth evidence that not only vindicates Moore, but implicates powerful figures within the Chinese central government administration, exposing undeniable conspiracy and corruption. Shen manages to convince several high-ranking Chinese officials to release evidence that proves Moore's innocence. Moore is quickly released from prison while the conspirators responsible for framing him are arrested. At the airport, Moore asks Shen to leave China with him, but she decides to stay, as the case has opened her eyes to the injustices rife throughout China. She does admit, however, that meeting Moore has changed her life, and she now considers him a part of her family. They both share a heartfelt hug on the airport runway, before Moore departs for America. 

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Millionaire Tom Newcliffe (Calvin Lockhart) invites a group of people to spend some time in his rural English mansion, along with his wife Caroline (Marlene Clark) where he reveals that one of them is a werewolf and therefore must be killed. The group is composed of disgraced diplomat Arthur Bennington (Charles Gray); Jan and Davina Gilmore (Michael Gambon and Ciaran Madden), a pianist and his ex-student, now his wife; Paul Foote (Tom Chadbon), an artist recently released from prison; and Professor Lundgren (Peter Cushing), an archaeologist and a lycanthropy enthusiast. They all stay in the mansion where they are submitted to various tests to detect whether they might be a werewolf. The entire house is under surveillance by CCTV cameras, as well as motion sensors in the grounds around the mansion set up and overseen by Tom's associate Pavel (Anton Diffring), who does not believe in werewolves. The only way to determine the identity of the werewolf is for a certain combination of elements to occur all at once, including a full moon and the presence of wolfsbane pollen in the air. When this fails to produce any lycanthropic reactions, Tom makes each of the potential werewolves grab silver objects to provoke allergic reactions, but this too proves unsuccessful. Later that same night, Pavel is killed by the werewolf, which makes Tom even more obsessive in his hunt, to his wife's increasing annoyance. Tom gradually focuses his suspicions on Paul Foote, who was reportedly arrested after eating human flesh. Foote denies being the werewolf as the creature continues killing, with the helicopter pilot, diplomat Arthur Bennington, and Caroline's dog all falling victim. Tom subjects the remaining group to one final test: placing a silver bullet in their mouth. As Caroline submits to the test, her hairy, clawed hand is shown before she immediately transforms into the werewolf. She (fully transformed) attacks Tom, and he kills her by shooting her with a silver bullet, leaving him very distraught and confused because Caroline was alongside him when the werewolf killed her dog. Prof. Lundgren deduces that Caroline must have contracted the werewolf disease while taking care of her dog's wounds due to an open cut on her hand she sustained from a broken wineglass at dinner. Tom becomes enraged, convinced that Foote is the werewolf. When he attempts to confront him, however, he finds that Foote has also been killed. To avenge his wife, he enters the woods surrounding the mansion to hunt the werewolf. He finds the beast and finally shoots and kills it. Once dead, the werewolf reverts to its human form, and it is revealed to be Jan, the pianist. Tom returns to Prof. Lundgren and Davina, and he realizes that he was bitten by the werewolf during the scuffle, thus condemning him to inherit the creature's curse. Not wanting to be a monster, Tom locks himself in the mansion and shoots himself in the head with a silver bullet, ending the werewolf's bloodline. 

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The story takes place on a manor in the Scottish countryside. A wealthy man named Tom Newcliffe has invited a group of artists and friends together for a weekend gathering. Of particular importance to the story is Jan Jarmoskowski, a Polish concert pianist. Paul Foote, a painter, detects hints that Jan may in fact be a werewolf, and he is proven right. The musician transforms under the light of the full moon, and the guests at first prepare some makeshift silver bullets and attempt to track him, but this results in nothing more than a dead hunting dog and some wasted ammunition. Following this, the group fortifies itself inside the mansion to wait for their quarry to return, at which point they hope to be able to defeat him. 

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Zia is the 14-year-old niece of Karana, the Native woman left behind on the Island of the Blue Dolphins in the previous book. Zia believes her aunt Karana to be alive, and with the help of her younger brother Mando, she sets out twice in an eighteen-foot boat on what are, ultimately, unsuccessful attempts at rescuing Karana. There is evidence on the island that she is still there, including small footprints in the sand, signs of cooking fires and the remains of huts. So then she goes to Santa Barbara to get an even better chance of finding her aunt. Captain Nidever sails to the Island of the Blue Dolphins to hunt otters, bringing Father Vicente with him to find Karana. Meanwhile, Stone Hands, planning an escape for himself and the other Indians living at the mission, gives Zia the key to the girls' dormitory room. She unlocks the dormitory, and Captain Cordova puts Zia in prison, believing she was the instigator of the escape. Captain Nidever returns with Karana and her second dog, Rontu-Aru. Captain Cordova and Father Vicente argue, and finally free Zia from prison. Zia and Karana can't communicate, although Karana appears to be settling into society. She learns to weave baskets as the other mission Indians do, loves melons and is fascinated by the horses, of which there were none on her island. Originally, Karana is assigned to sleep in the women's dormitory, but Rontu Aru is separated from her and chained up in the courtyard, as the priests believe he is bringing fleas into the dormitory. Karana, unaccustomed to the company of others and missing her dog, moves out to the courtyard. Father Merced becomes very ill and dies, and Father Vicente takes over. He lets the people sell the things that they make and allows them to keep the money. While Father Vicente is in charge of the mission, he goes with Karana and Zia to bring Stone Hands back from the canyon where the Indians tried to make a new home after they left the mission. When the church leadership sends Father Malatesta to be the new leader of the mission, Father Vicente leaves and goes to Monterey Bay. Stone Hands, Karana and the others do not like Father Malatesta. Karana leaves the mission not long later, when Father Malatesta does not allow her to sleep on the floor with Rontu-Aru. In the spring, Stone Hands and many of the Indians run away again because of the harsh treatment, and this time Mando leaves with him. Karana had been living in the same cave in which she and Mando had hidden the boat they found at the beginning of the book. On the day that Stone Hands and Mando leave the mission, Zia visits Karana again. She finds that Karana is very sick, but the priests at the mission will not help because Karana will not live there and work for the mission. In the morning, Karana dies. Zia then leaves the Mission and returns to her old home in the mountains with Rontu-Aru at her side. 

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William Sebastian (Robert Culp) is a former criminologist who now studies the occult to explain the problem of human evil. He has been cursed on one of his adventures by the demon Asmodeus, leaving him in constant need of medical attention. He summons an old colleague, Dr. "Ham" Hamilton (Gig Young) to his home to help him with a case involving the Cyon family. Dr. Hamilton does not believe in the occult and thinks that Sebastian and his housekeeper Lilith (Majel Barrett) are playing tricks on him when he witnesses unusual events. As the pair are getting reacquainted, a woman claiming to be Anitra Cyon (Ann Bell) unexpectedly visits and tells Sebastian that his services are no longer required. Sebastian recognizes that this person is not Anitra Cyon, but rather a succubus sent to stop Sebastian from investigating the family. He defeats her using the Apocryphal Book of Tobit. He and Ham depart to the airport where they are flown by Mitri Cyon (John Hurt) to London. While over the Atlantic the engines of the plane fail, something that Sebastian claims is the result of supernatural intervention. Thanks to Mitri's expertise, they land safely in England. Sebastian asks the Cyon chauffeur to stop off at the home of Dr. Qualus, a long-time associate who has been researching the Cyon family. Qualus' house is on fire. Ham and Sebastian find Qualus' body lying partially inside a pentagram, the body fatally mauled. The police arrive, and Inspector Cabell (an old acquaintance from their criminology days) escorts them to Cyon Manor. When they reach the Manor, they are greeted first by Sir Geoffrey Cyon (James Villiers), Anitra and Mitri's older brother and head of the family. He is aware that Sebastian and Ham are there to investigate him, and he intends to defy their efforts. The real Anitra (also played by Ann Bell) reiterates her reason for consulting Sebastian: due to an unknown influence, Geoffrey's behaviour has changed dramatically and he has turned Cyon Manor into a den of iniquity. Geoffrey dismisses her concerns. The following day Mitri is attacked by dogs, leaving him in critical condition. Sebastian and Ham suspect Geoffrey is behind the attack. That night, the duo investigate the grounds of the Manor and discover ruins which lead to a hidden underground temple devoted to Asmodeus. They suspect that the real Geoffrey is dead and that Asmodeus has assumed his form. The next day the pair prepare to do battle with Asmodeus and his cult. Further investigation of the hidden temple reveals that it is Mitri who is dead and whose form Asmodeus has assumed. Geoffrey is a pawn who was used to increase the cult and who will be forced to sacrifice Anitra to Asmodeus. Sebastian defeats Asmodeus, whose power is destroyed. The Cyons and the cultists are freed, and the curse on Sebastian is removed. In thanks for his help, the Cyon family gives Sebastian a painting which he had admired—but in the final moment of the film, Sebastian is stunned to see the symbol of Asmodeus (a stylized letter "A") suddenly appear in the corner of the artwork. Asmodeus survives, and the conflict is only beginning. 

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Nineteen-year-old Martín Castillo is a boy from Buenos Aires trying to find his path in life. He meets and falls in love with Alejandra Vidal Olmos who with her father Fernando represents the "old", post-colonial and autochthonous Argentina, which is seen mutating amid a strange and unsettling "new" world. The novel gives an evocative portrait of the city of Buenos Aires and its people. 

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The Earth is being attacked by "Gotcha Borgs" called the Death Force. Luckily, a child named Kou finds a borg called G-Red and forms the Gotcha Force. Allied by his friends, Kou counterattacks and aims to get rid of the menace, known as the Death Force's leader, the Galactic Emperor.Gotcha Force Instruction Booklet pg. 2-3 

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In an effort to secure employment at the upscale Century City Mall in Los Angeles, Jennifer (Sobieski), a 17-year- old "goth-punk" girl who just graduated from high school, makes a nuisance of herself at a clothing store run by 49-year-old Randall Harris (Brooks), who eventually hires her on a trial basis as a stockroom clerk. Jennifer refers to herself simply as "J", and thus asks Randall if it's okay if she calls him "R", to which he accedes. One day, as there is nothing more to be done in the stockroom, J makes her way to the front of the store and begins to interact with customers. Encouraged by her initiative but concerned that her appearance may frighten away potential customers, Randall buys her an appropriate outfit and promotes her to saleswoman. Feeling isolated from the other people in her life, J finds she is attracted to Randall. After an incident that makes him question whether he can continue to trust her, J demonstrates her trust in him by revealing that she engages in self harm. The two thus strike up an unlikely friendship as they realize that neither has anyone close with whom they can confide. Made aware that J is unhappy living with her mother (who seems to pay more attention to her two pugs than her daughter) and stepfather, Randall offers her an advance on her salary so she can afford her own place, then helps her find an apartment. As their friendship progresses, Randall consents to getting a (very small) tattoo at J's urging, only to realize at the last possible moment that he can't go through with it. In a fit of despair he declares that they can't continue as friends. Confronted by J at his home a short time later, Randall confides his many phobias, which endears him to J even more. Their friendship restored, Randall reluctantly accompanies J to a cemetery to lie on the graves of the deceased to feel their "energy", something she does regularly. Due to the lateness of the hour, they go back to Randall's where they bond over tea and J spends the night on the couch. The following morning J discovers Randall collapsed in the street after having told her he was going "for a run." She learns that Randall has had leukemia for many years and doesn't have long to live, and is initially very angry that he didn't share this with her. While collecting some of Randall's personal items from his home, J discovers the name and address of his ex-wife. Unable to contact her by phone, J drives to Albuquerque only to find her (and Randall's) son Randy, a deeply cynical young man who tells her that his mother died in a car accident six months earlier, and had told him that his father had died before he was born. Although he initially refuses to drive to L.A. to see the father he's never known before he dies, he ultimately does so. Because of J's intervention, Randall and his son have a brief time to get to know one another, for which Randall is very grateful. J's friendship with Randall inspires her to seek a closer relationship with her family, especially her mother. In Randall's final days, Jennifer organizes a dinner at which his son and Jennifer's family come together to celebrate his life. 

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The animals' owners, the Hunters, leave to go to England for several months because Jim, the father, is scheduled to give a series of university lectures there. They leave their pets in the care of John Longridge, a family friend and godfather of their daughter, Elizabeth. One day, after John Longridge leaves for a two-week duck hunting trip, the animals, feeling the lack of their human helpers, set out to try to find their owners, the Hunters. Mrs. Oakes, who is taking care of Longridges' home, does not find the animals and thinks that John must have taken them with him. The animals follow their instincts and head west, towards home, 300 miles away through the Canadian wilderness. They face many obstacles in their path; from rivers to irritable people, but nonetheless, they struggle bravely on, until they finally reach home. 

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In 1939, a new radio network based at station WBN in Chicago, Illinois, begins its inaugural night. The station's owner, General Walt Whalen, depends on his employees to impress main sponsor Bernie King. This includes writer Roger Henderson, assistant director Penny Henderson (Roger's wife, seeking divorce), page boy Billy Budget, engineer Max Applewhite, conductor Rick Rochester, announcer Dexter Morris, director Walt Whalen, Jr. and stage manager Herman Katzenback. After King commissions rewrites on the radio scripts, the WBN writers get angry, adding to the fact that they have not been paid in weeks. When Ruffles Reedy, a trumpet player, falls dead from rat poisoning, a series of events ensue. Director Walt Jr. is hanged (the mysterious killer makes it look like a suicide), and his father, the General, has the Chicago Police Department (CPD) get involved to solve the murder mysteries as the nightly radio performance continues. Herman Katzenback is then killed after attempting to fix the main stage when the machinery malfunctions. Penny is appointed both stage manager and director due to Walt Jr. and Katzenback's deaths. Writer Roger Henderson tries to solve the killings, much to the annoyance of the police, led by Lieutenant Cross. Because Roger unfortunately appears at every scene of crime just as the murders take place, he is ruled as the prime suspect. Roger and Billy Budget then theorize that announcer Dexter Morris is the next to die. Dexter ignores their warning and is killed by electrocution. By going through private documents in WBN's file room, Roger finds that the victims all previously worked together at a radio station in Peoria, Illinois, which he then correlates into a secretive FCC scandal. King (laughing gas) and General Whalen (falls down an elevator shaft) are the next to die after Roger's warning, causing even more suspicion from the police. After escaping from custody, Roger uses Billy to communicate and send scripts to Penny. When rewriting one of the programs, Gork: Son of Fire, Roger attempts to write the script with self-referential events, proving to everyone that the mysterious killer is actually sound engineer Max Applewhite. Max explains that his killings were a revenge scheme that dealt with stock holders and patents, specifically detailing his invention of television, which other scientists have copied. Roger and Penny are taken by Max atop the radio tower at gunpoint. Max is eventually killed when a biplane shows up and guns him down. Impressed by the nightly performance, the sponsors decide to fund WBN. Roger and Penny reconcile their complex relationship and decide not to divorce. 

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In 1956 Schenectady, New York, waitress Shirley Roque (Bonnie Bedelia) marries auto mechanic Jack Muldowney (Leo Rossi) over the mild objections of her singer father Tex (Hoyt Axton), who wants her to be able to take care of herself, rather than having to rely on a husband. Jack buys a gas station, Shirley becomes a housewife, and they have a son. For fun, Jack races his sports car against others on deserted stretches of road late at night. One time, Shirley talks him into letting her drive. She wins and continues winning. A chance encounter with professional driver "Big Daddy" Don Garlits (Bill McKinney) gives her the idea to look for sponsorship from one of the major car manufacturers, despite her husband's skepticism. This being the 1950s, a pretty housewife is not taken seriously, especially since there are no women professional drivers. But when she returns home, Jack tells her that he can build her a dragster. In 1966, she is ready. She still needs to get three signatures before she can get her National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) license, nearly impossible in the macho racing world. Finally, Garlits (seeing an opportunity to broaden the popularity of the sport) signs, followed by funny car driver Connie Kalitta (Beau Bridges), who has his own reasons; Connie talks a reluctant third driver into going along. In her first attempt to qualify for a race, she sets a track record. Later, during a dinner with their respective spouses, Connie gets her alone, makes a pass at her, and she slaps him in the face. Shirley becomes successful, racing on weekends, but when Connie decides to move up to Top Fuel dragsters, she wants to buy his funny car and compete year round. This exhausts Jack's tolerance for Shirley's racing activity, as he feels neglected, and they separate. Connie and Shirley become involved romantically, despite his continual philandering. In a 1973 race, Shirley's funny car is destroyed and she is seriously burned. When Connie is suspended indefinitely by the NHRA for fighting on her behalf, she tells him that she is going to Top Fuel. He becomes her crew chief. She wins her first NHRA national event in 1976, then the World Championship in 1977. Finally, tired of Connie's womanizing, she drops him from her team. Angry, he successfully pursues reinstatement by the NHRA. Shirley, with little sponsorship and an inexperienced crew, has two lean years, but she rebounds in 1980. She races against Connie in that year's NHRA championship final. She is victorious, and they reconcile. Jack, her ex- husband (who had watched the victory on TV), gives her a private cheer. 

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SpongeBob and Patrick board a bus to go home from Glove World, which is a glove-themed amusement park. They accidentally board the wrong bus, which then takes them to a 90-degree cliff. The cliff leads to an abyssopelagic zone called Rock Bottom, which is inhabited by many strange deep-sea animals. Patrick gets on the bus to go home but accidentally leaves SpongeBob behind. After several unsuccessful attempts to get on the bus, SpongeBob heads to a bus station and waits in a very long line. By the time he reaches the front, he finds out that the next bus leaves in 5 seconds; he misses it, then learns that it was the last one and he is stuck there until morning. He becomes frightened by a raspberry sound coming from off in the distance, and he dashes back to the cliff in terror. Finally, the raspberry sound's maker is revealed to be a friendly-looking anglerfish creature, who has retrieved SpongeBob's glove balloon. The creature blows up the balloon and ties it to SpongeBob's wrist, which allows him to rise up the cliff and float back to Bikini Bottom. The episode ends with Patrick on his way back to Rock Bottom, thinking SpongeBob is still there.SpongeBob SquarePants: The Complete 1st Season. DVD. Paramount Home Entertainment, 2003. 

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Jayakrishnan (Mohanlal) is a well-to-do bachelor who lives a contrasting dual life: one among his friends in the town, and the other with his mother and sister at their village. While he is an audacious guy celebrating life with his friends in town, he is a frugal family man at home. The film is about his dual life, and how he falls in love with two women, namely Clara (Sumalatha) and Radha (Parvathy), and his difficulty in deciding between them. Jayakrishnan is a typical Malayali guy belonging to an aristocratic family from Thrissur. He has his own vision of life, especially when it comes to marriage. He is hardworking and works on his own farm. At the same time he enjoys a modern lifestyle with his friends in town, unknown to most people in his village. While working on his farm one day, Jayakrishnan becomes reacquainted with Radha, a distant relative he hasn't seen since childhood. Radha's no-nonsense attitude immediately attracts him and he soon falls for her. Jayakrishnan decides to confess his feelings to her so he heads to Radha's college campus. In the midst of a group of about 20 students, he requests a moment of privacy and then expresses his desire to marry her. Radha, unfortunately, refuses his proposal and proceeds to humiliate him by citing his flirtatious/promiscuous reputation. One day, Jayakrishnan is persuaded to write a letter on behalf of his friend Thangal, a pimp, to a girl named Clara. The letter is intended to fool Clara's father, and thereby introduce Clara to the sex industry under Thangal's supervision. As Jayakrishnan writes the letter, it begins to rain. It turns out that Clara is a poor girl who belongs to the coastal fishing community. She has been mistreated by her stepmother, and is trying to escape from her home. She agrees to become a sex worker and meets Jayakrishnan in Thangal's supervision. Their meeting is graced by the rain. Jayakrishnan, saddened by Radha's rejection, and urged on by his friend Thangal, agrees to be Clara's first customer. This is Jayakrishnan's first time being physical with a woman. Later he realizes that Clara was a virgin, a fact that disturbs him. He had made a promise to himself that he would not sleep with a virgin unless she was his wife, and if he couldn't keep his pledge, then that girl would at least become his wife. On breaking the one promise he was determined to keep in life, he is deeply disturbed and proposes marriage to Clara. She admires his sincerity and scruples, but does not want to cause Jayakrishnan any hurt socially or personally (as she considers herself a sex worker), hence she decides to disappear from his life. During this time, Radha hears more about Jayakrishnan from her brother (Madhavan), who was a junior in college to Jayakrishnan. She hears more about the dual life of Jayakrishnan, his small games of fooling people around him, and his ready-to-do-anything-for-friends attitude. She also learns that he had never fooled around with girls, despite his free-spirited lifestyle. Her brother tells her that it would be the first time that Jayakrishnan had proposed to a woman. For the first time, Radha sees Jayakrishnan for the sincere person that he is. She begins to love him, and agrees to his marriage proposal. She meets Jayakrishan to express her feelings towards him, and apologizes for her brusque behavior in the past. However, Jayakrishnan has now begun to feel differently. He tells Radha that he does not regard himself as being the right person for her. When questioned by Radha about the reason behind his change of heart, he discloses everything that transpired between him and Clara. Radha is not offended by his behavior at all. She admires his sincerity and depth of feeling. She tells Jayakrishnan that she is not bothered by his past with Clara. One day, Jayakrishnan receives a telegram from Clara. She informs him that she is coming to visit him again. Jayakrishnan cannot resist meeting her. It rains again around the time they meet. He tells her about Radha. Clara expresses her joy at his new relationship, but she also wonders if she is the reason Jayakrishnan is unable to commit to Radha. She decides to leave his life forever. Before leaving, she implores Jayakrishnan to not disappoint Radha. Jayakrishan and Radha decide to get married. One day, Jayakrishnan receives a late night phone call that Clara is coming to see him, and this will be their last meeting, taking place at Ottapalam railway station. It rains heavily that day. Shocked, Jayakrishnan and Radha can't decide what to do. Radha asks Jayakrishnan not to meet Clara, but he cannot resist seeing her. He goes to meet Clara. Toward the end of the movie, Jayakrishnan reaches the station to meet Clara. Radha also reaches the station, but without Jayakrishan's knowledge. At the station, both are surprised to see that Clara is married and is the mother of a child. She tells Jayakrishnan that she had decided to marry to save both their futures. Now she can have a family life and Jayakrishnan can marry Radha, with whom he has fallen in love. Clara leaves Jayakrishnan's life forever, and Radha and Jayakrishnan unite. It does not rain at the final meeting between Clara and Jayakrishnan. 

