From Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ===== Set in San Diego during World War II, it is a semi- autobiographical novel of the author's life working in an airplane manufacturing plant during the war years and the frustrations he endured there and in his personal life at the time. The main character is named James Dillon, a pen name under which Thompson previously published short stories. ===== Bobby mentors his young cousin, Seamus (Jason Barry), into a life of drugs and crime soon after Seamus emigrates from Dublin, Ireland. Bright, conscientious, but notably naive, Seamus finds himself unable to get used to the spontaneous dangers and recklessness of his new life in America. After two particularly traumatic incidents, including committing a hate crime on an African American youth who had crossed the racial boundary around Charlestown in the 1990s, Seamus is afraid of further involving himself with Bobby and Bobby's circle of criminal friends. Seamus tells Bobby he wants to return Dublin, and the two argue after Seamus blames Bobby for dragging him into a dangerous and "damaging" lifestyle he never wanted. Seamus is killed soon afterward when crime boss, Jackie O'Hara (Colm Meaney), mistakenly believes Seamus told police about O'Hara's criminal operations and an earlier hit that had been ordered against Bobby and Seamus' cousin Teddy (Billy Crudup) – who had made a deal with police in order to reduce a sentence he'd already been serving. ===== The game begins in ancient Egypt, with Prince Atem sneaking out of the palace to see his friends, Jono and Teana, at the dueling grounds. While there, they witness a ceremony performed by the mages, which is darker than the ceremonies that they normally perform. After the ceremony, Atem duels one of the priests, named Seto, and defeats him. When Atem returns to the palace, he is quickly sent to bed by Simon Muran, his tutor and advisor. As Simon walks away, he is informed by a guard that the high priest Heishin has invaded the palace, using a strange magic. Muran searches for Heishin. When Muran finds him, Heishin tells Muran that he has found the Dark Power, then uses the Millennium Rod to blast Muran. When Heishin finds Atem, he threatens to kill the Egyptian king and queen if he does not hand over the Millennium Puzzle. Muran appears behind Heishen and tells Atem to smash the puzzle. Atem obeys, and Muran seals himself and Atem inside the puzzle, to wait for someone to reassemble it. Five thousand years later, Yugi Moto reassembles the puzzle. He speaks to Atem in the puzzle, and Atem gives Yugi six blank cards. Not sure what they are for, he carries them into a Dueling Tournament. After he defeats one of the duelists, one of the cards is filled with a Millennium item. Realizing what the cards are for, Yugi completes the tournament and fills all six cards with Millennium items. This allows Atem to return to his time. Once in his own time, Muran tells Atem of what has happened since he was sealed away. Heishin and the mages have taken control of the kingdom with the Millennium items, and that the only way to free the kingdom is to recover the items from the mages guarding them. After passing this on, Muran dies. After he catches up with Jono and Teana, he goes to the destroyed palace and searches it. He finds Seto, who gives him a map with the locations of the mages and the Millennium items, and asks him to defeat the mages. After Atem recovers all of the Millennium items but one, Seto leads him to Heishin, who holds the Millennium Rod. Atem defeats Heishin, but discovers that Seto has the Millennium Rod, and merely wanted to use Atem to gather the items in one place. Atem duels Seto for the items and defeats him, but after the duel, Heishin grabs the items and uses them to summon the DarkNite. Hoping to use the DarkNite to destroy his enemies, the DarkNite instead turns Heishin into a card. Heishin now turned into a playing card, DarkNite now mocks Heishin before incinerating the card. After Atem shows that he had the Millennium Items, DarkNite challenges him to a duel. Atem defeats him, and he transforms into Nitemare, who challenges Atem again. Atem defeats him again, and Nitemare begrudgingly returns from where he came. Atem then is able to take the throne and lead his people in peace. ===== ===== ===== U.S. Navy SEAL lieutenant Shane Wolfe is assigned to rescue Howard Plummer, a man working on a top-secret government project, from a group of Serbian rebels. Shane and his team successfully get Plummer off an enemy boat. However, while boarding the helicopter to escape, the team is attacked by the enemy. Plummer is killed, and Shane is wounded, spending two months in the hospital as a result. At the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, Shane's commanding officer, Captain Bill Fawcett, explains that he has been assigned to escort Plummer's widow, Julie, to Zürich, where Plummer's safety deposit box has been discovered to retrieve the contents, however she must provide a password to access it, which she does not know. Meanwhile, Shane has been assigned to stay at the Plummer residence in Bethesda, to search for Plummer's secret project called GHOST and look after the family's five children: Zoe, Seth, Lulu, Peter, and baby Tyler. The kids prove to be difficult to handle, even with the help of nanny Helga, who quits when one of Zoe and Seth's pranks intended for Shane goes wrong. Shane eventually begins to discover the children's problems and resolve them, gaining their trust after saving them when their house was attacked by ninjas. Later, the school's vice principal, Duane Murney, informs Shane that Seth has cut and dyed his hair, has a Nazi armband in his locker, and has skipped every wrestling practice for a month. At home, Seth tells Shane that he only joined the wrestling team because of his father. After Seth sneaks out of the house and meets with what appears to be a group of Neo-Nazi youths, Shane follows him to the town theater, where he learns that Seth has secretly joined an amateur production of The Sound of Music (specifically, he has the role of Rolf Gruber, a Nazi), explaining the armband and hairdo. The director quits as he believes the show will be a failure. Shane volunteers to take charge of the show, take care of the house, give Zoe driving lessons in the family minivan and teach Lulu and her fellow Firefly Scouts martial arts to defend themselves against rival boy scouts. As Seth quits the wrestling team, Shane challenges Murney to a wrestling match in front of the entire school, which he easily wins despite Murney's show of bluster. The Firefly Scouts use the skill Shane taught to beat the rival boy scouts. Zoe and Shane share stories of their fathers, both of whom died in similar circumstances. They are interrupted by a phone call from Julie, who has figured out the password, "My Angel" (which was engraved on her wedding ring), retrieved a two-prong key from the box and is on her way home. The kids immediately plan a "Welcome Home" party. That evening, Shane discovers a secret vault underneath the garage, which requires exactly the type of key that Julie and Bill retrieved to open. When Bill and Julie arrive home, he and Shane go to the garage, where Shane says he is rethinking his career. The two armed ninjas from before arrive and pull off their masks, revealing themselves as the Chuns - the Plummers' North Korean neighbors. Suddenly, Bill knocks out Shane, revealing himself to be a double agent. Mr. Chun binds, gags, and guards the children while Bill and Mrs. Chun take Julie down to the vault. They open the door, but a dangerous security system prevents them from proceeding. The children escape and awake Shane, who sends the kids to get the police while he goes to the vault to help Julie. Mr. Chun follows them in Bill's car. With Zoe at the wheel, the kids force him to crash. Shane gets past the security system using the dance Howard had used to make Peter go to sleep each night. Julie knocks out Mrs. Chun, and Shane's voice activates the final vault, knocking out Bill with the door. By then, the children have lured a large crowd of police to the house. Mr. Chun arrives and holds all of them at gunpoint. Shane notices the school principal and his love interest Claire Fletcher right behind him, having followed the chase when she saw it pass by the school. Shane distracts Mr. Chun with the help of Mr. Plummer's family pet duck Gary, and Claire knocks him unconscious. With Bill and the Chuns arrested, Shane and the Plummers say their goodbyes, and Shane and Claire kiss. At Seth's performance, it is revealed that Shane has retired from the Navy and joined the school staff as the new wrestling coach. Murney, dressed as a nun, also performs in the play, singing "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" off-key. ===== 12-year-old Meggie sees a stranger staring at her outside her window and tells her father, Mortimer (or Mo, as Meggie calls him) about it. Her father invites the stranger in, who introduces himself as Dustfinger. Mo and Dustfinger seem to know each other, with the latter referring to the former as 'Silvertongue'. Mo and Dustfinger go to Mo's workshop, where Mo works as a bookbinder. Meggie eavesdrops and hears them talking about unfamiliar people and places. Dustfinger warns Mo that a man named Capricorn is looking for him. The next morning, Mo unexpectedly announces that he and Meggie have to go to Meggie's Aunt Elinor's house where Mo has to fix some books. They find Dustfinger on the road, who joins them on the way to Elinor's house. When they arrive, Elinor seems displeased but lets them in. Her house, like Mo and Meggie's, is full of books. Mo sets off to work, and Meggie talks to Dustfinger, where she is introduced to Gwin, Dustfinger's pet marten with horns on top of his head. One day, he puts on a show for her at night, claiming to be an entertainer and a fire-eater. A short while after, Mo is captured by people with unusual names, bringing along with him a book, Inkheart, that the previously mentioned Capricorn is desperate to get his hands on. Meggie and Elinor tell the police, but the police just think they are out of their minds. A while later, they realize that Dustfinger has left, only to return a short while later. During the period in which Dustfinger is not there, Meggie packs her bag and begins to leave Elinor's to find her father, only to be caught by Elinor. Dustfinger returns and the three plan to venture to Capricorn's village where her father was being held. At arrival, they meet a guard named Basta, who seems to recognize Dustfinger. The three are taken to Capricorn's house where he waits for them. Meggie pulls out the real Inkheart book, which was only there because Elinor had switched Inkheart with another book, making Mo take the wrong book when captured. Elinor and Meggie are thrown into the cell where Mo is being held and they reunite. After this Meggie makes Mo tells the story of why they were there. A long time ago, when Meggie was three, her father was reading Inkheart to Meggie's mother, Teresa. Mo found out that he had a special gift where he could bring things out of books just by reading aloud, but that came with a price, for everything that comes out of the book, something must go in. So, while reading the seventh chapter, three of the main characters from the book, Capricorn, Basta, and Dustfinger, come out of the book and into their house. Capricorn tries to fight Mo, but eventually Mo forces them out of his house. When he turns back, Teresa and their two cats that were sitting on her lap were gone and Meggie was crying. He later tried many more times to get his wife out of the book, but his power failed him. In the morning, Capricorn brings the three (for now Dustfinger has been long gone) into a satanic church painted red with an enormous statue of Capricorn there. He makes Mo read treasure out of Treasure Island. When Mo starts to read Tales from A Thousand and One Nights, a boy appears out of the book, whom we later learn is named Farid. The prisoners are brought back to their cells along with Farid who has been put in the cell next to theirs. That night, Dustfinger breaks out all of the prisoners and they run to Elinor's car, where Basta and another guard named Flatnose chase after them. After a while, their car breaks down and they have to travel through the woods. They arrive at an abandoned village where they stay for a bit until they hear the guards coming with dogs to come and catch the group. The dogs smell the marten, because martens stink, which happens to be right above where Mo is hiding. The dogs start biting and attacking Mo. Dustfinger sets them free and the group ties up the guards and puts them in an abandoned house where they had camped out for a bit. They find a city where they can stay in a hotel for a bit while Elinor uses her secret credit card to buy them all new clothes and food. Farid becomes Dustfinger's apprentice and starts to learn the art of Dustfinger's fire. Elinor leaves in a rental car and Farid and Dustfinger stay for a bit longer until Meggie and Mo leave. Dustfinger, Farid, Meggie, and Mo go to Fenoglio's house in a small village close to the city. Fenoglio is the author of Inkheart who may be able to give them another copy of Inkheart since Capricorn had burned all the copies except for one that he kept. They are disappointed when they learn Fenoglio does not have another copy, but since they asked him he wondered about their story, which they had to tell him. He was interested to learn that his characters came to life and wanted to meet Dustfinger, but Dustfinger ran away with Farid trailing behind. Fenoglio offers them an apartment so that they can live there for the time being when Mo fixes Fenoglio's books. Mo, on an urgent call, leaves for the airport leaving Meggie with Fenoglio and his three grandchildren. When Elinor returns home, she finds that all her books had been pulled off of the shelves and trampled on and in her library full of her most valuable books, she finds all of them were gone, except for a dead rooster hanging from the ceiling as a mark of Capricorn and his men. When she looks outside, she sees a gigantic pile of ashes and realizes that her valuable books had been burned. After a while, Basta and Flatnose find Fenoglio and Meggie, taking them away to see Capricorn. When seeing Capricorn, Fenoglio reveals Capricorn's past. Though everyone knew the story that his father was a knight and his mother a princess, it happens to be that his father was a blacksmith and his mother, Mortola, or the Magpie, was just the head maidservant. Capricorn takes them away to a cell in the attic of his house, where Meggie discovers that she also has her father's power, after bringing Tinker Bell out of Peter Pan. Farid and Dustfinger sneak into the village where Dustfinger meets one of his old maidservant friends, Resa, who Farid thinks Dustfinger fancies. Resa is a mute who taught Dustfinger how to read and write who came out of the Inkheart story a while back after the unfortunate Darius, a man with the same talent as Mo and Meggie, but his fear of Capricorn mixes up things in the book and makes them turn out weirdly. Resa and Dustfinger conspire a plan to get Inkheart from Capricorn, which had to be stopped short because of the guards coming. Dustfinger and Farid run back to the woods and stay there for a while. Given a test by the Magpie, Meggie brings out the tin soldier from the Hans Christian Andersen stories, which the Magpie lets her have along with some paper and a pen. Fenoglio writes a happy story for the tin soldier and puts him back into his book, in which Fenoglio then starts writing a counter curse for when Meggie has to read out a horrible villain called the Shadow. Gwin passes notes back and forth between Mo and Meggie, which are written in Elvish, to let them know what was happening. Elinor and Mo arrive at the village from the airport and talk to Farid after Dustfinger had gotten kidnapped and sent to the crypt by trying to recover the Inkheart book. They plan to try and stop the reading from happening, and Farid and Mo put on guard uniforms to blend in. In the night, shots are fired, and only Farid is injured by a whizzing bullet by getting a small cut on his head. Elinor then gets caught by trying to find Farid and Mo after not returning and is put in the crypt with Resa, who had been caught trying to steal the book. Meggie is forced to put on a white dress for the reading and has the counter curse for the Shadow in her sleeve, just as planned. She also asks to see Dustfinger and finds her mom, Resa. Farid and Mo set Capricorn's house on fire as well as a close-by field. During which everyone is paying attention to the fire, she switches out the planned reading for Fenoglio's handwritten story. She creates the Shadow and turns it against its master; unable to read the murderous passage, Mo reads the beginning of last paragraph, killing Capricorn. Meggie then finishes the tale and turns Shadow turns back into the fairies, glass men, and trolls whose ashes it was created from. Many of the magical creatures come home with Elinor. Meggie, Mo, Resa, and Darius, whom Elinor finds useful due to his book knowledge and reading ability, go and live in Elinor's large house. Gwin, Dustfinger, and Farid leave in the night after Dustfinger steals the last remaining copy of Inkheart from Mo. ===== BioShocks game design drew on steampunk for much of its imagery. In 1960, at the start of the game, the protagonist, Jack, is a passenger on a plane that goes down in the Atlantic Ocean. As the only survivor, Jack makes his way to a nearby lighthouse that houses a bathysphere terminal that takes him to Rapture. Jack is contacted by Atlas via radio, and is guided to safety from the Splicers and the perils of the run-down city. Atlas requests Jack's help in stopping Ryan, directing him to a docked bathysphere where he claims Ryan has trapped his family. When Jack encounters a wandering Little Sister and her fallen Big Daddy, Atlas urges Jack to kill the Little Sister to harvest her ADAM for himself; Dr. Tenenbaum overhears this and intercepts Jack before he harms the Little Sister, urging him to spare the child and any other Little Sisters he encounters, providing him with a plasmid that would force the sea slug out of her body. Jack eventually works his way to the bathysphere, but Ryan destroys it before Jack can reach it. Infuriated, Atlas directs Jack towards Ryan's mansion through Ryan's army of Splicers and Big Daddies. At times, Jack is forced to travel through areas controlled by Ryan's allies that have now become deranged, such as the mad doctor J.S. Steinman or Sander Cohen, a former musician and art dealer who now takes enjoyment in watching the death and misery of others. Eventually, Jack enters Ryan's office, where Ryan is patiently waiting for Jack by casually playing golf. Ryan explains he fully knew of Atlas' plan, and explains that Jack is his illegitimate child, taken from his mother by Fontaine who placed him out of Ryan's reach on the surface, and genetically modified to age rapidly. Fontaine had planned to use Jack as a trump card in his war with Ryan, bringing him back to Rapture when the time was right; Jack's genetics would allow him to access systems such as the bathysphere that Ryan had locked out long ago. With no place to run, Ryan is willing to accept death by his own free will, quoting one of his principles: "A man chooses. A slave obeys." He asks Jack "would you kindly" kill him with the golf club, and Jack is compelled to do so. As Ryan dies, Jack becomes aware that the phrase "would you kindly" has preceded many of Atlas' commands as a hypnotic trigger forcing him to follow Atlas' orders without question; a flashback reveals Jack himself was responsible for crashing his plane near the lighthouse after reading a letter containing the trigger phrase. Atlas reveals himself as Fontaine, having used the Atlas alias to hide his identity while providing a figure for the lower class to rally behind. Without Ryan, Fontaine takes over control of Ryan's systems and leaves Jack to die as he releases hostile security drones into Ryan's locked office. Jack is saved by Dr. Tenenbaum and the Little Sisters who had previously been rescued. Dr. Tenenbaum helps Jack to remove Fontaine's conditioned responses, including one that would have stopped his heart. With the help of the Little Sisters, Jack makes his way to Fontaine's lair to face him. Fontaine, being cornered by Jack, injects himself with a large amount of ADAM, becoming an inhuman monster. The Little Sisters aid Jack in draining the ADAM in Fontaine's body and eventually killing him. The ending depends on how the player interacted with the Little Sisters: *If the player rescues all of the Little Sisters (or harvests only one of them), Jack takes them back to the surface with him and adopts five of them as his daughters, and Tenenbaum happily narrates how they go on to live full lives under his care, eventually surrounding him on his deathbed. This ending is considered canon in BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea. *If the player harvests more than one Little Sister, Jack turns on the Little Sisters to harvest their ADAM. Tenenbaum sadly narrates what occurred, condemning Jack and his actions. A US Navy submarine then comes across the wreckage of the plane and finds itself suddenly surrounded by bathyspheres containing Splicers who attack the crew and take control of it. The submarine is revealed to be carrying nuclear missiles, with Tenenbaum claiming that Jack has now "stolen the terrible secrets of the world": the more Little Sisters are harvested, the harsher and more furious Tenenbaum's narrative becomes. ===== In the stereotypical high school community of John Hughes High in Southern California, attractive Priscilla, a popular cheerleader, separates from her talented football star but slacker boyfriend, Jake Wyler. After Jake discovers that Priscilla is now dating timid and weird Les just to spite him, one of Jake's friends, Austin, makes a bet with him to turn Janey Briggs, a "uniquely rebellious girl", into the prom queen. Jake attempts to court Janey's love, but faces adversity from his own sister, Catherine, who is sexually attracted to him; Janey's unnoticed admirer and best friend, Ricky Lipman; and memories from his past football career. Catherine eventually assists her brother by "drastically" altering Janey's appearance (which is simply removing her glasses and ponytail), instantly making her drop-dead gorgeous. Meanwhile, Janey's younger brother, Mitch, and his friends Ox and Bruce, make a pact to lose their virginity by graduation despite still being in their freshman year. Mitch tries to impress his longtime crush, the beautiful yet perverted Amanda Becker with a love letter. Bruce says that he does not have a chance with her, mockingly stating, "Keep dreaming!" As the prom draws near, Jake draws infamy among his peers after he fails to lead his football team to victory at the state championship game the year before. The situation is further worsened when Austin tricks Jake into telling Janey about his bet to spite Priscilla by pretending to whisper the secret bet in Janey's ear, causing her to immediately leave Jake in anger. During prom night, Austin and Janey go together; a jealous Jake and Catherine have a dance-off with Austin and Janey, with Catherine dancing in a sexual manner. Janey runs off crying. Meanwhile, Mitch and his friends are having a lousy time at the prom until Amanda arrives and Mitch gives her the letter (to which she responds that she does not have sex with every loser who does such, but will give them handjobs), horny Bruce hooks up with the equally horny international exchange student Areola, and Ox later hooks up with Catherine after sharing a romantic and rather odd connection. Jake is awarded prom king and the principal reads out that the votes for prom queen are tied. Everyone thinks that it is between Janey and Priscilla, but they are shocked to find that conjoined twins Kara and Sara Fratelli win prom queen. During the traditional prom king and queen dance, Janey supposedly left with Austin to go to a hotel. Jake goes to the hotel room where he finds Austin having wild sex with a girl, but is shocked to find that it is Priscilla and not Janey, while Les videotapes them with his pants down. Austin tells Jake that Janey "ran home to her daddy." Jake coldly punches Austin and Priscilla, knocking them unconscious for their part in Janey's humiliation. He then punches Les for "being really weird" (he also punches a plastic bag that happens to be floating next to Les); afterwards he runs to Janey's house only to learn from her father that she is going to Paris for art school. Jake arrives at the airport and confronts her before she can board the plane, but uses a plethora of clichéd lines from other films (such as She's All That, Cruel Intentions, American Pie, The Breakfast Club, American Beauty, 10 Things I Hate About You, Can't Hardly Wait, and Pretty in Pink) to convince her to stay home in the United States. His final (and only original) speech suggests they would be better off separated, but Janey mistakenly believes he is quoting The Karate Kid, and she decides to stay with him. In a mid-credits scene, Janey's father Mr. Briggs drunkenly assaults himself with pies in his kitchen. In a post- credits scene, a previously seen albino folk singer, an afroed student with a guitar, reveals that she has become blind and calls out for assistance upon completing her song, while an audience member calls for another to assist in stealing her guitar. ===== Anmitsu is a beautiful princess living happily at the Amakara Castle. The only thing is she is a tomboy and doesn't act very ladylike. When Anmitsu turns ten years old, her parents present her with a tutor named Castella, who from the Pudding Kingdom, in hopes of getting Anmitsu more serious about being a princess. Nonetheless, Anmitsu still is up to her usual antics and frequently escapes from the castle to have fun. However, she learns many things about the world outside the castle and about life in general in her adventures. She also makes new friends and continues to cause trouble for the royalty in Amakara Castle. ===== The books biography lists this as Bradbury's first novel since Something Wicked This Way Comes, although the young adult novel The Halloween Tree was published later. It evokes both the milieu and style of other mystery writers Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, and Ross Macdonald, all of whom Bradbury names in the book's dedication, and James Crumley, after whom Bradbury named his detective. Yet the main character is undoubtedly Bradbury himself, portrayed in a period of his life just before his marriage and his success with The Martian Chronicles. Two sequels followed: A Graveyard for Lunatics (1990), and Let's All Kill Constance (2003), advancing the writer's career to 1954 and 1960, respectively. ===== ===== Dr. Reed Richards, a genius but timid and bankrupt physicist, is convinced that evolution was triggered millions of years ago on earth by clouds of cosmic energy in space, and has calculated that one of these clouds is soon going to pass near Earth. Together with his friend, the gruff yet gentle astronaut Ben Grimm, Reed convinces his equally brilliant but conceited MIT classmate Dr. Victor Von Doom, now CEO of Von Doom Industries, to allow him access to his privately owned space station to test the effects of exposure to the cloud on biological samples. Von Doom agrees, in exchange for control over the experiment and a majority of the profits from whatever benefits it brings. He brings aboard his beautiful chief genetics researcher (and Reed's ex-girlfriend from MIT) Susan Storm and her hot-headed brother Johnny Storm, a private astronaut who was Ben's subordinate at NASA but is his superior on the mission. The quintet travels to space to observe the cosmic energy clouds, but Reed has miscalculated and the clouds materialize well ahead of schedule. Reed, Susan, and Johnny leave the shielded station to rescue Ben who has gone on a space-walk to place the samples, and Victor closes the shield behind them. Ben receives full exposure out in space, while the others receive a more limited dose within the station. They return home but soon begin to develop strange powers. Reed is able to stretch like rubber; Susan can become invisible and create force fields, especially when angered; Johnny can engulf himself in fire at temperatures in excess of 4000 K (erroneously described as supernova-like in the film), and is able to fly; and Ben is transformed into a large, rock-like creature with superhuman strength and durability. Victor meanwhile faces a backlash from his stockholders due to the publicity from the failed mission and has a scar on his face from an exploding control console he was near during the cloud's pass. Ben returns home to see his fiancée Debbie, but she cannot handle his new appearance and flees. He goes to brood on Brooklyn Bridge and accidentally causes a traffic pile-up while stopping a man from committing suicide. The four use their various powers to contain the damage and prevent anyone from being hurt. While the public cheer them for their efforts, Ben sees his fiancée leave her engagement ring on the ground and run. Reed hands a heartbroken Ben the ring and vows to find a way to turn him back to normal. The media dubs them "The Fantastic Four" for their efforts. Victor watches the news story and is told that his company is lost now, the group's fame overriding the company's fate with the media. The four move into Reed's lab in the Baxter Building to study their abilities and find a way to return Ben to normal. Victor offers his support in their efforts but blames Reed for the mission's failure, the lights flickering as he grows enraged. Reed tells the group he will construct a machine to re-create the storm and reverse its effect on their bodies, but warns it could possibly accelerate them instead. However, a reckless Johnny refuses to give up his powers and uses them to help him win extreme sports thus exposing Reed, Susan, and Ben’s abilities to the public which leads to a small fight between him and Ben after making fun of them. Johnny claims that these new powers are a “higher calling”. Meanwhile, Victor continues to mutate, his arm turning into an organic metal and allowing him to produce bolts of electricity, and he begins plotting to use his new powers to take his revenge. Victor drives a wedge between Ben and Reed, as the group's research has allowed him to rekindle his relationship with Susan. Reed and Ben argue, with Ben walking out in a rage. Susan later scolds Johnny on how he is using his powers just for showing off to gain popularity. This motivates Reed to attempt the machine on himself, but he cannot generate the power needed to push the storm to critical mass. Victor hears Reed tell Susan this through security cameras and has Ben brought to the lab. Ben is placed in the machine and Doom uses his abilities to produce the electricity needed to power it, turning Ben back to normal and accelerating Doom's condition, causing much of his body to turn to metal. Victor knocks the human Ben unconscious and kidnaps Reed. Victor—now calling himself "Doom"—dons a metal mask to hide his physical disfigurations and incapacitates Reed using a super-cooling unit. Doom fires a heat-seeking missile at the Baxter Building to kill Johnny, and Johnny flies through the city to evade it, lighting a garbage barge on fire to trick it. Susan rushes to confront Doom as Ben begins to regret his decision to turn normal. Susan frees Reed and battles Doom but is outmatched - Ben arrives to save her, transformed into The Thing again by reusing the machine. The battle spills into the streets, and the four assemble to battle Doom. Johnny and Susan combine their powers to wrap Doom in an inferno of intense heat, and Ben and Reed douse him with cold water, inducing thermal shock and freezing Doom in place. As an epilogue, Ben informs Reed that he has accepted his condition with the help of Alicia Masters, a blind artist for whom he has developed feelings, and the team decide to embrace their roles as superheroes and unite officially as the Fantastic Four. Reed proposes marriage to Susan, who accepts and they share a kiss. Meanwhile, Doom's statuesque remains are being transported back to his homeland of Latveria when the dockmaster's electronic manifest briefly experiences electronic interference. ===== Advertising salesman Philip Woode is the victim of a prank on a Candid Camera-style television show and wins a dinner for two at a Manhattan restaurant. He takes with him Danielle Breton, a young French Canadian model and aspiring actress who was part of the prank. At dinner, they are interrupted by Danielle's ex-husband, Emil, who also follows them to Danielle's Staten Island apartment. Philip and Danielle make love on the sofa. There is huge scar on her side. They spend the night on the fold-out bed. Danielle wakes in pain. In the bathroom, she empties a bottle of pills into her hand. There are four. She takes one and leaves two on the sink. Her sister calls from the bedroom in French (subtitled). They argue. We learn that after they were "separated," Dominique was put in a hospital "full of lunatics." The argument wakes Philip, who dresses in the bathroom, where he unwittingly knocks the pills down the drain. Danielle explains to Philip that her twin sister Dominique has come to celebrate their birthday. She asks him to go to the drug store to refill her prescription. He does so, but stops to buys a birthday cake for the sisters, asking to have "Happy Birthday Dominique and Danielle" written on the cake. It takes a long time for the inexperienced baker to do this, and back in the apartment, Danielle, in agony, calls Emil for help. When Philip returns, Emil is watching. Philip brings the cake and a large knife to the woman lying on the sofa bed and is stabbed repeatedly by a crazed Dominique. He drags himself to a window and dies. Grace Collier, a reporter living in an apartment across the way, sees Philip and calls the police. A split screen shows her waiting for the police and Emil helping Danielle to clean up and hide Philip's body in the sleeper sofa. Grace accompanies the police on a search through Danielle's apartment. Danielle insists that she has been alone; they find no evidence. Grace does find the cake, but trips and destroys it before Kelly can see. Later, she goes to the bakery, where Louise Wilanski (Olympia Dukakis) and Elaine D'Anna (Justine Johnson) remember Philip and the cake. Certain that Danielle is hiding the murderer, Grace persuades her editor to let her investigate the story, on the basis that the police are ignoring her because Philip was African American. She hires Larch, a private investigator, who gets into the apartment. He is certain that the body is hidden inside the too-heavy couch. When it is hauled away, Larch pursues the truck. He also finds a thick file from the Loisel Institute on the Blanchion Twins, Canada's first conjoined twins, which leads Grace to Life magazine reporter Arthur McLennen. He tells her that the twins were separated only recently. Dominique died during the operation. Grace tails Emil and Danielle to a mental hospital. When she is caught. Emil, convinces the staff that she is a new patient. He sedates and hypnotizes her, conditioning her to say "There was no body, because there was no murder." He promises to reveal everything, placing Danielle on the bed beside her. Grace has a bizarre dream about the twins' past and their separation where she herself is Dominique, while Emil reminds Danielle that the separation was necessary because Dominique stabbed the pregnant Danielle with garden shears. He reminds Danielle that she now dissociates to a violent "Dominique" personality whenever she makes love. Emil kisses her passionately, bringing "Dominique" out so he can question her about the murder. She slashes him in the groin with a scalpel, and he bleeds to death, controlling her. Their bodies pin Grace to the bed. Grace awakens to find Danielle tenderly holding Emil's bloody body. She screams in horror. Detective Kelly arrests Danielle, who denies knowledge of the murders and says that her sister is dead. When Kelly interviews Grace, she is still under Emil's hypnotic spell, repeating the lines he fed her. Meanwhile, Larch has followed the sofa to a remote train station in Canada. The film ends with a shot of him training his binoculars on it from his perch on a utility pole. ===== Talpa, the demon lord of the Netherworld, is bent on conquering the mortal world. Standing against Talpa and his four Dark Warlords are the five Ronin Warriors, each in possession of mystical armor and weapons. They are assisted by Mia Koji, a young student-teacher, and a mysterious warrior-monk known only as The Ancient. ===== Peter Egermann visits and murders a prostitute named Ka, committing an act of necrophilia. The coroner interrogates Peter's friends for an explanation. Mogens Jensen tells the coroner he is shocked by the murder, claiming there were no signs this could happen. Peter is married to career woman Katarina; they have no children. In fact, Peter had confided in Jensen that he was plagued with homicidal thoughts, primarily aimed against Katarina. Jensen considered the thoughts likely not serious, but advised Katarina to leave town. Katarina dismissed the warning as preposterous, and given it was a busy season for work, she decided it was impossible for her to leave. Before the murder, Peter considered suicide by throwing himself from a building, and Katarina called a friend to calm him down. Peter came back inside, where he quarreled with Katarina. The two shared an open relationship, as Katarina seeks other lovers. Peter claimed he is the one who knows how to sexually satisfy Katarina. Katarina responded she sometimes had orgasms with Peter, but also that she sometimes faked them and left the bedroom to masturbate, and that on other occasions she only had small convulsions. The interrogator questions Tim, a homosexual. Tim is a business partner of Katarina and her friend, and by extension, he also knew Peter. The interrogator asks if Tim ever had an affair with Peter; Tim hesitates before replying no. Agitated, Tim reveals he had desires for Peter, and is suffering a guilty conscience after having introduced Peter to Ka. Ka was one of Tim's friends. Tim blames his homosexuality for bringing Peter and Ka together, saying he had difficulties with Katarina and liked the idea that Peter would cheat on her with a prostitute. Slowly, he thought, he would lure Peter to him. When Peter met Ka at a Munich peep show, Ka told Peter her real name was Katarina, the same as his wife. He