From Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ===== One Thursday afternoon, Professor Brade goes to visit his graduate student's laboratory. He finds Ralph Neufeld dead, having inhaled hydrogen cyanide. In his experiment, he had somehow used sodium cyanide instead of sodium acetate, both white powders. Later, Brade is questioned by Detective Doheny, who is in charge of Ralph's case. When he gets home, he reveals to his wife his suspicions that Ralph's death was murder. She cautions him not to tell this to anyone, as he would destroy any chance of getting an associate professorship and tenure. The next day, Brade meets with emeritus professor Cap Anson, who seems to blame him for Ralph's death. They visit the zoo together, and Anson encourages Brade to go into comparative biochemistry. Brade refuses, saying he wants to continue Ralph's work in chemical kinetics. Anson tells him that Professor Littleby (head of the chemistry department) has decided not to renew Brade's contract. On Sunday, Brade reads through Ralph's research notebooks and realizes that Ralph's data had been faked, a cardinal sin in chemistry. When Doheny returns, Brade tells him about the faking, suggesting it as a possible motive for suicide. Doheny, however, twists it around and says that Brade might have been trying to protect his own reputation by hiding the fraud. The next day Brade again meets with Cap Anson, and immediately afterward in the lab, is almost killed by an oxygen cylinder which has been sabotaged. Now resolved to solve the mystery, he questions Ralph's fiancé Roberta Goodhue in the presence of Doheny. She admits that she and Ralph had had an argument about the faked data. The only person who could have overheard was Cap Anson. Brade accuses Anson of killing Ralph to prevent him from publishing the faked data (but does not mention the attempt on his own life). Anson denies the murder, but Doheny then tricks Anson into revealing that he knows about the attempt on Brade's life. Anson confesses to murdering Ralph and attempting to murder Brade. ===== This episode, like many routine Christmas specials, has an anapestic rhyming narration akin to a storybook. It begins in the forest, where Stan discovers a group of talking animals building a Christmas tree. They convince a surprised but apathetic Stan to help make a star for it, after which he goes home. That night, they wake him in his room and explain that one of the animals, a porcupine named Porcupiney, is pregnant with the creatures' savior. Though drowsy and annoyed, Stan agrees to help them build a manger for the baby. As he finishes, however, another problem appears in the form of a mountain lion, which apparently eats every pregnant Critter to prevent their Savior's birth. Exasperated, Stan goes to its mountain home and manages to kill the beast, but is dismayed to find that the lion was the mother of three talking, now-orphaned cubs. He is further horrified to learn that the Woodland Critters are actually Satanists and that their "Savior" is the Antichrist. They celebrate Stan's victory by sacrificing Rabbitty the Rabbit, devouring his flesh and having an orgy in his blood. Stan tries to ignore the impending apocalypse, only to be wheedled by the narrator into trying to stop it. Unfortunately, the Critters are able to rebuff him with their Satanic powers, which will apparently grow stronger as the Antichrist's birth approaches. Since the Critters claim that only a mountain lion can prevent that, Stan (heeding the narrator's instructions) returns to the mountain to enlist the orphaned cubs. Since they're too small to take on the Critters, however, they can only stop the birth by learning to perform abortions; the narrator forces Stan to take them to an abortion clinic for lessons despite his objections. Meanwhile, the Critters are searching for an unbaptized human host for the Antichrist to possess once it's born. They discover Kyle, who is Jewish, and kidnap him. Stan and the cubs return to the forest in time to discover that the Antichrist (a hairless, jabbering little creature) has already been born, with Kyle tied to a Satanic altar. Santa Claus arrives and, when he learns what is happening, pulls out a shotgun and slaughters all the Critters. He explains that the Antichrist will die without a human host to inhabit, but Kyle, now free from the altar, suddenly decides to allow the Antichrist to possess him. He announces that he will conquer the world in the name of the Jews, allowing them to finally take control of Christmas once and for all. The scene suddenly cuts to Mr. Garrison's fourth- grade class, revealing that the entire episode up until now has been a story read by Eric Cartman for a school assignment. Kyle objects to its obvious anti-Semitism, and Mr. Garrison, fearing complaints from Kyle's mother, agrees then forces Cartman to stop reading, which Cartman furiously applied and returns to his desk. However, the rest of the class wants to hear the ending and plead with Kyle to let Cartman continue. Kyle objects that the ending is obvious---Santa Claus will simply kill him and save Christmas. Cartman insists that the ending is different. The other kids persist and protest, Kyle begrudgingly allows Cartman to continue the story. Back in the story, Kyle begins to react with horror at how evil the Antichrist feels and begs the others to exorcise it before it takes control of him. Thinking quickly, Stan has the lion cubs perform an abortion through Kyle's anus; once removed, Santa unceremoniously smashes the Antichrist with a sledgehammer. Santa gives Stan a special Christmas wish, which he uses to resurrect the mother mountain lion, to the cubs' obvious joy. Everyone then goes home to a happy Christmas. The narrator (i.e., Cartman) concludes, "they all lived happily ever after...except for Kyle, who died of AIDS two weeks later," with an image of a sickly Kyle dying in the hospital. The episode ends with "The End" while Kyle can be heard shouting "Goddamn it, Cartman!" in the background. ===== Beam Aqueduct, the "Canal Bridge" near which Tarka was born The book is separated into two main parts, "The First Year" and "The Last Year". It begins shortly before the birth of Tarka in an otter holt on the River Torridge, near the Rolle Canal aqueduct on the Beam estate. After a period learning to swim and hunt, and losing a sibling in a trap, he is separated from his mother and wanders around North Devon alone. His first mate is an elderly otter called Greymuzzle, who is killed during Tarka's first winter, which is unusually harsh. In his second year, he fathers a litter of cubs with his second mate, White-tip. Throughout the book Williamson juxtaposes Tarka with his main enemy, the local otter hunt, and particularly the pied hound Deadlock, "the truest marking-hound in the country of the Two Rivers" (p. 23). The book ends with a climactic nine-hour hunt of Tarka by the pack, and a confrontation between Tarka and Deadlock. Williamson's attitude to the hunt is somewhat ambivalent: while admiring them for their own regard for and knowledge of the otter, and despite being personally friendly with his local hunt, the violence and cruelty of some of his descriptions of hunting is clear.Gavron, 2009, xi Locations featured in the book include Braunton Burrows, the clay pits at Marland, Morte Point, Hoar Oak Water and the Chains. The book begins and ends in the vicinity of Torrington. Williamson wrote with a descriptive style which some, such as Ted Hughes, have characterised as poetic: in his memorial address for Williamson, quoted by Roger Deakin in his book Waterlog, Hughes described him as "one of the truest English poets of his generation".Quoted in Deakin, R. Waterlog, Random House, 2009, p.84 His writing is also characterised by a lack of sentimentality about the animals it describes; Williamson is generally careful to avoid anthropomorphising them and rarely attempts to present any but their most basic or instinctual mental processes.Hogan, W. Animals in Young Adult Fiction, 2009, p.7 ===== An undercover cop, Chan Kam-wah, who is investigating a group of jewellery thieves, blows his cover and is stabbed to death by three attackers in a street market. His superior, Inspector Lau, orders Ko Chow, another undercover policeman, to resume the investigations. Ko Chow accepts reluctantly because during his previous undercover mission he had to arrest someone who had trusted him as a friend. The robbers are holding up a jewellery factory, but someone manages to alert the police. One of the robbers, Fu, kills a policeman, starting a firefight with the approaching policemen. The gang barely escapes. The police commissioner sets up a dedicated task force to investigate the gang, under the leadership of the young inspector John Chan. A strong rivalry develops between Lau and Chan; Chan considers Lau old-fashioned and out of his depth, while Lau considers Chan inexperienced and arrogant. To reach out to the gang, Chow offers them weapons for sale through the middle-man Tai Song. During the first meeting with gang member Fu they are tailed by members of the Criminal Investigation Department under the command of Chan (who is unaware that Chow is an undercover policeman). After the funeral of Chan Kam-wah, Chow meets with Lau who hands him a key to a locker in a bowling alley where the weapons will be stashed. Chow advises against handing out real guns, but Lau insists so as not to lose track of the gang. Chow meets with his girlfriend Hung, to whom he made a marriage proposal shortly before. When Chow asks her to postpone the marriage until his case is closed, she leaves the room hysterically. Prior to the handover of the guns, Chow tapes a recorder around his waist. He meets with three of the gang members. Chow is patted down, but manages to distract them from the tape recorder. Fu is satisfied with the sample gun and instructs Chow to meet him again in two days at noon to buy additional guns and ammunition. The next day Chow meets with Lau and asks him for additional weapons. Lau needs time to get them, but assures Chow he will deposit them two hours before the arranged handover to Fu in the bowling alley. Meanwhile Hung packs her bags to take a flight to Canada with Tso, an older business man who had offered before to leave his wife for her. When Chow learns about that on the telephone, he asks her to marry him immediately to change her mind. Hung tells him to prove he's sincere by showing up at the register office at 10:00 am the next day, but the following day she waits there in vain with her friend Rose. On his way to the bowling alley, Chow is tailed by policemen. When he realises this (and since having the guns is a crime) he calls Lau. Lau tells him that the policemen are from Chan's department and orders him to proceed while he would sort out the situation with Chan. When talking to Chan he mentions Chow as an informer, but keeps his status as an undercover cop a secret. Chan refuses Lau's request to call off the tail on Chow. Now on his own, Chow shakes off his police pursuers at an MTR station by boarding a departing train. While getting the bag with the guns, he notices Fu at the bowling alley. As he leaves the building, the police arrive. Chow manages to escape by jumping from a window and is picked up at street level by Fu who's approaching in a car. They drive to the gang's hideout since their leader wants to meet Chow. He offers Chow the chance to participate in an upcoming big holdup. Fu drives Chow to the airport where he meets Hung, who's about to board a plane to Canada with Tso. Chow tries to change her mind, but is arrested by the police for selling weapons (while Hung boards the plane). At the police station, Chow is beat up and tortured by Chan's men who want to know the buyer of the weapons. Chan's superior enters the room, orders Chan's men to release Chow and calls Chan and Lau into his office. Lau admits to having given Chow the weapons for the weapons deal, but keeps quiet about Chow being an undercover cop. Since illegal possession of a firearm is a minor offense, Chan proposes that Chow participates in the holdup to catch the robbers red-handed. Lau considers that too much of a risk, but ultimately the police chief orders Chow's participation in the planned robbery. There are four possible jewelry stores the gang might rob. All have weak security measures, valuable merchandise and are located at busy roads. After the robbery, the gang plans to drive to a hideout in the harbour area where a boat will pick them up the following day. The police is unaware which store will be targeted, but plans to keep several police teams on standby nearby. On the eve of the robbery, the gang leader orders the participants to gather at a flat. For security reasons, they need to spend the remaining time before the holdout together and hand in their pagers. Chow writes the address of the hideout on a piece of paper, but is unable to pass it on to his police colleagues. Chow and Fu share a room and talk about their history and future plans – Fu's wife left him and he never saw his son again, to which Chow tells him that his wife also left him and the men become increasingly close. During the night Chow reads a letter from Hung who tells him that she didn't go to Canada with Tso, but is waiting for him in Hawaii. The next morning the police leadership orders the police teams out of standby since they don't expect the robbery to happen soon any longer. This is a misjudgment, as the gang leader calls his men together and designates the Tai Kong jewellery store as their target. Since the special police teams stood down, the store is only guarded by two plainclothes policemen in a patrol car. The holdup starts when four of the robbers enter the store, draw their guns, and request the jewellery. Fu and Chow wait at the entrance to keep an eye on the street while the gang leader waits in a getaway car. There Chow realises that it was Fu whom eyewitnesses described as the cop killer who started the firefight during the jewellery factory heist. When the store alarm is triggered, Big Song (one of the robbers) shoots a saleswoman. While they are trying to escape to their cars, the two policemen guarding the store open fire, wounding gang member Bill. One of the getaway cars is stopped by the police. Fu, Chow, Joe, and Big Song need to leave Bill behind under heavy fire. Joe is killed by police while Big Song tries to hot-wire another getaway car. In an audacious maneuver Fu confronts an approaching police car and kills the four policemen inside, although he gets shot into the shoulder. Chow saves Fu's life by killing the policeman who shot at Fu. Fu, Chow, Big Song, and Bony (the fourth surviving gang member) escape with the stolen car to the hideout at the harbour, where they meet the gang leader who was already awaiting them. Meanwhile, the police find Chow's note with the address of the hideout at the scene of the firefight. The leader suspects a traitor among the gang since the police arrived too quickly at the crime scene. He incriminates Chow since he only recently joined their ranks. Big Song and Fu defend Chow and a Mexican standoff emerges. The police arrives and surrounds the hideout with dozens of men. When Chan requests the men to surrender, Big Song shoots at the police. They open fire and kill him. Bony tries to surrender and is shot by the gang leader for cowardice. When the boss also tries to shoot Chow and Fu, they kill him instead. Chow is wounded by a police bullet and realises his injury is fatal. He confesses to Fu that he's a cop and asks for a quick death, but Fu feels unable to kill Chow. While the police storms the hideout and arrest Fu, Chow dies next to him. Lau is furious about his death and smashes a brick on Chan's head (who's already boasting to a superior about his success) and storms off. ===== Jay Trotter and his best friend Looney are cab drivers and the later has a secret microphone in his taxi to record his passengers' private conversations. Looney has a new tape of two men talking about an upcoming horse race and how one of the race horses, due to unethical practice by its owner and trainer, "they were holding the horse back", is a sure thing to win big. Trotter hears the tape Looney plays, and with Looney goes to the track to place a $50.00 win bet on the horse—despite the fact that the day before Trotter had told his wife Pam that he would quit betting forever and stay home to "start their marriage over" at noon. In the restroom of the bar next door to the racetrack, he prays to God, saying, "Just one big day, that's all I'm asking for, one day, I'm due." A man exiting the bathrooms overhears him, and says "Ya? So's Jesus. Let it ride." Trotter promptly places a $50 bet on the horse that he received the tip on from Looney's tape. Looney refuses to bet the tip, instead betting on a horse named, "June Bug"—the same name as a cat Looney once owned. Trotter's horse wins the race in a photo finish and pays $28.40 to win (earning Trotter $710). Armed with a newfound sense of confidence, after cashing his win bet, Trotter approaches the two men from Looney's cab ride and generously gives them the tape of their taxi conversation. Out of gratitude, they give Trotter a good tip for the next race. He again places a large win bet, and wins again. Sensing that this could be his "lucky day," Trotter intends to "let it ride" (parlaying all of his track winnings on every race). Just before the next race, before he can make another bet on a horse suggested by someone else, Trotter is suddenly arrested in a case of mistaken identity. After he is soon released, he realizes the horse he was going to bet has lost. Now, he really feels this is his "lucky day". After being released, Trotter resumes his lucky wagering streak. As he accumulates more money, and uses his new clubhouse friends' membership in the track's exclusive clubhouse dining room, he starts meeting other well-to-do gamblers, including the wealthy Mrs. Davis, and a sexy vixen named Vicki. Trotter soon becomes a hero to the ticket seller, whose window he uses to wager every time, and to the customers of the track's bar. He also hires a track security guard to protect him. However, Trotter has again totally neglected his wife Pam. Pam realizes he must be at the racetrack. She flies into a rage when she confronts him at the track clubhouse. Trotter calms her down a bit-and tells her of his hot streak. He cannot decide on a horse in the next race-so Trotter takes a survey of the track patrons and, eliminating any selection they give him, bets on the remaining horse—Fleet Dreams, which wins. Trotter decides to call it a day and goes home to Pam, buying her a diamond necklace on the way. At home he finds Pam intoxicated and passed out. He heads back to the track to help the patrons of Marty's bar across the street, but when he suggests sharing his luck by betting their money together, they all balk at the idea. Disconcerted, Trotter goes for a walk around the track. Vicki suddenly offers to "go to bed with him." Trotter "breaks the fourth wall" by saying to the audience, "Am I having a good day or what?" Ultimately, he turns Vicki down by professing his love for his wife. Trotter makes a final bet of $68,000 (his total winnings for the day) after Looney advises him not to bet on Hot to Trot. As the race begins, Looney and Trotter argue over everything, and the main characters all make resolutions. In Vicki's case, she vows to give up rich guys and consider a poor one, looking at Looney. The race comes down to a photo finish. While everyone awaits the result, Pam shows up to thank Jay for his lovely gift and to tell him not to worry about the money, when the announcer reports the winner: Hot to Trot. The entire racetrack erupts in celebration, and Pam asks, "Why is everyone cheering?" Jay replies, "Because I'm having a very good day." ===== ===== Min (Anita Yuen), who is part of a Cantonese street opera troupe and a part-time cover artiste, meets Kit (Lau Ching-Wan), a struggling jazz musician who has just broken up with his celebrity singer girlfriend (Carina Lau). Through her bubbly personality, she affects Kit for the better. However, just as their relationship begins to stabilize and win acceptance from Min's family, which includes a strict mother and a doting, saxophone-playing uncle, Min is re-diagnosed with bone cancer, which she had once suffered as a young child. ===== The setting is post-Russian Civil War, during the reconstruction of the young Soviet republic. During the war, Shilov, Sarichev, Kungorov, Zabelin and Lipyagin had become great friends. There are two main plots in the film, the first involving the theft of gold by outlaws just after the Russian civil war. Though the cannons are now silent, the enemy continues to harass the Soviets. The regional committee sends a precious shipment of gold by train to Moscow, and a group of demobilized Red Army soldiers — now Cheka officers — led by Shilov are entrusted with the responsibility of guarding it. The gold is needed to buy bread from overseas to feed the starving population. The Cheka guards are attacked and killed by a group of assassins, and the briefcase of gold is stolen. The group then hops onto another train, only to face a reversal of their own when their train is attacked by bandits. All of the assassins are killed except their leader, who discovers that a bandit has secretly stolen the gold. He then joins the bandits in an effort to learn where the gold is, and to escape with it. In the meantime, Shilov was kidnapped and drugged before the train sets off, and is dumped in the street after the attack and framed as the inside man. He is suspected of treason, partly because his brother was a "White", which is where the second plot comes in. Shilov must infiltrate the enemy bandit camp to find the gold, hence the title. The second plot involves the Shilov's desire to clear his name of murder, and he must find out who killed his friends. During his efforts, Shilov uncovers a web of deceit and treachery, which allowed the robbery to succeed. The story of a hero battling against corruption and greed echoes the cattle baron or railroad Westerns. ===== Police informant Michael Marks awakens in a room with a spike-filled mask locked around his neck. Michael has one minute to cut into his eye to obtain the key, but can't bring himself to do it and is killed when the mask closes. At the scene of Michael's game, Detective Allison Kerry finds a message for her former partner, Detective Eric Matthews, and calls him in. Matthews joins Kerry and Officer Daniel Rigg in leading a SWAT team to the factory which produced the lock from Michael's trap. There they apprehend John Kramer, the Jigsaw Killer, who indicates computer monitors showing eight people trapped in a house, including his only known survivor Amanda Young, and Matthews' son Daniel. The other victims are Xavier, Jonas, Gus, Laura, Addison, and Obi. A nerve agent filling the house will kill them all within two hours, but John assures Matthews that if he follows the rules of his own game, he will see Daniel again. At Kerry's urging, Matthews agrees to buy time for the tech team to arrive and trace the video signal. During their conversation, John reveals to Matthews that one of his main motivations to become Jigsaw was a failed suicide attempt after his cancer diagnosis, which led to a newfound appreciation for life; his games' purpose is to help his victims develop the same appreciation. The group is informed by a microcassette recorder that antidotes are hidden throughout the house; one is in the room's safe, and the tape provides a cryptic clue. Xavier ignores a warning note and uses the key provided with the cassette on the door, which triggers a gun that kills Gus. Once the door opens, they search the house and find a basement, where Obi, who helped with the abductions, is killed in a furnace trap while trying to retrieve two antidotes. In another room, Xavier's test involves digging through a pit filled with syringes to retrieve a key to a steel door in two minutes, but he instead throws Amanda into the pit. She retrieves the key, but Xavier fails to unlock the door in time. Throughout the game, the group discuss connections between them and determine that each has been incarcerated before except Daniel; in which during his father's test, John reveals their affiliation to Matthews who was a corrupt police officer framing his suspects in various crimes recently. Xavier returns to the safe room and finds a number on the back of Gus' neck. After realizing the numbers is the password for the safe, he kills Jonas and begins hunting the others. Laura succumbs to the nerve agent and dies; not before finding the clue revealing Daniel's identity. Incensed by the revelation, Addison leaves on her own and finds a glass box containing an antidote but her arms become trapped in the openings which are lined with hidden blades. Xavier enters the room and leaves her to die after reading her number. Amanda and Daniel find a tunnel from the first room leading to a dilapidated bathroom. Xavier finds them and, agitated by Amanda's notion, cuts off a piece of skin from the back of his neck to read his own number. Before Xavier could finish them off, Daniel slits his throat with the hacksaw. Having seen Xavier chasing his son, Matthews assaults John and forces him to lead him to the house. The tech team tracks the video's source and while Rigg's team searches the house, Kerry realizes that the game took place days before they captured John until the timer for Matthews' game expires to reveal Daniel inside a safe, bounded and breathing in an oxygen mask. Unaware of these events, Matthews enters the house alone and makes his way to the bathroom, where he is subdued by a pig-masked figure. He awakens shackled at the ankle to a pipe and finds a tape recorder left by Amanda, who reveals she had become John's accomplice after surviving her first trap and helped him set up Matthews' test during the game at the house, intending to continue John's work after he dies. Amanda then appears and seals the door, leaving Matthews to die as John hears his screams outside and smiles. ===== During NASA's first manned mission to Mars, the Fifth Doctor and Peri encounter one of the Doctor's old adversaries — the Ice Warriors. This episode addresses issue of scientific and industrial ethics. ===== The Sixth Doctor and Evelyn team up with the Brigadier to defeat an ancient evil in Cornwall. ===== The Fifth Doctor and Nyssa investigate the mystery of a malevolent poltergeist in a Swiss girls' finishing school. This episode addresses issues of religious extremism. ===== At a conference on Archetryx between major temporal powers, the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn discover that Romana has been missing for twenty years and that the Daleks' newest weapon — the Apocalypse Element — threatens not only the Time Lords but the entire galaxy. ===== ===== The cartoon begins with Elmer tiptoeing and telling the audience his famous line, "Shh. Be vewy, vewy quiet. I'm hunting wabbits." Elmer then approaches one of Bugs' holes, puts down a carrot, and hides behind a tree. Bugs' arm reaches out of the hole, feels around, and snatches the carrot. He reaches out again and finds Elmer's double-barreled shotgun. His arm quickly pops back into the hole before returning to drop the eaten stub of Elmer's carrot and apologetically caress the end of the barrel. Elmer shoves his gun into Bugs' hole, and thus causes a struggle in which the barrel is bent into a bow. Elmer frantically digs into the hole while Bugs emerges from a nearby hole with another carrot in his hand, lifts Fudd's hat, and raps the top of his head until Elmer notices; then chews his carrot and delivers his definitive line, "What's up, Doc?". When Elmer replies that "[he's] hunting 'wabbits'", Bugs chews his carrot and asks what a wabbit is; then teases Elmer by with every aspect of Fudd's description until Elmer suspects that Bugs is a rabbit. Bugs confirms this, hides behind a tree, sneaks behind Elmer, covers his eyes, and asks "Guess who?". Elmer tries the names of contemporary screen beauties whose names exploited his accent, before he guesses the rabbit. Bugs responds "Hmm..... Could be!", kisses Elmer, and dives into a hole. Elmer sticks his head into the hole and gets another kiss from Bugs; whereafter he wipes his mouth and decides to set a trap. When Bugs puts a skunk in the trap, Fudd blindly grabs the skunk and carries it over to the watching Bugs to brag; and when Elmer sees his mistake, Bugs gives him a kiss on the nose, whereupon Fudd looks at the skunk, who winks and nudges Elmer. Fudd winces and gingerly sends the skunk on his way. Bugs then offers a free shot at himself; fakes an elaborate death; and plays dead, leaving Elmer miserable with remorse; but survives the shot and sneaks up behind the despairing Fudd, kicks him in his rear, shoves a cigar into his mouth, and tiptoes away, ballet-style. Finally, the frustrated Elmer walks away sobbing about "wabbits, cawwots, guns", etc. Bugs then remarks, "Can ya imagine anybody acting like that? Ya know, I think the poor guy's screwy", and begins to play his carrot like a fife, playing the tune The Girl I Left Behind Me, and marches with one stiff leg towards his rabbit hole (recalling The Spirit of '76). ===== A group of friends share a few drinks, when an eminent doctor, Wolfe Macfarlane, enters. One of the friends, Fettes, recognizes the name and angrily confronts the new arrival. Although his friends all find this behaviour suspicious, none of them can understand what might lie behind it. It turns out that Macfarlane and Fettes had attended medical school together, under anatomy professor Robert Knox. Their duties included taking receipt of bodies for dissection, and paying the pair of shifty and suspicious men who supplied them. On one occasion, Fettes identifies a body as that of a woman he knew, and is convinced she has been murdered. But Macfarlane talks him out of reporting the incident, lest they are both implicated in the crime. Later, Fettes meets Macfarlane at a tavern, along with a man named Gray, who treats Macfarlane in a rude manner. The following night, Macfarlane brings Gray's body along as a dissection sample. Although Fettes is now certain that his friend has committed murder, Macfarlane again convinces him to keep his silence, persuading him that if he is not courageous enough to perform such manly deeds as these, he will end up as just another victim. The two men make sure the body is comprehensively dissected, destroying any forensic evidence. Fettes and Macfarlane continue their work, without being implicated in any crime. However, when a shortage of bodies leaves their mentor in need, they are sent to a country churchyard to exhume a recently buried woman. As they are driving back with the body seated between them, they begin to feel nervous and stop to take a better look. They are shocked to discover that the body between them is that of Gray, which they thought they had destroyed. ===== Graham Young has been obsessed with death and the macabre since childhood. He is highly intelligent, with an aptitude for chemistry. He also dreams of poisoning as many people as he can. In his teen years, he poisons a schoolmate --making him ill rather than killing him--in order to date a girl his schoolmate was seeing. His conversation with his date involves vivid, graphic descriptions of deadly car accidents. He also reads a comic book account of an event in which the Dutch Resistance killed a whole German army camp in the occupied Netherlands during the Second World War by poisoning their water supply with thallium. Graham is arrested at the age of 14 outside his home in Neasden after poisoning his father and stepmother with thallium, killing his stepmother and leaving his father seriously ill. During the struggle with police, he drops his "Exit Dose" of thallium, which he intended to use to commit suicide should he be caught. He is hospitalised for nine years in an institution for the criminally insane, during which time a psychiatrist works with him in the hopes of rehabilitating him. Graham's dishonesty becomes evident to the doctor, who can see that Graham is trying to deceive him. Graham apparently has no dreams to share with the psychiatrist so he "borrows" a fellow prisoner's dreams. This source is shut off to him, however, once the fellow prisoner commits suicide. Despite the initial evidence of Graham's deceitfulness, the doctor eventually gets him released. Graham then goes to work in a camera factory and is shown the secret ingredient used in the company's shutter system--thallium. It is not long before Graham starts poisoning people again. He kills two of his workmates by poisoning their tea with thallium stolen from the laboratory, and makes many others ill. For months, the source of the "bug" afflicting the workers at the factory remains a mystery until one unforeseen event leads to Graham's being found out. As a hygiene measure, all the personalised teacups are replaced with uniform ones, leaving Graham unable to poison people selectively. His efforts to memorise which cup is going to which person give him away and his workmates finally realise what is going on. Graham is arrested soon afterwards and he is later sentenced to a lengthy custodial term, this time in an ordinary prison. He commits suicide by poisoning himself with the "Newton's Diamond" he made in the psychiatric hospital. ===== Anansi Boys is the story of Charles "Fat Charlie" Nancy, a timid Londoner devoid of ambition, whose unenthusiastic wedding preparations are disrupted when he learns that his father (Mr. Nancy) has died in Florida. The flamboyant Mr. Nancy, in whose shadow Fat Charlie has always lived, died in a slightly embarrassing manner by suffering a fatal heart attack while singing to a young woman on stage in a karaoke bar before falling from stage and accidentally pulling down the woman's top. Fat Charlie is forced to take time off from the talent agency where he works and travel to Florida for the funeral. Afterwards, while discussing the disposal of Mr. Nancy's estate, Mrs. Callyanne Higgler, a very old family friend, reveals to Fat Charlie that the late Mr. Nancy was actually an incarnation of the West African spider god, Anansi, hence his name. The reason Charlie had apparently not inherited any divine powers was because they had been passed down to his hitherto unknown brother, who Mrs. Higgler explains could be contacted by simply sending an invitation by talking to a spider. Charlie is skeptical, and on his return to England largely forgets what Mrs. Higgler had told him, until one night when he drunkenly whispers to a spider that it would be nice if his brother stopped by for a visit. The next morning the suave and well-dressed brother, going under the name of "Spider", visits Charlie and is shocked to learn that their father has died. Spider then magically steps into a picture of their childhood home and Charlie goes off to work, rather puzzled by Spider and his sudden miraculous disappearance. Spider returns that night, stricken with grief that Anansi had died and that he had been thoughtless enough not to notice. At Spider's recommendation, the two brothers attempt to drown their sorrows and become uproariously drunk on the proverbial trio of wine, women, and song. Although Charlie is not involved in most of the womanising or singing, he is drunk enough to sleep through much of the next day. Spider covers for Charlie's absence from his office at the Grahame Coats Agency by magically disguising himself as Charlie. It is explained that although the two brothers are not identical, Spider is able to use his divine powers to appear to others as Charlie's twin. While at work, Spider discovers his boss Grahame Coats's long-standing practice of embezzling from his clients and also steals the affection and virginity of Charlie's fiancée, Rosie Noah. Spider, in the guise of Charlie, reveals his knowledge of the financial improprieties to Grahame Coats during a meeting in which Grahame had planned to fire Charlie and, as a result, Grahame delays firing him. When Grahame meets him next, he gives the real Charlie a large cheque and a holiday from work. With Charlie out of the office, Grahame Coats proceeds to alter the financial records to frame Charlie for the embezzlement. Embittered by the loss of his fiancée, Charlie uses his holiday to return to Florida and requests help from Mrs. Higgler and three of her equally old and eccentric friends to expel Spider. Being themselves unable to banish Spider, they instead send Fat Charlie to "the beginning of the world," an abode of ancient gods similar to his father, each of whom represents a species of animal. There he encounters the fearsome Tiger, the outrageous Hyena, and the ridiculous Monkey, among others. None are willing to help the son of the trickster Anansi, who had embarrassed them all at times in their lives. Finally, Charlie meets Bird Woman, who agrees to trade him her help, symbolised by one of her feathers, in exchange for "Anansi's bloodline". Meanwhile, in London, a swindled client, Maeve Livingstone, confronts Grahame Coats directly, having learned of the theft of her late husband's royalties. Grahame Coats murders her with a hammer and conceals her body in a hidden closet. When Charlie returns to England, events begin to escalate. Charlie quarrels and scuffles with Spider, Charlie is taken in for questioning by the police for financial fraud at the Grahame Coats Agency, Spider reveals the truth of his identity to Rosie, who is angered by his treatment of her, birds repeatedly attack Spider, Grahame Coats escapes England for his estate and bank accounts in the fictional Caribbean country of Saint Andrews and Maeve Livingstone's ghost begins haunting the Grahame Coats Agency building. Maeve is contacted by her late husband, who advises her to move on to the afterlife, but she refuses in favour of taking vengeance on Grahame Coats. Later, she meets the ghost of Anansi himself, who recounts a story to her. Once, Anansi reveals, the animal god Tiger owned all stories, and as a result, all stories were dark, violent and unhappy. Anansi tricked Tiger into surrendering the ownership of stories to him, forever allowing stories to involve cleverness, skill and often humour rather than strength alone. After he is attacked by flamingoes, Spider realises that something Charlie did is causing these attacks and that he is in mortal peril. Consequently, Spider magically breaks Charlie out of prison. The two discuss matters in the course of fleeing from birds from around the world, realising that giving away Anansi's bloodline implicates Charlie as well as Spider. Charlie is then returned to prison and is eventually freed. He mentions a hidden room in Coats's office to the police, who find Maeve Livingstone's body there. Spider is swept away in a storm of birds, after which Bird Woman removes his tongue to prevent his use of magic. The Bird Woman delivers Spider to Tiger, Anansi's longtime enemy, who imprisons him. In spite of his helplessness, Spider manages to form a little spider out of clay, instructing it to go find help in the spider kingdom that Anansi and his descendants command. Despite not being as strong as Tiger, Spider still manages to fend him off for some time while Tiger prolongs killing him, preferring to savour his long hoped-for revenge on Anansi and his brood. Meanwhile Rosie and her mother have taken a consolation cruise to the Caribbean, where they unexpectedly meet Grahame Coats, who offers them a tour of his home. The two have not heard of the events in England and thus unsuspectingly walk into a trap at his home where they are locked in his basement. Charlie goes searching for Callyanne Higgler to help him solve his problems. He looks for her in Florida, but Anansi's old friends tell him that Mrs. Higgler has returned to the Caribbean country of Saint Andrews. These friends reveal to him that it was another old lady, Mrs. Dunwiddy, who was annoyed with the young Fat Charlie and made a spell to separate his good side from his bad side, which then became Spider, separating the one person into two. Fat Charlie finally finds her after a long search in Saint Andrews and is sent again, via seance, to the beginning of the world where he forces the Bird Woman to give back Anansi's bloodline in return for her feather. Meanwhile, Spider has managed to survive as an overconfident Tiger continues to prolong devouring him. When Tiger attempts a killing strike, a massive army of spider reinforcements summoned by Spider overwhelm him and force his retreat. At this point, Charlie rescues Spider and gives him back his tongue. Tiger now takes possession of Grahame Coats's body and uses his bloodlust to manipulate him, intending to get revenge on Spider by killing Rosie and her mother. The possession by Tiger, however, makes Grahame Coats vulnerable to attacks from other spirits and Maeve Livingstone, having found Grahame Coats with the aid of Anansi's ghost, eliminates Coats in the real world and, satisfied, moves on to her afterlife. Meanwhile, still at the beginning of the world, Charlie, having discovered his power to alter reality by singing a story, recounts the long tale of all that has gone before and humiliates Tiger to the point of retreating to his cave. Spider then collapses the cave entrance, sealing Tiger inside. Charlie weaves this event into his song, reinforcing it with his powers, such that Tiger is securely trapped. Coats, turned into a stoat, remains with Tiger as an unwelcome guest that can be perpetually eaten for eternity. In the end, Spider marries Rosie and becomes the owner of a restaurant. He is put constantly under pressure by Rosie's mother to have children, but (possibly to annoy her) never does. Charlie begins a successful career as a singer, marries police officer Daisy Day and has a son (Marcus). Old Anansi, resting comfortably in his grave, watches his two sons approvingly as he contemplates resurrecting himself in 20 or 25 years. ===== In 1968, as an audience of inmates at Folsom State Prison cheer for Johnny Cash, he waits backstage near a table saw, reminding him of his early life. In 1944, 12-year- old Johnny is raised on a cotton farm in Dyess, Arkansas, with his brother Jack, father Ray, and mother Carrie. One day, Jack is killed in a sawmill accident while Johnny is out fishing; Ray blames Johnny for Jack’s death, saying that the Devil “took the wrong son”. In 1950, Johnny enlists in the Air Force and is stationed in West Germany. He purchases a guitar, and in 1952, finds solace in writing songs, one of which he develops as "Folsom Prison Blues". After his discharge, Cash returns to the United States and marries his girlfriend, Vivian Liberto. The couple moves to Memphis, Tennessee, where Cash works as a door-to-door salesman to support his growing family. He walks past a recording studio, which inspires him to organize a band to play gospel music. Cash's band auditions for Sam Phillips, the owner of Sun Records. Phillips signs them after they play "Folsom Prison Blues", and the band begins touring as Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two, alongside fellow rising stars Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. On tour, Johnny meets June Carter, with whom he falls in love. They become friends, but June gently rebuffs his attempts to woo her. As Johnny’s fame grows, he starts abusing drugs and alcohol. Over Vivian's objections, Johnny persuades June to go tour with him. The tour is a success, but backstage, Vivian becomes critical of June's influence. After one performance in Las Vegas, Johnny and June sleep together. The next morning, she notices Johnny taking pills, and doubts her choices. At that evening's concert, Johnny, upset by June's apparent rejection, behaves erratically and eventually passes out on stage. June disposes of Johnny's drugs, and begins to write "Ring of Fire", describing her feelings for him and her pain at watching him descend into addiction. Returning to California, Johnny travels to Mexico to purchase more drugs and is arrested. Johnny’s marriage to Vivian implodes; they divorce and he moves to Nashville in 1966. Trying to reconcile with June, Johnny purchases a large house near a lake in Hendersonville. His parents and the extended Carter family arrive for Thanksgiving, at which time Ray and an intoxicated Johnny get into a bitter argument. After the meal, June's mother encourages her daughter to help Cash. He goes into detox and wakes with June; she says they have been given a second chance. They begin a tentative relationship, but June rebuffs his marriage proposals. Johnny discovers that most of his fan mail is from prisoners. He proposes to skeptical Columbia Records executives that he will record an album live inside Folsom Prison. The performance is a success, and Johnny embarks on a tour with June and his band. He later performs "Ring of Fire" on stage. After the song, Cash invites June to a duet and stops in the middle, saying he cannot sing "Jackson" any more unless June agrees to marry him. June accepts and they share a passionate embrace on stage. Johnny and his father reconciled their relationship. ===== The plot of Fluke is set on and off the Hawaiian island of Maui as well as deep underneath the Pacific Ocean off the shore of Chile. Nathan Quinn, a marine biologist, goes out on a routine day-trip expedition to survey whales in the area. When he photographs one of the whale's flukes, he notices that the words "BITE ME" are spelled out in huge letters on the mammal's tail- fin. His curiosity and investigations uncover one mystery after another as he seeks the answers concerning the source of this peculiarity. ===== Loki, the Norse god of mischief, has been exiled to the human world by the god Odin for reasons that he doesn't understand. Along with being exiled, Loki is forced to take the form of a human child, and the only way he can return to the realm of the gods is by collecting the evil auras which take over human hearts. In order to do this, he starts a detective agency which specializes in the paranormal. Loki is assisted by his loyal companion Yamino and the pair are soon joined by a human girl named Mayura Daidouji who is manic for mysteries and often unwittingly assists him in catching the auras. As time passes, however, other Norse gods and characters appear; some befriend Loki and others are intent on assassinating him. ===== In 1880 South Africa, young Betsy has an adventure involving Zulu tribesmen, Dutch settlers, the Voortrekkers, and her older brother's romance of Katie Snee. ===== ===== The song centres on the main character, Pink, who having lived a life filled with emotional trauma and substance abuse has reached a critical psychological break. "The Trial" is the fulcrum on which Pink's mental state balances. In the song, Pink is charged with "showing feelings of an almost human nature." This means that Pink has committed a crime against himself by actually attempting to interact with his fellow human beings, defying the mission towards self-isolation that defined much of his life. Through the course of the song, he is confronted by the primary influences of his life (who have been introduced over the course of the album): an abusive schoolmaster, his wife, and his overprotective mother; in the animated sequence, they are depicted as grotesque caricatures. Pink's subconscious struggle