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The body of a young woman is found on Hampstead Heath, stabbed to death. Although appearing to be white, when her brother (Earl Cameron) arrives at the police station to give evidence, the officers are surprised to see that he is black. He explains that they were the mixed-race children of a black mother and a white father, but Sapphire has recently been passing for white.Britmovie.co.uk Features, Sapphire (1959) by David Cairns Sapphire's white boyfriend, a student, immediately becomes the chief suspect. He is followed by plainclothes police and seen acting suspiciously around the crime scene. The discovery in the police postmortem that Sapphire was 3 months pregnant is an added complication. As the investigation proceeds other aspects of Sapphire's social life bring further suspects to light. 

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The story begins with a Special Forces unit being briefed on a terrorist takeover of a chemical plant, led by a man known as Derbec. The Special Forces unit, consisting of veteran Kyle Rivers, rookie Jack Hooper, bomb expert Ed Reagan, and two others, soon prepares to infiltrate the plant. Elsewhere, news cameraman Ben Harrison begins to head to the chemical plant as well, via helicopter. Inside the plant, secretary Tanya Shaw and security guard Dave Wilson quickly comprehend the situation, both managing to evade the terrorists before they can kill them or take them as hostages. Upon reaching the chemical plant, the two minor Special Forces members are killed in a terrorist ambush, and the remaining three are separated from each other. They quickly continue forward through the plant. Meanwhile, Dave soon finds a colleague and friend of his shot dead within the plant. Vowing revenge, he decides to eliminate the terrorists throughout the facility. Elsewhere, Tanya tries to sneak out of the chemical plant, successfully managing to reach a large courtyard. She signals to the helicopter carrying Ben, in hope of being rescued, but as it approaches her, it is shot down by a terrorist. It is, however, revealed that Ben has managed to survive the crash. More concerned about winning the Pulitzer prize as opposed to his own safety, Ben's obsession pushes him throughout the chemical plant, filming the activities of the terrorists with his camera, rather than trying to escape. With the Special Forces unit soon discovering that numerous sections of the chemical plant are rigged to blow, Ed begins to defuse them, while Jack starts rewiring electrical boxes throughout the plant to allow the team access to all areas. Meanwhile, Kyle continues to try and regain control of the plant. Eventually, Ed succumbs to a bomb as he fails to defuse it in time. With the bomb expert dead, the task of defusing the bombs is given to Jack. Tanya eventually manages to escape the plant without harm, while elsewhere, as Dave continues to repel the terrorists, he is injured by a grenade. Unable to move, the terrorists are about to finish him off when Kyle reaches him and fends them off. Still wounded, however, Dave has no choice but to stay where he is as Kyle leaves him to continue through the plant. Eventually, it is revealed that Derbec's reason for taking over the plant are simply about revenge, and that he had intended to blow up the plant from the beginning. With this new insight, Jack races against time to defuse the bombs before the terrorists finish planting them and detonate them, while Kyle continues to hunt down Derbec. With Ben satisfied with the footage he has collected, including footage showing Derbec's current whereabouts, he progresses to a computer in order to upload them to the Internet and show them to the world. Just as he is about confirm his upload, he is discovered by a terrorist, who subsequently holds him at gunpoint. Briefly considering his options, Ben soon opts to confirm his upload as opposed to surrendering, resulting in his death. With Ben's footage now showing all over the world, Kyle heads over to where Derbec was reported to have been last seen. However, he is eventually injured in ambush. Unable to fight, he is approached by Derbec, who has come out of hiding now that the threat of Kyle is over. Kyle remains strong-willed against the terrorist leader, but Derbec soon shoots him in the head. Having disarmed the bomb threat, Jack decides to go after Derbec. Despite heavy resistance from what's left of Derbec's terrorists, he manages to eliminate them all and confront Derbec. Jack wins the ensuing gunfight, and with the terrorist threat finally over, Jack extracts himself and Dave out of the chemical plant, where aid is waiting for them outside. 

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Romulus Gaita fled his hometown of Markovac in 1935 at the age of 13. He worked as a farmer apprentice until he was 17, after which he moved to Austria and eventually migrated to Australia on an assisted passage in 1950 at the age of 28, with his young wife Christine and their four-year-old son Raimond soon after the end of the Second World War. Romulus and his family were transferred to Bonegilla Migrant Reception and Training Centre, a camp near Wodonga. Romulus was then sent to Baringhup on the Loddon River, where he met two Romanian brothers Pantelimon (known as Hora) and Mitru. The Gaiţăs then moved to a farmhouse called Frogmore, where they lived for the next ten years, and where Raimond spent most of his childhood. Christine did not stay at Frogmore to take on the responsibility as a wife and mother. She had an affair with Mitru and moved to Melbourne to be with him. As a result of the affair, they had two daughters. Mitru committed suicide before the birth of the second child. Christine later also committed suicide. Both the daughters of Christine and Mitru were adopted. Raimond is reminiscent that indeed, Christine may have had a mental illness. After some attempts at farming, Romulus established a business supplying wrought iron furniture, popular at the time, by the way of using the skills he brought from his native country. Romulus had also suffered from a mental illness, requiring admission to a psychiatric hospital. While Romulus was unable to provide care for Raimond, Hora came to live with Raimond and cared for him. To an immense degree, Romulus had recovered from his mental illness and saw Raimond live to adulthood. Romulus later suffered heart problems and eventually died of a heart attack. 

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In the 1920s, the Monte Carlo Rally attracts competitors from all over the world. Rivals from Britain, Italy, France and Germany find that their greatest competition comes from the United States in the form of Chester Schofield (Tony Curtis), who had won half of an automobile factory in a poker game with the late father of baronet Sir Cuthbert Ware- Armitage (Terry-Thomas). Ware-Armitage has entered the race in a winner-take- all to exact revenge and win back the lost half of the company. The international cast of characters appear to mirror their national foibles. British Army officers Maj. Digby Dawlish (Peter Cook) and Lieut. Kit Barrington (Dudley Moore), who have entered to preserve the honour of the British Empire, drive an outlandish vehicle festooned with odd inventions. Italian policemen Angelo Pincelli (Walter Chiari) and Marcello Agosti (Lando Buzzanca) seem to be more interested in chasing three French women, led by Doctor Marie-Claude (Mireille Darc). The German entry from overbearing Willi Schickel (Gert Fröbe) and Otto Schwartz (Peer Schmidt) turn out to be convicts, driving with stolen gems on board. As the race begins, the contestants find that not only are they in a 1,500-mile battle with each other, but dangerous roads and the elements including a massive avalanche, are just as formidable. Chester and his new co-driver, Betty (Susan Hampshire) end up duelling with Cuthbert. Various misfortunes plague each of the contestants, with Cuthbert, poised to win, being disqualified for cheating, the British Army team blowing up, the Germans being arrested and Chester falling asleep at the wheel. In the end, the Italians are declared the winners and share their winnings with the French women's team to help people injured in the snowslide. Chester does eventually cross the finish line, albeit because Betty and some others have pushed his car. 

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In Moc Hoa, Vietnam, a group of prisoners are executed under the watchful eye of General Ty (Hwang Jang Lee). Meanwhile, Scott Wylde (Loren Avedon), an American college student, visits the country to visit his former teacher and best friend Mac Jarvis (Max Thayer), meeting Terry (Cynthia Rothrock), Mac's former lover, in the process. Terry tells Scott that Mac may be in Patpong, a seedy area of Bangkok. Scott leaves the gym and heads for his hotel, where he has dinner with his girlfriend Sulin Nguyen (Patra Wanthivanond). During their date, Sulin's father (Perm Hongsakul) receives a disturbing phone call and leaves his house. In the meantime, a group of thugs crash into Scott's room and kidnap Sulin. Scott fights and kills the two thugs left behind to murder him. At Sulin's house, he finds that her entire family except for her father has been killed. Scott is framed for the murders and drug possession. Despite Mr. Nguyen's pleas, the American consulate suggests sending Scott to Singapore and keeping him detained for three months. He escapes, heading to Patpong. At Patpong, Scott finds Mac at the Super Star bar, arm wrestling with a local man. When Mac wins, his opponent attacks him with a broken bottle, but Scott intervenes. He tells a concerned Mac of his recent problems. When the duo go to dinner at a local marketside area, they are threatened by the kidnappers. They force one of the thugs to tell them where Sulin is located, learning she has been taken to Cambodia. Returning to Mac's private warehouse, an artillery factory, Scott learns that Sulin's father's was a Vietnamese general who, for the sake of his family, stopped a deal with a Soviet militia. Mac is convinced that the Soviets have joined forces with the Vietnamese army and have set up base in Cambodia. Scott decides he must rescue Sulin. The next morning, as they wait for a helicopter, they are ambushed by Thai police. However, Terry comes to aid and they narrowly escape by helicopter. Meanwhile, the leader of the Soviet Army, Yuri (Matthias Hues), has arrived. He challenges a Chinese refugee held with the recent prisoners of war to fight for his freedom. Using his brute strength, he defeats the refugee, yet tells him he is free to leave. As the refugee starts walking away, Yuri shoots and throws him into an alligator pit. He threatens to throw Sulin in the pit as well if her father does not arrive soon. Arriving in Cambodia, Scott, Terry, and Mac contact Colonel Tol Nol (Nirut Sirijunya), an old customer of Mac's. Mac offers artillery in exchange for assistance, but Tol Nol refuses. However, Scott makes a deal on a new tank and Tol Nol accepts under the condition that Terry stays behind. Tol Nol's camp is then bombed, and Scott injures his arm in the process. The trio leave by foot the following day, along the way fending off a Buddhist temple used as a spy base. They skirmish with the Vietnamese army, which kidnaps Terry, and leave believing to have killed Scott and Mac with a rocket launcher. However, Scott and Mac escape the blast. Meanwhile, Mr. Nguyen is murdered by an assassin hiding in a manhole in Bangkok. Later that night, Scott and Mac secretly plant explosives and other weaponry in the Soviet camp. The next morning, as Sulin and Terry are slated to be executed in the alligator pit, Scott and Mac attack the Soviets. They successfully kill all the soldiers except Yuri, who arrives with a machine gun as Scott is heading towards his friends; Terry sacrifices herself to save Scott from being gunned down. Mac attempts to save her and professes his love for her, but she dies from her wounds. Scott distracts Yuri with an arrow to his arm and begins a long one-on-one fight, which ends as Yuri ends up in the alligator pit, where Scott shoots him with a machine gun. He is reunited with Sulin but saddened when he learns Terry has died. Together, Scott, Sulin, and Mac, holding Terry, walk away to the camp. 

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While driving through Mississippi, Caroline and Eli MacCleary get stuck on a deserted road. Eli walks to a service station for help. A creature chained in a cellar breaks free and escapes into the forest. It finds the MacClearys' car and rapes Caroline. Eli and the service station attendant find her lying in the forest. As they drive off, two gunshots are heard. Seventeen years later, their son Michael, conceived as a result of Caroline's rape, has become ill. The family returns to Mississippi looking for information about the man who assaulted Caroline, in case Michael's illness is genetic. They learn about the unsolved murder of a mortician named Lionel Curwin, seventeen years prior. The townspeople, including Judge Curwin and newspaper editor Edwin Curwin, refuse to tell them anything. Eli and Caroline ask Sheriff Bill Poole about Lionel's death. Poole tells them Lionel's corpse was found partially eaten. Seemingly possessed, Michael murders and cannibalizes Edwin Curwin. He stumbles to the home of Amanda Platt and collapses. Amanda calls the police, and Michael is taken to the hospital. Doc Schoonmaker tells Michael's parents that he needs rest. Michael goes to Amanda's house to thank her. They go for a walk in the forest. Amanda tells Michael she is the daughter of Horace Platt, an abusive alcoholic who is Lionel Curwin's cousin. As the teens kiss, Amanda's dog arrives with Edwin's severed arm. They alert the sheriff. Horace arrives and commands Michael to stay away from Amanda. Caroline and Michael return to the hospital, while Eli, Poole, and Schoonmaker search for clues. They uncover a swamp full of human bones with human tooth marks. Schoonmaker thinks one bone belonged to a patient of his who died years ago. The men go to the mortuary and question Dexter Ward, who was Lionel Curwin's apprentice when the woman died. Ward denies that anyone else was buried in her place. After the men leave, Ward calls the judge and demands money in return for silence. He is soon killed by a possessed Michael. At the graveyard, the men discover the woman's coffin is filled with rocks. They return to the mortuary to question Ward but find him dead. Michael, still possessed, finds a man named Tom Laws. Laws converses with the spirit possessing Michael, whom he calls Billy Connors. Assuming direct control of Michael, Connors describes using magic to return as a spirit to punish the Curwin family after his death seventeen years earlier. The next day, the judge tells Poole to investigate the murders. Laws tries to tell Poole that Connors has possessed Michael and is killing people, but Poole dismisses him. Connors kills Laws for talking to Poole. Afraid of his behavior, Michael goes to Amanda and warns her to leave town. While she packs, Connors and Michael struggle to control Michael's body. Michael throws himself from Amanda's window to prevent Connors from killing her. He returns to the hospital and begs to be killed, fearing that Connors will take over and Michael will be unable to stop him. He tells Poole and Eli to go to Lionel Curwin's house and look in the basement. They find a skeleton with a chain wrapped around its leg, which they assume is Connors's remains. At the hospital, Poole, Eli, Caroline, and Schoonmaker witness Michael metamorphoses into a monster as Connors takes control and kills Horace. Everyone flees to the police station. Judge Curwin confesses that Lionel was responsible for Connors's death. After discovering Connors was having an affair with his wife, Lionel killed her and imprisoned Connors in his cellar. He fed Connors corpses stolen from the mortuary until one night, Connors metamorphosed into a monster, broke free, and killed Lionel. He raped Caroline in the woods before being shot by Lionel's relatives, apparently returning to the cellar to die. Connors attacks the police station, kills the judge, and is pursued into the forest. He finds Amanda in a broken-down car and rapes her. When Caroline and Eli find him, he attacks Eli, forcing Caroline to shoot him in the head. It is implied that Connors may have impregnated Amanda, continuing the cycle of his resurrection. 

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Con man Eli Kotch (James Coburn) charms his way into a parole by playing on the emotions of a pretty psychologist (Marian McCargo), but drops her at the first opportunity to move around the country, romancing women and then stealing their possessions, or those of their employers. He's made a down payment on the blueprints to a bank at Los Angeles International Airport, but needs to raise $85,000 to complete the purchase. In Boston, he seduces and marries Inger Knudsen (Camilla Sparv), the secretary of a wealthy elderly woman. Eli sends her to L.A. to set up housekeeping, on the pretext that a songwriter there is interested in his poetry. Meanwhile, he burgles another woman (Rose Marie) to get the final amount of money he needs. Eli heads to L.A., where he begins to assemble his gang (Severn Darden, Aldo Ray and Michael Strong) for the bank robbery, which is timed to take place while the airport is distracted by the arrival of the Premier of the Soviet Union. To keep her occupied, Eli sends Inger to take Polaroid snapshots around L.A., supposedly for a magazine article he is writing. Using costumes stolen from a movie studio, he and one of the gang masquerade as an Australian policeman escorting an extradited prisoner in order to get through airport security, while the other two dress as LAPD policemen to get into the bank, bypass the alarm, and get a bank employee to open the safe. The gang pulls off the heist and makes a successful getaway to Mexico on a plane. Eli has no idea that Inger has been frantically trying to get in touch with him, because she has inherited $7 million from her former employer. 

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Irish-American Kerry O'Shea (Don Murray) is studying at the College of Surgeons in 1921 Dublin, Ireland, during a guerrilla war – the Irish War of Independence. Apolitical and sick of killing after fighting in World War I, he is drawn into the struggle between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the British Black and Tans. He and his friend and fellow medical student, Paddy Nolan (Ray McAnally), are caught in the middle of an IRA ambush, and Nolan is shot by the British. Nolan tells O'Shea to fetch Sean Lenihan (James Cagney), one of their professors. Lenihan, it turns out, is also a high-ranking IRA leader known as "the Commandant". Lenihan removes the bullet, but Nolan dies anyway. Since O'Shea left his textbook (with his name inscribed) at the scene of the ambush, he is now a wanted man. Lenihan takes him to meet his superior, "the General" (Michael Redgrave), an old comrade-in- arms of O'Shea's father. When O'Shea refuses his invitation to join the IRA, the General arranges for a boat passage out of Ireland. Lenihan takes him to a hideout by the sea, the base of an IRA unit commanded by Chris Noonan (Cyril Cusack). Lenihan is furious to find local barmaid Kitty Brady (Glynis Johns) consorting with the men there. When Liam O'Sullivan (Noel Purcell), a top IRA leader, is wounded escaping from prison, O'Shea agrees to accompany the unit to the rendezvous point to treat him. O'Sullivan is discovered in the boot of the car of aged Lady Fitzhugh (Sybil Thorndike) and killed in a shootout by the British. When the soldiers check the people in the nearby pub (where the IRA men are waiting), Terence O'Brien (Richard Harris) tries to hide a pistol he brought (against Noonan's explicit orders). When it is found, it is O'Shea who is taken away. He is brutally beaten by Colonel Smithson of the Black and Tans (Christopher Rhodes), but refuses to talk. Lenihan leads a raid to rescue him. At that point, O'Shea decides to join the IRA. Lady Fitzhugh is sentenced to prison and goes on a hunger strike. Lenihan kidnaps Jennifer Curtis (Dana Wynter), the widowed daughter of a top British adviser, to try to force a prisoner exchange. Complications ensue when Kerry falls for her. When Kitty gets into trouble, both with Lenihan and the British, she decides to leave Ireland. Lenihan prepares to assassinate Colonel Smithson at the dock. However, he suspects he has been betrayed when Kitty, purely by coincidence, tries to board a ship there. During the ensuing shootout, Lenihan shoots Kitty dead in cold blood. When the men reassemble at a lighthouse, they hear two bits of news. First, Lady Fitzhugh has died. Second, the British have offered a peace treaty. The General is satisfied to have peace, but not Lenihan. When he decides to execute Mrs. Curtis, O'Shea has to stop him. They exchange shots, and Lenihan is killed. 

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The plot focuses on a young man who dies suddenly after purchasing an antique mirror. The man's widow visits Sorrell but starts to be plagued with strange, eerie dreams in which her husband's image visits her in the mirror. The psychologist investigates and learns that a sinister cult and ancient magic are involved. 

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The story is centred on an eighteen-year-old girl, Sive, who is illegitimate. She lives with her uncle Mike, his wife Mena, and Nanna, who is Mike’s mother. A local matchmaker, Thomasheen Sean Rua, decides that Sive should marry a man named Seán Dota. Seán is rich but old and haggard. Thomasheen convinces Mena to organise the marriage of Sive to Seán Dota. She and her husband will receive a sum of two hundred pounds as soon as Sive marries him. Mike is originally unwilling to have Sive married to a man so much older than her, but Mena convinces him otherwise. Sive, however, is in love with a young man by the name of Liam Scuab. But Liam is unsuitable as he is related to the man who got Sive's mother pregnant out of marriage, before going to work in England and drowning. Mike, who believes that Sive's father deliberately abandoned her mother upon discovering her pregnancy, refuses permission for Liam to marry Sive, on account of his being related to her father. Sive is distraught but is forced to do the will of her uncle and his wife. Nanna does not approve and would prefer her to marry Liam. Two local tinkers — Pats and his son Carthalawn — connive together and decide to help Sive escape from Seán Dota and marry Liam. They plan to do this by giving a letter (written by Liam Scuab) to Nanna, who will pass it on to Sive. The plot fails, however, when Thomasheen discovers the letter and destroys it. On the night before her marriage Sive disappears and shortly afterward, Liam finds her corpse in a bog hole. He carries the body into the house, announcing to Mena that she is responsible for the death. As Liam cries over the dead body, Seán Dota and Thomasheen both leave the room. The play concludes with Pats and his son singing about a maiden who was drowned as she would not be a bride. 

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The women of Brewster Place are "hard-edged, soft-centered, brutally demanding, and easily pleased". Their names are Mattie Michael, Etta Mae Johnson, Lucielia "Ciel" Turner, Melanie "Kiswana" Browne, Cora Lee, Lorraine, and Theresa. Each of their lives are explored in several short stories. These short stories also chronicle the ups and downs many Black women face. 