tearfully murdered her. Jensen concludes that Peter, having grown up under an aggressive mother and then lived with a similarly aggressive wife, was unaware of his own latent homosexuality and that meeting Ka disrupted Peter's daily routine and triggered an emotional blackout. Peter is confined to a mental institute, where he cradles a teddy bear at night. ===== In a remote arctic research station, government agents Brach and Schiller (female) discover the mysterious genetic scientist Dr. Clerval. A psychological chess game ensues. It turns out that Schiller was a subject in one of Clerval's genetic breeding programs, and was co-dependent of him. Brach once was Clerval's henchman. He feels torn between his love for Schiller and his unadmitted, deep loyalty towards Clerval. ===== Set initially in Bideford in North Devon during the reign of Elizabeth I, Westward Ho! follows the adventures of Amyas Leigh (Amyas Preston), an unruly child who as a young man follows Francis Drake to sea. Amyas loves local beauty Rose Salterne, as does nearly everyone else; much of the novel involves the kidnapping of Rose by a Spaniard. Amyas spends time in the Caribbean coasts of Venezuela seeking gold, and eventually returns to England at the time of the Spanish Armada, finding his true love, the beautiful Indian maiden Ayacanora, in the process; yet fate had blundered and brought misfortune into Amyas's life, for not only had he been blinded by a freak bolt of lightning at sea, but he also loses his brother Frank Leigh and Rose Salterne, who were caught by the Spaniards and burnt at the stake by the Inquisition. ===== Dr. Tom Anderson (Van Cleef), an embittered scientist, has made contact with a Venusian creature, while using his radio transmitter. The alien's secret motivation is to take complete control of the Earth by enslaving humanity using mind control devices; the alien claims it merely desires to bring peace to the world by eliminating all emotions. Anderson agrees to help the creature and even intends to allow it to assimilate his wife, Claire (Garland) and friend Dr. Paul Nelson (Graves). The Venusian then disrupts all electric power on Earth, including motor vehicles, leaving Dr. Nelson to resort to riding a bicycle. After avoiding a flying bat-like creature which carries the mind control device, Dr. Nelson returns home to find his wife newly assimilated. She then attempts to force his own assimilation using another bat-creature in her possession, and he is forced to kill her in self-defense. By then, the only people who are still free from the Venusian's influence are Nelson, Anderson, Anderson's wife and a group of army soldiers on station in the nearby woods. Nelson finally persuades the paranoid Anderson that he has made a horrible mistake in blindly trusting the Venusian's motives, allying himself with a creature bent on world domination. When they discover Tom's wife Claire has taken a rifle to the alien's cave in order to kill it, they hurriedly follow her, but the creature kills her before they can rescue her. Finally, seeing the loss of everything he holds dear, Dr. Anderson viciously attacks the Venusian by holding a blowtorch to the creature's face; Anderson dies at the alien's hand as it expires. Arriving on the scene too late to save his friend, Nelson sadly reflects on how Anderson's misguided ideals ultimately led to death and devastation, and muses that a solution to humanity's problems must ultimately be achieved by humanity itself. ===== Sarah Balabagan (Vina Morales) a 14-year old goes to work in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates or "Saudi", then an umbrella term for countries in the Middl East among Overseas Filipino Workers. Balabagan a minor, lied about her age so she can work abroad. She receives unsolicited sexual advancements from her employer and his family. In one episode, Balabagan killed her employer who was attempting to rape her. She was put on trial and was charged for manslaughter in a secular court, but the employer's family appealed who called for a death penalty for Balabagan. She was sentenced to death by an Islamic court. Her case became a publicized and the Philippine government attempted to save her from death row. Her sentenced was reduced to a year of imprisonment and 100 lashes following an appeal to the royal family. ===== The series is set in the fictional sultanate of Agrabah. Taking place one year after the original film, and set after the second film, Aladdin now lives in the palace engaged to Princess Jasmine, and engages in adventures with his companions. ===== In 1927, Gordon (Steve Forrest) develops a new racing vehicle, a hot rod, but dies in a practice run before he can compete in the 'Trans-African Auto Race'. To save her father's dream, and win the prize money, Gordon's flapper daughter, Dale (Brooke Shields) disguises herself as a man and takes the place of her father in the race through the Sahara Desert, with the help of her father's friends. Dale is an excellent driver and has a good chance to win the male-only race. After she crosses the start line, she takes off her wig and mustache and reveals her true sex to the other participants in the race. While taking a short-cut, she comes close to a tribal war between Bedouin factions. Another racer, the German Von Glessing (Horst Buchholz), also takes the same short-cut in order to supply weapons to the evil leader of the two warring tribes. Dale and her crew are captured by Rasoul (John Rhys-Davies), the uncle of the good leader of the warring tribes. The good leader, Sheikh Jafar (Lambert Wilson), had seen Dale from afar and desired her, so he rescues her from his uncle by claiming Dale as his bride. Dale marries Jaffar and escapes the next morning in her car to attempt to finish the race. She is captured by the evil leader before she can complete the race, but a stow-away gypsy child runs back to Jaffar to tell him of Dale's capture. Meanwhile, Dale is thrown into a pit of leopards. Jaffar rallies his men, rescues her and allows her to return to drive in the race. Dale wins the race, and when celebrating sees Jaffar's horse nearby. She bids farewell to her crew, mounts the horse and returns to Jaffar. ===== The Enterprise heads to Torona IV to open negotiations with the Jarada, an insect-like race that is unusually strict in matters of protocol. After practicing the complex greeting the Jarada require to open negotiations, Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) decides to relax with a Dixon Hill story in the holodeck. Playing Detective Hill in the holoprogram, Picard takes up the case of Jessica Bradley (Carolyn Allport), who believes that Cyrus Redblock (Lawrence Tierney) is trying to kill her. Picard decides to continue the program later and leaves the holodeck to affirm their estimated arrival at Torona IV. He invites Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) and visiting historian Dr. Whalen (David Selburg) to join him in the holodeck. While Crusher is still preparing, Picard and Whalen are ready to enter the holodeck when Lt. Cdr. Data (Brent Spiner) arrives, having overheard Picard's invitation. Entering the holodeck, the three discover that Jessica has been murdered in Picard's absence. As Picard explains that he saw Jessica at his office the day before, Lt. Bell (William Boyett) brings Picard into the police station for questioning as a suspect in her murder. Meanwhile, the Enterprise is scanned from a distance by the Jarada, causing a power surge in the holodeck external controls. Dr. Crusher later enters the holodeck, first experiencing a momentary glitch with the holodeck doors, and joins her friends at the police station. The Jarada demand their greeting earlier than the agreed time and are insulted at having to talk to anyone other than the Captain. The crew tries to communicate with Picard in the holodeck but finds it impossible; the Jarada signal has affected the holodeck's functions, preventing the doors from opening or allowing communication with the crew inside. Lt. Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) and Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) attempt to repair the holodeck systems. While inside the holodeck, the group returns to Dixon's office. Mr. Leech (Harvey Jason) appears, having waited for Picard, demanding he turn over an object he believes Jessica gave him. When Picard fails to understand, Leech shoots Dr. Whalen with a gun, and the crew discovers that the safety protocols have been disabled, as Whalen is severely wounded. As Dr. Crusher cares for his wound, Picard and Data discover that the holodeck is malfunctioning, and they are unable to exit the program. Mr. Leech is joined by Redblock and continues to demand the object. Lt. McNary arrives and becomes involved in the standoff. Picard tries to explain the nature of the holodeck, but Redblock refuses to believe him. Outside, Wesley finds the glitch, however he cannot simply turn off the system for fear of losing everyone inside. Instead, Wesley resets the simulation, briefly placing Picard and the others in the middle of a snowstorm before finding themselves back in Dixon's office. With the reset successfully clearing the malfunction, the exit doors finally appear. Despite Picard's warnings, Redblock and Leech exit the holodeck, but dissipate as they move beyond the range of its holoemitters. As they leave the holodeck, Picard thanks McNary, who now suspects that his world is artificial and asks whether Picard's departure is "the big goodbye", to which Picard replies that he simply doesn't know. Picard reaches the bridge in time to give the proper greeting to the Jarada. The Jarada accept the greeting, heralding the start of successful negotiations. ===== The story begins in 1865, at the end of the American Civil War. With the city of Richmond, Virginia in ruins after being bombarded by Union artillery. The ironclad CSS Texas, captained by Mason Tombs, is loaded with the last of the Confederacy's treasury gold in a final effort to prevent it from being captured by Union forces. The CSS Texas then makes a desperate attempt to run the Union naval blockade under heavy attack and disappears into the darkness...leaving its fate unknown. In present day Mali, a civil war is being fought between dictator General Kazim and Tuareg people. World Health Organization doctors Eva Rojas and Frank Hopper investigate a disease spreading across Mali. Assassins accompanied by a corrupt Tuareg named Zakara attempt to murder Eva, but she is rescued by Dirk Pitt, who is from the National Underwater and Marine Agency and was diving nearby. Dirk's contact in Nigeria sells him a gold Confederate coin found in the Niger River. Believing this to be a clue to the long-lost Texas, Dirk borrows his boss Sandecker's yacht to search for the Texas. Accompanying Dirk are his partner Al Giordino and Rudi Gunn from NUMA. They give Eva and Hopper a ride so that they can continue their investigation of the disease before dropping them off as they continue up the Niger River. Businessman Yves Massarde and dictator General Kazim try to stop the doctors from discovering the source of the disease. Kazim sends men to attack the yacht. Dirk, Al, and Rudi survive the attack, but the yacht is destroyed. Rudi tries to leave the country to get help while Dirk and Al go to rescue the doctors whom General Kazim was originally looking for. After rescuing Eva, they try to leave Mali but are captured by the Tuareg. The Tuareg leader, Modibo, shows Eva his people dying from the same disease she was investigating. After analyzing the water sample, Eva finds out that the water is contaminated with toxins, and there is no treatment available for the sick people. Al stumbles into a cave with a painting showing the ironclad Texas. Dirk believes that the Texas became stranded when the river dried up after a storm and that the same river that carried the ship now runs underground. They follow the dry river bed and work their way to the border. On the way, they stumble upon a solar detoxification plant owned by Massarde, which is the source of the contamination. They discover that the contamination is being carried to the ocean and, if not stopped in time, will kill everything in it. In addition, they cannot get their government to intervene during a civil war in a sovereign country. Massarde captures the group, keeps Eva and sends Dirk and Al to Kazim. The duo escapes but gets stranded in the middle of the desert. They find the wreck of a plane and rebuild it into a land yacht, which they use to reach civilization. Dirk and Al enlist Modibo's aid to return to the plant. To cover up the existence of the plant, Massarde decides to destroy it with explosives. Fearing the plant's destruction would make it impossible to stop the contamination, Al goes to remove the explosives while Dirk tries to stop Massarde. He rescues Eva and kills Zakara after a vicious fight, but Massarde escapes via helicopter. Al successfully neutralizes the explosive, much to Massarde's anger. The three leave the plant on an Avions Voisin C-28, but Kazim pursues them in a helicopter gunship. A series of explosions along the dry river bed reveals the wreckage of the Texas. The trio boards the ship, and uses its cannons to destroy Kazim's helicopter. Modibo arrives with Tuareg reinforcements and forces Kazim's army to surrender, ending the civil war. The plant is shut down, stopping the source of toxic waste, while the rest is dealt with. Sandecker agrees to do covert work for the government, who in exchange would fund NUMA. The Texas gold, which technically belongs to the Confederate States of America, is left with Modibo's people. It is heavily implied that Massarde is poisoned by Carl, an undercover US agent. Dirk and Eva start a relationship. ===== Alex "Hitch" Hitchens (Will Smith) is a professional "date doctor" who coaches other men in the art of wooing women, with the main focus of having genuine long-term relationships. He is very successful at what he does. While coaching one of his clients, Albert Brennaman (Kevin James) – who is smitten with a client of his investment firm, celebrity Allegra Cole (Amber Valletta) – Hitch finds himself falling for Sara Melas (Eva Mendes), a gossip columnist and cynical workaholic. While Albert and Allegra's relationship continues to progress, Hitch finds it difficult to initiate a dialogue with Sara, finding that none of his romantic methods work on her. Throughout the entire process, he keeps his career secret, claiming to be a generic "consultant". Hitch meets with Vance Munson (Jeffrey Donovan), a shallow misogynist attempting to enlist Hitch to help him land a one-night stand with Casey Sedgewick (Julie Ann Emery), Sara's coworker and best friend. Although Hitch refuses to help, Vance misleads Sara into believing that he has used Hitch's services. After finding out Hitch's true identity, Sara publishes an exposé, causing Allegra and Albert to break up and Hitch's reputation to suffer. At a speed dating cafe that Hitch sneaks into, Sara and Casey confront Hitch and cite Vance as their source. Hitch explains that not only did he refuse to work with him – men like Vance are the reason why women heavily protect themselves – but that same protection also unintentionally makes establishing genuine relationships with good men difficult enough to create a demand for Hitch's services. Hitch then tries to salvage Albert and Allegra's relationship and decides to confront Allegra. When she mentions how Albert's quirks won her over, Hitch realizes that he does not really do anything significant besides giving his clients confidence and allowing them to get the attention of the women they love, and that most of his customers, particularly Albert, really were successful by just being themselves. Allegra reconciles with Albert, and Hitch and Sara repair their relationship. The film ends with Albert and Allegra getting married and Hitch helping Casey find a good man. ===== Lianna is married to a college professor in film and media at a university in a midsized New Jersey town and has two children. In order to give her husband the greater freedom he wants and address her boredom, she takes a child psychology class with her friend, Sandy. Becoming more involved in the class, she realizes she has a crush on the instructor, Ruth. Ruth invites Lianna home for dinner and they talk into the night, Lianna explaining that she was a graduate student and married her professor. They eventually begin an affair, complicated by Lianna's husband's affair with a student. Lianna expresses interest in leaving her husband for Ruth, but Ruth backs away, warning Lianna that living with another woman would jeopardize her career and that she has a partner in another city. Lianna leaves her husband after a fight to live alone for the first time in years. She visits a lesbian bar and attempts to connect with other lesbians through affairs to explore her new identity. The film explores her loneliness, her changing relationships with her children, and her new relationship with Sandy, who is shocked at Lianna's revelations at first, but slowly begins to accept it and support Lianna. Lianna also gets a job as a supermarket cashier. Ruth leaves town and Lianna's life to California for another teaching job. Despite now being alone, Lianna and Sandy reconcile in the final scene which mirrors the opening scene of Lianna and Sandy talking at a park playground. ===== The film begins with a school-boy Mukul Dhar (played by Kushal Chakraborty), who is said to be able to remember events of his previous life, and soon receives media attention. Dr. Hemanga Hajra (Sailen Mukherjee), a parapsychologist, offers his help, believing it might help him in his own research. Mukul always remains sombre and paints peacocks, forts and scenes of battle at midnight; he mentions that he lived in the Golden Fortress [Sonar Kella] and that their house had many gems. Dr. Hajra decides to take Mukul on a trip to Rajasthan, famous for forts,historical importance and desert landscape. Two seasoned fraudsters, Amiyanath Burman and Mandar Bose, plan to kidnap Mukul to capture the treasure. Their first attempt at the kidnapping fails when they pick up another boy, also named Mukul (Santanu Bagchi), from the same neighborhood. Alarmed by this, Mukul's father engages Feluda (Soumitra Chatterjee), a private investigator, to protect his son. Feluda leaves for Rajasthan along with Topshe or Tapesh(Siddartha Chatterjee), following Dr Hajra. On their way, they meet Lalmohan Ganguly, a.k.a. Jatayu (Santosh Dutta), a popular thriller-writer. Meanwhile, Burman and Bose kidnap Mukul and push off Dr. Hajra off a cliff at the Nahargarh Fort in Jaipur. Burman impersonates as Dr. Hajra and Mandar Bose as a globe- trotter. Dr. Hajra survives the fall and begins to pursue them. Feluda arrives in Jodhpur Circuit House and meets Burman, thinking him to be Dr. Hajra. Feluda begins to suspect Mandar Bose based on his clothes and his accent. Feluda even suspects "Dr. Hajra's" conduct as he appears lackadaisical in his research. Mukul keeps saying he is followed by a "bad man". Burman hypnotizes Mukul, who says that the Golden Fortress is in Jaisalmer. Dr. Hajra reaches the same conclusion by learning about the history of the Fort of Jaisalmer from a police inspector. Feluda learns that the Jaisalmer fort is made of yellow limestone, giving it a golden glow. Mandar Bose tells Feluda that Burman has already left with Mukul for Barmer. Feluda suspects foul play but cannot be sure. By chance, his eye falls upon the card of Dr Hajra; an idea flashes in his mind and he rushes to check the register of the circuit house and finds that it is signed as 'Hazra' not 'Hajra'. He is now sure about the man masquerading as Dr Hajra, and leaves for Jaisalmer by car. Mandar Bose strands Feluda, Topshe, and Jatayu on the highway. Feluda takes a camel caravan to the nearest train station, from which he takes the next train to Jaisalmer. At night, In the train, Mandar Bose tries to stab Feluda, who anticipated the attack and almost nabbed him; eventually, Mandar Bose falls out of the train. The three reach Jaisalmer along with Dr. Hajra. They rush to the fort, where they find Burman and Mukul searching for the treasure. Feluda confronts and captures Burman, telling him that there never was any treasure. They find that Mukul is cured, and return to Kolkata. ===== A 10-year-old girl named India Opal Buloni has just moved to a trailer park in the small town of Naomi, Florida, with her father, who is known as The Preacher because he preaches at the local church. While in the supermarket, Opal sees a scruffy dog wrecking the store and decides to take him home, naming him Winn-Dixie after the supermarket chain. Miss Franny Block, a librarian, shares great stories about her past, including one about her great-grandfather, whose family members died while he was fighting for the South in the Civil War. He invented Litmus Lozenge candies, which tasted like root beer and strawberry but included a secret ingredient—melancholy. Anyone who tasted the candies tasted sweetness mixed with sadness. In Because of Winn-Dixie, these candies symbolize that even though life sometimes deals people a bit of sadness, there is always much to appreciate. Opal learns that her sour-faced neighbor, Amanda Wilkinson, lost her younger brother Carson when he drowned in the town lake the previous summer. She vows to be nicer to her from then on. Opal finds a dog collar that she wants to buy for Winn- Dixie, but she has no money and decides to work for the pet store to earn it. Otis, a worker at Gertrude's Pets, is unwilling to hire Opal as a cleaning girl, but she comes to work. When Opal and Winn-Dixie step into the store, the animals panic when they see the big dog. Otis plays his guitar to calm them. Opal learns that Otis once went to jail for battering a police officer who told him that he could not play his guitar on the street because he was disturbing others and tried to confiscate it. While Opal is riding her bike and Winn-Dixie runs ahead, they meet a woman named Gloria Dump. She and Opal become good friends. Opal and Gloria, a recovering alcoholic, decide to host a small party, inspired by the one in Gone With the Wind, inviting everyone they know. In the process, Opal becomes a friend to her former enemies, the brothers Stevie and Dunlap Dewberry. She also invites Amanda Wilkinson and Sweetie Pie Thomas, a younger girl who has no pet, and so has fallen in love with Winn-Dixie. Otis and Miss Franny Block are also invited. Opal and Gloria set up everything outdoors, but it starts to rain, so they bring the party indoors. Opal can't find Winn-Dixie anywhere, even after searching the town. Ten minutes later she returns to Gloria's home to discover that Winn-Dixie has been there all the time, hiding because he is scared of storms. The book ends with Otis playing his guitar and everyone singing one of The Preacher's songs. ===== The film is set in Liverpool in the mid-1950s. The story concerns a shy 11-year-old boy, Bud, and his loving mother and siblings. He lives a life rich in imagination, centred on family relationships, church, and his struggles at school. Music and snatches of movie dialogue allow him to enrich his narrow physical environment. "Together these fragments", wrote Stephen Holden in The New York Times, "evoke a postwar England starved for beauty, fantasy and a place to escape." ===== Set in Liverpool in the Great Depression of the 1930s, the story is told through the eyes of a boy, Liam Sullivan. Liam is taking instruction in preparation for his First Communion. His mother is a staunch Roman Catholic. His father loses his job when his shipyard closes. Meanwhile, his sister, Teresa, has become a maid for the Jewish family who own the shipyard. Liam stutters badly under stress, and his strict religious education does not help. Teresa's mistress is having an affair, and the girl becomes an accomplice. Liam's father joins a group of fascists, who rail against rich Jews and cheap Irish labour. His brother secretly attends meetings with socialists. All of this is a microcosm of a more general breakdown of society. Life becomes increasingly insecure and people retreat into their own belief systems. This leads to increasing conflict, leading inexorably to a single violent act . ===== Two hitmen, Lee Woods and Dosmo Pizzo, walk into a bedroom where a sleeping couple, aspiring Olympic athlete Becky Foxx (Teri Hatcher) and her ex-husband, Roy Foxx (Peter Horton) are in bed. Lee Woods (James Spader) injects Becky with a tranquilizer then shoots Roy in the head. Lee and Dosmo Pizzo (Danny Aiello) then drive to an abandoned area off Mulholland Drive, where Lee shoots Dosmo and blows up the car in order to set Dosmo up as the fall guy for the murder. Lee flees the scene with his girlfriend, Helga Svelgen (Charlize Theron). Dosmo was wearing a bulletproof vest and survived the shooting and car explosion. He seeks shelter at the mansion of wealthy art dealer, Allan Hopper (Greg Cruttwell) where he takes Hopper and his assistant, Susan Parish (Glenne Headly) hostage. Dosmo is unaware that Hopper has called his sister, Audrey Hopper (Marsha Mason) a nurse, to come to the house. On her way, Audrey picks up Teddy Peppers (Paul Mazursky) a down-and-out TV producer contemplating suicide. Meanwhile, Becky awakens and discovers Roy's body in bed beside her. She runs from her house and flags down two detectives, young, ambitious Wes Taylor (Eric Stoltz) and cynical veteran Alvin Strayer (Jeff Daniels) who are driving by. Although he is sympathetic, Wes begins to suspect that Becky knows more than she is saying. Becky, who had hired Lee and Dosmo to kill Roy for $30,000, was unaware that they would kill Roy in her own house. Lee goes back to the house to get the money, encounters homicide detectives Creighton (Keith Carradine) and Carla Valenzuela (Ada Maris) working the crime scene, and kills them both. Wes decides to return to the crime scene to see if he can offer any insight on the case. Masquerading as one of the detectives, Lee lures Wes outside, intending to kill him. Becky and Helga get into an argument, which escalates into a fight. After being smashed over the head with a vase by Becky, Helga reaches across the bed to grab her gun from her purse, but Becky realizes this and runs and grabs the gun as well to prevent herself from being shot. In a confused fight for the gun, Helga ends up getting shot and wounded, after which Becky escapes from the hotel with Helga shooting at her from the doorway of the room multiple times but missing with each shot. Helga finds her way to Becky's house, where Lee has knocked Wes unconscious. Lee reluctantly decides to kill Helga instead of taking her to the hospital, concluding that her wound is too severe to be treated, but his gun jams. He turns to retrieve Wes's gun but finds that Helga has escaped and has flagged down a passing car containing Dosmo and his hostages. Audrey jumps out of the car and tries to help the dying Helga, but Helga dies on the roadside. Wes is caught in the middle of a shootout between Dosmo and Lee, and is shot in the legs. Just before Lee can kill Dosmo, Teddy shoots Lee, killing him. A grateful Wes allows Dosmo to take the $30,000 and escape with Susan, the following day, Teddy shows up to an anniversary party that Audrey is attending. As Susan and Dosmo drive down a highway, Dosmo contemplates using the money to start a pizzeria in Brooklyn; Susan smiles and he kisses her. ===== On the night of a full moon, the fairies ruled by Queen Lulea are dancing in the Forest of Burzee. Lulea calls a halt to it, for "one may grow weary even of merrymaking". To divert themselves, another fairy recommends that they make something they can imbue with fairy magic. After several ideas are considered and rejected, the fairies decide to make a magic cloak that can grant its wearer one wish. The fairy who proposed it, Espa, and Queen Lulea agree that such a cloak will benefit mortals greatly. However, its wish-granting power cannot be used if the cloak is stolen from its previous wearer. After the fairies finish the golden cloak, Ereol arrives from the kingdom of Noland whose king has just died. On the advice of the Man in the Moon, Ereol is dispatched to Noland to give the magic cloak to the first unhappy person she meets. Meanwhile, Noland's five high counselors assemble in the capital city of Nole and refuse to allow the valet Jikki to ring the bell that indicates the king has died until they decide how to choose his successor. Retrieving the book of the law of Noland (to be used only when the king is unavailable, for the king's will is law in Noland), the counselors learn that the forty-seventh person to pass through Nole's eastern gate at sunrise is to be declared king or queen. The next day, the five counselors assemble at the eastern gate and count off the procession entering Nole. Number forty-seven turns out to be Timothy (who everyone calls "Bud"), the orphaned son of a ferryman who, with his sister Meg (nicknamed "Fluff"), is entering town with their stern Aunt Rivette, a laundress for the city of Nole. Along the way from their house to Nole, Ereol meets Fluff and gives her the magic cloak due to her unhappiness at Bud's ill treatment by Rivette. The power of the cloak is first seen when Fluff wishes she could be happy again, and she becomes so. Bud—now King Bud—is welcomed by the high counselors and the people of Nole as their new king. His sister Fluff becomes Princess Fluff, and they take residence in the royal palace. Aunt Rivette is relegated to an upper room of the palace. While Bud and Fluff glory in their new positions of authority and their possessions, Aunt Rivette wants to spread the news of her good fortune to her friends. She asks Fluff if she can wear her cloak, and she becomes so tired walking that she wishes she could fly. Two wings sprout from Aunt Rivette's back, causing her to panic at first, but she soon becomes very adept at using them. On its way back to the Princess, the cloak passes through the hands of the king's counselors and the king's valet, each of whom have their wishes immediately granted. The minstrel Quavo crosses from Noland over a steep mountain range into the land of Ix, whose witch-queen ruler Zixi learns of the magic cloak and seeks to use it to make her reflection in a mirror as beautiful as she has made herself. Zixi is 683 years old, but her magic has allowed her to appear sixteen for a long time; however, the queen's reflection appears as old as she truly is. (This contradicts The Road to Oz in which the Wizard of Oz refers to Queen Zixi as having lived thousands of years—of course, he may simply have been mistaken; or, the Magic Cloak story may simply have taken place many years prior.) Believing that Princess Fluff would not simply give her the cloak to use since Ix and Noland aren't on speaking terms, Queen Zixi disguises herself and opens a school for witchery in Noland. Princess Fluff arrives as one of the pupils in her second-best cloak; Zixi is discovered to be a would-be thief when she demands the Princess wear the other, magic cloak. Next, Zixi leads the royal army of Ix to conquer Noland, but the counselors use their wish-granted abilities to repel the invaders back across the mountains. Zixi disguises herself again and arrives at the royal palace of Noland to be hired as a serving maid to Princess Fluff. When she is alone in the Princess' chamber, Zixi summons imps to make a replica of the magic cloak and replace the Princess' magic cloak with that one. She is not caught in the theft, but when Zixi tries to use the cloak herself, its power fails because she stole it. Believing that its power is gone, Zixi leaves the cloak in the forest. The queen of Ix is sorrowful until she realizes through encounters with an alligator that wants to climb a tree, an owl that wants to swim like a fish, and a girl who wants to be a man, that she has been foolish to be unhappy with her lot. The Roly-Rogues live on a high plateau above Noland and Ix. When one of the ball-shaped people accidentally bounces into Noland and views the city of Nole, they decide to conquer Noland in preference to constantly fighting among themselves. Even with their wish-granted abilities (the general wished himself ten feet tall, the lord high executioner wished for stretching arms, etc.), King Bud's counselors and Nole are soon overwhelmed by the invaders. King Bud, Princess Fluff, Aunt Rivette, and lord high steward Tallydab (who wished for his dog Ruffles to talk) escape and plan to retrieve the magic cloak which they believe is in the palace. Aunt Rivette carries Bud and Fluff to the palace and they battle past the Roly-Rogues, but when Bud puts on the cloak (since he hadn't made his wish yet; he was saving it) and wishes the Roly-Rogues away, nothing happens. Caught aback, Aunt Rivette takes her niece and nephew in flight with her to Ix on the opposite side of the mountain range that the Roly-Rogues came from. Welcomed by Queen Zixi, who confesses that she stole the real magic cloak, Princess Fluff promises that she will let her use it after the Roly-Rogues are defeated. When they arrive where Zixi had left the cloak in the forest, it's gone and the party mounts a search to find it. Along the way, Zixi notes that the alligator, owl, and girl have become satisfied with who each of them are. The cloak was found by Edi, a shepherd who took it to Dame Dingle, a local seamstress. The seamstress reveals that she cut the cloak in half, used one half, and gave the other away. Zixi, Bud, Fluff, Rivette, Tallydab, and Ruffles track down the remaining pieces of the cloak, but one of them cannot be retrieved because the woman who had it sewed it into a necktie for her seaman son, and he won't be back home for a year. Without the complete cloak, Bud can't wish the Roly-Rogues away. Queen Zixi uses the contents of a Silver Vial mixed in with their soup to defeat the Roly-Rogues. They're put to sleep for ten hours in which time Zixi and her army tie the tucked-in creatures up (when they sleep or roll, the Roly-Rogues retract their heads, arms, and feet) and send them all bobbing in the river on the Ix side of the mountain range. King Bud and his allies retake Nole, and the lands of Noland and Ix declare lasting friendship between them. Later that year, the sailor whose necktie had the last piece of the magic cloak returns home and presents a necktie similar in appearance to King Bud, for he'd lost the other one at sea. Enraged, King Bud is about to have the sailor and his mother put in prison, when Queen Lulea of the fairies appears to take the cloak away because it has caused so much trouble. She undoes the foolish wishes that the cloak granted, allowing the wiser ones to remain, and graciously allows Bud to use the cloak for one last wish: "that I may become the best king that Noland has ever had!" Lulea will not grant Zixi's wish to see her own beauty, because the fairies do not approve of those who practice witchcraft. Queen Zixi returns to her kingdom, to rule it with kindness and justice—but, with her wish unfilfilled, must always beware of a mirror. ===== left The film's setting is a town in Oaxaca during the festival of its patron saint, for which the church appoints a layman as mayordomo or steward, an honor that in effect is gained by being able to organize and cover the high costs of most of the saint's local festivities. The post is however very coveted by the locals as it is socially prestigious. Ánimas Trujano (Mifune, dubbed by Narciso Busquets) is a drunken, irresponsible peasant who abuses his children and does nothing while his long-suffering wife supports the family. Obsessed with earning the respect which is denied to him by his peers as a result of his behavior, Trujano aims to be mayordomo in the annual festival and begins to do everything he can to get the needed money. After his eldest daughter is impregnated out of wedlock by the son of the local land baron (played by Eduardo Fajardo), Trujano sells the baby to the land baron in exchange for a small fortune that makes him eligible to be appointed mayordomo. Meanwhile, Trujano's wife (Columba Domínguez) encounters trouble when it is revealed that her husband has been seeing a local woman of dubious morals (Flor Silvestre). ===== The crew of the joint British and American space shuttle Churchill, under the command of Colonel Tom Carlsen, finds a spaceship hidden in the coma of Halley's Comet. Inside, the crew discovers hundreds of desiccated bat-like creatures and three naked humanoid bodies (two male and one female) in suspended animation within glass containers. The crew recovers a bat-alien and the three bodies and begins the return trip to Earth. However, during the return journey, mission control loses contact with Churchill. A rescue mission is launched to investigate. The rescuers discover that Churchill has been gutted by fire. The present crew are dead, and the escape pod is missing, yet the three containers bearing the bodies remain intact. The bodies are taken to the European Space Research Centre in London. Prior to an autopsy, the female alien awakens and drains the life force out of a guard. She then escapes the facility and proceeds to drain other humans of their life force, revealing an ability to shapeshift. The guard revives after two hours and also displays the ability to drain others of their life force. Soon thereafter, the two male vampires awaken and attempt a violent escape, but they are apparently destroyed by grenades thrown by the guards. Meanwhile, in Texas, an escape pod from Churchill is found with Carlsen inside. Carlsen is flown to London, where he describes the course of events, culminating in the draining of the Churchill crew's life force. Carlsen explains that he set fire to the shuttle with the intention of saving Earth from the same fate and escaped in the pod. However, when he is hypnotised, it becomes clear that Carlsen possesses a psychic link to the female alien. Carlsen admits to Caine that, while on Churchill, he felt compelled to open the female vampire's container and share his life force with her. Carlsen and SAS Colonel Colin Caine trace her to a psychiatric hospital in Yorkshire. The two believe they have managed to trap her within the heavily sedated body of the hospital's manager, Dr. Armstrong. Carlsen and Caine later learn they were deceived, as the aliens had wanted to draw them out of London. The two male vampires have survived by shapeshifting into the soldiers who killed their previous bodies, and now the pair are infecting most of London's population. As Carlsen and Caine are transporting Dr. Armstrong back to London, the female alien escapes from her sedated host and disappears. Martial law is declared as the vampire plague sweeps through the city; the victims seeking out other humans to absorb their