for sanity is overseen by a new character, "The Judge." In Pink Floyd -- The Wall and the concert animations, the Judge is a giant worm for most of the song until his verse, at which point he transforms into a giant anthropomorphic body from the waist-down (bigger than the marching hammers in "Waiting for the Worms"), his face constructed from various elements of the buttocks and genitals. A prosecutor conducts the early portions, which consist of the antagonists explaining their actions, intercut with Pink's refrains, "Crazy/Toys in the attic, I am crazy,/Truly gone fishing" and "Crazy/Over the rainbow, I am crazy,/Bars in the window." The culmination of the trial is the judge's sentence for Pink "to be exposed before your peers" whereupon he orders Pink to "Tear down the wall!" As Waters sings the dialogue for each character he transitions into different accents including: Cockney accent (the prosecutor and judge), Scottish accent (the schoolmaster) and Northern English accent (Pink's mother). For the character of Pink's wife he used his normal voice on the album and the original 1980-81 tour. However, in his solo 2010-13 tour of The Wall he portrays the wife with a distinctively French accent. This and the following song, "Outside the Wall," are the only two songs on the album which the story is seen from an outsider's perspective, most notably through the three antagonists of "The Trial," even though it is all in Pink's mind. The song ends with the sound of a wall being demolished amid chants of "Tear down the wall!", marking the destruction of Pink's metaphorical wall. ===== London, 2009. Voter apathy is at an all-time high in the United Kingdom, and a new right-wing political party, The Democratic Consensus Party, led by Richard Wheeler (Charles Dance), have just been voted into office. Unbeknownst to the public, the DCP have a sinister hidden agenda to do away with democracy and turn the country into a police state. John Speers (Philip Glenister) panics when just days after being appointed as Wheeler's right- hand-man and spin-doctor, his laptop is stolen by Tariq (Sonnell Dadral), a young tearaway. Concerned that the laptop contains potentially sensitive and confidential information, Speers sets about trying to recover it. Meanwhile, Tariq's best friend, Max (Ashley Walters) is concerned when he suddenly disappears without trace. Max finds himself unwittingly drawn into a dangerous world of corruption and political conspiracy as he goes in search of his missing friend. Max subsequently discovers information which threatens to ruin the government's plans, but will he realise its significance in time? ===== Terry Scott is a youngish bachelor who wants to achieve wealth without putting in any hard work. The scheming Terry lives with his mother at 33, Lobelia Avenue in Tooting, London. They have a simple and easily led lodger, Hugh Lloyd, who works at a local aircraft factory. The two often try to make money through one of Scott's schemes. Their next door neighbours, the Crispins and the Wormolds, also make frequent appearances. Mr Crispin is a loud mouth who thinks violence will solve a problem, Mrs Crispin is a snob and their daughter Norma is constantly chased after by men. On the other side, the Wormolds are an old couple with Harold being very doddery. In the last episode of the fifth series, Hugh won £5,000 on the Premium Bonds (the highest prize at the time) and the following series showed the two of them undertaking a world cruise. The neighbours and mother had left the show. ===== William Porter (Will Hay) is an inept railway worker who – due to family connections – is given the job of stationmaster at a remote and ramshackle rural Northern Irish railway station in the (fictitious) town of Buggleskelly, situated on the border with the then Irish Free State. After taking the ferry from England to Northern Ireland, Porter is aghast when he discovers how isolated the station is. It is situated out in the countryside, two miles cross-country from the nearest bus stop. To make matters worse, local legend has it that the ghost of One-Eyed Joe the Miller haunts the line and, as a result, no-one will go near the station after dark. Porter's co-workers at the station are the elderly deputy stationmaster, Harbottle (Moore Marriott), and an overweight, insolent young porter, Albert (Graham Moffatt), who make a living by stealing goods in transit and swapping railway tickets for food. They welcome Porter to his new job by regaling him with tales of the deaths and disappearances of previous stationmasters – each apparently the victim of the curse of One-Eyed Joe. From the beginning, the station is run very unprofessionally. Porter is woken up by a cow sticking its head through the window of the old railway carriage he is sleeping in (the cow has been lost in transit and is being milked by Harbottle), and the team's breakfast consists of bacon made from a litter of piglets which the railway is supposed to be looking after for a local farmer. Determined to shake things up (particularly after he is forced to deal with the irate farmer when he comes to collect his pigs), Stationmaster Porter tries to renovate the station in several ways, most sensibly by painting the entire station, but also by less conventional means – including stopping the passing express and organising an excursion to Connemara. Porter attempts to drum up business among the local people in the pub by offering tickets to this excursion, but as the locals begin to argue about where the excursion should go a fight breaks out. Porter crawls to safety in the landlord's rooms next door, where he meets a one-eyed man who introduces himself as Joe and offers to buy all of the tickets for an away game that the village football team, the Buggleskelly Wednesday, are playing the following day. But Porter is unaware that he has really agreed to transport a group of criminals who are involved in running guns to the Irish Free State. The 'football' train leaves at six a.m. the following morning, rather than the scheduled ten a.m., at the insistence of Joe and although Porter questions some of the odd packages being loaded onto the train, he accepts Joe's claim that these are in fact goalposts for the game. The train disappears as the smugglers divert it down a disused branch line near the border, and with everybody claiming that Porter has lost his mind (there is no such team as Buggleskelly Wednesday, and Harbottle points out that the local team wouldn't leave without him as he is their centre forward). Unfortunately this huge misunderstanding causes Porter to lose his job, since no one has seen the train. Then after his co-workers talk about a tunnel on a nearby disused branch line, Porter decides to head off to track down the errant engine (in hopes of getting his job back). The trio find the missing train inside a derelict railway tunnel, underneath a supposedly haunted windmill. They investigate and are briefly captured by the gun runners, but escape and climb progressively higher up the windmill until eventually they are trapped at the top. Using the windmill sails, they contrive to get down where they hatch a plan to capture the gun runners. Coupling the carriages containing the criminals and their guns to their own engine, Gladstone, they carry them away from the border at full speed, burning everything from Harbottle's underwear to level crossing gates they smash through in order to keep up steam. To keep the criminals quiet, Albert climbs on top of the carriage and hits anyone who sticks their head out with a large shovel. Porter writes a note explaining the situation and places it in Harbottle's empty 'medicine' bottle. When they pass a large station, he throws the bottle through the window of the stationmaster's office, alerting the authorities to their plight. The entire railway goes into action, with lines being closed and other trains re-routed so that Gladstone can finally crash into a siding where the waiting police force arrest the gun runners. After a short-lived celebration, in which Harbottle points out that Gladstone is ninety years old and Porter claims it is good for another ninety, the engine explodes after its hectic journey, and Porter, Harbottle and Albert lower their hats in respect. ===== The movie opens in a dusty African landscape: the Republic of Matobo (a name from the Matobo National Park in Matabeleland Zimbabwe), where rebel leader Ajene Xola (Curtiss Cook) is driving two men, Simon and Philippe, to the abandoned Centennial Stadium. They briefly discuss how President Edmond Zuwanie (Earl Cameron)'s regime has ruthlessly exterminated most of the population, and intimidated the survivors into silence. Upon their arrival at the stadium, they discover that the informants are schoolboys, who point Ajene and Simon in the direction of corpses left by Zuwanie's security apparatus, while Philippe stays in the car. Shouting lures Ajene and Simon back to the field, where they are promptly executed by the boys, who are revealed to be willing accomplices of Zuwanie's secret police. Upon hearing the gunshots, Philippe clambers out of the car and hides, taking pictures of a car arriving carrying Matoban officials, and then escapes the vicinity. Meanwhile, Silvia Broome (Nicole Kidman) is an interpreter for the United Nations in New York City. Born in the United States to a British mother and white African father, she spent most of her life in her father's homeland of Matobo (a stand-in for Zimbabwe), studied music in Johannesburg, linguistics at Sorbonne University, Paris, and various other European countries, and is a dual citizen of both Matobo and the United States (with the possibility of deriving British citizenship through her mother). Her diverse background leads to UN Security Chief Lee Wu (Clyde Kusatsu) wryly describing her as "being the UN". The U.N. is considering indicting Zuwanie, to stand trial in the International Criminal Court. Initially a liberator, over the past 20 years he has become as corrupt and tyrannical as the government he overthrew, and is now responsible for ethnic cleansing and other atrocities within Matobo. Zuwanie is soon to visit the U.N. and put forward his own case to the General Assembly, in an attempt to avoid the indictment. A security scare caused by a malfunctioning metal detector forces the evacuation of the U.N. building, and, as Silvia returns at night to reclaim some personal belongings, she overhears two men discussing an assassination plot in Ku (the Matoban lingua franca). Silvia runs from the building when those discussing the plot become aware of her presence. The next day, Silvia recognizes words in a meeting, where she is interpreting, from phrases she overheard the night before, and reports the incident to U.N. security; the plot's target appears to be Zuwanie himself. They, in turn, call in the U.S. Secret Service, which assigns Dignitary Protection Division agents Tobin Keller (Sean Penn) and Dot Woods (Catherine Keener) to investigate, as well as protect Zuwanie when he arrives, as well as Zuwanie's personal head of security, Dutch mercenary Nils Lud (Jesper Christensen). Keller, whose estranged wife was accidentally killed just days earlier, learns that Silvia has, in the past, been involved in a Matoban guerrilla group, that her parents and sister were killed by land mines laid by Zuwanie's men, and that she has dated one of Zuwanie's political opponents. Although Keller is suspicious of Silvia's story, the two grow close, in part because of their shared grief, and Keller ends up protecting her from attacks on her person. Philippe calls Silvia to meet and informs her of Xola's death, but, unable to bear her grief, lies and says he doesn't know what happened to Simon (her brother). Silvia attempts to obtain information by way of Kuman-Kuman, an exiled Matoban minister living in New York, only to almost be killed in a bus bombing perpetrated by Gabonese national Jean Gamba, Nils Lud's right-hand man, and part of the opening scene's coterie. Philippe is later found dead in his hotel room, and Silvia finds out that her brother was killed along with Ajene Xola (as shown in the opening scene). She narrowly avoids an assassination attempt by Gamba (whom Keller kills) and leaves a voicemail on Keller's phone saying she's going back home. Keller takes this to mean she's returning to Matobo, and dispatches an agent to intercept her at John F. Kennedy International Airport. The purported assassin is discovered (and shot to death) while Zuwanie is in the middle of his address to the General Assembly, and security personnel rush Zuwanie to a safe room for his protection. Silvia, anticipating this, has been hiding in the safe room, and confronts Zuwanie and intends to kill him herself. Keller determines that the assassination plot is a false flag operation created by Zuwanie to gain credibility that his rivals are terrorists and to deter potential supporters of his removal. Keller realizes that returning home means going to UN, and rushes to the safe room, just in time to prevent Silvia from murdering Zuwanie. Zuwanie is indicted, and Silvia reconciles with Keller before leaving for Matobo. ===== As originally written, the character list included Floyd Collins, Homer Collins, Nellie Collins, and Johnnie Gerald; as rewritten the role of Johnnie Gerald was merged with that of Homer Collins. As currently performed, the roles include Bee Doyle, Dr Hazlett, three reporters, a Con Man, Lee Collins, Homer Collins, Floyd Collins, Clif Rony, Jewlle Estes, Nellie Collins, Skeets Miller, Miss Jane, H. T. Carmichael and Ed Bishop. Floyd Collins, exploring Sand Cave, uses the echoes of his voice to sound out the region, and falls through a tight passageway when his foot became trapped, wedged in position by a small rock. His family and his fellow cavers try to free him; when it becomes clear that his rescue will not be easy, his brother Homer spends the night in the cave with him. William Burke "Skeets" Miller, a small man, is able to squeeze through and visit with Floyd, relaying stories which were printed in the news. Despite efforts by miners, the National Guard and the Red Cross, attempts at rescue fail, and the crowd grows outside the cave as a media circus ensues. Seventeen days after Floyd had entered the cave, a shaft finally reaches him. He had died three days earlier. The play's musical style is drawn from bluegrass, Americana, and "more complex musical forms that have their antecedents in the likes of Bartok, Janacek and Stravinsky".Spencer, David."Floyd Collins review", aislesay.com, accessed February 20, 2009 ===== Shaw characterised Saint Joan as "A Chronicle Play in 6 Scenes and an Epilogue ". Joan, a simple peasant girl, claims to experience visions of Saint Margaret, Saint Catherine, and the archangel Michael, which she says were sent by God to guide her conduct. Scene 1 (23 February 1429): Robert de Baudricourt complains about the inability of the hens on his farm to produce eggs. Joan claims that her voices are telling her to lift the siege of Orléans, and to allow her several of his men for this purpose. Joan also says that she will crown the Dauphin in Reims Cathedral. Baudricourt ridicules Joan, but his Steward feels inspired by her words. Baudricourt eventually begins to feel the same sense of inspiration, and gives his consent to Joan. The Steward enters at the end of the scene to exclaim that the hens have begun to lay eggs again. Baudricourt interprets this as a sign from God of Joan's divine inspiration. Scene 2 (8 March 1429): Joan talks her way into being received at the court of the weak and vain Dauphin. There, she tells him that her voices have commanded her to help him become a true king by rallying his troops to drive out the English occupiers and restore France to greatness. Joan succeeds in doing this through her excellent powers of flattery, negotiation, leadership, and skill on the battlefield. Scene 3 (29 April 1429): Dunois and his page are waiting for the wind to turn so that he and his forces can lay siege to Orléans. Joan and Dunois commiserate, and Dunois attempts to explain to her more pragmatic realities of an attack, without the wind at their back. Her replies eventually inspire Dunois to rally the forces, and at the scene's end, the wind turns in their favour. Scene 4 (June 1429): Warwick and Stogumber discuss Joan's stunning series of victories. Joined by the Bishop of Beauvais, they are at a loss to explain her success. Stogumber decides Joan is a witch. Beauvais sees Joan as a threat to the Church, as she claims to receive instructions from God directly. He fears she wants to instill national pride in the people, which would undermine the Church's universal rule. Warwick thinks she wants to create a system in which the king is responsible to God only, ultimately stripping him and other feudal lords of their power. All agree that she must die. Scene 5 (17 July 1429): the Dauphin is crowned Charles VII at Reims Cathedral. A perplexed Joan asks Dunois why she is so unpopular at court. He explains that she has exposed very important people as incompetent and irrelevant. She talks to Dunois, Bluebeard, and La Hire about returning home. Charles, who complains about the weight of his coronation robes and smell of the holy oil, is pleased to hear this. She then says to Dunois "Before I go home, let's take Paris", an idea which horrifies Charles, who wants to negotiate a peace immediately. The Archbishop berates her for her "sin of pride". Dunois warns her that if she is captured on a campaign he deems foolhardy, no one will ransom or rescue her. Now realizing that she is "alone on earth", Joan declares that she will gain the strength to do what she must from the people and from God. She leaves, leaving the men dumbfounded. Scene 6 (30 May 1431): deals with her trial. Stogumber is adamant that she be executed at once. The Inquisitor, the Bishop of Beauvais, and the Church officials on both sides of the trial have a long discussion on the nature of her heresy. Joan is brought to the court, and continues to assert that her voices speak to her directly from God and that she has no need of the Church's officials. This outrages Stogumber. She acquiesces to the pressure of torture at the hands of her oppressors, and agrees to sign a confession relinquishing the truth behind her voices. When she learns she will be imprisoned for life without hope of parole, she renounces her confession: > Joan: "You think that life is nothing but not being dead? It is not the > bread and water I fear. I can live on bread. It is no hardship to drink > water if the water be clean. But to shut me from the light of the sky and > the sight of the fields and flowers; to chain my feet so that I can never > again climb the hills. To make me breathe foul damp darkness, without these > things I cannot live. And by your wanting to take them away from me, or from > any human creature, I know that your council is of the devil." Joan accepts death at the stake as preferable to such an imprisoned existence. Stogumber vehemently demands that Joan then be taken to the stake for immediate execution. The Inquisitor and the Bishop of Beauvais excommunicate her and deliver her into the hands of the English. The Inquisitor asserts that Joan was fundamentally innocent, in the sense that she was sincere and had no understanding of the church and the law. Stogumber re-enters, screaming and severely shaken emotionally after seeing Joan die in the flames, the first time that he has witnessed such a death, and realising that he has not understood what it means to burn a person until he has actually seen it happen. A soldier had given Joan two sticks tied together in a cross before the moment of her death. Bishop Martin Ladvenu also reports that when he approached with a crucifix to let her see it before she died, and he approached too close to the flames, she warned him of the danger from the stake, which convinced him that she could not have been under the inspiration of the devil. Epilogue: 25 years after Joan's execution, a retrial has cleared her of heresy. Brother Martin brings the news to Charles VII. Charles then has a dream in which Joan appears to him. She begins conversing cheerfully not only with Charles, but with her old enemies, who also materialise in the King's bedroom. The visitors include the English soldier who gave her a cross. Because of this act, he receives a day off from Hell on the anniversary of Joan’s death. An emissary from the present day (the 1920s) brings news that the Catholic Church is to canonise her. Joan says that saints can work miracles, and asks if she can be resurrected. At this, all the characters desert her one by one, asserting that the world is not prepared to receive a saint such as her. The last to leave is the English soldier, who is about to engage in a conversation with Joan before he is summoned back to Hell at the end of his 24-hour respite. The play ends with Joan ultimately despairing that mankind will never accept its saints: > O God that madest this beautiful earth, when will it be ready to accept thy > saints? How long, O Lord, how long? ===== In 1456, Charles VII (Richard Widmark), experiences dreams in which he is visited by Joan of Arc (Jean Seberg), the former commander of his army, burned at the stake as a heretic twenty-five years earlier. In the dream he tells Joan that her case was retried and her sentence annulled. He recalls how she entered his life as a simple, seventeen-year-old peasant girl; how she heard the voices of Saints Catherine and Margaret telling her that she would lead the French army against the English at the siege of Orléans and be responsible for having the Dauphin crowned king at Reims cathedral. When Joan arrives at the Dauphin's palace at Chinon she discovers that he is a childish weakling with no interest in fighting. After being tested by the members of the court, who conclude that she is mad, Joan imbues the Dauphin with her belief and fervor and he gives her command of the army. Shortly thereafter, Joan witnesses the coronation of Charles. Although her military triumphs have made her popular with the masses, her voices, beliefs, self-confidence and apparent supernatural powers have given her fearful enemies in high places. Charles, who has no further use for her services, expects her to return to her father's farm. When Joan challenges Charles to retake Paris from the English, he tells her he would rather sign a treaty than fight. All refuse Joan's plea to march on Paris, and the archbishop warns her that if she defies her spiritual directors, the church will disown her. Nevertheless, Joan puts her faith in God and appeals to the common people to march on Paris. She is captured and handed over to the English. To assure that Joan will never again become a threat to England, the English commander hands her over to the Catholic Church to be tried for heresy. Joan spends four months in a cell and is visited frequently by the Inquisitor (Felix Aylmer). The English become impatient with the delay in her prosecution and press for the trial to begin. Joan holds to her faith, as always, refusing to deny that the church is wiser than she or her voices. In a moment of panic when she learns she is to be burned at the stake, and worn down by the constant pressures applied by the Inquisitor, Joan signs a document of recantation in which she confesses that she pretended to hear revelations from God and the saints in the belief that this will result in her freedom to return to her life as a peasant girl. When she learns that the sentence of the Inquisition is her perpetual, solitary imprisonment, Joan destroys the document, refusing to face a life away from nature, the life that opened her spirit to hear God and the saints. She now believes that God wants her to come to him through the ordeal of being burned at the stake. After Joan is excommunicated, the English commander, weary of the Church's endless and delaying rituals, decides that Joan can be executed long before the Vatican learns about it, and so orders his soldiers to drag her to the square to be burned. The Inquisitor chooses to look the other way and let the English burn her. Those who witness Joan's death are stricken with remorse. The King's dream continues as he and Joan are visited by other significant figures from her life. Growing weary of all the spirit visitors, Charles tells Joan he has dreamed of her long enough and returns to his bed and his troubled sleep. ===== The film is centered on two men in a bathtub; it is implied that they are veterans of some past conflict but revealed that they are currently in a mental institution. The first man is paranoid about the drain of the tub, the second indifferent to it. After the conversation between the two men progresses, a vine-like tendril emerges from the drain to strangle the first man. The second shows no emotion to this sudden turn of events and the film ends. ===== The story begins with the standard version of Little Red Riding Hood (with the wolf from Dumb-Hounded, the cartoon which saw the debut of Avery's Droopy). The characters rebel at this stale and derivative staging of the story and demand a fresh approach. The annoyed narrator accedes to their demands and starts the story again in a dramatically different arrangement. The story begins again, now told in a contemporary urban setting. The narrator explains that Little Red Riding Hood (now portrayed as an adult) is an attractive performer in a Hollywood nightclub under the stage name "Red Hot Riding Hood", and the Big Bad Wolf, now a Hollywood swinger, follows Red to the club where she is performing. Red performs onstage (a rendition of the 1941 classic hit song "Daddy" by Bobby Troup) and the wolf goes mad with desire. He brings her to his table and tries wooing her, but she wants nothing to do with him. Red escapes the Wolf, saying she is going to her Grandma's place, but nevertheless the Wolf manages to get there first. Grandma's place is a penthouse at the top of a skyscraper. Red's grandma is an oversexed man-chaser who falls head over heels for the Wolf (upon seeing him, she whistles and says, "At last, a wolf! Yahoo!"). The Wolf tries to escape, but Grandma blocks the exit and asks him, "What's your hurry, hairy?" She locks the door, drops the key down the front of her evening gown, and poses provocatively for him. She dons a bright red shade of lipstick and a chase scene ensues. Whenever the Wolf attempts an exit, Grandma waits behind the door with puckered lips. He finally makes his escape by jumping out a window, severely injuring himself on the pavement many floors below. He makes his way back to the nightclub, covered with bandages and bruises, swearing, "I'm through with women. Why, I'll kill myself before I'd even look at another babe". Immediately, Red takes the stage and begins another performance. The Wolf pulls out two guns and commits suicide, but his ghost rises from his dead body and howls and whistles at Red as he did earlier. ===== One evening, Cleveland Heep, who became the superintendent of a Philadelphia apartment complex after his family was murdered, discovers Story, a Narf (a naiad-like being) from the Blue World, in his building's pool, immediately rescuing her from an attack by a Scrunt, a grass-covered, wolf-like creature that hides by flattening its body against the turf. Story explains she is a Narf, here to find the Writer, the "vessel" who will be magically awakened when he meets her, and then write a book that will save humanity in the future. When Heep mentions the word Narf to tenant Young-Soon, she recognizes it from stories her mother, Mrs. Choi, then expands on for him. After questioning residents Farber, Bell, Dury, and five nameless smokers, Heep discovers the Writer is tenant Vick Ran, who is struggling to complete The Cookbook. Heep brings Vick to Story, which eliminates his fear and sharpens his inner voice. She later reveals that The Cookbook will contain views and ideas so significant they will inspire a future President, a great Midwestern orator, to greatly change the world for the better. Vick later deduces, and she confirms, that he will be assassinated because of the controversial nature of his ideas, giving them extra power. As Mrs. Choi remembers more details of the Narf legend, Heep better understands the situation. The Tartutic, an invincible simian-like quartet that serve as the Blue World's peacekeepers, have forbidden any attacks on Story while she returns home. Nonetheless, the Scrunt does just that because they know that Story is destined to be a great Narf leader. To recover from her wounds and return safely, she will now need the help of a Guardian, a Symbolist, a Guild, and a Healer. Story believes Heep to be her Guardian; Heep asks Farber, an abrasive film critic, to help him figure out the others' identities. Working off movie tropes, Farber misadvises Heep, leading him to a flawed conclusion that Dury is the Symbolist, the smokers are the Guild, and Bell is the Healer. Heep confronts the Scrunt, but nearly dies in the process, convincing him he is not the Guardian. The next night, Farber's bad advice leads to their plan's immediate failure. In the confusion, Farber is killed and Story is mortally wounded by the Scrunt. Dury suddenly realizes his son Joey is the real Symbolist. Interpreting the information on cereal boxes, Joey deduces the true Guild is composed of seven sisters, that two new men must be present, and that the Healer is male, soon revealed to be Heep. Heep goes about healing Story by "bringing forth [his] energy" (his repressed grief), and Story's wounds heal when he confesses that he does not want to lose her too. Story's departure starts again, but the Scrunt attacks; it is stopped by the gaze of Reggie, a lopsidedly muscled tenant who is the true Guardian. Reggie's intense stare and stalking approach compel the Scrunt to slowly retreat, but he is distracted by the cry of the Great Eatlon (a giant eagle who will ferry Story home). When Reggie breaks eye contact, the Scrunt leaps, but the Tartutic arrive and drag it away. Heep thanks Story for saving his life as she hugs him goodbye. The Great Eatlon lands, enfolds Story in one of its wings, and takes flight, ferrying Story into the night. ===== The film stars Jean-Pierre Léaud as Paul, a romantic young idealist and literary lion- wannabe who chases budding pop star Madeleine (Chantal Goya, a real life Yé-yé girl). Despite markedly different musical tastes and political leanings, the two soon become romantically involved and begin a ménage à quatre with Madeleine's two roommates, Catherine (Catherine-Isabelle Duport) and Elisabeth (Marlène Jobert). The camera probes the young actors in a series of vérité- style interviews about love, lovemaking, and politics.Billard, Pierre. Masculine Feminine: a film by Jean-Luc Godard. New York: Grove Press, Inc.. 1969. SBN 68.22022. pp. 9-184. ===== The introduction compares two types of journeys: one that aims to reach a place within the shortest time, and another that begins without regard to speed and without a destination in mind. Balloon travel is said to be ideal for the second kind. The main story begins with the rescue of Professor William Waterman Sherman, who is picked up by a steamship while floating among a strange wreck of twenty deflated gas balloons in the North Atlantic. Sherman, a recently retired schoolteacher, was last seen three weeks earlier leaving San Francisco on a giant balloon, determined to spend a year drifting alone, because he wants to relax. The world waits breathlessly to find out how Sherman could have circumnavigated the globe in record time and landed in the ocean with twenty balloons rather than the one with which he began his journey. After several days' rest and a hero's welcome, the professor recounts his journey before a captivated audience. Sherman's flight over the Pacific Ocean was uneventful until an unfortunate accident involving a seagull puncturing his balloon forced him to crash land on the volcanic island of Krakatoa. He discovers from Mr.F that the island is populated by twenty families sharing the wealth of a secret diamond mine - by far the richest in the world - which they operate as a cartel. Each year, the families sail to the outside world with a small amount of diamonds, to purchase supplies for the hidden and sophisticated civilization they have built on the island (they explain that introducing too many diamonds into the market at once would drive down their value to "a shipload of broken glass"). Each family has been assigned one of the first twenty letters of the alphabet, and lives in its own whimsical and elaborate house that also serves as a restaurant. The Krakatoa society follows a calendar with twenty-day months. On "A" Day of each month, everyone eats in Mr. and Mrs. A's American restaurant; on "B" Day, in Mr. and Mrs. B's British chop house; on "C" Day, in Mr. and Mrs. C's Chinese restaurant; on "D" Day, in Mr. and Mrs. D's Dutch restaurant, and so forth. Sherman's first friend on the island, Mr. F, runs a French restaurant containing a replica of the Hall of Mirrors. The houses are full of incredible items, such as Mr. M's Moroccan house, which has a living room with mobile furniture that operate like bumper cars. The children of the island invented their own form of amusement that combines elements from merry-go- rounds and balloon travel. When the volcano on Krakatoa erupts, the families and Sherman escape on a platform held aloft by twenty balloons. As the platform drifts westward around the world, the families parachute off to India and Belgium to start their new lives. Sherman remains on the platform and finally descends onto the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, where he is rescued. The professor concludes his speech by telling the audience he intends to build an improved balloon for a year of life in the air, financed by the diamond cufflinks he obtained in Krakatoa. The novel describes Krakatoa as an island in the Pacific Ocean, but the Sunda Strait that contains the island is considered an arm of the Indian Ocean. ===== Each of the book's chapters contains three sections: a story chapter, which acts as a framing device for the otherwise unconnected short stories; a poem about a particular writer on the tour, its author being unspecified; and the short story written by that writer. The main story centers on a group of seventeen individuals (all of whom go by nicknames based on the story they tell) who have decided to participate in a secret writers' retreat, frequently compared by characters to the Villa Diodati retreat of 1816. After having noticed an invitation to the retreat posted on the bulletin board of a cafe in Oregon, the characters follow instructions on the invitation to meet Mr. Whittier, the retreat's organizer. Whittier tells them to each wait for a bus to pick them up the next morning and bring only what they can fit into one piece of luggage (in particular, only what they feel they need most). The next day, the seventeen characters, Whittier, and his assistant Mrs. Clark are driven to an abandoned theatre. Whittier locks all of them inside the theatre, telling them they have three months to each write a magnum opus before he will allow them to leave. In the meantime, they will have enough food and water to survive, as well as heat, electricity, bedrooms, bathrooms, and a clothes washing and drying machine provided. The characters live under harmless conditions at first. However, the group (not including Whittier or Clark) eventually decide that they could make a better story of their own suffering inside the theatre, and thereby become rich after the public discovers their fate. They then begin to individually sabotage the food and utilities provided to them, with each character trying to only destroy one food or utility to slightly increase the drama of their stay. Since the characters are not co- ordinating their plans, they end up destroying all their food and utilities, forcing all of them to struggle to survive starvation, cold, and darkness. With Whittier accidentally dying from a stomach rupture, the writers find themselves trapped without him. Believing a great increase in their suffering will provide a better story for when they're rescued, several writers start to willingly engage in self-mutilation and cannibalism, doing so to give the pretense Whittier tortured them. With numerous characters committing suicide, killing one another, or succumbing to their ailments, they continue to formulate their story whilst the theatre somehow repairs its broken utilities. With numerous people dead, Mrs. Clark included, the writers continue to sabotage themselves, such as destroying the lighting and wasting any additional food supplies they find. The eleven remaining writers eventually group in the main theatre, only for Whittier to appear and reveal he faked his death (with Clark's help) and has been observing the writers through hidden cameras. Informing the writers their three months have passed and that they are free to leave, Whittier notes that, by continuing to blame him for everything and playing the victim to extreme extents, they haven't acted any differently from the other groups. Whittier unlocks the exit and leaves with Miss Sneezy, choosing her as the person he saves and offering her a new life. Mother Nature, objecting that they need to wait a little longer for other writers to die and for someone to rescue them, stabs Miss Sneezy. To prevent Whittier from leaving with her, they drag Miss Sneezy back inside and break the lock, and continue to wait for rescue. ===== "Guts" begins with the narrator, aptly named "Saint Gut-Free," telling the reader to hold his/her/their breath for the duration of the story. The narrator then describes three stories of male masturbation gone horribly awry. In the first story, an adolescent boy inserts a Vaseline-lubricated carrot into his rectum to stimulate his prostate, then, in haste, stashes it in a pile of laundry when he is called to dinner. Later, his mother takes the laundry away and presumably discovers the used carrot, but never mentions the incident. Next, the narrator tells the tale of a young boy who, having heard that it enhances masturbatory pleasure, inserts a thin stick of candle wax into his urethra. The wax unexpectedly slips back into the boy's bladder, thereby blocking his urine flow and causing blood to seep from his penis. Because he requires expensive surgery, his parents are forced to pay to repair his bladder with the boy's college savings. Finally, the narrator explains how he himself suffered a sexual injury, when sitting on the water-intake valve at the bottom of his home swimming pool while masturbating. While swimming down to the bottom of the pool to stimulate his prostate before coming up for air—a repetitive process he refers to as "Pearl diving"—the suction from the valve causes his rectum and lower intestines to prolapse and become tangled in the filter. Ultimately, he finds himself stuck on the bottom of the pool and must gnaw through his own innards to free himself and avoid drowning. When Saint Gut-Free's sister later becomes pregnant, he falsely believes that he is the father of an incestuous child, since he thinks his sister has encountered the semen he leaves in their family swimming pool on that fateful day (she is actually pregnant by her boyfriend and decided to have an abortion). In between the main stories, Saint Gut-Free muses over families who cover up their loved ones' accidental deaths by autoerotic asphyxiation. In doing so, he highlights the theme of sexual repression throughout the tale. For example, in all three cases of sexual trauma, the parents are aware of the erotic nature of their son's accidents, but never discuss them afterwards. As a result, their sons are forced figuratively to "hold their breath" in the silence that lingers. Saint Gut- Free refers to these moments of sexual repression as the "invisible carrot," referring to both the mother in the first story and to the total denial of all the parents involved. At the end, the narrator tells the reader they can now take a breath, as he still has not taken one himself. Purportedly all three of these incidents are based on true stories. According to Palahniuk, the first two tales came from his friends' experiences and the third he heard while shadowing sexual addiction support groups as research for Choke. In one of these groups, he met an extremely thin man. When Palahniuk asked him how he stayed so thin, he told him "I had a massive bowel resectioning." When Palahniuk asked what he meant, he told him the story which was the basis for the third episode in "Guts". ===== The film centers on the relationship of exotic dancer Angéla (Karina) and her lover Émile (Brialy). Angéla wants to have a child, but Émile isn't ready. Émile's best friend Alfred (Belmondo) also says he loves Angéla, and keeps up a gentle pursuit. Angéla and Émile argue about the matter; at one point they decide not to speak to each other, so continue their argument by pulling books from the shelf and pointing to the titles. Since Émile stubbornly refuses her request for a child, Angéla finally decides to accept Alfred's plea and sleeps with him. This proves that she will do what she must to have a child. She and Émile finally make up, so he has a chance to become the father. The two have sex, then engage in a bit of wordplay that gives the film its title: an exasperated Émile says "Angéla, tu es infâme" ("Angela, you are horrid"), and she retorts, "Non, je suis une femme" ("No, I am a woman"). ===== Ganga lives in Gangotri with her brother, Karam. One day she comes to the assistance of a young man, Narendra Sahay, who has come with a group of Calcutta-based college students to study the source of the holy river Ganga and to get some holy water for his paternal grandmother, who uses a wheelchair. Both are attracted to each other, and on the next Puran Mashi get married, and spend the night together. Narendra leaves but promises Ganga that he will be back soon. Months go by, but he does not return. She gives birth to a son, and as soon as she can, she starts her journey to Alipore, Calcutta, to confront Narendra and ensure a better future for their son. At Rishikesh, she is exploited by two women and a man from whom she escapes and takes shelter in a crematorium. Then at Banaras, she is molested by a Pandit, rescued by the police and given a ticket to Calcutta. When she alights en route to get water for her baby, the train leaves, and she falls into the clutches of Manilal who feigns blindness and lures her to a brothel near Banaras, where she is forced to stay so that she can provide for her son. It is here that she is introduced to a powerful politician, Bhagwat Choudhary, who pays a hefty sum and asks Manilal to bring Ganga to Calcutta where he intends to keep her as his and Jeeva Sahay's mistress. What Ganga does not know is that Bhagwat's daughter, Radha, is Narendra's bride-to-be; that Jeeva is none other than Narendra's father, and that soon she is asked to perform on her husband's wedding. It creates a scene when Naren recognises that the girl dancing in the veil is none other than Ganga. He stops the marriage saying that he is already married but his family asks him to marry Radha and not that "polluted" girl. However, he disagrees and leaves his house with Ganga and his child. ===== The story of Hell House concerns four people – Dr. Lionel Barrett, a physicist with an interest in parapsychology, his wife Edith, and two mediums (Florence Tanner, a spiritualist and mental medium, and Benjamin Franklin Fischer, a physical medium who had been to the haunted house 30 years earlier.). Barrett, Tanner, and Fischer are hired by dying millionaire, William Reinhardt Deutsch, to investigate the possibility of life after death and to solve with a time limit of one week. To do so, they must enter the infamous Belasco House in Maine, regarded as the most haunted house in the world. The house is called "Hell House" due to the horrible acts of blasphemy and perversion that occurred there under the silent influence and supervision of Emeric Belasco. Meanwhile, there are other mysteries to be found in Hell House, such as the supposed murder of Emeric Belasco's son, Daniel Myron Belasco, and the puzzle as to why a majority of people who enter the home are dead by the end of their visit. The novel combines supernatural horror with mystery as the researchers attempt to investigate the haunting of the house while their sanity subtly is undermined by its sinister supernatural influence. The home exploits its guests' deepest desires and attempts to turn people against one another during the course of their visit. During the investigation, various influences begin to affect each character's personal weaknesses: Florence through her belief in spiritualism and her over-eagerness to rid the house of its evil; Dr. Barrett through his almost-arrogant disbelief in/disregard for spiritualism, his debilitated physical condition (having suffered from polio when young), and his belief in science and the power of the Reversor machine he has built to rid the house of its haunting; Edith through her personal fears, insecurities, and pent-up sexual desires; and Fischer through his deliberate inaction (which he calls "caution"). Hell House's potency comes from its apparent ability to corrupt those who enter its walls, before bringing about their destruction, both mental and physical. ===== As Homer clumsily attempts to build a spice rack for Marge, Maggie suddenly hits him on the head with a mallet. Puzzled why Maggie would attack Homer, Marge notices that she imitates the violence depicted on The Itchy & Scratchy Show. She blames the show's producers for inspiring senseless violence and forbids Bart and Lisa to watch it. Marge writes a letter asking the cartoon studio to tone down the show's violence, but chairman Roger Meyers, Jr. writes a dismissive reply which goads Marge into forming a protest group. Marge organizes Springfieldians for Nonviolence, Understanding, and Helping (SNUH), and forces her family to picket outside the studio. SNUH gains momentum and residents start to picket The Krusty the Clown Show, which airs Itchy & Scratchy cartoons. After Marge appears on the panel discussion show Smartline, concerned parents send thousands of angry letters to Meyers. He agrees to eliminate violence from Itchy & Scratchy and solicits story ideas from Marge. The children dislike the format change and abandon the cartoons to play outside instead. A traveling exhibition of Michelangelo's sculpture David schedules a stop in Springfield. Other SNUH members urge Marge to protest the exhibition due to its nudity, but Marge considers David a masterpiece. During another Smartline appearance, Marge concedes it is hypocrital to censor Itchy & Scratchy and not David; she realizes that SNUH protests have done more harm than good. SNUH quickly disbands, Itchy & Scratchy returns to its old format, and the town's kids resume watching it. While Marge and Homer view David at an art museum, Marge bemoans that children would rather watch violent cartoons than see a work of great art. Homer cheers her up by revealing that the school is forcing students to see the sculpture on a field trip to the museum. ===== Humans use objects called Seru. They unite and use fantastic powers. While they exist, the mist appears and upsets the Seru, which transforms humans into monsters. Ten years later, human