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The story begins with Mattie Michael (Oprah Winfrey) moving into Brewster Place, a run-down urban tenement. She then reflects upon her life, told in flashback. As a young girl, Mattie resides on a farm with her parents. She is later seduced by a local womanizer named Butch Fuller and becomes pregnant. When Mattie refuses to tell her father the name of the man responsible, a violent confrontation ensues. Afterwards, Mattie leaves home and stays with her friend Etta Mae Johnson (Jackée) until her son Basil is born. When Etta Mae decides to move to New York City, Mattie struggles to find another place to live. By chance, she meets an old woman, Miss Eva Turner (Barbara Montgomery), who allows Mattie and Basil to live with her, refusing to charge them any rent. Miss Eva is also raising her baby granddaughter Ciel; abandoned by her parents shortly after her birth. Ciel and Basil grow up together, with Miss Eva providing child care while Mattie continues to work. When Miss Eva dies unexpectedly, Ciel's parents reappear, and take her with them. Mattie buys the house, using the money she secretly set aside for the rent that Miss Eva (purposely) never charged. Basil grows into a spoiled, irresponsible young man due to Mattie's overbearing parenting, and her hesitation to develop a social life or pursue romance. One night Basil is arrested and thrown in jail for killing a man during a bar fight. He complains to Mattie about the horrid conditions of the jail, but refuses to take responsibility for his actions. Mattie then puts up her house as bail for Basil, but when he flees town, Mattie is forced to leave her home. With nowhere else to go, she moves to Brewster Place where she is welcomed by the now-adult Ciel (Lynn Whitfield). Other residents of Brewster Place include Ben, the elderly handyman (Moses Gunn); Cora Lee, a welfare mother with six unruly children by different fathers (Phyllis Yvonne Stickney); Miss Sophie, an elderly self-righteous gossip (Olivia Cole); and a young educated couple, Melanie "Kiswana" Browne (Robin Givens) and her boyfriend Abshu (Leon). Mattie's old friend Etta Mae, who has grown weary of living life in the fast lane, soon returns to live with Mattie. She hopes to meet a nice man to settle down within her old age, but her efforts come to naught. Ciel has a loving adoration for her infant daughter Serena, but has an equally troubled relationship with her husband Gene (William Allen Young), a dock worker who periodically drifts in and out of their lives. Ciel still loves Gene, and welcomes him back upon his sudden return, but she finds herself pregnant again. Frustrated about his current unemployment, he cruelly rejects the prospect of another child. Ciel then aborts the child, but learns that Gene is planning to leave again and confronts him. As they argue, in the next room, Serena is electrocuted as she sticks a pair of scissors into a nearby outlet. Traumatized and deeply grieved by her daughter's loss, Ciel falls into a deep depression, willing herself to die. Mattie boldly declares that she will allow Ciel to leave this world "over her dead body." After nursing her back to health, Mattie discovers that Ciel has disappeared, taking her belongings with her. Unlike the other residents, Melanie's family is affluent, and her parents are horrified at her living conditions. Melanie, who wants to be called "Kiswana", resides in Brewster Place for financial independence from her parents. She hopes to connect to the surrounding black community, and her African roots as well. Melanie's mother, Mrs. Browne (Cicely Tyson), visits her apartment and the two quickly butt heads. Melanie accuses her mother of being disconnected from her African roots and harboring shame over her blackness. Mrs. Browne passionately addresses Melanie's lack of understanding regarding the depth of her own family's history and legacy. Melanie and Abshu try to improve the lives of the other residents by starting a tenants' association; the goal being to rally together and take action against the landlord for lack of building maintenance. Melanie even paints colorful murals on the brick wall that the other tenants despise, and the local gang of thugs led by drug dealer C.C. (Glenn Plummer) gather near and paint graffiti on. She eventually connects with Cora Lee, inviting her and her children to Abshu's modern production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The fun-filled experience reestablishes Cora Lee's faith in her children and her role as a parent. A lesbian couple, Lorraine (Lonette McKee) and Theresa "Tee" (Paula Kelly) move into Brewster Place. This is much to the dismay of Miss Sophie, who spies on them through her window and spreads malicious gossip about them. She later humiliates Lorraine at a tenants' meeting held by Melanie, only to be embarrassed by Ben, who comes to Lorraine's defense. Lorraine is consoled by Ben and the two become friends. A furious Melanie excoriates Miss Sophie for her treatment of Lorraine and orders her out of her apartment. Lorraine wants to fit in with the neighbors, while fearing the consequences if her sexuality is discovered. Tee, on the other hand, doesn't care much if the neighbors accept her, and prefers isolation. She is content socializing with other gay people, and wants to Lorraine to embrace her "different" identity as a lesbian. Lorraine, however, refuses to accept that. Melanie and Abshu organize a block party to raise money for a lawyer to fight the landlord, and all the residents except Lorraine and Tee attend. Ciel makes a surprise appearance at the party and is happily reunited with her friends Mattie and Etta Mae. Lorraine and Tee are due to attend another party at a gay club, but get into an argument, and Lorraine leaves the house alone. She knocks on Ben's door, unaware that he's at the block party. She is then accosted by C.C. who violently rapes her and leaves her, bleeding and battered, behind the trash cans near the brick wall. Ben later discovers Lorraine and attempts to help her. But Lorraine, traumatized for the attack, mistakes him for C.C. and attacks him with a board. She then holds off all the other residents until the ambulance arrives. Both she and an unconscious Ben are driven away with Tee, who is alerted by a neighbor. Mattie, whose anger has finally overcome her apathy towards life, grabs a crowbar and starts to chip away at the much- despised brick wall. All the other residents grab tools and, finally coming together as a community, join together in knocking down the wall. 

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A former 1960s student activist turned private detective searches for a missing Berkeley activist with whom he shared "the barricades." Former campus activist turned private investigator Moses Wine is contacted by Lila, an old girlfriend from his radical college days. She wants him to work for Miles Hawthorne, who is a candidate running for governor of California. Moses is told about a flyer being distributed around the state; this bears a doctored photo of Hawthorne standing beside a 1960s radical named Howard Eppis, who had been convicted in absentia for inciting violence against the government and has been living as a fugitive since, libelously claiming that Eppis is supporting Hawthorne for governor in a clear attempt to destroy Hawthorne's chances for being elected. Moses sets out to find out who is responsible--with deadly results. 

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Race car driver Tom Kovack (played by Leonard Nimoy) suddenly begins to experience psychic visions. He meets Michelle Brent (played by Susan Hampshire), an expert on the paranormal, and the two form an unlikely partnership. Kovack's visions draw them into an occult-themed mystery at a remote inn on the English coast. 

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Shortly after the American Civil War, southern belle Elizabeth Lloyd (Evelyn Venable) marries a northerner, Jack Sherman (John Lodge). Her father Colonel Lloyd (Lionel Barrymore) disowns her in anger and retaliation. Elizabeth and Jack move west where they become parents of a girl they name Lloyd Sherman (Shirley Temple). Six years later, Lloyd Sherman is made an honorary colonel in the Army. Elizabeth returns to the south with little Lloyd and settles in a cottage near Colonel Lloyd’s mansion while her husband Jack remains in the west prospecting for gold. When Colonel Lloyd discovers his daughter living in the neighborhood, he treats her with disdain. Little Lloyd learns of her parents’ past from housekeeper Mom Beck (Hattie McDaniel), and, when she meets her grandfather for the first time, throws mud at him. The two eventually become contentious friends. Elizabeth’s husband returns from the west with a fever. He has lost everything in his prospecting venture, but the family is saved from complete ruin when the Union Pacific Railroad requests right of way across Jack’s western property. Jack's former prospecting partners have heard of the Railroad’s offer and try to swindle Jack. They resort to holding the Sherman couple hostage until the deed to their valuable property is located. Little Lloyd runs through the dark woods for her grandfather, but he refuses to help. He changes his mind when little Lloyd says she never wants to see him again. They arrive at the cottage just in time to save Elizabeth and Jack. The film ends with a brief Technicolor sequence featuring a 'pink party' for little Lloyd, her friends, and her reconciled family. 

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The plot revolves around a young livestock pig, won at a fair by a local sheep farmer named Farmer Hogget. He has no use for pigs, so his wife intends to fatten up the "little porker" for Christmas dinner. In unfamiliar surroundings the little piglet is scared. However he meets Fly the sheepdog, who takes pity on him and comforts him. She asks what his name is, and he replies that his mother called all her children Babe. Fly and her puppies teach Babe the rules of the farm. Babe starts to learn how to herd sheep, first practising and failing with the ducks. However, he has the idea of herding the sheep by asking them politely rather than ordering them about like sheep-dogs do. Fly's puppies are soon sold and Fly is heartbroken, so Babe asks her if he could be her son. One day Farmer Hogget and Fly bring a sickly ewe named Maa back to the farm. When Babe meets Maa in the farm stable Maa helps Babe to realise that sheep are not as stupid as Fly has told him. Babe promises to visit Maa again when she is well. Some time later, when Babe visits Maa in the fields, he sees sheep rustlers stealing the sheep. Babe saves the sheep and herds them away from the rustlers' lorry. He also bites one of the rustlers in the leg and squeals so loudly that Mrs. Hogget telephones the police. When the patrol car comes up the lane, the rustlers drive away, with no sheep. Babe has saved the flock and Mrs. Hogget decides to reward him by sparing his life. Later on Farmer Hogget takes Babe with him up to the fields and, on a whim, asks the pig to round up the sheep. Just as Babe is asking the sheep politely Maa appears in the centre of the herd to tell the sheep about Babe. Hogget is astonished that the sheep are walking in perfect straight lines around their pen. From then on, Babe accompanies Farmer Hogget up to the fields every day. Hogget starts to think that since Babe is a worthy animal he could enter him into the sheepdog trials. He begins to train the pig in what he needs to do. One morning, when Babe heads up to the fields alone, he finds the sheep panicking because wild dogs and wolves are terrorising them. Babe runs back to the farm and alerts Fly. However, Babe discovers that Maa is critically injured and she dies before she can be helped. Hogget arrives on the scene, sees Babe with a dead sheep and believes that the pig may have killed her. He prepares to put Babe down by shooting him with his gun, in case he is a danger to the other animals. However Mrs. Hogget tells Farmer Hogget about the dogs who have attacked the sheep. Fly, unable to believe that Babe could do such a thing, goes to ask the sheep what really happened. She even forces herself to be polite to them, and so the sheep willingly tell her that Babe saved their lives. Babe is proven innocent and Farmer Hogget resumes his training, entering him into the county sheepdog trials. Before Babe goes for the trials, Fly manages to obtain a password from the sheep, so that Babe can speak to the sheep he'll be herding. On the day of the trials Babe and Fly go with Farmer Hogget to the grounds. Farmer Hogget appears with Fly but swaps her for Babe. He performs perfectly, without any commands from Farmer Hogget, and says the password to the sheep. At the end of his trial Babe and Farmer Hogget score full marks, and Farmer Hogget looks down at his sheep-pig and tells him, "That'll do, Pig." The Sheep-Pig contains twelve short chapters, each one written in speech marks (" "): :1. "Guess my weight" :2. "There. Is that nice?" :3. "Why can't I learn?" :4. "You'm a polite young chap" :5. "Keep yelling, young un" :6. "Good Pig" :7. "What's trials?" :8. "Oh, Maa!" :9. "Was it Babe?" :10. "Memorize it" :11. "Today is the day" :12. "That'll do" 

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The serial opens with Prime Minister Francis Urquhart shooting his gun dog, now too old to perform her duties – a scene which establishes the theme of the ending of a career. Shortly afterwards, Urquhart attends the fictional state funeral of Margaret Thatcher.Margaret Thatcher's death, in the real world, did not happen until 2013, about 18 years after the series aired. He publicly praises Thatcher as his mentor, but privately begrudges her record as the longest-serving prime minister in recent history,The serial refers to Thatcher as Britain's longest-serving Prime Minister, when she was actually the seventh-longest serving. The novel does not contain this mistake, as it accurately refers to Thatcher as the longest- serving post-war Prime Minister. a record that Urquhart himself is soon to surpass. To "leave my mark on the world", Urquhart champions a treaty resolving the Cyprus dispute while secretly working to bring offshore oil deposits under the control of the Turkish authorities on the island so that a Turkish-British consortium will have the drilling rights; an executive of the consortium has promised to provide for Urquhart's retirement fund in return. Urquhart also has a personal connection to Cyprus: as a nineteen-year-old British Army lieutenant serving there in 1956, he killed two young EOKA guerrillas while trying to get information from them. Urquhart has frequent nightmares and flashbacks of this event, and also of the murders of Mattie Storin and others, shown in the previous series. On a motorway near London, Urquhart's car is rammed by another car containing three drunken louts. The attackers are unlawfully killed by his security staff. Urquhart sustains minor head injuries in the collision, but his life is not endangered. When Elizabeth arrives at hospital, he is delirious and confuses the incident on the motorway with the incident in Cyprus. Tom Makepeace, Urquhart's Foreign Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister, chairs a cabinet meeting while Urquhart is in hospital; Urquhart considers Makepeace – the actual negotiator of the Cyprus treaty – as a potential challenger, although he does not take the threat very seriously, considering him "not a fighter" but "a sentimental dreamer". The brother of the murdered Greek Cypriot guerrillas, who witnessed their deaths, lives in London and recognises Urquhart as the soldier who killed them. He asks his daughter Maria to investigate while secretly considering taking vengeance on Urquhart. Maria's search of government records finds a report on the incident written by Urquhart, but his name is redacted. Upon being approached by Maria, Urquhart arranges for documents revealing his involvement to be excluded from a coincidental declassification of British records relating to Cyprus. But he also confides the truth to Elizabeth. Meanwhile, Urquhart appoints ambitious backbencher Claire Carlsen as his Parliamentary Private Secretary. Claire also happens to be Makepeace's lover. She subsequently plays the two men against each other. Encouraged by Claire, Urquhart enrages Makepeace by making a speech in the House of Commons suggesting that Britain should not adopt the European currency, but that Europe should instead adopt English as its official language. When Urquhart seeks to appoint Makepeace to the Department of Education in a cabinet reshuffle, Makepeace resigns from the government, crosses the floor, and emerges as the prime minister's main adversary in Parliament. He also challenges Urquhart for the leadership of the Conservative Party and forces him into a second ballot. Meanwhile, Claire advises Maria to take her case to Makepeace, who repeatedly raises the cover-up in parliament. At Makepeace's suggestion, Claire purloins the unedited report on the Cyprus killings from the secret government archive where it is stored. However, Urquhart's bodyguard, Corder – informed by the archive clerk – seizes the document from her. Makepeace's leadership challenge has attracted enough support to convince Urquhart that his position is in jeopardy. He decides to leak information regarding the oil deposits in order to stir up a conflict in Cyprus as "our Falklands" to unite Britain under his leadership. When Greek nationalists kidnap a British diplomat and the Greek Cypriot President, Urquhart deploys British troops to retrieve them. Though the troops successfully rescue the hostages, the intervention later results in the death of civilians, including young schoolgirls, largely because of the prime minister's drastic orders. Urquhart's support plummets, and when he proves unwilling to accept responsibility for the deaths or express sympathy for the victims, many MPs openly call on him to resign. While Urquhart appears defiant, his wife is worried, and she consults Corder for advice on how to save him. Corder advises "drastic measures", and informs her that he has sent a copy of Mattie Storin's tape, revealing Urquhart's role in her death, to Makepeace. Makepeace confronts the prime minister and announces that he will publish the tape, but not before Urquhart has achieved his aim of surpassing Margaret Thatcher's record. After this, Urquhart again meets Maria. The incriminating Cyprus report has been sent to Maria's father anonymously – presumably by Corder – and Maria vows to publish it. After this, Urquhart despairs, but Elizabeth consoles him: "We can be safe still!" and hints at a ploy by Corder. At the unveiling of the Margaret Thatcher memorial, on the day when Urquhart surpasses her record, a sniper in Corder's services appears on a rooftop and shoots the prime minister (and Maria's father, who had approached Urquhart with a pistol). Elizabeth had arranged for his assassination as the only way to preserve his reputation (and the retirement fund). Urquhart dies in her arms, while Corder offers his services to Makepeace, the apparent successor. 

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The newly crowned King (Michael Kitchen) is displeased with the Conservative government led by Prime Minister Francis Urquhart (Ian Richardson) and becomes involved in politics in a way that Urquhart finds unacceptable for a constitutional monarch. At their first meeting, the King expresses concern about Urquhart's social policies, which he argues have led to greater problems for urban areas. Tensions escalate when Urquhart moves his leftist Environment Secretary to a job in Strasbourg after rejecting his proposals to regenerate inner cities. The King's Assistant Press Secretary, Chloe Carmichael, leaks the outcome of the meeting to the press, which rankles Urquhart. Fearing the King will weaken his position, Urquhart obtains "regal insurance" from Princess Charlotte, the former wife of a royal family member. Urquhart's underling, party chairman Tim Stamper, persuades her to divulge lurid details about the Monarchy to Sir Bruce Bullerby, the editor of the Daily Clarion tabloid, on condition the information is published after her death. Urquhart also begins regularly meeting with the King's ex-wife, repeatedly assuring her that he has no intention of disturbing the Monarchy, implying he would support the early accession of her teenaged son as King. The King and his staff produce a public service announcement implicitly denouncing how Urquhart's policies have affected Britain and covertly rally Opposition leaders to join forces against the Prime Minister. Irked by this intransigence, Urquhart calls an early election. His wife, Elizabeth, introduces him to a pollster named Sarah Harding and persuades him to choose her as a political advisor. Urquhart is impressed with Harding's intelligence and starts to favour her over Stamper, who becomes increasingly bitter over his reluctance to promote him to a senior position. Urquhart eventually begins an affair with Harding, which puts a strain on her marriage. Through all this, he continues to be haunted by his murder of Mattie Storin; unbeknownst to him, someone possesses Mattie's tape recording of her own death. Corder, Urquhart's bodyguard and security advisor, puts the King and other enemies under surveillance. After a brief abduction by some homeless thugs, Harding is told to "ask 'im about Mattie Storin". Despite her feelings for Urquhart, Harding begins to question his version of events about the tragedy. She meets John Krajewski, a former colleague of Mattie's who is now a paranoid freelance journalist. Corder and his staff execute Krajewski and blame it on Irish republican terrorists. Meanwhile, Urquhart threatens the King with Charlotte's memoirs, saying that he will be forced to publish them if the King continues publicly to oppose him. The King, however, refuses to be blackmailed. Urquhart engages in secret meetings with the King's ex-wife, who urges him not to back down. He also blackmails Bullerby into publishing Charlotte's memoirs in the Daily Clarion, threatening to release images of his sexual relationship with the princess. While the royal scandal succeeds in hurting the King's popularity, the polls reverse when Conservative MP John Staines is arrested for sex with a minor. A furious Urquhart blames Stamper for the fallout, having put Staines in the public arena moments before his arrest. Mycroft, the King's closeted advisor, begins fearing his sexual orientation may damage the King's standing, having seen Staines in a gay bar with an underage boy before the arrest. Mycroft eventually decides to come out to the King's press corps, at the same time announcing his resignation. The deadly explosion of a tower block, as a result of a tenant's tapping into the gas main, puts the King's arguments about social problems back into the public domain. Urquhart announces his intention of having unemployed youth from the estates conscripted into the Armed Forces, re-enacting a form of peacetime national service. The King organises a bus tour visiting disadvantaged council estates to show his concern, refusing to include a security detail. Urquhart arranges for Corder to have the King abducted by thugs during his tour of an estate in Manchester. The Parachute Regiment, secretly shadowing the King's tour on Urquhart's orders, rescues him from possible harm. The King is seen as foolish for his negligence in the matter of security, and Urquhart seems like a hero for having protected him. Meanwhile, Corder discovers that Stamper has passed information on Mattie's murder to Harding as insurance. With urging from Elizabeth, Urquhart orders Corder to assassinate them. The Conservatives subsequently win the general election with a 22-seat overall majority. With his policies vindicated by the electorate, despite the King's public opposition, Urquhart demands his abdication. Harding's car explodes when she is en route to meet Chloe, while Stamper's car explodes outside New Scotland Yard. The media interpret the car bombings as Provisional IRA attacks. The end credits of the final episode roll with images of the crowning of the new teenaged king, showing that Urquhart had succeeded in obtaining the abdication of the previous king. At the end of the credits, Urquhart smirks at the camera and triumphantly says, "God Save the King", ending the series. 

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The book opens with a fictional historical overview/flashback to events of Homer's Odyssey, but alters the original plot. In the present day, Dirk Pitt, his son Dirk Pitt, Jr., his daughter Summer Pitt, and friend Al Giordino are involved in the search for the source of a brownish contamination in the ocean's waters, which leads to a diabolical plot that they must unravel and ultimately topple. As this is occurring, discoveries relating to the "true" tale of the Odyssey are made. The villain is the mysterious billionaire businessman Specter, a huge man who disguises his identity by wearing sunglasses, a hat, and a scarf over his face. The book also features a significant event between Dirk Pitt and Congresswoman Loren Smith. He and Al retire from their life of daredevilry and settle down. Pitt asks for the hand of Loren who also steps down. Pitt assumes the responsibility of head of NUMA as Admiral Sandecker accepts the Vice Presidency. This marks a change in Dirk Pitt Sr. series, as confirmed by his next novel, which features Dirk Pitt Jr. as the primary protagonist. As with every Dirk Pitt novel, this one features a classic car, in this case a Marmon V-16 Town Car. A custom-built 1952 Meteor DeSoto hot rod modified with a engine is briefly mentioned. 

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Often compared to Sex and the City and the CBS situation comedy Designing Women, this show features four single women professionals, each with distinct personalities that contribute in their failure to secure dates. The comparison to these shows led many critics to describe the show as unoriginal. The women share a passion for Oprah. 

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The book begins with Momoko talking about her life as a lolita living in a small town in the Japanese countryside. She is the only lolita in her town and has no friends, but she doesn't care and believes that her lolita clothes are all she needs to make her happy. When she runs out of money though she becomes obsessed with getting clothes from Baby, The Stars Shine Bright, her favorite clothing boutique. She decides to sell some of her father's old bootleg clothes. When Ichigo, a member of an all-girl biker gang finds out about the bootleg apparel, she decides to take a look and is easily impressed with them. She soon shows up at Momoko's house almost daily to buy stuff for the members of her gang. They become closer friends and embark on a journey to Baby, The Stars Shine Bright, where Momoko meets the brand's designer. Because of her skill with embroidery, she is recruited to embroider a dress. At a Pachinko parlor, Ichigo meets a gangster with a pompadour and falls in love. However, she soon discovers that he is the fiancee of her gang leader. Heartbroken by the loss of her first love and inspired by Momoko's independence, Ichigo plans to leave her gang. In order to do this, she accepts their "challenge" which involves a ritualistic beating. Momoko finds out about the challenge and goes to Ichigo's aid. After scaring the gang by pretending to be the daughter of a famous gangster, Momoko is considered the winner and the two girls ride off laughing. When it comes time for Momoko to show the designer her embroidery, she arrives on time and everyone loves her work. Ultimately, she decides she is happier wearing the clothing than making it. As for Ichigo, she is offered to work as a model for Baby, The Stars Shine Bright after she impresses a cameraman. On her first day of work, she leaves bruises on five of the crew members but nonetheless becomes sought after by other brands. The movie ends with an image of Momoko and Ichigo riding along the road and laughing. 