life force and perpetuate the cycle. The absorbed life forces are channeled by the male vampires to the female vampire, who transmits the accumulated energy to their spaceship, which is now in geosynchronous orbit over London. Dr. Fallada impales one of the male vampires with an ancient weapon of "leaded iron". He contacts Carlsen and Caine and surmises that the creatures have visited Earth periodically with the coming of Halley's Comet, creating the vampire legends. He delivers the weapon to Caine before succumbing to the infection. The female vampire is tracked by Carlsen to St. Paul's Cathedral, where she is lying upon the altar, transferring energy to her spaceship. She reveals, much to Carlsen's shock, that they are a part of each other due to the sharing of their life forces, thus sharing their psychic bond. Caine follows Carlsen to the cathedral and is intercepted by the second male vampire, whom he kills. Caine throws Carlsen the weapon, who impales himself and the female alien simultaneously. This action causes the release of a burst of energy that blows open the dome of St. Paul's. The two ascend the column of energy to the spaceship, which then returns to the comet as Caine watches. ===== The film begins with a flashback narrated by Leland P. Fitzgerald, describing how he could not remember the details of the day that he killed an intellectually disabled boy named Ryan Pollard. Leland is arrested. Ryan's parents, Harry and Karen, sisters Becky and Julie, and Julie's live-in boyfriend Allen grieve the loss of their loved one. Leland's divorced mother, Marybeth, is desperate to see her son, while his father, famous writer Albert Fitzgerald, discovers his son's fate in a newspaper and returns home to be there for the trial. While in juvenile hall, Leland is schooled by teacher Pearl Madison, an aspiring writer who is searching for a breakthrough story. Like many others at the detention center, Pearl senses something is different about the emotionally detached Leland, and helps him circumvent the prison rules so he can keep a journal. While his girlfriend is out of town in Los Angeles, Pearl sleeps with a coworker and tells her that he is going to write a book about Leland. Through his discussions with Pearl, Leland reveals his childhood memories such as his grandmother's funeral and traveling long distances to visit his father. One time, he decided to stay in New York rather than continue on to see his father. After he could not find a hotel, a kindhearted family, the Calderons, decided to take him in for his stay. He continued to visit the family over the years, and was especially captivated by Mrs. Calderon. The two also discuss Leland's history with Becky, Ryan's sister. He had met her innocently at a record store and begun regularly walking home with Ryan and her after school. They had grown to love each other, and Leland recalled a time when Becky asked him to promise her "everything's gonna be okay", despite his objections that he had no control over bad things that could happen. As she explained, sometimes it is just nice to hear things one hopes to be true. Pearl covertly arranges a meeting with Leland's father at his hotel. After he asks for more information on his family's past, Albert realizes Pearl is researching for his book and refuses to let his son be exploited - something of which he is guilty himself. He eventually tells the prison supervisor about Pearl's prohibited meetings with Leland, leading him to be reassigned to another section of the prison. Leland discovers through Allen that Becky had an affair with a drug dealer named Kevin who is due to be released from prison. After he gets out of prison, Becky starts to see Kevin again and decides to break up with Leland. In a rare display of emotion, he argues with her, but ultimately realizes the futility of anything he can do or say to change her mind, saying that neither the tears nor the amount of his love - he says he still dreams about her - can change the fact that she does not love him in return. Pearl says he should be angry with her since she betrayed him. Leland replies that he is sad, but not angry. Pearl begins to realize the implications of his sexual indiscretion through his discussions with Leland, and admits his own failings. Eventually, his girlfriend discovers his tryst and they have a fight over the phone. Meanwhile, Julie decides to break up with Allen and does not want to go to college with him. Brokenhearted, he holds up an auto repair shop and allows himself to be arrested in front of Julie. He is sent to the same juvenile hall as Leland, where he steals a knife (from Pearl) and kills Leland in the prison yard as revenge for what he had done to the Pollard family. Pearl flies to LA to reconcile with his girlfriend and reads Leland's final entries in his journal. On one of his return trips to New York, Leland had discovered that Mrs. Calderon had divorced her husband and that the spark for life that she had before was gone; it is implied Leland and Mrs. Calderon had slept together. Afterwards, Leland writes, he begins noticing a sadness in everyone around him, driving him into a deep depression. One day, as he walks Ryan home from school, the boy becomes frustrated with an obstacle on the bike path. Leland helps him off his bike, gives him a hug, and whispers in his ear that "everything is going to be okay". Leland wanted to stop the sadness. He could not return the spark to Mrs. Calderon but he could eliminate a boy who was retarded so that people would not look at him like he would never be normal. By eliminating Ryan, he could stop his sadness. ===== The book is a lyrical account of the life of Mohammed Ahmed, the eighth daughter of Hajji Ahmed Suleyman. Frustrated by his failure to bring a son into the world, Ahmed's father is determined that his youngest daughter will be raised as a boy, with all the rights and privileges that go along with it. The first part of the book describes the father's efforts to thwart suspicion that his child is a boy, especially from his jealous brothers, who look to inherit Ahmed's fortune. Using bribery and deceit, the masquerade succeeds. Mohammed Ahmed is circumcised (blood is drawn from her imaginary penis when Hajji Ahmed (Father) intentionally cuts his finger over the child during the ceremony), his breasts are bound, and he even marries his cousin Fatima, a sickly epileptic girl, who dies young. Only the father, the mother, and the midwife are ever aware of the hoax that is being perpetrated. The story is told by a wandering storyteller, who reveals the tale, bit by bit, to an enthusiastic—though sometimes skeptical—audience. To verify his story, the storyteller claims to quote from a journal that Mohammed Ahmed kept, revealing his innermost thoughts about his confused gender identity. Mohammed Ahmed also reveals himself through correspondence with a mysterious friend, who writes him letters challenging his identity. The book changes direction after Fatima's death and the disappearance of the storyteller, forced away by the modernization of the country. The remainder of the journal has been lost, but some of the crowd that once listened to the storyteller continues to meet and share how they see the story ending. Each of them describes Mohammed Ahmed's transition back to womanhood, where she assumes the identity of Zahra. Their stories have different endings, some happy, others tragic, until a blind troubador, a fictionalised version of Jorge Luis Borges, continues the tale leading up to Mohammed Ahmed/Zahra's death. ===== The novel's protagonist is a Superman analogue named David Brinkley (a tuckerization of TV newsman David Brinkley). His superhero codename is never fully given: various intelligence agencies refer to him as "Indigo" (the color of his mask) and "der Übermensch" (Overman) and the original book jacket refers to him as "Everyman." He hails from the planet Cronk and is vulnerable to the substance Cronkite (a play on both TV newsman Walter Cronkite, and Superman's home Krypton and weakness to Kryptonite). David gradually loses his superhuman powers due to the influence of an unknown enemy, and all of the other superheroes (including, strangely, Snoopy) retire, disappear, or die. It is later revealed that this is a plot made by the alien elf Pxyzsyzygy (Mr. Mxyzptlk by way of Howard Hughes) to kill all heroes. David's powers gradually return, years later, in the midst of a mid-life crisis, and as criminals swarm Manhattan. The loss of David's powers is discovered to be because his enemies—unsure of his secret identity—have introduced minute amounts of Cronkite into many common products, as well as the water supply. The return of his powers is later revealed to be a CIA- sponsored attempt to lure Brinkley out of retirement so that they can assassinate him as required by a nuclear disarmament treaty with the USSR. With the assistance of the institutionalized Captain Mantra (Captain Marvel) and a grown-up, flamboyantly gay Peter Pan, David relearns how to use his powers and ultimately defeats his enemies: gigolo "Stretch" O'Toole, aka Elastic Man (Plastic Man); the incest-born Demoniac (reminiscent of Captain Marvel, Jr. and Black Adam); and the millionaire Powell Pugh, a.k.a. the alien elf Pxyzsyzygy (Mr. Mxyzptlk by way of Howard Hughes). ===== As a 17-year-old orphan, Henri Young (Kevin Bacon), steals $5.00 from a grocery store to feed himself and his little sister, both of whom are destitute. He is apprehended by the store clerk, and his sister is sent to an orphanage. Because that grocery store also housed a U.S. Post Office his crime becomes a federal offense. Young never sees his sister again and is sentenced to Leavenworth Penitentiary, Kansas. After later being transferred to Alcatraz, he participates in an escape attempt with two other prisoners. The escape plan fails due to the betrayal of a fellow inmate, Rufus McCain (David Michael Sterling). Young is punished by being sent to "the hole" which is in Alcatraz's dungeons. Except for 30 minutes on Christmas Day in 1940, he is left in there for three years. The solitary confinement causes Young to lose his sanity. On release back to the general population, he experiences a psychotic episode in the prison cafeteria and attacks McCain, stabbing him to death with a spoon in full view of the prison staff and the other convicts. Young is put on trial in San Francisco for first degree murder in what prosecutors and the public-defender's office believe is an open-and- shut case. Public defender James Stamphill (Christian Slater), a recent graduate of Harvard Law School, is given the case. After discovering the facts of Young's case, Stamphill attempts to put Alcatraz on trial by alleging that its harsh conditions drove him insane. The trial becomes highly politicized and contentious. Eventually Young is convicted of involuntary manslaughter, not first degree murder. He is returned to Alcatraz where he subsequently dies. The film concludes with ″The Rock's″ associate warden Milton Glenn (Gary Oldman) being convicted for mistreatment and banned from working in the US penal system. ===== The title story, "Day Million", details the romantic affair between two people, referred to as Don and Dora (shortened versions of the names of both) in the millionth day CE, which falls late in the year 2737, although the author alternately describes it as being about a thousand years in the future. The text addresses the reader directly, subverting expectations by revealing that Dora is genetically male but was made female shortly after conception because genetic analysis showed that she would prefer that outcome. Don is described as handsome and bronzed, but is revealed to be a partial cyborg who wears a coppery radiation shield over his entire body, to protect him while helping to pilot a starship. Dora for her part is semi-aquatic, having gills. The two have a marriage ceremony and then part forever, having exchanged personality recordings. Through these they can experience sex with each other and with any number of other virtual lovers. The reader is addressed as a conservative man who is repelled by the concepts presented, while enjoying the fruits of progress in the 1960s. In the "Schematic Man" a man's life is transcribed into a computer to the point where he begins to believe that he is living within the machine, and "Making Love", in which population control is effected by providing everybody with simulated lovers indistinguishable from the real thing. In contrast, "Under Two Moons" combines a parody of the John Carter stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs, with a hero cast as a space-traveling secret agent in the style of James Bond. "The Day the Martians Came" is a short piece about men in a bar making up jokes about the newly discovered Martians, who are pathetic primitive beings. All are re-workings of old racial jokes. Somebody suggests that discovering the Martians won't matter to anybody, but the black bartender responds that it might matter a lot to people like him. "The Deadly Mission of P. Snodgrass" is a time-travel story in which the protagonist gives modern medicine and technology to the Romans. The resultant population explosion, extrapolated to the 20th century, results in the entire mass of the planet Earth consisting of human bodies. It was originally published as humorous essay on the "Editor's Page" of Galaxy Science Fiction (June 1962). ===== Three epigraphs open the book: quotes from French writer Paul Valéry, from German Christian mystic Jacob Boehme, and a 1982 news clipping from the Yuma Sun reporting the claim of the members of an Ethiopian archeological or anthropological expedition that a 300,000 year-old human skull had been scalped. The novel tells the story of a teenage runaway named only as "the kid", who was born in Tennessee during the famously active Leonids meteor shower of 1833. He first meets the enormous and hairless Judge Holden at a religious revival in a tent in Nacogdoches, Texas: Holden falsely accuses the preacher of raping children and goats, inciting the audience to attack him. After a violent encounter with a bartender establishes the kid as a formidable fighter, he joins a party of ill-equipped U.S. Army irregulars on a filibustering mission led by a Captain White. Failing to stay clear of a huge herd of rustled and stolen animals, White's group is overwhelmed by an accompanying group of hundreds of Comanche warriors. Few of them survive. Arrested as a filibuster in Chihuahua, the kid is set free when his acquaintance Toadvine tells the authorities they will make useful Indian hunters for the state's newly hired scalphunting operation. They join Glanton and his gang, and the bulk of the novel is devoted to detailing their activities and conversations. The gang encounters a traveling carnival, and, in untranslated Spanish, several of their fortunes are told with Tarot cards. The gang originally contract with various regional leaders to protect locals from marauding Apaches, and are given a bounty for each scalp they recover. Before long, however, they devolve into the outright murder of unthreatening Indians, unprotected Mexican villages, and eventually even the Mexican army and anyone else who crosses their path. Throughout the novel Holden is presented as a profoundly mysterious and awe-inspiring figure; the others seem to regard him as not quite human. Like the historical Holden of Chamberlain's autobiography, he is a child-killer. According to the kid's new companion Ben Tobin, an "ex-priest", the Glanton gang first met the judge while fleeing for their lives from a much larger Apache group. In the middle of a blasted desert, they found Holden sitting on an enormous boulder, where he seemed to be waiting for the gang. In a scene with distinctly Faustian overtones, they agreed to follow his leadership, and he took them to an extinct volcano where he instructed the ragged, desperate gang on how to manufacture gunpowder, enough to give them the advantage against the Apaches. When the kid remembers seeing Holden in Nacogdoches, Tobin tells the kid that each man in the gang claims to have met the judge at some point before joining the Glanton Gang. After months of marauding, the gang crosses into U.S. territory, where they eventually set up a systematic and brutal robbing operation at a ferry on the Gila River at Yuma, Arizona. Local Yuma (Quechan) Indians are at first approached to help the gang wrest control of the ferry from its original owners, but Glanton's gang betrays them, using their presence and previously coordinated attack on the ferry as an excuse to seize the ferry's munitions and slaughter the Yuma. Because of the new operators' brutal ways, the U.S. Army and the Yumas set up a second ferry at a ford upriver. After a while, the Yumas attack and kill most of the gang. The kid, Toadvine and Tobin are among the survivors who flee into the desert, though the kid takes an arrow in the leg. The kid and Tobin head west, and come across Holden, who first negotiates, then threatens them for their gun and possessions. Holden shoots Tobin in the neck, and the wounded pair hide among bones by a desert creek. Tobin repeatedly urges the kid to fire upon Holden. The kid does so – only once – but misses his mark. The survivors continue their travels, ending up in San Diego. The kid gets separated from Tobin and is subsequently imprisoned. Holden visits the kid in jail, and tells him that he has told the jailers "the truth": that the kid alone was responsible for the end of the Glanton gang. The kid declares that the judge was responsible for the gang's evil, but the judge denies it. The kid stoically rebuts all of Holden's statements, but when the judge reaches through the cell bars to touch him, the kid recoils in disgust. Holden leaves the kid in jail, stating that he "has errands." The kid is released on recognizance and seeks a doctor to treat his wound. While recovering from the "spirits of ether", he hallucinates the judge visiting him along with a curious man who forges coins. The kid recovers and seeks out Tobin, with no luck. He makes his way to Los Angeles, where Toadvine and another member of the Glanton gang, David Brown, are hanged for their crimes. The kid again wanders across the American West, and decades are compressed into a few pages. In 1878 the kid, now in his mid-40s and referred to as "the man", makes his way to Fort Griffin, Texas. The lawless city is a center for processing the remains of the American Bison, which have been hunted nearly to extinction. At a saloon he meets the judge, who seems not to have aged in the intervening years. Holden calls the kid "the last of the true," and the pair talk. Holden describes the kid as a disappointment, stating that he held in his heart "clemency for the heathen." Holden declares that the kid has arrived at the saloon for "the dance" – the dance of violence, war, and bloodshed that the judge had so often praised. The kid seems to deny all of these ideas, telling the judge "You aint nothin [sic]," and noting the performing bear at the saloon, states, "even a dumb animal can dance." The kid hires a prostitute, then afterwards goes to an outhouse under another meteor shower. In the outhouse, he is surprised by the naked judge, who "gathered him in his arms against his immense and terrible flesh." This is the last mention of the kid, though in the next scene two men come from the saloon and encounter a third man urinating near the outhouse. The unnamed third man advises the two not to go in the outhouse. They ignore the suggestion, open the door, and can only gaze in awed horror at what they see, one of them stating "Good God almighty." The last paragraph finds the judge back in the saloon, dancing and playing fiddle among the drunkards and the whores, saying that he will never die. The ambiguous fate of the kid is followed by an epilogue, featuring a possibly allegorical man augering lines of holes across the prairie, perhaps for fence posts. The man sparks a fire in each of the holes, and an assortment of wanderers trail behind him. ===== The novel tells of John Grady Cole, a 16-year-old who grew up on his grandfather's ranch in San Angelo, Texas. The boy was raised for a significant part of his youth, perhaps 15 of his 16 years, by a family of Mexican origin who worked on the ranch; he is a native speaker of Spanish and English.Herlihy-Mera, Jeffrey. "Mojado Reverso; or, A Reverse Wetback: On John Grady Cole’s Mexican Ancestry in All the Pretty Horses", Modern Fiction Studies, Fall 2015. Retrieved: 15 October 2015. The story begins in 1949, soon after the death of John Grady's grandfather when Grady learns the ranch is to be sold. Faced with the prospect of moving into town, Grady instead chooses to leave and persuades his best friend, Lacey Rawlins, to accompany him. Traveling by horseback, the pair travel southward into Mexico, where they hope to find work as cowboys. Shortly before they cross the Mexican border, they encounter a young man who says he is named Jimmy Blevins and who seems to be about 13 but claims to be older. Blevins' origins and the authenticity of his name are never quite clarified. Blevins rides a huge bay horse that is far too fine a specimen to be the property of a runaway boy, but Blevins insists it is his. As they travel south through a severe thunderstorm, Blevins' horse runs off, and he loses his pistol. Blevins persuades John Grady and Rawlins to accompany him to the nearest town to find the horse and his distinctive vintage Colt pistol. They find both but have no way to prove Blevins' ownership. Against his companions' better judgment, Blevins steals back the horse. As the three are riding away from the town they are pursued, and Blevins separates from Rawlins and John Grady. The pursuers follow Blevins, and Rawlins and Grady escape. Rawlins and John Grady travel farther south. In the fertile oasis region of Coahuila known as the Bolsón de Cuatro Ciénegas, they find employment at a large ranch. There, John Grady first encounters the ranch owner's beautiful daughter, Alejandra. As Rawlins pursues work with the ranch hands, John Grady's skill with horses catches the eye of the owner, who brings him into the ranch house and promotes him to a more responsible position as a horse trainer and breeder. At this time, John Grady begins an affair with Alejandra, which attracts the attention of Alejandra's great aunt, an intelligent and strong-willed widow who in her younger days defied social convention by being involved with Mexican revolutionaries. She tells John Grady about the consequences in Mexican society of a woman losing her honor, and how Alejandra can ill-afford to be seen in the presence of John Grady due to its potential impact on her reputation. The aunt recounts her own story of love and loss, and says, though it might seem she would be sympathetic to her own grandniece's desire, it, in fact, has the opposite impact; she opposes their involvement. As John Grady and Alejandra secretly become more deeply involved, a group of Mexican Rangers visit the ranch and then ride off without explanation. Alejandra returns to Mexico City, where she is in school, and John Grady plans to ask her to admit her true feelings for him upon her return. When he confides this to a senior ranch hand who has been kind to him, John Grady is surprised to learn Alejandra has returned to the ranch without coming to see him. Somewhat later, the Rangers return and arrest Rawlins and John Grady. They are brought to a dismal Mexican holding cell where they discover Blevins is also in custody. They learn Blevins had escaped his pursuers but subsequently returned to the village where he had recovered his horse, this time to retrieve the Colt pistol. In the process of getting the pistol, he shot and killed a man. The three boys are interrogated and beaten, and a crooked police captain threatens them. While they are being transferred from their small jail to a larger prison, the captain and police officers detour to a remote ranch. Blevins is led off while Rawlins and John Grady watch powerlessly; then they hear gunshots as Blevins is executed. The two friends are brought to the larger prison, where the inmates test the two boys by attacking them relentlessly over a period of days. They barely survive and try to figure out how to get out of prison; an inmate with special privileges, who seems to command the respect of the other inmates, takes an interest in their situation and suggests money might solve their problem. They decline this offer of protection, because they have no money and Rawlins is soon severely wounded by a knife-wielding inmate and is taken away; John Grady is not sure if Rawlins has survived. Soon afterward, John Grady is wounded while defending himself from a cuchillero and kills the man. After a long recovery from his near-fatal stabbing, John Grady is released and finds Rawlins has also survived and been freed. They discover that Alejandra's aunt has interceded to free them, but on the condition that Alejandra undertake never to see John Grady again. Rawlins returns to the United States and John Grady tries to see Alejandra again. In the end, after a brief encounter, Alejandra decides she must keep her promise to her family and refuses John Grady's marriage proposal. John Grady, on his way back to Texas, kidnaps the captain at gunpoint, forces him to recover the horses and guns that were taken from him, Rawlins, and Blevins, and flees across the country. He is severely wounded in the escape and cauterizes a serious gunshot wound using his pistol barrel heated in a fire. He considers killing the captain but encounters a group of Mexicans who call themselves "men of the country," who take the captain as a prisoner. John Grady eventually returns to Texas and spends months trying to find the owner of Blevins' horse. He gains legal possession of the horse in a court hearing where he recounts the entire story of his journey across the border, and the judge later tries to absolve John Grady of his guilt both for killing the prisoner who attacked him and for being unable to prevent Blevins being murdered. John Grady briefly reunites with Rawlins to return his horse and learns that his own father has died (something he has already intuited). After watching the burial procession of one of his family's lifelong employees (an elderly Mexican woman who had helped care for three generations of his family from their infancy), the last strong link to his family and his past, John Grady rides off into the West with Blevins's horse in tow. ===== Patty Lane (Duke) is a normal, chatty, rambunctious teenager living in the Brooklyn Heights section of New York City, although the setting and characters resemble more simple Middle America (United States). Her father, Martin Lane (William Schallert), is the managing editor of the New York Daily Chronicle; Patty affectionately addresses him as "Poppo." Her "identical paternal cousin," Cathy Lane (also played by Duke), is sophisticated, brainy and demure and her father, Kenneth (also played by Schallert), Martin's identical twin brother, also works for the Chronicle as a foreign correspondent. Cathy moves to the United States from Scotland to live with Patty's family and attend Brooklyn Heights High School. While both girls are identical in physical appearance, their style, tastes and attitudes are nearly opposite, which is responsible for some of the comedic situations on the show. Though the character of "Cathy" received first billing over the character of "Patty" in the show's opening credits, virtually all episodes centered around Patty's misadventures, with Cathy often only playing a minor supporting role. The remarkable physical resemblance that Patty and Cathy share is explained by the fact that their fathers are identical twins. While Patty speaks with a typical American accent, Cathy speaks with what is supposed to be a slight Scottish accent (though in fact it has little resemblance to one); not surprisingly, however, both cousins are able to mimic each other's voice. Patty and Cathy also have an additional identical cousin, the Southern belle Betsy (also played by Duke), featured in the season two episode "The Perfect Hostess." ===== In 2008, President Walter Emerson, formerly an appointed U.S. Vice President and elevated by the death of the previous U.S. president, is crossing the U.S. on a campaign tour when a blizzard traps him in a remote Colorado diner with members of his staff plus a group of ordinary citizens. Suddenly, word arrives that Uday Hussein, the leader of Iraq, has invaded Kuwait. Using a television cameraman who is following his campaign, Emerson notifies the world that unless Hussein orders an immediate retreat and personally surrenders, he will bomb Baghdad with a nuclear weapon. Hussein, through his United Nations envoy, refuses to back down and cuts off telephone negotiations, claiming Emerson is a non-elected leader and also a Jew. He threatens to fire Iraq's black-market nuclear missiles at several global locations including Emerson's own, near NORAD in Colorado, if his country comes under attack. It is learned that Iraq purchased these weapons from France. Despite being a U.S. ally, the French President appears to be cavalier in confirming this with Emerson and his entourage. The sites of the missile launchers include Libya and North Korea. Emerson is counseled by his Chief of Staff, Marshall Thompson, a former university classmate, and by his National Security Adviser, Gayle Redford. Once his ultimatum is made and the countdown to his deadline begins, the President and his staff are confronted with the opinions of the diner's customers, including its angry owner and cook, Harvey, and a young bigot named Ralph. Emerson is not only adamant in his beliefs, he seems every bit as willing as Hussein to trigger a nuclear war. He orders a B-2 bomber to cross Iraq's borders despite the threats of the Iraqi ambassador that this would constitute an act of war. In retaliation, the Iraqis aim 23 nuclear ICBMs against various countries, including Australia, Japan, France and other targets. Emerson argues with advisers while appearing totally confident in his own actions. Suddenly, Harvey brandishes a gun and shoots the USAF major carrying the briefcase that contains the launch codes. Emerson's bodyguards then kill the cook in self-defense. To the horror of all, Emerson carries out his threat. He authorizes the dropping of a 100 megaton bomb on Baghdad, resulting in the complete destruction of that city. Iraq's retaliation begins. A bomb lands in Greece, but it does not detonate. Neither does a device that lands in Japan. A majority of the other missiles have been intercepted. A short time later, Emerson addresses the world on TV. He explains that in order to prevent Iraq from attaining nuclear weapons, the U.S. sold it nuclear weapons through the French, while ensuring that they would never be able to function properly. Already reeling from the shocks of the past few minutes, the President's aides are further astounded when he announces his immediate withdrawal from the election campaign. He did what he felt it necessary to do, but believes that someone else should be the one to carry on. ===== While scanning the skies through their telescope, two young boys, Akio and Tom, spy a spaceship descending into a nearby field. Stunned, bewildered, and bemused, they tell Akio's mother what they have seen, but she dismisses their story as childish nonsense. The next day, the two boys — with Akio's younger sister, Tomoko, in tow — cycle to the site to investigate. Enthralled, Akio and Tom manage to steal into the spaceship. But then, without warning, the ship takes off, leaving Tomoko behind. It soars into outer space toward a field of asteroids, which sends the boys into a panic. However, Gamera (obviously aware of the boys' plight) appears and clears a path for the ship through the asteroids. The spaceship, flying near the speed of light, leaves Gamera behind and transports the boys to an unknown planet, where it lands on the outskirts of an alien city. Suddenly, a silver "Space" Gyaos appears, menacing the ship and the two young boys. Just before the creature attacks, a second, bizarre monster — whose head resembles a Bowie knife — emerges from an underground lair and attacks the Space Gyaos. The Space Gyaos emits a beam that reflects off the new creature's blade-shaped head and cuts off its own right leg. After the Space Gyaos attempts to retreat, the knife-headed creature lunges and chops off the Space Gyaos' left wing, before cutting off its right wing. The creature then cuts the helpless Space Gyaos' head off and brutally cuts the body into smaller pieces before retreating back to its lair. Akio and Tom explore a portion of the alien city and meet the planet's only inhabitants: two beautiful women, named Barbella and Florbella, who explain that their planet, known as "Terra", orbits the sun directly opposite the earth, which is why it has never been discovered by Earth's astronomers. Furthermore, Terra is facing extinction; not only is the planet growing cold, but the Space Gyaos are taking it over and the two women are the last of their kind. The knife- headed monster, which the Terrans call "Guiron", is their last defense against the Space Gyaos. Barbella and Florbella suddenly turn on Tom and Akio and put them into restraints. Using their super-technological devices, the alien women probe the boys' minds, in the process learning about Gamera and its soft spot for children. It is revealed that the Terran women are cannibals that plan to feed on the boys' brains in order to absorb their knowledge. In preparation to extract Akio's brain for their nourishment, the women shave the child's head. On a rescue mission, Gamera lands on Terra in search of the boys. The women deploy Guiron to attack the giant turtle. Guiron plans to cut Gamera in half, but Gamera grabs one of Guiron's front legs and bites into it. Guiron tries to shake off the towering tortoise. Wrapping his tail onto a monolith, Gamera throws Guiron into a canyon, causing his knife-head to be stuck. Gamera uses his flame breath on Guiron. Guiron uses his shurikens to penetrate Gamera's cheeks. Gamera tries to heal his wounds by grabbing ice-like boulders. Guiron uses his shurikens again and this time Gamera uses the longest boulder to ricochet the shurikens into Guiron's own body. Guiron trudges away, while Gamera tumbles into a lake unconscious and on his back. Tom manages to free Akio, but, in the process, unintentionally releases Guiron. No longer under the aliens' control, Guiron rampages through the Terran city — even attacking its own mistresses as they attempt to flee to Earth. The knife-headed creature slices the spacecraft in half, mortally injuring Barbella; Florbella kills Barbella as she relates that useless members of their society are euthanized. While Guiron attacks the base where the boys are imprisoned, Gamera awakes and renews his assault on the alien creature, ultimately ramming Guiron's head into the ground. Florbella attempts to flee on a rocket, but the vehicle is sliced in half by Guiron and she dies as a result. Gamera catches half of the rocket and spears Guiron into his shuriken base. Gamera uses his flame breath on Guiron again where the rocket was; the rocket then explodes, cutting Guiron in half. Gamera uses his flame breath to weld the alien spacecraft back together and carries the ship and the two boys back to Earth. On Earth, the boys are returned to their mothers and they all say goodbye to Gamera as he flies off into the night. ===== In 1185, the Heike family fights against the Minamoto family. After a bloody naval battle in the Pacific Ocean, Yoshitsune Minamoto defeats the enemy and the survivors commit suicide. When the triumphant Yoshitsune arrives in Kyoto, his brother, the Shogun Yoritomo, is uneasy and orders his men to arrest Yoshitsune. However, Yoshitsune escapes with six loyal samurai led by Benkei and they head to the country of his only friend Hidehira Fujiwara. Near the border, after crossing the forest disguised as monks, their porter discovers that they are Yoshitsune and the six samurais and advises that the fearful Kajiwara and his soldiers are waiting for them at the border to arrest them. Yoshitsune disguises as a porter and at the barrier, Benkei has to convince Kajiwara that they are six monks traveling to collect donations to repair the Todai temple in Nara. ===== In a parody of Night Gallery, Bart introduces each of the three segments by walking through a gallery of paintings and each time choosing one of them as the focus of his story. ===== The Orchard Keeper is set during the inter-war period in the hamlet of Red Branch, a small, isolated community in Tennessee. Its story revolves around three characters: Uncle Arthur Ownby, an isolated woodman, who lives beside a rotting apple orchard; John Wesley Rattner, a young mountain boy; and Marion Sylder, an outlaw and bootlegger. The novel begins with Marion picking up a hitchhiker named Kenneth Rattner, who attacks Marion with a tire iron, attempting to murder and rob him. After a struggle, Marion strangles Kenneth to death. Marion dumps the corpse in a gravel pit on Arthur Ownby's property, as he knows the land well from his frequent pickups of bootleg whiskey. Arthur soon discovers the corpse, but rather than inform the authorities, he covers the pit over to keep the body hidden. As time passes, Kenneth's wife, Mildred, and son, John Wesley, come to accept he has likely been killed, and Mildred makes her son vow to one day take vengeance on his father's killer. One night, as Marion is picking up a shipment of whiskey hidden on Arthur's property, he witnesses Arthur unloading a shotgun into a tank the government has installed on his land. Unnerved, Marion collects the whiskey and flees the property, fearing Arthur might do him harm. Arthur passively watches Marion's car drive off into the night. Marion's car careens off the road and into a stream. John Wesley happens to be checking some of his traps in the area and, hearing the crash, comes to Marion's aid, helping the injured man to land. John Wesley is unaware that Marion is his father's killer, and Marion does not recognize John Wesley as the son of the man he killed. Grateful for his help, Marion gives John Wesley one of his dogs, and the two men develop a friendly, almost father-and-son relationship, with Marion teaching John Wesley how to hunt. The local police discover Marion's vehicle in the stream, its whiskey cargo mostly destroyed, as well the defaced government tank. John Wesley becomes a suspect and is threatened with criminal charges if he doesn't admit that Marion was driving the whiskey-filled car. John Wesley refuses to cooperate. The police then go to Arthur's cabin to question him. As they pull up in his yard, Arthur comes out of the cabin