survivors band together to stop the mist, using immune entities called Ra-Seru. Vahn destroys the Mist Generators to revive the Genesis Trees and save Cort. ===== Private detective Philip Marlowe is summoned to the mansion of General Sternwood, who wants to resolve ‘gambling debts’ that his daughter Carmen owes to bookseller Arthur Geiger. As Marlowe is leaving, Sternwood's older daughter Vivian stops him. She suspects her father's true motive for hiring a detective is to find his protégé Sean Regan who had mysteriously disappeared a month earlier. Marlowe goes to Geiger's shop, which is minded by Agnes Louzier, and then follows Geiger home. Hearing a gunshot and a woman's scream, he breaks in to find Geiger's body and a drugged Carmen, as well as a hidden camera empty of film. After taking Carmen back home, he returns and discovers the body has disappeared. During the night, Marlowe learns that Sternwood's driver - Owen Taylor - has been found dead in a limo floating off the Lido Pier, having been struck on the back of the head. Philip Marlowe (Bogart) and Vivian Rutledge (Bacall) eye to eye Vivian comes to Marlowe's office the next morning with scandalous pictures of Carmen that she received with a blackmail demand for the negatives. Marlowe returns to Geiger's bookstore and follows a car to the apartment of Joe Brody, a gambler who previously blackmailed General Sternwood. He then finds Carmen in Geiger's house, where she insists that it was Brody who killed Geiger. They are interrupted by the house's owner, gangster Eddie Mars. Marlowe goes to Brody's apartment, where he finds both Agnes and Vivian. They are interrupted by Carmen, who wants her photos. Marlowe disarms her and sends Vivian and Carmen home. Brody admits that it was he who was behind the blackmailing, having stolen the negatives from Taylor, but then has to answer the door and is shot. Marlowe chases the killer and apprehends Carol Lundgren, Geiger's former driver, who believes Brody is swindling him. Marlowe calls the police to arrest Lundgren. Marlowe visits Mars' casino where he asks about Regan, who is supposed to have run off with Mars' wife. Mars is evasive and tells Marlowe that Vivian is running up gambling debts. Vivian wins a big wager and then wants Marlowe to take her home. A stooge of Mars' attempts to rob Vivian, but Marlowe knocks him out. While driving back, Marlowe presses Vivian on her connection with Mars, but she admits nothing. Back at his own home, Marlowe finds a flirtatious Carmen waiting for him. She says she did not like Regan and mentions that Mars calls Vivian frequently. When she attempts to seduce Marlowe, he throws her out. The next day, Vivian tells him he can stop looking for Regan; he has been found in Mexico and she is going to see him. Mars has Marlowe beaten up to stop him investigating further. He is found by Harry Jones: an associate of, and besotted with, Agnes. Jones conveys her offer to reveal the location of Mars' wife for $200. When Marlowe goes to meet him and be taken to where she is hiding, he spots Canino, a gunman hired by Mars, who is there to find Agnes himself. Canino poisons Jones after he discloses Agnes' location (which turns out to be false). Agnes telephones the office while Marlowe is still there and he arranges to meet her. She has seen Mona Mars behind an auto repair shop near a town called Realito. When he gets there, Marlowe is attacked by Canino. He awakes tied up, with Mona watching over him. Vivian is there too and frees Marlowe, allowing him to get to his gun and kill Canino. They drive back together and Marlowe calls Mars from Geiger's house, pretending to be still in Realito. Mars arrives with four men, who set up an ambush outside. When Mars enters, Marlowe reveals that he has discerned the truth: Mars has been blackmailing Vivian, as her sister Carmen had killed Regan. He then forces Mars outside, where he is shot by his own men. Marlowe then calls the police, telling them that Mars was the one who killed Regan. He also convinces Vivian that her sister needs psychiatric care. ===== In 1970s England, private detective Philip Marlowe (Robert Mitchum) is asked to the stately home of General Sternwood (James Stewart), who hires Marlowe to learn who is blackmailing him. While at the mansion, he meets the general's spoiled and inquisitive daughter Charlotte (Sarah Miles) and wild younger daughter Camilla (Candy Clark). Marlowe's investigation of the homosexual pornographer Arthur Geiger (John Justin) leads him to Agnes Lozelle (Joan Collins), an employee of Geiger, and to Joe Brody (Edward Fox), a man that Agnes has taken up with. He also discovers Camilla at the scene of Geiger's murder, where she has posed for nude photographs, and takes her home safely to a grateful Charlotte. Returning to the crime scene, Marlowe is interrupted by gambler Eddie Mars (Oliver Reed), who owns the house where Geiger's body was found. Mars' wife Mona hasn't been seen in a while and may have run off with Rusty Regan (David Savile), Charlotte's missing husband. Due to Charlotte Regan's gambling debts, Mars appears to have a hold over Charlotte as well. Camilla tries to get her pictures back from Brody, who is now in possession of them. Marlowe intervenes but Brody is shot and killed by someone unseen. A man named Harry Jones (Colin Blakely) comes to Marlowe with a proposition. He is working with Agnes now, and she is willing to sell information as to Mrs. Mars' whereabouts. But on the night Marlowe shows up for their meeting, Harry is poisoned by Lash Canino (Richard Boone), a hit man who is working for Eddie Mars. Marlowe pays Agnes for the address. He tracks down Canino at a remote garage, where he is overpowered and taken prisoner. Mars' supposedly missing wife Mona (Diana Quick) is there as well. At a moment when Canino is out, Marlowe persuades her to set him free. In a shootout, he then kills Canino. Camilla Sternwood appears to be grateful to Marlowe and asks him to teach her how to use the gun he just returned to her so that she can protect herself. He takes her to a wooded area so she can learn. After he sets up an empty can on the ledge of a wall of the ruins of a Roman castle for her to use as a target, she points the gun at him and begins pulling the trigger repeatedly. Marlowe was prepared for this and had given her the weapon loaded with blanks. She becomes hysterical at the ruse and he takes her home. It turns out that the emotionally disturbed Camilla had murdered her sister's husband Rusty and that Charlotte had covered everything up with Eddie Mars' help. After confronting Charlotte with the facts, Marlowe tells her to have Camilla hospitalized. He then drives away from the Sternwood residence the same way he came in, hoping that the gravely ill general will never know the truth about his two wicked daughters. ===== Karen Page, the former secretary of the Nelson & Murdock law offices in New York City and ex-girlfriend of Matt Murdock, had left years earlier to pursue an acting career. After a brief period of success, she became a heroin addict and was reduced to starring in pornographic films in Mexico. Strapped for cash, she sells the information that Matt is Daredevil for a shot of heroin. This information is sold upward to the Kingpin. Over the next six months, the Kingpin uses his influence to have the IRS freeze Murdock's accounts, the bank foreclose on his apartment, and police lieutenant Nicholas Manolis testify that he saw Murdock pay a witness to perjure himself. By coincidence, Murdock's girlfriend Glorianna O'Breen breaks up with him and turns to dating his law partner and best friend Foggy Nelson on the rebound. Daredevil's initial investigations uncover that Manolis is helping to frame Murdock in exchange for medical treatments for his son, but he is unable to find who is behind the frame-up and unwilling to turn Manolis in to the authorities. An exceptional legal defense by Nelson saves Murdock from a prison sentence, though he is barred from practicing law. His initial plan foiled, the Kingpin has Murdock's apartment firebombed, leaving his Daredevil costume in the wreckage to show that he knows his secret identity and is responsible for his recent trials. He also gives out the order to have anyone else who handled the information on Daredevil's identity killed. Karen eludes the Kingpin's assassins and makes her way to New York to find Murdock. Now homeless, suffering from paranoia and growing increasingly aggressive, Murdock is continuously followed by the Kingpin's subordinates, providing the Kingpin with frequent updates on Murdock's mental state, as he has become obsessed with the fruits of his scheme to destroy Murdock. Driven by thoughts of revenge, Murdock confronts the Kingpin in his office, and is brutally beaten by the crime lord. To avert investigation into his death, the unconscious Murdock is drenched in whiskey and strapped into a stolen taxi cab, which is then pushed into the East River. Murdock regains consciousness, breaks out of the cab, and swims to safety. Badly injured, he stumbles through Hell's Kitchen, eventually finding his way to the gym where his father trained as a boxer. There he is found by his mother Maggie who, having not been in Matt's life for decades, has become a nun at a local Catholic church. She nurses him back to health. Meanwhile, Daily Bugle reporter Ben Urich is investigating his confidant's plight and stands vigil with Manolis as his son is taken in for surgery. When his son dies, Manolis confesses to Urich about the frame-up and his suspicions that the Kingpin was behind it. Nurse Lois, an enforcer assigned by the Kingpin to monitor Manolis, responds by breaking Urich's fingers and beating Manolis nearly to death. The unintimidated Manolis calls Urich from his hospital bed, however, Lois breaks into his room and strangles him, laying the receiver on his bed so Urich can hear his murder. Rather than cowing him, this goads Urich to come forward with his investigation, alerting his paper and the authorities of the situation. Karen arrives in New York, having hitched a ride with pornography fanatic Paulo Scorcese who supplies her with heroin in exchange for sexual favors. She contacts Foggy to ask about Murdock's whereabouts. When he realizes that Paulo has been beating her, Foggy insists on taking her into his home. The Kingpin, increasingly obsessed with killing Murdock, uses his military connections to procure America's super soldier Nuke. To draw Murdock out of hiding, he arranges for a violent mental patient to be released from an asylum, dress up as Daredevil and kill Nelson. Nurse Lois is ordered to relocate so that she cannot be implicated, but she rebels and attempts to kill Urich. Murdock, who has been shadowing Urich since hearing of the articles he is writing on the Kingpin, knocks out Lois and leaves her for the authorities. He then overhears a phone call to Urich which tips him off to the plot to kill Nelson. At the same time, Page spots Scorcese stalking Nelson's apartment building. To prevent him from killing Nelson, she runs outside to meet him, and they are attacked by hitmen who the Kingpin has ordered to kill anyone who emerges from the building. The impostor Daredevil arrives to find Murdock waiting for him. Murdock defeats the impostor and saves Page. Page confesses that she was the one who gave away his secret identity, but Murdock tells her he has moved beyond the loss of his material possessions. Now back together, they move into a derelict apartment, where Murdock helps her through heroin withdrawal while supporting them as a diner chef. Nurse Lois offers to testify against the Kingpin in exchange for a reduced sentence, but he has her killed by a Daily Bugle reporter sent to interview her. Having failed to draw Murdock out of hiding, the Kingpin orders Nuke to fly to Hell's Kitchen and make a general assault. From a helicopter, Nuke shoots dozens of civilians and destroys the diner where Murdock works. Appearing as Daredevil for the first time since his apartment was destroyed, he is left with no choice but to kill both Nuke and his pilot in order to avoid further civilian deaths. However, Nuke survives his attack, and the Avengers arrive at the scene to take Nuke into custody. Captain America, disturbed that Nuke has a U.S. flag tattooed on his face, investigates his background. When the military authorities give him evasive answers, he breaks into top secret records and discovers Nuke is the only surviving test subject of several attempts to recreate Project: Rebirth, the project that enhanced the Captain's own body. Nuke breaks free from custody in the same base. He is stopped by Captain America, but the Kingpin gives the order to kill Nuke. Nuke is shot by the military. Daredevil, having heard word of Nuke's escape while stealing money to rebuild the diner, grabs Nuke from Captain America and takes him to the Daily Bugle, hoping to get him to testify about the Kingpin. He is not fast enough, and Nuke dies before he can provide any evidence. Trying to get Nuke back from Daredevil, Captain America instead stumbles upon one of the hitmen sent to kill Nuke. The hitman names the Kingpin as being behind Nuke's assault on Hell's Kitchen, setting off a wave of lawsuits. Although the Kingpin is able to fight off most (but not all) of the charges, his public image as an honest and respectable businessman is shattered, and his lieutenants lose confidence in him. His obsession unabated, he disregards Captain America's role and plans for revenge on Murdock instead. As for Murdock, he is living in Hell's Kitchen content with his life with Karen and his vow to fight for justice in his neighborhood. ===== There is a villain called the Dark King. He was sealed away until an unsuspecting treasure hunter releases him by attempting to get "treasure". Now Red, Blue, Rain, and Ponga have to stop him. ===== Upon hearing that Token has won a contest that will allow him to sing at a Colorado beauty pageant and receive $200, Stan, Cartman, Kyle and Kenny decide to set up the "Super Awesome Talent Agency" and obtain 10% of his earnings by becoming his agents. They lose him to Creative Artists Agency, however, only to land a singer named Wing, who is the wife of the City Wok owner, Tuong Lu Kim. Recently smuggled into the United States by the Triads, Wing has been set to audition for American Idol, and the boys agree to bring her to Los Angeles for the competition. This venture does not go as planned, and the boys instead enter her into The Contender, a television series about boxing. Sylvester Stallone is impressed with her singing, even as she is beaten, and gives her a chance to sing at his son's wedding, which will give the boys a 10% share of $4000. However, by this time, Wing has been kidnapped by the Triads for not paying the $10,000 owed to them for getting her into the States. The boys go after Wing to get back their client. Both the Triads and the boys are unaware of the other's intentions; the boys mistake the Triads for the Creative Artists Agency, the agency that stole Token, while the Triads think the boys are a rival group. In a shootout at the Triads' headquarters, Kenny is killed, and Kyle inadvertently manages to kill two Triad guards. Stan concludes with a monologue about how Wing is a human being and that people's lives should not be sold as commodities which makes the boys and the Triads realize that their businesses are dirty and exploit the hopes of others. They all decide to quit and go to listen to Wing sing at the wedding, only to find Token waiting tables, trying to earn enough money to get back home as CAA did nothing for him. ===== In May 1969, Lou Jean Poplin visits her husband, Clovis Michael Poplin, to tell him that their son will soon be placed in the care of foster parents. Even though he is four months away from release from prison in Texas, she convinces him to escape to assist her in retrieving their child. They hitch a ride from the prison with a couple, but when Texas Department of Public Safety Patrolman Maxwell Slide stops the car, they take the car and run. When the car crashes, the two felons overpower and kidnap Slide, holding him hostage at the head of a slow-moving and growing caravan, initially of police cars but eventually including news vans, private citizens' vehicles, and helicopters. The Poplins and Slide travel through Beaumont, Dayton, Houston, Cleveland, Conroe and finally Wheelock, Texas. By holding Slide hostage, the pair are able to continually gas up their car, as well as get food via the drive-through. During the lengthy pursuit, Slide and the pair bond and develop mutual respect for one another. The Poplins bring Slide to the home of the foster parents, where they encounter numerous officers, including the DPS Captain who has been pursuing them, Captain Harlin Tanner. A pair of Texas Rangers shoot and fatally wound Clovis, and the Texas Department of Public Safety arrests Lou Jean. Patrolman Slide is found unharmed. An epilogue preceding the closing credits explains that Lou Jean subsequently spent fifteen months of a five-year prison term in a women's correctional facility. Upon getting out, she obtained the right to live with her son, convincing authorities that she was able to do so. ===== The prologue of the film acknowledges the events of the first Godzilla film (using the 1954 Godzilla monster rather than a successor Godzilla), while inventing its own timeline, explaining that the Oxygen Destroyer was never used here and that the capital of Japan was moved from Tokyo to Osaka. In 1966, Godzilla attacks the first Japanese nuclear plant in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture. After this, the G-Graspers, a section of Japan Self-Defense Forces, is dedicated to combat Godzilla. In 1996, clean plasma energy replaces nuclear energy, but this does not deter Godzilla from attacking the original plasma energy reactor. As a result, plasma energy is banned in the country. In 2001, an experimental satellite-based weapon that fires miniature black holes, called the Dimension Tide, opens a wormhole through which a prehistoric dragonfly enters the present and deposits a single egg before exiting through the wormhole. A boy named Jun Hayasaka finds the egg and takes it with him when he moves to Tokyo. The egg starts oozing a strange liquid, so Jun throws the egg in the sewer. The egg, actually a mass of hundreds of eggs, splits up and starts growing when exposed to water, hatching into large dragonfly larvae called Meganulon that come out of the sewer to feed. They flood a portion of the city and molt on the sides of buildings, becoming adult Meganula. Meanwhile, Godzilla appears in search of a source of nuclear energy, despite the edict shutting down all such attractants after its three previous appearances. While Godzilla is fighting the G-Graspers, who are assisted by rebellious scientist Hajime Kudo, the swarm of Meganula are attracted in turn to Godzilla's energy, and attack it. During the course of the battle, the Dimension Tide is launched, but Godzilla survives the attack. Most of the Meganula are killed by both Godzilla and the Dimension Tide, but a few manage to drain off some of Godzilla's energy and return to the sewer. With the last of their strength, the Meganula inject Godzilla's energy into a huge, sleeping larva that is in a giant, pulsating cocoon. It molts and appears from the water as Megaguirus, the queen of the Meganula. After destroying part of Shibuya with shock waves generated by her beating wings, Megaguirus heads to the waterfront and faces Godzilla. As they engage in a lengthy battle, she uses her speed to avoid Godzilla's attacks, but Godzilla eventually uses his own speed against her. As she flies toward Godzilla, it lunges forward with its dorsal fins in her path. She flies into the fins, and one of her arms is severed. Megaguirus, having been mutated by Godzilla's energy, generates a blast similar to Godzilla's atomic breath and knocks Godzilla down. Megaguirus speeds forward with the stinger on her long tail lowered, trying to stab Godzilla between the eyes. In a climactic moment, Godzilla catches the stinger in its mouth and crushes it in its jaws. Godzilla finally blasts Megaguirus with atomic breath, causing her to burst into flames and die. It is revealed that Godzilla was attracted to a secret plasma energy project housed at the Science Institute, in violation of the ban. The G-Graspers continue their mission to destroy Godzilla, but with the Dimension Tide falling out of orbit they are unable to get a lock on it. The vengeful Major Kiriko Tsujimori pilots a ship towards Godzilla, ejecting only at the last second. The Dimension Tide is able to lock on to the craft and fires just before burning up on reentry; Godzilla blasts at the approaching black hole with its atomic heat ray, but vanishes. In a postlude, however, Tsujimori again enlists Kudo to investigate suspicious seismic activity; then in an after-credits scene at Jun's school, an earthquake happens and Godzilla's roar is heard again. ===== The storyline in Bravoman is told through the game's attract mode sequence, alongside various pieces of promotional material. When Japanese car insurance salaryman Hitoshi Nakamura is walking home one day, he encounters a strange, humanoid-like alien named Alpha Man, who claims to be from the planet Alpha. He informs Nakamura of a mad scientist named Dr. Bomb, who plans to destroy Earth and enslave the human race through his army of robots and a deadly superweapon. Alpha hands Nakamura three items; a metal rod, a tuning fork, and a ¥100 coin, which transforms him into Bravoman, a bionic tokusatsu superhero who possesses telescopic limbs. Bravoman and Alpha Man set out to stop Dr. Bomb and prevent him from taking over the world. ===== Four people die separately in four different accidents in four different places across the world - Richard Stevens in New York, Mark Harris in Paris, Franz Verbrugge in Berlin and Gary Reynolds in Denver. The four dead share a crucial link: they work for a powerful think tank, headed by Tanner Kingsley. Two women Diane Stevens and Kelly Harris - the widows of Richard Stevens and Mark Harris respectively, run into each other in New York. They both had just met with Tanner Kinglsey to discuss about their husbands death. To know more about Kelly and her husband's case, Diane invites her to a cafe to talk. In the cafe they are attacked by goons and they flee to Diane's apartment. They soon realise that even the apartment is not safe, so they escape to a hotel. Soon, the two find themselves under ruthless attack wherever they go. They deduce that Tanner Kingsley is behind all this. It turns out that there is a connection between the death of their husbands and that of Gary Reynolds and Franz Verbrugge. Prior to their death, they had been working on a project Prima - a machine that could control the weather. Upon realizing the threat that it could pose to the world, they decide to meet a senator to talk about it. Tanner Kinglsey gets to know of this plan and has the four of them killed, making it look like accidents. Armed with this knowledge, the two women travel to Long Island to meet with the senator. Upon reaching, they realise that the senator who is an ex-lover of Tanner, was in on the whole plan of killing the four men and also knew about Prima. Tanner orders his bodyguard Flint to kill the two women, but Kelly gets the better of Flint and kills him. The two women hide in an inn run by an old acquaintance of Kelly, Grace. To make the whole world know of Tanner's plan to control the weather, Diane and Kelly inform various newspaper agencies about it, in the pretense of an invitation to the 'Prima Unveiling Party'. Not wanting any media attention on his machine, Tanner plans to have it destroyed by his once brilliant, now deranged brother Andrew. Tanner has another version of the machine - Prima II hidden in the Tamoa Island in the South Pacific. Tanner plans to operate it discreetly and control governments across the world. When Tanner and the senator are on a flight, they are caught in an unexpected electrical storm which kills them. It is later revealed that the storm was created by Andrew, who ultimately destroys Prima and dies in the process. Upon learning of this news, the two women decide to go together to Washington to the FBI, to tell them what they know. The book ends with Diane and Kelly who have grown close in the sequence of events, getting closure for their husbands death. ===== As a young boy growing up in a Spanish family with a long and very distinguished maritime tradition, Ulysses Ferragut is regaled with tales of the sea by his retired uncle, the "Triton" (Apollon), and is particularly fascinated by his claim to have once seen the sea goddess Amphitrite. Though his lawyer father, Don Esteban, wants him to follow in his footsteps, Ulysses becomes a sailor. When he is a grown man (Antonio Moreno), Ulysses uses his life savings to purchase the Mare Nostrum, a fast, modern freighter, and prospers. However, he finally gives in to his wife, Dona Cinta, for the sake of their son Esteban, and agrees to sell his ship. With the outbreak of World War I, however, the enormous profits to be made from the sudden demand for shipping ends this plan. On a stop in Italy, Ulysses visits the ruins of Pompeii, and meets Freya Talberg (Alice Terry) and the learned Doctor Fedelmann. He soon falls in love with Freya (who looks exactly like his uncle's painting of Amphitrite). Though she later informs him that she is an Austrian spy (as is Fedelmann), Spain is neutral and his ardor is undiminished. He agrees to transport Count Kaledine to a secret rendezvous in the Mediterranean. The U-boat U-35 surfaces, takes on fuel from Ulysses' ship, and departs with Kaledine. Meanwhile, young Esteban leaves home without permission to find his father. After a week waiting for Ulysses at his lodgings, Esteban goes back to Barcelona aboard the Californian, a British passenger ship. However, the boy is killed when the Californian is sunk by the U-35. Ulysses learns of his son's fate from a survivor, and realizes to his grief his role in the tragedy. He vows to avenge his boy. Upon hearing of the death, Freya sends Ulysses a letter denouncing the barbarity of the act; it is intercepted by Doctor Fedelmann. That, along with Freya's admission she has fallen in love with Ulysses, convinces Fedelmann that her subordinate can no longer be trusted. She sends Freya to Marseilles, intending to betray her to the French. Freya suspects as much, and begs Ulysses to take her to safety aboard his ship. Ulysses is torn, but a vision of his son shaking his head makes him refuse. Freya is later captured, convicted, and shot by a firing squad at dawn. As he is leaving Freya's apartment, Ulysses encounters Count Kaledine. After a brief struggle, he chases Kaledine through the streets, gathering a mob. Kaledine is caught and taken into custody. Ulysses then employs the Mare Nostrum in the service of the Allies, arming her with a deck gun, replacing his crew with French military sailors, and transporting munitions to Salonica. Only longtime family friend and sea cook Caragol refuses to leave him. On the voyage, they are intercepted by the U-35. With the Mare Nostrum torpedoed and doomed, Ulysses mans the abandoned deck gun and sinks the U-35. As Ulysses descends into the ocean depths, Amphitrite rises to embrace and kiss him. ===== The plot revolves around a party of assorted railway travellers who find themselves stranded in the waiting room of an isolated country station in the evening. The station master tries to persuade them to leave the site as he is closing the station for the night. They refuse to leave, citing the lack of alternative accommodation for several miles around. He warns them of the supernatural danger of a spectral passenger train, the ghost of one that fatally wrecked in the locality several years before, that sometimes haunts the line at night, bringing death to all who set eyes upon it. Incredulous of his story, they still refuse to leave, and he departs leaving them facing a night at the station. The main body of the play is then taken up with the interaction of the varied assortment of the passengers: strangers thrown randomly together in the odd social intimacy of happenstance that rail travel involves, representing a cross-section of English 1920s society. There are a variety of escalating dramatic incidents combined with a heightening tension as the latent threat of the spectral train's possible appearance is ultimately dramatically realised, bringing disaster and death to the group as foretold. The story then resolves from a socio-suspense drama into a spy adventure, when it is revealed that the "ghost train" is quite real and is being used by communist revolutionaries to smuggle machine guns from the Soviet Union into England, and the story of the "ghost- train" has been concocted to scare potential witnesses away from the scene of the operation. A British Government secret agent incognito in the stranded passengers' midst is then revealed; the agent confronts the revolutionary gang in a gun battle on the station, and the revolutionaries' covert operation is defeated. ===== Photograph of scene designed by Jo Mielziner for George Bernard Shaw's Doctor's Dilemma, 1927 The eponymous dilemma of the play is that of the newly honoured doctor Sir Colenso Ridgeon, who has developed a revolutionary new cure for tuberculosis. However, his private medical practice, with limited staff and resources, can only treat ten patients at a time. From a group of fifty patients he has selected ten he believes he can cure and who, he believes, are most worthy of being saved. However, when he is approached by a young woman, Jennifer Dubedat, with a deadly ill husband, Louis Dubedat, he admits he can, at a stretch, save one more patient, but that the individual in question must be shown to be most worthy of being saved. However, the situation is complicated when an old friend and colleague reveals, he too, needs treatment. Sir Colenso must choose which patient he will save: a kindly, altruistic poor medical colleague, or an extremely gifted but also very unpleasant, womaniser, bigamist and amoral young artist. Sir Colenso falls instantly in love with the young and vivacious Mrs Dubedat and this makes it even harder for the doctor to separate his motives for the decision of who shall live. ===== Welles, playing himself taking a break from the filming of Othello, is driving in the Irish countryside one night when he offers a ride to a man with car trouble. The man relates a strange event that happened to him at the same location. Two women flagged down his car one evening, asking for a ride back to their manor. They invited him in for a drink, and after leaving, he went back for his cigarette case. He found the manor deserted and decayed. In Dublin, a real estate broker told him the mother and daughter had died years ago. Welles, sufficiently spooked, drops the man off at his home and leaves in a hurry when the man asks him in for a cup of tea or something stronger as the ghostly women had earlier invited him into Glennascaul. As Welles drives off he passes two other stranded women who wave for a ride, flesh and blood women who recognize the famous actor behind the wheel. ===== Prologue: In a country house, Fanny O'Dowda, the daughter of the Count O'Dowda, is putting on a play she has written. She has hired professional actors and invited major critics. Fanny, who has studied at Cambridge, is keeping her authorship secret. She expects that her father the Count will disapprove of the play, as he hates the vulgarity of modern life. He has only just returned to Britain from living in Venice. Fanny's play: *Act I. The Gilbeys, a genteel couple in Denmark Hill, are worried about their missing son Bobby. A vulgar street-girl called Dora Delaney (known as "Darling Dora") enters. She tells them that she and Bobby had been sent to prison. They were arrested for drunk and disorderly behaviour and assaulting a police officer. The Gilbeys are mortified. What will they say to Mr Knox, Gilbey's business partner, and his wife? The Knoxes' daughter is betrothed to Bobby. *Act 2. The Knoxes learn that their daughter Margaret has been in prison when she returns home after being away for a fortnight. On the night of the Boat Race she and a young French officer called Duvallet she was with got into a fight with the police. Margaret feels liberated by the experience and wishes to tell everyone about it. The Knoxes are mortified. What will they say to the Gilbeys? *Act 3. At the Gilbey household Bobby asks Juggins the footman how he can break up with Margaret without hurting her. Since his arrest he finds Margaret's dull respectability stifling. Margaret arrives and tells him of her imprisonment. Bobby is shocked, saying "It's not the same for a girl". Dora and Duvallet appear, to Bobby's embarrassment. When Margaret realises that the woman Bobby was with was Darling Dora, she is outraged. She had shared a cell with Dora, and now Bobby is treating her like she should be excluded from polite company. The Knoxes are announced. The four youngsters hide in the pantry with Juggins. The older couples, realising that they no longer need to keep up a facade of respectability, start to relax, though the pious Mrs Knox says that if they change the manners in which they have been brought up they will soon have nothing left. Meanwhile Margaret decides she no longer has any interest in Bobby. She really loves Juggins, the footman. Juggins reveals that he is the son of a Duke. He became a footman to atone for once mistreating an honest servant. Now that he has proven himself to be an honest working man, he feels worthy to marry Margaret. Epilogue: Fanny's father is shocked by the play saying that it "outrages and revolts his deepest, holiest feelings". The critics have a variety of views, but wonder who the author may be. The aesthete Gilbert Gunn insists that's so full of tired clichės "as old and stale as a fried fish shop on a winter morning" that it must be by Harley Granville-Barker. Another critic, Vaughan, is convinced that only Arthur Pinero could have written it, since it betrays "the author's offensive habit of saying silly things that have no real sense in them when you come to examine them". Flawner Bannal, a critic from a tabloid, thinks it was written by Bernard Shaw, as the paradoxical statements about the English by the French character are a dead giveaway. Vaughan dismisses this because the characters are too believable: "That proves it's not by Shaw, because all Shaw's characters are himself: mere puppets stuck up to spout Shaw." One critic, Trotter, realises the truth. Fanny admits that she was the author, and the critics all join in praise of her. Trotter thinks that the account of imprisonment has an air of authenticity to it. Fanny confesses that, yes, she has been in prison, for her activities as a militant suffragette. Fanny's father now has to adjust to the fact that his daughter is both a malefactor and a playwright. ===== Louis Mahé (Jean-Paul Belmondo), a wealthy tobacco plantation owner on Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean, awaits the arrival of his bride-to-be, Julie Roussel (Catherine Deneuve), whom he has never met. They became acquainted through the personals column of a French newspaper and have been corresponding. At the Hotel Mascarin, he meets his business partner Jardine who accompanies him to pick up the ring. Louis drives to the dock to greet Julie who is arriving on the steamer Mississipi (spelled with one p according to the French spelling of the river at the time) from Nouméa, the capital of New Caledonia. When they meet, he is surprised by her beauty and does not recognize her; she is not the woman in the photo that she had sent him. She explains that she sent the photo of a neighbor to ensure his sincerity. He confesses that he too has not told the complete truth, having hidden that he was wealthy. They quickly marry, and his adoration makes him overlook inconsistencies between her comments and her letters. He gives Julie access to his bank accounts and prints her image on the cigarette packs his company manufactures. After receiving an angry letter from Julie's sister, Berthe Roussel (Nelly Borgeaud), demanding to know Julie's whereabouts, Louis returns home to find that Julie has gone with nearly 28 million francs, all but emptying his bank accounts. Soon after, Berthe arrives and informs him that his wife was not Julie and that she saw her sister board the Mississipi. They hire a private detective, Comolli, to track down the impostor. On a flight to Nice, France, Louis collapses from exhaustion. While recuperating in the Clinique Heurtebise sanitarium, he sees Julie('s impostor) on television, dancing at a nightclub in Antibes. He buys a gun and travels to Antibes where he breaks into her room at the Hotel Monorail, intent on killing her. When she returns and is confronted by Louis, she offers no resistance. Explaining that her real name is Marion Vergano, she tells him of her sordid past; of her years in prison and association with a heartless gangster, Richard, who was with her on the Mississipi. She recounts that when they met Julie Roussel and learned of her forthcoming marriage, Richard fabricated a plot to kill Julie and send Marion in her place to rob Louis. Afterwards Richard forced her to go through with the robbery and then abandoned her. She tells Louis that she loves him, and Louis forgives her. They buy a convertible and drive to Aix-en- Provence, where they move into a house and spend their days traveling the region and making love. Their happiness is interrupted by Comolli, who has arrived in Aix on the trail of the impostor. After failing to bribe the detective to drop the case, Louis shoots him dead and buries him in the wine cellar. Louis and Marion flee to Lyon, but she grows dissatisfied with their fugitive existence and longs for a life of luxury in Paris. Louis returns briefly to Réunion and sells his share in the plantation to his partner, Jardine. Upon his return he finds the police on their trail. Again they are forced to flee, leaving most of his money behind. They head into the mountains where they find an isolated cabin. They hope to cross into Switzerland, but Marion is unhappy with their life on the run. Louis becomes increasingly ill and, after nearly collapsing, suspects that Marion has been poisoning his coffee. He attempts to escape, but Marion brings him back. As she pours him another glass of coffee, he reveals his knowledge of her plan, accepts his fate with no regrets, and expresses his love for her. Ashamed at her actions, Marion knocks the glass from Louis' hand and vows to make amends. She acknowledges that no woman deserves to be so loved, but assures him that she loves him, too, and that they can still go away together. Crying in his arms, Marion tells him, "I'm learning what love is, Louis. It's painful." After Louis regains his strength, they leave in a snowstorm and head toward the border. ===== Paris, 1960. A washed-up classical pianist, Charlie Kohler/Edouard Saroyan (Charles Aznavour), hits rock bottom after his wife's suicide — stroking the keys in a Parisian dive bar. The waitress, Lena (Marie Dubois), is falling in love with Charlie, who it turns out is not who he says he is. When his brothers get in trouble with gangsters, Charlie inadvertently gets dragged into the chaos and is forced to rejoin the family he once fled. ===== The play revolves around mother Helen Curtayne and her daughter Millie. The father is terminally ill with cancer. One night the television news broadcasts reports that there has been an accident in a nuclear power station in the United Kingdom. (The station is not named but it is likely a reference to Sellafield.) The rain contaminates most of Ireland leaving only parts of Munster unharmed. Helen and her daughter fight against civil unrest to get to safety. ===== : In 1926, Larita Filton (Isabel Jeans) testifies at her divorce. In a flashback, her husband, a drunken brute named Aubrey Filton (Franklin Dyall), is getting drunk in an artist's studio, as Mrs. Filton's portrait is being painted. The painter, Claude Robson (Eric Bransby Williams), is smitten with Larita. He sends her a letter asking her to leave the physically abusive Mr. Filton, and marry him. She rejects Claude's advances and is pushing him away when Aubrey walks in on them. She appears to be embracing Claude. Aubrey confronts Claude. Claude fires a gun, but misses Aubrey. Aubrey begins to beat Claude severely with his walking cane. In the struggle, Claude shoots Aubrey. Two servants enter and, seeing Claude with the gun, run for the police. In the next frame, the police are kneeling over Claude's lifeless body. Larita is holding her wounded husband lovingly in her lap. He picks up the letter from Claude. Aubrey files for divorce on the grounds of adultery. The jury rejects Larita's testimony and instead decides in Aubrey's favor, in large part because Larita is quite attractive, and Claude had written a will leaving her his entire fortune "to another man's wife!" As Larita leaves the courtroom, she hides her face from photographers trying to take her picture. Larita leaves for the French Riviera to avoid continued unwanted attention. As she registers at the hotel, she remembers all the media frenzy around her, and at the last second, changes the name she registers under to Larita Grey. She is happy there, living anonymously. One day, at a tennis match, she is struck in the eye by the tennis ball of a rich younger man, John Whittaker (Robin Irvine). He apologises profusely and takes her for medical treatment. He soon asks Larita to marry him. She protests that surely he must want to know more about her first. He responds that all he need know is that he loves her. They marry and return to England to meet his family. While John's father likes Larita very much, his mother strongly disapproves even before meeting her. John's mother believes she recognises Larita, but cannot place her. She questions John about Larita and chastises him for marrying someone about whom he knows nothing. John begs his mother to be kind to her for his sake. However, she is only kind to Larita in public. Privately, she tries to turn everyone against Larita. As John's mother continues to make her life miserable, Larita begs John to return to the South of France where they were happy. He asks why she cannot be happy in England. She tells him his family hates her, and that they are teaching him to hate her too. Later that day, John admits to his old girlfriend that his mother has helped him see that he made a huge mistake marrying Larita. Unknown to him, Larita overhears him. John's sister sees Larita's picture in the papers. In the caption, Larita is identified as the former Mrs. Filton. John's sister shows her mother. Mrs. Whittaker confronts Larita in front of the family, stating, "In our world, we do not understand this code of easy virtue", as she thrusts the magazine under Larita's nose. Larita responds that indeed they do not understand much of anything. Mrs. Whittaker, fearing scandal and gossip about her family, tries to intimidate Larita into staying in her room during the party the family is hosting that same evening. Instead, Larita makes a grand entrance. However, Larita confides to a friend that she will leave John so he can obtain a divorce. Before leaving, she tells the old girlfriend, Sarah (Enid Stamp Taylor), whom his mother had thought a suitable match for John, and who has been quite kind to her, "Sarah - YOU ought to have married John." Larita sits anonymously in the court gallery, weeping, as she watches John's uncontested divorce. A reporter recognises her. As she exits the court, photographers are waiting for her. This time, she does not flee. Instead, she exclaims to the throng of photographers, "Shoot! There's nothing left to kill." ===== Betty (Betty Balfour), an heiress, draws the ire of her father after using his aeroplane to fly to her boyfriend (Jean Bradin) who is on an ocean liner headed to France. Once reunited, they arrange to meet for dinner but Betty's boyfriend is unable to dine with her due to seasickness. When seated, Betty notices a man watching her, who then comes over to talk to her. Betty receives a telegram from her disapproving father who warns that her boyfriend is not going to be admired by her friends. To prove her father wrong she asks her boyfriend to marry her, but her boyfriend has grown to resent how controlling she is of their relationship. A quarrel ensues between them and the two part company when it's over. The boyfriend regrets the fight and goes to Betty to apologise. He is surprised to find her adeptly playing a game of chess with the mysterious man. Another quarrel between the two is interrupted by the arrival of Betty's father (Gordon Harker). He tells Betty the family fortune, earned in the Champagne business, has been wiped out by a falling stock market. The boyfriend leaves after hearing the news of their fortune and the father sees this as proof the boyfriend is only after money. In France, Betty decides to sell her jewellery but is robbed en route to the jewellers. Now penniless, Betty and her father move into a small, rundown apartment. Unbeknown to Betty, her father sneaks out to eat at an expensive restaurant after her cooking proves to be terrible. Once again Betty's boyfriend tries for a reconciliation but she rebukes him as she now thinks her father is right about him, and vows to get a job. Betty finds work at an upmarket restaurant. The mysterious man shows up again and invites Betty to his table. She becomes uncomfortable with the stranger and is relieved when her boyfriend arrives on the scene. The mysterious man leaves after handing her a note that advises her to call him if she ever needs any help. The boyfriend openly disapproves of Betty's job. He leaves after a still-angry Betty dances wildly to provoke him. The boyfriend soon returns with Betty's father. He is outraged at Betty's lowly job and confesses he lied about the loss of their fortune to teach her a lesson. Rather than being pleased, Betty is further angered by both her father and boyfriend. She turns to the mysterious man who offers to take her back to America. Betty gladly accepts but is later horrified to find she has been locked in her cabin. She imagines the worst about the mysterious man's intentions and is both relieved and delighted when her boyfriend arrives and releases her from the cabin. They soon reconcile. The boyfriend hides in the bathroom when they hear the mysterious man approaching. He enters with her father who confesses he hired the man to follow and protect her. The boyfriend is furious and misunderstanding the situation, bursts from his hiding place to attack the man. Betty's father pacifies the boyfriend's anger by telling him he no longer disapproves of their wedding. The reunited couple start discussing the wedding, but soon start bickering over the arrangements. ===== The story opens up in early March as Anil arrives in Sri Lanka after a 15-year absence abroad. Her visit comes as a result of the increasing number of deaths in Sri Lanka from all the warring sides in the 1980s' civil war. While on an expedition with archeologist Sarath, Anil notices that the bones of a certain skeleton do not seem to be 6th century like the rest which leads her to conclude that the skeleton must be a recent