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The film is set in Medieval China during the transition period between the Sui Dynasty (581–618) and the Tang Dynasty (618–907). It opens with various shots of the Shaolin Temple, including the wall paintings, the many beautiful trees, gardens, shrines, gates, and statues of Buddha and the Gods. The temple bells toll as the monks kneel in the pillared inner sanctum and bow before the great altar of the Golden Buddha, before which sits the Abbot of Shaolin. A shaven-headed, blue-robed novice (Jet Li) stands with his palms pressed together and his head bowed. He is about to be accepted into the Shaolin Temple. The Abbot speaks to him of ceremony, purification, and learning to respect one's self and others. Then the Abbot asks for his name. "Jue Yuan", he answers. The Abbot tells him that to be accepted into the Shaolin Temple, he must vow to not commit murder. He asks if he can obey this, but Jue Yuan is silent, staring downward. The Abbot repeats the question, and Jue Yuan slowly raises his eyes, gazing intensely at him. The Abbot asks the question a third time... The film flashes back to the warlord and deadly fighter Wang Shichong killing an old man with a throat lock and throwing him off a high brick wall into a muddy river, then abusively ordering the rest of his slaves back to work. They're at a labor camp by the great river, toiling in the mud among corpses that hang from gallows as the soldiers whip them. It is during the rebellions at the end of the Sui Dynasty, when China became divided between various factions. Wang Shichong, who ruled from Luoyang, has treacherously installed himself as Emperor of the East Capitol, and is overseeing the bolstering of his riverfront defenses against the rival warlords on the opposite bank. They are near the Shaolin Temple. He forces even the old, crippled, and sick to work, but still the work isn't progressing fast enough for him. He orders an officer to bring all his prisoners, who are opposing rebels, to join the slaves. These rebels include an older kung fu master, famous for his kicking skill, and his long-haired son, Jue Yuan. The soldiers whip the slaves, and one old slave collapses and drops a wooden beam, which causes an officer's horse to rear and throw the officer. The officer begins to beat the slave to death, but Jue Yuan's father attacks him, though his ankles and wrists are chained together. The officer proves to be a kung fu fighter, and they fight, but Jue Yuan's father still manages to defeat him. This draws the attention of the Emperor, who attacks Jue Yuan's father himself and rips his throat out with his bare hand. Jue Yuan rushes in and unleashes the kicking skills that his father taught him, scattering the guards and fighting the officers, but then the Emperor beats him up and deals him a deadly Dim Mak palm strike to the chest. Jue Yuan is thrown into the river, and he manages to swim away and escape. He staggers through the wild, dying of his wounds, but finally he manages to reach the Shaolin Temple. The Sifu (Yu Hai) is teaching the monks staff kung fu when Jue Yuan arrives and falls unconscious. Throngs of refugees from the war-torn countryside are flocking to the Shaolin Temple every day. The Abbot proclaims that it is their holy duty as Buddhist monks to pray for the refugees and do all they can to help them. They nurse Jue Yuan back to health. When he has recovered, he joins them in carrying water from the river to the Temple, which they use as kung fu conditioning. He struggles, but is helped by a beautiful girl named Bai Wu Xia (Ding Lan), who sings and herds rams in the beautiful wildlife-filled forested hills that surround the Shaolin Temple. Jue Yuan spies on the monks' kung fu training and gets himself into various other comedic misadventures around the Shaolin Temple, befriending the light- hearted, fun-loving, mischievous Sifu and his equally mischievous kung fu students in the process. One night they all sneak out to eat and party around a fire in the woods. There he learns more about the Sifu and his former family in the North. He learns that the Sifu is Bai Wu Xia's father, that she was one of the main ones who nursed him back to health, and that she is skilled at kung fu. The Sifu says that nine years ago, he and his wife were being chased by the Emperor and his soldiers, and he left his wife with a farmer to hide while he fled on, eventually hiding in the Shaolin Temple. The farmer, who had no children, spoiled Bai Wu Xia when she was young. Jue Yuan declares that he will kill the Emperor, and he asks the Sifu to train him in his Northern Shaolin kung fu. The Sifu tells him that Shaolin kung fu is for defense, not killing, and besides, Jue Yuan isn't a monk. Jue Yuan drops to his knees, presses his palms together, and says that he wants to become a monk. Jue Yuan’s head is shaven, and he bows before the Abbot of Shaolin on the great altar of the golden Buddha. The assembled monks sing mystic hymns, ring bells, and strike gongs. A mosquito bites Jue Yuan as he kneels there, and he kills it, but the Abbot blesses and accepts him, and he is ordained as a junior monk. Jue Yuan joins his fellow monks in Northern Shaolin kung fu training. After a time of at least several months he has gained impressive fighting abilities, but while sparring, his enemy flashes with the visage of the Emperor in his mind, and he almost kills his partner. He is banned from practicing kung fu. His emotions flare quickly out of control, and he runs away from the Shaolin Temple. Jue Yuan attempts to assassinate the Emperor, but fails and is forced to flee. Ashamed, he returns to the Shaolin Temple. His Sifu admonishes him, but welcomes him home and allows him to resume his Northern Shaolin kung fu training. Jue Yuan trains for at least another year, as seen in a ‘four seasons’ training sequence, and becomes highly adept at Northern Shaolin kung fu. Then another refugee comes fleeing to Shaolin, this one pursued by the Emperor and his men. This refugee is Li Shimin, son of a great leader who founded the Tang Dynasty, Li Yuan. The Shaolin monks keep peace with the Emperor and his men, and make a show of helping them hunt for Li Shimin. But Jue Yuan helps Li Shimin escape through the mountains, and Jue Yuan and Li Shimin end up hiding together in an abandoned ancient mountainous cave temple with many giant statues of Buddha and the Gods. Bai Wu Xia stealthily brings them food and water. Li Shimin must escape, though, so Jue Yuan and Bai Wu Xia help him, sneaking and bribing their way past the Emperor’s patrols in disguise. Throughout this time, a forbidden romance builds between Jue Yuan and Bai Wu Xia. But they fail in their clean escape, and Li Shimin and Bai Wu Xia flee on a raft down a river, Li Shimin with an arrow in his leg, while Jue Yuan sacrifices himself to slow down the Emperor’s outriders. However, his Sifu from Shaolin and a group of Shaolin warrior monks come to his aid and massacre the outriders. They save Jue Yuan’s life, but his Sifu excommunicates him from Shaolin for his acts and banishes him. He desperately follows them back to the Shaolin Temple anyway, but they throw him out and drive him away. The Emperor learns what the Shaolin monks did, and marches on the Shaolin Temple with his army to destroy it. Jue Yuan comes back yet again, and this time his Sifu sends him away along with Ba Wu Xia, to take her to safety and never return. The Abbot of Shaolin orders the monks not to fight, even while the Emperor’s army surrounds the Shaolin Temple. The Abbot pleads with the Emperor. He appeals that the Temple has a very long history, and a crime should not merit the destruction of the buildings, or any of the monks. As the Abbot, he accepts the blame. The Emperor has him placed on a great pyre, which is set aflame. He tells the monks that if they reveal the traitors’ whereabouts, he’ll spare the Temple and the Abbot’s life. When no one talks, he has his men kill several of the other top monks, and threatens that if no one talks, they’ll all be killed. Then the Sifu and the warrior monks reveal themselves. The Sifu cries that they must fight. The Abbot, as he is immersed in fire, tells the Sifu to release the souls of the Emperor and his men and send them to Heaven. And so the battle is joined. Many monks are killed. Jue Yuan and Ba Wu Xia return to the embattled Shaolin Temple. The Emperor’s army takes the outer walls and outer grounds, and kills all the monks therein. The surviving monks fall back within the inner walls. The Sifu is shot full of arrows. He entreats Jue Yuan to protect Shaolin and uphold justice, and dies. The Emperor and his men break open the inner gate with a battering ram, and they’re about to massacre the rest of the monks, but then the Emperor receives word that Li Shimin and his army are approaching his own East Capital, and they abandon the siege of the Shaolin Temple and ride for the East Capital with all speed. Jue Yuan and the warrior monks ride after the Emperor and his men and join the battle at the ravaged East Capital, at the very site where the Emperor killed Jue Yuan’s father. Jue Yuan and the Emperor duel with swords and empty hands and feet on the shores of the great river. Their battle climbs up a great wooden structure, falls off the top into the river, and returns to the shore. Finally Jue Yuan uses his Northern Shaolin kung fu to kill the Emperor, and the battle for the East Capital is won. The film returns to its beginning, with Jue Yuan in the sanctum of the Shaolin Temple, kneeling before the high altar, as the new Abbot asks him if he can obey the vow to do no murder. Jue Yuan vows that he shall not kill save to uphold righteousness, and the Abbot accepts this. Jue Yuan continues to swear his vows, but when he reaches the vow of celibacy, he is again conflicted. He opens his folded palms to look at a jade amulet. He flashes back again. He and Bai Wu Xia kneel and bow before the shrine of the fallen previous Abbot, to whom they have offered many baskets of fruit and other foods. Jue Yuan speaks aloud to the Abbot of how he is determined to enter Buddha. Bai Wu Xia gazes at him with tears in her eyes, knowing what this means. Jue Yuan vows to defend Shaolin and uphold justice, quoting the last words of his fallen Sifu, Bai Wu Xia’s father. Bai Wu Xia gives him the jade amulet, a token of her love, and departs. Now, in the present, he looks up from the jade amulet to see Bai Wu Xia, who has sneaked into the side wing of the sanctum and is staring at him from behind a great pillar. He hesitates, then vows to remain celibate, and she leaves. The great bell of Shaolin tolls, and the gongs and drums are beaten as Jue Yuan is ordained as a true monk of Shaolin. The film’s closing scene is of Jue Yuan, now the new kung fu Sifu of the Shaolin Temple, leading the monks in their training. 

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After playing a video game titled Stay Alive, Loomis Crowley, his roommate Rex, and Rex's girlfriend Sarah are killed in the same way as their characters were killed in the game. At Loomis' funeral, his friend Hutch meets Abigail – a friend of Sarah – and receives some of Loomis' possessions, including Stay Alive. Hutch, his girlfriend October, and her brother Phineus decide to play the game as a group. They are joined by Abigail and another friend, Swink, while Hutch's boss Miller plays online from his office. The game is set in a derelict mansion on Gerouge Plantation, but it only starts when the six players recite "The Prayer of Elizabeth," a request for "all who resist" to perish so that their blood can keep the Countess Elizabeth Bathory young. The players then fight through a cemetery of evil ghost children, heading toward a mausoleum and tower. Miller is directed by the game to pick up a rose. October, a reader of occult literature, explains that undead spirits cannot move across wild roses. Separated from the others, Miller throws the rose to dispel the spirits of undead girls. Now out of roses, a woman in a red dress, the Countess, stabs and kills Miller's unprotected character. The group decides to stop playing for the night. Minutes later, the Countess appears in Miller's office and kills him by stabbing him in the neck with conjoined scissor blades like the ones in the game. Two detectives, Thibodeaux and King, question Hutch about the homicides. Hutch realizes that Loomis and Miller played Stay Alive right before they died, and that they died the same way as their game characters did. Later, October researches Bathory and learns she would drain young women of blood, bathing in it to maintain her youth. Her weakness was mirrors, because she could not stand to see herself growing old. Elsewhere, Phineus decides to play alone, and despite quitting the game before his character can die, he is killed in real life when he is run over by a horse-drawn carriage. The survivors agree to stop playing Stay Alive until they can learn more about it. However, Detective King ignores Swink's warning and plays until his character dies. Undaunted, King looks for Stay Alive at a gaming store, but the clerk has never heard of it; King is later killed in his car after leaving the store. Hutch and Abigail search Loomis' house and learn of the game developer's location: the real Gerouge Plantation. October has discovered that the real Countess Bathory was locked in the tower of her estate as punishment for her gruesome acts and vowed to return one day for revenge, which she is now able to do, as The Prayer of Elizabeth has resurrected her. October reveals that the Countess can only be killed by driving three nails into her body to trap her evil soul. October sees the Countess in a house under construction and tries to kill her to avenge Phineas, but realizes that she is a ghost, hung upside down, with her throat slit by the Countess. The three survivors realize that once the game has begun, it can play by itself. Swink stays in a van and plays the game on his laptop to distract Bathory, while Hutch and Abigail search Gerouge Plantation. The Countess begins cheating, arriving in her carriage to kill Swink in real life, even though his character is still alive. Swink decides to run for it until he falls over into a bush of roses and is seemingly killed by the Countess with her shears. Hutch and Abigail return to the van to find Swink's character dead. They take the laptop and some wild roses, which they drop to deter undead children as they cross the cemetery toward the tower. When Hutch and Abigail become separated, he continues without her to perform the ritual on Bathory's body. Bathory's phantom attacks Abigail, who has one rose left. At the top of the tower, Hutch finds the preserved, inert body of Elizabeth Bathory and hammers three nails into it, after which the spirit stops attacking Abigail. When Bathory's body reanimates, Hutch retreats and knocks over an oil lamp, spilling oil across the floor. Recalling that the Countess hates mirrors, Hutch uses the reflective laptop to repel her before setting the room ablaze. Swink, still alive due to being surrounded by roses earlier and carrying more roses, bursts in with Abigail and rescues Hutch. As Bathory's body burns, the three leave the tower. Meanwhile, the gaming store from earlier is now selling copies of Stay Alive. 

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Leading a bohemian existence In Paris is the artist Modigliani, known as Modi. Spending much of his time drinking and sleeping with the attractive writer Beatrice, he does some drawing and painting but sells virtually nothing. He meets a beautiful young art student called Jeanne, who is locked up by her family to keep her away from him. His friends the Zborowskis do their best to keep him afloat, but his fragile health, weakened by constant alcohol and tobacco, gives out and he is sent to Nice to recuperate. Jeanne escapes and joins him there, after which the two are inseparable. Returning to Paris, the Zborowskis arrange a one-man show in the prestigious gallery of Madame Weill, where everybody turns up for free drinks at the opening but nobody buys. After complaints, the police order the removal of a nude from the window. A cynical dealer called Morel explains that Modi is sure to die soon and that is when people will pay for his works. The Zborowskis find an American millionnaire who is genuinely interested in some of Modi's canvasses (which would later become world-famous) but when he says he would then use the blue eyes of Jeanne to advertise his products, Modi walks out in disgust. Despondent at his inability to combine the quest for beauty in his paintings of Beatrice and Jeanne with any commercial reality, and with his health increasingly feeble, he goes round cafés trying without success to sell his drawings. Collapsing in the street, he is taken to hospital where he dies alone. Without telling her what has happened, Morel rushes round to a delighted Jeanne to buy up all unsold works for immediate cash. 

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Port Henry, Alaska, is a town undergoing stress as the local economy switches from an industrial one based around the canning and paper industries towards a tourism-based model. Joe Gastineaux is a former high school basketball star and fisherman who quit fishing after some undisclosed tragedy. He now works as a handyman, particularly for Frannie and Lou, a lesbian couple who own the local resort hotel. Joe is friends with teenager Noelle De Angelo who also works for Frankie and Lou. At an event which they are working, Noelle's mother Donna, a lounge singer, breaks up with her live in boyfriend and asks Joe for help in moving. The two become close and eventually begin a romantic relationship. Meanwhile, Joe gets the chance to return to fishing when Frankie and Lou ask him to work a fishing boat which they have acquired as collateral from local fisherman Harmon. Donna has a strained relationship with her daughter Noelle, due mainly to Noelle's disapproval of her mother's lifestyle. This is exacerbated when Donna begins dating Joe, who Noelle had a crush on. Donna overhears the story of why Joe quit fishing: he had been involved in a deadly sinking which claimed the lives of all of his boatmates, including the brother of local bush pilot and small-time criminal "Smilin Jack" Johannson. When Joe's dissolute half-brother Bobby shows up, he asks Joe to help crew his boat to pick up a client. Joe brings along Donna and Noelle. They dock for the night in an isolated bay and Bobby reveals the truth: he is involved in marijuana smuggling and had dumped a load overboard when he was spooked by the police. Now they are going to meet Bobby's partners to settle his debt. That night, men sneak onto the boat and kill Bobby. Joe, Donna, and Noelle flee to a nearby island where the men begin to hunt them. They take shelter in an abandoned cabin and try to survive. As they do they grow closer and Noelle finds a diary written by a teenage girl who had lived in the cabin with her family. She spends the nights reading segments of the diary to Joe and Donna. Eventually Donna looks at the diary and discovers that it is blank after the portion her daughter Noelle had read during the first two evenings. Noelle had made up most of its contents, expressing her own feelings. They maintain a signal fire and scrape some food from the seashore. After a week and a half a seaplane piloted by Smilin' Jack Johannson lands. He says that he is looking for supplies, his radio is busted, and that he doesn't have enough fuel to fly them out. He tells Joe that he was hired by a couple of men to look for three people roughing it. When told of Bobby's murder, he expresses sympathy and promises to return the next day and rescue them. Joe, who does not trust Jack, sees the radio was removed, and remains unsure of whether the seaplane return will bring rescue or the men who killed his brother. A stressful few days of rain prevent any flights' return. One morning Joe, Donna, and Noelle gather on the beach as a seaplane flies towards them, larger than the one belonging to Jack. 

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The film tells the story of six white American women, impatiently waiting out their lengthy residency requirements in an unidentified South American country before picking up their adoptive babies. 

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The hero Dynasty gathers her colleagues in the superhero group Freedom Machine to inform them of a new threat. Their former colleague, the massively powerful telekinetic Daedelus, has decided to take over the world. Worried about Daedelus' unparalleled power, the Freedom Machine decides to gather all the heroes they can to fight him. Meanwhile, Daedelus kills one of his former colleagues and destroys an advanced underwater civilization to keep them from interfering in his plans. The darkness powered superhero Shadowpax recounts to a group of young superheroes the story of the Freedom Machine's most challenging threat to date. Years ago, they had to do battle with Deathboy, a psychotic teenager protected by an impenetrable force field and with the ability to disintegrate anything he sees. The Freedom Machine battled Deathboy in a desert where he killed several superheroes before Shadowpax was able to trap him in a block of solid darkness, where he remains imprisoned in the Freedom Machine's headquarters. In his first strike Daedalus releases several prominent supervillains in order to keep his former colleagues occupied. These include Kid Babylon a young man who has an Elder God trapped in a box, Chaos Nation a composite being who absorbs others, the gigantic canine Thunderdog, and the supernatural Doctor Meggido. As the Freedom Machine confronts these villains, the superbeing Outrider returns to Earth, seeking revenge on Dynasty. He is killed by Ivanhoe, but not before severely mutilating Dynasty. The non-powered adventurer Johnny Venture and his group the Darkside Rangers, take possession of the Freedom Machine's headquarters under authority of the US government. They are looking for a solution to the superhuman problem. They free Deathboy from his prison of darkness and while he is unconscious they implant a bomb inside him. They use this to force Deathboy to agree to their demands. The Freedom Machine begin their assault on Daedelus' island headquarters, but he brings the fighting to an end when he threatens to destroy the Earth, a threat they believe he has the power to carry out. The Darkside Rangers send Deathboy parachuting towards the island, which he destroys. Venture then reneges on his deal and uses the bomb to kill Deathboy. It is revealed that Deathboy had not actually destroyed anyone. Instead all the people and objects he had "disintegrated" were actually transported to an alternate dimension. The Freedom Machine joyously greet their long lost colleagues. Daedelus then announces his intention to take over this new world, but he soon dies from a biological poison which he was exposed to during the fight. 

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Themes of the story are greed and family hatred. Following the death of his wife Audrey, John Munn (Dermot Mulroney) moves with his two sons, mid-teen Chris Munn (Jamie Bell) and adolescent Tim Munn (Devon Alan), to a pig farm in rural Drees County, Georgia, where they lead a reclusive life. Chris is a rebellious, troubled teen, resulting in frequent contact with police. John's brother Deel (Josh Lucas) visits the family. Two boys are surprised; they did not even know of his existence. Deel wants a hoard of gold coins from John. Deel eventually finds them. John refuses to give them to Deel. In the ensuing struggle, Deel murders him. He tries to kill Chris and Tim as well, but they escape and run away from home with the coins. On the run, the boys meet an assortment of fairytale-like characters. Deel pursues them, eventually succeeding. Wading into a river, Chris throws away the gold coins into the water. Enraged by the loss, Deel struggles with Chris, attempting to drown him. However, Deel is fatally stabbed in the chest. Chris appears to wake up in hospital. There, he is reunited with Tim and their grandparents. 

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While recovering from his addictions, Paracha spent time rearranging these notes using the cut-up method and surrealist automatism. He then turned it all into a work of fiction in which a heroin addict narrates his story set in future Pakistan and India that have turned into capitalist and theistic dystopias. He is a traveler who is always moving up and down both the countries looking for drugs and in the process having hallucinatory dialogues with a Pakistani cleric/Islamic extremist (called in the book as "The Mufti"), a group of Hindu fundamentalists (called "The pundits"), a group of young neoliberals (referred to as "the fun young people" and the "polite voids"), and an aging Indian Christian (called the "Holy Father"). There are also many other characters, but much of the story revolves around these main characters as Paracha constructs his dystopia in which capitalism and organized religion have been fused together as a new totalitarian system. Acidity makes a clear comment this way on the rapid economic, political and social changes taking place in India and Pakistan, especially after the end of the Cold War. 

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Jamal and Enayatullah are Afghan refugees in a camp in Peshawar, Pakistan. They travel to Quetta, and thence to Taftan on the Iranian border. They pay people smugglers to assist them over the border; on their first attempt they are stopped by Iranian police and returned to Pakistan, but their second attempt is successful. They travel to Tehran and then to Maku, in the Kurdish part of Iran, from where they cross a mountain range on foot to Turkey. In Istanbul they meet a group of other migrants, and they are taken to Italy inside a shipping container. The container is not ventilated, and most of the refugees, including Enayatullah, are suffocated to death. Jamal survives and lives in Italy for a time. He then steals a woman's purse and buys a rail ticket to Paris. From there, he goes to the Sangatte asylum seekers camp and with a new friend, Yusef, he crosses the English Channel by stowing away on a lorry. Finally, he arrives in London, where he calls his uncle to say he has arrived but that Enyatullah is "not in this world". The film ends with images of the Peshawar refugees. 

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The novel focuses on Hilary Wainwright, an English man, on the search for his lost son in the ruins of post-war France. 

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Irish terrorist Ryan Gaerity escapes from his cell in a castle prison in Northern Ireland, killing a guard and his cellmate in the process, after turning a toilet into a bomb. In Boston, Lt. Jimmy Dove is a veteran member of the police force's bomb squad, on the verge of retirement and helping to train newer recruits. Dove hides that he is really Liam McGivney, a former member of a Northern Ireland terrorist cell. He had been friends with Gaerity, but when Gaerity tried to set off a bomb that would have killed numerous civilians, he interceded, ending in the death of his girlfriend, who was also Gaerity's sister, and leading to Gaerity's imprisonment. Devastated, McGivney had moved to Boston and took on a new identity, hoping to find atonement in saving others by defusing bombs. Only Dove's uncle Max O'Bannon is aware of his past and expresses his desire for Dove to retire early, having clearly shown his atonement. Gaerity sees Dove on TV and makes his way to Boston, taking residence in an abandoned casino boat, and tracks down Dove. He takes a job as a janitor at the police station to learn more about Dove's present life and his co-workers. Gaerity sets up bombs specifically designed to kill the defusers. Dove's fellow team member Blanket is killed by one of these bombs. Later, at the site of a fake bomb threat, technicians Rita and Cortez are killed by an explosive hidden in their bomb disposal robot named 'Manfred'. Dove receives a call from Gaerity and realizes that his wife Kate and stepdaughter are in danger. He explains his true past to them, and convinces them to go into hiding at a nearby beach house. A member of Dove's squad, rookie technician Anthony Franklin, who has linked Dove's former life to Gaerity, is safely rescued from another bomb planted by Gaerity with Dove's aid, and promises Dove any assistance he can offer. Max decides to try to stop Gaerity himself, trying to get close to him at an Irish bar, but instead ends up captured by him, and latched into a makeshift bomb. Dove tracks down Max, and goes to retrieve his tools, but Max, realizing that Gaerity had created the bomb to kill both of them, intentionally triggers the bomb while Dove is away, sacrificing himself. In analyzing the bomb's debris, Dove finds a roulette ball that points to the abandoned ship, where he finds Gaerity. Gaerity reveals that he has set up another bomb in Kate's car and activates its Rube Goldberg-esque arming mechanism before engaging with Dove in a large mêlée fight throughout the booby-trapped ship, which has been rigged to blow up in a few minutes. Dove gains the upper hand, and handcuffs himself to Gaerity, preventing him from leaving, preparing to die to keep his secret and prevent any more deaths. Dove is saved by Franklin at the last second, who had followed Dove to the ship, and the two escape in time before the ship explodes, killing Gaerity in the process. The two race back to the city, hoping to stop Kate before she starts the car. They arrive too late but are able to catch up to Kate, and Dove jumps into her car. He finds the complex bomb and manages to defuse it in time. As they recover, Franklin tells Dove he knows his past identity but will keep it a secret if he can take credit for taking down Gaerity; Dove agrees and gives Franklin his beeper before leaving with Kate and his stepdaughter. 