wielding a shotgun. The police return with reinforcements, and a shoot-out ensues. Arthur wounds a few of the officers, then flees, but is captured a short while later. Sylder, too, is captured, when his new vehicle breaks down on a bridge, its trunk filled with whiskey. Arthur is diagnosed as insane or senile and is sent to a mental hospital, where he will likely spend the remainder of his days. Sylder is sentenced to three years in prison for illegally transporting whiskey. Still oblivious to Sylder's role in his father's death, John Wesley leaves Red Branch. He returns several years later to find the town abandoned. ===== After his release from prison, Frank Cowperwood invests in stocks subsequent to the Panic of 1873, and becomes a millionaire again. He decides to move out of Philadelphia and start a new life in the West. He moves to Chicago with Aileen and his attorney is finally able to persuade Lillian to agree to a divorce. Frank decides to take over the street-railway system. He bankrupts several opponents with the help of John J. McKenty and other political allies. Meanwhile, Chicago society finds out about his past in Philadelphia and the couple are no longer invited to dinner parties; after a while, the press turns on him too. Cowperwood is unfaithful many times. Aileen finds out about a certain Rita and beats her up. She gives up on him and has an affair with Polk Lynde, a man of privilege; she eventually loses faith in him. Meanwhile, Cowperwood meets young Berenice Fleming; by the end of the novel, he tells her he loves her and she consents to live with him. However, the ending is bittersweet as Cowperwood has not managed to obtain the fifty-year franchise for his railway schemes that he wanted. ===== ===== The story takes place in the 19th century Egypt, during the Mahdist War. A 14-year-old Polish boy Stanisław (Staś) Tarkowski and 8-year-old English girl Nel Rawlison live with their fathers and grow up in the city of Port Said. Their fathers are engineers who supervise the maintenance of the Suez Canal. One day an anti-British rebellion begins in Sudan, led by a Muslim preacher Mahdi. Staś and Nel are captured as hostages by a group of Arabs who hope that they can exchange the children for Fatima, Mahdi's distant relative, who had been arrested by the British at the beginning of the novel. Nel and Staś are forced to travel through the Sahara Desert to Khartoum, where they are to be presented to Mahdi. The journey is difficult and exhausting, especially for delicate and vulnerable Nel. Staś, who is a brave and responsible boy, protects his friend from the abductors' cruelty, even though that means that he is beaten and punished. His plans to escape fail, and the children gradually lose their hope. When the group arrive in Khartoum (precisely - Omdurman) the Arabs are disappointed by the fact that Mahdi – busy with leading the revolt – ignored their "mission" and turned down their offers. They take their anger and frustration on the children. Staś is summoned to meet with the Mahdi and turns down the rebel leader's offer to convert to Islam. For that he is strongly reprimanded by another European captive, a Greek who did agree to convert in order to save his family and himself. The Greek tells Staś that such a forced conversion does not count since "God sees what is inside your heart" and that by his intransigence Staś may have doomed Nel to terrible death. Le Gouffre noir, the French edition of Sienkiewicz's novel (Nathan, 1934) Staś and Nel, exhausted by heat, thirst, hunger and poor treatment, live for some time in the city ruined by war, poverty and diseases. After a while the children and Arabs in another journey further south, to Fashoda. One day the group encounters a lion who attacks them. The Arabs (who don't know how to fire a shotgun) hand in the weapon to Staś and beg him to shoot the beast. Staś kills the lion, and then shoots down the Arabs as well. This is dictated by the despair and fury: the boy knows that the men were not going to set the children free. He hated the Arabs for abusing them – especially Nel. Free of the Arabs, the children are marooned in the depth of Africa. They set out in an arduous journey through the African desert and jungle in hope that sooner or later they encounter British explorers or British army. The journey is full of dangers and adventures. The children, accompanied by two black slaves (a boy named Kali and a girl named Mea) whom Staś had freed from the Arabs, encounter a number of wonders and perils. The children stop for a rest on a beautiful hill near a waterfall. They soon find out that a gigantic elephant has been trapped in a gully nearby. Nel, who loves animals, takes pity on the beast and saves it from starvation by throwing fruits and leaves into the gorge. The girl and the elephant (which is extremely intelligent and benign and whom Nel calls "King" because of its size) quickly become friends. Soon Nel is stricken with malaria and is about to die; Staś, mad with grief, decides to go to what he thinks is a Bedouin camp and beg for quinine. When he gets to the camp he find out that it belongs to an old Swiss explorer named Linde. The man had been severely injured by a wild boar and is waiting for death. All his African servants had fallen ill to sleeping sickness and die one after another. Although horrified by this gruesome death camp, Staś becomes friend with Linde who generously supplies him with food, weapon, gunpowder and quinine. Thanks to the medicine Nel recovers. Staś, grateful for Linde's help, accompanies the Swiss until the man's death. Then, using Linde's gunpowder, he frees King from the trap and they set out in further journey. Accompanying the children further on their journey is the 12-year-old slave boy of Linde, Nasibu. The group sojourns on top of a small mountain mentioned by Linde before his death where Staś teaches Kali how to shoot. On a certain day, a furious gorilla on the mountain attacks Nasibu but Nasibu is rescued by their now-tamed elephant which attacks and kills the gorilla. Deciding that the mountaintop is no longer safe, the protagonists move onto the village of Wa-Hima. The tribes-people, seeing Staś riding upon an elephant, honor him and Nel as a Good Mzibu (a good spirit/goddess). The group stays in the villages a short time, for Kali is by birth-right the prince of the Wa-Hima tribe and therefore well-known. Staś is further venerated by the villagers when he kills the wobo (a black leopard) that was plaguing the villages. Upon reaching Kali's home village the group learns that his tribe has been invaded by and attacked by their enemies since time immemorial – the Sambur tribe. Due to assistance from Kali's tribe and the guns carried by Staś and Nel, the war is won in the protagonist's favour. Though because of his good nature, Staś and Nel command that the tribes-people of the Sambur tribe not be killed but rather united with the Wa-Hima. Staś urges the tribes to accept Christianity and live peacefully together. Staś, Nel, Saba, King, Kali, and 100 Sambur and Wa-Hima tribes-people move on to the East, which has not been mapped, in hopes of reaching the Indian Ocean and being found by English explorers who might be searching for them. Kali has accompanied with him also two witch-doctors: M'Kunje and M'Rua, in fear that they not plot against him while he is gone from his home. However, it finishes tragically for the group: both of the witch-doctors steal food and the last of the water but are soon found killed by either a lion or leopard. Many of the tribes-people accompanying Nel and Staś die for lack of water. After the group has gone for at least three days without any water in the scorching dry desert, the children are saved at the last moment by two familiar officers who had recovered kites inscribed by Staś and Nel earlier in their plight describing their whereabouts and destination. The group are saved and are informed that Mahdi has died of a heart attack. Staś, Nel and Saba are re- united with their fathers and they return to Europe. Kali and his tribe members return to their settlement on Lake Rudolf. In a postscript it is told that, after growing up, Staś and Nel got married and visit their friends in Africa after ten years. Revisiting the places where they had trudged with so much difficulty and danger has become quick, easy and safe - since everything was taken over by the British Empire which started building railways. ===== Pals Skinny (Donald Haines), Danny Graham (Bobby Jordan), Peewee (David Gorcey), Algy Reynolds (Eugene Francis) and Scruno (Sunshine Sammy Morrison) all work at the Reynolds Aviation Company, which is run by Algy's father (Herbert Rawlinson). Muggs (Leo Gorcey), however, is the only one of the kids who refuses to work, although he drives the gang to work in his jalopy. Once at the aviation company, he spends his time flirting with a flight nurse named Helen Munson (Joan Barclay) who is in love with her test pilot boyfriend, Tom Lawson (Dave O'Brien). One day, when Tom's aircraft crashes at the plant airstrip, Reynolds suspects that the crash may have been the work of saboteurs. Later, at the airfield, Muggs jokingly appoints himself as the new operator of the flying ambulance owned by Dr. Richard Nagel (George Pembroke) and gives his pals a tour of the aircraft. Their playful games are soon brought to a halt by Nagel, the secret leader of a spy ring, who angrily orders the group off his aircraft. Mr. Reynolds, certain that spies are working at the plant, asks Danny to act as a decoy so that the spies can be identified, and has him deliver to a downtown office a fake set of plans for a new bombsight. As Reynolds predicted, Nagel's men ambush Danny on his way to the office, but the plan goes awry when the detectives sent to trail Danny lose him. Danny eventually turns up unharmed some time later. When Muggs reports to Reynolds his suspicions that Nagel is behind the espionage ring, Reynolds dismisses the accusation as a product of the boy's imagination. Not convinced by Reynolds that Nagel is innocent, Muggs and Danny begin their own investigation into Nagel, starting with a visit to the doctor on the pretext of a fake ailment. The visit turns up nothing, however, and when Danny and Muggs return to the hangar, a suspicious "accident" that was apparently meant to harm them leaves Peewee injured. While Peewee recovers at the hospital, Tom nearly loses his life when he is unable to make contact with the control tower for a landing. The controller is later found bound and gagged in the tower, prompting the kids to resume their investigation in earnest. Helen provides the gang with further clues when she confirms that the ambulance plane was being flown on many unusual trips to Mexico, supposedly to deliver patients. When Helen tells the East Side Kids that a man named Forbes is the next "patient" to be transported, they rush to his house, where they find secret plans hidden in his head bandage. Disguising Danny as the transportee, the kids send Danny and Muggs on the flight to learn who is behind the espionage ring. Danny and Muggs soon find themselves in trouble, however, when Nagel, having found Forbes locked in his closet, tries to warn the pilot of the boys' ruse. Meanwhile, Tom learns of the dangerous mission and goes after the flying ambulance in his own aircraft. Tom arrives in Mexico in time to save Danny and Muggs, and all the spies are arrested. Back at the plant, Reynolds rewards Muggs for his heroism by giving him a job as his driver, but his stint there is short-lived as he is soon distracted by a pretty woman and crashes the car with Reynolds in it. ===== Preppy pre-freshman (pre-frosh) Tom Lawrence (Chris Young) visits PCU (Port Chester University), a college where fraternities have been outlawed and political correctness is rampant on campus. During his visit, accident-prone Tom manages to make enemies with nearly every group of students, and thus spends much of his visit evading the growing mob upset with him. During his visit, Tom also finds himself in the middle of a war between "The Pit" and "Balls and Shaft", two rival groups. Among the members of the latter is Rand McPherson (David Spade), who, with the other Balls and Shaft members, want the outlawed Greek system to return. Meanwhile, "The Pit", an unofficial group, runs the former "Balls and Shaft" frat house in a highly disorganized manner. Currently inhabited by seniors Gutter (Jon Favreau) and Mullaney (Alex Désert), mid-year Freshman co-ed Katy (Megan Ward), and led by multi-year senior James "Droz" Andrews (Jeremy Piven), The Pit is a party-centric house that rebels against the politically correct protests; their counter-protests and parties are a frequent source of complaint forms. Other factions on campus include a commune-style house of pot users called Jerrytown that Gutter often frequents, a radical feminist group known as the Womynists, an Afrocentrist group suspecting the Pit of conspiring against them, and the college president, Ms. Garcia-Thompson (Jessica Walter), who is obsessed with enforcing "sensitivity awareness" and multiculturalism to an extreme. She proposes that Bisexual Asian Studies should have its own building, as well as a plan to change the campus mascot to a whooping crane instead of an offensive Native American character during their Bicentennial Anniversary. Garcia- Thompson conspires behind closed doors with Balls and Shaft to get the established residents of The Pit kicked off campus and give Rand control of the house. She provokes the Pit residents with a damage bill from their past semester. Left unpaid, the campus would seize their house, leaving them homeless and unable to continue attendance at PCU without getting jobs. The Pit responds by throwing a party to raise the funds needed. The Womynists take offense to The Pit's flyers advertising the party, and hold a protest outside as the house residents conspire to steal alcohol and convince students to attend. The party at first appears to be a failure. However, a series of unlikely events results in George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic performing at the party. Students begin streaming in (initially to seize Tom for his prior mistakes) and the party successfully raises the funds to keep the house. Garcia-Thompson (after being locked in a room by Droz with the song "Afternoon Delight" playing on repeat), deciding to act on the many complaints against The Pit, shuts down the party and expels the residents of The Pit in spite of their fundraising efforts. Tom then informs Droz about an overheard conversation with the Board of Trustees: the President's politically correct changes are negatively affecting both their past legacy and media publicity. At the bicentennial ceremony the following morning, Droz and former Pit residents succeed in liberating the Whooping Crane and provoking the other students into an impromptu protest against protesting (chanting "We're not gonna protest!"). The demonstration establishes that even with The Pit shut down, the President cannot control the student population, resulting in the Board of Trustees summarily firing her. Meanwhile, Rand complains about all the other student groups, unaware that Droz has surreptitiously used the podium microphone to broadcast his rant to the entire campus. Later, Tom heads home having decided to commit to PCU as the Pit has moved back into their house. As he sits on the bus, he sees Rand, who is now in Tom's position at the beginning of the film: being chased by the students across campus. ===== In the mid-1980s, Pittsburgh resident Chris Cole (Mark Wahlberg) is a fanatical admirer of a heavy metal band called Steel Dragon. By day, Chris is a photocopier technician and by night, he is the lead singer of a Steel Dragon tribute band called Blood Pollution (the name is taken from a Steel Dragon song). Internal struggles among the actual Steel Dragon band members culminate with the firing of their lead singer, Bobby Beers (Jason Flemyng), and the beginning of recruitment sessions to find a new vocalist. Chris experiences his own strife with his Blood Pollution bandmates, particularly guitarist Rob Malcolm (Timothy Olyphant). During a live performance, Rob's playing fails to live up to Chris' over-demanding standards regarding note-for-note accuracy to the original Steel Dragon recordings, and Chris sabotages Rob's amplifier mid-song – a fight breaks out between the two onstage. The next day, Chris meets Blood Pollution at a rehearsal session, but he finds out that he has been replaced with his arch-rival, the (now former) lead singer of another Steel Dragon tribute band. Rob also cites Chris' inability to create his own musical style, preferring to remain the singer in a tribute band. One day, Chris receives an unexpected phone call from Steel Dragon's founder and rhythm guitarist, Kirk Cuddy (Dominic West), and is offered an audition for the band (thanks to two of Blood Pollution's groupies, who showed Kirk a videotape of one of Blood Pollution's concerts). After hanging up on Kirk once, thinking he's being pranked by Rob, Chris ecstatically agrees. At the studio, he meets the band and gives an outstanding performance of "We All Die Young" (a Steel Dragon song in the movie, but it is actually a song by Steelheart, whose lead vocalist, Miljenko Matijevic, provides Cole's singing voice for the film). Chris joins the band as their new singer, adopting the stage name "Izzy". Following a successful debut concert with Steel Dragon, Izzy must come to grips with the pressures of his new-found fame and success. The band embarks on a lengthy tour and Izzy experiences the excesses of the lifestyle, with the group's road manager, Mats (Timothy Spall), serving as a sympathetic mentor to Izzy. His new lifestyle impacts his life both for better and worse, particularly with his relationship with his supportive girlfriend, Emily Poule (Jennifer Aniston), when she decides not to continue with him throughout the remainder of the tour as a rock star girlfriend, though Emily and Izzy agree to get back together when the tour reaches Seattle. Eventually, Steel Dragon stops in Seattle for a show, and Emily arrives at his hotel room as they had previously arranged, although Izzy had become so inebriated while on tour he forgot about the arrangement and did not even know what city he was in. Although taken aback by all the groupies, Emily still tries to reconnect with him, reminding him of their plans to meet up once he got to Seattle, however he is too intoxicated to really understand what she is saying, eventually suggesting they go to Seattle together. Heartbroken with his inconsiderate behavior, intoxication and the fact that he is sleeping with so many groupies, Emily leaves him. Six months later, Izzy reports to the next series of Steel Dragon recording sessions with song concepts and artwork for the band's next album. The rest of the band like his ideas, but they reject them, with Kirk explaining that the band has to stay true to the "Steel Dragon thing" to fulfill fan expectations. Izzy is angered upon realizing that he was only recruited for his vocal abilities. After a heartfelt conversation with Mats about how he feared he had no control over the direction life has taken him, Izzy begins to reconsider his rock star lifestyle. On the next tour, in a scene directly paralleling one near the beginning of the film with their roles reversed, Izzy hears a fan (Myles Kennedy) singing along with him toward the end of a live concert. Impressed, Izzy pulls the fan, who introduces himself as Thor, onstage and hands him the microphone to finish the concert. Backstage, Izzy realizes that what he thought he wanted for so long was not what he wanted, and he says goodbye to Mats, departing from the band while doing so. After leaving Steel Dragon and ditching his rock star image and stage name, Chris makes his way to Seattle and starts a new band with his old friend and former bandmate, Rob, allowing him to write his own music. Chris finds Emily working in the coffee shop she and her roommate purchased a few years earlier, and he is initially too ashamed to speak to her. While walking one evening, Emily sees a flyer for his band posted on the wall and takes it down. In the final scene, Chris is singing with his band in a bar and Emily walks in. Chris leaves the stage and speaks to her. They reconcile, ending the film with a kiss and the final note of Chris' first original song "Colorful" (which is actually a song by The Verve Pipe). During the credits, Cuddy talks about the future of the band and Beers is shown to have taken up Irish Dancing after his sacking from Steel Dragon. ===== Set in mountainous Sevier County, Tennessee, in the 1960s, Child of God tells the story of Lester Ballard, a dispossessed, violent man whom the narrator describes as "a child of God much like yourself perhaps." Ballard's life is a disastrous attempt to exist outside the social order. Successively deprived of parents and homes and with few other ties, Ballard descends literally and figuratively to the level of a cave-dweller as he falls into crime and degradation. The novel is structured in three segments, each segment describing the advancing isolation of the protagonist from society. In the first part of the novel, a group of unidentified narrators from Sevierville describe Lester to the audience and frame him within that community's mythology and historical consciousness. The second and third parts of the novel increasingly leave culture and community behind as Lester goes from squatter to cave-dweller to serial killer and necrophile as he becomes increasingly associated with premodern and inanimate phenomena. The novel ends with the dehumanized and mutilated Ballard dying in incarceration, his remains eventually dissected by medical students and then interred outside the city, while the long-hidden corpses of his victims are unearthed from his former subterranean haunt. ===== The novel begins with Suttree observing police as they pull a suicide victim from the river. Suttree is living alone in a houseboat, on the fringes of society on the Tennessee River, earning money by fishing for the occasional catfish. He has left a life of luxury, rejecting his parents' influence, and abandoning his wife and young son. Bridges over the Tennessee River that are featured in Suttree. A large cast of characters, largely composed of misfits and grotesques, is introduced, one of which is a dimwitted young man named Gene Harrogate, whom Suttree meets during a short stint in a work camp-style prison. Harrogate was sent to prison after being caught "violating" a farmer's watermelons. Suttree attempts to help Harrogate stay out of trouble after he is released, but this task proves to be in vain as Harrogate sets off on a series of misadventures, including using poisoned meat and a slingshot to kill bats ("flitter-mice" as Harrogate calls them) to earn a bounty on them, and using dynamite in an attempt to tunnel underneath the city and burgle the treasury. Other prominent characters are prostitutes, hermits, alcoholics, and an aged Geechee witch. His relationships with women all come to bad ends. One prostitute-girlfriend terminates the relationship in a moment of madness, smashing up the inside of their new car. He becomes involved with a teenage girl from a destitute family, but awakens in the night to find her crushed to death by a landslide that falls on their homeless encampment. Suttree was also married before the book begins with a woman he apparently met at university. He left his wife with a young son, who dies of an illness early on in the book. He watches the funeral from afar, and proceeds to bury the boy alone once the other mourners leave. Towards the novel's end, Suttree falls ill with typhoid fever and suffers a lengthy hallucination. This occurs after a black friend of Suttree is killed in a fight with the police and Harrogate is arrested in a failed robbery attempt. In the end, he feels his identity as an individual is affirmed by his time living in destitution, and he leaves Knoxville, seeking a new life. ===== Like its predecessor, All the Pretty Horses (1992), The Crossing is a coming-of-age novel set on the border between the southwest United States and Mexico. The plot takes place before and during the Second World War and focuses on the life of the protagonist Billy Parham, a teenage cowboy; his family; and his younger brother Boyd. The story tells of three journeys taken from New Mexico to Mexico. It is noted for being a more melancholic novel than the first of the trilogy, without returning to the hellish bleakness of McCarthy's early novels. Most of the protagonists are people of few words; thus the dialogues are few and concise. Additionally, since much of the interaction is with Mexican people, many parts of dialogues are written in untranslated Spanish. Although the novel is not overtly satirical or humorous, it has many of the qualities of a picaresque: a realistic portrayal of a destitute hero embarking on a series of loosely connected, arguably doomed quests. ===== The story opens in 1952. John Grady Cole (the protagonist of All the Pretty Horses) and Billy Parham (the protagonist of The Crossing) work together on a cattle ranch south of Alamogordo, New Mexico, not far from the border cities of El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico. The ranch's owners are kind but face an uncertain future in a dying industry. Recently devastated by drought, cattle ranches around El Paso are struggling and may be claimed by the Department of Defense, through eminent domain, to become military areas. Though the cowboys barely make a living, John Grady and Billy love life on the open range, and John Grady – as detailed in All the Pretty Horses – is a master at training horses. Billy is an excellent tracker. During a visit to a brothel in Juárez, John Grady falls in love with a young, epileptic prostitute, Magdalena. The couple plans to marry and live in the U.S., and John Grady renovates an abandoned cabin, turning it into a home. But Magdalena's brothel is run by Eduardo, a formidable adversary also in love with the young girl. Billy attempts to dissuade John Grady but feels obligated to help the couple. Eduardo's sidekick, Tiburcio, murders Magdalena by cutting her throat, after she steals away from the brothel to meet John Grady at a crossing of the Rio Grande and leave Mexico. After John Grady finds her body in the morgue, he faces Eduardo in a knife fight reminiscent of his prison showdown in All the Pretty Horses. Though John Grady kills Eduardo, he is mortally wounded in the fight. He survives long enough to contact Billy, who hurries to comfort John Grady before his death. After John Grady's death, a short epilogue—not unlike the conclusion of Blood Meridian (1985)—details, in a few pages, the next several decades of Billy's life. After drifting across the Southwest for many years, working ranches and living in hotels, Billy, homeless, takes shelter beneath a highway underpass. There, he meets a mysterious man who tells him about a convoluted dream. Though the man denies it, Billy suspects he is Death. However, Billy survives the meeting with the man and finds shelter and a new life with a family who takes him in. ===== Neri is a young girl with an affinity for water, the ability to swim long distances and super-human lung capacity. She lives alone on an otherwise deserted island, and sleeps in a nest in a tree. Early in the first season, Neri befriends two Australian boys; Jason and Brett Bates. The Bates brothers live in an elaborate underwater research and environmental protection facility called ORCA (Oceanic Research Center of Australia) located near Port Douglas, Queensland. At the beginning of the series, their mother, Dr. Dianne Bates, has been assigned to ORCA to study whale song in the hopes of facilitating cross-species communication. A significant portion of the series takes place on ORCA itself, and looks at the activities of its inhabitants, which includes the school-aged children of the resident scientists, such as Jason and Brett. Jason discovers Neri while on a whale-tracking expedition with his mother. While attempting to tag a whale using a harpoon from the boat, Jason is startled by a young girl (Neri) who appears in the water and positions herself between Jason and the whale, saying "No, no!", Jason freezes and fails to release the harpoon. Dr. Bates rushes out to the ship's deck, grabs the harpoon and tags the whale, albeit missing the intended target area. Dr. Bates is furious with Jason and doesn't believe his story about a girl appearing in the water. Actually, no one believes Jason at first and he is ridiculed by the other children on ORCA. Brett is the second character to know of Neri's existence. Brett and Jason's friendship with Neri is at first a highly guarded secret due to Neri's fear of other humans. As the series progresses, it is revealed that Neri came to Earth on a spaceship with her father when she was young, though his death soon after the ship's crash left Neri to fend for herself. Prior to meeting Jason and Brett, Neri's only friend was a humpback whale (a jali in Neri's native tongue) whom she names "Charley" and with whom she can communicate. Later in the series, Neri's curiosity leads her to explore ORCA, while Dr. Bates's study of Charley's whale song helps her identify Neri as the intended recipient of that song. Eventually, Dr Bates and her assistant, Dr. Winston Seth, become embroiled in Jason and Brett's effort to keep Neri a secret, while also performing numerous tests on Neri to understand how she's able to communicate with whales. At the same time that the Bates family learn about Neri, a rival research organisation, the UBRI Corporation, are introduced. Headed by the sinister Dr. Hellegren, UBRI have learned that a spacecraft landed somewhere in the vicinity of ORCA, and begin their own search for any personnel that may have survived. Simultaneously, they work on other projects which threaten the natural ecology of the ocean around ORCA. Eventually, they put in play an effort to build the so-called "ORCA City", an elaborate underwater construction that will likely eradicate much of the natural life on the seabed. In response, Dr. Bates's mission changes over the course of the series from cetologist to environmental protectionist. This role becomes more prominent beginning with the third season, when UBRI representatives establish themselves on board ORCA. Accordingly, the series shifts to a more serious tone in its later seasons. As Neri gradually discovers more of her island and ORCA, she also begins to understand her greater purpose. This self-awakening is particularly enhanced by encounters with others of her kind. In the second season, she discovers her sister, Mera, and the two are given the opportunity to return to their home planet. Mera avails herself of this option, but Neri stays, feeling that she must discover what her father was trying to do on Earth. In the third season, she gains entry into the downed spacecraft that originally brought her to Earth. There, she finds another of her people in suspended animation. The new character, Kal, proves to be the son of the commander of the vessel, and helps her tap into the ship's memory core. She finds the ship's log, in which Kal's mother explains that Neri's father was to repair the damage done to Earth's oceans with an advanced device called the Synchronium. She then dedicates her life to her father's cause, giving her a genuine sense of purpose that she had perhaps lacked earlier in the series. Kal grows jealous of the strong bond between Neri and Jason Bates, and begins hating Neri's friends on ORCA. As protest, Kal leaves the island. Neri and her ORCA mates go looking for him, but are unable to find him as he's been captured by UBRI. UBRI tricks Kal into believing that the male should lead (as he had been indoctrinated into the matriarchal social mores of his people), and he creates an alliance with Dr. Hellegren to steal the Synchronium pieces that Neri and Mera have hidden in a secret cave. While the primary cast gets new motivations by UBRI's move to ORCA and Kal's appearance on the island, the secondary cast radically changes at the outset of the third season. All of the original kids are replaced by a new crew, and more adults are added to the ORCA staff. As Neri begins her father's mission, she is drawn farther and farther away from her island. Beginning in the middle of the third season, some episodes are primarily based on land. By the fourth season, some episodes are set in Egypt, and her father's quest eventually leads her back to the "Ocean Planet", her home planet. Most of the plots involving the secondary kids on ORCA are reduced in the final season, in order to allow for greater exploration of Neri's homeworld. Several new characters of Neri's species are introduced. Likewise, the threat of UBRI fades, to be replaced by a new organization, PRAXIS (Preventative Response and eXtraterritorial Intelligence Service) and by rebels on the Ocean Planet. This group is dedicated to protecting against any threats posed by extraterrestrial life, and its agents come to believe Neri and her people are a problem for Earth. They thus chased Neri and the Bates boys around the world. When a mysterious underwater pyramid is discovered in the ocean, Neri and the Bates boys enter it and discover more about the Ocean Planet, and Neri's mission on Earth. When the rebellion in the Ocean World is growing, Mera escapes to Earth and is reunited with Neri. But PRAXIS sees this pyramid as a danger to the Earth. Much of the final season is thus concerned with PRAXIS' attempt to attack the pyramid, as well as with a "Red Virus" which is spreading in the oceans of Neri's homeworld, the Ocean Planet. Eventually, in the series finale, Jason, Brett, and Neri are able to repulse PRAXIS' efforts and the rebellion, and Earth is saved. Neri remains on Earth as the ambassador of the Ocean Planet, and she and Jason finally become a couple. The Bates family, Winston, Neri, Charley, and the ORCA computer H.E.L.E.N. (Hydro Electronic Liaison ENtity) are the only constant characters for the show's entire run. However, the part of Dr. Bates is recast with Liz Burch after the second season and H.E.L.E.N. is "upgraded" in the fourth and final season. ===== Wizards & Warriors pits the story's hero Kuros, the "Knight Warrior of the Books of Excalibur", against the main antagonist, the evil wizard Malkil. He was considered one of the greatest wizards in the land, such that Merlin was one of his students. However, the aging Malkil has gone mad and has started using his magic for evil. As a result, Malkil has captured the princess and holds her prisoner in Castle IronSpire, deep within the forests of Elrond. The game's protagonist, the brave knight Kuros, is summoned to venture through the forests of Elrond. He is armed with the legendary Brightsword, a sword that is powerful enough to beat demons, insects, undead, and the other creatures that have fallen under Malkil's spell.Instruction Manual, p. 2. With the sword, he ventures out through the forests of Elrond and the various caves and tunnels and to Castle IronSpire, where he must defeat Malkil and rescue the princess.Instruction Manual, p. 5. ===== After receiving numerous death threats in the mail—most of which are written in blood—Bart becomes paranoid. He soon learns the culprit is his enemy, Sideshow Bob, who is incarcerated in Springfield State Prison. The next day, Sideshow Bob is paroled because the parole board no longer considers him a threat to society. When the Simpsons visit a cinema to see Ernest Goes Somewhere Cheap, Sideshow Bob sits in front of them, smoking and laughing obnoxiously. The Simpsons realize that he sent the letters and threatened to kill Bart. Marge angrily tells him to stay away from her son. The Simpsons join the Witness Protection Program and relocate to Terror Lake, changing their surname to "Thompson" and living aboard a houseboat. As they drive cross-country to their new home, they are unaware Sideshow Bob is strapped to the underside of the car. While suspended there, Bob is hit with speed bumps, has hot coffee poured on him, and is driven through a large cactus patch. After arriving in Terror Lake, Bob unstraps himself from the car and steps on rakes several times, injuring himself. Bart sees Sideshow Bob in the street, where he unstraps himself from the underside of an old lady's car and is trampled by a parade that included several large elephants. Bart tries telling his parents, but Homer lazily dismisses his claims. During the night, Sideshow Bob reaches the houseboat and unmoors it from the dock. He ties up Homer, Marge, Lisa, Maggie and Santa's Little Helper so they cannot meddle with his plan. Sideshow Bob enters Bart's room, ready to kill him. Bart flees out the window and tries to escape, but he cannot jump off the boat since the river is filled with alligators and electric eels. Sideshow Bob catches up to Bart and offers him a last request. Having noticed a sign saying Springfield is fifteen miles away, Bart has an idea: to stall for time, he compliments Sideshow Bob on his beautiful voice and asks him to sing the entire score of H.M.S. Pinafore. Bob delivers a performance that includes several props, costumes, and backdrops. As the musical concludes, the boat runs aground, knocking Sideshow Bob off his feet and preventing him from killing Bart. He is arrested by Chief Wiggum, whose police force was inexplicably stationed by a river-side brothel while wearing bathrobes. The Simpsons return home to find Grampa locked out of their house and unable to take his medicine, resulting in him unintentionally becoming feminine. Grampa is courted by Jasper with Steve and Eydie tickets. ===== After forgetting Marge's birthday, Homer rushes to the Springfield Mall, where he buys a bowling ball for himself and disguises it as her gift. Patty and Selma treat Marge to a birthday dinner at the Singing Sirloin, where Bart gives her French perfume and Lisa presents a macaroni-and-glue portrait of her mother. She is pleased with both gifts because her children made her feel loved and special on her birthday. As Homer presents the bowling ball to her, it bursts through its box and squashes her birthday cake. Everyone is surprised by his thoughtlessness except Patty and Selma, whom earlier alluded to his lousy gift giving history. They sit back smugly as Marge calls Homer out for offending her with a gift for himself, pointing out that she has never gone bowling in her life and that the ball is inscribed with his name. Determined to learn how to bowl to spite Homer, Marge visits Barney's Bowl-A- Rama. There she meets a French bowling instructor named Jacques who offers to give her lessons. When he asks about the name inscribed on her ball, she tells