death. Unsure where Sarath's political allegiance lies, Anil is skeptical of his help, but agrees to it anyway. Along their journey to identify the skeleton, nicknamed Sailor, Anil becomes increasingly suspicious of Sarath. She begins to question his motives and sees his comments as a hint for her to censor herself since their discovery would implicate the Sri Lankan government in the death of Sailor. Later, Anil and Sarath visit his former teacher, Palipana, hoping to have him confirm their suspicions. Palipana then suggests having a reconstruction of the face done so that others might identify him. They agree to do so and head on to a small village named Galapitigama. There Anil meets Sarath's brother, Gamini, an emergency doctor. She discovers that he is intricately involved in the country's affairs and daily struggles to save the lives of numerous victims. Gamini helps them with a fellow Sri Lankan whose hands have been nailed to a road, and tells them about the various atrocities citizens face as a result of the civil war. Later Anil and Sarath meet with Ananda, on the advice of Palipana, hoping that he will be able to reconstruct the face of Sailor for them. Ananda does so after some days, despite Anil's impatience and skepticism, and then almost immediately attempts suicide, only to be rescued by an intuitive and quick- thinking Anil. Anil and Sarath eventually are able to identify Sailor in a small village. As Anil prepares a report to present to the authorities, claiming the skeleton as a recent death, and therefore evidence of state or state-sponsored terrorism, the skeleton of Sailor disappears. Frustrated, she goes on with her presentation, using another skeleton, but is upset when Sarath arrives after a lengthy and mysterious absence to ridicule her efforts and claim that she cannot back up her claims with the skeleton she has. Angry and betrayed, on her way out Anil is frequently stopped and inspected, and her belongings and research seized, such that by the time she leaves the building she is left with nothing. Outside, she meets Sarath, who surprises her with the body of Sailor that he has placed in a van. Sarath instructs Anil to prepare a fake report for the government and then leave the country the next morning on a plane that he arranged. Relieved, Anil does so in the hope that the evidence will be sufficient. Sarath's actions, however, have severe consequences, leading ultimately to his death. The novel ends with Ananda sculpting the eyes of a Buddha statue. ===== The film begins in January 1793 as a 17-year-old Hornblower joins a ship of the line, the Justinian. Hornblower is introduced to his shipmates, including Jack Simpson, a bully who rules the midshipmen's quarters. Hornblower does not distinguish himself when he becomes seasick while the ship is at anchor in calm waters. Hornblower considers suicide under Simpson's persecution and finally finds opportunity to challenge him to a duel, even though Simpson is an experienced and deadly duellist. An older midshipman, Clayton, feels guilty that he himself has not stood against Simpson. He knocks Hornblower unconscious, takes his place in the duel and is killed. Simpson, though wounded, survives. Hornblower is transferred to the frigate Indefatigable, under the command of Captain Pellew. Midshipmen Kennedy, Hether, and Cleveland go with him, as well as Simpson's old division which, due to Pellew's ire, becomes Hornblower's division. Hornblower's conduct in battle eventually wins the respect and loyalty of these men. Simpson joins the Indefatigable (known by her crew as the Indy) when the Justinian is sunk by a rogue French ship called the Papillon. Pellew sends a detachment on a cutting out expedition in the Gironde to take the Papillon. During the battle, Simpson shoots Hornblower, and sets Kennedy, incapacitated by a seizure beforehand and left in a boat, adrift. Meanwhile the Indy is attacked by three French ships. The Papillon, now in British hands, comes under fire from shore batteries, and the two officers senior to Hornblower, Lieutenants Eccleston and Chadd, are killed. Shortly before the most senior officer (Eccleston) dies, he tells Hornblower to take over. Simpson attempts to take command as the senior midshipman, but Hornblower tells Mr. Bowles, the ship's master, that if Simpson resists, "you have my permission to shoot him". Simpson is then taken below whilst the Papillon sails to the Indys rescue. Hornblower orders the Papillons French colours not be lowered. Through this ruse of war, he launches a surprise attack on the unsuspecting French ships. After the British victory, Hornblower accuses Simpson of attempted murder, Simpson challenges him to a second duel, which Hornblower accepts. In this duel, Simpson treacherously shoots Hornblower early, before the combatants have been told to fire. Simpson claims that it was a misfire. Hornblower is not badly injured. Simpson is then told to stand his ground and await Hornblower's shot. Faced with this prospect, Simpson begs for his life, revealing himself to be a coward. Hornblower fires into the air, stating that Simpson is "not worth the powder". Infuriated at this insult, Simpson attempts to stab Hornblower in the back, but is shot dead by Pellew just before he reaches him. Back on the Indefatigable, Pellew tells Hornblower precisely how impressed he has been by his actions and that Hornblower has a great career ahead of him, if he continues as he has begun. ===== In 1976, Larry Weller is twenty-six years old and employed as a florist in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He accidentally takes a stranger's identical Harris tweed jacket from a coffee shop. The rest of the chapter consists of his thoughts about his girlfriend Dorrie Shaw and his parents Stu and Dot. In 1978, Larry marries Dorrie, and they honeymoon in England. While there, he discovers his love for garden mazes when he becomes lost in one. In 1980, Larry turns thirty and invites his family over for a picnic. He and Dorrie have bought a house, and they now have a son, Ryan. By 1983, Larry is spending all of his spare time working on a maze around his house, and it now takes up both the front and back yards. A frustrated Dorrie calls in a bulldozer to tear down the entire front section of the maze. This event leads to the couple’s divorce. In 1986 Larry remarries, to a Christian scholar named Beth Prior. Their marriage is, for the most part, happy, though Larry realizes how much he loved Dorrie when they were married. It is also revealed that Larry’s father has colon cancer. In 1988, Larry has moved to Chicago and became one of only a handful of professional maze designers in the world. Though he is very successful, he thinks back to the maze at his old house in Manitoba and how Dorrie is keeping what is left of it alive. Larry's father dies of colon cancer that year. In 1991, Larry’s son, Ryan, is twelve and visits him in Chicago. Ryan is a bright boy; he is a good artist and can speak French fluently. In 1992, Beth publishes her first book, and the couple starts to have fights. In 1994, Larry wins the State of Illinois award for creative excellence for his mazes, but a few months later he and Beth are separated after she moves to England to accept a teaching position, and they get divorced. In 1996, Larry collapses and falls into a coma for twenty-two days. Beth does not visit him, but Dorrie and Ryan come as quickly as they can. Larry had begun to date a woman named Charlotte Angus. In 1997, Larry decides to throw a dinner party. He invites his friends, Charlotte, and both of his former wives. As the party is winding down, he experiences a vision of another reality in which he and Dorrie settled their quarrels and never divorced. Exactly how the story ends is not directly stated. We know that Dorrie stayed behind to help Larry clean up, that Charlotte has taken a liking to one of Larry's guests, and that Beth was aware that Larry still loved Dorrie. There is also a dialogue between two unidentified speakers, assumed to be Larry and Dorrie, who say they have always loved each other. ===== The year is 1929 and talking films are coming in. Once a great star of silent film, Jolly Grimm has wealth, a mansion, a manservant, Tex, and a beautiful and faithful woman in his life, Queenie, but no longer has Hollywood's interest. He desperately tries to get studio executives interested in his latest project, which he has financed himself, so he decides to throw a huge party at his house and show the film footage to those who come. The party turns into a loud, alcohol-fueled orgy. Jolly is unable to impress a Hollywood mogul, eager to move on to a more important social engagement, with the outdated humor and pathos of his movie. The more he drinks, the more angry Jolly becomes. The arrival of an underage girl brings out a protective, possibly perverted interest on Jolly's part, while the attention paid to Queenie by the virile young actor Dale Sword ignites a jealous fury in the sad comic that leads to violence and tragedy. ===== ===== The setting is the fictional frontier town of Dawson's Landing on the banks of the Mississippi River in the first half of the 19th century. David Wilson, a young lawyer, moves to town, and a clever remark of his is misunderstood, which causes locals to brand him a "pudd'nhead" (nitwit). His hobby of collecting fingerprints does not raise his standing in the eyes of the townsfolk, who consider him to be eccentric and do not frequent his law practice. "Pudd'nhead" Wilson is left in the background as the focus shifts to the slave Roxy, her son, and the family they serve. Roxy is one-sixteenth black and majority white, and her son Valet de Chambre (referred to as "Chambers") is 1/32 black. Roxy is principally charged with caring for her inattentive master's infant son Tom Driscoll, who is the same age as her own son. After fellow slaves are caught stealing and are nearly sold "down the river" to a master in the Deep South, Roxy fears for her son and herself. She considers killing her boy and herself, but decides to switch Chambers and Tom in their cribs to give her son a life of freedom and privilege. The narrative moves forward two decades. Tom Driscoll (formerly Valet de Chambre) has been raised to believe that he is white and has become a spoiled aristocrat. He is a selfish and dissolute young man. Tom's father has died and granted Roxy her freedom in his will. She worked for a time on river boats, and saved money for her retirement. When she finally is able to retire, she discovers that her bank has failed and all of her savings are gone. She returns to Dawson's Landing to ask for money from Tom. Tom responds to Roxy with derision. She tells him the truth about his ancestry and that he is her son and partially black; she blackmails him into financially supporting her. Twin Italian noblemen visit Dawson's Landing to some fanfare, and Tom quarrels with one. Desperate for money, Tom robs and murders his wealthy uncle and the blame falls wrongly on one of the Italians. From that point, the novel proceeds as a crime novel. In a courtroom scene, the whole mystery is solved when Wilson demonstrates, through fingerprints, both that Tom is the murderer, and not the true Driscoll heir. Although the real Tom Driscoll is restored to his rights, his life changes for the worse. Having been raised as a slave, he feels intense unease in white society. At the same time, as a white man, he is essentially excluded from the company of blacks. In a final twist, the creditors of Tom's father's estate successfully petition the governor to have Tom's (Chambers) prison sentence overturned. Shown to be born to a slave mother, he is classified as a slave and is legally included among the property assets of the estate. He is sold "down the river", helping the creditors recoup their losses. ===== Starting moments after the previous episode ended, "End of Days" begins as Buffy effortlessly pulls the scythe from the stone. The First tells Caleb to let Buffy go, so that she could attempt to save the Potentials from the trap Faith led them into. Back at Buffy's house, Giles and the other Potentials feast on food, which Andrew has just acquired from an abandoned grocery store. As they do so, Xander, Willow, Dawn and Anya return, having been looking for Buffy, only to come across an empty house. Giles then informs them that Faith and the other girls haven't returned. Meanwhile, in the sewers, those that survived the bomb blast are dragging the wounded to the surface when they are ambushed by three Turok-Han vampires. Buffy arrives in time to kill the vampires with her new weapon. Back at Buffy's house, the Scoobies and the Potentials immediately pledge their loyalty to Buffy again, while Willow and Giles search the Internet for references to the Scythe, finding a connection to Ancient Egypt. Meanwhile, Anya and Andrew go to the hospital to get supplies for those who were wounded in the bomb blast. As they do so, they enter a playful wheelchair fight. Back at the house, Faith and Buffy bond over their shared loneliness as Slayers, and reflect how they are the only ones in the group who truly understand what it feels like to be a Slayer, foreshadowing the finale of the series. Buffy then admits to Spike how special the night they shared was and that it gave her the strength to find new courage. Spike tells Buffy that it was the best night of his life. At Buffy's insistence, a reluctant Xander renders Dawn unconscious with chloroform and drives off with her, away from Sunnydale for safety. When Dawn wakes up, she gives him a shock with a stun gun and then drives them back. Following the Egyptian lead, Buffy takes the axe to a small pyramid outside the gates of the same cemetery that she has patrolled for the past six years. Inside, a woman who claims she is part of a secret female order that has watched the Watchers since ancient times, called Guardians, tells her that the axe is a powerful weapon forged for the final battle. Suddenly, Caleb shows up from behind the woman, kills her, and almost has Buffy bested when Angel steps in to save her. However, Buffy insists on fighting Caleb alone, and slices him across the stomach, apparently killing him. Buffy gives Angel a welcome kiss. Unknown to them, Spike is watching them from the shadows with the First, in the guise of Buffy, by his side. "That bitch", it tells him. ===== Set in the early 1980s, Scandal is about Derek Blore, an MP who, as a public figure, pays lip service to traditional values such as marriage, family and religion while at the same time paying for kinky sex with a young prostitute who is too stupid to realize who he really is. A few years earlier that girl, Bernadette Woolley, left her home town of Bognor Regis after an argument with her mother, went to London, advertised her services in a sleazy shop in Notting Hill, and had her first sexual intercourse, at 17, with her first customer. Now Bernadette has her own flat in Hackney where she can work undisturbed, and a pimp looking after her, Stan Costigano. Without Bernadette knowing let alone caring about it, her apartment has been equipped with video cameras and microphones which can be used to compromise, and eventually blackmail, her customers. Soon the people who pull the strings behind the scenes have Blore on tape--a long-term victim of his public school education, in shorts, on his knees, begging to be caned by his "teacher", Bernadette. As it happens--this is the time of the Cold War --Costigano's employers have a direct link to the Soviet embassy, where each of the politician's clandestine visits to Hackney is secretly registered. When he becomes a secretary of state in the new government Blore finally stops seeing Bernadette because it dawns upon him that now the risk of being found out is just too high. However, Derek Blore's downfall does not come about through Soviet intervention or through a political opponent seeing him enter or leave Bernadette's flat. Rather, it is his beautiful and absolutely loyal yet promiscuous wife Priscilla whose indiscretion towards her current lover, a journalist called Henry Feathers, triggers the "Blore Affair". ("Priscilla did not sleep with every man in London. When Feathers seduced her, it was a whole eighteen months since she had been unfaithful to Derek.") One day, after their lovemaking, she casually tells the journalist about the morning when her husband's "whore" came to see him at home. Reckoning that the story will be a scoop, Feathers composes a series of articles which finally appear in mid- summer, while the Blores are on a family holiday in France. Denying all allegations, Derek Blore is intent on sitting out his ordeal ("I've been in politics now for twenty-five years. And I hope I'm going to be in politics for a further twenty-five years.") and also announces that he is of course planning to sue Feathers and his newspaper. However, the Prime Minister is informed of the true state of affairs, knows that Blore is lying, and has him arrested while he is taking part in a rural pageant in his capacity as a church warden. ===== The Sixth is a parable about lawlessness and bureaucracy in the aftermath of the Great October Revolution. The film could be categorized as an "Ostern" type of movie, with a lawman hero who faces up to corruption against the odds, although no one around has any faith in his abilities. It is set in 1923 and the Russian Civil War has come to an end, although the situation is still dangerous in some regions. An elusive band of White guards is hiding in the mountains, raiding Soviet institutions and making short work of the representatives of local government. Five chiefs have already been killed by the "whites" and the intimidated townsfolk believe the sixth one is also doomed. The protagonist is the sixth militia chief, but he is shrewder than his predecessors. Recognizing the superior firepower of his well-armed and zealous enemies, he attempts to mobilise the people in the towns and help them regain faith and hope. He learns that there is a leak in his organisation and that someone is informing the band of all planned operations. He decides to use this very leak against the bandits. ===== Sixteen-year-old Sey wakes up to the sounds of people in her bedroom. Moving men are packing up her things and her mother tells her, "I'm going to Italy for five years," and leaves her in the care of her friend from college, Meja Kang. They are complete strangers to Sey and have a son named Terry her age. It turns out the family has some issues of its own since Terry is actually their daughter Hali, who is pretending to be her dead brother to prevent her mother from having a mental break-down. Deciding that she wants to be self-sufficient, Sey looks for a job and finds one at a gas-station. However, in order to work there she is forced to learn how to skate. Siho Lee, a classmate who happens to be dating her friend Ria Yoo and is the one who got her the job, offers to teach her. It is later revealed that Siho owns the gas-station when Sey gets in trouble with a customer and Siho has to pay for the damages. Not wanting to be in debt to him, Sey begins tutoring him after school for mid-terms. Sey is uncomfortable being around Siho because he is a boy. Due to her mother's many lovers and the tell-all autobiography her mother published when Sey was in middle school, her male peers thought "like mother like daughter". Sey has never dated and is known as an ice queen who hates men. The fact that Siho lives alone is not a bonus to the situation. Siho later reveals to Sey that he and Ria broke up because he likes someone else. A conversation between Ria and Sey reveals that it was Sey he was talking about. Despite everything, she and Siho end up culminating a strange friendship. While giving him notes one day, she experiences her first kiss, but that is interrupted by a door slamming her head. She refuses to acknowledge the kiss because it was "stolen" from her and because it happened with Siho, who is known for his "wandering hands". At the end of book three, Siho manages to win a date with Sey based on a bet on how high his score would be on his midterm. The date turns out to be a disaster since they were being stalked by Siho's ex and Sey got Siho's birthday cake in her face. After trying to escape from Siho, he manages to catch up with her and kiss her. Despite seeming to enjoy the kiss, she hits him and runs away but forgets her cellphone. At school, as she tries to get it back from him, they accidentally set on the speakers and are forced to hide from the principal. A stressed out Sey tells Siho to leave her alone and that he always makes her do things she doesn't want to do. An angry and hurt Siho apologizes for butting into her life and that he will leave her alone. After school, Sey turns up at Sihos apartment to get her phone. Hurt from Sihos cold attitude towards her, she tells him that he has no consideration to other peoples feelings and rushes of to the elevator. Siho sneaks up behind her and asks her if she is afraid of him. Sey confesses that she is afraid of the situation since it was all new to her and that Siho did not make it better by doing what he wanted. Placing his chin on the top of her head, Siho apologizes to which Sey tells him he is heavy. In volume 5, Siho and Sey have yet another argument, where Siho finds out that he isn't as far up on Sey's priority list as he thought. When Sey is at the hospital to give Mrs. Kang some change, she runs into him and his mother. It is revealed that Siho's mother suffers from brain damage, caused by a car accident. She and Siho had been hiding in the USA from his father at the time and Siho suspects that his father was behind the accident. In return for going with his father back to Korea, his mother receives medical care. Realizing that she and Siho are both very similar, she takes his hands as she tells him so. How their relationship develops is to be seen in volume 6. ===== Late in the 21st century, advancements in medical and computer technology allow for linear connectivity of human minds to computer networks, causing an unprecedented boom in computer hackers. The game takes place inside a virtual reality military training simulator named "AIDA" which has since been long-abandoned. However, the program continues to run, generating enemies and levels for the no longer present soldiers-in-training. The player takes the role of one of the many hackers attempting to break the codes of the simulator and extract the most valuable data possible for fame and profit. To do this, the player must explore several "sectors" that are infested with various kinds of enemies, including soldiers, security bots, giant bugs and other insect and plant-like creatures. The only way to survive and reap the greatest rewards is by reaching the Kernel database, destroying the enemies and the bosses at the end of each sector. The game's intro cutscene informs the hacker/player that hacking too deeply into unknown non-civilian protocols with what seem to be homebrew hacking tools carries the risk of contracting a medical condition called the "Achiba Syndrome", and warns them that upon infection that they 'will not be able to return' - presumably meaning their consciousness will become corrupted or otherwise lost and their minds will not be able to return to their bodies in the real world. ===== The Enterprise receives a distress signal from a shuttlecraft returning Deanna Troi from a conference. They find that the shuttle has crashed on a desolate planet, Vagra II, and while they can find the life signs of Troi and the pilot, Lt. Ben Prieto (Raymond Forchion), they are unable to beam the two to the ship. An away team beams down and discovers an animated pool of a tar-like substance, a malevolent life form that calls itself Armus. When Lt. Yar attempts to approach the shuttle, Armus hurls her back with a psychokinetic blast, killing her instantly. The away team is brought back to the Enterprise but the damage to Yar is too great for Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) to repair, and they are unable to resuscitate her. A second away team is sent to the planet. Armus taunts the crew members and maintains his grasp of the shuttle. During this time, Troi has communicated with Armus and learned that it is a physical manifestation of evil from the bodies of an ancient race, abandoned on Vagra II. The away team scans Armus' energy field, finding that when Armus engulfs the shuttle and speaks to Troi, expressing his remorse and pity, the field disrupting their transporter signals is weakened which could allow them to beam Troi and Prieto out of the shuttle. After Armus toys with Troi by completely engulfing Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes), Captain Picard beams down to speak to Armus directly, sending the rest of the away team to the ship. Picard engages Armus in a heated discussion to discover its motive, which is to seek revenge on those that abandoned it on Vagra II. Armus is riled to a point where the energy field is dissipated enough, allowing for Picard, Troi and Prieto to be safely beamed back to the Enterprise. After destroying the shuttlecraft from orbit, Picard orders a quarantine on Vagra II. As they leave Vagra II, the crew holds a memorial service for Lt. Yar, with a pre-recorded simulation of Yar addressing each of the senior crew members telling them what they meant to her and what she learned from each of them. After the service, Data (Brent Spiner), who had previously become close to Yar, tells Picard that he is confused as to the purpose of the service. He says that his thoughts are not for Tasha, but for himself, because he can only think of how empty his life will be without her. He asks if he has missed the point, but Picard assures him he got it. ===== Poster from the episode on display at Doctor Who Exhibition. The Ninth Doctor and Rose land in Cardiff on Christmas Eve, 1869. At a nearby funeral parlour, run by Gabriel Sneed and his servant Gwyneth, the corpse of the late Mrs. Peace has been taken over by a blue vapour. She kills her grandson Mr. Redpath and escapes from the parlour. Gwyneth, a clairvoyant, senses that the corpse is going to see Charles Dickens at a nearby theatre. In the middle of Dickens' performance, the blue vapour leaves Mrs. Peace and scares the audience away. The commotion attracts the attention of the Doctor and Rose, who rush to investigate. Sneed and Gwyneth arrive and capture the corpse, but are confronted by Rose and end up kidnapping her as well. At the funeral parlour, Rose wakes up along with the newly-reanimated corpses of Mrs. Peace and Mr. Redpath. The Doctor and Dickens arrive and break into the parlour just in time to rescue Rose. The Doctor convinces Gwyneth to help him hold a séance to attempt to communicate with the corpses. The blue vapours fill the room and reveal that they are the Gelth, a once-corporeal alien race until they were devastated by the Time War. They plead with the Doctor to open the rift that exists in the morgue and allow them to cross over. The Doctor offers the Gelth temporary use of the corpses until he can transport them to a place where they can build new bodies, using Gwyneth as a bridge to cross the rift. Gwyneth stands in the middle of an arch and opens the rift, allowing the Gelth to cross over. The number of Gelth is much greater than anticipated, and their true motive is revealed: they intend to kill the living to give themselves more hosts and take over the planet. Sneed is killed and his body is possessed by the Gelth. Realising the Gelth are affected by the gas, Dickens extinguishes the gaslights and turns the gas on full, pulling the Gelth out of the bodies. The Doctor tells Gwyneth to send the Gelth back and close the rift, but she cannot close it or leave. Instead she takes out a box of matches, intending to ignite the gas and hold the Gelth in one spot with the explosion. The Doctor determines that Gwyneth is already dead, and that by opening the rift, she had doomed herself. The Doctor, Rose, and Dickens flee the parlour just before it explodes and burns, trapping the Gelth and closing the rift. The Doctor and Rose prepare to leave in the TARDIS where the Doctor confesses to Rose that Dickens will unfortunately die in the following year. Dickens watches in wonderment as the TARDIS fades away before his eyes and he heads off into the city of Cardiff, now fully content to continue his work. ===== The novel concerns Noel Holcroft, New York City architect and secretly the son of Heinrich Clausen, chief economic adviser to the Third Reich. At some point in the 1970s, Holcroft is contacted by the Grande Banque de Geneve, concerning his father's will and testament. The testament says that in the last half of the war, Clausen found out about the Holocaust. Horrified and desperate to make amends, he and his two friends stole vast amounts of money from thousands of individual sources throughout the Reich and funneled them into a secure account in Zurich, Switzerland. Now, if Holcroft will contact the children of the two friends, they can form a group to distribute the funds and alleviate some of the pain of the Holocaust. Ranged against him in this noble endeavor is the last trace of the Third Reich: the children of Projekt Sonnenkinder. In the dying days of the war, a vast search went out throughout Germany. The children of Germany's finest, those without physical and psychological frailties, were sent to isolated hamlets and right-wing communities all over the world by airplane and U-boat. They were raised, provided for, and indoctrinated. Those who showed promise were inducted into the conspiracy by their elders; those that weren't were "removed." They have waited thirty years for the funds so as to finally take over the world. Their leader, the Tinamou, is the world's deadliest assassin. As Holcroft attempts to carry out what he believes to be the noble, secret mission of his biological father, he is continuously blindsided as good guys turn out to be bad guys, bad guys turn out to be good guys, and Holcroft, who has no training whatsoever in intelligence, is forced to learn on the job. ===== Middle-aged photographer and businessman Robert "Bobby" Garfield returns to his old hometown upon learning that his best friend, decorated soldier John "Sully" Sullivan has died in a traffic accident and begins recollecting his past when he visits an abandoned house where he used to live. During a summer in the 1960s, an eleven-year old Bobby lives with his widowed mother, self-centered Liz Garfield, and has two friends, Carol Gerber and Sully. They experienced many things together, the most mysterious of which was meeting an older gentleman named Ted Brautigan, whom Liz takes in as a boarder. Ted takes the lonely Bobby under his wing, while his mother is busy with her job . The two form a paternal father-son bond, and it slowly becomes evident that Ted has some psychic and telekinetic powers. These same powers are the reason that Brautigan has come to this sleepy town. In due course Ted entrusts Bobby with the knowledge that he has escaped the grasp of the "Low Men", strange people who would stop at nothing to get him back in their control. After reading Bobby's mind and realizing that the boy dreams of owning a bicycle; Ted kindly offers Bobby $1 a week in exchange for his reading a newspaper out loud. Bobby quickly figures out that Ted has some other purpose in mind. Mysteriously, Ted asks Bobby to keep an eye on the neighborhood looking for any signs of the "low men", like announcements about missing pets. Bobby sees one, but does not tell Ted, afraid to lose his new friend. Bobby, Carol and John have frequent conflicts with the local town bully, Harry Doolin, whom Ted is able to scare away by looking into his mind and finding out that his violence is used to cover up the fact that he is secretly a cross-dresser. However, at one point, Harry harasses and injures Carol, and when Ted manipulates her dislocated shoulder into place, Liz arrives, after being raped by her boss, and mistakenly believes that Ted is a child molester. She is confronted by Ted's ability to tell her the truth about what she has been through, and how her behavior is affecting her relationship with her son, providing another reason that Ted must leave. That and the "low men" are closing in on him. Ted is eventually captured with the help of a tip from Liz. As some form of closure, Ted yells to Bobby as he is being driven away that he wouldn't have missed a moment "not for all the world", and later Bobby mirrors the same feelings. Bobby is later confronted by Harry but Bobby grabs the latter's baseball bat and beats him with it. Liz later finds a new job in Boston and moves the family there. Before he leaves, Bobby and Carol say their goodbyes and share a final kiss. Returning to the present, Bobby turns to leave his old home wherein he meets a young girl named Molly. The two strike up a conversation wherein Molly reveals that she is Carol's daughter and that Carol died in recent years. Bobby gives Molly a photograph of a young Carol and the two become friends. ===== Helen Quilley (Gwyneth Paltrow) gets fired from her public relations job. As she leaves the office building, she drops an earring in the lift and a man picks it up for her. She rushes for her train on the London Underground but just misses it as the train doors close; but the film then rewinds and the scene is replayed, except that now she just manages to board the train. The film continues, alternating between the two storylines in which different events ensue (but with occasional intersections of the two). In the storyline in which she boards the train, Helen sits alongside James (John Hannah) (the man in the lift) on the Underground and they strike up a conversation. She gets home to catch her boyfriend, Gerry (John Lynch), in bed with his American ex-girlfriend, Lydia (Jeanne Tripplehorn). Helen leaves him and moves in with her friend Anna (Zara Turner), and, at Anna's suggestion, she changes her hairstyle to make a fresh start. James continues to serendipitously pop into Helen's life, cheering her up and encouraging her to start her own public relations firm. She and James fall in love despite her reservations about beginning another relationship so soon after her ugly breakup with Gerry. Eventually, Helen discovers that she is pregnant. Believing it is James' child, she goes to see him at his office. She is stunned to learn from James' secretary that he is married. James finds her on a bridge and explains that he was married but is now separated and planning a divorce, but he and his wife maintain the appearance of a happy marriage for the sake of his sick mother. After she and James declare their love, Helen walks out into the road and is hit by a van. In the storyline in which Helen misses the train, subsequent services are delayed, so she exits the station and hails a taxi. A man tries to snatch her handbag and injures her, so she goes to the hospital. She arrives home after Lydia has left and she remains oblivious to Gerry's infidelity. Unable to find another PR job, she takes two part-time jobs to pay the bills. Gerry continues to juggle the two women in his life. Lydia, wanting Gerry for herself, resorts to dropping clues to Helen of their affair. Helen suspects Gerry of infidelity but later discovers that she is pregnant. She receives a phone call, allegedly for a job interview with an international PR firm. She tells Gerry that news but does not manage to tell him of her pregnancy. Lydia calls Gerry to her apartment, apparently to break up. Thinking Helen is at her interview, Gerry goes to see Lydia. While at Lydia's, Gerry answers the doorbell and sees Helen standing at the door. Helen is stunned to see Gerry, and Lydia drops the news of her own pregnancy to both. Distraught, Helen runs off and falls down Lydia's staircase. In both storylines, Helen is taken to the hospital and loses her baby. Where she originally boarded the train and met her new-found love, James, she dies in his arms, right after he says he will make her very happy. Where Helen missed the train, she recovers and tells Gerry to leave for good. Then, as Helen enters the lift to leave the hospital after recovering, she drops an earring. As in their brief encounter at the beginning of the film, James picks up the earring and gives it to her, and then he begins the same cheer-up joke as when they first met in the other storyline. But this time Helen correctly quotes the punch line, and they turn and look at each other. ===== A Generation is set in Wola, a working-class section of Warsaw, in 1942 and tells the stories of two young men at odds with the German occupation of Poland. The young protagonist, Stach (Tadeusz Łomnicki), is living in squalor on the outskirts of the city and carrying out wayward acts of theft and rebellion. After a friend is killed attempting to heist coal from a German supply train, he finds work as an apprentice at a furniture workshop, where he becomes involved in an underground communist resistance cell. He is guided first by a friendly journeyman there, who in turn introduces Stach to the beautiful Dorota (Urszula Modrzyńska). An outsider, Jasio Krone (Tadeusz Janczar), the temperamental son of an elderly veteran, is initially reluctant to join the struggle but finally commits himself, running relief operations in the Jewish ghetto during the uprising there. ===== Rahul and Nisha are members of a massive dance troupe that performs dance-based musical plays. They are the best of friends, although Nisha is secretly in love with Rahul. Rahul announces his desire to direct a musical named Maya. The members of the troupe, including Nisha, have their doubts about the title character, "Maya", who Rahul describes as a girl who believes in true love and waiting for her prince charming who will surely turn up and take her away. Meanwhile, Pooja is introduced, an amazing dancer, classically trained as well, and passionate about dancing. Having been orphaned at a young age, she has been raised by close friends of her parents. Pooja and Rahul have a string of near-misses as they run into each other time and again. Each of these instances is marked by a tune playing in the background, that registers with Pooja. During rehearsals for the play, Nisha injures her leg and the doctor says she cannot dance for a few months. Rahul needs a new woman to play the lead role in the play. He comes across Pooja dancing one day and believes she is perfect for the role. He begs her to come to their rehearsals and she agrees. Rahul and Pooja become close friends. Doted upon by her foster family, Pooja is soon taken to Germany by her guardian's son Ajay, her childhood best friend who has been in London for months. Just as Ajay leaves to fly to London, he proposes to Pooja. In a dilemma, she ends up accepting it. Nisha soon returns from the hospital and is upset that she has been replaced. Upon learning that Rahul loves Pooja, she becomes very jealous of her. Knowing that Rahul does not reciprocate her love, she decides to leave for London. Throughout rehearsals, Rahul and Pooja find themselves falling for one another. When Rahul drops Pooja home one day, he starts whistling his tune, making Pooja realize that she has fallen for the man with the tune she so often heard. The next day, the two go to meet Pooja's old dance tutor, who Pooja addresses as Tai, who figures that the two are blatantly in love. At the wedding of two members of the dance troupe, Rahul and Pooja share an intimate moment but are unsure how to fully express their love. A few days before the premiere, Ajay arrives at the rehearsal hall to surprise Pooja while telling everyone that he is her fiancé. Rahul is heartbroken but tries not to show it. Nisha, who has returned, notices Rahul's devastation and explains how she too was devastated when he did not love her in return. Rahul edits the end of the play to reflect his heartbreak, in contrast to his usual style of always giving a happy ending. On the night of the premiere, as Rahul and Pooja's characters are about to break up on stage, Ajay plays a recorded tape Pooja was going to send him before his proposal where she described how she felt about Rahul. Ajay is indirectly telling Pooja that she and Rahul are meant to be together. Pooja now realizes she truly loves Rahul and the two confess their love on stage as the audience applauds them, giving the play a happy ending once again. Also, backstage, Ajay ends up asking Nisha whether she is already married or not (implying him getting interested in her). ===== Set in the Wild West in the year 1879, a slick gambler named Russell Donovan (Bill Bixby) comes to the town of Quake City en route to New Orleans. In Quake City, Donovan meets his old associate, John Whintle. Whintle is leaving for San Francisco that night and asks Donovan to sign for valuables coming in on tomorrow’s stagecoach. Donovan accepts a down payment and promises to pick up the valuables. The next day, Donovan realizes he has been duped into taking care of three little orphans, Bobby, Clovis, and Celia Bradley. The stagecoach driver Magnolia “Dusty” Clydesdale (Susan Clark) explains that Whintle is in fact the children’s relative and their de facto legal guardian. With their relative gone and Donovan promising to care for the “valuables”, they are now wards of Donovan. The town's sheriff, barber, Justice of the Peace, and judge Homer McCoy (Harry Morgan) tells Donovan that he is legally obligated unless he can have someone else take custody of the children. The children inadvertently cause Donovan much grief by offending all prospective new guardians. The Bradleys wreak havoc in Quake City while riding in an old mine cart destroying much private property. The town’s citizens demand that Donovan pay for the damages, losing him most of his funds for his trip to New Orleans. As soon as Donovan arrived in Quake City, he is the target of the “Hashknife Outfit”. The Outfit consists of two ne’er do well former members of the Stillwell Gang, Amos Tucker (Tim Conway) and Theodore Ogelvie (Don Knotts). They were once very threatening, until they were ousted by their former boss, Frank Stillwell (Slim Pickens), for shooting him in the leg. Amos and Theodore continuously try to rob Donovan during his stay in town to miserable results. Bobby, Clovis, and Celia decide to help their guardian make money by going to the gold mine that they inherited. They come across Amos and Theodore at their hideout and become acquainted. They direct the kids to the mine after mistaking them for a posse. Despite the gold veins drying up years previously, the Bradley children end up finding a massive gold nugget. This incentivizes many people to adopt the children as it would give them access to the gold. Fearing that the people would not have the children's best interests at heart, Donovan has arranged a sham marriage with Dusty so she can keep custody of the Bradley children while he goes to New Orleans. However, things become complicated when Whintle returns. Whintle has heard of the gold and schemes to get the children back. His attorney has a court order demanding immediate return of the Bradleys. McCoy is forced to adhere to Whintle’s demands. At the same time, Amos and Theodore attempt to steal the Bradleys' gold from the local bank and escape to Mexico. The Hashknife Outfit proves unsuccessful when they try to enter the skylight and wrap themselves up in their rope used for rapelling down. McCoy finds them guilty and orders arrest warrants for them, causing the two to retreat to their hideout. The Stillwell Gang enters town and plans to steal the nugget. Frank impersonates a priest to gain more information about the transportation of the gold from Colonel T. R. Clydesdale (David Wayne). The children, who have grown attached to Donovan and Dusty, go to Theodore and Amos and allow them to steal the gold. If the gold goes missing, Whintle will have no more desire for the children and will return custody. The next day, the Stillwell Gang enters the bank and takes the nugget. Simultaneously, the kids help the Hashknife Outfit rob the bank. Amos and Theodore are recognized by Frank and are almost killed. They are saved when one of the Stillwell Gang starts a shootout with the lawmen and distracts Frank. Frank decides to leave the gold and escape, taking Celia as a hostage. Donovan saves her from Stillwell with the help of Dusty and they realize their love for one another and embrace. Amos and Theodore retreat to the bank’s safe to escape gunfire. Their unstable dynamite is shot, obliterating the bank and the gold nugget gets blown into many smaller nuggets. Whintle renounces his guardianship and leaves town. Stillwell’s bounty is awarded to Donovan, giving him enough money for New Orleans. He instead buys a ranch for himself, Dusty, and the Bradley children. While on their way to the ranch, a reformed Amos and Theodore catch up with the newfound family asking for work as farmhands, to which Donovan agrees. ===== Ida lives hard and fast with too much drinking and a string of boyfriends, Sandor has very few friends and his mother insists that he practice ballet. They meet in a chat room and despite appearances they discover they have much in common. Sandor and Ida lives in different cities and when Sandor unexpectedly visits her it ends with that Sandor feels betrayed because Ida had gossiped about Sandor to her friends, which they in a drug-induced state reveals to him. Sandor tells Ida he never wants to see her again, and returns home. After Ida's mother overdoses a few weeks later, Ida calls Sandor for consolidation and comes to visit him. Ida and Sandor again start an argument, because Ida feels mistreated by Sandors mother, and goes home again. Later she visits Sandor on his premiere ballet performance, they become reconciled, and presumably go on to live happily ever after. ===== Canada in 1870, after Manitoba (square in lower centre) was admitted into Confederation following the Red River Rebellion The government of the new Dominion of Canada (established 1867), under Prime Minister John A. Macdonald, has made a deal with the Hudson's Bay Company to purchase Rupert's Land—vast tracts of land in northern North America. The French-speaking Métis—people who are half Native, half white, and inhabit parts of Rupert's Land—dispute that their land can be sold to the Canadians without their consent. In the Red River settlement, the Métis, led by Louis Riel, dodge political manoeuverings on the part of Lieutenant Governor William McDougall and some of the English-speaking settlers, while seizing Fort Garry. After an armed standoff at English-speaking settler John Schultz's home, the Métis declare a provisional government and vote Riel their president, with an even number of French and English representatives. Schultz escapes from prison and rounds up a number of men with the intention of freeing the prisoners from Fort Garry, but when Riel lets the prisoners go, Schultz's men set out for home. On the way, a number of them pass Fort Garry, where they are captured and imprisoned. One of the prisoners, Thomas Scott, relentlessly quarrels with the guards, showering them with racial epithets. Eventually, the provisional government convicts him of treason and executes him by firing squad. The remaining prisoners are released, and the provisional government enters into negotiations with Ottawa, which results in the founding of the province of Manitoba. They are unable to get