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The film opens with a foreword: > There are important fragments of life that have been avoided by the motion > picture because Thought is concerned and not the Body. A thought can create > and destroy nations--and it is all the more powerful because it is born of > suffering, lives in silence, and dies when it has done its work. Our aim has > been to photograph a thought--A thought that guides humans who crawl close > to the earth--whose lives are simple--who begin nowhere and end nowhere. The story begins along a bleak waterfront in an unidentified harbor. Industrial refuse litters the shore. A giant Sisypheandredge scoops mud from a channel and into a massive barge. Four characters, “humans who crawl close to the earth” occupy the brooding landscape: The Boy, a fainthearted and feckless youth, wanders aimlessly amid the wreckage. He fancies The Girl. The Girl, older and hardened by her impoverishment, has “sunk as low as her socks.” Maintaining a sullen dignity in her solitude, she spurns The Boys diffident advances. The Child is an orphaned youngster. He silently haunts the mud barge where his parents lost their lives. The Brute is a man of indeterminate age and short-tempered. He acts as watchman aboard the barge. The Brute makes a pass at The Girl. She cuts him cold with a glare and he retreats. Frustrated, The Brute assaults The Child who has trespassed on the barge. The Boy witnesses the assault, but is frozen by his cowardice. The Girl, with a single word, shames him into action. He gingerly collects The Child, and they flee together with The Brute in pursuit. The Girl, with a look, signals the dredge operator, who unleashes a torrent of mud on the head of The Brute. The Boy, The Girl and The Child escape from the desolate docks to the slums of an unnamed metropolis. As the threesome trudge through the back alleys of the city, they are spotted by The Man and his client, The Gentleman. The Man accosts The Boy and confirms what he suspects: they are homeless and penniless. He assures The Boy that jobs are plentiful, and offers to provide a room for the trio while The Boy seeks employment. Unbeknownst to them, the “room” is located in a brothel. The Man's aim is to enlist The Girl as a prostitute. When they are ushered into the seedy flat, The Woman, a sex worker, attempts to provide them with some refreshment. The Man stops her: “Hunger will whisper things in their ears that I might find troublesome to say.” As the hours pass, The Girl becomes increasingly anxious due to The Child's pleas for food. The Boy returns from his futile search for work demoralized. They are on the verge of despair. The Boy indulges in a vivid fantasy, in which he, The Girl and The Child are transformed into wealthy aristocrats, who arrive at their estate escorted by servants dressed in faux- military livery. The Gentlemen, with the encouragement of the Man, enters the room expecting to negotiate sex with a prostitute. The Girl coldly considers the proposition. The Boy becomes distraught when he discerns The Girl's ambivalence. The Gentleman, grasping her dilemma, bestows a gift of money on the Girl without comment and quietly takes his leave. The Child snatches the largesse and bolts to the door, returning shortly with provisions for a meal – the crisis past. The Man, thwarted in his endeavor, devises another plan in collusion with The Woman. They invite the young trio to an outing in the countryside. There, he intends to seduce The Girl and coerce her into the sex trade: “…let romance do a little work.”. The Woman is tasked with distracting The Boy during the seduction. The party of five arrives in the country in a touring car. They park next to a real estate sign that reads “Here Your Dreams Come True.” Despite The Man's best efforts, The Girl remains unresponsive to his blandishments. Exasperated, he lashes out at The Child. The Boy, shedding his fear, leaps to the defense of the little boy and beats The Man into submission with his fists. The Girl rejoices that The Boy has claimed his manhood. Triumphantly, the trio – now a family –strides into the sunset, “children of the sun.” 

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The film opens with 4 groomsmen preparing for a wedding and dressing in Tuxedos. Buzz (Dean Cain) a former soldier is shown holstering handguns in his tuxedo, Teddy (Andy Dick) a browbeaten house husband is meticulously getting ready, Sol (Mitchell Whitfield) a former criminal lawyer now specialising in divorce dresses neatly while Billy (Sean Patrick Flannery) a failing actor is shown watching a newscast. The reporter goes into detail about a recent bank robbery where the robber recited Shakespearean prose before escaping. All four of the guys then meet up and walk towards a prison where it is shown that Jesse (Luke Wilson) is being released after spending 3 years for an unspecified crime. During a heated argument between Sol and Jesse it is hinted that Sol was Jesse's attorney and made an error that led to Jesse's incarceration. Jesse is the groom and upon his release has planned to meet his fiance Hope (Drew Barrymore) and marry her surrounded by his best friends. While en route to the wedding ceremony Billy asks for the guys to pull over near a bank. Billy enters the bank wearing a balaclava and commences to rob it (showing that he is the Shakespeare robber from the earlier newscast). As he finishes he gives a rendition of Shakespeare just as Buzz walks in trying to get Billy to hurry up. Buzz stops the robbery but unveils Billy to everyone as the robber. The other guys then walk into the bank and inadvertently create a hostage situation. The police are called and the guys are faced with the consequences of Billy's actions. Sol tells them they are all accomplices and facing serious prison time. However, the bank customers bond with the 5 unlikely robbers. Outside the bank Billy's dad Sheriff Philips (Fred Ward) demands for Billy to surrender and mocks him for being a failure in life. Billy confronts his father and refuses to surrender. Inside the bank it's suggested that Billy release some of the hostages and Mayor Boar (Bill Yeager) volunteers but is mocked for being cowardly. One of the hostages, Gonzo (Brad Dourif) comes forward and offers the guys a solution to their problem. He suggests they request a chopper land on the roof and he will fly them to safety. Buzz seems to bond with Gonzo who is a Vietnam veteran, Buzz tells Gonzo that his whole dream in life was to serve in the military but due to being gay he was not allowed to serve. Gonzo seeing his pain, gifts Buzz his military jacket. Outside the FBI arrive to take over the hostage negotiation. The lead agent Hoover (Raymond J. Barry) shows little regard for the hostages and plans to execute the 5 dimwitted robbers as soon as they exit the bank. Sheriff Philips approaches the bank and Billy finally confronts his father for being a lousy parent. The sheriff is shown to realise he was never there for his son. Billy agrees to allow some of the hostages to go, Gonzo amongst them. All of the freed hostages refuse to identify Billy or his friends. The gang negotiates for Jesse and Hope to be married in the bank and Hoover agrees for a priest to go in and perform the ceremony. During the wedding the priest is uncovered to be a Fed and in a struggle Teddy and Buzz are shot. Teddy feeling like the bank robbery has woken him up refuses to be sent to hospital for urgent care but eventually acquiesces. Buzz patches his wound and the guys plot their exit from the bank. Sol goes outside and negotiates a deal with Hoover to get everyone out. As Sol re-enters the bank Hoover informs his men that the guys will never escape, as soon as they exit he will have his snipers gun them down. Sol and the guys with the remaining hostages exit the bank draped in a giant American flag. The snipers unable to pick out the guys refuse Hoovers orders to shoot indiscriminately (they also refuse to shoot at the flag). As everyone enters the bus, Sol tells Jesse he's sorry and Hope forgives him. He then steps off the bus as he announces the deal he brokered involved him surrendering to save Jesse and the guys. Hoover however reneges on the deal and Sol holds him at gunpoint so the police cars let the bus go. As the bus leaves, Sol is shot by the snipers multiple times and dies. Sheriff Philips then blocks the Feds with his police cruiser in order to give Billy's time to make a getaway. As the bus makes for the local airport the Feds start to catch up and Buzz drives the bus off the main road. Gonzo then appears in a military helicopter and Jesse and Hope escape onto the chopper. However, Billy and Buzz are unable to escape and remain behind. They get surrounded by the Feds. In a final bloody shoot out, the two best friends die but not before Buzz gets off a shot killing Hoover. The film ends with Jesse and Hope playing with a daughter some years later on a beach in Mexico. 

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In Encino, California, SpongeBob fan Patchy the Pirate has presumably lost the "Lost Episode" of SpongeBob prior to the episode. After a segment of previous SpongeBob clips called "Remembering SpongeBob", and Patchy lamenting that he lost the episode, he sets off to find it using a treasure map. Throughout several difficulties, he eventually finds a VHS tape which holds the episode. He then returns home in glee, and watches the episode. However, the tape only shows a clip of SpongeBob doing a series of walk cycles to techno music before abruptly showing SMPTE color bars. Patchy gets angry, and gets rid of his SpongeBob merchandise, including his SpongeBob underwear, which results in him running away. The real episode then begins to start playing, and Patchy returns, fixes all of his stuff literally in reverse, then enjoys the episode. In the episode, SpongeBob wishes he could fly with the jellyfish. He makes several attempts to do so, including a biplane, bat wings, a lawn chair with balloons, and a giant kite pulled by a bicycle. All of these attempts fail, and SpongeBob faces ridicule from others. He tells those mocking him that "it is a sad day in Bikini Bottom, when a guy is ridiculed for having dreams!" They respond that they all have had unfulfilled dreams, and start chasing him. SpongeBob runs off a cliff and falls into a truck of mud, then into a truck of feathers. Back home, having given up on his dream, SpongeBob dries himself out when he receives an insulting phone call and puts the hair dryer in his pants. While he talks, the dryer inflates his pants, giving him the ability to fly. He goes around helping people, earning their admiration and becoming a superhero of sorts. However, the other characters continue to ask increasingly unnecessary favors of him, leaving him no time to fly with the jellyfish. When he tries to escape to the Jellyfish Fields, a mob forms and chases him, but is unable to catch him. Cannonball Jenkins, formerly a farmer and later on, a sailor, launches himself at SpongeBob, popping the pants as punishment for refusing to do more favors, and sending him plummeting to the ground. Everyone then holds a funeral for his now-deflated pants. Upset, SpongeBob goes home, but the jellyfish help him fly and take him back there. Patrick arrives and asks if they could "fly over" to the pizzeria, but SpongeBob decides to leave the flying to the jellyfish, only for Patrick to literally fly off himself. The story then shifts back to Patchy, who wants to replay the episode, but his difficulty with the TV remote causes him to accidentally destroy the tape by wearing it out and making the filmstrip come pouring out of his VCR. As a result, Patchy ends up getting tangled in the filmstrip and cries that he ruined the episode and now it is lost forever. As the scene changes to an exterior shot of Patchy's house, but now at nighttime, the narrator assures the audience that whether or not the lost episode will remain lost, as long as there are stars in the sky, SpongeBob will live on in fans' hearts and minds. The episode ends with the stars forming a picture of SpongeBob as the narrator tells the viewers to get lost. 

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Little Red Riding Hood (Anne Hathaway) arrives at her grandmother's house, where the Big Bad Wolf (Patrick Warburton) has disguised himself as Red's Granny. The Wolf attacks Red. Granny (Glenn Close), who has been tied up, suddenly jumps out of the closet to help Red, just as an axe-wielding woodsman (Jim Belushi) bursts through the window. The police arrive on the scene. Detective Nicky Flippers (David Ogden Stiers) questions everyone involved about the events leading up to the incident. Little Red, actually named Red Puckett, explains that she was delivering goodies for her grandmother, when she discovered a threat from the mysterious Goodie Bandit, who has been stealing recipes. To save her Granny's business, Red embarked upon a journey to take the Puckett family recipes to Granny's home on top of a nearby mountain. En route, she fell out of a cable car operated by the bunny Boingo (Andy Dick), and encountered the Wolf, who sprung a series of suspicious questions on her. Evading the Wolf, Red then met an old singing goat named Japeth (Benjy Gaither), who accompanied her through the remaining journey to Granny's house. Upon arriving at her destination, Red found the Wolf already waiting in ambush. What at first seems to be an open- and-shut case becomes confused once the Wolf shares his side of the story. The Wolf, to the surprise of many at the crime scene, is an investigative reporter. He reveals that he was searching for a lead on the identity of the Goody Bandit and had reason to believe that Red and Granny were the culprits. Along with his hyperactive squirrel assistant Twitchy (Cory Edwards), the Wolf confronted Red in the hopes of solving the Goody Bandit mystery. When they failed to detain Red for long, the Wolf and Twitchy made haste for Granny's house. They managed to arrive ahead of Red (by using a shortcut known by Boingo). At the house, they found Granny already tied up in the closet. The Wolf then went undercover, planning to trick Red into sharing the truth about the Goody Bandit. When the Woodsman, named Kirk, is questioned, he explains that his appearance at Granny's house was pure happenstance. Kirk is in fact an aspiring actor who was only trying out for the part of a woodsman in a commercial. After his schnitzel truck was robbed by the Goody Bandit, he was consoled by Boingo, and then received a callback for the commercial. He spent the rest of the day chopping trees, getting into character for his upcoming role. At sunset, a large tree collapsed and pushed him through the window of Granny's home. The investigation then turns to Granny. Unbeknownst to her granddaughter, Granny is an extreme sports enthusiast. Earlier that day, she competed in a ski race, where Boingo was in attendance, supposedly as a fan of Granny's. Once the race started, Granny was attacked by the opposing team. Able to withstand the attack and win the race, she learned that the team had been hired by the Goody Bandit to eliminate her. Granny explains to the investigators and her fellow suspects that while parachuting back home, she got tangled up in the parachute strings, which snagged on her ceiling fan and threw her into the closet. Feeling betrayed by Granny's secrecy, Red wanders off alone. Flippers deduces that Boingo, who had been present in all four stories, must be the Goody Bandit. After Boingo sneaks into Granny's home and steals the Puckett family recipes, Red notices Boingo and follows him to his hideout at a cable car station. The police pursue Boingo in the wrong direction. Granny, the Wolf, and Kirk manage to locate Boingo as he is explaining his evil scheme to Red. Boingo plans to add an addictive substance called "Boingonium" to the stolen recipes and then bulldoze the forest, so as to clear the way for a new Boingo-themed corporate empire. The Wolf and Kirk go undercover to distract Boingo, as Granny sneaks into Boingo's lair, but they are all soon found out and open conflict ensues. Boingo sends a bound and gagged Red down the mountain in a cable car loaded with explosives. Granny goes after Red, with Boingo and his henchmen in pursuit. Red manages to free herself, and escapes with Granny, while the police, who have been redirected by Twitchy, are waiting at the bottom of the mountain to arrest Boingo and his henchmen. Some time later, Kirk finds success in a yodeling troupe, while Red, Granny, the Wolf, and Twitchy are enlisted by Flippers to join a crime solving organization called Happily Ever After Agency. 

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Go Gan is baking a surprise cake for his son, Ban in his work kitchen. It is late in the night and Ban and his mother, Ni wait longingly for father and husband to return. However, they have been living a life of waiting and longing for many years and they are sick of it. They decide to leave for USA. Go Gan then rushes to the airport with his cake to stop them. However, on the way his car crashes into a taxi carrying an old lady. He is spotted by the traffic police who then stop him. Being in a rush, he holds out the cake box and shouts that it is a bomb. However, his plan flops and he is charged with false threat and sentenced to 2 years in jail. Tong Seung sets up a cake shop to spite her ex-boyfriend, who has always despised her. However, she does not know anything about baking cakes and only has the passion for it. Her brother Jimmy, cousin Keke and colleague Mu Si are trying to coax her out of it but to no avail. They do not say anything about the bad taste of Tong Seung's cakes so as not to hurt her feelings. Gateau puts up a notice to hire trainees. Yu Le, Tang Shuang and Bu Lang joins the trial and are selected. Training starts and only Bu Lang does well. Uncle Fa, Gateau's cake kitchen supervisor has a fear of ovens because of an accident a few years ago. He needs the other chefs to help him to put the cake into the oven. Gao Gen gets him to overcome his fear. Tang Shuang and Gao Gen: Tang Shuang eventually recovers and she and Gao Gen bakes cakes under the name of Mr and Mrs Cake Robin Hood. Sarah and Yu Jiao: They joined Gateau as trainees. (In another version of the story, she falls for Yu Jiao but as she has no confidence in him she does not accept him and instead wants to marry Yu Le and causes a breakup between Keke ad Yu Le) Goldmine: It was eventually found by one of the chefs of Gateau. Yu Le and Yu Jiao stole the money from the chef. While Yu Le was on the way to the police to surrender the money, he receives the call from Bu Lang and the money is burned in the fire. Tang Sen and Qu Qi: They reunited and Tang Sen forgives her for abandoning them 22 years ago for her contests. 

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In March 1981, Tina Gray awakens from a nightmare where she is attacked by a disfigured man wearing a blade-fixed glove in a boiler room. Her mother points out four mysterious slashes on her nightgown. The following morning, Tina is consoled by her best friend Nancy Thompson and her boyfriend Glen Lantz. The two stay at Tina's house when Tina's mother goes out of town but their sleepover is interrupted by Tina's boyfriend Rod Lane. When Tina falls asleep, she dreams of being chased by the disfigured man. Rod is awoken by Tina's thrashing and sees her dragged and fatally slashed by an unseen force, forcing him to flee as Nancy and Glen awaken to find Tina bloodied and dead. The next day, Rod is arrested by Nancy's father Don Thompson despite his pleas of innocence. At school, Nancy falls asleep in class and dreams that the man, who calls himself Freddy, chases her to the boiler room where she is cornered and intentionally burns her arm on a pipe to wake up. The burn startles her awake in class and she notices a burn mark on her arm. Nancy goes to Rod at the police station, who tells her details about what happened to Tina along with his own recent nightmares. This makes Nancy believe that Freddy is responsible for Tina's death. At home, Nancy falls asleep in the bathtub and is nearly drowned by Freddy. Nancy then depends on caffeine to stay awake and invites Glen to watch over her as she sleeps. In her dream, Nancy sees Freddy prepare to kill Rod in his cell before he turns his attention towards her. Nancy runs away; Glen has fallen asleep but Nancy wakes up when her alarm clock goes off. Freddy kills Rod by wrapping bed sheets around his neck like a noose. Nancy, her father and Glen find his body hanging in his cell, making it look like Rod committed suicide. At Rod's funeral, Nancy's parents become worried when she describes her dreams about Freddy. Her alcoholic mother, Marge, takes her to a sleep disorders clinic where, in a dream, Nancy grabs Freddy's fedora (with his name "Fred Krueger" written in it) and pulls it from the dream into reality. Upon barricading the house, Marge reveals to Nancy that Krueger was a sadistic child murderer released on a technicality and then burned alive by parents living on their street seeking vigilante justice. Nancy realizes that Krueger, now a vengeful ghost, desires revenge and to satiate his psychopathic needs. Nancy tries to call Glen to warn him but his father prevents her from speaking to him. Glen falls asleep and is killed by Krueger. Now alone, Nancy puts Marge to sleep and asks her father, who is across the street investigating Glen's death, to break into the house in twenty minutes. Nancy rigs booby traps around the house and grabs Krueger out of the dream and into the real world. The booby traps affect Krueger enough that Nancy is able to light him on fire and lock him in the basement. Nancy rushes to the door for help. The police arrive to find that Krueger has escaped from the basement. Nancy and Don go upstairs to find a burning Krueger smothering Marge in her bedroom. After Don puts out the fire, Krueger and Marge vanish into the bed. When Don leaves the room, Krueger rises from the bed behind Nancy. Nancy realizes that Krueger is powered by his victim's fear and she calmly turns her back to him. Krueger evaporates when he attempts to lunge at her. Nancy steps outside into a bright and foggy morning where all of her friends and her mother are still alive. Nancy gets into Glen's convertible to go to school and then the Krueger-themed top suddenly comes down and locks them in as the car drives uncontrollably down the street. Three girls in white dresses playing jump rope are heard chanting Krueger's nursery rhyme as Marge is grabbed by Krueger through the front door window. 

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Louie Jeffries, a young district attorney, is hit by a car and dies in 1964, but manages to slip by the pearly gates and is instantly reborn. In 1987, 23 years later, his widow Corinne still misses him, ignoring the frustrated devotion of his best friend Phillip Train, who has pretty much raised Louie's only daughter Miranda as his own. Miranda, while a student at Yale University, meets Alex Finch, who works in the library but is about to graduate. After graduation, Alex heads to Washington, D.C., where he makes his way to the offices of The Washington Post. His first attempts to meet with Ben Bradlee thwarted, Alex schemes his way into Bradlee's office by pretending to be a delivery man. Alex walks into Bradlee's office, with Phillip behind him. Confounded by the young man, Bradlee asks who Alex is. When Alex attempts to remind him of their meeting at Yale, Phillip vouches for him, which changes Bradlee's mind about giving him a meeting. Unfortunately, Bradlee feels Alex needs more time working on smaller papers before he can offer him a job. Feeling defeated, Alex leaves his office. Phillip finds Alex downstairs in the lobby. Alex offers Phillip a ride, during which Phillip invites Alex to meet the Jeffries family over dinner. While at the Jeffries home, which he'd never previously been to, Alex begins to have flashbacks of a previous life. Freaked out, he begins to act crazed and confused. Putting the pieces together, Alex realizes he is Louie Jeffries, Corinne's dead husband, reincarnated. Miranda, wanting to continue the flirtation that started when they met, is confused when Alex rebuffs her. Alex tries to convince Corrine that he's Louie. At first she doesn't believe him, but he knows things only Louie would know. She finally gives in and they kiss. They take a trip together away from town, and Corrine is a little disturbed when people think Alex is her son. Louie/Alex wants to make love, but Corrine reveals she hasn't had sex since Louie died. One night when Louie and Corrine are together, they're caught by Phillip, who accuses Alex of being a gold digger. Louie/Alex then reminds Phillip he declared his love for Corinne to Louie on their wedding day. Phillip is confused and tries to punch Louie/Alex but Louie/Alex punches him instead, knocking him out. Corinne rushes to Phillip's side, and yells at Louie to get out of the room. Louie realizes then that she loves Phillip too. Corrine slips a note under Louie/Alex's door, saying she's sorry, and she'll visit him later. Louie/Alex puts Phillip in his bed, so that when Corinne arrives, thinking he's Louie, she accidentally kisses Phillip. He's ecstatic, and Corinne realizes she loves him too. They make love. Louie/Alex spends the night in his car. The next day, he bursts into a courtroom accusing a judge of accepting a bribe (Louie remembers taking a photograph of the then younger judge taking the bribe). Phillip, who's also in the courtroom, realizes only Louie would know about that fact, and now believes Alex is Louie. He tells Phillip about the location of the camera with the pictures of the judge taking a bribe. Alex falls down the stairs, hits his head, and ends up in the hospital. While unconscious, an angel visits Alex, and gives him the special "shot" he should have gotten 23 years previous, to forget his past life as Louie. When Alex wakes, he's forgotten about being Louie, and he tells Miranda that the last thing he remembers is their kissing in the corner of the refrigerator. Newspaper headlines show the judge charged with accepting the bribe. Alex accepts a job offer as a reporter. Corinne and Phillip get married, and at their wedding, Alex tells Phillip he's in love with Miranda. 