him Homer is the ball's name, neglecting to mention she is married. After several bowling lessons, Jacques and Marge agree to meet for brunch. Their brunch goes well until they see Helen Lovejoy, the gossipy preacher's wife, who seems delighted to find Marge with a man other than her husband. After deflecting Helen's prying by feigning a discussion of bowling theory, Jacques asks Marge to meet him the next day at his apartment, causing her to faint. While unconscious, she sees herself dancing with Jacques in his luxurious, bowling-themed apartment. When Marge regains consciousness after her romantic fantasy, she accepts Jacques' invitation. Homer finds the personalized bowling glove Jacques gave Marge and realizes he may lose her to another man. Soon Bart realizes Lisa's suspicion that their parents are drifting apart is true. Bart advises Homer to keep quiet about Marge's suspected affair to avoid making things worse. Marge leaves for her rendezvous with Jacques, but remembers her lifetime commitment to Homer during the drive. She comes to a fork in the road: one way leads to the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, the other to Jacques' apartment. After agonizing over her decision, Marge surprises Homer at the plant and kisses him warmly. An ecstatic Homer abandons his work post and carries Marge away in his arms. When his co-workers ask him what to tell their boss, Homer tells them he is taking Marge to the backseat of his car and will be gone ten minutes. ===== This film looks at the lives of Jefferson "Jake" (Kevin Bacon) and Kristy Briggs (Elizabeth McGovern), from their wedding day until the birth of their first child, mostly through Jake's eyes, with his voiceover commentaries and several imaginary scenes. Before their wedding day, Jake asks his best friend, Davis McDonald (Alec Baldwin) if he thinks Jake will be happy, to which his friend says, "Yeah, you'll be happy. You just won't know it." After their wedding, Jake and Kristy head off for New Mexico, where Jake works toward gaining a Master's Degree, but leaves before finishing. They return to Chicago where Jake is hired as an advertising copywriter. Jake says he wants to be a writer, which amuses his boss. Kristy is hired as a research analyst, and they are able to buy a house in the suburbs. Meanwhile, Jake begins fantasizing about having an affair with a mysterious young French model. Jake and Kristy continue to adjust to their new lives. Jake feels pressure from family, society and his wife to have a child. Kristy's mother casually informs them that she had a difficult birth with Kristy and nearly died. Later, Kristy informs Jake that she stopped taking contraceptives without telling him. After several months, they discover that the reason she hasn't gotten pregnant is because he has been unable to impregnate her. After not seeing Jake and Kristy for three years, Davis visits unexpectedly, telling them that his father has died. Jake and Kristy are supportive, allowing him to stay the night. Things take a turn when Davis makes a pass at Kristy by proclaiming his feelings and trying to open her bathrobe, but Kristy turns him down, telling him that she is in love with Jake. The couple begins a fertility program, which eventually succeeds. During a traumatic labor where Jake must leave the delivery room and worries about losing Kristy, Jake realizes that his lack of satisfaction in life was due to his own selfishness and immaturity. The last scene of the film reveals that Jake's voiceover was the new father reading his novel entitled She's Having a Baby to his wife and son. ===== This novel chronicles the attempts of Vikraman, the son of the Chola king Parthiban, to attain independence from the Pallava ruler Narasimhavarman I. In the seventh century the Cholas are vassals of the Pallavas. Parthiban conveys his dream of the Chola dynasty regaining its glory – which he believes is lost since they are no longer the independent rulers – to his young son Vikraman. Parthiban refuses to pay tribute to the Pallavas, triggering a battle in which Parthiban is killed. Before he dies, on the battlefield, an enigmatic monk promises Parthiban that he will make sure that Vikraman fulfills Parthiban's dream. On becoming an adult, Vikraman plans his revenge but is betrayed by his treacherous uncle, Marappa Bhupathi. The prince is arrested and exiled to a far-off island by Narasimhavarman. Three years later Vikraman returns, longing to meet his mother and a mysterious beauty whom he saw before being deported. He discovers that his mother has disappeared, kidnapped by members of the savage Kapalika cult given to performing human sacrifices. He also learns that the beauty he has fallen for, Kundhavi, is none other than the daughter of his sworn enemy, Narasimhavarman. Several twists and turns later, the monk is revealed as the Pallava emperor Narasimhavarman, who keeps his word to the dying Parthiban by helping establish an independent kingdom under Vikraman in Uraiyur, followed by the Chola prince's marriage to Kundhavi. The novel ends by stating that Parthiban's dream of a great Chola dynasty was passed on from father to son, and was finally realised three hundred years after Parthiban's time, in the reign of Raja Raja Chola I. ===== Bart and Milhouse torment a tourist named Howell Huser (a parody of television personality Huell Howser), who is then chased out of town by bullies Dolph, Jimbo, and Kearney. Huser is later revealed to be a media personality, and he appears on a network's morning television show warning tourists against visiting Springfield, causing the Springfield tourism business to collapse. Mayor Quimby holds an emergency meeting at the town hall to solve the problem, and after many senseless suggestions, Lisa suggests that Springfield legalize same-sex marriage to entice visitors to their town. All of Springfield happily agrees with Lisa's idea, and the town makes a commercial that is broadcast throughout America, convincing hundreds of homosexual couples to come to Springfield. However, Reverend Lovejoy insists that the Bible forbids same-sex marriage and refuses to marry any gay couples. Homer, upon learning that ministers are paid $200 per couple, abandons his own opposition to the process and becomes a minister himself with help from the online "e-Piscopal" Church, whereupon he marries every gay couple in town. Meanwhile, at the Simpson family's home, Patty comes out as a lesbian, saying that she is in love with a pro golfer named Veronica and asking Homer to marry them. While Homer accepts Patty's sexuality (briefly improving their relationship), an uncomfortable Marge reprimands her for having not told their family and insists that Patty marry a man. Patty is angered and calls Marge out for being a hypocrite in acting liberal about the issues, pointing out that she can not accept their family's sexuality for what it is. Before the wedding, Marge accidentally discovers Veronica is actually male. She decides to keep quiet about it since Patty will be marrying a man. During the ceremony, however, Marge is so moved by Patty's heartfelt declaration of love for Veronica that she reveals Veronica's true gender. "Veronica" explains that as the straight Leslie Robin Swisher, he posed as a woman to get onto the LPGA golf tour. He then asks Patty if she will still marry him, but she declines. Afterwards, Marge reconciles with Patty after telling her that she has learned a lesson and has accepted the fact that Patty is a lesbian. In a meta-reference to the show's tendency to episodically return to status quo ante, Lisa notes that this is the end of Homer's wedding business, and Bart asks, "Why?" Patty and her other sister, Selma, then go to leave a bag at the airport unattended, as a way to meet security personnel they can date. ===== The novel opens with a brief prologue set in 1957 in which the narrator, an Italian Jew, describes a visit to the Ferrara cemetery where the Finzi-Contini family mausoleum stands, empty in all but two slots: a young child, Guido, who died of illness before the narrator was born; and Alberto, the son of the Finzi-Continis and a friend of the narrator's, who died of lymphogranulomatosis (Hodgkin's disease) before the mass deportation that sent the remainder of the family to a concentration camp in Germany. At this point, the narrator reveals that none of the Finzi- Continis survived. The first part of the book covers the narrator's childhood experiences, describing the various social circles of the local Jewish population and the mystery around the Finzi-Contini children, Alberto and Micòl, who were schooled separately from the other Jewish children and who only appeared at the main school for the annual exams. The narrator fails his math test in this particular year, the first time he has failed any of the annual exams required for promotion, and he takes off on his bike out of fear of his father's reaction. He ends up outside the walls of the Finzi-Continis' mansion, where he has a conversation with Micòl, the Finzi-Continis' pretty daughter. The narrator is invited by Micòl to enter the garden. He excuses himself out of concern for the safety of his bicycle. She then comes over the wall to show him a safe hiding place, but while hiding his bike he dallies in contemplation of Micòl - and loses his chance to see the garden until years later. The next two parts of the book cover the years when the children are all in or just out of college. The racial laws have restricted their ability to socialize with the Ferrarese Christians, and so the narrator, Alberto, Micòl, and Giampi Malnate (an older Christian friend with socialist views) form an informal tennis club of their own, playing several times a week at the court in the Finzi-Continis' garden. During these visits, the narrator declares, shyly at first but more and more forcefully, his love for Micòl. However, her attitude towards the narrator remains one of friendship so that the relationship slowly peters out. The final section of the book covers the slow fading of the narrator's involvement in the tennis club, his futile attempts to restart the romance with Micòl, and his growing friendship with Malnate whom he suspects at the end of the book of having an affair with Micòl. ===== As professional assassin Martin Blank prepares for a job, his assistant, Marcella, informs him that he has received an invitation to his ten-year high school reunion. While Martin is able to kill his intended target, a rival assassin named Grocer, arrives and kills Martin's principal, effectively ruining the contract. After the job, Grocer approaches him apologetically about the incident, pointing out that the market for contractors is now flooded, and that mishaps like this will become commonplace without some organization; having worked together before, Grocer offers Martin a chance to join his fledgling union, which Martin refuses, preferring to work alone. Martin proceeds to his next job, which goes badly when he has to shoot the target rather than make it appear like natural causes; as such, his clients demand that he make amends by killing a Federal witness in his hometown of Grosse Pointe, Michigan, where his reunion is taking place. He is persuaded into going by both his reluctant therapist, Dr. Oatman, and Marcella, who believes that it is more than a synchronicity, it may be "the will of the gods". Disillusioned with work and knowing that refusal will cause reprisal, Martin reluctantly agrees to go. In Grosse Pointe, Martin reconnects with his childhood friend Paul and his high school sweetheart Debi Newberry, now a radio DJ, whom Martin had abandoned on prom night to enlist in the Army. He freely admits to his former classmates that he is a professional assassin, but everyone assumes he is joking. He also visits his mentally ill mother in a retirement home and his father's grave. Meanwhile, Martin's clients cancel their contract with Grocer, whom they originally hired before forcing Martin into it. Grocer, believing that Martin stole the contract, provides information to government agents on Martin's whereabouts in retaliation. While he reacquaints himself with the town and his old friends, Martin is stalked by Felix LaPoubelle, another hitman, who attempts to kill Martin in a convenience store built on the site of his childhood home. He is also followed by two National Security Agency agents who were tipped off to Martin's contract by Grocer. Despite these dangers, Martin remains distracted by his desire to reconcile with Debi and repeatedly procrastinates opening the dossier on his target. In a tense, but cordial meeting with Grocer, Grocer reveals that LaPoubelle was hired by a wealthy dog owner whose prize retriever was killed on one of Martin's previous assignments involving dynamite fishing; while appreciative of Grocer's tip, Martin reveals that he knows Grocer put the Federal agents on his trail and again refuses to join the new union. Debi is conflicted about her feelings for Martin, as they both share an intense attraction, but he manages to persuade her to attend the reunion with him. Picking her up for the event, he meets her father, Bart, to whom he (again) admits to being a professional assassin, who jokingly compliments him on joining a "growth industry," and seems willing to put the past behind them. At the reunion, Martin and Debi mingle with their former classmates and begin to fall in love all over again. Later, while exploring the halls alone, Martin is ambushed by LaPoubelle, whom he kills in self-defense. Debi stumbles upon the scene as Martin is stooped over LaPoubelle’s corpse, and flees from the reunion in shock and horror. Paul arrives moments later and helps Martin dispose of LaPoubelle's body in the school furnace. Debi later confronts Martin in his hotel room, still reeling from the revelation that he was telling the truth about his profession. He reveals that when he joined the army, his psychological profile indicated a certain degree of "moral flexibility" that prompted the Central Intelligence Agency to recruit him as an assassin, after which he decided to freelance. Martin attempts to assuage Debi by assuring her that he only accepts contracts on corrupt individuals saying, “If I show up at your door, chances are you’ve done something to put me there.” His efforts to rationalize his work further anger Debi and she rejects his attempts at reconciliation and walks out. Debi’s rejection of him gives Martin an emotional breakthrough, and he abruptly decides to retire from being a contract killer. He fires Oatman over the phone, lays off Marcella with a very generous severance package and orders her to incinerate their office, and finally opens the dossier detailing the contract that brought him to Grosse Pointe. He is surprised to find that the target is Debi's father, Bart, who is scheduled to testify against Martin's clients. Accompanied by several other assassins, Grocer decides to kill Bart himself to impress Martin's client and eliminate Martin as a competitor. Martin abandons the contract and rescues Bart, driving him to the Newberry house and holing up inside. Grocer, his cohorts, and the NSA agents descend upon the house. During the siege, Martin finally admits to Debi that he left her on prom night to protect her from his homicidal urges, which were due to his troubled upbringing and nihilistic worldview; however, having fallen in love with Debi again, he confesses that he recently developed a newfound respect for life. Martin methodically picks off Grocer’s henchmen, and the NSA agents are gunned down by both Grocer and Martin. Martin then kills Grocer by smashing a television over his head. Injured and winded, Martin proposes marriage to Debi, who is too stunned and despondent by the killing spree to respond. Debi’s father quips, “You have my blessing.” Debi and Martin then leave Grosse Pointe together, with Martin visibly cheerful, and Debi confessing on her pre- recorded radio show that she's decided to give love another chance. ===== In 1933, Freya Roth (Margaret Sullavan) is a young German girl engaged to Nazi party member Fritz Marberg (Robert Young). When she realizes the true nature of his political views and witnesses the racism and ruthlessness imposed by the Nazis, she breaks the engagement and is drawn to old friend and Nazi-detractor Martin Breitner (James Stewart). Her father, Professor Roth (Frank Morgan), does not abide by the attitude of the new order towards scientific fact. Though his stepsons Erich (William T. Orr) and Otto (Robert Stack) eagerly embrace the regime, Professor Roth's reluctance to conform leads first to a boycott of his classes and then to his arrest and a sentence of forced labor in a concentration camp. Freya goes to Fritz to beg his help in aiding her father and he reluctantly uses his influence to arrange a visit for the professor's wife. During this visit - unfortunately limited to five minutes - the professor urges her to take Freya and her younger brother and leave the country. Still hoping for the release of the professor, the family delay their departure. News now comes that the professor has died from 'a heart attack'. The family board a train for Austria but Freya is arrested at the border because officers find a manuscript in her suitcase which was written by her father. She is eventually released but her passport is confiscated. She returns to the town and reunites with Martin at the farm and together they attempt to escape via an unguarded mountain pass. The Nazi thugs beat this information out of the farm-maid and a patrol is ordered to intercept them. Fritz asks his commanding officer to allow him to be left out of this operation but his commander refuses, reminding him of his allegiance to the Third Reich. Trying to ski to safety the couple are shot at by the patrol at Fritz's order and Freya is fatally wounded, dying in Martin's arms just after they cross the border. Later, at the family's empty house, Fritz tells Erich and Otto of their sister's death and leaves, crying out that it was not his fault. When Otto says that Martin is now free to follow his own beliefs, Erich slaps his face and marches out. Otto, however, remembers the time when the family were still happy and appears to experience an epiphany. We see his footprints in the snow leading to the gate and are left to wonder whether he returns to his comrades or whether he chooses to reject the cruelties of the Nazi regime and make a bid for his own freedom. ===== ===== Holocaust is an account of two fictional German families from Berlin, prior to, and during World War II: one is Christian, whose members become Nazis out of economic necessity, and the other is Jewish, who become their victims. The “Aryan” Dorf family is headed by Erik (Michael Moriarty), a lawyer who struggles to find work to support his wife Marta (Deborah Norton) and two young children, Peter and Laura, during the economic hardships of the Depression in Germany. At his wife's insistence, Erik joins the Nazi Party to earn income and rapidly advances within the SS. In a short time he becomes the right-hand man of Reinhard Heydrich (David Warner), the top-level Nazi and one of the engineers of the "Final Solution". Coordinating mass murder bothers Dorf at first, but he grows more merciless as he discovers that ideological fervor gains him prestige. This backfires after a feud with SS field officers who resent his orders and they send an anonymous letter to Heydrich, accusing Dorf of having Communist sympathies. These accusations stunt his career. After Heydrich is assassinated in 1942, Dorf is put in charge of major extermination operations at Nazi death camps. Dorf continues to follow orders, and commits further war crimes as well as covering them up. The series also follows the Weiss family; a group of moderately wealthy German Jews, headed by Dr. Josef Weiss (Fritz Weaver) a Polish-born general physician. His German-born wife, Berta (Rosemary Harris), a talented pianist, is descended from a "Hoch-Deutsch" family whose ancestors were ethnic German "court Jews." They have three children—Karl (James Woods), an artist who is married to a Christian woman named Inga (Meryl Streep); Rudi, (Joseph Bottoms), a football player; and preteen daughter Anna Weiss (Blanche Baker). Other family members are also featured. Holocaust begins in 1935 in Berlin, with the wedding of Karl Weiss and Inga Helms. The unemployed Erik and his sickly wife Marta consult with Dr. Josef Weiss who diagnoses her with a heart murmur. They learn the doctor had treated Erik's parents and even him as a child. Later, unable to find decent employment, Erik applies for a job with the Nazi Security Service and is interviewed by Reinhard Heydrich, deputy head of the SS. This miniseries spans the period from 1938 to 1945 and covers the unfolding of the Holocaust, the events from Kristallnacht to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and the Sobibor death camp revolt, and ultimately the end of World War II and the liberation of the camps. It portrays the crimes of the Nazis, including the "Action T4" euthanasia murders of the disabled, the Babi Yar massacre, the deportations to and imprisonment in the ghettos, and of course, the murders of millions in the death camps. Throughout the series, each member of the Weiss (and Palitz) family suffers hardships and ultimately meets a terrible fate. The Kristallnacht attacks in November 1938 were ostensibly in retaliation for the assassination of Nazi official Ernst vom Rath by Jewish 17-year-old Herschel Grynszpan. Much was staged and supported by the Nazis, as part of their economic and political persecution of Jews. So too it was, for the fictional Weiss (and Palitz) family. Within days artist Karl Weiss is arrested and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp. Heinrich Palitz and his wife are forced to move in with their daughter, Berta, son-in-law Josef Weiss, and their two younger children still at home. Josef visits Erik Dorf, seeking his intervention, despite Dorf's previous warning against that. Dorf refuses, and turns Josef away. A few days later, Dr. Josef Weiss, already prohibited from treating "Aryan" patients, is deported to Poland as a foreign Polish citizen, along with Jewish patients Franz Lowy (George Rose) and his wife Chana (Käte Jaenicke). Josef's brother, Moses Weiss owns a pharmacy in Warsaw, and finds a place for the couple to stay. Josef starts working as a doctor in the Warsaw Ghetto hospital. In Berlin, Berta, and their children are forced to "sell" (leave) their home and Josef's clinic. They move into their daughter-in-law Inga's apartment, relying on her and her reluctant family for survival. and rely on Inga and her reluctant, even hostile, Nazi-supporting family for their survival. Rudi runs away, trying to escape the Nazis reach. Anna becomes more distressed and, on New Year's Eve 1939, she runs out of the apartment in a huff. While walking, she is accosted and raped by a bunch of German SA stormtroopers. Nearly catatonic as a result, she is committed to Hadamar. She and others suffering from mental illness are killed under the Nazi Action T4. Eventually, Berta is deported from Berlin to Warsaw, where she reunites with her husband Josef. She teaches in the ghetto school, and Josef and Moses become members of the Judenrat (Jewish council) for the Ghetto. Inga tries to contact Karl in Buchenwald, to no avail. Through a friend of Inga's family, Heinz Müller (Tony Haygarth), an SS officer is stationed at Buchenwald, Inga is able to get letters to and from Karl, but only if she has sex with Müller. Inga initially refuses out of loyalty to Karl. When Müller threatens to have Karl keep doing heavy labor at risk of death, Inga submits to him, hoping to save Karl's life. Müller uses Inga's sexual contact with him to taunt Karl; he does arrange for an easier indoor job, and then transfer to Theresienstadt to work in its art studio. Rudi Weiss reaches German-occupied Prague, Czechoslovakia, where he meets Helena Slomova (Tovah Feldshuh), whose parents have been deported. They fall in love and run away together, witnessing the Babi Yar massacre in Ukraine and meeting up with Jewish partisans. Rudi and Helena fight with them for years. When an attempted ambush of German troops fails, Rudi's partisans are annihilated, and Helena is killed. Captured, Rudi is sent to Sobibór death camp. He meets Leon Feldhandler and Alexander Pechersky, and escapes with them during the Sobibór uprising in October 1943. He decides to try to find his family in Europe. Meanwhile, in the Warsaw ghetto, the Weisses and others learn about the death camps and join a resistance movement. They try to save lives in any way possible. Josef uses his position as doctor in the Ghetto hospital to rescue Jews from the trains by claiming them having contagious illness, and hiding them in a makeshift clinic in vacant buildings by the train platform. Moses Weiss and other fighters stockpile weapons bought outside the ghetto and smuggled in. Lowy, a printer, publishes resistance leaflets. Eventually Josef is caught and he and Berta, along with Franz and Chana Lowy, are deported to Auschwitz. On Passover of 1943, Moses and the others revolt against the Germans entering the ghetto for a last action, so they can determine their own deaths. Although they have some success, the SS eventually overwhelm the defenders, crushing the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and burning down most of the buildings. When Moses and the other survivors surrender to SS forces, they are immediately killed by firing squads. Meryl Streep as Inga Helms-Weiss When Karl reaches Theresienstadt, he is commissioned as an artist. Sacrificing her freedom in order to reunite with Karl, she convinces Heinz Müller to denounce her and get her sent to Theresienstadt. Soon after arriving in Theresienstadt, Inga becomes pregnant with Karl's child. Theresienstadt is kept as a showplace to fool Red Cross observers, but Karl and others know better and begin secretly drawing the reality of the concentration camps. The SS learns of the art when one of the artists sells several works. SS, including Erik Dorf, and Theresienstadt officials, need to find out if more of these drawings exist, as they threaten their subterfuge. The artists are severely tortured but refuse to confess. Karl, the sole survivor of the arrested artists, is deported to Auschwitz, after learning that Inga is pregnant with their child. Before the war can end, both of Karl's parents are killed in Auschwitz. Karl dies shortly before the liberation of the camp. Berta is last seen entering a gas chamber. Josef had been working on a road crew but Dorf reminds his superiors that Jews should not be used for slave labor when non-Jewish prisoners are available. Josef is also killed in the gas chamber. Karl is found dead in his barracks, after one final sketch. After the war ends, Dorf is captured by the United States Army and told that he will be tried for war crimes. Dorf protests, saying that he was mostly an observer, and that Nazi actions were legitimate. Confronted by American evidence, Dorf commits suicide, taking a cyanide pill. Rudi meets Inga after Theresienstadt is liberated, having learned about the deaths of his parents and Karl. Inga says she had their baby and named him Josef, after her father-in-law. She plans to return with Josef temporarily to Berlin, but says she won't stay there. Rudi is commissioned with smuggling Jewish orphans into Palestine. Karl’s drawings, which had been hidden from the SS by Inga, were given to a museum in Prague as a permanent record of the Holocaust. ===== The novel is about a gang of four international criminals who hire a young and naïve English girl as an innocent decoy in a scheme to rid an English aristocrat of her family jewels. ===== The title character, Mirele, is a fifty-year- old widow when the play begins who, over the last several decades, salvaged her late husband's failing business. Honest, hardworking, and astute, but also autocratic, her authority is challenged by her daughter-in-law Shaindl, who insists that it is time that her husband, Mirele's son, inherit the business. The inheritance is given--the house as well--but grudgingly, in such a manner as to cut off Mirele from her family. She takes refuge with her faithful steward, Kalman, towards whom she continues to behave as an autocrat. Ten years later Shaindl, her marriage and the business both going poorly, attempts to heal the breach in time for her son's bar mitzvah. Mirele refuses, but after Shaindl's departure she collapses in grief. Ultimately, the boy successfully approaches her on the day of his bar mitzvah and convinces her to come. Despite its tragic, Shakespearean tone, the play, atypically for Gordin, ends happily, with song and dance. ===== In 1919, the Chicago White Sox are considered one of the greatest baseball teams ever assembled; however, the team's stingy owner, Charles Comiskey, gives little inclination to reward his players for a spectacular season. Gamblers "Sleepy" Bill Burns and Billy Maharg get wind of the players' discontent, asking shady player Chick Gandil to convince a select group of Sox—including star knuckleball pitcher Eddie Cicotte, who led the majors with a 29–7 win–loss record and an earned run average of 1.82—that they could earn more money by playing badly and throwing the series than they could earn by winning the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. Cicotte was motivated because Comiskey refused him a promised $10,000 should he win 30 games for the season. Cicotte was nearing the milestone when Comiskey ordered team manager Kid Gleason to bench him for 2 weeks (missing 5 starts) with the excuse that the 35-year-old veteran's arm needed a rest before the series. A number of players, including Gandil, Swede Risberg, and Lefty Williams, go along with the scheme. Shoeless Joe Jackson, an illiterate and the team's hitting star is also invited, but is depicted as not bright nor entirely sure of what is going on. Buck Weaver, meanwhile, insists that he is a winner and wants nothing to do with the fix. When the best-of-nine series begins, Cicotte (pitching in Game 1) deliberately hits Reds leadoff hitter Morrie Rath in the back with his second pitch in a prearranged signal to gangster Arnold Rothstein that the fix was on. Cicotte then pitches poorly and gives up 5 runs in four innings—four of them in the 4th, highlighted by a triple from Reds pitcher Walter "Dutch" Ruether. He is then relieved by Gleason, though the Sox lose the first game, 9–1. Williams also pitched poorly in Game 2, while Gandil, Risberg and Hap Felsch made glaring mistakes on the field. Several of the players become upset, however, when the various gamblers involved fail to pay their promised money up front. Chicago journalists Ring Lardner and Hugh Fullerton grow increasingly suspicious. Meanwhile Gleason continues to hear rumors of a fix, but he remains confident that his boys will come through in the end. A third pitcher not in on the scam, rookie Dickie Kerr, wins Game 3 for the Sox, making both gamblers and teammates uncomfortable. Other teammates such as catcher Ray Schalk continue to play hard, while Weaver and Jackson show no visible signs of taking a dive with Weaver continuing to deny participation in the fix. Cicotte loses, again, in Game 4 and the Sox lose Game 5, as well, putting them 1 loss away from losing the series. With the championship now in jeopardy, the Sox manage to win Game 6 in extra innings. Gleason intends to bench Cicotte from his next start, but Cicotte, feeling guilty over throwing his previous games, begs for another chance. The manager reluctantly agrees and is given an easy Game 7 win. Unpaid by the gamblers, Williams also intends to win, but when his wife's life is threatened, he purposely pitches so badly that he is quickly relieved by "Big" Bill James in the 1st inning. Jackson hits a home run off Reds pitcher Hod Eller in the 3rd inning, but the Sox lose the final game. Cincinnati wins the Series (5 games to 3). Fullerton writes an article condemning the White Sox. An investigation begins into the possible fixing of the Series. In 1920, Cicotte and Jackson admit that a fix existed (though the illiterate Jackson is implied as having been coerced into making his confession). As a result of the revelations, Cicotte, Williams, Gandil, Felsch, Risberg, McMullin, Jackson, and Weaver are tried. The eight men are acquitted of any wrongdoing. However, newly appointed commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis bans the eight men for life because they either intentionally lost games or (as Weaver did) knew about the fix and didn't report it to team officials. In 1925, Weaver watches Jackson play a semi-pro game in New Jersey under the assumed name "Brown". Hearing other fans suspecting his true identity, Weaver tells them that Jackson was the best player he ever saw, solemnly reminiscing on the events of 1919. When asked point-blank if the player is indeed Jackson, Weaver denies it, protecting his former teammate. ===== The books opens in our own world, at the University of Toronto, where the five main characters are all fellow students. They attend a lecture by a Professor Lorenzo Marcus, who afterwards reveals to them that he is in reality Loren Silvercloak, a mage from the land of Fionavar. Silvercloak tells the five that he has come to our world to bring back five guests, as part of the celebration of the 50th year of the reign of High King Ailell of Brennin. After some debate, the students -- Kevin Laine, Paul Schafer, Dave Martyniuk, Kimberly Ford, and Jennifer Lowell -- agree to accompany Silvercloak and the dwarf Matt Sören (Loren's "source", the person whose strength he draws on to perform his magic). However, Dave has second thoughts in the midst of Loren's transferral process; he attempts to pull free, breaking his contact with the others, and so although the remaining four arrive safely in Brennin, Dave is nowhere to be seen. Kim, Paul, Jennifer and Kevin discover that Brennin is in the midst of a crippling drought, brought on by the High King's unwillingness to offer himself on the Summer Tree as a sacrifice to Mörnir. The kingdom has been somewhat uneasy since Ailell's eldest son, Aileron, offered to take his father's place; upon Ailell's refusal, he cursed his father and was exiled. Ysanne the Seer recognizes Kim as the successor foretold by her dreams. Kim accompanies Ysanne to her cottage by the lake where Ysanne calls on Eilathen, a water spirit, to awaken Kim's latent Seer powers; Ysanne then passes to Kim the Baelrath, or Warstone, a red stone set in a ring. Ysanne also shows Kim two magical items. The first is Lökdal, a dwarvish dagger with a double gift: he who kills with Lökdal with love in his heart may make a gift of his soul to another; he who kills without love in his heart will die. Ysanne also shows Kim the Circlet of Lisen, set with a shining white gem, and recounts the prophecy concerning it: "Who shall wear this next after Lisen shall have the darkest road to walk of any child of earth or stars." That night Ysanne takes her own life with Lökdal and makes Kim a gift of her soul. When Kim awakens the next morning, she has not only the power of a seer (which was born in her), but also all of Ysanne's deep knowledge of Fionavar to help her interpret what she sees. Her hair turned completely white, Kim takes Ysanne's place as Seer of Brennin. Kevin and Paul are befriended by Diarmuid, Ailell's second son, a handsome man and elegant swordsman, but apparently frivolous and light-hearted. They accompany Diarmuid and his band on a daring journey to Cathal, the kingdom to the South of Brennin. Diarmuid has a double purpose: to prove the existence of a way across the Saeral River, and to seduce the King of Cathal's daughter, the lovely but fiercely independent Sharra. He achieves both and the band returns triumphant to Brennin. That night, a song that Kevin sings reawakens Paul's ghosts. Long haunted by grief and guilt over the death of his girlfriend in a car accident which he believes was his fault, Paul offers to sacrifice himself by taking Ailell's place on the Summer Tree, seeing this as a way to expiate his guilt. Jennifer and Jaelle overhear a children's game in which Leila, a young girl, calls a boy named Finn to "take the Longest Road." This is the third time this is happened and clearly marks Finn somehow. Jaelle cannot explain what it means but she sees latent power in Leila and invites her to become an acolyte in the temple. The next day, Jennifer meets Brendel of the lios alfar and some of his people and goes riding with them. That night, Jennifer's escort of lios alfar is slaughtered by Galadan and his wolves, and Jennifer is taken. Paul is bound naked to the Tree where he hangs for three days and nights, fully expecting that he will die. On the second night, Galadan appears but is driven away by a grey dog. On the third night Dana, the Mother, relieves Paul's pain by showing him that he was not to blame for Rachel's death and Paul is at last able to weep for Rachel. His tears break the drought. Nursed (grudgingly) back to health by Jaelle, High Priestess of Dana, Paul recovers and is named Pwyll Twiceborn, Lord of the Summer Tree. By now it is evident to all concerned that significant events are afoot, and when Mount Rangat explodes in a dramatic hand of fire reaching across the sky, there can be no doubt. Rakoth Maugrim, defeated and chained a thousand years ago, has broken free of his prison—and Jennifer's kidnappers have sent her to him at his fortress of Starkadh. Ailell suffers a heart attack and dies at the sight. Aileron returns and Diarmuid, with great wit, agrees that he should be High King despite having been exiled. In the midst of this dynastic confusion, Sharra of Cathal, furious at her seduction and abandonment, stabs Diarmuid in the shoulder. Amongst these events we begin to get a hint of the true strength of Diarmuid's character. Meanwhile, Dave has arrived safely in Fionavar but far out on the plains. He is taken in by a group of Dalrei, or Riders, led by Ivor, chieftain of the third tribe, and Gereint, their shaman. The Dalrei dub him "Davor" and give him an axe, as the weapon best suited to Dave's build and lack of sword training. Dave bonds with Tore dan Sorcha, something of an outcast, when he and Tore spend a night watching over Ivor's son Tabor during his vision quest to find his totem animal. Unbelievably, the animal Tabor sees is a winged chestnut unicorn; even more incredibly, three nights later Tabor finds and immediately bonds with her, knowing that she has been created as a gift of the goddess and her name is Imraith-Nimphais. When the mountain explodes, Ivor sends a party towards Brennin led by Levon, his oldest son. They are ambushed by svart alfar near Pendaran Wood and only Dave, Levon and Torc survive by fleeing