an amnesty for the execution of Scott, however. The Canadian army arrives, ostensibly to keep the peace. Riel flees to the U.S., and the anglophone population assumes governance. Schultz takes control of Manitoba, and the government of Ontario offers a cash reward for Riel's capture, dead or alive. Macdonald secretly sends Riel money to disappear, as his death would lose him votes in Quebec but allowing him to live would cost him votes in English Canada. Riel flees from town to town in the U.S. as bounty hunters try to track him down. In 1873, he returns to the Manitoba and wins a seat in the federal Parliament in a by- election. He fears actually sitting in parliament because there is still a bounty on his head, and continues to live in hiding. In 1874, he wins his seat again. Schultz wins a seat in the settlement as well, however, and Alexander Mackenzie has become Prime Minister, running on promises not to grant the rebels an amnesty. Riel is expelled from Parliament for failing to sit, but wins his seat again in the next by-election. The frustrated government finally extends an amnesty to the rebels—all except Riel, whose amnesty is conditional on a five-year banishment from Canada. During his exile, he has a visionary experience on a hilltop in Washington, D.C., in which God names him David, the Prophet of the New World, and tells him to lead the Métis to freedom. In 1876, Riel is secretly committed by a friend to a lunatic asylum near Montréal under a false name. Contemporary print of the Battle of Batoche, on which Brown based the cover to Louis Riel 8 Over the next several years, the Métis, unhappy with the Canadian government's handling of their land rights, move farther west across the Prairies. There as well, they see their petitions to the government repeatedly ignored and their rights trampled on. Finally, after being ignored for too long, the Métis search for Riel in Montana, in the hope that his return will force the Canadians to take their claims seriously. He is reluctant at first, as he has started a family and settled down as a schoolmaster. In the hopes that he will get money from the Canadian government for his tenure administering the Red River settlement (by this time known as Winnipeg), he moves his family to Batoche (now in Saskatchewan) in mid-1884. Macdonald has returned to the prime ministership and conspires with George Stephen, president of the financially burdened Canadian Pacific Railway, to use the situation to gain support for finishing the railway. By inciting a violent revolt amongst the Métis, the government can justify funding the railway to move troops to the Prairies. The Métis under Riel respond with arms as intended. Riel declares "Rome has fallen!" and breaks from the Catholic Church. He breathes the Holy Spirit into his followers, thereafter known as the Exovedate. Tensions build until the bloodshed at the Battle of Duck Lake, where Riel and his followers drive back the North-West Mounted Police. Macdonald takes this as a cue to send two thousand troops to the area. At the Battle of Fish Creek, the outnumbered Métis manage to drive back the Canadians, but at the Battle of Batoche, while Riel is increasingly immersed in religious activities, the Métis finally suffer defeat. In the hope that his trial will provide an opportunity to get the Métis' story to the public, Riel surrenders instead of fleeing. In July 1885, Riel is put on trial in Regina for his role as leader in the North-West Rebellion. Against his will, Riel's lawyer tries unsuccessfully to defend him on grounds of insanity. He is found guilty of high treason. Though the jury pleads for mercy, he is sentenced to hang. In response to the pleas of Quebeckers to pardon Riel, Macdonald responds, "He shall hang though every dog in Quebec bark in his favour". After reconciling himself with the Church, Riel is hanged in Regina on 16 November 1885. In the aftermath, the remaining rebels receive a pardon, Macdonald and Stephen continue in their success, and Riel's wife dies. ===== The tiger recounts his story of capture by a circus owner, but he never tried to escape. He lived freely in the wild jungles of India in his youth. He mates and has a litter with a tigress, and raises a litter until one day he finds that hunters have captured and killed his entire family. He exacts revenge by attacking and eating the cattle and livestock of nearby villages, but is captured by poachers. He is sent to a circus in Malgudi, where a harsh animal trainer known only as "the Captain" starves him and forces him to do tricks in the circus. He lives in captivity successfully for some time, but eventually his wild instincts overcome him and he mauls and kills the Captain. After an extended rampage though town, he is recaptured, but this time voluntarily by a monk/renunciant with whom he befriends and finds peace on the hills. The monk, called the Master, later realizing his own days are coming to an end, donates the elderly tiger to the local zoo, where he is cared for, admired by onlookers, and passes his days. He is looked at by many children and realizes that he is done something to make humans happy. Category:1983 novels Category:Novels by R. K. Narayan Category:Books about tigers Category:Novels set in India Category:Viking Press books Category:Heinemann (publisher) books Category:1983 Indian novels ===== The game's plot is loosely based on that of JK Rowling's 1999 novel of the same name, and the film adaptation. The games follows Harry Potter (voiced by Tom Attenborough and Harry Robinson) along with Ron Weasley (voiced by Gregg Chillin) and Hermione Granger (voiced by Harper Marshall) as they return to Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Prisoner Sirius Black has escaped the wizard prison Azkaban, and is supposedly ready to attack Harry in Hogwarts. The game begins on the Hogwarts Express, ignoring the events at Harry's home. Upon reaching Hogwarts, the trio follow the events of the novel, and learn magic by attending classes. The spells that can be learned include carpe retractum, a spell that allows an object to be pulled towards the caster, or the caster be pulled towards the object; Steleus, a spell that causes sneezing and expecto patronum, a spell to defend against dementors. Using their skills, the trio, along with Remus Lupin investigate Black. Finding that Black is innocent of all crimes, and looking out for Harry, the team defend Black from a horde of dementors, allowing him to escape. ===== When the novel opens, a pedophile and child murderer – identified only as "Chappy" – has been in prison for 23 years. (He narrates most of the novel, including accounts of his treatment by his unstable, emotionally and sexually abusive mother.) Now in his 50s and with a parole hearing approaching, Chappy tells of receiving a letter from an unnamed 19-year-old girl who takes a morbid interest in his case. She tells him that she is on summer holiday from college and plans to seduce a 12-year- old boy named Matthew, who lives in her neighborhood. As the girl corresponds with Chappy, he recounts his past, contrasting events in his life with the explicit details given by the girl of how she seduces Matthew. The boy is portrayed as typical, with many of the unattractive habits a 12-year-old can have, plus a few uniquely disgusting ones. Chappy encourages the girl, and she soon accomplishes her goal. First she gives Matthew tennis lessons. On another occasion, while caring for him as a sitter, she strips naked and gives him a quick hands-on lesson in feminine biology. The pair soon have sex and continue to do so on regular occasions. Chappy eagerly reads the girl's letters as she describes her successes. He berates her for her poor grammar and for her liberal use of exclamation points. He recounts several scenes of prison sex. During the novel, Chappy refers frequently to "Alice," his 12-year-old victim, with whom he had a sexual relationship. He provides more details about the girl only toward the end of the book. At the very end of the story, during his parole hearing, it is revealed that the convict brutally murdered and decapitated the girl after they argued. She blamed him for bleeding; it was the start of her period. He tried to explain to her what was happening to her, but she kept threatening to kill him, and he finally overpowered her. The girl's "relationship" with Matthew ends when she goes to Europe for an end-of- summer trip. While traveling, she receives a letter from her parents, who have found a letter from the narrator and know what she has done; they write that she will need to "see someone" when she returns home. ===== Rubeus Hagrid, a mysterious giant, leaves an orphaned Harry Potter, whose parents were murdered by the evil Lord Voldemort, on the front door step of his bullying relatives, The Dursleys. For ten years, Harry has lived with the Dursleys, not knowing that he is a wizard, and famous in the wizarding world for being the only one to survive the attacks of Voldemort, whose name no one dares to say. Harry receives a letter inviting him to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and is told who he really is. After buying his school supplies, at Diagon Alley, he boards the Hogwarts Express on platform 9¾ with the other students. Once they arrive at Hogwarts, the students are sorted into houses: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. It is explained that if a student does a good thing or a bad thing, "points" will be added or deducted from their "House Points". This is important, as the House with the most points will win the House Cup at the end of the year. Harry is sorted into Gryffindor, after pleading with the Sorting Hat, a talking witch's hat, not to place him in Slytherin, notorious for being the house of darker witches and wizards, as well as Lord Voldemort. Once sorted, Harry meets Ron Weasley, a poor boy from a large, pure-blood, wizarding family and Hermione Granger, a witch born to Muggle parents. At school, Harry begins his training as a wizard and learns more about his past. After retrieving a remembrall while riding on a broomstick, for his classmate Neville Longbottom, Harry is appointed seeker of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Tricked by Slytherin, Draco Malfoy, Harry, Ron and Hermione, accidentally come across a huge three-headed dog on a restricted floor of the castle. After escaping they realise the dog was standing on a trap door which is guarding the Philosopher's Stone, a magical object which grants the user immortality. When Harry is almost killed during a game of Quidditch, by what appeared to be Professor Snape uttering a curse at him, Harry concludes that he is after the Philosopher's Stone. Harry, Ron and Hermione set out to stop Snape from retrieving the Philosopher's Stone by putting the three-headed dog to sleep with music and going through the trapdoor. The three face a series of obstacles that protect the stone which includes surviving a deadly plant, catching a flying key, playing a life-sized game of Wizards Chess and choosing the correct potion to get through a magical fire. Harry, now alone, expects to face Snape but instead finds Professor Quirrell, the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Quirrell removes his turban and reveals that Voldemort was living on the back of his head. Harry retrieves the stone and Voldemort tries to get it from him but touching him burns Quirrell's skin. Harry passes out from the struggle of the battle. He awakens in the school's hospital wing with Professor Dumbledore, the headmaster, by his side. Dumbledore explains that the stone has been destroyed but it wouldn't stop Voldemort from returning. He reassures Harry that if their battles did no more than slow Voldemort's return then he may never come back. During the end-of-year feast, Gryffindor wins the House Cup. Harry sees it as the best evening of his life and one that he will never forget. ===== The Fifth Doctor and Nyssa are arrested on a planet generations after an ecological disaster that has led to disfiguring mutations. ===== The novel comprises two phases in the same space that are separated by 220 years of time. Its central conceit is that Humans evolved from the juvenile stage of the Pak, a species with a distinct adult form ("protectors") that has immense strength and intelligence and cares only about younger Pak of their bloodline. A key plot point is that transition to the protector stage is mediated by consumption of the root of a particular plant called Tree-of-Life, which cannot be effectively cultivated on Earth. The first half of the book follows the path of a Pak named Phssthpok who has travelled from the Pak homeworld in search of a colony of Pak in the distant system of Sol (our solar system). Upon his arrival, he captures a Belter (a worker from the asteroid belt) named Jack Brennan, who is infected by Phssthpok's store of tree-of-life root and is transformed into a protector (or at least a Human variant). They land on Mars where Brennan kills Phssthpok and is rescued by two Humans, Nick Sohl and Lucas Garner, who had set out to meet the alien. The first half of the novel ends with Brennan telling his story to the Humans before he heads for the outer reaches of the solar system. The second half of the book follows the path of a Human named Roy Truesdale who has been abducted with no memory of the event. While searching for his abductor, he befriends a Belter named Alice Jordan who helps him figure out that the man he has sought is none other than Jack Brennan. Truesdale and Jordan find Brennan in the outer solar system on a fabricated world of Brennan's design called Kobold. Brennan discovers that a Pak invasion fleet is headed towards human space and takes Truesdale to a Human outpost colony called Home in an effort to divert attention away from Earth. During their journey they battle with scout ships from the Pak fleet. Brennan and Truesdale arrive at Home only to have Truesdale realize that Brennan plans to convert the colony into a defensive Human Protector army. Truesdale kills Brennan and lands on Home, but is himself infected with a mutated strain of the Tree-of- Life virus that quickly spreads to a number of other colonists, thus carrying out Brennan's plan despite Truesdale's initial attempts to thwart it. Upon his conversion to protector form, Truesdale immediately comes to view Brennan's plan as necessary and completes it by breaking out of hospital confinement and infecting the entire population of Home. The modified virus either kills or converts the remaining inhabitants, resulting in an army of childless protectors. The new protectors think that they absolutely must act quickly to save the rest of Humanity, and start preparing for battle with the Pak invasion fleet. As an aside, it is mentioned that during his sojourn in the outer solar system Brennan had engineered a genocide on Mars, sending a large ice asteroid to crash into the planet in order to raise the water content of its atmosphere. Water is lethal to the Martians' metabolism, thus this effectively wiped out the species. This incident serves to underscore the Pak Protectors' inherent xenophobia and utter ruthlessness in pursuing their ultimate goal of protecting their descendants. The events which impelled Brennan to this action are those narrated in How the Heroes Die and At the Bottom of a Hole, two short 1966 stories which Niven originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction and later collected in Inconstant Moon. As depicted in these stories, there were two incidents in which Martians killed some humans who landed on their world, after which humans just left Mars alone. In the mind of the Protector Brennan - committed to defending humans and having no consideration whatever for others - that was sufficient reason to exterminate the entire species. ===== The plot concerns an American astronaut, Frank Douglas, who mysteriously disappears from his spacecraft as it parachutes to Earth. The policemen in one scene inspect the landing site of Douglas's capsule and notices a burned patch, only to dismiss it as a prank. The vanished astronaut is apparently replaced by or turned into a large, radioactive, humanoid monster. This is revealed when it comes into the scene and kills off Dr. Logan. A team of scientists and military men also attempts to capture the monster – and at one point succeed and imprison it in the lab, only to have it escape. Neither the capture nor the escape is ever shown, and both are simply mentioned by the narrator. At the end of the film, the scientists corner the monster in a sewer under Chicago, but the monster suddenly disappears. The scientists receive a telegram stating that Douglas is in fact alive and well, having been rescued in the North Atlantic, perhaps implying the monster was an alien impersonating Douglas. The narrator provides the film's closing dialogue: ===== At a sushi bar Homer orders sushi made from fugu, a deadly venomous pufferfish. While the master chef is making out with Edna Krabappel behind the restaurant, an apprentice prepares the fish to remove its toxic organs. After Homer swallows the sushi, the waiter Akira warns him he may have been poisoned. At the hospital Dr. Hibbert informs Homer and Marge that Homer likely has only 22 hours to live. That night Homer tells Marge he will refrain from telling Bart and Lisa the bad news. He makes a list of things he wants to do before he dies. After oversleeping on his last day, Homer attempts to tackle the things on his list. He has a man-to-man talk with Bart, listens to Lisa play her saxophone, and borrows Ned's camcorder to make a video of himself for Maggie to watch when she is older. Homer reconciles with his father, Abe, which takes up far more time than he expects and forces him to skip some of the other things on his list. When arrested for speeding, Homer demands officers Lou and Eddie write him a ticket, thinking he will avoid the fine by dying. The officers are rankled by Homer's snarky attitude and throw him in a police cell. After Barney posts his bail, Homer insults his boss, Mr. Burns, and has a last drink at Moe's Tavern, causing him to miss dinner with his family. He hurries home in time to say goodbye to his children and "snuggle" with Marge. At midnight, Homer quietly leaves his bed and bids each family member goodbye while they sleep. He sits glumly in the living room listening to Larry King read the Bible on tape. The tape plays out, his head drops, and it appears he has succumbed to the toxin. The next morning Marge is panicked that Homer is not by her side. She finds him collapsed in the armchair, realizes that his drool is still warm, and wakes him to joyfully inform him he is still alive. Homer celebrates and vows to live life to its fullest. He resumes his life, watching a televised bowling tournament while eating pork rinds. ===== A shallow, happy-go-lucky advertising yuppie David Basner, who recently got a promotion at his Chicago ad agency, returns to work from a vacation. He is carefree, until his parents split up after 36 years of marriage. It soon becomes apparent that he must care for his aging, bitter father Max, as well as support his emotionally fragile mother Lorraine, especially since his father has also just been fired from his 35-year career in the garment industry. Although his ex-girlfriend, Donna, is sympathetic, she also tells him he needs to "grow up," but David fears that if he tried to be less child- like, his advertising work could be adversely affected. At work, David is developing a commercial for Colonial Airlines, owned by the rich and bullish Andrew Woolridge. A successful ad campaign would likely gain David a promotion to partner in his company. David develops a relationship with Woolridge's daughter, Cheryl Ann Wayne. His father is well aware of David's playboy nature. Asking at one point whether his son is in bed with a woman, Max adds: "Anybody you know?" The parents separately each begin to rely more on David, frequently calling him on the phone. His mother needs help moving to a new apartment. His father needs to be driven to an eye doctor. Late one night, David's mother calls to be rescued from a bar after going out on a date, having become frightened when the man tried to kiss her goodnight. At the bar, David's mother confides that his father Max had cheated on her and humiliated her in their marriage. An enraged David goes to confront Max. Their argument ends with David saying: "Tomorrow I'm shooting a commercial about a family who loves each other, who cares about each other. I'm fakin' it." The next day, David is distracted by his problems with his father, affecting his work. As a peace offering, David offers to take Max to a nightclub to hear some of his favorite, jazz music. While there, David accidentally discovers that his father has been dealing with diabetes and his foot has gangrene. Max must have surgery. Beforehand, he and Lorraine share thoughts about their life together, and she condemns him for his treatment of her. Alone, Max sobs in regret. At the agency, Andrew Woolridge insists that David accompany him to New York to promote the new ad campaign for his airline. David refuses, saying he wants to be with his father, who is scheduled for surgery. After Woolridge complains and slaps David on his arm, David loses his temper with this important client, and loses the account. The next day, David accompanies his dad to the operating room. His boss Charlie is sympathetic, relating an experience as a son dealing with an aging father, and assures David that he will personally smooth things over with Woolridge, so David can take time to be with his father. Max has two toes amputated. When he goes home from the hospital, David pushes his wheelchair. Max tells him: "You were the last person I thought would ever come through for me." Later, David returns to his job and gets to show Max what his work is about. ===== The book tells the story of a murder trial in Rome in 1698, whereby an impoverished nobleman, Count Guido Franceschini, is found guilty of the murders of his young wife Pompilia (Comparini) and her parents, having suspected his wife was having an affair with a young cleric, Giuseppe Caponsacchi. Having been found guilty despite his protests and sentenced to death, Guido then appeals—unsuccessfully—to Pope Innocent XII to overturn the conviction. The poem comprises twelve books, ten of which are dramatic monologues spoken by different characters involved in the case (Count Guido speaks twice), usually giving a different account of the same events, and two books (the first and the last) spoken by the author. ===== The game begins with a Navy SEAL team deploying on a Russian whaler, the Eastern Spirit, in the Bering Strait. As the team explore the deck, they are attacked and killed by unseen beings that literally rips them apart. Seeing his team is gone, CIA Special Agent Jason Bennett, who is supervising the mission from another location, orders any other government vessel in the vicinity to investigate. His call is picked up by the US Coast Guard ship, the USCGC Ravenswood, which heads to the Eastern Spirit. The crew of the Ravenswood split into teams, but within moments of boarding, only one remains; Tom Hansen, a former U.S. Army Special Forces soldier, currently serving in the United States Coast Guard, who hears his shipmates being killed over the radio. He sets out to explore the ship and determine what is happening. As soon as he enters the interior of the Spirit, however, he is attacked by two frightened Russians, who he is forced to kill. As he continues to explore, he encounters a multitude of panicking Russians, all of whom attack him. He also finds several horrifically mutilated bodies, including that of the Ravenswoods captain, Lt. Lansing. Hansen soon learns of a creature known as an "exocel", which was accidentally discovered by the crew of a Russian oil rig, the Star of Sakhalin, owned by Colonel Dmitriy Yusupov, a member of the Russian mafia, and staffed by Major Yuri Anischenko and his team of mercenaries. Yusupov came to realize the exocels were parasitic organisms, which used other living organisms as hosts, and as such, he brought Dr. Viktor Kamsky to the Sakhalin to begin experimenting with infecting various species with exocel serum. These experiments led to the discovery that exocels could re-animate recently deceased humans, and the creation of an antidote to counter infection. Hansen heads to the radio room to request help, but instead he is answered by Bennett, who tells him that Yusupov is on board and must be captured for questioning. Bennett tells Hansen that if he finds Yusupov, the CIA will get him off the ship. Hansen locates Yusupov, who tells him that Anna Kamsky, Viktor's daughter, is onboard and must be saved. Yusupov had brought her to Sakhalin to blackmail Viktor into turning the exocels into biological weapons. Eventually, Viktor and his colleague, Dr. Pavel Bakharev, began to experiment on live human infection, and the Eastern Spirit was on its way from the Sakhalin to collect the next batch of human specimens supplied by the Mafia when the exocel outbreak occurred. An exocel then bursts out of Yusupov's chest, killing him. Hansen finds Anna, who tells them they must go to the radio room and contact her father. They contact the rig, but Bakharev tells Anna that Kamsky is missing and pleads with her not to return. She says no, telling Bakharev she will see him soon. They turn the ship back towards the Sakhalin but because the seas are so rough, they are unable to dock with the platform. As such, they head to the crow's nest and jump from the ship when it collides with the rig. Hansen makes the jump, but Anna falls into the sea. Hansen soon finds Bakharev, who tells him that to disable the radio jammer around the rig so he can contact Bennett, he will need Anischenko to get him past a retinal scanner. Bakharev is then dragged into an air duct and killed. Hansen learns that Kamsky and Bakharev were under orders to make the exocels as dangerous as possible, which they had succeeded in doing, but without any way to control the resulting creatures. Hansen finds and kills Anischenko, removing his eye and using it to deactivate the radio jammer. Once back in touch with Bennett, Hansen is told he must find Kamsky's laptop and transmit the exocel research. Meanwhile, Anna is rescued from the sea by a large creature and left in a lab, where she is infected by an exocel. Seeing this take place on a security monitor, Hansen races to the lab to give Anna the antidote. He makes it to her in time and administers the antidote before the infection can take hold. Bennett then contacts him and Hansen makes him promise that if he gives Bennett the research, Bennett will save Anna. He soon discovers that Kamsky infected himself with a strain of exocel DNA, and now wishes to do the same to Anna. Hansen finds Kamsky's laptop and transmits the antidote data to Bennett, but nothing else. As a furious Bennett berates Hansen, he and Anna agree to blow up the rig using C4. As Hansen plants the charges, he learns Kamsky had gone completely insane; after infecting himself with exocel serum, he released the imprisoned exos on the rig and planted a group of exocels on the Eastern Spirit. He then went into hiding to await his metamorphosis. When Hansen has planted all of the charges, he heads to the heliport to meet Anna. Before they can take off however, they are attacked by a mutated Kamsky; the same creature who rescued Anna from the sea. Kamsky is desperate for Anna to remain with him on the rig, but Hansen is able to fight him off and kill him. He and Anna then escape in a helicopter as the rig explodes below them. ===== In Spring City, Pearl Penalosa is one of several superheroes. Most superheroes, including Pearl, have public identities and are treated like celebrities. They have agents, product endorsements, and a bureaucracy that schedules their working shifts to ensure proper coverage. Because she has been single for five years after a public relationship with popular superhero Captain Steel, she has been adopted as a model of abstinence. Partly because of this image, Pearl has been nominated for "Best Heroine of the Year" in the 77th annual Superhero Awards. On Thursday night, one week before the award ceremony, Pearl is out with her friends and fellow superheroes Olivia Arancina and Jennifer Janus. At Olivia’s insistence, the three women visit a fortune teller who tells them that within seven days, Jennifer will "receive what she has given" and Pearl will “find true love". The final prediction excites Olivia and Jennifer, but Pearl dismisses it as a scam.Ultra #1 (August 2004) (w)Joshua Luna (a)Jonathan Luna (p)Image Comics Pearl decides her fortune was real after a man in a restaurant gives her his phone number. Her friends help her to dress sexy for the event, which causes Pearl particular embarrassment when the paparazzi find them and begin taking pictures. Pearl and her date escape to his apartment, where they have sex.Ultra #2 (September 2004) (w)Joshua Luna (a)Jonathan Luna (p)Image Comics She begins telling her friends that she is in love. When she returns to work, she learns that while she was sleeping after sex, her date took several selfies with her and sold them, along with his story of what happened, to a tabloid.Ultra #3 (October 2004) (w)Joshua Luna (a)Jonathan Luna (p)Image Comics When Pearl is called to assist with an attack by a super villain, she is unable to prevent the death of several police officers. Distraught, Pearl seeks solitude, but Jennifer finds her and tries to lift her spirits. Jennifer reminds Pearl about her own fortune, and claims that their two fortunes are related. Jennifer reveals her romantic feelings for Pearl and kisses her. Pearl is too shocked to respond.Ultra #4 (November 2004) (w)Joshua Luna (a)Jonathan Luna (p)Image Comics Pearl receives an emergency call when another super villain attacks. During the fight, Pearl sees Olivia caught in an explosion. Believing her friend dead, Pearl attacks the villain directly and suffers serious burns to her hands and face. She faints after she subdues him.Ultra #5 (December 2004) (w)Joshua Luna (a)Jonathan Luna (p)Image Comics She awakens in a hospital and finds herself healed except for her hair.Ultra #6 (January 2005) (w)Joshua Luna (a)Jonathan Luna (p)Image Comics Despite the terrible attack, Pearl learns the Superhero Awards will still proceed as planned. When she arrives, she is booed by the crowd and mocked for her "new haircut". One member of the audience defends her and shames the crowd for its behavior. As Pearl enters the ceremony, the crowd has begun chanting her name, but the award she was nominated for goes to Jennifer. At the after party, Jennifer tells Pearl that this award must have been her fortune. Pearl returns to her penthouse apartment. She is visited by Captain Steel, who says he has been thinking about her recently and regrets their breakup. When he says that he still loves her and would like to have a relationship with her again, Pearl declines.Ultra #7 (January 2005) (w)Joshua Luna (a)Jonathan Luna (p)Image Comics The next night, she goes to a nightclub with Olivia and Jennifer. They have fun joking about the fortunes, and Pearl admits she is a little sad hers did not come true. Pearl goes to a coffee house and cries when the fortune's deadline passes without anyone talking to her. Friday morning, Pearl is leaving for work when she meets a man who is about to knock on her door. He says he works at the coffee house she visited, and that she left her wallet behind. After a conversation, Pearl and the man arrange a date.Ultra #8 (March 2005) (w)Joshua Luna (a)Jonathan Luna (p)Image Comics ===== In-su and Seo-young meet in a hospital after their respective spouses were both seriously injured in an accident while traveling in the same car. This leads them to discover that their spouses had been having an affair. As In-su and Seo-young stay at the same motel near the hospital to care for their comatose partners, they grow closer while sharing their grief, anger and fear for their loved ones' recovery. Gradually, they find themselves falling in love with each other. But when In-su's wife Su-jin regains consciousness, she tells him that she regrets her past actions, forcing him to make a decision. ===== Reiji Ozora is a chronic quitter who never completes what's assigned or handed to him, but one day Maiko, his closest friend, walks him to a local arcade where the latest game craze is happening: Dragon Drive. After meeting Chibi, a seemingly meek dragon, Reiji wants to make himself and Chibi stronger. To obtain this strength, both are taken to a secret training room in the "D-Zone", the same room Maiko and Daisuke snuck in earlier upon seeing a strange dragon appearing in the sky. The dragon suddenly absorbs them into another Earth known as Rikyu, where they meet Meguru, a girl who was also transported to Rikyu. There, the elder of the village reveals the intentions RI-ON, the group behind Dragon Drive, have trying to obtain the Jinryuuseki stone, which grants its welder the power to control all dragons in Rikyu. RI- ON conspires the children to be used as their soldiers. Should they succeed, both Rikyu and Earth will be destroyed. This is where Chibi, who is actually the legendary dragon Senkoukura, the savior of Rikyu, and Reiji become important to both worlds. In order to protect both worlds, Reiji and Chibi must enter the Dragonic Heaven tournament, where RI-ON has already sent for an agent to enter, and win the Jinryuuseki stone. Remembering that Agent L is an employee of RI-ON, the one who helped him through his first few games, Reiji is polarized between both sides, believing the elder and Meguru's testimonies while skeptical of the alleged foul intentions of Agent L or the employees of RI-ON. In the end, he doesn't truly chose either side but instead resolves to fight in order to learn the truth about RI-ON, Rikyu and Dragon Drive. Several years later progress and Maiko's little brother, Takumi, receives severe warnings to never play Dragon Drive. One day while hiding from a storm, he obtains his first set of cards from a strange old man he meets. After receiving his cards, Takumi finds his new calling by showing strong determination and the mysterious ability to talk to dragons, forming a strong friendship with his strongest dragon Raikoo, as he works to help him gain his memories back. After a dream one night, Takumi discovers his dragon is one in ninety-nine special dragon cards, all of which are called Raikoo, that were given to certain players of the game called Raikoo masters. Soon a group going by the name of RI-IN enters the scene, and all the players, with the exception of the ones in the gaming stores vanish, leaving the world in ruins and dragons in their place. Left behind in this rapidly changing world, Takumi, Raikoo, and their new friends must rally the remaining Raikoo masters together in hopes of restoring Earth and bringing the people back. In order to save the world, Rikyu and Earth join to become one, and the dragons disappear completely to become spirits. Twenty-seven years later, the game resurfaces to a new audience while Reiji, Takumi, and their friends live out fruitful lives. ===== Roujin Z is set in early 21st-century Japan. A group of scientists and hospital administrators, under the direction of the Ministry of Public Welfare, have developed the Z-001: a computerized hospital bed with robotic features. The Z-001 takes complete care of the patient: it can dispense food and medicine, remove excretory waste, bathe and exercise the patient lying within its frame. The bed is driven by its own built-in nuclear power reactor—and in the event of an atomic meltdown, the bed (including the patient lying within) would become automatically sealed in concrete. The first patient to be "volunteered" to test the bed is an 87-year-old dying widower named Kiyuro Takazawa. He is an invalid who is cared for by a young nursing student named Haruko. The electronic elements within the Z-001 somehow manage to transcribe Takazawa's thoughts through Haruko's office computer, and he uses the communication to cry for help. Although she objects to such treatment of elderly patients, Haruko begrudgingly seeks the aid of a group of computer hackers in the hospital's geriatric ward to create and install a vocal simulation of Takazawa's deceased wife in the Z-001. However, once Takazawa wishes to go to the beach, the Z-001 detaches itself from its moorings and escapes from the hospital with the man in its grasp. Haruko's fears are then justified, as it is discovered that the bed is actually a government-designed, experimental weapons robot. ===== Theresa Jones (Zoe Saldana) takes her boyfriend, Simon Green (Ashton Kutcher) home to meet her parents on the occasion of her parents' 25th wedding anniversary, planning to reveal that they are engaged. However, what Theresa has also left out is that Simon is white. Her father, Percy (Bernie Mac), dislikes Simon almost immediately because of his race. Wishing to impress Percy, Simon lies to him about being on the NASCAR pit crew for Jeff Gordon, not realizing that Percy is one of his biggest fans. After catching Theresa and Simon in a compromising position, Percy tries to force Simon into a hotel, but all the hotels in town are booked. Instead, he allows Simon to sleep in his basement on the couch, where Percy also sleeps. With the help of his personal assistant Reggie (RonReaco Lee), Percy tries to dig up as much dirt on Simon as he can as well as creating the ideal Black boyfriend for Theresa instead of revealing her boyfriend is white. He manages to get Simon to reveal that he lied about being a NASCAR driver and also that he needs a $50,000 loan. Simon discovers Percy's lies just as Reggie reveals that Simon quit his job. Immediately, Percy goes to tell his daughter this new information, however Simon claims he wasn't fired and instead quit. Angry that he didn't tell her the truth, Theresa leaves while Percy's snooping and plagiarism of his vows temporarily strains his relationship with his wife, Marilyn (Judith Scott). The next morning Percy and Simon find the women to apologize, but while Marilyn and Percy reconcile, Simon and Theresa break up and he leaves. On the day of his anniversary, Theresa tells her father that she and Simon were going to get married. After wondering why a man planning to get married would quit his job, Percy realizes that Simon quit his job due to his boss' disapproval of interracial relationships. Percy goes after Simon and brings him back to Theresa where they get back together, then the festivities begin. ===== The player plays the part of an English aristocrat called Victor Meldrew. In the course of searching the attic for an old tourist map of Paris, Meldrew steps into a surreal adventure to uncover a centuries-old curse that has been placed on the family. The goal of the game is to find the missing map, and thus annul the curse. ===== Alfalfa's Aunt Penelope sends the Switzers a telegram that says that she's coming to visit. She has given up her pursuits of being a sculptor and has turned to writing murder mysteries. Just before Alfalfa's parents leave to attend a meeting that night, Penelope reads Alfalfa's father John a page of her story, which is written in the form of a letter: "Dear X, I have discovered that only my nephew stands between me and the Switzer millions! So like the others, he shall die in agony - tonight - at the stroke of nine!" After John and his wife Martha go out and leave Alfalfa in Penelope's care, Alfalfa stumbles upon the page that Penelope read to John. He becomes horrified, believing that his own aunt is plotting to murder him. He tells Penelope that he is going to bed and then summons the gang to help prevent him from being murdered. While dumping out poisons in the bathroom, Porky causes a sudden loud, long noise, which leads Penelope to believe that the house is being burglarized. Eventually, Alfalfa's parents return home and the gang proudly tell the adults that they saved Alfalfa from being killed by his aunt. Angered by the insanity and misunderstandings, Penelope decides to pack up and leave immediately ("How can an author write in a madhouse like this?!"). The entire situation is explained and all the misunderstandings are cleared up. Before Alfalfa is given a chance to apologize to his Aunt Penelope, John rewards him with a dollar bill just for getting rid of her. ===== The plot involves a Rashōmon-like investigation into the life of a man who has been found dead after having been hurled from a train. As security agents, police and a medical examiner piece together his identity, three accounts emerge: one set during World War II, one in the immediate aftermath of the war, and one in contemporary Poland. In each account, the victim seems to have been a mysterious, ambiguous presence, of shifting loyalties and suspicious connections, who set himself against the powers that be. Critics attacked the film for its depiction of a world rife with secret agents and hidden enemies—a favorite Stalinist theme—while the film seems, rather, to demonstrate how heroism and villainy are often matters of point of view and timing. ===== During the Vietnam War in 1968, Green Beret Captain Sam Cahill (Danny Glover) has been working hard to create good relations between the United States and Montagnard Vietnamese in the village of Dak Nhe, which occupies an important observation point near the clandestine Ho Chi Minh trail. Cahill is coming close to his discharge, and explains to his successor, Captain T.C. Doyle (Ray Liotta), the delicate nature of Vietnamese customs as well as the counterintelligence involving covert enemy activity. In a lapse of judgment with surrounding village children, a child steals a Nestlé Crunch bar from Doyle's backpack; the wrapper, when found, lets the NVA know of the local villagers' cooperation with the Americans. As punishment, Brigadier Nguyen (Hoang Ly) of the NVA, orders his subordinate, Captain Quang (Vo Trung Anh), to kill the villagers' elephant right before a spiritual festival. To aid the villagers, Cahill promises to replace the slain elephant before their upcoming ceremony while Doyle (whom the villagers blame for the elephant's death) reluctantly agrees to help. At camp, Major Pederson (Marshall Bell) assigns Cahill and Doyle, with Doyle in command, to secure and deliver a new elephant to the villagers, as well as two soldiers, Specialist 4 Harvey Ashford (Doug E. Doug) and Specialist 5 Lawrence Farley (Corin Nemec). Cahill blackmails Chief Warrant Officer 3 David Poole (Denis Leary) into helping as well. They purchase an elephant known as Bo Tat from a local Vietnamese trader (James Hong). They also agree to take along Bo Tat's child handler, Linh (Dinh Thien Le), who has experience with verbal commands in guiding the elephant. Along the way, NVA soldiers attempt to stop them. Following a failed air transport, the soldiers use a combination of methods to reach Pleiku Air Base before the final stage of their journey to Dak Nhe. At Pleiku Air Base, Major Pederson notifies the captains that the mission has been cancelled. The Ho Chi Minh Trail has changed direction, and they no longer need the support of the local village. A CIA airstrip near Dak Nhe has already been destroyed by the NVA, making a landing by plane impossible. Against regulations, they commandeer a cargo aircraft, intending to parachute themselves and Bo Tat into Dak Nhe. The aircraft comes under enemy fire, forcing them and Bo Tat to parachute out early. They land unharmed in and around the village, except for Ashford, who gets stuck in a tree and becomes separated from the rest. NVA forces suddenly appear, threatening to take the remaining soldiers hostage and kill the elephant. Ashford, however, is able to free himself and create a diversion long enough to distract and incapacitate the NVA troops. The villagers hold their festival with Bo Tat in the place of honor. When Cahill radios the air base, he is informed that the supply route has changed direction again, back to the village. That fact, combined with their capture of high-ranking enemy officers, has prompted the U.S. Army to sanction their relief mission post- facto, and confirm Doyle's original mission, to replace Cahill as liaison officer in the village. ===== Norwegian millionaire Ostgaard (S.Z. Sakall) and his niece Nora (Sonja Henie) believe they will be staying at a posh resort in Canada, but it turns out owner Skip Hutton (Jack Oakie) and partner Freddy Austin (Cornel Wilde) are in debt and barely holding off foreclosure. Nora schemes to get her uncle to invest in hotel improvements. She also falls for Freddy, although he's busy spending time with magazine photographer Marion Daly (Helene Reynolds), trying to gain publicity for the resort. When more money is needed, Nora is offered a chance to skate in New York in a revue. But due to a legal technicality, she cannot enter the United States unless she is married to an American citizen, so handsome Brad Barton (Cesar Romero) gladly volunteers. ===== Drew Baylor is a designer for a shoe company. When his latest design, hyped to be a great accomplishment in his life, has a flaw that will cost the company $972 million to correct, Drew is shamed by his boss before he is dismissed. Disappointed in his failure, and the subsequent breakup with his girlfriend Ellen, he plans to commit suicide, only to be stopped at the last moment by a call from his sister Heather telling him that his father died while visiting family in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. When his mother Hollie refuses to go, following a dispute between her and the rest of the Kentucky Baylors, Drew volunteers to retrieve the body. On the flight to Kentucky, Drew meets Claire, an optimistic and kind flight attendant who gives him a seat in first class, due to the plane being empty. She provides helpful advice to a despondent Drew, giving him directions and tips on getting to his destination before they part. When he gets to Elizabethtown, Drew is met by the family, and he makes arrangements for a cremation at his mother's request, despite the family's objections. While staying at a hotel, where a wedding reception is being held, Drew calls his mother and sister, then his ex-girlfriend as he continues to struggle with his suicidal thoughts. Finally, he calls Claire, and the two of them talk for hours. She impulsively suggests they meet before she has to depart on a flight to Hawaii. Drew comes to grips with his father's death, and while he is visiting his Aunt Dora, his uncle Bill remarks on how his father would look in the suit. Drew realizes that he hadn't given the suit to the mortuary to be cremated, and has second thoughts on the procedure. He rushes out to stop the cremation but is too late and is given his father's ashes. Claire returns from her flight and unexpectedly meets him at his hotel, where they have sex. Afterwards, she tells him she loves him, and he responds with regret that he failed at his life, admitting he was contemplating suicide. Claire leaves upset that Drew had not responded in kind. Hollie and Heather arrive for the service, and Hollie tells a series of amusing anecdotes with her eulogy. Claire arrives, and tells Drew to take one final trip with his father, giving him a map with special stops to make along the way. Drew follows the map home, spreading his father's ashes at memorable