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The King's Stilts tells the story of King Birtram of Binn, who dedicates himself to safeguarding his kingdom, a low-lying land surrounded by high water that is held back by a ring of dike trees. Unfortunately, the dike trees are the favorite food of a species of pest-birds called nizzards; the kingdom always faces the risk that the nizzards might compromise the dike-tree barrier and cause catastrophic flooding. The King's administration maintains a legion of Patrol Cats to keep the nizzards at bay; King Birtram sees to their care personally. When not attending to his royal duties, the King enjoys himself by frolicking in the streets on his red stilts. One day, his minister Lord Droon, secretly a gloomy thief who plots to capture the stilts, persuades the King's page boy Eric to steal and hide the stilts. Deprived of his amusement, the King grows depressed and begins to neglect his duties. As a result, the Patrol Cats become less vigilant, and soon the nizzards make headway in eating away the dike trees. Seeing the results of his actions, Eric resolves to return the stilts to the King and succeeds in doing so despite Lord Droon's efforts to stop him. King Birtram, his personal morale restored, finds the energy to mobilize the Patrol Cats to fight off the nizzards and save the kingdom. Lord Droon is arrested and punished with a restricted diet consisting entirely of nizzard cooked in various ways. Eric is rewarded with his own pair of red stilts, and joins the King on his outings. 

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The book recounts in prose the tale of seven Godiva sisters, none of whom ever wear clothing. The explanation for their nakedness, even when walking in snow, is that "they were simply themselves and chose not to disguise it." The story opens with the sisters' father, Lord Godiva, deciding to leave for the Battle of Hastings (1066) on horseback. This upsets the sisters, as horses are wild and untamed animals. Sure enough, before Lord Godiva even manages to leave the castle walls, he is flung from his horse and killed. As a tribute to their father's fate, the Godiva sisters agree to never marry—despite the fact that each is courting one of seven brothers named Peeping—until they can warn their countrymen of the dangers of horses. The book then follows the sisters as they set out on individual quests for "horse truths", which turn out to be well-known sayings involving horses. 

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The story begins as a boy named Marco fishes in a small, trash-filled pond, McElligot's Pool. A local farmer laughs at the boy and tells him that he is never going to catch anything. Nevertheless, Marco holds out hope and begins to imagine a scenario in which he might be able to catch a fish. First, he suggests that the pool might be fed by an underground brook that travels under a highway and a hotel to reach the sea. Marco then imagines a succession of fish and other creatures that could be in the sea and therefore the pool. He imagines, among others, a fish with a checkerboard stomach, a seahorse with the head of an actual horse, and an eel with two heads. When Marco is done imagining, he tells the farmer, "Oh, the sea is so full of a number of fish,/ If a fellow is patient, he might get his wish!" 

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At the beginning of the story, Peter T. Hooper brags to his sister, Liz, in his mother's kitchen about what a good cook he is. He tells the story of how, when he became fed up with the taste of regular scrambled eggs using hen's eggs, he decided to scramble eggs from other birds. He tells of how he travelled great distances and discovered a variety of exotic birds and their eggs. He explains his criteria for choosing some eggs, because of their sweetness, and avoiding others. He takes the eggs home but decides that he still needs more, and he calls on the help of some of his friends from around the world, including a "fellow named Ali". After each bird Peter finds he states the phrase..."Scrambled Eggs Super Dee Dooper Dee Booper Special Deluxe a la Peter T. Hooper". 

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Behind Mr. Sneelock's ramshackle store, there's an empty lot. Little Morris McGurk is convinced that if he could just clear out the rusty cans, the dead tree, and the old cars, nothing would prevent him from using the lot for the amazing, world-beating, Circus McGurkus. The more elaborate Morris' dreams about the circus become, the more they depend on the sleepy-looking and innocent Sneelock, who stands outside his ramshackle store sucking on a pipe, oblivious to the fate that awaits him in the depths of Morris's imagination. Sneelock does not yet know that he will have to dispense 500 gallons of lemonade, be lassoed by a Wily Walloo, wrestle a Grizzly-Ghastly, and ski down a slope dotted with giant cacti. But if his performance is up to McGurkian expectations, then "Why, ladies and gentlemen, youngsters and oldsters, your heads will quite likely spin right off your shouldsters!" And Sneelock won't mind it one bit because he likes to help out. But by the end of Morris's fantasy, Sneelock is casting a disapproving eye at him. 

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It deals with a fantastic land called Katroo, where the Birthday Bird throws the reader an amazing party on their special day. It consists of a running description of a fantastical celebration, narrated in the second person, of the reader's birthday, from dawn to late night. The celebration includes fantastical and colorful gifts, foods and a whirl of activities all arranged by the Birthday Bird for the reader's birthday. It focuses on the reader's self-actualization and concludes with the happy and exhausted reader falling blissfully asleep. A popular Seuss paragraph in this book reads: "Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you." 

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As the story opens, an unnamed protagonist (resembling a cat or dog) lives a happy and carefree life in the Valley of Vung, until one day he goes out for a stroll to look at daisies and hurts himself by tripping over a rock, setting off the troubles he will soon face. The protagonist vows to be more careful, but a Green-Headed Quilligan Quail bites his tail from behind. Worse still, a Skritz dives to sting his neck and a Skrink bites his toe, proving that troubles can come from every direction. As the protagonist tries to fight off his troubles, a man on a One-Wheeler Wubble drawn by a camel comes up and explains that like the protagonist, he too is experiencing a troubled life and has decided to escape his troubles by going to Solla Sollew, a city on the beautiful banks of the river Wah-Hoo, and never known to have troubles (at least very few). He invites the protagonist to come along with him. Eager to escape from his troubles, the protagonist joins the Wubble driver, but after a long night of traveling, the camel gets sick and starts to bubble. At first, the driver and protagonist pull him on the Wubble, but for the rest of the day, the driver acts lazy and the protagonist has to do all the hard work. The next day, they thankfully discover a camel doctor named Dr. Sam Snell, who diagnoses their camel with a bad case of gleeks and orders him to go to bed for at least twenty weeks. The driver makes it up to the protagonist by telling him he can catch the 4:42 bus to Solla Sollew at the nearest bus stop, but when the protagonist gets to the bus stop he learns from a notice letter tacked on a stick and written by the bus line president, Horace P. Sweet, that the 4:42 Solla Sollew bound bus is out of service because the driver, Butch Myers, apparently destroyed all his tires from accidentally running over four nails..."But," adds Horace P. Sweet, "I wish you a most pleasant journey by feet." So the protagonist now has no choice but to hike to Solla Sollew. After hiking a hundred miles, the poor protagonist is caught in a rainstorm. A kindly stranger tells him that the storm is the infamous "Midwinter Jicker" and allows the protagonist to take shelter in his house (where a family of mice and a family of owls also happen to be taking shelter) while he escapes the Midwinter Jicker to stay at his grandfather's house in Palm Springs. After a sleepless night and dreaming of sleeping in Solla Sollew, the protagonist awakens to find that the flood-waters have washed the house over a cliff, leaving him still trapped inside. He spends twelve days in the flood-waters, until somebody rescues him by throwing down a rope. The protagonist climbs the rope, only to discover that his savior is none other than General Genghis Kahn Schmitz, who immediately drafts him into his army for an upcoming battle against a lion-like creature known as the Perilous Poozer of Pompelmoose Pass and arms him with only a shooter and a little bean. At the pass, the General and his army catch sight of a poozer and charge ahead to certain victory...only to discover that they are outnumbered by several Poozers and General Genghis Kahn Schmitz orders an immediate retreat without fighting, leaving the protagonist to face the Poozers alone, armed with nothing but "a shooter and one little bean" and wondering to himself if he'll ever get through to Solla Sollew. The protagonist has a hard time escaping the pursuing Poozers until he comes upon an air vent marked "Vent No. 5", and escapes them by diving into the vent...only to end up in a dark tunnel network negotiating heavy traffic of strange birds, all going in the wrong direction, for three days, injuring and starving himself and even growing moss on his feet due to the dampness of the tunnels! By the end of the third day, he finally finds a door and discovers he's come out at the beautiful banks of the river Wah-Hoo. Realizing he's reached his goal, the protagonist rushes out to Solla Sollew. At the gates of Solla Sollew, the protagonist is greeted by a friendly doorman. The doorman explains to the protagonist about one trouble the city has: a key-slapping Slippard who's taken charge of the city by moving into the lock of the only door into Solla Sollew "two weeks ago Tuesday at quarter to four," and is known to cause trouble by repeatedly slapping the key out of the keyhole whenever the doorman tries to insert it, thus keeping anyone from entering the city. Because killing a Slippard is considered bad luck, the doorman can do nothing to evict this pest. Therefore, he has no choice but to resign his doorman job and leave Solla Sollew for the city of Boola Boo Ball on the banks of the beautiful river Woo-Wall, where troubles are never known to exist ("No troubles at all!"), and invites the protagonist to come along. At first, the protagonist considers joining the doorman, but realizing that he's come all this way for nothing, he has no choice but to go back home to the Valley of Vung and have to deal with his troubles. He recognizes that he will have at least some troubles for the rest of his life, but at least now, he's ready to face them. Armed with nothing but a baseball bat, the protagonist now gives the rocks, Quail, Skritz, and Skrink their own troubles ("But I've bought a big bat. I'm all ready, you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!"). 

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The text consists of a series of descriptive poems, fictively told to an unnamed auditor by a wise old man, in which the latter depicts a variety of whimsically-unfortunate characters, or situations wherein any character might be so, in comparison with whom the auditor might consider itself exceptionally fortunate. 

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This book is done entirely in silhouette, exploring the different shapes of objects. 

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The book begins with a reader thinking about colors or animals that she knows, like birds, or horses, but as quickly as page three he asks the reader to think of something completely made up; a GUFF! A Guff is a sort of puffy fluff. Next he thinks up a dessert! Of all the made up things in this image the focus is on the dessert. Other than that it is beautiful and has a cherry on top! After thinking of colors and known animals, then made up animals and made up dessert he moves on to made up activities, like Kitty O’Sullivan Krauss’s balloon swimming pool! After Seuss presents the reader with various things to think up, he then moves on to questions the reader should ask herself. Such as, how much water can fifty elephants drink or what would you do if you met a JIBBOO? There is no explanation for what a JIBBOO is, we just get a sketchy image leaving us to wonder and think up a story for the JIBBOO. In typical Seuss fashion things get busier and more colorful at the end. He fills the page with many crazy creatures and much activity when he asks the reader why so many things go to the right. This causes the reader’s eyes to scan the page taking in every detail until she is finally willing to turn the page. The final page is a busier and more colorful version of the first page, with bird-like creatures walking along a curved path, breaking the laws of gravity just as the text breaks the rules of reading left to right. 

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In the beginning of the book, the Cat in the Hat introduces the reader to Ziggy and Zizzy Zozzfozzel, saying that they both got 100%, but got every answer wrong, and then asks the reader the recurring question "are you smarter than a Zozzfozzel"? The questions in the book range from simple which begins to wear the Cat out. 

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The book follows an elderly man on a visit to the Golden Years Clinic, where he endures long waits and bizarre medical tests. 

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Johnny is part of the Test family, which consists of his 13-year-old genius twin sisters, Susan and Mary, and his over-the-top parents: his mother Lila, who is a full-blown workaholic businesswoman; and his father Hugh, who is an obsessive–compulsive househusband whose two biggest obsessions are cleaning and cooking meatloaf. The Test Twins frequently use Johnny as a guinea pig for their various experiments and inventions in their laboratory filled with highly advanced technology built in over the Tests' household attic, with most of which they try to impress their pretty boy next-door neighbor, Gil, for whom both harbor a deep love and obsession, although their attempts to come up with some way to attract his attention usually end in failure. Johnny is a troublesome and mischievous boy who causes problems in the family and often within the city. His best friend is his anthropomorphic talking pet dog, Dukey, who Susan and Mary gave human-level intelligence and the ability to speak in an experiment. Because Johnny has Susan, Mary, and Dukey by his side, he can live any kid's dream, only to find that most dreams never turn out as hoped. He is very hyperactive and often messes with his sisters' inventions, causing trouble and mayhem, but just as often proves himself to be clever such as by frequently tricking his sisters or saving the day from whatever danger happens to show up. Johnny is also stubborn and a bit spoiled, as he gets what he wants through deceit, blackmail, or manipulation. However, he does have a sense of justice and always learns from his mistakes. On the other hand, he, like most kids, does not like school; if anything, he goes to great lengths to avoid doing work, often using his sisters' inventions to do so and often putting himself and/or others in trouble as a result. One of Johnny's main nemeses is Eugene "Bling-Bling Boy" Hamilton, a fellow arch- rival of the Test sisters and frienemy of Johnny and Dukey, who has an unrequited crush on Susan. Another is Sissy Blakely, a tomboy who often serves as Johnny's rival/friend; the two are believed to have crushes on each other, but each would instantly deny it, and they also constantly compete against each other. Missy, Sissy's pink labradoodle, is also Dukey's rival/crush. A third is Bumper, the school bully who constantly picks on Johnny. Meanwhile, the General from the army base Area 51.1 and Mr. Black and Mr. White, two federal agents from the Super Secret Government Agency (SSGA), are shown to be close friends with the kids and often get them out of trouble or recruit them for an assignment, or simply help, distract, and/or annoy the Tests on various occasions. 

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The book is about a 12-year-old warmhearted schoolgirl named Mayzie who one day suddenly sprouts a bright white daisy from her head. It causes alarm in her classroom, family, and town, until an agent makes her a celebrity. The Cat in the Hat who serves as the narrator to this story helps Mayzie to understand her problem and persuade her to go back home. The book has a mini-song titled "Daisy-Head Mayzie" which her classmates chant. 

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Suzuki revealed that he enjoys Japanese manga adaptations of great science fiction works by the likes of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells where the main characters have super powers. Space Harrier actually came about because of this interest.http://games.ign.com/articles/663/663811p1.html Suzuki says the manga Babel II was his main inspiration in the creation of this game, and he had described it as "futuristic dodge ball".http://games.kikizo.com/features/sega_yu_suzuki_iv_feb06_p1.asp 

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Karin Maaka is the middle child in a family of vampires who immigrated to Japan two centuries earlier. Unlike the rest of her family, Karin does not feed on blood, she produces it. As a result, she is forced to bite others to expel the extra blood, lest she suffer exaggerated nose-bleeds. She also exhibits no normal vampire traits, and instead lives her life just as an ordinary teenage girl would. She can go outside during the day, attends high school, and follows the sleep pattern of normal humans. However, the general peacefulness of her life is disrupted with the arrival of a new transfer student, Kenta Usui. Any time she goes near him her blood increases. At first she tries to avoid him but they are in the same class and work in the same restaurant. Kenta begins to think that there is something fishy about Karin and eventually he learns her secret. Karin's elder brother Ren tries to erase his memory but Anju, Karin's younger sister, stops him from doing so. She convinces their parents Henry and Calera to make Kenta their ally, because he can help Karin during the daylight. Karin and Kenta become friends, and as they spend more time with one another, fall in love, though they are slow to admit their feelings to one another. Yuriya Tachibana, a human-vampire hybrid, moves to the area at the request of her vampire uncle, Glark. By chance, Yuriya gets a job at the same restaurant where Karin and Kenta work. As hybrids are sterile, Tachibana disapproves of Karin and Kenta's relationship, feeling any children they had would be unhappy like her. Despite this, Karin likes Tachibana and considers her a friend. On the other hand, Karin's grandmother Elda hates hybrids, as a betrayal danger to vampires. Karin rescues Yuriya from her grandmother. Karin is unaware that Tachibana is actually there to help her uncle and the Brownlick clan spy on her. After another nose bleed leaves Karin comatose for several days, Karin's family ask Kenta to stay away from her, but the two lovers are unable to stand being apart and eventually reunite and become a couple. Shortly after they share their first kiss, Tachibana helps Glark and Bridget Brownlick kidnap Karin and take her the Brownlick estate. It is revealed that Karin is a "psyche", a blood-giving vampire that can give life to other vampires and heals the sterility currently plaguing all vampires. In doing so, however, vampires have historically been greedy and drain the psyche dry, killing her as a sacrifice. The first psyche, Sophia, reveals herself to Kenta but cannot be seen by anyone else while helping Kenta find Karin. Karin's father Henry, her brother Ren, and Kenta go to rescue Karin. Meanwhile, Tachibana is horrified to learn that not only will Karin be killed, but also raped until she has a child to produce a new psyche to replace her. She apologizes to Karin for disapproving of Kenta's relationship and for hurting Karin, and helps her escape just as Kenta comes in with Ren. While Ren takes care of the vampire, Bridget, holding Karin captive, Henry battles Glark and the Brownlicks, joined belatedly by his mother Elda. Kenta, Karin, and Tachibana escape, but Tachibana leaves them to go ensure her uncle won't be caught in the sun. It is later revealed that Karin shared consciousness with Sophia, who gave Karin her condition and helped Kenta rescue Karin. Karin stopped producing excess blood (and being a vampire altogether) after Sophia moved from Karin to Kenta during her last bite. Karin's family sorrowfully erases all of her memories of them, so that she can live as a normal human with Kenta, while they quietly watch over her. They had prepared to do so for over four years, and the process is successful; they cannot erase Kenta's memories however without him reverting to a 4-year old such that he is left having to keep the secret from Karin, who he marries shortly after. At the end of the series, Karin and Kenta have a daughter named Kanon, who is the reborn Sophia; Karin's sister Anju continues to watch over her sister's happiness. 

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When a Senator is killed in an explosion, the FBI investigates. The agent in charge is bomb expert Danny O'Neill (Pierce Brosnan), who is separated from his wife Terry (Lisa Eilbacher) (due to the accidental drowning of their only child in their pool) and behaving very erratically. Initially the investigation does not reveal the kind of explosive used or even what was used to detonate it. Eventually it is learned that terrorists led by Mikhail Rashid (Ben Cross) have developed an "invisible" liquid explosive which is activated within the human body (by stomach acid). It also does not help that they have to report to Senator Traveres (Ron Silver), the man whom Terry is having an affair with and whom Danny also assaulted. Later, another senator is killed while riding in a limousine; the limo being driven by one of Rashid's henchmen. The henchman is subsequently struck by a moving car, taken into custody and brought into court, and since he is now considered a risk by Rashid, the judge in the case is slipped the liquid and she spontaneously explodes; the witness is subsequently killed, though O'Neill discovers the cause of the explosions - the chemically enhanced water in the judge's pitcher. It becomes obvious that the next target is Senator Traveres, so O'Neill, concerned that Terry may become collateral damage, trails his every move. At a fundraiser, Traveres is targeted by Rashid's main henchman, Al-red (Tony Plana), disguised as a clown. O'Neill alerts the public to the bomb's presence, and in desperation, Al-red ingests some of the infected liquid. O'Neill subdues Al-red and gets him away from party in a wheelchair just before he explodes. In the aftermath, O'Neill and Terry finally reconcile. Aware that Traveres is still not safe, O'Neill infiltrates the senator's heavily guarded mansion, at a very convenient time as it is being overrun by the terrorists. O'Neill concocts a cornucopia of home-made weapons, even building bombs using fertilizer found in the kitchen cabinet. All the terrorists are killed except for Rashid, who holds Terry hostage in front of him and Traveres. Rashid swallows some of the liquid, sealing his fate but intending to bring them all down with him. O'Neill manages to free Terry and send her to safe ground. He and Traveres however are cornered and are thus subsequently forced to jump from the third floor due to Rashid's explosion. Traveres lands on a wrought-iron fence which impales and kills him, though O'Neill survives. A year later, he has a second child with Terry. 

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The story takes place in the early 1970s in Chicago. The CIA has been required for political reasons to recruit African Americans for training. Only one of them, Dan Freeman (Lawrence Cook), secretly a black nationalist, successfully completes the training process. He becomes the first black man in the agency and is given a desk job—Top Secret Reproduction Center Sections Chief (which means he is in charge of the copy machine). Freeman understands that he is the token black person in the CIA, and that the CIA defines his function as providing proof of the agency's supposed commitment to integration and progress. Therefore, after completing his training in guerrilla warfare techniques, weaponry, communications and subversion, Freeman puts in just enough time to avoid raising any suspicions about his motives before he resigns from the CIA and returns to work in the social services in Chicago. Upon his return, Freeman immediately begins recruiting young black men living in inner-city Chicago to become "Freedom Fighters", teaching them all the tactics that he had learned from the CIA. They become a guerrilla group, with Freeman as the secret leader. The "Freedom Fighters" set out to ensure that black people truly live freely within the United States by partaking in both violent and non-violent actions throughout Chicago. The Freedom Fighters of Chicago begin spreading the word about their guerrilla warfare tactics across the United States; as Freeman says, "What we got now is a colony, what we want is a new nation." As revolt and a war of liberation continues in inner-city Chicago, the National Guard and the police desperately try to stop the "freedom fighters". The film provides discussions about black militancy and the violent reactions that took place by white America in response to the progress of the Civil Rights Movement. 

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The film starts with a young woman (Franklin) on an airplane and a stewardess, Vi (Moreno) bending over her. As she leaves, we see a chauffeur, Bud (Brando), saying something to her which we do not hear. He puts her in the back of a Rolls-Royce and drives off. They stop at a junction and Leer (Boone) gets in. The girl realises she has been kidnapped. Bud starts to have second thoughts. He tries to protect the girl when Leer gets out of control. Bud also has to deal with the lack of courage with the head of the operation and Vi, who uses drugs and cannot be trusted. Then things start to unravel. Leer kills all his partners in crime on their return with the ransom, the car catching fire. Bud, perhaps anticipating this betrayal, gets out early. Hiding on the beach, he is able to exact revenge and shoots Leer as he signals to a ship waiting to take him from the country. All is revealed to be a dream during the girl's flight, sparked by Vi, the air hostess. But then the girl meets Bud in the airport just as in the dream... 