into the wood. The trees of the Wood bear a centuries-long grudge over the death of Lisen, their beautiful forest spirit who bound herself as source to Amairgen, the First Mage, and who killed herself when he died. Flidais rescues them and alerts Ceinwen. Ceinwen takes a fancy to Dave; not only does she transport them safely to the other edge of the wood, she also makes sure that Dave finds Owein's Horn. Levon, well-taught in legends by Gereint, then finds the Cave of the Sleepers, who can be awakened by the Horn. When all are at last gathered in Brennin, the new High King calls a council. They are interrupted by Brock, a dwarf, who names Matt Sören as rightful King of the Dwarves and then divulges that it is the dwarves who helped Rakoth Maugrim free himself in secret. They have also found for him the Cauldron of Khath Meigol which can resurrect the dead. The council resumes but a sudden blinding headache bursts upon Kim, and in a heartbreaking vision she sees Jennifer in Starkadh, being raped and tortured by Maugrim. Using the power of the Baelrath, Kim manages to pull all five of them out of Fionavar and back into their own world. ===== The Simpson family are trying unsuccessfully to get Maggie to speak, inspiring Marge to share the story of Lisa's first word. The story flashes back to March 1983 where Homer, Marge and Bart originally lived in an apartment on the Lower East Side of Springfield. Homer and Marge had to cope with Bart, who was two years old at the time. Marge is pregnant again, and she points out to Homer that they will probably need a bigger place. After viewing several unsuitable properties, they buy a house on Evergreen Terrace with a $15,000 down payment from the sale of Grampa's house. After they bought the place, Homer and Marge send Grandpa Simpson to a retirement home after a couple of weeks. In 1984, the Simpsons move into their new home and meet their new neighbours, Ned Flanders and his family. The Flanders let Homer borrow his tv tray and Homer never returned it. Meanwhile, Krusty the Clown begins a promotion for the 1984 Summer Olympic Games with his Krusty Burger chain. The promotion is a "scratch-and-win" game where customers can win free Krusty Burgers if America wins a gold medal, but the game cards are rigged to feature events that athletes from Communist countries are most likely to win. However, Krusty receives word of the Soviet boycott of the Olympics, and that he stands to lose $44 million from all the free burgers he will have to give away. Bart is forced to give up his crib to be used for the new baby, so Homer builds him a new bed shaped like a clown, which terrifies Bart. Marge gives birth to Lisa, who gets all the attention. However, Bart takes an immediate dislike to her. Eventually, he is about to run away until Lisa says her first word, "Bart". Thrilled that his name is Lisa's first word, Marge explains that Lisa adores him. Bart accepts her as his sister and they both find it funny that they each call Homer by his name, rather than "daddy" as he wishes. Back in the present day, Homer takes Maggie to bed, commenting on how the sooner kids learn to talk, the sooner they learn to talk back, and tells Maggie that he hopes she never says a word. But as soon as he turns off the light and closes the door, Maggie takes her pacifier out of her mouth and utters the word "daddy", before going to sleep. ===== The storyline of All New World of Lemmings continues where Lemmings 2 left off. Of the twelve tribes that escaped from Lemming Island, the adventures of three tribes are followed in this game: the Shadow tribe, the Classic tribe and the Egyptian tribe. Each tribe leaves the flying Ark they escaped on, and finds their own island to explore. ===== ===== The story takes place during the 17th century in the Spanish Empire. Diego Alatriste is a soldier in the service of King Philip IV of Spain during the Eighty Years' War. The story begins in the Spanish Netherlands, where his tercio fights in the Dutch Revolt. His friend Lope Balboa is killed during the fighting, and Alatriste returns to Madrid where he takes Lope's young son Íñigo into his care. Alatriste is hired along with a Sicilian assassin named Gualtiero Malatesta to kill the Prince of Wales (the future King Charles I of England) and his companion, the Duke of Buckingham. The job is contracted by Emilio Bocanegra and Luis de Alquézar (uncle of Íñigo's love interest, Angélica de Alquézar). Alatriste finally returns to the Netherlands in 1624 (although the movie states 1625) and participates in the final battles leading to Breda's surrender. After returning to Spain, Íñigo wants to elope with Angélica, but she gets cold feet at the last moment. Alatriste has a romance with actress María de Castro. Because she was disappointed that she failed to marry him, she became the lover of Philip IV. Alatriste ends up crossing swords with Guadalmedina, a friend of the king. In the end, the object of their attention falls ill with syphilis. The duel with his friend Martín Saldaña and the punishment of Íñigo in the galleys are part of the film's spectacular ending. The last scenes are at the Battle of Rocroi (May 1643), described in the last book of The Adventures of Captain Alatriste saga. During the battle, Abel Moreno Gómez's "La Madrugá" is playing as the defeated army's march and this is where it is assumed that Alatriste dies. The plot of the film has elements from each of the five books published up to the premiere, and it maintains the same storyline for the main characters. It includes excerpts from the future books of the saga. ===== The children of South Park become obsessed with an animated Japanese cartoon, Chinpokomon. The cartoon features overt embedded marketing to encourage consumption of Chinpokomon-related merchandise. Unbeknownst to the parents, Chinpokomon products all contain anti-American sentiments with the aim of converting American kids to Japanese child soldiers. Kyle is originally oblivious to the fad, and as its popularity increases he reluctantly attempts to keep up-to-date to avoid ridicule from his friends. Unfortunately, the merchandise lineup is so extensive that he is always one step behind. Meanwhile, the boys make plans to attend the official Chinpokomon camp, which is actually a front for a recruit training boot camp designed by the Japanese government to train and brainwash the kids into becoming soldiers for an upcoming attack on Pearl Harbor. As the adults start to become aware of the scheme, the Japanese distract them by telling them that Americans have "huge penises" compared to the Japanese, a tactic that works well against the male characters. The parents start to suspect the nonsensical cartoon is dangerous, as "stupidity can be worse than vulgarity and violence" and compare it to Battle of the Network Stars. Sheila Broflofski suggests it is just another harmless fad. This is juxtaposed with the truth of the fad's influence, which has turned the children into brainwashed soldiers and left Kenny in trance- like state after an epileptic seizure caused from playing the Chinpokomon video game. Becoming increasingly concerned, the parents attempt to defuse the fad's popularity by trying to manufacture new fads: The "Wild Wacky Action Bike", an abnormal plastic glow-in-the-dark bicycle contraption that cannot be steered, and "Alabama Man", an abusive, alcoholic, redneck action figure that comes with a bowling alley playset and a redneck wife to use as a punching bag. The boys, uninterested, call both the bike and action figure "gay". As the boys march through the town with Emperor Hirohito, President Bill Clinton will not act against the invasion as he too has fallen for the "incredibly large penis" trick. Finally, the parents hit upon the idea of using reverse psychology, pretending to be Chinpokomon fans themselves — figuring that whatever they like their children will immediately dislike. The trick works, and all the children except Kyle instantly lose all interest. Kyle claims that if he stops liking Chinpokomon now, he will be following the crowd, so he prepares to leave in a fighter jet to bomb Pearl Harbor. A heart-felt and contradictory speech by Stan confuses him into reluctantly getting off the jet. The group decide to avoid fads for a while, and Kenny is discovered to have been dead for some time, as evidenced when his body explodes, unleashing a large number of rats; Cartman is disgusted while Stan and Kyle laugh. ===== When millionaire industrialist Donald Carson III breaks his leg during a trip through the Mojave Desert, his wife Gerry and mining engineer Joe Duncan tell him they will seek medical aid. Yet they never return, and it isn't long before Carson realizes his predicament—he is stranded alone in the desert. Carson vows to survive in order to exact revenge on his adulterous wife and her accomplice, who have flown to Carson's mansion in Los Angeles, while waiting for him to succumb to either desert heat or suicide. Carson, however, does neither. Instead, he fashions a splint for his leg, enabling him to limp through the desert. At one point, he successfully digs a well; he also slays a deer and transforms it into strips of dried meat that will last for days. Law enforcement officers had hoped to find the missing Carson; but after several unsuccessful attempts, it is decided to call off further search efforts. Just to be certain Carson is dead, though, Joe flies a small plane over the region and spots the remnants of a fire Carson had apparently started to keep warm the previous evening. Suspecting now that he is still alive, Joe and Gerry drive back into the desert to look for and/or finish off Carson once and for all. But just as Joe discovers his prey and is about to shoot him, an old prospector, Elby, driving a jalopy, encounters Carson and gives him a ride back to his desert shack. Returning to his own car, Joe discovers that Gerry has driven it over a large rock by accident, which has ruptured the vehicle's oil pan. The damage now makes it impossible for them to drive out of the desert. Joe suddenly realizes her real intention, when she moved the car, was to abandon him as they both did Carson. Joe angrily walks away, leaving Gerry to fend for herself alone in the Mojave. That evening at Elby's shack, the prospector prepares supper for Carson, who confesses to his rescuer that although revenge is what sustained him while lost in the desert, the treachery of his wife and lover no longer seem important. As Elby goes outside to his well for water, he is knocked cold by Joe, who spotted the light coming from his shack. Joe then shoots at Carson but misses. The two men engage in a desperate, brutal fistfight. A toppled stove causes the shack to catch fire. With both men inside barely conscious, a recovered Elby drags Carson to safety while Joe perishes in the blaze. The next day, as Elby drives Carson to the nearest town, they spy Gerry walking alone on a long, remote stretch of desert road. Elby stops his dilapidated car beside her, and Carson calmly tells Gerry that she can either wait for the authorities to find her or ride into town with them. She gets into the car. ===== The plot concerns a young female biochemist who discovers that a chemical extracted from an unusual strain of lichen can be used to slow down the ageing process, enabling people to live to around 200–300 years. Wyndham speculates how society would deal with this prospect. The two central characters are Diana Brackley and Francis Saxover, two biochemists who run parallel investigations into the properties of a specific species of lichen after Diana notices that a trace of the specimen prevents some milk turning sour. She and Francis separately manage to extract from the lichen a new drug, dubbed Antigerone, which slows down the body's ageing process. While Francis uses it only on himself and his immediate family (without their knowledge), Diana founds a cosmetic spa, and builds up a clientele of some of the most powerful women in England, giving them low doses of Antigerone, preserving their beauty and youth. When Francis finds out about the spas, he erroneously assumes that Diana's motive is profit. Diana's aim, however, is actually female empowerment, intending to gain the support of these influential women, believing that if Antigerone became publicly known, it would be reserved only for the men in power. After a customer suffers an allergic reaction to one of Diana's products, the secret of the drug begins to emerge. Diana tries to cover up the real source of the drug, since the lichen is very rare and difficult to grow, but when it is finally discovered she fakes her own death in the hope of inspiring the women of Britain to fight for the rights she tried to secure for them. Francis realizes that Diana may not really be dead, and tracks her down to a remote farm where she has succeeded in growing a small amount of the lichen. Diana plans to rejoin the world under the guise of being her own sister, and continue the work she left off. ===== The novel is a future history, set from 1994 to 2194. It tells the story, with chapters at 50-year intervals, of the exploration of the Solar System, with space stations in Earth orbit, then Moon bases, and landings on Mars in 2094, Venus in 2144, and the asteroids. This is told through the Troon family, several members of which play an important part in the exploration of space, since they all feel "the outward urge", the desire to travel further into space. They all "hear the thin gnat-voices cry, star to faint star across the sky", a quote from The Jolly Company by Rupert Brooke.. In 1994, "Ticker" Troon is killed foiling a Soviet missile attack on a British space station, and is later awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross. In 2044, a major nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the West wipes out most of the Northern Hemisphere. Inhabitants of the Southern Hemisphere—virtually the only survivors of humanity—call it the "Great Northern War", the far earlier war of the same name seeming very minor in comparison. Only after hundreds of years, with radioactivity going down, do expeditions from the south start carefully exploring and preparing to re- colonise the ravaged northern hemisphere. Brazil is left as the main world power, which then claims that "Space is a province of Brazil". However, Australia eventually emerges as a serious rival. Consequently, English and Portuguese become contenders for the position of the major worldwide (eventually, Solar System-wide) language. Eventually, space explorers break away from the tutelage of both earthbound powers and establish themselves as a major third power, called simply "Space"; the Troon Family plays a major role in this as in many other events. ===== At a psychiatric hospital, former Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus (Herbert Lom) is largely recovered from his obsession to kill the new Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau (Peter Sellers) and is about to be released when Clouseau, arriving to speak on Dreyfus' behalf, within minutes drives Dreyfus insane again. Dreyfus later escapes from the hospital and once again tries to kill Clouseau by planting a bomb while the Inspector (by periodic arrangement) duels with his manservant Cato (Burt Kwouk). The bomb destroys Clouseau's apartment and injures Cato, but Clouseau himself is unharmed, being lifted from the room by an inflatable disguise. Deciding that a more elaborate plan is needed to eliminate Clouseau, Dreyfus enlists an army of criminals to his cause and kidnaps nuclear physicist Professor Hugo Fassbender (Richard Vernon) and the Professor's daughter Margo (Briony McRoberts), forcing the professor to build a "doomsday weapon" in return for his daughter's freedom. Clouseau travels to the UK to investigate Fassbender's disappearance, where he wrecks their family home and ineptly interrogates Jarvis (Michael Robbins), Fassbender's cross- dressing butler. Although Jarvis is later killed by the kidnappers, to whom he had become a dangerous witness, Clouseau discovers a clue that leads him to the Oktoberfest in Munich, West Germany. Meanwhile, Dreyfus, using Fassbender's invention, disintegrates the United Nations headquarters in New York City and blackmails the leaders of the world, including the President of the United States and his Secretary of State (based on Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger), into assassinating Clouseau. However, many of the nations instruct their operatives to kill Clouseau to gain Dreyfus's favor and possibly the Doomsday Machine. As a result of their orders and Clouseau's obliviousness, all of the other assassins end up killing one another until only the agents of Egypt and Russia remain. The Egyptian assassin (Omar Sharif) shoots one of Dreyfus' assassins, mistaking him for Clouseau, but is seduced by the Russian operative Olga Bariosova (Lesley-Anne Down), who makes the same mistake. When the real Clouseau arrives, he is perplexed by Olga's affections but learns from her Dreyfus's location at a castle in Bavaria. Dreyfus is elated at the erroneous report of Clouseau's demise, but suffers from a painful toothache and sends for a dentist; when Clouseau hears a dentist is needed at the castle, he disguises himself as an elderly German dentist and finally gains entry to the castle (his earlier attempts at sneaking in the castle had been repeatedly foiled by his general ineptitude and the castle's drawbridge). Unrecognized by Dreyfus, Clouseau ends up intoxicating both of them with nitrous oxide. When 'the dentist' mistakenly pulls the wrong tooth, Dreyfus immediately figures out it is Clouseau in disguise. Clouseau escapes, and a vengeful and now totally insane Dreyfus prepares to use the machine to destroy England. Clouseau, eluding Dreyfus's henchmen, unwittingly foils Dreyfus's plans when a medieval catapult outside the castle launches him on top of the doomsday machine, causing it to malfunction and fire on Dreyfus and the castle itself. As the remaining henchmen, Fassbender and his daughter, and eventually Clouseau himself escape the dissolving castle, Dreyfus plays "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" on the castle's pipe organ while he himself disintegrates, until he and the castle vanish. Returning to Paris, Clouseau is finally reunited with Olga. However, their tryst is interrupted first by Clouseau's apparent inability to remove his clothes, and then by Cato's latest surprise attack, which causes all three to be hurled into the river Seine when the reclining bed snaps back upright and crashes through the wall. Immediately thereafter, a cartoon image of Clouseau emerges from the water, which has been tinted pink, and begins swimming, unaware that a gigantic version of the Pink Panther character is waiting below him with a sharp-toothed, open mouth (a reference to the then-recent film Jaws, made further obvious by the thematic music). The film ends when the animated Clouseau gets chased by the Pink Panther as the credits roll. ===== The novel is divided into four sections. Each details a particular day in the four months that spanned the summer of 1958. In June takes up half of the book and shows the narrator meeting up with various teenaged friends and some adults in various parts of London and discussing his outlook on life and the new concept of being a teenager. He also learns that his ex-girlfriend, Suzette, is to enter a marriage of convenience with her boss, a middle-aged gay fashion designer called Henley. In July has the narrator taking photographs by the river Thames, seeing the musical operetta H.M.S. Pinafore with his father, has a violent encounter with Ed the Ted and watches Hoplite's appearance on Call-Me- Cobber's TV show. In August has the narrator and his father take a cruise along the Thames towards Windsor Castle. His father is taken ill on the trip and has to be taken to a doctor. The narrator also finds Suzette at her husband's cottage in Cookham. In September is set on the narrator's 19th birthday. He sees this, symbolically, as the beginning of his last year as a teenager. He witnesses several incidents of racial violence, which disgust him. His father also dies, leaving him four envelopes stuffed with money. Suzette has separated from Henley, but still seems uncertain as to whether she should resume her relationship with the narrator. The narrator decides to leave the country and find a place where racism doesn't exist. At the airport, he sees Africans arriving and gives them a warm welcome. ===== In an interview with CBC Radio, Université de Montréal History Professor Dominique St. Arnaud tells Diane about her new book, Variations on the Idea of Happiness, which discusses her thesis that modern society's fixation on self-indulgence is indicative of its decline, predicting a collapse in the "American Empire", of which Quebec is on the periphery. Several of Dominique and Diane's friends, mostly intellectual history professors at the university, prepare for a dinner later in the day, with the men at work in the kitchen while the women work out at the gym. As the dinner draws nearer, the men and women mainly talk about their sex lives, with the men being open about their adulteries, including Rémy, who is married to Louise. Most of the women in the circle of friends have had sex with Rémy, though he is not attractive, but they conceal this from Louise to spare her feelings. Louise has been to an orgy with Rémy, but believes he is generally faithful to her in Montreal. The friends are also accepting of their homosexual friend Claude, who speaks about pursuing men reckless of fear of STDs, while secretly being fearful of having one. During the dinner party, the friends listen to Dominique's theories about the decline of society, with Louise expressing skepticism. To retaliate against Louise, Dominique reveals she has had sex with Rémy and their friend Pierre, causing her to have an emotional meltdown. By morning, relationships have gone back to normal. ===== Homer stops by the Kwik-E-Mart on the way home from work and sees a masked clown resembling Krusty committing a robbery. After Homer identifies him at a police lineup and in the courtroom, Krusty is convicted and sentenced to prison. Bart is upset because he idolizes Krusty. Reverend Lovejoy urges the town's residents to destroy Krusty's merchandise. Krusty's sidekick Sideshow Bob becomes the host of the clown show, renamed The Side-Show Bob Cavalcade of Whimsy. Bob retools the show to focus on education and classic literature while retaining The Itchy and Scratchy Show. Refusing to accept that his hero could have committed the crime, Bart enlists Lisa's help to prove Krusty's innocence. At the crime scene, Bart and Lisa recall the robber read a magazine and used a microwave oven; Krusty is illiterate and has an artificial pacemaker which requires him to avoid microwave radiation. When Bart and Lisa visit Sideshow Bob to learn whether Krusty had any enemies, he gives them tickets to his show. During the live broadcast, Bart is invited on stage with Bob, who dismisses Bart's points about the microwave and magazine; Bob claims that Krusty never listened to doctors and that you can enjoy the cartoons in a magazine without being able to read. When Bob says he has a lot of "big shoes to fill", Bart remembers how the robber screamed in pain when Homer stepped on his foot during the robbery. Despite wearing large clown shoes, Krusty has small feet and would not have felt Homer stepping on his toes. Bart deduces that Sideshow Bob is the _real_ robber since he had the most to gain from Krusty's downfall, and that his big feet literally fill his long clown shoes. To prove this, he hits Bob's shoes with a mallet, making Bob scream in pain and exposing his large feet. While watching the show, the police realize they failed to notice this piece of evidence and head to the studio to arrest Bob. His crime exposed, Bob confesses the reason he framed Krusty: he hated spending years on the receiving end of his humiliating gags while Krusty "squandered a fortune on his vulgar appetites". Bob vows revenge on Bart while being led away. Krusty is freed after the charges against him are dropped. He regains the trust of the town's residents and Homer apologizes for misidentifying him. Krusty thanks Bart for uncovering the truth and sticking to his convictions. Bart hangs a picture of himself shaking hands with Krusty in his bedroom, which he refills with Krusty decor and merchandise. ===== Foxy Brown (Pam Grier) seeks revenge when her government-agent boyfriend is shot down by members of a drug syndicate at her doorstep. She links her boyfriend's murderers to a "modeling agency" run by Steve Elias (Peter Brown) and Miss Kathryn (Kathryn Loder) that services local judges, congressmen, and police in the area. Foxy decides to pose as a prostitute to infiltrate the company, and helps save a fellow black woman from a life of drugs and sexual exploitation, and reunites her with her husband and child. Not long after she infiltrates the company, her relationship to her late boyfriend and her brother, Link Brown, who ratted her boyfriend out, is exposed. She is caught before she can escape. After an exchange of words and heated death threats, Miss Kathryn decides to keep her alive in hopes of her being worth some money in the sex- slave trade. They give her a shot of heroin and then send her to a farm, which is actually a drug manufacturing plant, with two of Miss Kathryn's henchmen. After she wakes from her sleep, she tries to escape her captors, but is caught by one of the henchmen with a whip and dragged back to the bedroom, where he proceeds to tie her to the bed. Then, Kathryn's second goon comes and gives Foxy another shot of heroin; the dealer begins to eye Foxy, quoting, "I'm beginning to get that ole feeling" before he begins fondling her breasts and rips off her bra. Tied up and defenseless, the dealer rapes her and leaves. Using her quick thinking, Foxy uses a razor to get free and escapes her captors by setting the farm on fire. Ms. Kathryn orders her boyfriend, Steve, to kill Foxy. He attempts to scare information out of her brother, but to no avail. He then kills him and his girlfriend. Foxy asks her Black Panther brothers for help. They take Steve and cut off his genitals. Foxy comes to Ms. Kathryn's house and shows her the jar containing Steve's genitals. She kills two of the guards and shoots Kathryn in the arm. Foxy says that death is too easy for her and wants her to suffer the way that Ms. Kathryn made her suffer. ===== Banished from the peaceful and highly advanced simian Planet E, the mutant mad scientist Dr. Gori and his brutish gorilla-like assistant Karras (Ra in the Japanese version) search for a new world to rule after Gori's plot to conquer Planet E had been foiled by its government. Traveling to Earth in their flying saucer, the blond alien apeman is captivated by its beauty but appalled by its inhabitants' misuse of its environment, leading to severe pollution (a huge topic back when this series was made, since Tokyo was the most polluted city in the world at the time), so humankind must be quickly conquered if this planet is to remain inhabitable. Gori therefore plots, rather ironically, to use the pollution that is plaguing Earth to create horrible, giant, rampaging monsters to wipe out and/or enslave humankind. Hope comes in the form of the Nebula 71 Star, an artificial satellite resembling twin planet Saturns joined together that observes Earth incognito. Fearing that Gori may eventually make Earth uninhabitable, they dispatch Spectreman, their super-cyborg agent, to battle the menace of the mad apeman. Spectreman disguises himself as a Japanese man named Jôji Gamô to walk among the humans and scout out Gori's weekly menace for the Nebula 71 Star. He works with a government-run group called the Pollution G-Men, run by Chief Kurata. This group investigates phenomena involving pollution, but they do not (until late in the show's run) have the facilities to handle giant monsters, so unbeknownst to them, their comical-yet-mysterious teammate Jòji disappears on them, only to help them as Spectreman! As the series comes to a conclusion, Dr. Gori's subordinates - and even Ra - are largely defeated, forcing the mad scientist to face Spectreman by himself in the last episode. While the hero tries to convince him that his remarkable intelligence should be put at the service of good rather than be used for destruction and tyranny, Gori commits suicide after replying that he would rather die than live with such an inferior and self-destructive race as the humans. ===== In the 853rd century, the original Superman ("Superman-Prime One Million") still lives, but has spent over fifteen thousand years in a self-imposed exile in his Fortress of Solitude in the heart of the Sun in order to keep it alive, during which everyone he knew and loved died. One of his descendants is "Kal Kent", the Superman of the 853rd century. The galaxy is protected by the Justice Legions, which were inspired by the 20th-century Justice League and the 31st-century Legion of Super-Heroes, among others. Justice Legion Alpha, which protects the solar system, includes Kal Kent and future analogues of Wonder Woman, Hourman, Starman, Aquaman, the Flash and Batman. Advanced terraforming processes have made all the Solar System's planets habitable, with the ones most distant from the Sun being warmed by Solaris, a "star computer" which was once a villain but was reprogrammed by one of Superman's descendants. Superman-Prime announces that he will soon return to humanity and, to celebrate, Justice Legion Alpha travels back in time to the late 20th century to meet Superman's original teammates in the JLA, and bring them and Superman to the future to participate in games and displays of power as part of the celebration. Meanwhile, in Russia, Vandal Savage single-handedly defeats the Titans (Arsenal, Tempest, Jesse Quick and Supergirl) when they attempt to stop him purchasing nuclear-powered Rocket Red suits. He then launches four Rocket Red suits (with a Titan trapped inside each of the four) in a nuclear strike on Washington D.C., Metropolis, Brussels and Singapore. One member of the Justice Legion Alpha (the future Starman) has been bribed into betraying his teammates by Solaris, who has returned to its old habits. Before the original heroes can be returned to their own time the future Hourman, android, collapses and releases a virus programmed by Solaris to attack machines and humans. The virus affects the guidance systems of the Rocket Red suits and causes one of them to instead detonate over Montevideo, killing over one million people. Tempest (the Titan inside) had escaped long before the suit exploded by using the ice that formed on the suit at high altitude, although he subsequently blacked out and fell into the sea. The virus also drives humans insane, causing an increase in anger and paranoia worldwide. Believing that this was deliberately planned by the JLA to stop him, Savage launches an all-out war on superhumans using "blitz engines" he had created and hidden while allied with Hitler during World War II. The paranoia caused by the virus also leads the Justice Legion Alpha and the contemporary heroes to attack each other, although the Justice Legion Alpha manage to coordinate themselves enough to stop the other Rocket Red suits from hitting their targets. The remnants of the JLA that stayed in the present and the Justice Legion Alpha overcome their paranoia when the future Superman and Steel realize the significance of the symbol they both wear; as Huntress had pointed out to Steel earlier, wearing the 'S' means that he has to make the hard choices. The two JLAs are eventually able to stop the virus when it is discovered that it is a complex computer program looking for appropriate hardware. To provide this hardware, the heroes are forced to build the body of Solaris (including in it a DNA sample of Superman's wife Lois Lane) and the virus flees from the Earth to this body, bringing Solaris to life. In a final act of repentance, the future Starman sacrifices himself to banish Solaris from the solar system. The future Superman forces himself through time using confiscated time travel technology he finds in the Watchtower, almost dying in the process due to the drain on his powers. Meanwhile, in the 853rd century, the original JLA are fighting an alliance between Solaris and Vandal Savage. Savage has found a sample of kryptonite on Mars (where it was left by the future Starman back in the 20th century), which he gives to Solaris. Savage has also hired Walker Gabriel to steal the time travel gauntlets of the 853rd century Flash (John Fox) to ensure the Justice Legion Alpha remains trapped in the past. However, he ultimately double-crosses Gabriel. Solaris, in a final attack, slaughters thousands of superhumans so that it can fire the kryptonite into the sun and kill Superman-Prime before he emerges. The JLA's Green Lantern — a hero who uses a power that Solaris has never encountered before — causes Solaris to go supernova and he and the 853rd century Superman contain the resulting blast — but not before the kryptonite is released. The future Vandal Savage teleports from Mars to Earth using the stolen Time-Gauntlets. It turns out, however, that Walker Gabriel and Mitch Shelley, the Resurrection Man (an immortal who had become Savage's greatest foe through the millennia), had sabotaged the Gauntlets so that Savage, instead of travelling only in space, also travels through time, arriving in Montevideo moments before the nuclear blast he caused centuries earlier, finally bringing his life to an end. It is then revealed that a secret conspiracy—forewarned by the trouble in the 20th century, mainly in that Huntress, inspired by the time capsules which students in her class were currently making, realized they had centuries to foil the plot—has spent the intervening centuries coming up with a foolproof plan for stopping Solaris. Their actions included replacing the hidden kryptonite with a disguised Green Lantern power ring, with which the original Superman emerges from the Sun and finishes off Solaris. In the aftermath, the original Superman and the future Hourman use the DNA sample to recreate Lois Lane, complete with superpowers. Superman then also recreates Krypton, along with all its deceased inhabitants, in Earth's solar system, and live happily ever after with Lois. ===== Trelane, who first appeared in the original Star Trek episode "The Squire of Gothos", is revealed to be a member of the Q Continuum. He taps into the power of the continuum and uses this ability to tamper with time and reality, resulting in the intersection of three different parallel universes which are also referred to as time "tracks". Track A is a universe in which Beverly Crusher's husband Jack never died, and now serves as captain of the Enterprise with Jean-Luc Picard as his first officer; in this universe, Jack's son Wesley died as a boy and Jack and Beverly divorced. Track B is the traditional universe depicted on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Track C is akin to the more militaristic alternate universe shown in the Next Generation episode "Yesterday's Enterprise", in which the Federation is at war with the Klingons. Q, who had been charged with the task of "mentoring" Trelane (a task each "adult" Q must accept at least once for an "adolescent" Q), enlists the help of Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-D in the three different timelines in order to teach Trelane discipline, and eventually, to stop him from destroying the fabric of the universe by collapsing the alternate universes together. When the tracks begin to merge, the characters from separate universes begin to appear to one another, sometimes with disastrous results. The Tashas of Track A and C encounter each other, with Tasha-A reacting with amazement at her C counterpart's harsh appearance; Jack Crusher confronts his ex-wife about the affair she is having with Track-A Picard; during the argument, which Track-B Picard witnesses, she is accidentally killed; additionally, members of Track C attempt to kill Worf, and believe all the members of the crew from the other two universes are really Klingon impostors. Eventually, Q manages to overpower Trelane and the universes are once again separated, though not always perfectly (at the end of the novel, Track-A Data appears to be stuck in Track C). Q also spends part of the novel lost in time and space, trapped by the barrier around the galaxy; this relates to the original series episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before". ===== Harry Keogh (born Harry Snaith) is born with the ability to speak to the dead. As he grows up and his power manifests itself, he befriends the dead. From them he learns that death is not the end, that although the body dies – the mind goes on, and the dead continue to improve and expand in death what they loved in life. From him, the once silent Great Majority learns to communicate amongst themselves, and love him for it. In turn, they offer him their knowledge: while at school, a deceased math teacher helps him with his developing mathematics talent and an ex-army sergeant teacher imparts self-defense skills. As the years go by, he has recurring dreams about his mother, dead after an apparent ice-skating accident but in reality murdered by her husband and Harry's stepfather Victor Shukshin. Shukshin is a psychic sensitive, a defector sleeper agent planted in England by the Soviet E-Branch. In his self-appointed mission to avenge his mother's death, Harry is dragged into a web of espionage involving British and Soviet ESP agencies. This leads to Harry learning to use the Möbius Continuum (from its discoverer August Ferdinand Möbius himself, at his grave in Leipzig, Germany), which allows him to instantaneously transport himself anywhere in the multi-dimensional universe. From that point on, Keogh, backed by the British E-Branch, works to rid our world of a vampire menace, a mission that will eventually lead him to a parallel world, Sunside/Starside, the vampire- dominated world connected to Earth via two portals, one in Romania (the original "source" of vampires on Earth) and a second, recent one in the Soviet-run Pechorsk Project in the Urals. It is on Sunside/Starside that Harry Keogh's final death eventually meets up with him, after he has lost his family, his friends, even his deadspeak and numeracy... but not his humanity. As Harry knows well – death is not the end, his was a success story and such stories need to go on. In the Möbius Continuum, Harry's essence explodes in a burst of golden light, and from that explosion a myriad of golden darts, each a part of Harry, come forth. Each of those golden darts carry a part of Keogh, and can join with hosts to