sites until reaching a farmer's market, where a series of notes gives him a choice; to either follow the map home, or follow new direction. He chooses the latter, where Claire is waiting for him. The two kiss and Drew finally realizes he loves her. ===== "The Man in the Black Suit" recounts the tale of Gary, a nine-year- old boy, whose brother has died, not long ago, due to a bee sting. One day, Gary goes out fishing and falls asleep. When he awakens, he's startled to discover a bee sitting on the edge of his nose. Although Gary doesn't share his brother's allergy to them, he is still scared. Suddenly, he hears a clap and the bee is dead. Turning around, Gary discovers a man with burning eyes looming over him. Dressed in a black three-piece suit, the man has pale skin and claw-like fingers. When he grins, his mouth exposes horrible shark-like teeth. The man—whose body odor smells like burnt match heads—tells Gary terrible things: that his mother has died while he was away, that his father intends to molest him, that he (the man) intends to eat him. At first, Gary doesn't believe him. However, he soon realizes that the man is actually the devil. Throwing a fish he caught at the man, he makes his escape. However, the man in the black suit swallows the fish whole and pursues Gary to the outskirts of the forest. When Gary thinks he lost him, he sees the man right behind him. Throwing his fishing rod at the man, Gary runs deeper into the forest. At home, Gary finds his father and makes up a lie about what happened while he went fishing. Gary believes the man's claim until seeing his mother in the kitchen. Gary realizes that the things the man said were false. Even so, he's haunted by the incident for the rest of his long life. The story is narrated by Gary, looking back from his perspective as an elderly man. He is haunted by his belief that he escaped from the devil by sheer luck or his own wits. As the story draws to a close, we learn that he's frightened by the thought of his approaching death and the possibility of a second encounter with the man in the black suit. Gary knows that he won't be able to outwit him or outrun him in his old age. ===== Five members of the Flash's Rogues Gallery - Captain Boomerang I, Captain Cold, Heat Wave, the Mirror Master III and the Weather Wizard - are approached with an offer by fellow Rogues Gallery member Abra Kadabra, who had become an agent of the demon Neron in exchange for true magical powers to replace his technology-based magical powers. Abra Kadabra persuades them to cause havoc by destroying five separate targets (an arms depot by Captain Boomerang I, a nuclear reactor by Captain Cold, a dormant volcano by Heat Wave, an oil field by the Mirror Master III and a chemical dump by the Weather Wizard) simultaneously, with the promise of "respect" and "a guarantee that they would be remembered forever, not as has-beens but as the most infamous villains of their age". But Neron's deals are demonic, twisted and unfair and they were not told that their actions would cost all of them their lives and unleash Neron upon Earth. All five are killed in the ensuing explosions (which consume them in green fire), the flames of which form the points of a pentagram that creates a gateway which releases Neron. Soon after this, Neron kills the Chaplain of Belle Reve Penitentiary and then, having taken the form of the Chaplain, accompanies Father Richard Craemer, a priest who administers to the prisoners of Belle Reve (as well as being an adviser to the Suicide Squad and a friend and counselor to the Spectre), on his rounds at the prison. He next makes a deal with Lou Krupke, one of the inmates (who is bent on revenge for the theft of a treasured calendar that he believes to have been stolen by a Belle Reve guard named Finney (full name unknown)), in exchange for a gun that he had bought earlier before entering Belle Reve. Neron himself had already stolen the calendar in question without Krupke's knowledge in order to engineer the whole situation and he also makes deals with a number of key Belle Reve personnel or persuades/manipulates them in other ways to be absent that evening. Krupke tracks down Finney and kills him with the gun and, at the same time, damages the electrical turbines that give Belle Reve its power. The resulting chaos allows 142 supervillains to escape from Belle Reve. When it is all over, Neron claims Krupke's soul. A few weeks later, another member of the Rogues Gallery, the Trickster I, reads of the deaths of his fellow Rogues Gallery members in the newspaper and determines not to waste any more time on petty crimes, but to finally make a major supervillain of himself. One week after the Trickster I's decision, yet another member of the Rogues Gallery, the Rainbow Raider III, shows him a carved black candle that he and other recently escaped supervillains had received, with instructions to light it at 12:00 midnight on a certain day to "open the door to fame, power and glory". The Trickster I steals the candle, secretly replaces it with a rubber chicken and, upon lighting it, is instantly transported to Hell, joining over 60 other supervillains who had done the same thing. Neron appears to the gathered supervillains and offers them all their greatest desires in exchange for their souls, then introduces his "Inner Council" - Lex Luthor, the Joker, Circe I, Doctor Polaris I and Abra Kadabra. The Fiddler II figures out immediately that Neron is actually the devil himself and the Trickster I overhears him; then over 20 of the supervillains accept Neron's offer, while the rest who rejected it are returned to Earth by him unharmed (with the exception of one - Mongul I - whom Neron kills with his bare hands and takes his soul after the alien tyrant refuses to make a deal and attacks him because he believes that Neron has insulted him by calling all of the assembled supervillains - including him - failures before Neron came into their lives). As each supervillain accepts the offer, their souls (which look like green vapor) are collected in a large clear container called the Soul Jar. Neron then sends the newly-empowered supervillains who accepted his offer (with the exception of his Inner Council and the Trickster I) back to Earth to fulfill their sides of their deals by seeking revenge on the superheroes and wreaking havoc. At the end of all this, Justice League America member Blue Devil, a friend of the Trickster I who had worked out that the locations of the deaths of the five Rogues Gallery members formed the points of a pentagram, appears. He is offered fame and fortune in exchange for performing a simple task: the destruction of an unmanned electrical power station.Underworld Unleashed #1 While the supervillains empowered by Neron proceed to run amok with their new powers, Neron then turns his attention to Earth's superheroes. In addition to trying to gain the souls of the Batman I, the Flash III and an unknown number of other superheroes, Neron offers to resurrect Alexandra "Alex" deWitt from the dead in exchange for Green Lantern V's soul. Green Lantern V refuses and after Neron defeats him in battle he spares his life, giving Green Lantern V the message that what he covets most of all is "a far more noble soul" who Green Lantern V knows and that when he has it, Earth will be his. Green Lantern V assumes that this means Superman (who is off-world because of his trial in outer space, although no one knows about this)"The Trial of Superman!", a crossover storyline in the various Superman titles (November 1995-January 1996) that occurred at the same time as this crossover event and carries the message to the Refuge, Justice League America's space station headquarters. Meanwhile, Neron causes further disruption on an Earth now seething with violence and war as a result of his demonic influence on people and the chaos caused by the supervillains who are now in his debt. He also spreads chaos on New Apokolips just for the sake of doing so, giving all those who desire the missing-and-presumed-dead Darkseid's throneNote: Darkseid's apparent "death" had occurred in Wonder Woman (vol. 2) #101-104 (September-December 1995). He would later return from the dead yet again and reclaim the throne of Apokolips in The New Gods (vol. 4) #6-15 (March 1996-February 1997). information on each other's plans, thus causing New Apokolips to wage war with itself.Underworld Unleashed: Apokolips-Dark Uprising #1Meanwhile, back in Hell, Luthor and the Joker force the Trickster I to reveal that Neron's power is contained within his Soul Jar and succeed in rupturing the Jar using Circe I, Polaris I and Kadabra's magical and scientific resources together. As the Jar is breached, a swirl of the green vapor within the Jar reaches outward, then picks up Circe I, Polaris I and Kadabra and pulls them right into the Jar, after which the Jar reseals, which is what Luthor and the Joker had actually planned all along. However, Neron had preempted them by fooling the Trickster I into giving them false information, thus removing his Inner Council completely before they could become a threat to his power. He shrinks Luthor and the Joker in size and traps them in a snow globe-although they both believe that they are in a snowstorm in Metropolis until they reach the glass walls of the globe.Superman (vol. 2) #107 As Earth collapses into violence, war, anarchy and chaos, Justice League America calls most of its members together to stand against Neron. Like Green Lantern V, all of them assume that because he is missing, it is Superman that Neron referred to as the pure soul that he wanted and that he had already been captured. The elite of Justice League America decide to take the fight to Neron and Blue Devil, who had been fooled by Neron's Faustian deal into indirectly causing the death of his friend, filmmaker Marla Bloom, takes them to Hell. Now alone in Hell after the fall of the Inner Council, the Trickster I, who had not yet been offered a deal for his soul, realizes that he had been taken for a fool, that no deal was forthcoming for him at all and that Neron had deeper plans that he had not revealed to him. He begins to scheme against him.Underworld Unleashed #2 On Earth, Doctor Fate I's (Kent Nelson) home, the Tower of Nabu, has become a portal to Hell that the demoness Blaze is trying to secure so that Neron can send Hell's demonic forces to Earth. Sentinel and Fate IV (Jared Stevens) fight to close the portal, Sentinel destroying the tower to do so.Fate #11-13 While Fate IV battles back from being flung into far dimensions,Fate #13-14 Sentinel is drawn away from his wife Molly Catherine Mayne-Scott, a.k.a. the Harlequin I, who opens a box containing one of Neron's candles and accepts a deal to become young again and to have the power to create nightmares, losing her soul in the process. Sentinel contacts the Phantom Stranger, Zatanna Zatara and James Brendan "Jim" Corrigan I (a.k.a. the Spectre, but without his full powers, as the Spectre- Force within Corrigan I had made a deal with Neron for a separate existence from its then-current host) for help. Together with Deadman, they enter Hell to get Molly's soul back from Neron. The Spectre tries to help, but discovers that his deal keeps him from opposing Neron and, as a result, he is Neron's slave and is also destined to become his successor. Realizing that he is not prevented from fighting other demons, however, he joins the others in the battle and Sentinel frees Molly's soul in exchange for his own. Blaze is forced to flee from Neron for failing to stop the magical superheroes and while they escape, Sentinel is captured by Neron and imprisoned inside a jewel worn around Neron's neck.Underworld Unleashed: Abyss-Hell's Sentinel #1 Using what is left of Blue Devil's candle, Justice League America pierces the barrier to Hell and confronts Neron's demonic army, battling through the realms of Hell to find Superman. The Ray II, Firestorm the Nuclear Man II (Ronald Roy "Ronnie" Raymond), Captain Atom II and Maxima are all killed in the battle, while the other superheroes (except for Captain Marvel) begin to be corrupted by the influence of their hellish surroundings. Meanwhile, the demon Satanus bargains with Neron in the throne room of Hell for the return of his soul after failing in his task to stop the Leymen of Primal Force publicly,Primal Force #13-14 offering up the whereabouts of his sister Blaze in exchange; but once his soul is returned to him and Blaze is imprisoned by Neron, he reveals to her that Neron can be beaten by a single word that if spoken, even in Hell, would give even Neron pause. Neron kills Satanus for this betrayal, though not before his comment is overheard by the Trickster I. At that moment Blue Devil, seeking revenge for the death of Marla, finally reaches Neron ahead of Justice League America and is killed by him; after which the superheroes (again, except for Captain Marvel) become completely evil upon entering Hell's throne room and Neron reveals that it was Captain Marvel's soul that he wanted all along, just as the Trickster I realizes the truth. Neron has kept Blaze alive because her demonic powers dampen Captain Marvel's powers. She reverses this by augmenting his powers instead, saving him from death; while Blue Devil, who cannot die while he is in Hell, attacks Neron in a new demonic body. Taking advantage of the diversion, the Trickster I tells Captain Marvel about the word and Captain Marvel deduces that the word is "Shazam". When he uses it, the resulting lightning bolt in Hell stuns Neron and releases Justice League America from their spell, allowing them to attack him again. Sentinel is also released from his captivity in the jewel and he joins the other superheroes in the fight. The Trickster I then uses the time provided to persuade Captain Marvel that he has a plan to defeat Neron and quickly tells him what to do. Then Captain Marvel suddenly offers Neron his soul, in exchange for "the release of my friends...the release of Earth". When Neron asks him "And...?" he says "No "and", nothing else. Nothing". Neron accepts the offer and tries to take Captain Marvel's soul (which looks like pure white vapor), but because the deal was purely altruistic and self- sacrificing, the first time that someone had ever asked for something without personal gain involved, because he cannot collect on a deal without there being something in it for the one he is dealing with and because Captain Marvel's soul is so pure that even a demon like himself cannot touch it without being actually, physically burned, he cannot do it - then he suddenly realizes that he still has to honor his side of the deal. Taunted by the Trickster I, he disappears in an explosion of green fire (though not before briefly changing into a monstrous-looking demonic creature (presumably his true form)), the Soul Jar is shattered (thus releasing its contents - the souls of everyone involved, whether superhero, supervillain or otherwise - and returning them to their rightful bodies (with the exception of the five Rogues Gallery members, Mongul I and four other dead supervillains who had previously made deals with Neron named Purgatory,Green Lantern (vol. 3) #66-69 the IcemanR.E.B.E.L.S. '95 #11-14 the Spellbinder I (Delbert Billings)Detective Comics #691-692 and the Buggmeister)),Lobo (vol. 2) #22Note: two years later, the five Rogues Gallery members, thanks to the Flash III, would eventually be resurrected from the dead, would regain their souls and would, like all of the other supervillains, no longer be in debt to Neron in The Flash (vol. 2) #125-129 (May–September 1997). One year after that, thanks to their former fellow Rogues Gallery member the Trickster I, they would be freed from Neron's revenge forever in New Year's Evil: The Rogues #1 (February 1998). Mongul I, Purgatory, the Iceman, the Spellbinder I and the Buggmeister would be the only permanent deaths in this crossover event. the four superheroes who had been killed previously are resurrected from the dead and everyone is returned to Earth, including Luthor and the Joker, who are freed from the shattered snow globe and returned to normal size as well.Superman: The Man of Tomorrow #3 At the same time, all of the supervillains who had accepted Neron's offer, in addition to regaining their souls, are allowed to have their greatest desires still fulfilled and are no longer in debt to him, although one of them - Major Disaster - while silently gloating about this fact, soon finds out by looking at his reflection in a window that he has the number 666 carved into his forehead (and that only he can see it), thus implying that the rest of them do, too.Underworld Unleashed #3 ===== Tiffany Aching, now 13 years old, is training with the witch Miss Treason. But when she takes Tiffany to witness the secret "dark morris", the morris dance (performed wearing black clothes and octiron bells) that welcomes in the winter, Tiffany finds herself drawn into the dance and joins in, despite being warned earlier by Miss Treason not to do so. She finds herself face to face with the Wintersmith—the personification of winter—who mistakes her for the Summer Lady—the personification of summer. He is enchanted by Tiffany, mystified by her presence. Unknowingly, Tiffany drops her silver horse pendant (a gift from Roland, the Baron's son) during the Dance. The Wintersmith uses the pendant to find Tiffany and give her back the pendant during their second encounter. From then on, he uses the pendant to find her and deliver his gifts. The elder witches, including Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, discover that the Wintersmith has been tracking her. Granny Weatherwax demands that she throw her silver horse pendant into Lancre Gorge. Things get trickier for Tiffany when she discovers she has some of the Summer Lady's powers—plants start to grow where she walks barefooted, and the Cornucopia appears, causing problems by spurting out food and animals. Before the problem with Tiffany and the Wintersmith is resolved, Miss Treason dies. The young witch Annagramma acquires Miss Treason's cottage, but she needs help from Tiffany and the other young witches before she can learn to cope on her own. Tiffany goes to live with Nanny Ogg. The Wintersmith decides that the reason Tiffany will not be his is that he is not human. Learning a simple rhyme from some children about what basic elements comprise a human body, he sets off to gather the correct ingredients. He makes himself a body out of these elements and pursues Tiffany, but without truly understanding what it is to be human. Granny Weatherwax instructs the Nac Mac Feegles, who watch Tiffany closely to protect their "big wee hag", to find a Hero, namely her childhood acquaintance and incipient love interest, Roland. Roland must descend into the underworld, guided by the Nac Mac Feegles, and awaken the real Lady Summer from her storybook slumber. But first the Feegles help Roland train to use a sword by providing him with a moving target (themselves inside a suit of armour). Roland and the Nac Mac Feegles go into the underworld where Roland fights creatures that feed on memories. He rescues the Summer Lady, who looks much like Tiffany and they flee back above ground. Meanwhile, the Wintersmith continues to cover the land with Tiffany-shaped snowflakes. The harsh, prolonged winter starts burying houses, blocking roads, and killing off the sheep of the Chalk. Hiding inside her father's house, Tiffany is surprised to find her silver pendant inside a fish that her brother, Wentworth, has caught. This allows the Wintersmith to discover where she is, and he takes her to his ice palace, where she ultimately manages to stop him, melting him with a kiss, and fulfilling the Dance of Seasons, in which Summer and Winter die and are reborn in turn. ===== FreeSpace 2 takes place entirely in outer space. The playing area is vast when compared to the small starfighters piloted by the player and the effective range they have. This space is populated with interstellar bodies such as stars, planets, asteroids, etc. The implementation of nebulae as an interactive environment is one of the most distinctive and crowning aspects of FreeSpace 2. Flying through a nebula involves impaired vision, and occasional disruptions to flight electronics. Nebulae have become known as an eerie and suspenseful arena of play. Journeys between star systems are achieved by "jumping" through jump nodes and traveling through subspace, while shorter intra-system distances are done by "hopping" into subspace at any time. All ships in a mission either "jump" or "hop" to make their entries and exits. The game's starship designs are clearly distinguishable between the three races. Terran starships tend to be plain and practical, the Vasudans' starships are artistic with sleek lines and curves, and the enemies' ships—the Shivans—are sharp, pointy and asymmetrical in insidious black and red colors. FreeSpace 2 also features humongous capital ships, hundreds of times larger than the fighters, and armed to the teeth with beam weapons and flak guns. These ships are commonly scripted to seek each other out and engage in massive duels. FreeSpace 2s story is brought out via narrative pre-rendered cutscenes, the pre- and post-mission briefings, as well as in-game chatter between non-player characters, and scripted mission events. The structure for the story is linear without any branching paths for alternate storylines, though there are optional covert missions which can further flesh out the story. The story can only be continued by clearing missions and progressing through the campaign. However, players are given the option to skip a mission if they have failed it five times in a row. This gives those who are interested in the story, but less skilled, the chance to continue on with the story without frustration. ===== During the closing days of the Second World War, six members of his Royal Canadian Air Force fighter squadron are killed because of a command decision made by pilot Ted Stryker (Dana Andrews). Years later, in civilian life in Winnipeg, Manitoba, a guilt-stricken Stryker goes through many jobs, and his marriage is in trouble. Stryker finds a note at home: his wife Ellen (Linda Darnell) has taken their young son Joey and is leaving him, flying to Vancouver. He rushes to Winnipeg Airport to board the same flight, Cross-Canada Air Lines Flight 714. He asks his wife for one last chance, but Ellen says that she can no longer love a man she does not respect. The routine flight becomes deadly when stewardess Janet Turner (Peggy King) begins the meal service. Meat or fish are the options. When a number of passengers begin feeling sick, a doctor (Geoffrey Toone) aboard determines that there must have been something wrong with the fish. While attending to others, including Stryker's son, the stewardess and doctor discover that both the pilot and co- pilot have also become seriously ill. Although it stays in the air on autopilot, no one is left to fly the plane. After the stewardess checks with other passengers, she determines that Stryker is the only one with flying experience, but he has not flown in 10 years and has no familiarity with aircraft of this size. Owing to dense fog on the ground obscuring the runway, Flight 714 must bypass Calgary and all other intermediate airports, to continue on to Vancouver. Stryker's superior in the war, the tough-minded Captain Treleaven (Sterling Hayden), is summoned to Vancouver Airport to give him instructions about how to land the aircraft. Ellen joins her husband in the cockpit to handle the radio. Ordered to remain airborne, Stryker makes a command decision to land the airliner because passengers will die if they do not get to a hospital soon. Stryker lands the plane, saving all of the passengers and earning the respect of Ellen and Captain Treleaven. ===== It is October 2025. It has been 148 years since a series of comet impacts rendered the northern hemisphere inhospitable, forcing the great empires of Eurasia to move south. Athelstane King is an officer in the Peshawar Lancers, a cavalry and heavy infantry unit guarding the North-West Frontier province of the Viceroyalty of India, in the center of the Angrezi Raj. King, along with his friend, the Sikh Daffadar Narayan Singh, is ordered to go on medical leave after being wounded in battle against border raiders from the Emirate of Afghanistan. King comes from a well-to-do family, with a long tradition of service to the British Empire. King and Singh go to the officer's club near the city of Oxford (formerly Srinagar). King is especially eager to be with his Kashmiri mistress Hasamurti. While at the officer's club, he meets Imperial Political Services (IPS) agent Sir Manfred Warburton, and an agent from distant France-outre-Mer, Henri de Vascogne. Vascogne is in the Raj to lay the groundwork for an arranged marriage between King-Emperor John II's daughter Sita and the heir to the throne of France-outre-mer. Warburton arranges for King to meet him in Delhi in one week. Meanwhile, trouble is brewing. Russian Okhrana agent Vladimir Obromovich Ignatieff and Sister of the True Dreamers Yasmini are on their way into the Raj to kill both Athelstane and his sister, Cassandra. On their way there, Yasmini dreams of literally being the Raj's sacred Mahatma Disraeli. Since she can dream of the future (as well as different outcomes), she is able to dream ways around the Imperial patrols. At the same time, Cassandra Mary Effingham King, devoted Whig and brilliant scientist is on her way home to Oxford from Delhi. She is heavily involved on a project to find ways to deflect another meteor, asteroid, or comet from impacting the Earth. Ignatieff, disguised as an impious Muslim, makes a contract with Bengali separatists to kill Cassandra (which they very nearly do; they do kill one of the Raj's best physicists in the process). A group of armed Thuggee try to kill Athelstane King in the Peshawar officer's club, after killing Hasamurti. King decides to leave for Oxford in disguise, but on the train, he is nearly killed again by the Pashtun assassin Ibrahim Khan. When King confronts Khan over who hired him, he makes the connection that a Russian has been sending the assassins. Khan, upon hearing this, swears vengeance at being misled and agrees to follow King. Athelstane returns home in the Vale of Kashmir: Rexin Manor. There, Narayan Singh's father, Ranjit, tells Athelstane the truth behind his father's death. When Athelstane was only four, his father, Eric, was on a mission to the foothills of Afghanistan to investigate a smuggling operation. Warburton and Ranjit Singh were also with him. However, they were led into an ambush, in which Eric was killed. The man who caused it, a self-proclaimed holy man from the Zagros mountains, had a seer. This confirms King's theory. He is sent by his mother to Delhi to find Elias bar-Binyamin, a Jewish financier whom the King family has a mutual debt (or tessera) with, to gain further information. Cassandra, shaken by the death of her friend the physicist, is hired by the palace to play tutor to Sita. This is arranged by Sir Manfred to keep her safe. She meets her brother, the heir to the Lion Throne, Charles and finds herself interested in him. In Delhi, on his way to the bar-Binyamin residence, Athelstane is met in the streets by Yasmini, who has deserted Ignatieff to help King. She warns him against going down an alleyway, which turns out to be full of assassins from Dai-Nippon. The fight with the assassins spills over into Warburton's residence, where they are defeated. However, when they get there, Warburton has been critically injured by Ignatieff himself. Ignatieff has been joined by another IPS agent, Richard Allenby. Ignatieff and Allenby escape, and then Allenby uses his powers to summon the police. In order to help his friends escape, Narayan Singh stays behind to face the police. Allenby orders Singh taken to his own house for interrogation. The group then makes their way to Elias residence. As Warburton recovers, Elias tells them the story of how Eric King went to Bokhara to save his son David from imprisonment. Yasmini reveals further details of the Sisterhood of True Dreamers, telling them of a terrible dream kept from the Czar himself. She tells them that if Athelstane and Cassandra King die, then somehow, the King-Emperor and his heir will die. There will be no union with France, and in time, the Empire will be torn asunder by a massive world war and separatist movements. Then, around a hundred years from the present, another asteroid impact will occur, leaving only the rats surviving. The group, joined by David bar-Elias, goes to Allenby's residence to expose him as a traitor and rescue Narayan Singh. Unknown to them, a second group, including Cassandra, Henri de Vascogne, Sita and her Gurkha bodyguard are attempting to do the same thing. Both groups catch Allenby, Ignatieff, and a cult of Kali worshippers in the middle of a cannibal sacrifice. Sita's Gurkha bodyguard is killed defending them, and David bar Elias destroys Allenby's home with a homemade explosive. Sita and her group are confronted by the King-Emperor himself. He is also making plans for a state visit to France-outre-mer on the Imperial air yacht, the Garuda. To save the King-Emperor's life, Athelstane's group makes a secretive journey to Bombay, killing Allenby when he tries to kill them with aid from local Rabari tribesmen. As the Garuda prepares to take off (with Cassandra on board), Athelstane's group sneaks on. Ignatieff is also on board the ship, with aid from the captain, a Kapenaar, (resident of the Cape Viceroyalty) who belongs to a radical Afrikaner terrorist group. He manages to take the King- Emperor hostage and reveals that he has planted evidence implicating Dai- Nippon and the Caliphate in the assassination attempt, in order to trigger a major war. He blows himself up, killing himself and King-Emperor John (who refuses to give in to the captain's demands) and damaging the Garuda critically. Meanwhile, Athelstane manages to kill Ignatieff in a brutal sword duel, with help from Ibrahim Khan. The air yacht is now over a lawless portion of Afghanistan, infested with air pirates. They force the ship down. As the Gurkha guards hold off the raiders, Ibrahim Khan and Sir Manfred are sent to get help. Help does come, in the form of the Peshawar Lancers. The Lancers drive away the raiders, and allow Khan, who reveals himself to be a major prince, to return home with his promised reward pledged to him. The Lancers guide the survivors, including Cassandra, Athelstane, Henri (who has revealed himself as the Prince Imperial of France-outre-mer to Sita), and new King- Emperor Charles III to safety. Charles later marries Cassandra, and Yasmini later marries Athelstane, who had saved her from going mad from her dreams by ending her virginity. ===== Ex-boxer Kevin "Kid" Collins is a drifter and an escapee from a mental hospital. In a desert town near Palm Springs he meets widow Fay Anderson who convinces him to help fix up the neglected estate her husband left and lets him sleep in a trailer out back, near her dying date palms. Her acquaintance "Uncle Bud" shows up. Calling himself an ex-cop, he has long been hatching a scheme to kidnap a rich man's child and needs somebody like Collins to help carry it out. Reluctant in the beginning, Collins tries to leave and encounters Doc Goldman, who immediately can tell the young man needs to be under medical observation. Doc takes a personal interest in Collins that might include a physical attraction as well. He intrudes on Collins' relationship with the alcoholic Fay. Collins is persuaded by Uncle Bud to execute the kidnapping plan. ===== Lemnear, a young warrior girl, arrives at a city ruled by the corrupt warlord Vuan. She seeks revenge on the evil wizard Gardin, Vuan's master, who slaughtered Lemnear's people when she was a child, in his search of a mysterious, prophesied, Champion of Silver. Eventually, Lemnear confronts Gardin, but she is knocked out by a magic blast and sent to the city's dungeons, where young girls are retained for Vuan's harem. There, an old mage tells Lemnear a prophecy: that the Champion of Silver will turn a Champion of Bronze into Gold, and destroy the evil Barol, the ultimate mastermind behind Gardin and Vuan. In order to rescue a friend from the dungeons, Lemnear infiltrates the harem, but Vuan brainwashes her into becoming another slave. Thanks to her magic choker, she breaks out, kills Vuan, and hears from Gardin that Barol challenges her from his Castle of Valquisas. Upon reaching the castle, she learns of another survivor of her people, Mesh, whom Gardin had believed to be the Champion of Silver but who is actually the Champion of Bronze. She fights and kills Gardin, but he turns out to be just the enchanted right arm of Barol. The villain reveals that he is a Champion of Gold himself. He was raised up by dark powers, after his village kicked him out for being a human hybrid. Lemnear and Mesh fight him, defeating both his human and dragon form, but he then turns into a stone giant and moves on to conquer the world. Realizing the prophecy, Lemnear awakes her power through her choker, turns Mesh into a Champion of Gold, and they together destroy Barol's weak spot, killing him. ===== The main character of Plastic Little is Tita Mu Koshigaya, a young woman who captains a ship, the Cha-Cha Maru, whose business is capturing exotic creatures in the 'sea of clouds' of the planet Ietta, apparently a gas giant of some kind, and selling them to collectors and zoos. By chance, she saves Elysse Aldo Mordish, a young woman of her own age, from a rogue faction of Ietta's own military forces, led by the armored commander Guizel, who already killed Elysse's scientist father. As the military conducts a vicious chase for Elysse, it becomes apparent that she holds the key to a secret that could determine the fate of the entire planet's independence. Although the anime's overriding goal is of course that of saving the world, an almost equal amount of time is spent on character interaction. Much of Tita's crew once served under her father, and Tita has inherited much of the respect and devotion that he earned from them. Tita and Elysse's relationship is the focus of much screen time; Tita risks life and limb for Elysse seemingly on a whim, later explaining that she felt it was impossible to stand by and watch her capture. In a small heartfelt speech delivered during a sunrise breakfast, Elysse speaks of feelings for Tita that could be interpreted as being 'like love at first sight'. Tita has also shown some fondness for Nichol Hawking, a somewhat bumbling young man on her crew who has a long-term crush on her. Tita's feelings for Nichol are shown in much less detail, restrained to a small, chaste kiss on his forehead after Nichol has fallen asleep beside her sickbed. Tita never makes romantic feelings clear for either of the possible love interests. In a short mini-series of comics that followed the OVA, this tendency to use action and adventure mostly as a vehicle for character interaction continues. Elysse and Tita are not together physically, but apparently keep in very regular communication via videophone. (For which communications, Tita does not seem particularly inclined to wear clothes.) Other issues see Tita searching the Cloud Sea in the vain hope her father might somehow still be alive, and helping Nichol to win a race he's been attempting for years. Much is made of a family dynamic among the crew, with Balboa an obvious father figure for Tita, Mei as mother, and Mikhail as gruff grandfather. ===== David Burke (Ed Begley) is a former policeman who was ruined when he refused to cooperate with state crime investigators. He has asked Earl Slater (Robert Ryan), a hard-bitten, racist, ex-con, to help him rob an upstate bank, promising him $50,000 if the robbery is successful. Burke also recruits Johnny Ingram (Belafonte), a nightclub entertainer. He doesn't want the job but is addicted to gambling and is deeply in debt. Slater, who is supported by his girlfriend, Lorry (Shelley Winters), learns that Ingram is black and refuses the job. Later, he realizes that he needs the money, and joins Ingram and Burke in the enterprise. Tensions between Ingram and Slater increase as they near completion of the crime. Burke is seen by a police officer leaving the scene of the raid, and is mortally wounded in the ensuing shootout with local police. He commits suicide, shooting himself to avoid capture. Slater is cavalier about Burke's death, which infuriates Ingram. Slater and Ingram begin to fight each other even as they try to evade the police. Ingram and Slater escape and run into a nearby fuel storage depot. They chase each other onto the top of the fuel tanks. When they exchange gunfire, the fuel tanks ignite, causing a large explosion. Afterward, their burned corpses are indistinguishable from each other. The last scene focuses on a sign at the entrance of the fuel storage depot saying, "Stop, Dead End". ===== The Edge of the Cloud is set in London where, after Will and Christina elope, Christina briefly stays with their Aunt Grace. Will finds a job as a mechanic and later as an instructor at a flying school, and Christina finds employment at a nearby hotel to be close to Will. Uncle Russel and Mr Dermont both die during the course of the story. One death fills Will with pain; the other indifference. Will and Christina become close friends with Sandy, another flying instructor, and his girlfriend, Dorothy, the spoiled daughter of Christina's employer. Will gives exhibition flights to make extra money and designs and builds his own airplane. Mark joins the army. At the end, Will becomes famous as a stunt pilot and is thinking of joining the army, which—on the eve of their long-awaited wedding—worries Christina. ===== The final novel in the original Flambards trilogy opens in the middle of the First World War with Christina, now a widow, returning to Flambards. Flambards has greatly deteriorated since she left with Will, and is almost in ruins. As distraction from her grief over Will's death and the news that his brother Mark has been reported missing and presumed dead, Christina sets herself the tedious and difficult task of restoring the farm. She not only wishes to restore the house and grounds but also a semblance of her old life, the people, horses and hounds. Finding she is pregnant with Will's baby, Christina adopts Mark and Violet's six-year-old son 'Tizzy' Thomas, along with an original Flambards bitch called Marigold and a nervy five-year-old bay thoroughbred called Pheasant. Eventually she persuades Dick to come back to work on the farm and things slowly begin to go smoothly, until the reappearance of Mark. Christina's joy quickly turns to anxiety and apprehension as Mark tells her that if she wishes to remain at Flambards, she must marry him. But Christina fears Mark will become like his father, and when she finds she has feelings for Dick, her confusion increases as she still loves Will. ===== A dead man tumbles down a flight of stairs. When the police arrive at the top-floor apartment of Joe Adams (Henry Fonda), he shoots at them through the door. The sheriff calls in reinforcements and sets up snipers on nearby rooftops. Adams, in his room, begins a recollection of the events leading up to this, beginning with his first chance encounter with Jo Ann (Barbara Bel Geddes), who works in a flower shop. It turns out they had been raised in the same orphanage. The story unfolds in a series of flashbacks, and even a flashback within a flashback, as Joe recalls what Jo Ann told him about her life before they met. Finding her behavior suspicious, he follows her to a nightclub where Maximilian the Great (Vincent Price) is performing a magic act on stage. At the bar, Joe gets to know Charlene (Ann Dvorak), who recently quit as Max's assistant. Max claims to be Jo Ann's long-lost father. She was picked out of the audience one night by Charlene and brought on stage to take part in the act, then continued a relationship. Jo Ann fiercely denies to Joe, however, that Max is related to her. In fact, she insists that she had to physically fend off Max's romantic advances to her. The two women have feelings for Joe but leave him mystified, particularly when both appear to have received exactly the same brooch from Max as a gift. Jo Ann naively believes that hers is a rare antique that once belonged to Montezuma's daughter. The more worldly-wise Charlene suggests she believed Max's line at first too, but she now has a whole display card of them marked at a price of 85 cents each. He is not sure whom to trust, and when Max comes to his apartment to kill him, Joe shoots first, sending Max falling to his death. When Max first arrives at Joe's shabby boarding house room, he demands that he leave Jo Ann alone. In the ensuing argument Joe pushes Max halfway out of the window but cannot bring himself to kill his rival. Max observes that it is not so easy to kill a man, and shows Joe the pistol he brought with the intention of shooting him. Max, who has always been pretentiously snobbish, begins to taunt Joe. He tells him that he thinks Joe is beneath him, and then begins to insinuate that he and Jo Ann had a sexual relationship. Joe becomes enraged and shoots Max. Police are about to smoke him out with tear gas when Jo Ann arrives. She manages to talk Joe into giving himself up, promising to wait for him if he is sent away to prison. Joe had considered himself friendless, but most of the assembled crowd, including Joe's coworker and neighbor Bill Pulanski, and Frank Dunlap, a blind man who lives in the neighborhood, support him. ===== The film is based on the true story of the 1950 U.S. soccer team which, against all odds, beat England 1–0 in the city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil during the 1950 FIFA World Cup. The story is about the family traditions and passions that shaped the players who made up this team of underdogs. One group of teammates were from The Hill neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri. Another group came from the Corky Row district of Fall River, Massachusetts. ===== David Starr, Space Ranger introduces the series' setting and the main characters. The novel is set around A.D. 7,000 (five thousand years after the first nuclear bomb, as stated at the beginning), when humanity has spread among the worlds of the Solar System as well as planets orbiting other stars. The most powerful organization in the Solar System is the Council of Science, which suppresses threats to the System's people. Protagonist David Starr is an orphaned biophysicist qualified for membership in the Council of Science, who learns from his guardians Augustus Henree and Hector Conway of some 200 deaths in the last four months, whose victims died while eating produce raised on Mars. Conway and Henree fear that the deaths are part of a conspiracy to frighten the people of Earth; wherefore Starr travels undercover to Mars to discover the deaths' connection to the Martian Farming Syndicates. On Mars, Starr meets John "Bigman" Jones, a pugnacious 5-foot, 2-inch tall Martian farmboy blacklisted at the Farming Syndicates for seeing something forbidden him. When his former boss Hennes orders Jones out of the Farm Employment Building, Starr intervenes, and gains positions for both himself and Bigman. Hennes subsequently has Starr and Bigman stunned. Starr wakes in the farm owned by Hennes' boss, Mr. Makian, to whom he gives the alias Williams, and states that he came to Mars explain a younger sister's death of food poisoning; wherefore Makian sends the farm's agronomist Benson to speak with him. According to Benson, the poisoned food came from several Martian farms, but was exported through Wingrad City, one of three domed human settlements on Mars; whereas Makian and several other farm owners have been offered ridiculously small sums of money for their farms, apparently without connection to the poisonings. Benson suggests also that intelligent native Martians living below the planet's surface are poisoning the food in order to drive humanity from Mars, possibly through bacterial infection. Makian offers to let Starr join a survey of the farmlands. Bigman warns him that Hennes will attack him during the survey; but when Starr decides to take part anyway, Bigman joins him. As he enters Martian gravity, Starr loses control of his sand-car, nearly sending it over a crevasse; whereupon Bigman discovers that Starr's sand-car is missing the weights required for low-gravity operation, and Starr realizes that Griswold deliberately failed to warn him. He then confronts Griswold, who in the struggle falls into the crevasse and dies. The next day, Benson makes Starr his assistant, to keep him from Hennes. When Bigman receives his references from Hennes and takes his leave, Starr asks him to obtain some book-tapes from the library at Wingrad City. Bigman agrees, then admits that he has recognized the pretended 'Williams' as David Starr of the Council of Science. When Starr meets Bigman that night outside the dome, he reveals that he believes in Benson's Martians, and that the crevasse into which Griswold fell is an entrance to their caverns. Starr descends into the crevasse and is captured by the Martians — disembodied intelligences curious about the Earthmen on the surface, and who know nothing of the poisoned food – although, according to them, any organic matter of Martian origin is poison for Earthmen. They give Starr the name "Space Ranger", because he travels through space, and give him an immaterial mask that will act as a personal force field and disguise him from other humans. Starr uses the mask to shield himself from a Martian dust storm as he returns to Makian's farm, where he is questioned how he survived the storm and answers (truthfully) that he was returned by a masked man called the Space Ranger. Benson tells him that while he was gone, all the farm owners received a letter from the poisoner, who claims that unless the farm owners surrender control to him within thirty-six hours, the poisoner will increase the amount of poisoned food a thousandfold. After Benson leaves, another of Hennes' minions tries to shoot Starr. Later, Hennes accuses Starr of poisoning the food. Bigman enters with Dr. Silvers of the Council of Science, who announces that the government has declared a System Emergency and that the Council will take control of all the farms on Mars. If the mystery is not solved by the time the deadline expires, all Martian food exports to Earth will stop, and food rationing will be instituted. Starr arranges with Silvers to be publicly removed from the Makian farm, then allowed to secretly return. Disguised by his mask, he confronts Hennes, who blinds himself firing a blaster at him. Starr searches Hennes and, once undisguised, persuades Silvers to meet with Makian, Hennes and Benson the next day. At the meeting, Starr appears in disguise and reveals that Benson poisoned the food while pretending to take samples of it, and Hennes maintained contact with Benson's henchmen in the Asteroid Belt. Following Benson's confession, Bigman reveals that despite the disguise of the Martian mask, he recognized Starr by his uniquely colorless black-and-white boots. ===== The film follows the life of lucky and popular Ashley Albright who has an extremely fortunate life and is always experiencing remarkable strokes of luck in contrast to the life of unlucky