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It is 1667 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and an uneasy truce exists between local Puritans and their neighbors, the Algonquian. Chief Metacomet succeeds his father Massasoit as head of the latter just as a new colonist, Hester Prynne arrives overseas from England. As Hester waits for her husband—who is due to follow shortly after—she falls for a young minister, Arthur Dimmesdale. When it emerges that Roger Prynne has likely been killed by Native Americans, they become inseparable lovers. Finding herself pregnant with Dimmesdale's child, Hester is imprisoned for her indiscretion. The minister intends to declare his sin and face execution, but Hester convinces him otherwise. Sentenced to wear a scarlet "A" for adultery, Prynne is ostracized by the public, and a drummer boy is charged to follow her whenever she comes to town. Meanwhile, Hester's husband resurfaces, having spent his absence in captivity as a prisoner of war. Learning of the scandal, he adopts the fictitious guise of "Dr. Roger Chillingworth" and begins seeking out her paramour. The physician eventually murders a male settler leaving Hester's home and scalps him in an effort to implicate Algonquian warriors. Infuriated by this atrocity, the colonists declare war on the Indians and Roger, distraught by the severe consequences of his action, promptly commits suicide. Hester is nearly hanged with other undesirables in the ensuing outrage, but Dimmesdale saves her neck by confessing that he is the father of her child. As he takes her place on the gallows, the Algonquian attack Massachusetts Bay; both sides sustain heavy casualties. The Puritans are more concerned with concealing the conflict from England than harassing Hester any further; she finally abandons her scarlet letter and departs with Dimmesdale for Carolina. 

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Nasik-based Heerendra Dhaan and Raj Ranade are bodyguards of a politician but, after their employer is implicated in a scam, they end up assaulting a police officer and flee to Mumbai. Once there they meet with Rambhabhai, who in turn, gets them employed with a gangster named Shambhu. After a short while the duo are apprehended by Police Inspector Narsimha, questioned, and after they agree to cooperate to bring down Shambhu, are let go. The two succeed in assisting the police arrest Shambhu, but they themselves are arrested, tried in Court, and sentenced to a year in jail. After their discharge they are again met by Inspector Narsimha, who, this time, wants to recruit them to capture and kill dreaded bandit Babban Singh, who had slaughtered his wife, Kavita, and son, Subbu, as well as cut his fingers off. He had done this as a revenge for killing his brother whom he really loved, and for having him sent to jail. Heerendra and Raj agree to carry out this task for 8 Lakh Rupees. They re- locate to Kaliganj where Heerendra falls in love with auto-rickshaw driver, Ghungroo, while Raj gives his heart to Subbu's widow, Durga. They then set out to capture Babban and meet with some success during Diwali, but Babban manages to escape. Babban then starts to ambush and kill Kaliganj residents to compel them to surrender the duo to him. Raj and Heerendra give in, and meet Babban's henchmen in an abandoned building. They fight the goons, but Heerendra is killed in the process. Babban's right-hand man, Tambe is badly injured, and later on killed by Babban for failing. Babban has a final encounter with Raj and Inspector Narsimha, where Raj was about to kill him, but Inspector Narsimha tells him to spare and let the law decide his fate. However, Babban tries to escape, and he's shot dead (it is unclear as to who shot him, since Raj was told not to kill him and Inspector Narsimha does not have fingers). The film ends with Raj getting arrested and Inspector Narsimha apologising to everyone about it. 

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The story is entitled The Wandering Jew, but the figure of the Wandering Jew himself plays a minimal role. The prologue of the text describes two figures who cry out to each other across the Bering Straits. One is the Wandering Jew, the other his sister, Hérodiade. The Wandering Jew also represents the cholera epidemic— wherever he goes, cholera follows in his wake.Sue was unaware of the way cholera is really spread, by fecal contamination of water. He was writing before the London physician John Snow investigated the cause of an 1854 cholera outbreak in Soho, thus originating modern epidemiology The Wandering Jew and Hérodiade are condemned to wander the earth until the entire Rennepont family has disappeared from the earth. The connection is that the descendants of the sister are also the descendants of Marius de Rennepont, Huguenots persecuted under Louis XIV by the Jesuits. The brother and sister are compelled to protect this very family from all harm. After this first introduction, the two appear only very rarely. The Rennepont family is unaware that these protective éminences grises exist, but they benefit from their protection in various ways, be it by being saved from scalping by the Native Americans, or from languishing in prison. The Rennepont family lost its position and most of its wealth during the French persecution of the Protestants (after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685). A small fortune was given to a Jewish banker immediately before the Renneponts dispersed all over Europe and Asia, and this fortune has grown into a huge sum, through the miracle of compound interest. In 1682, the Rennepont family members each got a bronze medal telling them to meet back in Paris 150 years later, at which time the fortune will be divided among the surviving members. So much time has passed, however, that almost none of the still-living Renneponts have any idea why they need to come to Paris. They nevertheless set out from India, Siberia, America, France, and elsewhere to make their way to rue Saint-François No. 3 in Paris by 13 February 1832. The members of the family are not only dispersed all over the world, but also all over the social ladder, as laborers, factory owners, princes (in India!) and the independently wealthy. The Jesuits have heard of this huge fortune and want to get it for themselves. Two Jesuits (Rodin and Père d'Aigrigny) and their many recruited accomplices are in charge of obtaining the money for the Society of Jesus and dispossessing the Rennepont family. Their plan is to have only the unwitting Gabriel, the Jesuit missionary, show up to claim the fortune. Since he is a monk and can have no possessions of his own, the fortune will go to the wily Jesuits. Gabriel's entry into the order is not accidental – it is his pious mother, manipulated by the Jesuits, who persuaded him to become a Jesuit. The Jesuits have spies and henchmen all over the world, from the remote Americas to Siberia, and they use them to put obstacles in the paths of the Renneponts as they make their way back to Paris. Moreover, they also spy on each other, demonstrating that they don't even trust each other. The principal obstacles are as follows: *Gabriel, Jesuit missionary in America, Rennepont. No obstacles, because he is supposed to collect the fortune. *Dagobert, friend of the Rennepont family and guardian of the orphans Rose and Blanche (see below). Has his papers and the medal stolen by Morok, an animal tamer and accomplice of the Jesuits. Also has his horse, Jovial, killed by Morok's panther. Forced to travel on foot without papers and arrested for vagrancy. Freed by Hérodiade. Lured to a false meeting with a notary pretending to have messages from Général Simon (see below). *Rose and Blanche, twin Rennepont orphans coming from Siberia. Since they are under Dagobert's protection, they are also arrested and put in jail for vagrancy. Also, they are put in a convent by Dagobert's wife while Dagobert is at the notary meeting. She is made to swear by the Jesuits that she will not tell Dagobert where they are. Général Simon, father of Rose and Blanche, is a Rennepont, unknown to his daughters. Général Simon has been so long exiled from France and his family that he doesn't even know he has daughters. He thinks he has one son. He does not arrive for the meeting, either, although his situation is less clear than that of the others. *Djalma, Indian prince Rennepont, coming from the Far East. In Java, Djalma is accused of belonging to a murderous sect called the “Etrangleurs,” who closely resemble the Thuggee. One of the Jesuit henchmen tattoos Djalma with the Etrangleur tattoo on the inside of his arm while he is asleep. Djalma tries to prove that he is not an Etrangleur, but because of the tattoo is thrown in jail. This causes him to miss the boat to Paris. After finally arriving in Paris, he is poisoned by Farighea (whom he had thought was his friend), so that he goes into a prolonged sleep. The Jesuits then kidnap him. *Jacques Rennepont, Parisian workman. He was given papers by his father that explain his fortune, but since he doesn't know how to read or write, he is unable to use them. The Jesuits send a money lender to him; when he cannot repay the loan, he is thrown into debtors' prison. *François Hardy, progressive factory owner, Paris. He is betrayed by his best friend who, under the influence of Père d'Aigrigny, lures Hardy to central France, ensuring that he will not arrive on 13 February. *Adrienne de Cardoville, independently wealthy, Paris. Lives with her aunt, who is a former mistress of father d'Aigrigny. The aunt, the abbot Aigrigny, and a Jesuit doctor Baleinier connive to put Adrienne in an insane asylum that happens to be next to the convent where Rose and Blanche are trapped. Only Gabriel shows up to the meeting, but at the last minute Hérodiade makes an appearance. Gabriel recognizes her from when she rescued him in the Americas. Hérodiade goes to a drawer and pulls out a codicil that explains that the parties have three and a half months from 13 February to present themselves. Upon this unexpected turn of events the Père d'Aigrigny is fired, and Rodin replaces him. He decides to take more drastic action by using cholera to annihilate some of the Rennepont family. He maneuvers Rose, Blanche, and Jacques in front of the cholera epidemic and thereby rids himself of them. With François Hardy, Rodin shows him how Hardy's best friend had betrayed him. He also arranges for Hardy's mistress to leave for the Americas, and has Hardy's treasured factory burn to the ground (all this on the same day). Hardy takes refuge among the Jesuits, who persuade him to enter their order. Djalma falls in love with Adrienne, so the Jesuits use his passion to destroy him: they make Djalma think that Adrienne has been unfaithful, and he poisons himself. But he dies slowly and drinks only half the bottle, so there's plenty of time for Adrienne to find out what he's done and poison herself, too. ( c.f. Romeo and Juliet). On the day of the second meeting, none of the Renneponts show up (Gabriel having quit the Jesuits), and Rodin alone presents himself. But Samuel, the guardian of the house, has realized the injustices that have taken place. He brings the coffins of all the Renneponts back to show Rodin his wickedness, and he burns the testament that would have given Rodin access to the money. Gabriel and Hardy die as a matter of course, which means that the Wandering Jew and Hérodiade can finally rest in peace. The last pages of the novel recount their final "death," which they joyfully encounter. It is not clear what finally happens to the vast fortune that was never claimed. 

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The story begins on a small island off the coast of Washington called Clam Island. The central character, Ethan Feld, is on one of the island's baseball teams despite being terrible at the game. He encounters a gracious werefox, Cutbelly, who explains the Lodgepole, a giant tree connecting all worlds, to the ignorant Ethan. Cutbelly explains that Coyote is planning to destroy the Lodgepole, an event called "Ragged Rock", by destroying Murmury Well. He takes Ethan to the Summerlands where they meet small Indian-looking people called ferishers. Coyote captures Ethan's father and forces him to create another batch of 'picofiber' to form the hose with which he is going to poison Murmury Well. Ethan enters the Summerlands with fellow baseball team members Thor and Jennifer T. Rideout, in pursuit of his father and to prevent Ragged Rock. On their travels through the Summerlands, the three assemble a baseball team and play their way across the land, meeting players from legend and literature, and a couple from their own world. 

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The Shadow Out of Time indirectly tells of the Great Race of Yith, an extraterrestrial species with the ability to travel through space and time. The Yithians accomplish this by switching bodies with hosts from the intended spatial or temporal destination. The story implies that the effect, when seen from the outside, is similar to spiritual possession. The Yithians' original purpose was to study the history of various times and places, and they have amassed a "library city" that is filled with the past and future history of multiple races, including humans. Ultimately the Yithians use their ability to escape the destruction of their planet in another galaxy by switching bodies with a race of cone-shaped plant beings who lived 250 million years ago on Earth. The cone-shaped entities (subsequently also known as the Great Race of Yith) lived in their vast library city in what would later become Australia's Great Sandy Desert (). The story is told through the eyes of Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee, an American living in the first decade of the 20th century, who is "possessed" by a Yithian. He fears he is losing his mind when he unaccountably sees strange vistas of other worlds and of the Yithian library city. He also feels himself being led about by these creatures and experiences how they live. When he is returned to his own body, he finds that those around him have judged him insane due to the actions of the Yithian that possessed his body. While he was experiencing a Yithian existence in Earth's ancient past, the Yithian occupying his body was experiencing a human one in the present day. The narrator at first believes his episode and subsequent dreams to be the product of some kind of mental illness. His initial relief at discovering other cases like his throughout history is withered when he discovers that the other cases are too similar to his own to be without a connection. The narrator's dreams become more vivid, and he becomes obsessed with archaeology and ancient manuscripts (as was the Yithian) - but lacks any sort of proof that would demonstrate whether he was (or is) simply mad. He discovers that the Yithians on Earth died out eons ago (their civilization destroyed by a rival, utterly alien pre-human race described as "half- polypous" creatures) but the Yithian minds will inhabit new bodies on Earth after humanity is long gone. His tenuously held sanity is challenged when he discovers the proof he seeks—and that not only do remains of the Yithians' past civilization still exist on Earth; but also still remaining are those who destroyed them. It is also mentioned that the current appearance of the Yithians is not the original; but one acquired during a previous mass- projection of the minds of their race when disaster beckoned, leaving the original inhabitants to die in the bodies of the Yithians. 

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In June 2000, Henry Hart, a gay man, successful artist living in New York, receives a call from his old friend Grace Cornwell, a kindergarten teacher in his hometown, who tells him that his grandfather Sam suffered a stroke. Although his assistant, Mary Bishop, wants him to stay, Henry feels himself bound to visit and help his ailing grandfather. He jumps on the next plane to his hometown, Big Eden, Montana, giving up his new home and career. Stranded in his place of birth Henry is confronted by the changes of time. Though Sam is becoming better, Henry has the feeling that he should stay with his helpless grandfather because he himself fears becoming an orphan. While accompanying Sam to church every Sunday he involuntarily becomes part of the town life and gossip again. The town-folks somehow always knew about his sexuality, but never mentioned it publicly. Further complicating the situation is the presence of his former high-school crush Dean Stewart, who moved back in town a week earlier. Dean has just split up from his wife and has returned to Big Eden with his kids Ben and Andrew. This leaves Henry trying to work out his unresolved feelings for Dean. Grace set up a support system for both Henry and Sam. Included is widow Thayer and Pike Dexter, a very shy Native American. Pike is the town's general-store owner, and the Widow Thayer is center of gossip and society in Big Eden. She attempts several times to hook up Henry with different people, first women, but after a few "social gatherings“ she realizes her error, and invites men instead. While all this is going on the Widow Thayer cooks for grandfather and grandson daily, and Pike takes it over to their house and helps by setting the table. After a few weeks Pike realizes that the food is inappropriate, and learns how to cook healthy dishes. He keeps this secret, telling neither the Harts nor Thayer, exchanging Thayer's dinner with his own delicious meals. He also orders the special supplies Henry needs so he can continue painting up in Big Eden. Pike, who wants "things to be nice for Henry", has obviously fallen in love with him too. Meanwhile, Dean is around Henry a lot, helping him build a ramp for Sam's wheelchair, and taking Henry dancing and to the mountains. With all of his efforts, he tries to show Henry his affection and feelings, but Dean eventually tells Henry that he couldn't live together with him. Time passes and Sam becomes worse. One night, Henry arrives at home and finds Pike there, looking forlorn. Pike lets Henry know that Sam has died. The town falls into mourning at Sam's death. He built every house in town, and was closely connected to each and every one. Though Dean comforts Henry, Pike does the opposite by secluding himself. A funeral is held for Sam, where everyone shows up except for Pike. Henry, now completely alone, realizes that Pike meant something to him. Pike had shared a "promised dinner together" with him one night where he fascinated Henry by his knowledge of stars and mystical stories. That upsets Henry even more because he thought Sam meant something to Pike too. They both don't talk to each other until the day Henry is leaving for New York. In the very last minute Pike accepts his love for Henry and tries to catch him at the airport, but he is too late. On his way home, Pike sees Sam's truck in front of his store, not expecting Henry to be waiting for him. The two men become a happy couple. 

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A southern man, Jesse Banks Rhodes (Harry Connick, Jr.), is released from a prison work camp in Louisiana, 1936, after being wrongly imprisoned for eleven years. He heads back to Georgia, only to find that most people are keen to keep him down. He begins working for a plantation owner (Walton Goggins) and rents a shed from a farmer (Pete Postlethwaite) with two daughters (Patricia Clarkson and Vinessa Shaw). After witnessing the murder of a black worker at the hands of a drunken white racist boss, Jesse is forced to prove his innocence, so injustice will not happen again. 

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Billy Heywood, the 12-year-old son of widowed Jenny, is a Little League Baseball player. Billy's paternal grandfather, Thomas Heywood, owns the Minnesota Twins. When Thomas dies, Billy learns that he is now the owner of the Twins. Thomas' will specifies that the team executives are to help Billy until he is old enough to run the team by himself. Billy quickly runs afoul of the team manager George O'Farrell. Billy believes O'Farrell is too hard on the players, while O'Farrell despises the idea of working for a kid. After O'Farrell repeatedly insults Billy, Billy fires him. With no other managers willing to work for a kid, and with his grade-school summer break starting in two days, the baseball-savvy Billy decides to name himself the new manager. He reaches out to the Commissioner of Baseball, who approves after consulting with Jenny. The players are very skeptical, but Billy promises that if he does not improve the team's last-place position in the standings within a few weeks, he will resign. The team quickly moves up to division race contention. Unfortunately, not all is going smoothly for Billy, as his friend and star first baseman Lou Collins takes a romantic interest in Jenny. Billy picks up bad habits on the road, and is even ejected from a game and given a one game "suspension" by his mother for swearing at an umpire because of a call he didn't like. He is troubled when he must release his personal favorite Twins player, Jerry Johnson, who is in the twilight of his career; Billy's awkward handling of the situation ends up making Jerry feel even worse. The pressures of managing the team wear Billy down and consume his free time. Billy's friends do not like how his managerial responsibilities are keeping him away from being with them. Even when he's physically present (as opposed to on the road with the team), he is typically distracted by team business. After Jenny spends her birthday with Lou rather than Billy, Billy uses Lou's minor batting-slump as an excuse to bench him, sending the Twins into a losing skid. Billy later tells his mom that he's tired of being a "grown-up" and decides to quit as manager after the end of the season, even reinstating Lou to starter on first base. With four games left in the season, the Twins trail the Seattle Mariners by four games in the wild card race. The Twins win their last four while the Mariners lose four straight, forcing a one-game playoff at the Twin's Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome to determine who advances to the postseason. The two teams trade three-run home runs during the course of the game, and extra innings are required. The Mariners eventually take the lead. Down to their final out, and Lou about to go up to bat, he tells Billy that he has asked Jenny to marry him, and that her reply was "Ask Billy". With a runner on base, Billy says if Lou hits the game-winning homer he will give his blessing, but quickly relents and gives Lou his consent whether or not he hits a homer. Facing Randy Johnson, Lou hits a long fly ball to center field, but Ken Griffey Jr. makes a leaping catch at the wall to rob Lou of a homer and end the game. With their season over, Billy tells the players he is officially stepping down as manager, with pitching coach Mac MacNally taking his place, as well as bringing back Jerry Johnson to be the third base coach and new hitting instructor. The players object to losing Billy, but he reminds the team that he will still be present as the owner, and says that he might come back as manager if junior high doesn't work out. When being informed that none of the fans have left, Billy, along with the rest of the team, returns to the field to receive a standing ovation. 

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A homeless man, Nate Bledsoe, snatches a pair of shoes from Dane, the target of a mob hit dumped in an alley. Two of his homeless associates try to con him out of the plainly expensive shoes, to no avail. Wearing the shoes infuses him with the personality and memories of the victim; and he continues his life as Dane. Nate stops by the home of the victim’s girlfriend, who recognizes his manner and kisses him. Nate then goes to a bar to confront Dagget, the boss who had him killed. Dagget is at first unsettled, but then realizes who Nate is and has him gunned down. Before he dies, he promises, "I'll be back, Bernie, and I'll keep coming back… again, and again." The body (with shoes) is dumped in the same place as the original victim. One of Nate's acquaintances from earlier finds his corpse, takes the shoes, and puts them on and the cycle begins anew. 

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Molly (Kate Hudson) and Carl (Matt Dillon) are preparing for their wedding day in Hawaii, until Carl's friend Neil (Seth Rogen) interrupts to say that Randolph Dupree (Owen Wilson) got lost. They drive off together to pick up Dupree, who appeared to have hitched a ride with a light plane after landing on the wrong island. A day before the wedding, Molly's father, Bob Thompson (Michael Douglas), who is also CEO of the company that Carl works for, makes a toast with rude jokes about Carl, foreshadowing a conflict between the two. Later at a pre-celebration at a bar, Carl neglects Dupree to be with Molly. Carl and Dupree later make up on the beach, as Dupree apologizes for laughing at Bob's jokes. Carl and Molly get married. When Carl returns to work, he is surprised to find that Bob has promoted him to be in charge of a design he proposed, though it had been altered somewhat. Bob makes absurd requests which proceed to get worse, starting with his drastic reimagining of Carl's new architecture project and that Carl get a vasectomy to prevent any future children with Molly. Before returning home to celebrate his promotion with Molly, Carl stops by the bar, where he finds Neil and Dupree. After Neil leaves, Dupree reveals that he has financial problems, such as being evicted from his home and losing his job and car. Carl and Molly take Dupree into their home, though clearly they are frustrated as he is disruptive and messy. Molly sets up Dupree with a woman at her work, a primary school, who is a Mormon librarian. Dupree agrees, though Molly is shocked to find them having sex when she comes home from dinner. Romantic candles burn down the front of the living room, and Dupree is kicked out. Meanwhile, Carl is being continually stressed out from work, though he and Molly find time to go out for dinner. On the way back they find Dupree sitting on a bench in heavy rain with his belongings. Dupree reveals that the librarian had just dumped him. Feeling pity, Molly insists they take him back in. Dupree apologizes for being disruptive and agrees to mend his ways. The next day, Dupree makes amends, refurbishing the living room, and doing Carl's thank-you letters, as well as making friends with kids from the block. Dupree cooks a large dinner for Molly and Carl, though Carl is late again, so Molly and Dupree start without him. When Carl finally shows up, he is a little jealous that they were having dinner together, and have a fight. Carl kicks Dupree out, suspecting an affair, which shocks Dupree. The following night, Bob comes over for dinner. Dupree attempts to sneak back in to their home to get some of his belongings, but fails and falls off the roof. He is found outside and is invited in for dinner. After Bob takes a liking to Dupree and asks him to go fishing with him, it enrages Carl because - even though he doesn't like fishing - it's Bob's way of approving someone. Carl's fury boils over as he then imagines Dupree hanging out with Bob and engaging in sex with Molly, causing Carl to jump across the table and attempting to strangle Dupree; Bob hits Carl over the head with a candlestick shortly after. After returning from the hospital with a neck brace, Dupree and Molly confront Bob about what he really thinks of Carl. The next morning, Dupree gets all the local kids to search for Carl. Dupree eventually finds Carl in the bar, and convinces him to chase after Molly. Dupree helps Carl break into Bob's office and confront him while Dupree himself distracts and evades a Samoan guard. Carl and Bob finally reach an understanding and Bob admits to his agenda of mistreatment. Dupree and Carl return to the house, where Carl and Molly reunite, Carl apologizing, and agree to work it all out. Glad that he did his job, Dupree celebrates by leaping into the air with joy, until he falls to ground. All turns out well, with Dupree becoming a motivational speaker, Carl and Molly spending more time with each other, and Bob accepting Carl as family. In a post-credits scene, famed bicyclist Lance Armstrong is seen reading Dupree's motivation book, 7 Different Kinds of Smoke: Living, Loving, and Finding your Inner "-ness". 