grant them some of the abilities of the original Necroscope. Later books in the series tell the stories of individuals touched by these darts: Nathan Kiklu, Jake Cutter and Scott St. John. The darts seek to continue their mission in life, and so bond to individuals who will come up against the Necroscope's old foes, the Wamphyri, and menaces of diabolic nature. Harry's physical remains, infected by the spores of the vampire Faethor Ferenczy, were sent back in time by the Möbius Continuum and ended up in the marshes of Sunside/Starside, making him the source of the vampire plague when his own spores infected the exiled Shaitan who becomes the first Wamphyri Lord. ===== The book consists of six nested stories; each is read or observed by a main character of the next, thus they progress in time through the central sixth story. The first five stories are each interrupted at a pivotal moment. After the sixth story, the others are closed in reverse chronological order, with the main character reading or observing the chronologically earlier work in the chain. Each story contains a document, movie, or tradition that appears in an earlier story. ===== The central character is not Spartacus himself, but Kleon, a fictional Greek educated slave and eunuch who joins the revolt. In the first chapter we are told how he was sold into slavery as a child and sexually abused by an owner. Another important character is Elpinice, a female slave who helps Spartacus and his fellow gladiators escape from Capua, and who becomes Spartacus's lover. She gives birth to a son, but while Spartacus is fighting elsewhere she is raped and murdered by soldiers, and the child is also killed. The novel touches on Gibbon's views on human history, with Spartacus seen as a survivor of the Golden Age. However, in spite of various additions and speculations, it does stick fairly closely to the known historical facts about the revolt. Plutarch's life of Crassus is clearly the main source, but it does make use of some other classical sources, including Appian and Sallust. ===== Gary Cooper as Trane During the Franco-Mexican War, ex- Confederate soldier Ben Trane (Cooper) travels to Mexico seeking a job as a mercenary. He falls in with Joe Erin (Lancaster), a gunslinger who heads a gang of cutthroats (Ernest Borgnine, Jack Elam, Charles Bronson, Archie Savage, and others). They are recruited by Marquis Henri de Labordere (Cesar Romero) for service with Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico (George Macready) Maximilian offers them $25,000 to escort Countess Duvarre (Denise Darcel) to the city of Veracruz. Trane gets the emperor to double the offer. The expedition passes through the ruins of Teotihuacan. During a river crossing, Trane notices that the stagecoach in which the countess is traveling is extremely heavy. Erin and Trane later discover that hidden inside are six cases of gold coins. The countess informs them that it is worth $3 million which is intended to pay for reinforcements from Europe. They form an uneasy alliance to steal and split the gold. Unbeknownst to them, the marquis is listening from the shadows. The Juaristas, led by General Ramírez (Morris Ankrum), attack the column several times. Pickpocket and Juarista undercover agent Nina (Sara Montiel) joins the convoy. When Trane, Erin and their men are surrounded by the Juaristas, Trane persuades Ramirez to join forces and agree to pay them $100,000. The marquis succeeds in getting the gold to Veracruz. In the Juarista attack, the French are defeated, but most of Erin's men are killed. Erin attempts to steal the gold for himself by getting the countess to reveal the location of the ship she had hired to transport it. He even kills one of his own men. However, Trane arrives in time to confront him. They face off in a showdown that ends in Erin's death. Trane and Nina leave, while women search the dead for their loved ones. ===== Paifu and José decide to go to the house of a human rumored to be a murderer.Cowa! chapter 2, page 18 Paifu notices what appears to be an orange spirit out in the sea and mistakes it for their friend. They arrive at the light source only to find that it was a torch on a raft belonging to the world-renowned sumo wrestler Maruyama, whom they feared. In spite of becoming acquainted, Maruyama teases Paifu and picks up two sticks producing a cross gesture to scare him off believing he, like some vampires in stories, fear a cross. On the contrary, this action forces Paifu to transform into a rampaging were-koala. His rage is halted by José, who shape-shifts into a round object to revert him back to normal. José tells Maruyama that Paifu can not look at a cross figure for more than three seconds before transforming. When asked by Maruyama about Paifu's father, Paifu replies that he was shot to death in a human city when he shape- shifted into a were-koala.Cowa! chapter 2, page 29 After getting to know a little about Maruyama's past, it turns out that he is not as frightening as rumored to be. José (background left) and Paifu as they advance to steal a watermelon from a field. Back in the village, Paifu and José begin to notice a strain of influenza that is spreading in the village affecting only the monsters. On their way to school, they are surprised by Arpon, a monster who considers Paifu to be his eternal enemy. The three exchange a few wordsCowa! chapter 3, page 35 which led to Arpon challenging Paifu to a sparring match of kung fu.Cowa! chapter 3, page 38 Paifu's mother later tells him that school has been canceled for a while due to the serious flu.Cowa! chapter 4, pages 47–48 He celebrates by going to José's home and runs into the village doctor. The doctor realizes that the flu strain is the , a disease that affects only monsters and kills the victim in a month's time.Cowa! chapter 4, page 50 When the two arrive at the Rodriguez residence to see José's ill father, the doctor's suspicions are confirmed to everyone there and reveals that the cure to the Monster Flu can be created by a witch that resides at the top of Horned-Owl Mountain.Cowa! chapter 4, page 52 The doctor also tells of a forest that one must cross and that a terrible monster dwells along the forest path which leads to the mountain. Due to the adult monsters being sick, Paifu and José volunteer to make the trip and are accompanied by the former sumo wrestler Maruyama, who in actuality, was deceived by Paifu who claimed that the villagers would pay him 1,000,000 yen for his troubles.Cowa! chapter 4, page 57 As the trio are about to leave, Arpon joins the team, exclaiming that he wants to be a hero for the villagers.Cowa! chapter 4, page 58 With plenty of rest and recuperation, the team pass through a city and arrive around a forest area located by Horned-Owl Mountain. As they near it, Arpon suddenly falls ill by the Monster Flu.Cowa! chapter 7, pages 98–99 They come to a nearby family for aid; in the midst of their troubles, Paifu and Maruyama save them from being attacked by a gang. In exchange, the family cares for the sick Arpon while Paifu, José and Maruyama take off for the forest. Before they leave, they are told by the family of the forest monster's supposed weakness, whistling.Cowa! chapter 9, page 120 Upon entering the forest, Maruyama has José whistle since he is apparently the only one who can, while Paifu practices his whistling since José will eventually get exhausted.Cowa! chapter 9, page 122 José, instead of getting fatigued from whistling, suddenly falls ill to the Monster Flu as well.Cowa! chapter 9, page 123 Their fear of the monster finding them becomes a reality and they are attacked by the forest monster Baroaba. Maruyama holds his own against the behemoth and tells Paifu to start learning how to whistle immediately before they are killed. Although several attempts had been unsuccessful, Paifu finally prospered in whistling and Baroaba is literally downsized by the sound,Cowa! chapter 10, page 142 proving the weakness true, and is pounded by Maruyama. Before Maruyama finishes him off, he discovers that Baroaba only attacks to protect the forest's rare wildlife; Baroaba apologizes for the misunderstanding and decides to help them get to their destination, the witch's house.Cowa! chapter 11, page 157 With help from Baroaba, who stays to care for the ill José, Paifu and Maruyama finally reach the summit of the mountain.Cowa! chapter 11, pages 154–155 They then encounter the witch's servant, an oni named Leonardo. After solving a riddle, they are allowed to meet the witch and fortunately retrieved the influenza medicine. On the way down the mountain, Maruyama accidentally slips and falls off. Paifu makes a daring rescue by learning flight at the last minuteCowa! chapter 13, page 177 and saves Maruyama and himself from immediate death.Cowa! chapter 13, pages 178–179 On the way back, Maruyama talks of how he is going to buy a boat with the money he makes forcing Paifu to reveal that he had lied to him about the payment of 1,000,000 yen. Maruyama admits that he is disappointed, but not infuriated as Paifu saved his life.Cowa! chapter 14, page 190 The four are praised as they returned to the village. One month later, Paifu, José and everyone else from the village meet Maruyama out at sea with a ghost boat that all fixed up together.Cowa! chapter 14, pages 197–198 ===== The story focuses on Michael Smith, a compulsive, late-20s telephone repairman living a highly structured life in Pacific City, California. His father was killed in an earthquake, and he was abandoned by his mother around age nine. Smith meets Titus Bird, a writer of the superhero comic book series The Enigma. The Enigma himself is a man born with seemingly omnipotent powers who adopts the identity of a comic book superhero. He is an essentially emotionless being and unfamiliar with the concepts of right and wrong. One of the minor characters in Enigma, named Envelope Girl, made an appearance in Peter Milligan's run of Animal Man. ===== Marge is depressed that Homer takes her for granted and phones Dr. Marvin Monroe's call-in therapy radio show. Listening to the call at work, Homer feels bad when Marge reveals his name on the radio. After work he visits Moe's Tavern, where Moe advises him to give Marge a rose and a box of chocolates. Marge's mood softens and Homer invites her to go dancing, dine at a fancy restaurant and spend the night at a motel. Marge and Homer hire Ms. Botz through a babysitting service to watch the kids. Botz puts Maggie to bed while Bart and Lisa watch The Happy Little Elves. While watching America's Most Armed and Dangerous on TV, Bart and Lisa are shocked to learn that Botz is a wanted burglar dubbed the Babysitter Bandit. Realizing her cover is blown, Botz ties up the kids and packs the family's possessions into her suitcases. Maggie wakes up goes downstairs and find Bart and Lisa, they try to get her attention but focus on the happy little elves. As the video ends Maggie attempts to watch it again, until Lisa tells her she can if she unties her and Bart. While Mrs. Botz is still cleaning up she sees that Maggie has got out of her crib. As Ms. Botz is lured to Bart's room thinking it's Maggie she goes in and is knocked out with a baseball bat revealing to be Bart sucking on Maggie's pacifier. Realizing Botz cut the telephone line, the kids go to a phone booth and call the producers of America's Most Armed and Dangerous. When Marge and Homer are unable to reach Ms. Botz by phone, they return home early to find her bound and gagged. Unaware she is a wanted criminal, Homer and Marge free her and pay her handsomely. She flees just as the kids arrive with the police and news reporters. Homer thinking it's one of their naughty tricks grabs Bart on the back of his shirt, saying he and Marge had untied her. However, reporters tell him that Ms. Botz is a wanted criminal. Realizing his blunder, he lies to the media which turns into an embarrassment for Bart. When a television newscast identifies him as a "local boob", Marge assures him he must be doing something right if he raised three children who can hogtie a stranger. ===== Old horseman Ben (Clarence Muse) brings his beloved thoroughbred Bluenight to New York from Kentucky in hopes of developing him into a championship racer. Because the old man is down on his luck, the East Side boys offer to provide a makeshift quarters for Bluenight, and Algy Wilkes (Eugene Francis) persuades his father (Milton Kibbee) to put up the entrance fee for the horse. Muggs Maloney (Leo Gorcey), an aspiring but untested jockey, rides Bluenight in the race, but loses his nerve on the track, causing Bluenight to trail in the field. Seated in the stands is Morgan (Forrest Taylor), a respected trainer, who recognizes the horse's ability and urges Mr. Wilkes to race the horse with an experienced jockey. However, Muggs insists upon doing the riding, and his pals induce Mr. Wilkes to give him another chance. Complications arise the night before the race when Nick (Wilbur Mack), a crooked bookie, tries to sabotage Bluenight. The boys discover the plot and save the horse, but the next day, Muggs realizes that he cannot guide the horse to victory. With the use of his fists, he convinces jockey Jimmy Sullivan (Nick Wall) to take his place, and Bluenight finishes the race the winner. ===== Nola Darling is a young, attractive Brooklynite who juggles three suitors: the polite and well-meaning Jamie Overstreet; the self-obsessed model Greer Childs; and the immature, motor-mouthed Mars Blackmon. Nola is attracted to the best in each of them, but refuses to commit to any of them, cherishing her personal freedom instead, while each man wants her for himself. Her carefree, sexually liberated lifestyle ultimately comes to an end when her three male suitors meet and compare notes on Nola. While Greer justifies Nola's callous behavior by claiming that she sees the three not as individuals but as a collective, Jamie and Mars become bitter over how little Nola cares for all three men. Realizing that Greer and Mars are too scared of losing Nola to force her to choose one of them, Jamie tells her that she must choose a single lover. Nola scoffs at this, and persuades him to come to her apartment several days later for casual sex. While having rough sex, Jamie mockingly asks her if he's as good sexually as Greer or Mars. Nola has an epiphany: realizing that her choices have turned Jamie against her, she decides to call his bluff. Nola dumps Greer and Mars and tells Jamie that she is ready for a monogamous relationship. Believing that her sexual activity has prevented her from committing to a single guy, Nola tells Jamie their relationship has to be celibate for the time being. After at first rejecting Nola's "no sex" decree, Jamie agrees to it. Nola and Jamie's reunion, however, is followed by a coda which dismantles the "happy ending" of the couple coming together. In a monologue delivered to the camera, Nola reveals that her vow of celibacy and her decision to be with Jamie exclusively was "a moment of weakness". She says that she soon began to cheat on Jamie and their relationship collapsed. Nola proudly proclaims that monogamy is a form of slavery and that her lifestyle is freedom in its purest form. The film closes with a view of Nola going to bed alone. ===== Homer learns of Dimoxinil, a new "miracle breakthrough" for baldness, but cannot afford its $1,000 price. Lenny suggests Homer use the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant's medical insurance plan to pay for it. After applying the drug, Homer wakes up the next day with a full head of hair. Mr. Burns scans the security monitors to find someone to promote to an executive position. Mistaking Homer for a young go-getter with a mane of hair, Burns chooses him. When Homer has trouble finding a secretary who is not a seductive young woman, a man named Karl persuades Homer to hire him. Karl soon proves indispensable to Homer and gives him a makeover to replace his cheap polyester suit with a well-tailored one, and that an executive needs to project self-confidence, not slouch in his seat. When he forgets his own wedding anniversary, Karl hires a singing telegram service to serenade Marge with "You Are So Beautiful". At an executive board meeting, Burns asks Homer to suggest a way to increase worker productivity. After Homer suggests providing more tartar sauce in the lunch room, workplace safety improves and accidents decrease. When Smithers observes that the prior accidents were caused by or traced to Homer, Burns correctly accuses Smithers of petty jealousy. After Homer receives the key to the executive washroom, Smithers is angry that he is now in Burns' good graces while his loyal service is forgotten. Smithers learns that Homer committed insurance fraud to receive Dimoxinil and attempts to get him fired. Karl takes the blame and writes a $1,000 check to repay the company, forcing Smithers to fire him instead. Homer is nervous about giving a speech at the plant, but reasons that everything will be fine as long as he has a full head of hair. Homer catches Bart using his Dimoxinil in a misguided attempt to grow a beard, causing him to drop the bottle and spill its contents. By the next day, Homer has lost all his hair, as he had to keep putting the drug on his head. Before the meeting, Karl appears with a prepared speech for him to deliver and reassures Homer that all his accomplishments were due to his will and effort, not the hair. Homer gives a brilliant speech on the Japanese art of self- management, but the audience refuses to take him seriously because he has no hair and walks out on him. Burns threatens to fire Homer, but admits he sympathizes with him since he also suffers from male pattern baldness and knows what the condition does to a man. He compassionately demotes Homer to his former position. At home that night, Homer tells Marge he is afraid she will love him less now that he is bald again, as well as incite the kids' anger as the loss of his executive position means he cannot afford a better lifestyle. Marge reminds him that his job as a safety inspector has always provided for the family and the kids will get over having less than their friends. Marge and Homer sing "You Are So Beautiful" together in each other's arms. ===== Le Ly is a girl growing up in a Vietnamese village. Her life changes when communist insurgents show up in the village to first fight the forces of France and then the United States. During the American involvement, Le Ly is captured and tortured by South Vietnamese troops, and later raped by the Viet Cong because they suspect that she is a traitor. After the rape, her relationship with her village is destroyed, and she and her family are forced to move. Her family moves to Saigon and she is employed by a family there. The master of the household misleads her into believing that he genuinely cares for her, and she falls for him and gets pregnant by him. The master's wife becomes enraged and Le Ly's whole family is forced to move back to their former province. There she meets Steve Butler, a Gunnery Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps. When she first meets him she is not interested in a boyfriend or marriage, having been through so much suffering. Steve falls for Le Ly and treats her very well, making a big difference in her life while in Vietnam. The two leave Vietnam and move to the United States. Their life together begins well, but years of killing in the war have taken their toll on Steve, who becomes uncontrollably violent. The relationship falters, despite Le Ly's attempts to reconcile with Steve. After an impassioned plea by Le Ly for Steve to come back to her, he commits suicide. Many years following this tragic experience, Le Ly returns to Vietnam with her sons and shows them where she came from. ===== Naomi's story is focused around a man's obsession for a modan garu or modern girl. The narrator, Jōji, is a well-educated Japanese man who is an electrical engineer in the city, and comes from a wealthy farming family. Jōji wishes to break away from his traditional Japanese culture, and becomes immersed in the new Westernized culture which was taking root in Japan. The physical representation of everything Western is embodied in a girl named Naomi. Jōji sees Naomi for the first time in a café and instantly falls for her exotic "Eurasian" looks, Western-sounding name, and (to him) sophisticated mannerisms. Like the story of the prepubescent Murasaki in the classic novel The Tale of Genji, Jōji decides he will raise Naomi, a fifteen-year-old café hostess, to be his perfect woman: in this case, he will forge her into a glamorous Western-style girl like Mary Pickford, the famous Canadian actress of the silent film era, whom he thinks Naomi resembles. Jōji moves Naomi into his home and begins his efforts to make her a perfect Western wife. She turns out to be a very willing pupil. He pays for her English-language lessons, and though she has little skill with grammar, she possesses beautiful pronunciation. He funds her Westernized activities, including her love of movies, dancing and magazines. During the early part of the novel Jōji makes no sexual advances on Naomi, preferring instead to groom her according to his desires and observe her from a distance. However, his plan to foster Western ideals such as independence in her backfires dramatically as she gets older. Jōji begins the novel being the dominator. However, as time progresses and his obsession takes hold, Naomi's manipulation puts her in a position of power over him. Slowly Jōji turns power over to Naomi, conceding to everything she desires. He buys a new house for them, and though they are married, Jōji sleeps in a separate bedroom, while Naomi entertains Western men in another room. The book ends with Naomi having complete control of Jōji's life, though he claims he is satisfied as long as his obsession with her is satiated. ===== Screenshot Based in a sector of deep space called K240 in the year 2380, the game involves building space colonies on a cluster of asteroids and mining them for valuable ore, while fighting against several different races of hostile aliens with similar motives. ===== Milly is a soldier from 2084, where humanity is on the verge of extinction because of the "Daggra", an alien race. In mankind's final stronghold in Tibet, Milly leaps into a newly built time portal just before the fortress is overrun. The portal sends her to 2002, where her mission is to kill the first Daggra, who faked a crash landing, and stop him from signaling his invasion fleet. Milly lands in the aftermath of a shootout in Tokyo Bay, where a hitman named Miyamoto holds the murderous Triad mobster Mizoguchi at gunpoint. Her arrival allows the mobster to escape and Miyamoto takes Milly, who he thinks he accidentally shot, back to his place. She was saved by a plate of metal in her coat. She tapes a tiny bomb to his neck and threatens him into helping her on her mission. Miyamoto has a personal score to settle with Mizoguchi, who killed his childhood friend by kidnapping him and selling off his organs. That night, Miyamoto sees Milly cleaning up his trenchcoat on a coat hanger, so he tells her to go back to sleep. The next morning he discovers photos of himself and a newspaper article on his death. He shows these to his weapons supplier Shi, who tells him it's an elaborate trick the Triads wouldn't waste their time on. With Shi's help, they track down where the alien spaceship crashed, but it was taken away to the National Institute of Space Science. They try to get to the spaceship to kill the alien, but Mizoguchi arrives and tries to take the facility over. Milly is surprised at the alien, it is not what she expected. She hesitates to kill it as Mizoguchi advances on the lab. Using Miyamoto as its mouthpiece, the alien says it wants to go home. Milly realizes that she has been lied to. The humans and not the aliens, started the war which has been destroying the human race. They started it when they captured and killed the alien. She now knows they have to stop Mizoguchi as he wants the alien technology to take over the world. Following the destruction of the Space Science lab, Mizoguchi and his goons take the alien and its ship. Meanwhile, Miyamoto and Milly regroup for the next part of her mission. The duo again confronts Mizoguchi at an abandoned oil rig, where they rescue the alien. Surviving a huge explosion, a bloodied Mizoguchi threatens to kill them all for ruining his plans. However, his bullets hit an invisible force field. Miyamoto quickly grabs the gun and kills Mizoguchi. Before they can figure out where the force field came from a Daggra craft, disguised as a Boeing 747-400 airliner arrives, having received the alien's distress signal. The Daggra take their wounded comrade and leave Earth. As the future war has ceased to exist, Milly slowly disappears. Shortly after the incident, Miyamoto decides to give up his life of violence and hands in his guns to Shi. While walking home, he is confronted by a thug whose life he had spared earlier at Tokyo Bay. Realizing that he is weaponless, Miyamoto is helpless as the thug shoots him. The thug walks away, assuming that Miyamoto is dead. A little later, Miyamoto staggers up and finds his life was saved by a plate of metal similar to Milly's. The plate has a written message by Milly, telling him she has repaid him. Miyamoto recalls the night Milly messed around with his trenchcoat. While Miyamoto and Milly were asleep, a second, future Milly traveled from the future and slipped the metal plate into his trenchcoat before returning to her timeline. On her way out, she accidentally drops the newspaper article on Miyamoto's death. ===== Louis XV, the pleasure-loving King of France in the mid-eighteenth century, is nearing 60, and, his wife and his important and beloved former mistress Madame de Pompadour both being gone, he yearns for a new woman companion who would treat him as a man rather than as a favour- dispensing king. He fails to find such a woman at the Deer Park, a "school" for ladies in waiting— and would-be royal mistresses— set up in memory of Madame de Pompadour. However, one of his courtiers, the Duc de Richelieu, knows (as a lover or customer, it is strongly suggested) a young woman of the people, Jeanne du Barry, who is an exuberant, free-spirited soul with no agenda except having a good time. He introduces her to Louis, and she makes a hit. She moves into Versailles, where Louis showers her with extravagant gifts, and she keeps him fascinated with changing moods and challenges. Early in their relationship, she demands a sleigh ride with Louis in the summer, and Lebel, the palace steward, has to arrange this by buying all the sugar in Paris to put under the sleigh runners. Du Barry and Louis have unalloyed fun for a while, but Louis's three grown daughters and their friend the Duchesse de Granmont are scandalized and join with the Prime Minister, Choiseul, to try to freeze her out of court. Richelieu's nephew, the upright official the Duc d'Aiguillon, rebukes Louis and Du Barry for ruining France with their extravagance, and opposes a war with England Choiseul wants to start. When Choiseul spoils Du Barry's formal court presentation by having her dress and wig stolen and the tipsy noblewoman who was to present her abducted, she shows up at the court gathering in her nightgown, and Louis storms out but then turns and beckons her to follow. Du Barry takes revenge on Choiseul by charming him, promising him a reward and luring him into a compromising situation where Louis catches him seemingly trying to take liberties with her. Louis fires Choiseul and makes D’Aiguillon Prime Minister, and the war with England is averted, to the bemusement of the English ambassador at the trivial cause of so major a result. Louis’ slow, pedantic grandson and heir, Louis the Dauphin, is betrothed to the Austrian princess Marie Antoinette, and Du Barry is among those who drive to the frontier with Louis and the Dauphin to receive her. Marie Antoinette snubs her, which she takes with good humour. After an elaborate wedding party that ends in a thunderstorm, the Dauphin spends his wedding night lecturing Marie Antoinette on the causes of the weather instead of comforting her. Louis asks Du Barry to talk to him about the facts of life for the sake of France; Marie Antoinette and her new allies, Louis’ sisters and the Duchesse de Granmont, are furious when they find Du Barry and the Dauphin behind a closed door, though nothing has happened. As they all shout at each other, Louis collapses. Du Barry gathers his favourite field flowers and makes her way to his deathbed as his family and the doctors abandon it. They share some happy memories, and he dies. Du Barry is packing to leave when word comes that she is to be deprived of the castle Louis gave her and imprisoned in another chateau. She bids a mocking farewell to Marie Antoinette and the Dauphin, now Louis XVI, and goes off between two officers, ruefully singing the trivial little song she sang to Louis throughout their relationship. ===== Bart and Lisa go fishing downstream of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. Springfield Shopper reporter Dave Shutton arrives just as Bart catches a three-eyed fish. After the fish, nicknamed Blinky by the media, makes headlines, incumbent governor Mary Bailey sends a government inspection team to the plant, suspecting nuclear waste may have caused the mutation. The plant's owner, Mr. Burns, is presented with a list of 342 violations which will cost $56 million (just over $110,263,000 in 2019) to rectify. Distraught, Burns takes up Homer's suggestion that he run for governor to prevent the plant from being closed. Burns' political advisers inform him that he is greatly despised by most people while Bailey is beloved by all. To quell the controversy over Blinky, Burns appears on television with an actor portraying Charles Darwin who claims Blinky is an evolutionary leap, not a "hideous genetic mutation". After Burns vows to lower taxes and runs a smear campaign against Bailey, his campaign ties hers in the polls. Burns' advisers suggest that he have dinner at the home of a middle-class family the night before the election. After scanning the plant's video monitors for the most average man he can find, Burns chooses Homer. The impending dinner with Burns divides the Simpson household. Homer pragmatically supports him, while Marge and Lisa oppose him. Before the dinner, Burns' advisers prep the family by giving them written questions to ask him at the dinner table. Lisa is disillusioned by the political charade, but Marge tells her not to worry. Everyone is shocked when Marge serves Blinky for dinner, placing the fish's head on Burns' plate. Unable to swallow the fish, he spits it out. Cameras flash as the expelled bite flies through the air and hits the floor, dooming his gubernatorial campaign. Bailey wins the election. After destroying the Simpsons' furnishings in a fit of rage, Burns warns that Homer's dreams will go unfulfilled as long as he lives. ===== The title refers to the privileged intellectual elite of Russia, epitomised by Protassoff, high-minded and idealistic, but basically unaware of what is going on around them in the lower depths. Lisa, in contrast, is sickly, nervous, and prophetically aware of impending crisis. It is set during an 1862 cholera epidemic in Russia in which fear drove people to mob action. Protassov's detachment leaves him oblivious to the nearly mad Melanya's love for him; to his wife's confused love for his best friend and artist, Dmitri Vaguin; to the brutality of his assistant Yegor, and ultimately to the danger of the armed mob that comes to attack him. ===== Watching Homer mow his lawn with frustration, Ned invites him to his basement rec room for a beer. When Homer sees Ned's well-furnished house and his perfect relationship with his family, he angrily accuses Ned of showing off and is asked to leave. Later Ned feels guilty about his outburst and writes a letter of apology to Homer saying he loves him as a brother and feels pain in his "bosom". Homer is amused by Ned's sentimentality and reads the letter aloud at the breakfast table. Bart and Lisa howl with laughter but Marge chastises them for mocking Ned's sincere apology. Homer takes Bart and Maggie to Sir Putt-A-Lot's Merrie Olde Fun Centre for a round of miniature golf. They encounter Ned and his son Todd there and play golf together. Bart and Todd learn of an upcoming children's miniature golf tournament and enter it. Although Todd is skilled at playing, Homer is confident Bart will win. He tells Bart that it not acceptable to lose and forces him to angrily stare at a picture of Todd for fifteen minutes every day. Doubting his golfing skills after seeing his meager collection of sports trophies, Bart accepts Lisa's offer to help him practice. Lisa approaches the task as a zen master, teaching Bart to meditate. She finds the golf course is based on simple geometry and teaches Bart how to achieve a low par. Homer makes a bet with Ned about whose son is a better golfer: the father of the boy who does not win the tournament will mow the other father's lawn in his wife's Sunday dress. On the day of the tournament, Homer encourages Bart to win at all costs. Bart and Todd play well and are tied when they reach the eighteenth hole. Realizing that they are equally skilled at golf, they call it a draw and split the $50 prize. Ned suggests that means their bet is off, but Homer insists that they both must mow each other's lawn in their wife's Sunday dress because of the way their bet is worded. Neighborhood residents gather on the sidewalk to laugh at them, but Homer gladly endures the shame to humiliate Ned. To Homer's dismay, Ned actually enjoys mowing his lawn in his wife's dress because it reminds him of his college fraternity days. ===== Alton Locke is the story of a young tailor-boy who has instincts and aspirations beyond the normal expectations of his working-class background. He is intensely patriotic and has ambitions to be a poet. In the course of the narrative, Alton Locke loves and struggles in vain. Physically, he is a weak man, but is able to encompass all the best emotions, along with vain longings, wild hopes, and a righteous indignation at the plight of his contemporaries. He joins the Chartist movement because he can find no better vehicle by which to improve the lot of the working class, experiencing a sense of devastation at its apparent failure. Utterly broken in spirit, Alton Locke sails for America to seek a new life there; however, he barely reaches the shore of the New World before he dies. Category:1850 British novels Category:Chartism Category:English novels Category:Novels by Charles Kingsley ===== While Donald is flipping through some books in Scrooge McDuck's library, a map falls out of a book relating to the treasure of King Garuzia, ruler of the Great Duck Kingdom in ancient times. The map leads to the location of the king's most prized possession, hidden in a secret place shortly before his death. Donald thinks this is his path to riches. Unfortunately Big Bad Pete overhears and pursues Donald throughout the game hoping to steal the treasure. Teamed with his nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie, and using the partial map from the library, Donald begins his search in Duckburg, with the trail being directed to an Aztec pyramid in Mexico. Outside the pyramid, he is directed by a "sweet seniorita" to obtain a "hero key" from an explorer back in Duckburg to open the pyramid. Inside the pyramid, Donald meets Goofy, who gives him a strange note and a plunger to help him reach higher places, and tells him that Gyro Gearloose is looking for him back in Duckburg. Travelling across the rooftops of Duckburg to meet Gyro, Donald is given Gyro's latest invention, bubblegum ammo that can break through walls. The last location on the partial map is Count Dracula's castle in Transylvania, where Donald encounters a ghost who tells him that the Count carries the real treasure map. After defeating Dracula, Donald receives a more complete map. In India, Donald enters the palace of the Maharajah, where she challenges him to defeat the tiger in her garden in exchange for a Sphinx Tear. Donald succeeds and receives the Sphinx Tear, which is the key to open a temple in Egypt. Donald is able to solve the "Riddle of the Sphinx" using the note Goofy had given him, and obtains the Scepter of Ra before escaping in a mine cart. From there, he journeys to the South Pole, where he finds a key frozen in ice, and uses the Scepter of Ra to melt the ice and grab the key. The key unlocks the hold of a Viking ship, which contains an ancient diary with the secret to locating the treasure. The ship is haunted by ghosts, and the Viking captain sends Donald below decks to get rid of them. After defeating a skeletal Viking warrior, Donald returns to the deck, where the captain informs him that the diary is hidden in ice near the South Pole, and gives him an "ancient Viking plunger" that attaches to flying creatures. Donald then returns to the South Pole, hitching a ride on one of Pete's bird minions to reach the diary. However, upon finding the diary, Pete shows up, holding Donald's nephews hostage in exchange for the diary. After giving Pete the diary, Donald travels to Pete's hideout to defeat Pete and get the diary back. The diary reveals that the map, when dipped in water, will reveal the location of the Great Duck Treasure. Donald flies to the island where the treasure is hidden and manages to evade its traps in order to reach the treasure vault. After defeating the elderly knight guarding the treasure, Donald opens the vault only to find a simple stone statue. When the disappointed Donald returns home, Huey, Dewey and Louie accidentally break the statue, which reveals a golden jeweled necklace was hidden inside. Donald gives the necklace to Daisy and the two fly off into the sunset together. ===== The episode begins with gay lawyer Will Truman (Eric McCormack) talking on the phone with his best friend, heterosexual Jewish interior designer Grace Adler (Debra Messing), about their lives. The following day, Will hosts a poker game at his apartment with his friends, when Grace arrives and informs Will she just had an argument with her long-term boyfriend, Danny. After the game is over, Will insists that Grace spend the night--much to the displeasure of Will's flamboyantly gay friend, Jack McFarland (Sean Hayes), who was planning to move in with Will temporarily. Later at her office, Grace Adler Designs, Grace tells her socialite assistant Karen Walker (Megan Mullally) about her argument with Danny. Karen tells Grace to make up with him, explaining to Grace that Danny is a "good catch". After staying another night with Will, Grace decides to end her relationship with Danny. However, when she tries