and unpopular Jake Hardin, manager of McFly, who is extremely unsuccessful and followed by bad luck wherever he goes. Persistent in her effort to hold onto a client, Ashley manages to sell Damon Phillips on the idea of a masquerade party. Meanwhile, Jake tries to get a music businessman to sign up a band he leads, but due to his usual bad luck it is a disaster and Jake is fired. When Ashley's boss, Peggy, learns of the plan, she is, to Ashley's surprise, impressed with the idea, leaving her with the task of organizing the party independently. Jake, hearing of the party and of the number of possible sponsors who could be there, hatches a plan to attend, in order to meet a very famous man (Phillips) who could rehire him and publicise his band. He poses as a dancer for the masquerade party and gains entry. During the party, Ashley is confronted by a fortune teller who warns her she will soon be struck by bad luck. As Jake wanders around the party, he is taken with Ashley's beauty and asks her to join him in a dance, during which they kiss. Neither can see the other's face, as they are both wearing masks. During the kiss, their luck is switched: Jake gets Ashley's good luck and Ashley gets Jake's bad luck. Jake spots Phillips and saves him from a taxi cab that nearly hit him. As a way of thanking him, Phillips, who is in charge of a major record company, signs up McFly and hires Jake. Jake is surprised that something good actually happened to him. Meanwhile, Ashley's new bad luck kicks in and not only does she break her shoe, tear her dress, and nearly choke on an olive, but she goes to jail (her neighbor turns out to be an escort). Even in jail, Ashley experiences more bad luck (including one of the cell mates punching her in the face). After she gets out, she has even more bad luck, such as a flood in her house, a zit on her face, and causing the power to go out. Fed up and wanting to know why these bad things are happening to her, Ashley goes to the fortune teller, who tells her someone else has her lost good luck and he needed it more. Desperate to regain her luck, Ashley asks more of the fortune teller, who explains that, in order for her life to return to what it was before, she must again kiss the person she kissed at the party. Ashley begins hunting down all the dancers from the company who had supplied the dancers at the party. While on her search, Ashley tries to get some food from a cafe but is rejected because she doesn't have enough money. She creates mass chaos (due to bad luck) and makes a mad dash out of the cafe with the help of Jake, who offers Ashley his previous job as a janitor person at the bowling alley and takes pity on her because he was once in her situation. Ashley, desperate for a job, accepts immediately. Later, Jake takes Ashley to the place where McFly is practicing and Jake gets the deal from Phillips that signs his band up for a new music studio. Jake shares his good fortune with Ashley, even giving her a place to stay. She discovers that Jake is the one who has stolen her luck. Seizing her chance, she kisses him, whereupon he gets his bad luck back; Ashley's good luck has returned. That night, she thinks hard about her life and about how Jake had put his (her) good fortune to use. She decides that her life was more enjoyable without luck and goes to Jake's first concert for McFly, during which things aren't running smoothly. Ashley kisses Jake, given good luck again, and the concert is saved. Ashley decides to end contact with Jake, as she doesn't want their luck to be switched again; she believes Jake put the good luck to better use than she ever did. She goes to the railway station, where Jake finds her and tries to convince her that she was all he wanted since the party and says that even with all his good fortune, it could never buy him happiness. They then kiss each other relentlessly, causing their luck to swap so quickly that they no longer know who has the good luck and who has the bad. When they see Jake's little cousin Katy and both of them kiss her, one on each cheek, at the same time, she gets all the luck and wins a scratch card lottery of twenty-five dollars. Later, when they find a quarter, they decide that they still have some luck left. But only seconds later, they are drenched by a broken water line. ===== In Southern California, while Virginia Wilson is taking an outside beach shower, an escaped madman from a sanitarium arrives. He stabs her dog, attacks her and is shot to death by her stepbrother, Charlie, with a rifle. After the attack, Virginia is committed to a sanitarium. The psychiatrist falls in love with her. He fakes her death, and they go on the lam. Virginia ends up dancing at El Madhouse night club run by Gypsy Rose Lee. Lee performs "Put the Blame on Mame," the classic noir theme from the film Gilda. All the while, Virginia is being stalked by a serial killer. ===== Molly (Hoffs), Val (Pfeiffer) and Gina (Cusack) are graduating college, but on their final night, frustrations are aired. Molly is still looking for real love and Val is beginning to doubt if that is what she has found. Gina is too busy videotaping everything to really notice. When the final party at Pacifica College kicks off, things do not go exactly as planned. ===== In 2100 Mega-City Two, on the West coast of North America, becomes infected with a virus called 2 T (fru) T (a wordplay on tutti frutti) that makes its victims into a violent mob. Scientists in Mega-City One on the East coast have been able to make an antidote, but it is impossible to safely land at the airports in Mega-City Two. The only option is to send a land expedition of Judges in a tank across the Cursed Earth, a radioactive wasteland that covers most of the former US. Judge Dredd is assigned to lead the mission and en route they encounter many perils including a cloned Tyrannosaurus called Satanus, and President Robert L. Booth, the last president of the United States. ===== It has been a year since the events in Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus, and in that time a government-funded research project, Project Light, is built at the astronomical observatory on Mercury's north pole to conduct research into the newly discovered sub-etheric optics in hope of transmitting solar energy through hyperspace. The head of Project Light is the leading scientist in sub- etheric optics, Scott Mindes. A series of accidents has plagued Project Light, which David "Lucky" Starr and John Bigman Jones have come to investigate. Shortly after meeting Starr and Bigman, Mindes takes them onto the surface of Mercury and explains his worries; but works himself into a frenzy and fires a blaster at Starr, whereupon Bigman tackles him and he is brought unconscious into the observatory. Starr and Bigman meet Mindes' friend Dr. Karl Gardoma, the observatory's physician; Jonathan Urteil, who works for a political opponent of the Council of Science named Senator Swenson; Dr. Lance Peverale, the head of the observatory; and Dr. Hanley Cook, Pevarale's chief assistant, who wants to succeed Peverale. The next day, at a banquet in Starr's honor, Peverale states his belief that the Sirians are behind the troubles plaguing Project Light; whereupon Starr replies that the Sirians' most likely locations are the abandoned mines located beneath the observatory, and proposes to search them. Speaking to Cook after dinner, Starr learns Cook's opinion Peverale has become obsessed thinking of the Sirian threat. While Bigman prepares for the trip into the mines, Starr obtains two micro-ergometers, whereby to detect atomic power sources at a distance. In the mines, Starr tells Bigman that his suggestion of Sirians in the mines was a ruse, and that he intends to investigate the sunside while Bigman remains in the mines and maintains the pretense of Starr's presence there. After Starr leaves, Bigman is attacked by Urteil, and both are attacked by a heat-seeking native organism. Bigman distracts the latter with Urteil's blaster, then calls the Dome for help. On the sunside, Starr finds the source of the sabotage in a Sirian robot, driven by solar radiation to forego the Three Laws of Robotics, so that it attacks him before he can question it. In the Dome, Bigman challenges Urteil to a fight in Mercurian gravity. Dr. Cook reduces the artificial gravity in the Dome's power room to Mercurian levels to accommodate them; but during the fight, the gravity suddenly returns to Earth-normal, and Urteil dies in a fall. When Starr returns to the dome and learns of Urteil's death, he asks to be present when Peverale conducts an official inquiry, at which Bigman reveals that it was Cook who caused Urteil's death and reveals that only Cook knew where he and Starr would be in the mines, wherefore Urteil must have gotten the information from him. Cook then admits that Urteil had blackmailed him, and was killed to save Cook's career. Starr then reveals that the robot was brought from Sirius by Peverale in hope to use it to implicate the Sirians in the sabotage of Project Light. Starr has Peverale and Cook placed under arrest, and assumes control of the Dome in the name of the Council of Science. On the return journey to Earth, Starr admits to Bigman that the present quarrel between Senator Swenson and the Council of Science was a draw, in that Jonathan Urteil was not able to manufacture any scandal against Project Light, but the two top men at the Mercury observatory were exposed as felons. Although Swenson is ruthless and dangerous, he is the sort of critic that the Council needs to keep it honest. ===== For six years, Jupiter IX has been the site of a secret project to develop an antigravity, or Agrav, space drive; but the Council of Science learns that information from the project is released to the enemy Sirians. A month after returning from Mercury, protagonists David "Lucky" Starr and John Bigman Jones are sent to Jupiter IX to investigate, bringing a V-frog to aid the investigation. Upon reaching IX, Starr and Bigman are warned away by the head of the project, Commander Donahue, who argues the men on the project are angry at investigation and may threaten Starr's safety. Starr and Bigman land nevertheless, and are met by a large group of workers led by a man named Red Summers, who insists that Starr take part in a duel in an Agrav corridor against a much larger man called Big Armand. During the duel, Bigman realizes Summers is sabotaging Starr's Agrav harness and forces Summers to stop at gunpoint, whereupon Starr wins the duel and gains Big Armand's friendship. At their quarters, Starr and Bigman are met by their neighbor, a blind man named Harry Norrich, who tells Starr that Summers is a convict on Earth, but has earned responsibility on the project, and is hostile to Starr for fear of having his past crimes revealed; whereas when Norrich's seeing-eye dog died, Summers obtained another, a German Shepherd named Mutt, and has done similar favors for other workers on the project. Starr assures Norrich that he has no intention of getting Summers in trouble for the duel. The next morning someone kills the V-frog while both men are distracted; whereafter Starr and Bigman tell Donahue and James Panner, the chief engineer on the project, that because the V-frog telepathically induced affection in all whom it met, only a robot, immune to emotion, could have killed it. It is then suggested that the Sirians are using android spies throughout the Solar System. Donahue, unconvinced, orders the launch of an Agrav ship, the Jovian Moon, to Io the following evening, and forbids Starr to conduct his investigation until after it returns. The Jovian Moon lifts off on schedule, its crew of seventeen including Donahue, Panner, Summers, Norrich, Mutt, Starr, and Bigman; the latter included because Starr believes the spy is on board. On Io, Bigman falls into an ammonial river, and is rescued by Mutt. After lift-off from Io, the Agrav drive fails, leaving the Jovian Moon falling towards Jupiter. Starr manages to land the ship on Amalthea, where they find that Red Summers is missing. An investigation reveals that Summers tricked Norrich into reporting him present on the ship while he was still on Io, whereupon Starr realizes that the Sirians had two agents planted in the Agrav project: the still-hidden robot spy, and the Earthman traitor Summers. Panner repairs the Agrav, and the Jovian Moon returns to Io, where Starr and Bigman locate Summers. Summers admits to working for the Sirians, but kills himself before revealing the identity of the robot spy. When Norrich helps bury Summers, Starr accuses him of being the robot, and Bigman threatens to shoot him; whereupon Mutt, coming to defend Norrich, is revealed as the robot himself. With the exposure of Mutt, Starr discerns that the Sirian spy ring on Earth must be the people who supplied Summers with Mutt, and who may be giving canid robot spies to others on Earth, and sets out to prevent them. ===== Shortly after returning from the Asteroid Belt, David "Lucky" Starr learns that his Science Academy roommate Lou Evans had been sent to investigate trouble on Venus, but the Council of Science office on Venus has requested that he be recalled and investigated for corruption. As Starr and John "Bigman" Jones are shuttled to Venus, their pilots suffer an episode of paralysis, and Starr is required to keep their craft from smashing itself against the surface of the Venusian ocean. Afterwards, the pilots have no memory of the event. Upon reaching the Venusian city of Aphrodite, Starr and Bigman meet Dr. Mel Morriss, head of the Council of Science on Venus, who explains that Venusian scientists are perfecting strains of yeast that can be processed into luxury foods for export; whereas for six months there has been a growing series of incidents of bizarre behavior among the human colonists, often followed by amnesia. Morriss believes they are being telepathically controlled by an unknown enemy. Evans was sent to Venus to investigate, but was found with stolen data concerning a secret strain of yeast, and is under arrest. When Starr confronts him, Evans admits to having stolen the data, but refuses to explain further. While Starr is questioning him, word reaches them that a man is threatening to open an outside airlock, which will allow the ocean to flood Aphrodite. Starr, Bigman, and Morriss go to the airlock to deal with the crisis, where they meet the city's chief engineer, Lyman Turner, the inventor and owner of a laptop computer carried with him. While Bigman goes through the ventilation ducts to cut power to the airlock door, Starr realizes that the airlock crisis is a feint and hastens to Council headquarters, to find that Evans has escaped custody and left Aphrodite in a submarine. Starr and Bigman pursue Evans in another submarine, eventually finding him and learning that the V-frogs are the source of the telepathic incidents; Evans having tested this hypothesis by stealing the secret data on the yeast strain, and interesting the V-frogs therein with the result of an accident involving that strain. Evans further reveals that the V-frogs have trapped himself and the other protagonists beneath an enormous deep-sea orange patch, which will attack them if they attempt escape. Starr, in response, leaves the submarine and uses an electric shock to destroy the orange patch's heart, killing it. He then returns to the submarine, and pilots this to the surface of the ocean, where he intends to communicate his findings to an orbiting space station to be relayed to the Council on Earth. On the surface, the V-frogs communicate telepathically with him, telling him they intend to take over the minds of the humans on Venus. Initially they keep him away from the radio; but he is able to distract them and transmit his message. Returning to Aphrodite, Starr explains to Morriss that the V-frogs' telepathy is used by a human individual to attempt control over the rest of humanity, and that the means of doing so is Lyman Turner's computer. Bigman destroys the computer and Starr captures Turner, hoping to re-create his computer in the interest of reforming Turner himself. ===== Six weeks after returning from the Jovian system, David "Lucky" Starr learns that Jack Dorrance, the chief of a Sirian spy ring uncovered by Starr in the Jovian system, has escaped from Earth. Starr and his sidekick Bigman Jones follow Dorrance to the Saturnian system, where Dorrance tries to lose them in Saturn's rings, but his ship is destroyed by a ring fragment. A Sirian ship then contacts Starr and informs him that the Sirians have built a colony on Titan and claimed it for Sirius, contrary to the traditional principle that inhabitants of one world in a stellar system have sovereignty over the entire system, even those parts without permanent settlements. Starr orders the pursuing Terrestrial fleet back to Earth; but returns with Bigman and Councilman Ben Wessilewsky to the Saturnian system. When several Sirian ships pursue the Shooting Starr, Starr conceals himself and his ship in the interior of Mimas; leaves Wessilewsky below the surface with enough supplies to maintain himself for several months; then takes the Shooting Starr back into space, where they are captured by the Sirians and taken to the colony on Titan. There, Sirian commander Sten Devoure threatens to have Bigman killed unless Starr agrees to testify at an upcoming interstellar conference on the asteroid Vesta that he entered the Saturnian system to attack the Sirians. When Bigman endangers himself by defeating Devoure in a duel, Starr makes a deal with Devoure: if he spares Bigman's life, Starr will testify that he entered the Saturnian system in an armed ship, and will lead the Sirians to Wessilewsky's base on Mimas. As delegates assemble for the conference, Agas Doremo, the leader of the neutralist forces of the Galaxy, tells Conway they should let the Sirians stay. While he supports the idea of stellar systems being indivisible, Doremo cannot see a way to get the Sirians out of the Solar System without a war, given the other worlds' distrust of Earth. However, should the Sirians remain, they might eventually overplay their hand, allowing for a new conference under more favorable conditions. However, he agrees to do what he can to support Earth's view should the opportunity arise. Doremo is elected to preside over the conference; the one thing both sides agree upon. Devoure admits that the Sirians have established a base on Titan, but insists that the fact that Saturn and its moons are part of Earth's stellar system is irrelevant: "An empty world is an empty world, regardless of the particular route it travels through space. We colonized it first and it is ours". Devoure then brings out Starr, who admits to having re-entered the Saturnian system after being warned off, and also that Wessilewsky established a base on Mimas. Conway then receives permission to cross-examine Starr. When asked his reasons, according to a secret plan of his own, Starr replies that Wessilewsky was placed to establish a colony on Mimas. At this, Conway states that by removing Wessilewsky from Mimas, the Sirians violated the very principle they attempted to establish - Devoure has stated earlier that the Sirians have never even approached Mimas earlier, so it is Earth's regardless of whose point of view is taken. Seeing the opportunity, Doremo points out the demonstrated implications of accepting the Sirian view; a war can start literally over every single rock. Then he manipulates the delegates into a vote before Sirius can work out a proper response. The conference ends with three client worlds voting with the Sirians, and the rest voting with Earth, with the result that the Sirians are ordered to leave Titan within a month – the principle of "Indivisibility of Stellar Systems" being firmly established, which the protagonists consider a positive and desirable outcome. ===== A year has passed since the events in David Starr, Space Ranger. In that time the spaceship TSS Waltham Zachary has been taken and gutted by pirates based in the asteroid belt. Because David "Lucky" Starr harbors a personal dislike of the pirates for their murder of his parents, he has devised a plan whereby the unmanned survey ship Atlas, as soon as the pirates capture it and bring it to their hidden base, will explode. Unknown to anyone, Starr has leaked the plan to the pirates and sneaked aboard the ship, believing an infiltration will be a more efficient way to bring down the pirates. When captured, Starr tells the pirate leader, Captain Anton, that his name is Williams (his alias from David Starr, Space Ranger), and offers to join the pirates; whereupon Anton has Starr fight a duel in open space to prove himself worthy. Starr wins the duel, but remains a prisoner aboard Atlas while it is brought to an anonymous asteroid. The asteroid is home to a hermit named Joseph Patrick Hansen, and the pirates leave Starr in Hansen's care. Hansen tells Starr that he purchased the asteroid as a vacation site, and gradually made it more comfortable over the years, but now depends on the pirates for supplies, and later recognizes the pretended "Williams" as Lawrence Starr's son. Starr admits his true identity, and Hansen convinces him to pilot them to Ceres. On Ceres, Starr plans to send his friend Bigman to infiltrate the pirates, but realizes that Hansen's asteroid is not where it should be. Starr and Bigman take their own spaceship Shooting Starr to search for it and eventually land on its surface, where Starr is captured by Dingo, the pirate he beat in the duel. Dingo takes him inside the asteroid, revealing a hyperatomic engine used to move it. A fight with Dingo ends when Starr is struck with a neuronic whip and loses consciousness. Starr wakes to find himself in a spacesuit on the surface of the asteroid; whereupon Dingo straps him to a catapult and flings him into space. He uses his oxygen reserve to reverse his course and return to the asteroid, where he and Bigman defeat some of the pirates. As they leave the pirates' asteroid, they learn that a pirate fleet is attacking Ceres. Returning to Ceres, Starr realizes that the pirates' real object was to capture Hansen, which they have accomplished, and learns that Captain Anton's ship is taking Hansen to a secret Sirian base on Ganymede, whence the Sirians plan to attack Earth while Earth's fleet is occupied fighting the pirates in the Asteroid Belt. Although Anton has a 12-hour head start, Starr passes him to Ganymede by skimming the Shooting Starr past the Sun, wearing the Martian "Space Ranger" mask to ward off the heat and radiation. When Anton makes for Ganymede, Starr threatens to ram his ship, and accelerates toward it, all the while talking to Anton. The ships are ten miles apart when Hansen kills Anton and orders Anton's crew to surrender to Starr. When the Terran fleet arrives to take custody of the pirate ship, Starr convinces the commanding admiral to concentrate on the asteroid pirates and leave the Sirian base on Ganymede alone, revealing that Hansen is the leader of the asteroid pirates. It is then revealed that while Starr was intercepting Anton's ship, the Council of Science, on Starr's orders, captured the base and achieved the wherewithal to terminate the asteroid piracy. Hansen is coerced to have the Sirians leave Ganymede, and is sent to incarceration on Mercury. Afterwards, Starr reveals that the matter between him and Hansen was not just about the latter being the pirate mastermind, but a far more personal one. Hansen claimed to have met David's father, but didn't recognize his two close friends (despite the three being all but inseparable), and claimed that David resembles his father the most when he is angry, despite Lawrence hardly ever being in that state. From that, David states that within an hour after meeting Hansen, he knew he was facing not his father's acquaintance, but his parents' murderer. ===== Two strangers, Jerzy (Leon Niemczyk) and Marta (Lucyna Winnicka), accidentally end up holding tickets for the same sleeping chamber on an overnight train to the Baltic Sea coast. Also on board is Marta's spurned lover, who will not leave her alone. When the police enter the train in search of a murderer on the lam, rumors fly and everything seems to point toward one of the main characters as the culprit. ===== Roza (Lucyna Winnicka) marries a promising young architect, Juliusz (Roland Glowacki). They have a blissful life together for the first few months, but then World War II breaks out and Juliusz is deported to a concentration camp soon after. Months and years go by, and Roza gradually abandons any hope that her husband might return. She meets and falls in love with another man, and tries to put her life back together, but one day, unexpectedly, Juliusz does return - a shattered ghost of his former self, physically crippled and tormented by memories of the camps. First out of duty, and then out of pity, Roza starts to care for him, but her feelings slowly transform into a kind of revulsion. Kawalerowicz here takes up a theme that would be frequently addressed by later Polish films: the lingering psychological and emotional scars wrought by the war, a kind of weight from the past impeding the creation of any kind of future. ===== The play opens with Jean walking on the stage, the set being the kitchen of the manor. He drops the Count's boots off to the side but still within view of the audience; his clothing shows that he is a valet. Jean talks to Christine about Miss Julie's peculiar behavior. He considers her mad since she went to the barn dance, danced with the gamekeeper, and tried to waltz with Jean, a mere servant of the Count. Christine delves into the background of Miss Julie, stating how, unable to face her family after the humiliation of breaking her engagement, she stayed behind to mingle with the servants at the dance instead of going with her father to the Midsummer's Eve celebrations. Miss Julie got rid of her fiancé seemingly because he refused her demand that he jump over a riding whip she was holding. The incident, apparently witnessed by Jean, was similar to training a dog to jump through a hoop. Jean takes out a bottle of fine wine with a "yellow seal" and reveals, by the way he flirts with her, that he and Christine are engaged. Noticing a stench, Jean asks what Christine is cooking so late on Midsummer's Eve. The pungent mixture turns out to be an abortifacient for Miss Julie's dog, which was impregnated by the gatekeeper's mongrel. Jean calls Miss Julie "too stuck-up in some ways and not proud enough in others," traits apparently inherited from her mother. Despite her character flaws, Jean finds Miss Julie beautiful or perhaps simply a stepping stone to achieve his lifelong goal of owning an inn. When Miss Julie enters and asks Christine if the "meal" has finished cooking, Jean instantly shapes up, becoming charming and polite. Jokingly, he asks if the women are gossiping about secrets or making a witch's broth for seeing Miss Julie's future suitor. After more niceties, Miss Julie invites Jean once more to dance the waltz, at which point he hesitates, pointing out that he already promised Christine a dance and that the gossip generated by such an act would be savage. Almost offended by this response, she justifies her request by pulling rank: she is the lady of the house and must have the best dancer as her partner. Then, insisting that rank does not matter, she convinces Jean to waltz with her. When they return, Miss Julie recounts a dream of climbing up a pillar and being unable to get down. Jean responds with a story of creeping into her walled garden as a child–he sees it as "the Garden of Eden, guarded by angry angels with flaming swords"–and gazing at her longingly from under a pile of stinking weeds. He says he was so distraught with this unrequitable love, after seeing her at a Sunday church service, that he tried to die beautifully and pleasantly by sleeping in a bin of oats strewn with elderflowers, as sleeping under an elder tree was thought to be dangerous. At this point Jean and Miss Julie notice some servants heading up to the house, singing a song that mocks the pair of them. They hide in Jean's room. Although Jean swears he won't take advantage of her there, when they emerge later it becomes clear that the two have had sex. Now they are forced to figure out how to deal with it, as Jean theorizes that they can no longer live in the same household–he feels they will be tempted to continue their relationship until they are caught. Now he confesses that he was only pretending when he said he had tried to commit suicide out of love of her. Furiously, Miss Julie tells him of how her mother raised her to be submissive to no man. They then decide to run away together to start a hotel, with Jean running it and Miss Julie providing the capital. Miss Julie agrees and steals some of her father's money, but angers Jean when she insists on bringing her little bird along–she insists that it is the only creature that loves her, after her dog Diana was "unfaithful" to her. When Miss Julie insists that she would rather kill the bird than see it in the hands of strangers, Jean cuts off its head. In the midst of this confusion, Christine comes downstairs, ready to go to church. She is shocked by Jean and Miss Julie's planning and unmoved when Miss Julie asks her to come along with them as head of the kitchen of the hotel. Christine explains to Miss Julie about God and forgiveness and heads off for church, telling them as she leaves that she will tell the stablemasters not to let them take out any horses so that they cannot run off. Shortly after, they receive word that Miss Julie's father, the Count, has returned. At this, both lose courage and find themselves unable to go through with their plans. Miss Julie realizes that she has nothing to her name, as her thoughts and emotions were taught to her by her mother and her father. She asks Jean if he knows of any way out for her. He takes a shaving razor and hands it to her. The play ends as she walks through the door with the razor, presumably to commit suicide. ===== The series follows Hercules, as a teenager, training as a hero, as well as trying to adjust to life. With his free-spirited friend Icarus, his future-seeing friend Cassandra, and his teacher Philoctetes ("Phil"), he battles his evil uncle Hades. Like all teenagers, though, Hercules has to worry about peer pressure when the snobbish prince Adonis ridicules him. The series notably contradicts several events in the original film. ===== Evangeline (Eva for short) Dandridge works for The Los Angeles Health Department as an inspector, a job most suitable for her bossy and perfectionist nature. She and her sisters, Kareenah, Bethany, and Jacqui, have been taking care of each other since their parents died when they were young. As a result of the combination of her personality and her family's circumstances, Eva's level of involvement in her sisters' lives causes a high level of tension between her and her sisters' significant others (Mike, Tim, and Darrell, respectively). While the significant others are out at a bar complaining about how interfering Eva is, they come across Mike's old friend Ray Adams. Ray is a "Master Player" who can handle even the most difficult women. The guys hire Ray to seduce Eva and convince her to move away with him so they can finally be free of her meddling. Little do they know Eva has already been offered a new job in Chicago. After a disastrous first date, Ray tells the guys that Eva is too difficult for even him to handle and offers to return their money. However, when he runs into Eva while at work delivering meat to local restaurants they make amends and begin a relationship. Eva and Ray fall in love, and Eva even temporarily abandons her shrewish ways. But when things start to get serious, Eva's sisters all start comparing their relationships to Ray and Eva's relationship, making things even worse than before. After they find out about Eva's job offer, the significant others panic and attempt to break up the blossoming romance, claiming their wives never let them hear the end of the latest with Eva and Ray, and that Eva intends to stay in the city. Things get so complicated that the men finally hatch a daring plan: kidnap Ray, lie to Eva about his death in an accident and cajole her into leaving the city. Eva believes them and arranges a tearful funeral for her "dead" boyfriend, but in the middle of the service Ray appears, having escaped his prison, and the whole truth comes out. An angry Eva dumps Ray, leaves the city and resolves to start a new life. But Ray hasn't quite given up. He shows up at Eva's job on a white horse and persuades her to forgive him. She agrees to take him back, split up the inheritance, and apologizes for her interference in her sisters' relationships. ===== Roger Porter (Washington), a young and somewhat naive black man, is the long-lost son of Walter Whitney (Segal), a successful businessman living in the exclusive, predominantly white community of San Marino, California. Walter, who is secretly Jewish, lives a frustrating life in his gated community as he constantly has to beg his shrewish wife for sex, plus he has to put up with his obnoxious step-daughter's antics. Roger turns up at Walter's office, revealing that he is the result of Walter's long- ago relationship with a black woman, who is now dead. For purposes of professional advancement in the business, Walter had left Roger's mother. The only person who knew about Roger's mother was his anti-Semitic father-in-law (Warden), who is also his boss. Walter's father-in-law had warned him that if he continued his relationship with Roger's mother he would see to it that Walter would never prosper in his career, so Walter forcefully broke it off. Attempting to make it up to Roger, Walter tells his wife Vivian (Saint James) that he wants to have Roger live with them for the summer as a foster son. She accepts, but soon regrets the decision after she finds out about Roger's real relationship with Walter. She kicks Walter out. Her father fires him, taking his car and credit cards. His lawyer and erstwhile best friend says that he will be representing Vivian in the divorce, but gives him a referral to another lawyer, who is African-American. The new lawyer tells him that all his money is in accounts in only Vivian's name, so all he has left is the money in his wallet, $68. Walter checks into a sleazy motel with Roger and tries to make ends meet by shoveling manure in a stable. Roger hocks Walter's golf clubs to finance them to move into a rundown apartment in Watts. Meanwhile, Walter's father-in-law watches Walter's every move to make sure Walter receives no help from the world he knew, so that Walter will return to his old world WITHOUT Roger. Walter's wife Vivian and his father in law visit him in the apartment, telling Walter they miss him. He then has to choose between either acceptance that Roger is his son, or alienation of Roger to salvage his own position in society. He chooses the latter, but his conscience bothers him to the extreme where he then decides to sacrifice everything again to return to Roger, dismissing his father-in-law's threats that this time he will make Walter really suffer. After meeting Roger again, Walter's new lawyer reveals that Roger isn't a high school dropout, but is actually a college student, premed at Walter's old alma mater. He takes Walter to where Roger is at the side of the road working on his car, and first Walter tells him that he wants to go and work for an old acquaintance to live nearby him, but eventually decides to go and stay with Roger's aunt Clara and be a full part of his life. As the movie ends, Walter, proud of his son, rides along in Roger's jalopy, deciding to finally give him the time they never had before. ===== Billy Hoyle is a former college basketball player who makes his living by hustling streetballers who assume he cannot play well because he is white. Billy never degrades his race or downplays his skill when joining in on pickup games; he simply allows his opponents, most of whom are black, to believe they have a natural advantage over him due to his race and clothing style. Such a player is Sidney Deane, a talented but cocky player who is beaten twice by Billy, once in a half court team game and later in a one-on-one shootout for money. Billy and his Puerto Rican live-in girlfriend, Gloria Clemente, are on the run from mobsters because of a gambling debt. A voracious reader, making note of obscure facts, Gloria's goal in life is to be a contestant on the television show Jeopardy! and make a fortune. Sidney wants to buy a house for his family outside the rough Baldwin Village neighborhood. He proposes a business partnership with Billy and they hustle other players by deliberately setting them up to pick Billy as Sidney's teammate. At first their system is very successful, but when they unexpectedly lose a game, it turns out that Sidney had double-crossed Billy by deliberately playing badly to avenge his earlier loss to him, making Billy lose $1,700 to a group of Sidney's friends. Gloria, who wants Billy to find a stable job, is incensed at Billy for blowing his money again, but realizes he got hustled after Billy tells her how it happened. They go to Sidney's apartment and appeal to his wife Rhonda for fairness, and the women agree to share the money provided Sidney and Billy team up for a major two-on-two outdoor tournament. Despite their constant bickering, Sidney and Billy win the tournament and the grand prize of $5,000, largely due to Billy's ability to disrupt his opponents' concentration. Billy's most notable claim is that he is "in the zone", a state of mind in which nothing can distract him. Sidney is pleased with the outcome, yet he cannot help mocking Billy about his inability to slam dunk. Billy insists that he can indeed dunk, and after Sidney clearly disagrees, Billy offers to bet his share of the $5,000 on his ability to dunk. Sidney gives him three chances, telling him "white men can't jump," but Billy fails and squanders his share. When he tells Gloria, she leaves him. Desperate to get her back, Billy goes to Sidney for help. Sidney reveals that he has a friend who works as a security guard at the TV studio that produces Jeopardy! The friend, Robert, agrees to use his connections to get her on the show if Billy can sink a hook shot from beyond the half-court line, which he does. Gloria initially stumbles over sports questions (such as naming Babe Ruth as the all-time NBA rebound leader), but makes a comeback with a pet topic, "Foods That Begin With the Letter Q". She wins $14,100 on her first episode. Billy sings Gloria a song he has composed and wins her back. As Billy and Gloria discuss their new future, this time it is Sidney who is desperate for Billy's help; his apartment was burglarized and his winnings stolen, so he and Rhonda are desperate for money so they can move to a better neighborhood. Gloria is expecting Billy to get a steady job and settle down, but Sidney informs him that two hoops legends of the L.A. streetball scene, "The King" and "The Duck", are playing at the courts downtown. Sidney asks Billy to partner with him in playing against them and Billy enthusiastically agrees, offering to gamble his share of Gloria's take. Gloria warns that if Billy gambles with her money, they are through, regardless of the outcome. Billy, feeling he must honor the obligation he owes Sidney for getting Gloria on Jeopardy! in the first place, sides with Sidney. They play a final game against King and Duck. In a very tight game, Sidney and Billy prevail, the winning point coming when Sidney lobs an "alley-oop" pass to Billy, who dunks it. Returning home happy for having doubled the share that Gloria gave him of her winnings, Billy is crushed to find that Gloria has kept her word and left him for good. The mobsters who are after Billy track him down, and he pays off his debts. Billy then asks Sidney to set him up with a real job, and Sidney remarks that Billy and Gloria may be better off without each other. The film ends as Billy and Sidney launch into yet another basketball argument and they return to the court where they first met to play a one-on-one game, but this time, as friends. ===== Set in Indiana in 1903, the film tells the tale of Jeremiah Kincaid (Bobby Driscoll) and his determination to raise a black-wool lamb that was once rejected by its mother. Jeremiah names the lamb Danny for the famed race horse Dan Patch (who is also portrayed in the film). Jeremiah's dream of showing Danny at the Pike County Fair must overcome the obstinate objections of his loving yet tough grandmother Granny (Beulah Bondi). Jeremiah's confidant Uncle Hiram (Burl Ives) is the boy's steady ally. Inspired by the animated figures and stories, the boy perseveres.Lockhart, Jane. "Looking at Movies: So Dear to My Heart". The Rotarian. February 1949, p.36. ===== The story takes place in and around a seventeenth century Polish convent. A priest, Father Józef Suryn (Mieczyslaw Voit), arrives at a small inn for a night's rest. He has been sent to investigate a case of demonic possession at the nearby convent after the local priest, Father Garniec, was burnt at the stake for sexually tempting the nuns. The next day, Father Suryn sets out for the convent, where he meets the abbess, Mother Joan (Lucyna Winnicka), said to be the most possessed of all the nuns. Already four priests before Father Suryn have tried to exorcise Mother Joan, but without success. The villagers at the inn are curious about the convent's troubled past and do everything to keep track of its developing story, with the stableman, Kaziuk (Jerzy Kaczmarek), leading Father Suryn around and asking the only non-possessed nun Sister Malgorzata (Anna Ciepielewska) for stories when she makes her nightly visits to the inn. After Father Suryn learns that Mother Joan is possessed by eight demons, he and several other priests, during an exorcism, manage to exorcise the abbess. She and the other nuns appear cured. Soon after, however, the demonic possession increases. Mother Joan tries to seduce Father Suryn, begging him to make her a saint. In the meantime Sister Malgorzata leaves the convent and becomes Margareth after falling in love with Chrząszczewski (Stanisław Jasiukiewicz), a squire who visits the inn. After a failed meeting takes place between Father Suryn and the local rabbi (also played by Voit), the priest re-enters the convent and receives Mother Joan's demons through his love for her. At night, reasoning that the only way to save the abbess is by doing Satan's bidding, Father Suryn grabs an axe and kills Kaziuk and Juraj, another stableman. The next morning, Margareth is abandoned by the squire, and finds Father Suryn holding the bloodied axe. The priest instructs her to go to Mother Joan and tell her of the sacrifice he made for her salvation in the name of love. Margareth runs back to the convent and cries with Mother Joan, neither saying a word. ===== Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman) is a retired professional football player now working as a private investigator in Los Angeles. He discovers that his wife Ellen (Susan Clark) is having an affair with a man named Marty Heller (Harris Yulin). Aging actress Arlene Iverson (Janet Ward) hires Harry to find her 16-year-old daughter Delly Grastner (Melanie Griffith). Arlene's only source of income is her daughter's trust fund, but it requires Delly to be living with her. Arlene gives Harry the name of one of Delly's friends in Los Angeles, a mechanic called Quentin (James Woods). Quentin tells Harry that he last saw Delly at a New Mexico film location, where she started flirting with one of Arlene's old flames, stuntman Marv Ellman (Anthony Costello). Harry realizes that the injuries to Quentin's face are from fighting the stuntman and sympathizes with his bitterness towards Delly. He travels to the film location and talks to Marv and stunt coordinator Joey Ziegler (Edward Binns). Before returning to Los Angeles, Harry is surprised to see Quentin working on Marv's stunt plane. Harry suspects that Delly may be trying to seduce her mother's ex-lovers and travels to the Florida Keys, where her stepfather Tom Iverson (John Crawford) lives. In Florida, Harry finds Delly staying with Tom and Paula (Jennifer Warren). Harry, Paula, and Delly take a boat trip to go swimming, but Delly becomes distraught when she finds the submerged wreckage of a small plane with the decomposing body of the pilot inside. Paula marks the spot with a buoy, and when they return to shore, she appears to report the find to the Coast Guard. Harry persuades Delly to return to her mother in California. After he drops her off at her California home, he still is uneasy about the case, but focuses on patching up his own marriage. He tells his wife he will give up the agency, something she has wanted him to do for a long time, but then he learns that Delly has been killed in a car accident on the set of a movie. Harry questions the driver of the car, Joey, who was injured. Joey lets him view footage of the crash, which raises Harry's suspicions about Quentin the mechanic. He goes to the home of Arlene Iverson and finds her drunk by the pool, not particularly grief-stricken over the death of her daughter. Arlene now stands to inherit her daughter's wealth. Harry tracks down Quentin, who denies being the killer, but tells him that Marv Ellman was the dead pilot in the plane and that Ellman was involved in smuggling. Quentin manages to escape before Harry can learn more. Harry returns to Florida, where he finds the body of Quentin the mechanic floating in Tom's dolphin pen. Harry accuses Tom of the murder, they fight, and Tom is knocked unconscious. Paula admits she did not report the dead body in the plane because the aircraft contained a valuable sculpture that they were smuggling piecemeal to the United States. Harry and Paula set off to retrieve the sculpture. While Paula is diving, a seaplane arrives and the pilot strafes the boat, machine-gunning Harry in the leg. The seaplane lands on the ocean, but when the pilot sees Paula surface with the sculpture, he taxies the plane over her and kills her. The impact of the pontoons on the surfaced sculpture flips the seaplane, and as the cockpit submerges, Harry is able to see through the glass window beneath his boat that the drowning pilot is Joey Ziegler. Harry unsuccessfully tries to steer the boat, which is now going in circles. ===== The series is set around in Baby Nick's house. Where when Baby Nick's mom is away, his babysitter is there to watch him along with his best friend who always hangout in his house, Baby Patrice. There they get bored and started to watch animated clips about real- life living people from the routine. Whether its Dane Cook or Lewis Black. ===== Former Green Beret Louis Stevens (Mark Dacascos) returns to his hometown of Miami after completing military service in Brazil, only to learn that his old high school has become a haven for gangs and drug dealers. After Stevens uses his Capoeira skills to kick several drug dealers off the school property, Mr. Kerrigan (Geoffrey Lewis), one of Stevens' old teachers, sees the impact that Stevens has on the students. Kerrigan gives him the task of teaching Capoeira to a handful of the worst at-risk students at the school, giving Stevens an abandoned fire station as their practice area. While doing so, Stevens earns the ire of the local drug lord, Silverio (Paco