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After the collapse of his massive Qintex business empire, Christopher Skase flees to the Spanish Island of Majorca, leaving angry creditors high and dry. Enter Peter Dellasandro, a fast-talking con man and failed entrepreneur who sees the "Chase For Skase" as a potential gold mine. Dellasandro convinces the Creditors Board that he's the only man with the ability and recklessness to undertake the task demanded by his country: the kidnapping of Christopher Skase. But not everyone is convinced, especially Danny D'Amato, the fiery son of the Creditors Chairman. Suspicious of Dellasandro, the two form an uneasy alliance as Dellasandro sets out to recruit the ego-centric TV host Eric Carney into his scheme, until seasoned mercenary Mitch Vendieks warns Dellasandro that Carney is planning a kidnap plot of his own. Determined to beat Carney to the punch, Dellasandro and Danny join forces with Mitch to form their own team, recruiting the inept Sean Knight, mendacious getaway driver Dave Phibbs and cynical intelligence ace Rupert Wingate, who soon discovers that Skase is devising a deadly scheme to resurrect his business empire across Europe. With time running out, Dellasandro and the boys head for Majorca and track Skase to his sprawling mansion, confronting the devious businessman. The team is outnumbered by Skase's Security Guards and thus cannot manage to kidnap him. However, they make out with several computer discs which contain sensitive documents revealing Skase's plan to "bust out" Qintex. The information at hand is enough evidence for the Australian Government to make compensation payments to the Qintex Creditors Boardmembers. 

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In 1958, on the verge of the Merlin Law that makes brothels illegal, Mimma (Debora Caprioglio), a young country girl, comes to town and decides to work as a prostitute in order to help her fiancé get the money to start their own business, and is given the name Paprika at Madame Collette's (Martine Brochard) house. Once her fiancé betrays her, Mimma gives up her original ambitions and decides to become a career prostitute. In the process, she loses any sense of self-confidence and self-respect, but eventually she finds redemption, wealth, and her one true love. 

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The book begins in the 1920s on the farm of Henry and Sarah Scruggs. Henry is a fanatically religious man who believes that people are vile and base, and that sex—even marital sex—is repulsive and sinful. Sarah, who is much younger than Henry, disagrees. One day a traveling salesman by the name of Jimmy Connors shows up at the farm, telling them that his car broke down. Feeling unusually hospitable, Henry gives the man some dinner and lets him sleep in the barn for the night. After she thinks that her husband has fallen asleep, Sarah sneaks out to the barn and is seduced by Connors. Unfortunately for the both of them, Henry catches them in the act and knocks Connors unconscious. When he awakens he finds himself chained in Henry's basement. Henry tells him that he has murdered Sarah and that he plans on keeping him prisoner for "a long time". Connors is held captive for over twenty years, and eventually the constant abuse, the grotesque food, and the horror of his situation drive him to become more beast than man. He loses all memory of who he once was and is simply an animal content to live its life in bondage. But Henry dies and the creature escapes from its prison into the surrounding forest in order to avoid starvation. It finds its way close to the home of Eli and Carolyn MacCleary, a young married couple. One night when Eli is at work Carolyn ventures outside and is knocked unconscious by the creature, which was hunting for food and became frightened at her approach. Some long-forgotten instinct awakens in the beast and it rapes her. After it has finished it leaves her alone in the forest to resume its search for food. It tries to catch a snake but is bitten and dies from the serpent's venom. Carolyn becomes pregnant from the attack, but is unaware of her rape and so assumes that the child is her husband's. The baby is born and they name him Michael. Michael is an affectionate child, but they notice strange things about him. Animals have a bizarre reaction to him, and he is intensely claustrophobic. As he begins to grow, his parents discover that when night falls a strange transformation overcomes him, as if his entire personality has changed. He slips into trances and prowls the forest, killing the animals that he comes across. Eli boards up his windows to prevent him from escaping at night, and soon thereafter Michael's "spells" seem to relent...until he hits puberty, at least. As a teenager Michael falls in love with a girl he knows from school, but he is also afraid of hurting her because of his transformations. However, he lets his guard down and even decides that he wants to marry her. Before they can leave together, though, he kills a bully at school who tried to attack him. Wanting to get out of town as soon as possible, he and his girlfriend drive to her house to pick up some of her things. As it turns out, her house used to be the home of Henry Scruggs, and from the moment he steps in the door the beast within him (which consists of the emotions, senses, and savage hungers of the creature that was his biological father) springs to the surface and he is left violently insane. Instead of confining him in a mental institution, his parents decide to keep him in the house's cellar, hoping for the day that he might recover. 

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After being shot down from the World Trade Center, Kong is revealed to be still alive and is kept in a coma for about 10 years at the Atlantic Institute, under the care of surgeon Dr. Amy Franklin. In order to save Kong's life, Dr. Franklin must perform a heart transplant and give Kong a computer-monitored artificial heart. However, he has lost so much blood that a transfusion is badly needed, and to complicate matters, Franklin says there is no species of ape or other animal whose blood type matches Kong's. Enter Hank "Mitch" Mitchell, adventurer and Franklin's eventual love interest, who travels to Borneo (as he theorizes that Borneo and the island from the first film were once part of the same landmass) and captures a giant female ape who is dubbed "Lady Kong". Mitchell brings her to the institute to use her blood for King Kong's operation. The transfusion and the heart transplant are a success, but Kong escapes along with Lady Kong. Archie Nevitt, an insane army lieutenant colonel, is called in with his men to hunt down and kill the two apes. Lady Kong is captured alive by Nevitt's troops and imprisoned; Kong falls from a cliff and is presumed dead. However, as Franklin and Mitchell soon discover, Kong's artificial heart is beginning to give out, forcing them to attempt a jailbreak. They discover that Lady Kong is pregnant with Kong's offspring. The jailbreak is successful thanks to Kong, who has survived the fall and breaks his mate out. After being followed, attacked, and shot by the military, Kong kills Lt. Col Nevitt and dies slowly near a military base on a farm where Lady Kong gives birth to an infant son. Kong reaches out to touch his son just before dying. Having returned to Borneo, Lady Kong lives peacefully with her son in the jungle. 

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Nancy, Bess, and George encounter a troublesome stray terrier on their way to the opening festivities of a new park and recreation complex in River Heights. The terrier grabs the handbag of one of the guest speakers and loses it in a nearby pond. Nancy helps groundskeepers retrieve the handbag and uses the notes found inside to prompt the nervous speaker during her address. She also finds a mysterious personal ad in the handbag. In a casual observation, the "clubwoman," a Mrs. Owen, tells Nancy about a statue on a deserted seaside estate. The statue, known as "The Whispering Girl," bears an uncanny resemblance to Nancy. As it turns out, Nancy is bound for that very area with her father and her friends Bess and George. Reluctantly, Nancy decides to keep the terrier for a little while, dubbing him Togo (after a famous Alaskan husky, who in turn was named after a Japanese admiral). Togo follows her to the train station, and she has no choice but to bring him to Sea Cliff with her. On the train, the girls observe a strange elderly woman identified as a Miss Morse, and they suspect a man who has just approached the woman is trying to swindle her. Once in Sea Cliff, the girls hunt for the statue that resembles Nancy – and for Miss Morse, who has excited Nancy's curiosity and protectiveness. Further mysterious complications occur when Miss Morse acknowledges that she is being swindled but dismisses Nancy and when Nancy happens to overhear the crook from the train boasting about his conquest. There are several encounters with quirky but ultimately helpful older men. A seaplane accident leads Nancy to rescue a client of her father who is then linked both to Mrs. Owen and to the mysterious Miss Morse. In the long climactic sequence of the story, Nancy hides behind the statue and uses her voice to make the statue appear to speak to the con man from the train. She is also captured and tied up, and as she confronts one of the novel's many miscreants, the cliffside mansion falls into the ocean, necessitating another dramatic rescue. This edition of the novel is considered one of the most ragged, overpopulated, and coincidence-heavy of the series. It does, however, introduce the enduringly popular Togo, who becomes a mainstay in the series thereafter. The book is full of atypically harsh episodes, including a man who beats Togo cruelly, apparent elder and child abuse, and some saucy behavior by Nancy herself. It is perhaps the book most extensively overhauled for the reissue. 

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Lucien de Rubempré and "Abbé Herrera" (Vautrin) have made a pact, in which Lucien will arrive at success in Paris if he agrees to follow Vautrin's instructions on how to do so. Esther van Gobseck throws a wrench into Vautrin's best-laid plans, however, because Lucien falls in love with her and she with him. Instead of forcing Lucien to abandon her, he allows Lucien this secret affair, but also makes good use of it. For four years, Esther remains locked away in a house in Paris, taking walks only at night. One night, however, the Baron de Nucingen spots her and falls deeply in love with her. When Vautrin realizes that Nucingen's obsession is with Esther, he decides to use her powers to help advance Lucien. The plan is the following: Vautrin and Lucien are 60,000 francs in debt because of the lifestyle that Lucien has had to maintain. They also need one million francs to buy the old Rubempré land back, so that Lucien can marry Clotilde, the rich but ugly daughter of the Grandlieus. Esther will be the tool they use to get as much money as possible out of the impossibly rich Nucingen. Things don't work out as smoothly as Vautrin would have liked, however, because Esther commits suicide after giving herself to Nucingen for the first and only time (after making him wait for months). Since the police have already been suspicious of Vautrin and Lucien, they arrest the two on suspicion of murder over the suicide. This turn of events is particularly tragic because it turns out that only hours before, Esther had actually inherited a huge amount of money from an estranged family member. If only she had held on, she could have married Lucien herself. Lucien, ever the poet, doesn't do well in prison. Although Vautrin actually manages to fool his interrogators into believing that he might be Carlos Herrera, a priest on a secret mission for the Spanish king, Lucien succumbs to the wiles of his interviewer. He tells his interrogator everything, including Vautrin's true identity. Afterwards he regrets what he has done and hangs himself in his cell. His suicide, like Esther's, is badly timed. In an effort not to compromise the high society ladies who were involved with him, the justices had arranged to let Lucien go. But when he kills himself, things get more sticky and the maneuverings more desperate. It turns out that Vautrin possesses the very compromising letters sent by these women to Lucien, and he uses them to negotiate his release. He also manages to save and help several of his accomplices along the way, helping them to avoid a death sentence or abject poverty. At the end of the novel, Vautrin actually becomes a member of the police force before retiring in 1845. The nobility that was so fearful for its reputation moves on to other affairs. 

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In 1996, Annie is on the train to London to spend the weekend with Hannah, her flatmate when at polytechnic (the Polytechnic of North London) six years earlier. Hannah laments about her alcoholic mother, and Annie talks about her mother's search for a new boyfriend. Annie, who still lives with her mother, admires Hannah's independence. In contrast, Hannah laments being forced to be independent since she was a child. Back in 1986, Hannah and Claire interview and accept Annie into their flat. Annie and Hannah discuss getting rid of Claire the next year. Hannah and Annie discuss how Hannah hasn't cried since she was eight, when her parents split up. Annie, whose parents also divorced when she was eight, says she cries all the time. The following year, Ricky Burton, a socially awkward stutterer, has temporarily moved in with Hannah and Annie after being kicked out by his landlord. While discussing psychological traits with them in a pub, Ricky's untactful probing angers Hannah. While Ricky visits the Chinese takeaway beneath the flat, Annie and Hannah discuss the argument and how Ricky fancies Annie. In another memory, Ricky drunkenly confesses his love for Annie, but Annie says she's in love with someone else. Ricky leaves and doesn't reappear, so Hannah and Annie travel to his grandmother's home in Hartlepool. She tells them that Ricky has gone out, possibly along the seafront, so they go to look for him there. In the present, Annie accompanies Hannah as she looks for a flat to buy. One flat is owned by a Mr Evans, whose flat contains a painting of his naked ex-girlfriend and pornographic magazines. Evans hits on Hannah and offers both women alcoholic drinks. They run out of the flat making excuses, and are still laughing as they drive off. At the next flat, Adrian Spinks, an estate agent, meets them. Annie realises he is an old college boyfriend, but Adrian says he doesn't recognise them. In between their conversations, flashbacks show Hannah and Annie's history with Adrian. After meeting him at a club, Hannah takes Adrian home and sleeps with him. The following morning, he walks into Annie's room and tries to chat her up. In other flashbacks, Annie tells Adrian about a recurring sexual fantasy. Later, they kiss and discuss why he split up with his ex-girlfriend: Adrian says he didn't want the commitment, and leaves when Annie asks why. In the present, Hannah and Annie learn that Adrian is married with a child. At a Chinese restaurant, Annie and Hannah discuss how they have changed since university and wonder what happened to Ricky. Annie says she hadn't stopped thinking about Adrian for ten years. Hannah says she was hurt by the situation back then but said she didn't say anything because she knew that Annie was in love with him. In a flashback, Annie and Hannah cry and hug as they pack, preparing to leave their flat at the end of their four years at university. At the present-day dinner, Hannah recalls being overwhelmed upon meeting Annie's kind family, as opposed to her own dysfunctional family. They see their old flatmate Claire jogging, and discuss the coincidence of seeing two old acquaintances in one afternoon. They decide to visit their old flat, and there spot Ricky sitting on the steps outside the Chinese takeaway, holding a toy elephant. He seems angry and delirious, and tells them he arrived from Hartlepool the previous day. He says the toy is for his son, but the mother won't admit that the child is his. He tells them that his grandmother died, and, when Annie asks where he lives, responds that they don't care. They leave. In a flashback to their visit to Hartlepool, they find Ricky by the sea. They ask how he is and he shouts and swears at them that he doesn't care. They chase after him and he screams at them to leave him alone. In the present, they return to the railway station, where they say goodbye to one another. 

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Jane Austen is a younger daughter of the Reverend George Austen and his wife, who have yet to find a suitable husband for Jane. She aspires to be a writer, to the dismay of her mother and proud delight of her father. Thomas Lefroy is a promising lawyer with a bad reputation, which he describes as "typical" for people in the profession, and is sent to live in the country by his uncle to calm him down. There he makes a terrible first impression upon meeting Jane, when he nearly falls asleep while she gives a reading of her work. Overhearing his subsequent criticism, Jane cannot stand the arrogant Irishman. Meanwhile, she turns down the affections of other men, including Mr. Wisley, the nephew and heir of the wealthy Lady Gresham. Wisley proposes but Jane ultimately rejects him due to her lack of affection for him. The mischievous Tom encounters Jane again; they argue but increasingly take interest in each other and Tom demonstrates that he takes Jane's literary aspirations seriously. In time they fall in love. Tom, Jane, her brother Henry and Jane's rich widowed cousin, Eliza, Comtesse de Feullide, conspire to receive an invitation from Tom's uncle and benefactor, the Lord Chief Judge Langlois, for the rich "Madame La Comtesse" and her friends. This visit to London is meant to be a short break in their journey to see Jane's brother, Edward, and would allow Judge Langlois to get to know Jane and give a blessing for their marriage. Full of hope, Jane cannot sleep during the night at the Judge's place. In a flow of inspiration, she then begins the writing of First Impressions, the manuscript that will become Pride and Prejudice. However, Judge Langlois receives a letter informing him of the genteel poverty of Jane's family and he refuses to give Tom his blessing, declaring that he would wish Tom to be the whoremonger he had been rather than allow him to live in poverty because of a bad marriage. Tom tells Jane that he cannot marry her and she is crushed, not knowing that Tom has a legitimate reason; his family depends on him financially. Jane returns home and soon learns that Tom has become engaged to someone else at the arrangement of his family. Cassandra learns that her fiancé, Robert Fowle, has died of Yellow Fever while stationed abroad. Then Jane accepts the marriage proposal of Mr. Wisley, who had not lost hope that she would change her mind. Later, Tom realises he cannot live without Jane and returns, asking Jane to run away with him, for "what value will there be in life, if we are not together?" Jane agrees, and they leave, with only Jane's sister Cassandra knowing they plan to marry in secret. On the way, Jane stumbles upon a letter from Tom's mother, and realises his situation: he sends money he receives from his uncle back to his parents and siblings, and his family cannot survive without it. She tells Tom that they cannot elope, not with so many people depending upon him. He insists that he and Jane must marry and tells her he will earn money, but Jane tells him that it will not be enough; he will never be able to make enough money to support his dependants with a High Court judge (his uncle) as an enemy and with a penniless wife. Distraught, Tom asks her if she loves him, and she replies, "Yes, but if our love destroys your family, then it will destroy itself, in a long, slow degradation of guilt and regret and blame." Jane returns home and receives a proposal from John Warren. She declines, and suddenly accuses him of being the one who wrote to the Judge and denied her chances of happiness. Lady Gresham informs Jane that Mr. Wisley is withdrawing his proposal, but Wisley and Jane talk afterwards and part as friends. Twenty years later, Jane, now a successful author and by choice unmarried, sees Tom during a gathering. Henry, now married to Eliza, brings Tom to her. Tom introduces his eldest daughter, who admires Jane's novels. Tom's daughter asks Jane to read aloud, but as Jane rarely does so Tom remonstrates with his daughter calling her by name - which is also Jane. Astonished that he named his eldest after her, Jane agrees to her request. The last scene shows Tom's daughter sitting by Jane as she reads aloud from Pride and Prejudice, while Tom watches Jane affectionately. As she concludes, their eyes meet and Tom joins the rest of the company in honouring Jane and her work with applause. 

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One year ago, King Leo had made and held the Battle of the Beast God tournament in order to see who was worthy enough to challenge and fight against him from within their own given time and opportunity. Nine fighters had entered the tournament upon sight and that each of them had battled against one another from within a strong and relentless manner, but in the end, Sho Hayate had proven to be the strongest warrior and that he had won the tournament while defeating both King Leo and his fake impersonator King Lion from within the finals of the competition. To seek revenge against Hayate and those who caused his humiliating downfall, King Leo has organized a second version of the Battle of the Beast God tournament, but this time, there's a new rule: teams of 2 people must work together from within this new tournament so that they can either ensure victory or face defeat. The competitors from last year's tournament have learned of King Leo's new tournament and that each of them have decided to join forces with each other on either friendly or temporary terms. With the exception of Carol Stanzack (who decides to skip the tournament in order to continue her gymnastics training) and Nicola Zaza (who's too busy in having to work on his latest scientific project), Hayate and the fighters from the previous tournament have returned for combat and that they're ready to face the latest challenge that's presented to them by King Leo. However, the previous fighters aren't the only ones from within this tournament, as two new challengers have entered into the fray as well and that they have their own reasons in participating from within King Leo's new competition. The gathered fighters must be ready and prepared to not only fight against each other and King Leo from within this tournament, but also, they must deal with an unknown threat that lies directly from within the shadows of this competition as well. 

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In a distant star system, the Twelve Colonies of Mankind were reaching the end of a thousand-year war with the Cylons, warrior robots created by a reptilian race which expired long ago, presumably destroyed by their own creations. Humanity was ultimately defeated in a sneak attack on their homeworlds by the Cylons, carried out with the help of a human traitor, Count Baltar (John Colicos). Protected by the last surviving capital warship, a "battlestar" (from "battle starship"), named Galactica, the survivors fled in available ships. The Commander of the Galactica, Adama (Lorne Greene), led this "rag-tag fugitive fleet" of 220 ships in search of a new home. They began a quest to find the long lost thirteenth tribe of humanity that had settled on a legendary planet called Earth. However, the Cylons continued to pursue them relentlessly across the galaxy. The era in which this exodus took place is never clearly stated in the series itself. At the start of the series, it is mentioned as being "the seventh millennium of time", although it is unknown when this is in relation to Earth's history. The implication of the final aired episode, "The Hand of God", was that the original series took place after the Apollo 11 moon landing in July 1969 (as the Galactica receives a television transmission from Earth showing the landing). The later Galactica 1980 series is expressly set in the year 1980 after a 30-year voyage to Earth. Larson, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, incorporated many themes from Mormon theology into the shows. 

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The series is set in the fictional town of Bradfield, which is assumed to lie within West Yorkshire. It follows the Major Incident Team (MIT) of Bradfield Metropolitan Police's CID and the assistance provided to the detectives by clinical psychologist and serial offender profiler Dr. Tony Hill. All of the main episodes revolve around a serial killer whom Hill helps to track down by means of a profile, based on the killer's actions. From Series 1 to 3, the MIT is headed by Detective Inspector (Chief Inspector from Series 2) Carol Jordan. The two develop a close relationship, which is further explored in McDermid's novels, in which Jordan is always head of the MIT. In the first episode of Series 4, Jordan is replaced—without real explanation—by Detective Inspector Alex Fielding, who (despite being initially hesitant to accept Tony's support) eventually develops an equally close relationship. A constant theme is Carol's, and later Alex's, struggle with their senior officers, who are often less trusting of Tony's eccentric methods and far- fetched theories than Carol and Alex. There is also a romantic storyline showing a growing development in Tony's relationships with both Carol and later Alex. Whilst starting as friendships, both detectives begin to develop romantic feelings for Tony, although these feelings never develop into a relationship. 

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A fishery is seeking court action against a local chemical factory for polluting the water. The mysterious chemical company hires lawyer Jackie Lung (Jackie Chan) to find information that will discredit the fishery. He employs his arms dealer friend, Wong (Sammo Hung) to woo the fishery owner, Miss Yip (Deannie Yip), to try to convince her to settle out of court. Lung also brings in goofy inventor and professional criminal, Tung (Yuen Biao), to bug her apartment. Unfortunately, Wong and Tung are unaware of each other's roles and soon come into confrontation, whilst Lung tries to maintain the peace. Wong falls for Miss Yip, whilst Lung woos her cousin, Miss Wen (Pauline Yeung), an environmental scientist who is going to testify on Miss Yip's behalf. The three men inadvertently discover that the chemical company is just a facade for a narcotics empire, ran by Hua Hsien-Wu (Yuen Wah). They soon come up against Hua's thugs, and ultimately infiltrate the factory for a showdown with Hua himself and his henchman - martial arts master (Benny Urquidez). 

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