to end things she receives an unexpected marriage proposal from him, which she accepts. After the proposal, Grace goes to Will's apartment and asks for his blessing. Will attempts to be supportive of her decision, but finally tells her that Danny is not right for her. Grace informs Will that she does not need his blessing, and that she is going to marry Danny regardless. Will shows up at Grace Adler Designs the following day to apologize. Karen reveals to Will that Grace has gone to City Hall to get married. However, Grace shows up at her office and informs Will that she left Danny at the altar. Will takes Grace out for a drink and reassures her that she will find someone eventually. ===== In 2006, Los Angeles is in ruins and its citizens left to struggle for survival after the conclusion of Twisted Metal, a brutal contest held by Calypso, exactly one year earlier on Christmas Eve. Aboard his airship (running the ticker "CALYPSO RULER OF THE EARTH") in the skies over the destroyed City of Angels, Calypso wonders where the next Twisted Metal will take place; fourteen of the world's best drivers are already assembled to compete for whatever prize they desire. Ultimately, Calypso decides that the world itself shall serve as a battleground. In addition to the remains of Los Angeles, drivers will also battle in Moscow, Paris, Amazonia, New York City, Antarctica, Holland, and Hong Kong. After defeating all the opponents in Amazonia, the player must face Minion before proceeding to New York City. The Dark Tooth boss fight takes place after the player defeats all the opponents in Hong Kong; once Dark Tooth (and his flaming head) is defeated, the driver meets with Calypso in New York to receive their prize. ===== Mademoiselle de Chartres is a sheltered heiress, sixteen years old, whose mother has brought her to the court of Henri II to seek a husband with good financial and social prospects. When old jealousies against a kinsman spark intrigues against the young ingénue, the best marriage prospects withdraw. The young woman follows her mother's recommendation and accepts the overtures of a middling suitor, the Prince de Clèves. After the wedding, she meets the dashing Duke de Nemours. The two fall in love, yet do nothing to pursue their affections, limiting their contact to an occasional visit in the now-Princess of Clèves's salon. The duke becomes enmeshed in a scandal at court that leads the Princess to believe he has been unfaithful in his affections. A letter from a spurned mistress to her paramour is discovered in the dressing room at one of the estates, but this letter was actually written to the Princess' uncle, the Vidame de Chartres, who has also become entangled in a relationship with the Queen. He begs the Duke de Nemours to claim ownership of the letter, which ends up in the Princess' possession. The duke has to produce documents from the Vidame to convince the Princess that his heart has been true. Eventually, the Prince de Clèves discerns that his wife is in love with another man. She confesses as much. He relentlessly quizzes her—indeed tricks her—until she reveals the man's identity. After he sends a servant to spy on the Duke de Nemours, the Prince de Clèves believes that his wife has been both physically and emotionally unfaithful to him. He becomes ill and dies (either of his illness or of a broken heart). On his deathbed, he blames the Duke de Nemours for his suffering and begs the Princess not to marry him. Now free to pursue her passions, the Princess is torn between her duty and her love. The duke pursues her more openly, but she rejects him, choosing instead to enter a convent for part of each year. ===== Headus Mouthion (Head) and Footus Underium (Heels) are two spies from the planet Freedom. They are sent to Blacktooth to liberate the enslaved planets of Penitentiary, Safari, Book World and Egyptus, and then to defeat the Emperor to prevent further planets falling under his rule. Captured and separated, the spies are placed in the prison headquarters of Castle Blacktooth and must first escape, then break through the market to the orbiting Moonbase where they can teleport down to the planets to locate and reobtain the stolen crowns. Liberation of the planets and defeat of the Emperor will allow Head and Heels to return to Freedom as heroes. ===== A man and his wife lead a German anti-Nazi propaganda literature movement. After an inadvertent betrayal, the husband is thrown into a concentration camp, from which he escapes to Switzerland. ===== Kiyo Takamine is a 14-year-old junior high school student who lives with his mother in modern-day Japan. His distant father, Seitaro Takamine, discovers an unconscious child named Zatch Bell while in a forest in England, and sends Zatch to live with Kiyo. Unlike the other Mamodo, Zatch lost his memory of the Mamodo world. Kiyo first learns about the spell book when he reads a spell causing Zatch to fire lightning from his mouth. As Kiyo and Zatch begin to encounter different Mamodos and learn more about the Mamodo battles, they discover that there are those who do not wish to fight and there are those who fight for the wrong reasons. After meeting a Mamodo named Kolulu and seeing how this kind Mamodo was forced to fight due to the power of her spells, Zatch decides to become a kind king in order to stop the battle from ever happening again. As the story progresses, Zatch and Kiyo meet other Mamodos that share similar views to them and become allies. They meet allies such as Megumi Oumi and Tia in which they specialize in defensive spells such as different types of shields. Kiyo and Zatch meet Folgore and Kanchomé (Canchome) who are both comic relief characters and they only have transformation spells such as Kanchomé being able to turn himself really big. Zatch met Kafk Sunbeam and Umagon earlier in England. Umagon is a Mamodo who specializes in transformation spells that can put armor around his body and increase his speed. Shery (Sherie) Belmont and Brago who was originally Zatch and Kiyo's rival in the series later becomes their allies and he has gravity type spells. As the number of Mamodos decreases, Zatch and his allies encounter a Mamodo called Zofis who takes control of several Mamodo who were sealed in stone tablets from the previous battle to decide the king. With Kiyo and Zatch needing more allies, they meet Dr. Riddles and Kido. They helped teach the main allies how to unlock new spells such as Zatch unlocking the sixth spell. Kiyo and Zatch with friends make their way to South America to fight off Zofis and the thousand year Mamodos. Many characters fell and got their book burned. The most notable one was Kido who was sent back to the Mamodo world after fighting Belgium E.O. Ultimately, Sherry and Brago came to help to fight Zofis. Zofis took control of Sherry's friend Koko who Zofis makes her do evil things such as burning a whole town. Sherry and Brago beat Zofis but not without the help of Kiyo and friends. Sherry gets Koko back to normal and the battle in South America is over. After the battle against Zofis, the whole world is put in danger after a giant Mamodo named Faudo is brought to life by a Mamodo named Riou. Riou was looking for Mamodos that have enough strength to help activate Faudo. So he puts a curse on Li-en and Wonrei who Kiyo and Zatch befriend in the middle of the series. The protagonists make their way to Faudo to try to destroy it and to save their friends. The battle in Faudo was the toughest battle for the characters up to that point in the story. Kiyo almost died against Riou, and many of Zatch's friends got sent back to the Mamodo world such as Wonrei. Faudo is then taken over by a Mamodo that looks like Zatch, who turns out to be Zatch's evil twin brother Zeno Bell. Zatch and Zeno have a big fight inside of Faudo. Through Zeno's flashback, he resented Zatch because their Father King Bell bestowed Zatch the power of Bao, which is Zatch's strongest spell. Zeno at a young age had to train everyday and always got punished while Zatch lived with another family peacefully. Ultimately, Zeno comprehends that Zatch also suffered too and apologizes to what he has done to Zatch. Zeno gets his book burned and is sent back to the Mamodo world. Finally, when the number of Mamodos have decreased to ten, an evil and powerful Mamodo named Clear Note appears. With Clear Note's immense strength the protagonists have to train to fight against Clear Note in the King's Festival. The King's Festival is where the final ten Mamodo have to fight to be king. Most notably before the Zatch and Kiyo fought Clear Note, Kanchome got sent back to the Mamodo world when he was ambushed by Clear Note. With Kanchome gone before the big fight it Kiyo, Megumi, and Sunbeam vowed to win against Clear Note for Kanchome and Folgore's sake. Past Mamodos whom Kiyo and Zatch have encountered came to help out. They helped out in a form of spells because Kiyo's spell book unlocked all of the Mamodo's spells. Kiyo used Kido's strongest spell, Wonrei's strongest spell, and many more spells from their past allies After many sacrifices, Clear Note is defeated leaving Zatch and his ally Brago as the remaining Mamodos. After Kiyo's graduation ceremony, Zatch and Brago battle and Zatch is crowned the Mamodo King. As a prize for helping Zatch become king, Kiyo is given two options: either getting a wish and forgetting about Zatch, or get nothing but keep his memories of Zatch. He chooses the latter option. Three weeks later, a letter is sent from the Mamodo to their human partners. Zatch's letter reveals that all is well in the Mamodo world. ===== After eating too much Halloween candy, Homer, Lisa and Bart have nightmares. In Lisa's nightmare, Homer buys a cursed monkey's paw that will grant its owner four wishes. While he, Bart and Lisa argue, Marge pleads with them to heed the vendor's warning and not use it at all. Despite her efforts, Maggie is granted the first wish: a new pacifier. Bart wishes for the Simpsons to be rich and famous, but the public soon tires of the family's antics and ubiquity. Horrified by the wasteful wishes, Lisa wishes for world peace, but aliens Kang and Kodos enslave the defenseless Earth. Determined to make a harmless wish, Homer demands a turkey sandwich, but the turkey is dry. With all the wishes used, he gives the paw to his neighbor Ned, who wishes for the aliens to leave and transforms his home into a castle. In Bart's nightmare, Springfield lives in fear of his omnipotent powers, including the ability to read minds, magically move objects and turn living things into grotesque forms. When Homer refuses to turn off a football game so Bart can watch The Krusty the Clown Show, Bart transports him to the football stadium in place of the ball for a field goal kick. As Homer creeps into the house trying to surprise him with a blow to the head, Bart transforms him into a jack-in-the-box. After Dr. Marvin Monroe says Bart is desperate for attention from his father, Homer spends quality time with his son. Bart restores Homer's human form and they share a warm moment, causing Bart to wake up screaming. In Homer's nightmare, he becomes a grave digger after Mr. Burns fires him for incompetence. While building a giant robotic laborer to replace human workers, Burns searches a graveyard for a human brain to implant in the robot. After mistaking Homer, asleep in an open grave, for a corpse because of his foul stench, he removes his brain and places it in the robot. Since Robo- Homer is just as incompetent as the old Homer, Burns declares the experiment a failure. After restoring the brain to Homer's body, Burns kicks the robot, which topples over and crushes him. Homer wakes from the nightmare to find Burns' head grafted on his shoulder. Homer tries to reassure himself that he is only dreaming, but Burns' head insists otherwise. ===== The game's plot centers on a drug broker and his murderous minions who claim ownership of the world's combined freedom. Showing their true menace by murdering top ranking government officials, they send a shockwave of fear across the United Nations. Eight heroes, trained to readiness, accept the challenge of going face to face with the top three of this evil circle. The outcome of this battle will truly decide where man's freedoms lie. During the course of the game, players will select their hero and fight through eleven antagonists in hopes of reaching the much sought-after goal of peace. Each of the heroes are armed an effective set of attacks, stemming from their chosen martial art. In addition, they have all learned powerful special attacks, such as combination punches and kicks, projectiles and enhanced throws. With each unique hero coming from a different background and possessing different skills, there's a great deal of replay possibility. ===== Lincoln Hawk is a struggling trucker who arm wrestles on the side to make extra cash while trying to rebuild his life. Hawk’s estranged wife Christina, who is suffering from heart disease, asks that Hawk pick up their ten-year-old son Michael from military school so that the two of them can get to know each other; Hawk had left them ten years earlier. Michael's controlling grandfather Jason Cutler, a wealthy man who hates Hawk and disapproved of his daughter's relationship with him, believes that Hawk has no right to be in his grandson's life. Michael is very distrusting and bitter towards Hawk initially and treats him with contempt at every turn. Over the course of a trip from Colorado to California, Michael comes to trust Hawk, especially after Hawk rescues him from kidnappers (who were actually goons hired by Cutler to retrieve Mike). Hawk and Mike also bond when Hawk teaches him to arm wrestle and drive the truck. However, when they arrive at the hospital, Hawk is despondent to learn they have arrived to learn that Christina died from surgery complications. Feeling he would have been there with her if not for Hawk, Michael leaves for his grandfather's estate. An attempt to retrieve Michael ends with Hawk being arrested for trespassing when he resorts to ramraiding after being turned away from Cutler's gated mansion. Michael visits his father in jail and forgives him, but tells Hawk that he feels more secure living with his grandfather. After his release, Hawk leaves to compete in the World Armwrestling Championship in Las Vegas. His hope is to win the grand prize of $100,000 and a brand new, larger $250,000 semi-truck and thus start his own trucking company. Hawk is a clear underdog, having a size disadvantage versus just about every other participant, including his old rival Bull Hurley, who is the odds-on favorite out of the other 500 competitors. When he arrives, he sells his truck for $7,000 and uses the money to place a bet on himself (as a 20–1 long shot) to win the tournament. Meanwhile, Michael finds all the letters that Hawk had sent over the years and realizes that his grandfather has been hiding the truth about his father from him. Cutler did everything possible to drive his parents apart and had been intercepting and hiding the regular letters Hawk had written to him. Stunned by his grandfather's deceptions, Michael steals one of his grandfather's many vehicles (a pickup truck) to go to Las Vegas and find Hawk. Hawk advances to the final eight competitors in the double-elimination tournament before suffering his first loss against John Grizzly, injuring his arm in the process. Afterwards, Cutler summons Hawk to his presidential suite and tells him that he has always been a loser, but offers Hawk a way out and a chance for a fresh start: $500,000 and a top of the line semi (even better than the tournament's grand prize) on the condition that he stay out of their lives for good (at this point Hawk had already signed over custody papers) but Hawk refuses. He returns to the tournament with a much tighter focus and advances to the final match against Bull Hurley, who has remained the undefeated world champion for five years. Michael then finds Hawk and apologizes for misjudging him, which gives Hawk the emotional support he needs to compete. After a titanic struggle, Hawk manages to conquer his old rival, earn his respect and won the tournament. As Hawk and Michael celebrate, Cutler (who had followed Michael to the competition) looks on in silence and admiration for all that Hawk sacrificed to get Michael back. A triumphant Hawk and Michael take their new truck and winnings and drive off to start a new life together. ===== Fourteen-year-old Vivian Abromowitz's family are penniless nomads, moving from one cheap apartment to another in Beverly Hills in 1976, so that Vivian and her brothers can attend the city's prestigious local schools. Their father, Murray, is a divorced 65-year-old who refuses to retire, working as an unsuccessful Oldsmobile salesman whose cars are selling poorly due in large part to the energy crisis of the time. Vivian's wealthy uncle Mickey regularly sends the family money to help them survive. When Mickey's 29-year-old daughter Rita runs away from a rehab facility, Murray offers her shelter if Mickey will pay for a plush apartment. Vivian must babysit her adult cousin, making sure she gets to nursing school and avoids pills and booze. But Vivian has her own problems: she's curious about sex, likes an apparently twenty- something neighbor, Eliot, has inherited her mother's ample breasts, and wants a family that doesn't embarrass her. Vivian's older brother Ben aspires to a show business career, while her dad aspires to feminine companionship but would not give in to wealthy lady-friend Doris Zimmerman's desire that he send his kids back East to live with his ex-wife. Vivian's younger brother Rickey simply aspires to get attention. Vivian and Rita are close and speak sometimes in gibberish. Vivian learns that Rita has no desire to attend nursing school and also has no clue as to what to do with her life. Murray attempts to cover up Rita's lack of progress at nursing school, when Mickey asks for progress reports. Eventually, Mickey, frustrated at having to support his brother's family and also learning of their deception concerning his daughter (who is pregnant), explodes during a meeting between the two families, telling Murray he's tired of sending them money. Depressed and dejected, Murray once again packs the kids into his car and they take off. In an attempt to cheer her father up, Vivian suggests that the family stop for a cheap steak at Sizzler for breakfast—a ritual regularly suggested by their father as a means of showing affection to his children, despite their indifference to it or him. ===== According to The Oxford Companion to English Literature (1967), : "the plot is founded on a story told to George Eliot by her aunt Elizabeth Evans, a Methodist preacher, and the original of Dinah Morris of the novel, of a confession of child-murder, made to her by a girl in prison." The novel follows four characters' rural lives in the fictional community of Hayslope—a rural, pastoral, and close-knit community in 1799. The novel revolves around a love "rectangle" among the beautiful but self-absorbed Hetty Sorrel; Captain Arthur Donnithorne, the young squire who seduces her; Adam Bede, her unacknowledged suitor; and Dinah Morris, Hetty's cousin, a fervent, virtuous and beautiful Methodist lay preacher. Adam, a local carpenter much admired for his integrity and intelligence, is in love with Hetty. She is attracted to Arthur, the local squire's charming grandson and heir, and falls in love with him. When Adam interrupts a tryst between them, Adam and Arthur fight. Arthur agrees to give up Hetty and leaves Hayslope to return to his militia. After he leaves, Hetty Sorrel agrees to marry Adam but shortly before their marriage, discovers that she is pregnant. In desperation, she leaves in search of Arthur but cannot find him. Unwilling to return to the village on account of the shame and ostracism she would have to endure, she delivers her baby with the assistance of a friendly woman she encounters. She subsequently abandons the infant in a field but not being able to bear the child's cries, she tries to retrieve the infant. However, she is too late, the infant having already died of exposure. Hetty is caught and tried for child murder. She is found guilty and sentenced to hang. Dinah enters the prison and pledges to stay with Hetty until the end. Her compassion brings about Hetty's contrite confession. When Arthur Donnithorne, on leave from the militia for his grandfather's funeral, hears of her impending execution, he races to the court and has the sentence commuted to transportation. Ultimately, Adam and Dinah, who gradually become aware of their mutual love, marry and live peacefully with his family. ===== When Buffy and the gang discover a nest of vampires, they turn to Jonathan Levinson, a former fellow pupil of Sunnydale High School, for help. At Giles' apartment, Jonathan examines weapons and practices hand-to-hand combat with Buffy. Willow uses her computer to find a way to attack the vampire nest, but Jonathan finds a better way. He slays the majority of the vampires, leaving Buffy, who allowed one vampire to get past her, feeling inadequate. As they leave the crypt, Jonathan poses for pictures. He senses Spike hiding in the shadows, and then Spike emerges. Buffy is at a loss for her usual witty puns, but Jonathan steps in to knock Spike's confidence down. While putting pictures of Jonathan up on a wall, Willow and Tara talk about the fight earlier that night and Buffy's damaged relationship with Riley. At Riley's dorm room, Buffy tries to play basketball, but she is too uncomfortable around him to let him get close. Jonathan comforts Buffy and he tells her that she's mad at Riley because he doesn't know her as well as she'd like him to. He tries to convince her to forgive Riley because her expectations are too high. All the while, Jonathan signs autographs for overzealous fans. Colonel George Haviland is the new commander at the Initiative and has brought in Jonathan as a tactical consultant, leaving Jonathan to explain the plans to find and destroy Adam. Jonathan is aware Adam has a uranium power source. One fan, Karen is spying on Jonathan's house, but is attacked by a demon and manages to run away. Jonathan counsels Riley about his relationship with Buffy, then shoots at apples atop of the heads of Initiative operatives, while blindfolded. When Jonathan takes center stage as a singer at the Bronze, Buffy and Riley take to the dance floor. As Jonathan plays the trumpet, Xander and Anya are inspired to go somewhere to have sex. Buffy tells Riley that she wants to move on with their relationship. Karen goes to the Bronze for Jonathan, and when she is taken back to his place, describes the demon's appearance. Jonathan acts strangely when she draws a symbol she saw on the demon, which he dismisses as a harmless monster. Adam realizes that something is wrong with the world, and that Jonathan isn't supposed to be this popular, but decides to see how the situation develops. When twin blond girls call for Jonathan to come to bed, he drops his robe to reveal a symbol on his shoulder that matches the symbol Karen drew. On Tara's way to her dorm room, the demon attacks her. She chants a spell and escapes with her life. The next morning, Tara identifies the demon by the symbol on its head, and Buffy has even more reason to question Jonathan. Buffy stops by Xander's, and finds Anya and plenty of things on Jonathan. Buffy questions how Jonathan could be so perfect. He is credited for all the great things that have happened in the world (starring in The Matrix, inventing the internet etc.). Riley encourages everyone to follow Buffy's lead. They look at Jonathan's swimsuit calendar to see the monster's mark on Jonathan's shoulder. Jonathan arrives and explains that he has a history with the monster and every time he faces it, he is overcome by confusion. Buffy and Jonathan get information on the demon's location from Spike. Willow discovers that Jonathan did an augmentation spell that would make everyone adore him, but that the spell had the side-effect of creating a demon to balance out the positive changes to Jonathan's life. If the demon is destroyed, the spell is reversed. The gang has a hard time dealing with the prospect of a world without Jonathan. In a cave, Jonathan tries to prevent Buffy from falling into a pit, but the demon interrupts them. Jonathan hides while Buffy fights the demon, then runs out and pushes the demon into the pit, nearly falling in himself but being saved by Buffy. With the demon destroyed, the world goes back to normal, and Jonathan is once again ignored by everyone. Jonathan explains that when he received counseling after his attempted suicide, another guy informed him about the augmentation spell, skipping the part about the demon. Buffy and Riley are kissing on his bed, until she moans, "Jonathan". ===== The film begins with an urban couple driving through the countryside in what looks like a cinema advertisement. The scene comes to a halt with a fatal accident. The rural Australian town of Paris arranges fatal accidents to visitors driving through. Townspeople collect items from the luggage of the deceased passengers whilst survivors are taken to the local hospital where they are given lobotomies with power tools and kept as "veggies" for medical experiments by the earnest town surgeon. The young men of the town salvage and modify the wrecked vehicles into a variety of strange- looking cars designed for destruction. Arthur Waldo (Terry Camilleri) and his older brother, George Waldo (Rick Scully), drive through Paris with their caravan where they meet with an accident that kills George. Arthur is spared and looked after by the Mayor of Paris, Len Kelly (John Meillon), who invites Arthur to stay in his home as one of his family; his two young daughters have been "adopted" after being orphaned in motor accidents in the town. Arthur unsuccessfully attempts to leave Paris but due to a previous incident where he was exonerated of manslaughter for running over an elderly pedestrian, he has lost his confidence in driving and there does not seem to be any public transport. Mayor Len gives Arthur a job at the local hospital as a medical orderly. Beneath the idyllic rural paradise of Paris is a festering feud between the young men of the town who live for their modified vehicles that they terrorise the town with and the older generation. When one of the hoons damages the Mayor's property and breaks a statue of an Aborigine the older men of the town burn the guilty driver's car as he is held down. The Mayor appoints Arthur the town Parking Inspector complete with brassard and Army bush jacket that further irritates the young men. The situation reaches its boiling point the night of the town's annual Pioneers Ball which is a fancy dress and costume party. What was planned to be a "car gymkhana" by the young men turns into an assault on the town where both sides attack each other killing several of the residents. Arthur regains his driving confidence when he repeatedly drives the Mayor's car into his former hospital orderly supervisor who is one of the hoons. The film closes with Arthur, and the town's other residents, leaving Paris in the night. ===== Homer appears in front of a curtain and warns viewers that the following episode is scary. He then tells parents to turn off their television and calls them chicken, causing the screen to go black and Marge to chastise Homer for insulting the show's audience. The episode's wrap-around segment shows the Simpson family having a Halloween party for the children of Springfield. Lisa, Grampa and Bart each tell a horror story. ===== The video opens with Rockwell coming home to discover that a newspaper in Chinese has been delivered to his doorstep. As he greets his pet dog and takes a quick shower, he begins to have strange visions (in a manner recalling The Dead Zone) of himself being pursued around his house by assorted ghoulish apparitions, of the looming figure of a cadaverous-looking man, and of finding a tombstone engraved with his own name. His shower is interrupted when he hears something outside and goes out on his balcony to investigate. He is shocked to see the man from his visions standing at his gate, but as he struggles to get a better look in spite of the sun in his face he is greatly relieved to see that he is merely a mailman, coming to deliver the correct newspaper. As the mailman walks up the path towards the front porch, however, a brief close-up of his arm reveals that he is, in fact, a zombie. Rockwell emerges onto the porch to receive the paper, which the mailman genially hands over. As the mailman brings his other arm around in an attempt to strike, Rockwell has just enough time to notice that he is not human. Due in part to the popularity of the music video, the song is sometimes used for Halloween celebrations, with cover versions found in various collections of Halloween music. ===== In 1931, in the Arctic- Canadian settlement of Nunataaq, Avik (Robert Joamie) lives under the watchful eye of his grandmother (Jayko Pitseolak). While tagging along after British cartographer Walter Russell (Patrick Bergin), Avik falls prey to tuberculosis, the "white man's disease". To assuage his own guilt, Russell takes the boy to a Montreal clinic to recover. There, Avik meets Albertine (Annie Galipeau), a Métis girl. The two fall in love, but their relationship is quickly broken up by the Mother Superior who is in charge of the clinic. Years later, Avik again meets Russell, who this time is on a mission to recover a German U-boat lying wrecked off the coast of Nunataaq. Throughout his life, Avik is haunted by love for a now-grown Albertine (Anne Parillaud) and by a belief that he brings misfortune to those around him. Avik asks for Russell's help in learning her whereabouts, and he gives the cartographer a chest X-ray of the girl which he has carried with him since their separation. More time elapses, and a mature Avik (Jason Scott Lee) joins the Royal Canadian Air Force in the Second World War and eventually becomes a bomb aimer in an Avro Lancaster bomber. Albertine, who has become Russell's mistress, seeks out Avik. She begins an affair with Avik, but Russell soon finds out, and as revenge, he sends Avik and his crew on a suicide mission (the firebombing of Dresden), in which Avik is the sole survivor of his crew. Despondent over his war experiences, Avik flees to Canada, where he becomes an alcoholic. Decades later, he is sought out by Rainee (Clotilde Courau), the daughter born from his affair with Albertine. On his way to the girl's wedding, Avik crashes his snowmobile on an ice floe; as he freezes to death, he dreams of going to his daughter's wedding and flying away on a balloon with Albertine. ===== A scene from a production of the play in Berlin The play is set in the northeast suburbs of London in the month of October. It tells the story of Candida, the wife of a famous clergyman, the Reverend James Mavor Morell. Morell is a Christian Socialist, popular in the Church of England, but Candida is responsible for much of his success. Candida returns home briefly from a trip to London with Eugene Marchbanks, a young poet who wants to rescue her from what he presumes to be her dull family life. Marchbanks is in love with Candida and believes she deserves something more than just complacency from her husband. He considers her divine, and his love eternal. In his view, it is quite improper and humiliating for Candida to have to attend to petty household chores. Morell believes Candida needs his care and protection, but the truth is quite the contrary. Ultimately, Candida must choose between the two gentlemen. She reasserts her preference for the "weaker of the two" who, after a momentary uncertainty, turns out to be her husband Morell. ===== Griffin Silverwing is the son of the Silverwing Shade and the Brightwing Marina. Slower and more clumsy than non- hybrids, Griffin's only real friend is Luna, a popular newborn. Fearing rejection by his father, Griffin steals fire from human campers to show his bravery. Unfortunately, Luna is accidentally set on fire. Guilt-stricken, Griffin flies into the lower levels of Tree Haven and discovers a crack that leads to the underworld. An earthquake opens the crack up wider and Griffin is sucked into the Underworld, unknown to the Silverwing colony. When Shade is unable to find his son, the Elders give him two days to search the Underworld before promising to seal the crack again. There, Griffin discovers a colony of bats that are unaware that they are dead. The bats are wary of Griffin, because as he is still alive he appears to glow to them. Griffin discovers that the recently deceased Luna has become a member of the colony and has no memory of him. Fortunately, a group of Pilgrims (bats who realize they are dead) arrive and rekindle Luna's memory of Griffin. The Pilgrim Frieda tells them about a gigantic, incandescent Tree which supposedly sends dead bats that enter it to another, more enjoyable afterlife. Frieda believes that the Tree will send Griffin back home, as he is alive and not dead. Armed with Frieda's sound map, Griffin and Luna head out to find the Tree. Meanwhile, Goth awakens in the underworld and discovers that he is dead. After members of his own species try to capture him and subject him to slave labour, Goth demands an explanation from Zotz. Zotz appears and explains that Goth is to be tortured because of his failure to free Zotz during the last eclipse. Goth bargains for a way to regain Zotz's trust. Since Zotz cannot harm the living, he tells Goth that he will be given a second chance at life if he kills Griffin. With both Shade and Goth trying to find Griffin, Goth catches up first. However the still-living Griffin is stronger than Goth and able to fight him off. Griffin and Luna enter a cavern which has the power to mesmerize dead bats by reminding them of their past lives. Shade manages to find Griffin and Luna there, but Goth arrives for a second time. Griffin and Luna escape but Shade becomes lost in the cavern river and Goth's every bone is broken in the struggle. Griffin and Luna discover a bat named Dante in a group of bats who fear nothing because, as they say, "with death, your fears also go". They explain that they have chosen to spend eternity contemplating philosophy rather than entering the Tree. Griffin, not wanting to go on because of his injury, gets into an argument with Luna. Out of guilt, he admits to being the reason for Luna's death, but regains his desire to find the Tree in the ensuing struggle. Shade, having escaped from the river is lured into a trap by Zotz. He mutilates Goth's ear, effectively blinding his echolocation. Zotz is able to give Goth the likeness of Shade and taunts the real Shade with a story about how the underworld and the Tree came to be. Griffin and Luna reach the Tree but before they can enter it, Goth arrives disguised as Shade. Goth kills Griffin just before the arrival of Shade and his allies who have escaped Zotz' trap. Shade dies by suicide so that his life force can be absorbed by both Griffin and Luna, and they all enter the Tree. The newly reborn Goth discovers the ruins of a temple to Zotz and a group of Vampyrum Spectrum, whom he begins to indoctrinate. The newly reborn Griffin and Luna return to Tree Haven and reunite with Marina. Unbeknownst to them, Shade is present in an immaterial form and merges his spirit with those around him. ===== In the novel, a mentally disturbed teenager who might be suffering from schizophrenia (or rather dissociative identity disorder, as the illness is never diagnosed) behaves as if he were possessed by demons. Also, the fictional tabloid whose proprietor and staff are described in the book is called The Daily Legion. ===== At 16, Peter d'Abo is an elusive boy. He seldom stays at his mother's place, but his grandmother, Lily d'Abo, in whose flat he is supposed to live for the time being, does not see him regularly either. From time to time Peter visits Father Vivyan and on such occasions even serves as an altar boy. When, on the social worker's advice, his mother tells him that Lennox Mark is his natural father, Peter decides to get some money out of him his way. One night while Lennox Mark is not at home he poses as a delivery boy and gains entrance into the Marks' private home. However, he is overwhelmed by Martina Mark and her mother, who is also living there, and persuaded to stay and work for them as a servant. As the two women have his DNA and he does not want to be arrested, he accepts their offer. While he is on the streets of London, Peter d'Abo starts committing crimes. He steals a miniature recording device from the Marks' home; he steals Rachel Pearl's expensive watch when she comes to live at Crickleden; but he also turns violent, cutting off a man's testicles just because he was looking for a homosexual encounter; and pushing Kevin Currey in front of an underground train. Meanwhile, Lennox Mark is planning General Bindiga's state visit in London—he has already arranged the details with the Prime Minister and convinced him that Bindiga is an honourable state leader—to coincide with his elevation to Lord Mark of Lower Pool. To suppress opposition to the state visit which might be headed by Father Vivyan, The Daily Legion launches a campaign against the priest, alleging that he has a history as a child molester and releasing a doctored version of a secretly recorded conversation between Peter d'Abo and Father Vivyan as evidence against the clergyman. Vivyan is suspended from the parish, his reputation as a 20th-century saint is immediately destroyed, and ardent devotees such as Lily d'Abo, believing everything the papers say, are devastated. When she is approached by The Daily Legion, Lily d'Abo succumbs to the lure of money and signs an exclusive contract for £10,000, realising only afterwards that in no way will she be able to help her grandson with the money. Unaware of how dangerous Peter d'Abo is, Rachel Pearl goes in search of the boy in an attempt to make him talk and clear Father Vivyan of the allegations. Following a hint from someone in the street, she walks to a nearby cemetery, finds Peter in an old mausoleum but is immediately taken captive by him. Several people have already been alerted to the fact that Peter d'Abo may have a hostage, and the place is surrounded by police. However, Father Vivyan is there first and shoots Peter between the eyes. Vivyan is fatally wounded by a bullet himself and brought to a monastery to die there. At about the same time—it is the day of General Bindiga's state visit—a bomb goes off in a posh London hotel killing Bindiga and injuring two of his women, while another device, planted in the offices of The Daily Legion, is defused before it can explode. Three months later, Lord Mark dies of a massive heart attack. =====