Christian Prieto), whose younger cousin, Orlando (Richard Coca), is one of Stevens' students. Silverio is also a master of Capoeira, and he engages Stevens in combat, beating him viciously. The horrified Orlando resolves to learn everything he can from Stevens. Stevens' class learns quickly, and they become very skilled at Capoeira. The principal, delighted, proposes a district-wide Capoeira program to the school board. After a field trip with his class, Stevens once again clashes with Silverio, who declares war against him. Silverio's gang terrorizes the high school and sets fire to Kerrigan's classroom, resulting in the death of one of Stevens' students. As a result of this incident, Stevens is accused at fault, banished from the school grounds and the Capoeira program is terminated. In retaliation to the attack, Stevens sneaks into Silverio's chop shop and defeats the workers before setting a cash-filled car on fire. Furious, Silverio orders the gang to bring Stevens to him alive. Orlando flees to get help. After a desperate battle, Stevens is finally captured and brought to a bonfire, where Silverio awaits. However, Stevens' Capoeira students bar their path in an attempt to rescue their teacher. Before a brawl can ensue, the exhausted Stevens challenges Silverio to a single combat to win back his students. Despite a grueling battle, Stevens defeats Silverio before the police arrive, sending the gang scattering in all directions. With this defeat, Silverio's reputation as crime lord is gone. Stevens' Capoeira program proves such a success that his students graduate from high school. To celebrate, they join a Brazilian Capoeira team to perform for Stevens at the graduation ceremony. ===== In the year 1797, the British naval vessel HMS Avenger presses into service a crewman "according to the Rights of War" from the merchant ship The Rights of Man. The new crewman, Billy Budd (Terence Stamp), is considered naive by his shipmates, and they attempt to indoctrinate him in their cynicism. But Budd's steadfast optimism is impenetrable, as when he is asked to critique the horrible stew the crew must eat, he offers "It's hot. And there's a lot of it. I like everything about it except the flavor." The crew discovers Budd stammers in his speech when anxious. Though Budd manages to enchant the crew, his attempts at befriending the brutal master-at- arms, John Claggart (Robert Ryan), are unsuccessful. Claggart is cruel and unrepentant, a man who believes he must control the crew through vicious flogging; savaging them before they can prey on him. Claggart orders Squeak (Lee Montague) to find means of putting Budd on report and to implicate him in a planned mutiny. He then brings his charges to the Captain, Edwin Fairfax Vere (Peter Ustinov). Although Claggart has no reason to implicate Budd in the conspiracy, Budd becomes a target because Billy represents everything that Claggart despises: humility, innocence, and trust in humanity. Vere summons both Claggart and Budd to his cabin for a private confrontation. When Claggart makes his false charges that Budd is a conspirator, Budd stammers, unable to find the words to respond, and he strikes Claggart, who falls backward - against a block and tackle; Budd's unlawful act killed him with a single blow. Captain Vere assembles a court-martial. Vere and all the other officers on board are fully aware of Budd's simplicity and Claggart's evil, but the captain is also torn between his morality and duty to his station. Vere intervenes in the final stages of deliberations (which are in full support of Budd). He argues the defendant must be found guilty for even striking Claggart, Budd's superior, not to mention killing him. Vere's soul is in turmoil over the decision he must make. His arguments to pursue the letter of the law succeed, and Budd is convicted. Condemned to be hanged from the ship's yardarm at dawn the following morning, Budd takes care to wear his good shoes. At Budd's final words, "God bless Captain Vere!", Vere crumbles, and Billy is subsequently hoisted up and hanged on the ship's rigging. At this point the crew is on the verge of mutiny over the incident, but Vere can only stare off into the distance, the picture of abjection, overtaken by his part in the death of innocence. Just as the crew is to be fired upon by the ship's marine detachment, a French vessel appears and commences cannon fire on the Avenger, and the crew eventually returns fire. In the course of battle a piece of the ship's rigging falls on Vere, killing him. The ship's figurehead is also shot off while a narrator tells of Budd's heroic sacrifice. ===== After the Separation of Japan in 1974, the northern island of Hokkaidō (or Ezo, as it is called in the anime) is occupied by the "Union" (referring to the Soviet Union). In the same year, the Union begins the construction of a strange tower on Hokkaido designed by a scientist named Ekusun Tsukinoe. The anime follows the story of three friends living in Aomori, in northern Japan: two boys, Hiroki Fujisawa and Takuya Shirakawa, both child prodigies; and one girl, Sayuri Sawatari. In 1996, the three are in ninth grade, their last year of middle school, and they are fascinated by the Hokkaido Tower visible across the Tsugaru Strait to the north. Sayuri becomes close friends with the two boys. The boys find a crashed Maritime Self-Defense Force drone plane and work on rebuilding the plane with the support of Mr. Okabe, their boss at a military plant. The three teenagers promise to one day fly to Hokkaido to visit the Tower. However, before they can do this, Sayuri mysteriously disappears during the summer. Three years later, Takuya and Hiroki have stopped working on the plane, having taken different paths after the grief they suffered at Sayuri's disappearance. Takuya is working as a physicist at an Alliance scientific facility sponsored by the United States' National Security Agency, researching parallel universes alongside Ms. Maki Kasahara under the supervision of Professor Tomizawa. They know that the Hokkaido Tower, which began operating in 1996, replaces matter around it with matter from other universes, but they do not yet know why it does this for only a 2-km radius. Takuya becomes involved with the Uilta Liberation Front after he learns that Mr. Okabe is its leader; his factory workers are the other agents of the organization. Okabe signs Takuya on for an excursion to Ezo with Uilta. Sayuri is revealed to have been hospitalized over the past three years, having developed an extreme form of narcolepsy; she has been sleeping continuously for most of the three years. Her mind is trapped in an unpopulated parallel universe, where she is all alone. Tomizawa has discovered that she is somehow connected to the Union's research into parallel universes and the Hokkaido Tower's ability to change the surrounding land into alternate possibilities, but Tomizawa keeps this information, as well as her whereabouts, secret from Takuya initially. Tomizawa is secretly working with the Uilta Liberation Front and lets Mr. Okabe know about Sayuri, while Mr. Okabe reveals that the Uilta Liberation Front plans to bomb the Hokkaido Tower to incite war against the Union, hoping that this will lead to the reunification of Japan. Takuya finally learns of the most likely scenario through his coworker – that Sayuri was used by her grandfather, a Union physicist, to channel all of the Tower's unstable dimension-creating energy somewhere other than Earth, the implication of him not having done so likely having resulted in the dimension creating chain reactions around the tower to continue growing in area until it enveloped the whole world. Saddened, he goes back to the old warehouse where he and Hiroki were working on the plane, only to find Hiroki, who wants Takuya to help him complete the plane to save Sayuri. He coldly points a gun at Hiroki and has him choose between Sayuri and the World without waiting for an answer – walking away in pain. With Okabe's guidance, Takuya locks up his coworker and takes Sayuri away from the NSA compound – Takuya and Hiroki finally come back together to work on the plane. Takuya helps to finish the final programming of the plane, as they plan, using the cover of the soon coming declaration of war against Ezo, to fly to the tower and destroy it before its rays affect everything on Earth, which in turn will save Sayuri. The plane only seats two, so Takuya allows Hiroki to pilot the plane and fulfill their childhood promise. Hiroki manages to fly the plane across the strait to the Tower carrying Sayuri and a missile provided by the Uilta Liberation Front. When Sayuri finally awakens while the plane circles the Tower, the Tower activates and immediately begins to transform the surrounding area; the area under transformation grows to encompass much of Hokkaido. In the last few minutes of her coma, Sayuri realizes that when she awakes she will lose all her memories of her dreams of the past 3 years, and thus upon waking she weeps because, unknowingly, she lost the memory of her love for Hiroki. Flying back, Hiroki fires the missile, destroying the Tower and stopping the matter transformation. The film ends with Hiroki vowing to Sayuri that they will start their relationship anew. ===== The series follows protagonists Jayce, Flora, Herc Stormsailor, Oon, and Gillian in their search for Jayce's father Audric. Meanwhile, they are opposing the main antagonist Saw Boss and his followers, the Monster Minds. Audric was a botanist who performed experiments with biotechnology, one experiment creating Flora. In another experiment, Audric attempted to create a plant that could prevent starvation. But when he succeeded, a nearby star exploded into a supernova. The radiation from the supernova's explosion changed the plant and four others into the Monster Minds: a race of plant-like monsters who wish to conquer the universe. Audric created a root that could destroy the Monster Minds, but was forced to flee before he could complete the task, after which the Monster Minds made Audric's laboratory their headquarters. Audric kept half of the root himself and gave the other half to his servant, the Eternal Squire Oon, whom he sent to serve Jayce. Jayce and his friends are thereafter on a quest to find Audric and form the complete root. ===== When Paul West starts his new job in September he is altogether unaware of the true character and the machinations of his boss, Jean-Marie Martin, who is in his early fifties, rich, handsome, impeccably dressed, friendly, and prepared to pay him a good salary. West does not know yet that Martin, officially decorated for supporting the French economy, is illegally importing cheap British beef (the ban imposed during the BSE crisis not having been lifted yet); that through his political connections he has secured for his daughter Élodie a cheap, council-subsidised HLM apartment; that he associates with the far right; that, although married, he is having an affair with someone from the office; and that he wants to sell him, Paul West, a cottage in the country quite close to the site of a future nuclear power plant. West is allotted a motley crew who are supposed to work together on his project. However, everyone, including Martin, turns out to be very reluctant to learn what West has to tell them, for example that "My Tea Is Rich" is not a good name for a chain of English tea rooms. Soon West realises that no one is following his orders, that nothing is happening, that he is being paid for doing, or at least achieving, absolutely nothing. In the end, his contract is prematurely terminated, and he spends some weeks teaching English. ("It was much tougher than working in an office. You can't e-mail your mates while standing in front of a class.") His love life during that year is an emotional rollercoaster ride. In all, West has sex with four different women during that year: Élodie, his boss's daughter; Alexa, who eventually cannot put up with his apolitical outlook on life; Marie, a black girl who willingly drops him when her boyfriend returns from abroad; and Florence, half Indian, the girl with whom he plans to open his own tea room in Paris at the end of the novel. ===== Lord Dimwit Flathead the Excessive certainly earned his nickname. Never one to do things on a small scale, when Dimwit decided in 789 GUE to have a statue erected in his honor, it had to be the largest statue ever. This angered a local resident of Fublio Valley (where the statue was built), Megaboz the Magnificent, who cast a deadly curse over Dimwit, the royal family, and the entire Empire before disappearing. The king's conjurers employed their most powerful magic in an effort to counteract the curse, but they were unable to save Dimwit and his eleven siblings; they only managed to delay the kingdom's destruction temporarily. Zork Zero prelude (in Windows Frotz interpreter). The compass rose at the top highlights available exits. Some room descriptions had icons, also used in dynamic maps. The game begins with a brief prelude in which the player is a humble servant in Lord Dimwit's scullery. Present when Megaboz appears and casts his fateful curse, the player manages to grab a small piece of parchment left behind in the chaos. 94 years later, the strength of the counter-curse is rapidly fading. If the curse can't be lifted by Curse Day, the anniversary of Dimwit's death, the Empire will surely fall. The reigning monarch, Wurb Flathead, has sent out a call in desperation: anyone who can save the Empire will be given half its riches! Predictably, this results in an avalanche of crackpot treasure seekers, none of whom have any more luck than did the royal sorcerers. As the game begins in earnest, it is Mumberbur 14: Curse Day. The erstwhile curse-breakers have fled, along with everyone else in Flathead Castle. The player, a descendant of the servant from the prelude, awakes on the floor of the castle armed only with the scrap of parchment. The only other person around is the court's jester, who alternately helps and opposes the player in the quest to lift the curse. Two items belonging to each of the "accursed twelve" (that is, Dimwit Flathead and his eleven siblings) must be placed into the cauldron and the magic word must be spoken. The game revolves around gathering these twenty-four objects and discovering the magic word. To accomplish this, the player will play the legendary game of Double Fanucci, travel to every corner of the Empire, solve a collection of riddles and logic puzzles, and visit the enormous statue that started all this trouble. There are even visits to locations such as the top of the world, and under the world (from which the player can fall). Flamingos, magic, bottomless pits and a unique sense of humor all feature along the way. What happens when the curse is finally lifted is the game's final surprise. If you leave the castle and pass the perimeter wall, you arrive at the opening scene of Zork 1. ===== Lucky (Anil Kapoor) is a small-time criminal, hoping to retire with his girlfriend Lara (Koena Mitra) after one last job. Unfortunately for him, things do not go as planned and he becomes involved with a ruthless killer Billa (Sanjay Dutt). Lucky steals 2.5 million from Billa. But Lara steals it from him instead. He, then, comes to know that his friends have been murdered. Billa tracks Lucky down. But Lucky is able to strike a deal. He is to go to Goa and meet Jacko (Shakti Kapoor) and sell him a bag of unknown contents. He then meets Jacko and sets a rendezvous. On his return to his hotel he comes across a Police inspector (Aditya Pancholi) who seems to have become suspicious of Lucky. In a small restaurant he sights a dancer Sam (Sameera Reddy). He follows her and gets an opportunity to meet her when her car breaks down. He offers her a lift home. She introduces herself as Sam. When her husband, Lukka (Mahesh Manjrekar) shows up, they retrieve her car from the road, and go home. That night Lucky arrives in a disco to meet Jacko again. Here he again comes across Sam. After getting the money, Lucky prepares to leave the next morning. Sam arrives at Lucky's hotel to meet him. But their meeting is cut short when Lucky notices the same inspector. He tells Sam to hide and hides the bag of money in the vehicle of an unsuspecting motorist. By the time Inspector leaves, the vehicle with the money is gone. Meanwhile, Billa tracks down Lara, gets the money back and kills her. While Billa hides the fact that he has his money back, Lucky hides that he has lost the money. He again comes across Lukka. It turns out that he wants Lucky to kill Sam and in return Lucky would get 2.5 million. Sam meets Lucky and sets up a deal that if Lucky would kill Lukka she would pay him 2.5 million. Both of them want the work done that night. During a drink, Sam bends down and Lukka has temptations on her and asks her to remove her blouse, but she refuses and Lukka forcefully unzips her, attempts to assault Sam and Sam accidentally shoots him dead. Lucky, however, gets the money and both try to get out of Goa. But the inspector is following them. Sam identifies the inspector as Lukka's brother Tiger and the 2.5 million actually belong to Tiger. Lucky somehow shakes Tiger off his pursuit, and hides the money. The next morning she is nowhere to be found. Lucky desperately searches for her and when he finally finds her he realises that he has fallen in love with her. Suddenly they are attacked by Inspector Tiger with his police force. Lucky is running out of ammunition when Billa arrives and shoots down all the police officers. Tiger, however, manages to escape by making Sam his hostage. At gunpoint, Lucky agrees to take Billa to the place where the money is hidden. When they reach the platform, Lucky finds that Tiger has discovered the money. A fist-to-fist duel ensues between Tiger and Lucky, but Billa intervenes and strikes a final deal. Both Lucky and Tiger have to walk on two parallel railway tracks blindfolded. The person towards whom the train comes is gone....If Lucky survives then he will get the girl, while Billa will take the money, but if Tiger is saved, he gets the money and Billa will take the girl. The train however changes tracks at the last moment and heads towards Lucky. Sam screams in horror and pleads Billa to let her go. From Sam's scream Tiger comes to know that Lucky is doomed. He takes off his blindfold and waves a farewell at Lucky. But he is promptly shot dead by Billa (because Billa notices the bracelet that was on Tiger's wrist that belonged to his now dead comrade). He then allows Sam to run to Lucky and try to save him. She does pull him off the tracks before the train could reach him. Billa smiles and rides away on his bike. After going a short distance, he stops and drops the bag to ground in a brief act of generosity and then goes away. ===== Following the unlikely defeat of Krill in Enchanter, the player's character has progressed from an Apprentice Enchanter to earning a coveted seat in the Circle of Enchanters. Belboz the Necromancer, the leader of the Circle, has become not only a mentor but a close friend as well. Lately, though, Belboz has seemed different. He's always distracted, even talking to himself at length. Whatever he's dealing with, Belboz doesn't see fit to confide in anyone. Surely he knows what he's doing. But then, Belboz suddenly disappears. If he is under the influence of some evil power, the results could be disastrous -- Belboz is one of the most powerful Enchanters in the land. Someone must uncover what has happened to him, and naturally that task falls to the player's character. Sorcerer has 70 ways for the player to die, the most of any Infocom game as of early 1985. It features several memorable puzzles, including an invisible but deadly glass maze and a toxic coal mine where the player must engage in short-term time travel. In addition to the spell-casting system introduced in Enchanter, there are also several magic potions to be found. Potions, naturally, are used by drinking them and each can only be used once. ===== Over the course of events in the trilogy's earlier games from 956 to 957 GUE (Enchanter and Sorcerer), the player's character has progressed from a novice wizard possessing a few weak spells to the leader of the Circle of Enchanters. Now, in 966 GUE (ten years after the events of Enchanter), the very foundations of Magic itself seem to be failing, and the leaders of all the Guilds in the land have gathered to demand answers. In the midst of this impassioned meeting, the crowd is suddenly transformed into a group of toads and newts. Everyone present is affected except for the player and a shadowy figure who flees the hall. In the course of investigating the mystery, the player learns new, powerful spells that must be used in novel ways. But since magic is no longer dependable, each spell has a chance of failing. The only objects that can help to shore up the effectiveness of sorcery are the Cubes of Foundation, each of which can transport the player to a different location and strengthen certain spells. Eventually the player discovers a terrible secret: the shadowy figure responsible for all this chaos is a dark twin. Even with magic, every action has an equal and opposite reaction; and with every spell cast, the player's opposite has grown stronger. Finally, this evil being seizes the magic cubes and uses them to construct a portal which will bestow near-infinite power. The only way to defeat the doppelgänger is to sabotage the portal, an action which also leads to the destruction of all magic. ===== Duty Free is about two British couples, David and Amy Pearce and Robert and Linda Cochran, who meet while holidaying at the same Spanish hotel in Marbella and the interruptive affair conducted by David Pearce and Linda Cochran during their break. Another recurring character is the hotel waiter Carlos. Although set in Spain, the show was recorded entirely in the Leeds Studios – only for the concluding Christmas special was the budget found to film some scenes in Spain at the Don Carlos Hotel and Spa. Like many British sitcoms, there was a class-related tension between the two; with the Pearces working-class socialists from Northampton, and the Cochrans a more affluent, middle-class Conservative couple from Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire. The character of David Pearce, much to his wife's chagrin, became uncomfortable with his own status and politics after meeting the Cochrans and tried to change his outlook. The series was based on a one-off TV play by Chappell, We're Strangers Here, first performed on TV with Geraldine McEwan and Ian Hendry as a two-hander and subsequently on stage as a four-hander at the Theatre Royal, Windsor. ===== Young Ferdinand does not enjoy butting heads with other young bulls, preferring instead to sit under a cork tree smelling the flowers. His mother is concerned that he might be lonely and tries to persuade him to play with the other calves, but when she sees that Ferdinand is content as he is she leaves him alone. When the calves grow up, Ferdinand turns out to be the largest and strongest of the young bulls. All the other bulls dream of being chosen to compete in the bullfight in Madrid, but Ferdinand still prefers smelling the flowers instead. One day, five men come to the pasture to choose a bull for the fights. Ferdinand is again on his own, sniffing flowers, when he accidentally sits on a bumblebee. Upon getting stung as a result, he runs wildly across the field, snorting and stamping. Mistaking Ferdinand for a mad and aggressive bull, the men rename him "Ferdinand the Fierce" and take him away to Madrid. All Madrid, including many beautiful ladies, turn out to see the handsome matador fight "Ferdinand the Fierce". However, when Ferdinand is let into the ring, he is delighted by the flowers in the ladies' hair and sits down in the middle of the ring to enjoy them, upsetting and disappointing everyone: "The Banderilleros were mad, and the Picadores were madder, and the matador was so mad he cried because he couldn't show off with his cape and sword." Ferdinand is then taken back to his pasture, where to this day he is still sitting under the cork tree happily smelling flowers. ===== Chef discovers that Alanis Morissette's hit song "Stinky Britches" is a song that he wrote many years ago, before abandoning his musical aspirations. He contacts a record company executive, seeking only to have his name credited as the composer of "Stinky Britches". The record company refuses, and furthermore, hires Johnnie Cochran, who files a lawsuit against him for harassment. Cochran employs the "Chewbacca defense", resulting in a win for the record company and damages to be paid by the defense. Chef now has 24 hours to come up with the money or face four years of incarceration. Chef makes money by becoming a prostitute; instead of paying the executive, he intends to hire Cochran so he can sue the record company. Unfortunately, Chef's money is seized and he is sent to jail the next day. Meanwhile, Mr. Garrison witnesses many strange attempts on Mr. Twig's life; he finds him boiling in a pot of water, and later snapped in half. The evidence begins to point to Mr. Hat as the culprit, culminating in a showdown between Mr. Garrison and Mr. Hat which lands the former in jail. Mr. Hat breaks Mr. Garrison and Chef out of their cell. Mr. Garrison and Mr. Hat eventually make up their differences and get back together. The boys try to help Chef by rounding up various musicians, whose careers have been boosted by Chef's advice, to hold a benefit concert. The record company executive sabotages the concert, but the outpouring of support for Chef touches Cochran, who agrees to defend Chef. He uses the Chewbacca Defense again, ending with Chef finally getting his name on the album. ===== Charlotte is a "chaste" good girl, who is having some very bad dreams about sex. Her dreams are the only place where her dream lover is a dark, handsome vampire; however, that is a bit of a dilemma for her real-life boyfriend, who is not quite as fascinating as the vampire dream boy. Charlotte is given the choice between staying with her life as she knows it, or becoming a part of the vampire's world; there is also the usual struggle between such opposing entities, as Charlotte sees that not only does she have to choose between her boyfriend and her mysterious night-time visitor, but also between light and dark, and good and evil. In the end, after briefly kissing Milo and being interrupted by Eliza, the campus slut (who was killed by the vampire's banging her head against the wall, then licking the blood from the wall), Charlotte ends up having the dream one last time. This time, the vampire is telling her to come to him, as he believes there is nothing left for her here (on earth). After some dream scenes, finally, Charlotte is in the tower with the vampire. Chris (her boyfriend) is there, but the vampire pushes Chris away, and is about to put the bite on her when she utters Chris's name; he initially tells her not to think of Chris and instead think of himself and her as a couple. Then, after Charlotte utters Chris's name again, the vampire then says that she cannot take his life to the eternal life, and disappears. Charlotte and Chris wake up in the morning and kiss, and the vampire is destroyed while lying in a sunbeam. ===== The plot centers around two astronauts, Tyberius "Ty" Walker (Flex) and Morris Clay (Bell), who flew around the universe in a winged car, nicknamed the "Space Hoopty", in the 23rd century. The duo's car, which was a cross between a lowrider and an 18 wheeler, was piloted by a talking female computer named Loquatia. ===== Lauren King (Diane Lane) is a highly "book-smart" and affluent 13-year-old American girl living in Paris with her mother (Sally Kellerman) and stepfather (Arthur Hill). Daniel Michon (Thelonious Bernard) is a "street-smart" 13-year- old French boy who also lives in Paris with his father, a taxi driver. The two meet in the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte, where Lauren's mother is becoming romantically interested in the director of the movie being filmed there, and where Daniel is taking a school trip, and they fall in love. Lauren and Daniel soon meet Julius Santorin (Laurence Olivier), a quirky but kind elderly man, literally by accident. Daniel is unimpressed by him, but he fascinates Lauren with stories of his life, telling of a tradition that if a couple kiss in a gondola beneath the Bridge of Sighs in Venice at sunset while the church bells toll, they will be in love forever. Daniel punches George, the sleazy movie director friend of Lauren's mother, at Lauren's birthday party for making a crude innuendo about Lauren, and the two are forbidden to date. Lauren's mother fiercely objects to the romance. Told her family will be returning to America soon, Lauren hatches a plan to travel to Venice with Daniel. Though they have money from a horse race (in which Julius actually loses the money betting on their chosen horse, but steals the money to take the trip by picking the pockets of the racegoers), they cannot cross the border without an adult. With Julius's help, the pair travel by train but miss their connection to Verona after Julius gets into a conversation during the stop at the Italian border. In the meantime, Lauren's family spark an international investigation, believing she has been abducted. They hitch a ride with a couple of American tourists, Bob and Janet Duryea (Andrew Duncan and Claudette Sutherland), who are headed to Venice. In Verona, the travelers go out to dinner together, where Bob discovers that his wallet has been stolen. Even though their winnings from the horse race were left on the train in Julius's vest, Julius offers to pay the bill with cash, perplexing Lauren and irritating Daniel, who suspects he stole it. The following morning at breakfast, the Duryeas notice Lauren's picture in an Italian newspaper, revealing her as a missing child. Julius has also seen the paper and intercepts Lauren and Daniel on their way back to the hotel, angry that Lauren lied to him about their true reason for going to Venice and that everyone will think he's a kidnapper. Because they cannot go back to the hotel, they join a local bicycle race to escape Verona. Julius soon falls behind and Lauren persuades Daniel to go back for him. They find him collapsed from exhaustion. Daniel worms his background out of Julius, who also confesses that he both picked Bob's pocket and stole the money for their train tickets, disappointing Lauren. Lauren then reveals that she will be moving back to the United States permanently in two weeks. She wanted to take a gondola to the Bridge of Sighs and kiss Daniel so as they could love each other forever. She berates Julius by dismissing all his stories as lies. Julius admits he lied about some things but insists the legend is true. Daniel decides he still wants to go to Venice with Lauren, and Julius joins them. In Venice, they spend the night in St Mark's Basilica, until a chance meeting with the Duryeas sets them on the run again hours before sunset. Julius hides them in a movie theater and gives them his remaining cash, promising to return a half-hour before sunset. As soon as they are inside, however, Julius turns himself in to police searching for them; despite being slapped around by an inspector, he refuses to reveal Lauren and Daniel's whereabouts. The two children fall asleep during the film and wake with just a few minutes remaining. Lauren and Daniel run to find a gondola, but most are already taken. They finally find an available gondolier; he takes them within sight of the bridge, but refuses to go further just as sunset arrives. Daniel pushes him into the canal and, as the bells of the Campanile begin chiming, the two pull the gondola by hand along the pilings toward the bridge; this successfully enables the gondola to glide under the bridge. While the bells are still pealing, Lauren and Daniel kiss and embrace. In the police station, Julius finally reveals the two children's whereabouts. A few days later, Lauren is preparing to leave for home with her mother and stepfather. As she starts to get in the car, Lauren notices Daniel across the street waiting to say goodbye to her. Her mother starts to object, but her stepfather tells Lauren to go ahead, having warmed to the boy. She and Daniel share a final kiss, pledging not to become “like everybody else.” Lauren tearfully bids farewell to Julius, who is sitting on a nearby bench. She runs back to the car, and Daniel follows it as it leaves, he and Lauren waving at each other. ===== Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart in Dark Passage Vincent Parry, convicted of killing his wife, escapes from San Quentin Prison and evades police by hitching a ride with a motorist named Baker. A radio news report about an escaped convict and Parry's odd clothes make Baker suspicious, so when questioned, Parry beats him unconscious. Irene Jansen picks him up and smuggles him past a police roadblock into San Francisco, offering him shelter in her apartment. Madge, Jansen's acquaintance, comes by Irene's apartment, but Parry (through a closed door) tells her to leave. A former romantic interest whom Parry had spurned, Madge testified at his trial out of spite, providing a motive as to why he would have killed his wife. Irene explains that she had followed Parry's case with interest and that she believes Parry is innocent. Her own father had been falsely convicted of murder, and since then she has taken an interest in miscarriages of justice. Parry leaves but is recognized by a cab driver, who turns out to be sympathetic and gives Parry the name of a plastic surgeon who can change his appearance. Parry arranges to stay with a friend, George Fellsinger, during the recuperation from the surgery and asks George for help in proving his innocence. Following the operation, Parry is unable to speak with his face wrapped in bandages. He returns to George's apartment and finding him murdered, returns to Irene's apartment where he collapses at her doorstep. Irene nurses him back to health. Madge and her ex-fiancé Bob, who is romantically interested in Irene, come by. Madge asks to stay with Irene for protection, worried that Parry will kill her for testifying against him. Irene gets rid of Madge and deflects Bob by saying that she has already met someone to whom she is attracted, "Vincent Parry". She feigns that she is lying, but actually she is telling the truth, as Parry hides in a bedroom. Bob takes Irene's statement as a joke, but accepts that Irene is interested in another man. Parry recuperates and learns that he is wanted for George's murder, his fingerprints having been found on the murder weapon, George's trumpet. After his bandages are removed, Parry reluctantly parts from Irene, declaring that she will be better off if she is not part of his life. Parry decides to flee the city before trying to discover who really killed his wife. At a diner, an undercover policeman becomes suspicious because of Parry's behavior. The policeman asks for identification, but Parry claims to have left it at his hotel. On the street, Parry darts in front of a moving car to escape. At the hotel, Parry is surprised by Baker, who holds him at gunpoint. Baker has been following Parry since they first met. He now demands that Irene pay him $60,000 or he will turn Parry over to the law. Parry agrees, and Baker obliges him to drive the two of them to Irene's apartment. Claiming to take a shortcut, Parry drives to a secluded spot underneath the Golden Gate Bridge, where he succeeds in disarming Baker and questions him, becoming convinced that Madge is behind the deaths of his wife and friend. The two men fight, and Baker falls to his death. Parry goes to Madge's apartment. Knowing she does not recognize him with his new face, he pretends to be a friend of Bob's and feigns interest in courting her. Parry eventually reveals his true identity and accuses Madge of having killed both his wife and George. He shows her that he has all the evidence written down, and attempts to coerce her into making a confession. She points out that without her signature the accusations will then be worthless. While turning away from him, she accidentally falls through a window to her death. Knowing he cannot prove his innocence, and that he will likely be accused of Madge's murder as well, Parry has no choice but to flee. He intends to go to Mexico and then to South America. He phones Irene, revealing his plans; she says she will meet him there. The next time we see him, Parry is relaxing with a drink in a beach bar in Peru, when he sees Irene across the dance floor. They embrace. ===== The game begins moments after the conclusion of MDK, with Kurt, Max, and Dr. Hawkins celebrating their victory over Gunther Glut, and thus saving Earth from the alien invasion. However, in the midst of their celebrations, they discover a remaining Minecrawler heading towards Edmonton. Kurt destroys it, but as he awaits to return to the Jim Dandy space station, he is taken prisoner by a massive alien. Meanwhile, on board the Dandy, Hawkins discovers that communications with Kurt are being jammed by a nearby alien ship. Max heads to the other ship to free up the communications. However, upon doing so, he too is taken prisoner by the same alien. The alien then contacts Hawkins on the Dandy, telling him his name is Shwang Shwing, and the invasion of Earth is not over. Shwing sends a group of aliens onto the Dandy, but Hawkins is able to fight them off and teleport Kurt back to the ship. He then sends Kurt to the alien ship to save Max. However, shortly after Kurt's departure, Hawkins is taken prisoner by the aliens still on the Dandy. Kurt frees Max, and together they fight Shwing. During the battle, they learn Hawkins has been taken prisoner. Shwing initiates the auto destruct sequence, and jumps into an energy stream, followed by Kurt, whilst Max heads back to the Dandy to save Hawkins. Upon destroying a robotic dog constructed by the aliens, Max frees Hawkins, and uses a device on the dog to open a portal into which he heads. Meanwhile, Hawkins remains behind to take back control of the Dandy. After finally ridding the station of aliens, he finds the co-ordinates of their home world and sets course. Meanwhile, Shwing emerges from the energy stream on the home world, Swizzle Firma, with Kurt following close behind. Kurt destroys his ship, and an injured Shwing tells Kurt the attacks on Earth have been ordered by Emperor Zizzy Ballooba. Meanwhile, Max emerges from the portal on Swizzle Firma, and learns Ballooba plans to launch a doomsday device at Earth which will obliterate the entire planet. Max kills Shwing as he attempts to launch the device, and then destroys the device itself. He then meets up with Kurt and heads to Ballooba's palace. Meanwhile, Hawkins pilots the Dandy to Swizzle Firma and contacts his colleagues. Aiming the station's guns at the palace, he attempts to teleport Kurt and Max back to the Dandy, but accidentally teleports himself to the planet, and so heads to meet with Kurt and Max. The three storm Ballooba's palace. Upon confronting Ballooba, he admits he's only trying to destroy Earth for his own amusement, because, since he mastered space and time, he has become bored. A battle ensues between the three heroes and Ballooba, with the heroes emerging victorious. The closing sequence depends on which character the player uses for the final battle. Kurt resumes his duties as janitor of the Dandy, perturbed by the idea of becoming a celebrity. Max becomes the new emperor of Swizzle Firma, forming an interplanetary alliance with Earth. Hawkins is welcomed back to Earth, no longer shunned by his peers, and gets to work on his lifelong ambition - creating an atomic robot zombie army. ===== An alcoholic Los Angeles Sheriff's Deputy, Matt Scudder (Jeff Bridges), takes part in a drug bust that results in his fatal shooting of a small-time dealer in front of the man's wife and kids. Scudder ends up in a drunk ward, suffering from booze and blackouts, ending his career, his marriage, and jeopardizing his relationship with his daughter. After an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, a woman hands Scudder a note, which invites him to a private gambling club on a hill, accessible only by a funicular, owned by Chance Walker (Randy Brooks). At the club, Scudder is greeted by a call girl named Sunny (Alexandra Paul) who pretends that he is her boyfriend. He also meets Angel Moldonado (Andy Garcia), who places large wagers with Chance and is infatuated with another call girl there, Sarah (Rosanna Arquette). Bewildered by Sunny's behavior, Scudder ends up back at his place, where after a failed attempt to seduce him, Sunny explains that she is frightened and needs help. After she pays him $5,000, Scudder offers Chance $2,500 to allow Sunny to quit prostitution. An insulted Chance insists that all he does is run the club, paying the girls a flat salary to attend his parties. Any prostitution they do is up to them. Sunny is kidnapped in front of Scudder and, during a chase, is murdered and thrown off a bridge. Scudder goes on a binge and wakes up in a drunk ward several days later. It transpires that he gave statements to detectives before getting drunk that have implicated himself and Chance in the murder. At the club, Moldonado wears a ring with an emerald that matched the missing jewel in a necklace that Sunny owned. Convinced now that Moldonado is her killer, Scudder persuades Sarah to leave the club with him, as a jealous Moldonado looks on. Sarah fails to get Scudder to drink with her, then tries to initiate sex but is too drunk and vomits on his bed. Scudder pieces together that Moldonado is running a drug ring through Chance's legitimate businesses. Setting up a meeting where he pretends to set up a drug buy, Scudder has a confrontation with Moldonado, who forces Sarah to leave with him. Chance is furious that Moldonado has been using him and that he killed Sunny, but Scudder convinces him to go along with the drug deal, in order to trap Moldonado. At Moldonado's house, a unique one designed by Antoni Gaudí, a suspicious Moldonado puts off any talk of drugs. He taunts Scudder about Sunny's death and carefully implies she was killed to scare off others who would cross him. Moldonado knows that Scudder is or was a cop, so is wary of being trapped in a sting. Scudder notices a package from a supermarket Chance owns. Deducing that the drugs were stashed there, Scudder and Chance go to the grocery store and find the hidden cocaine. Scudder offers to return them in exchange for Sarah. At an empty warehouse, Moldonado arrives with Sarah duct-taped to a shotgun that one of his underlings is holding. Scudder in turn has booby-trapped the drugs and threatens to destroy them if Sarah is harmed. After seeing some of his cocaine burned, Moldonado agrees to cut Sarah loose, but before he can secure his drugs, a shootout erupts between Moldonado's men and undercover drug agents who have accompanied Scudder to the scene. Moldonado manages to escape in the chaos, but Chance is killed. Sarah and Scudder head back to Chance's club, and as they ride the funicular up to the house, they see Moldonado standing at the top, waiting for them. Scudder manages to kill him in a tense gunfight. Scudder is later seen attending an AA meeting, then strolling happily with Sarah on a beach. ===== Buddy Ackerman, an influential movie mogul, hires Guy, a naïve young writer, as his assistant. Guy, who had just graduated from film school, believes that his new job is a golden opportunity. Despite warnings from Rex, the outgoing assistant who has become hardened under Buddy's reign, Guy remains optimistic. Buddy turns out to be the boss from hell; he treats Guy like a slave, subjects him to sadistic (and public) verbal abuse, and has him bending over backward to do meaningless errands that go beyond just his work life. Guy is humiliated and forced to bear the brunt of his insults. Guy's only solace is his new girlfriend Dawn, a producer at Buddy's firm. When Buddy apparently fires Guy in a phone call, Guy finally snaps and takes Buddy hostage in order to exact revenge. He ties Buddy up and subjects him to severe beatings, torture and mind games. It is later revealed that due to a botched call waiting function on Buddy's home phone, Guy hears Buddy and Dawn arranging a rendezvous at Buddy's house. Once in Guy's power, Buddy reveals for the first time a human, vulnerable side. He tells Guy that his wife had been raped and murdered on Christmas Eve 12 years prior, and reveals that he, too, was once a bullied assistant to powerful, tyrannical men and spent a decade putting up with such abuse to become successful himself. He also reveals that abusing Guy was his way of teaching Guy that he must earn his success. Dawn arrives at the scene to find Guy aiming a gun at Buddy's face and insists that she had only agreed to see Buddy as a way of helping Guy's career. Dawn pleads with Guy to put down the gun, whereupon Buddy tells Guy that he has to pull the trigger in order to get ahead in the business. After a moment's indecision, Buddy screams at Guy to shoot, which Guy does. The climax of the film reveals that Guy killed Dawn (who is blamed for kidnapping and torturing Buddy), and was subsequently promoted. In the final scene, Guy coldly tells a former colleague to find out what he really wants and then do anything to get it, echoing the numerous times Buddy told Guy. The movie ends with a beaten up Buddy passing by Guy's office, making eye contact with him and silently gesturing to call him into his office for a meeting. Guy excuses himself and goes into Buddy's office, ignoring his ringing telephone. Buddy shuts his office doors as other employees walk by. ===== In a quest to find a source of radioactive material more powerful than uranium, Major Perry Rhodan leads a four-man mission to the Moon on the rocketship Stardust. On the Moon, they find a stranded Arkonide spaceship, where Commander Thora is trying to save a scientist named Crest, along with a crew of robots. The earthmen find that Crest is suffering from leukemia, for which there is a cure available on Earth. Perry and others take an Arkonide shuttlecraft to Earth to bring back a doctor with the cure. One of the Earth crewmen is a traitor, however, supplying information to a crime lord who is after the radioactive material, but who sees the encounter with the Arkonides as providing an opportunity for an even greater prize. The crime lord arranges to replace the doctor and nurses with his own people, and upon arriving at the Arkonide ship they kidnap Thora in a bid to gain Arkonide technology. However, Crest provides Rhodan and Bull with Arkonide technology, which helps them rescue Thora as well as the real doctor, who is able to cure Crest. They soon leave the Moon in the Stardust, promising to return with materials the Arkonides need to repair their spaceship. ===== Jenny and Lisa Paige, two sisters, return to Jenny's hometown of Snowfield, California, a small ski resort village nestled in the Sierra-Nevada Mountains where Jenny works as a doctor, and find no one alive. The few bodies they find are either mutilated, or reveal some strange form of death. Finally, after growing more alarmed by the town's mysterious and alarming situation Jenny manages to call police in a neighboring town to come help. Together, the girls and the police, led by Sheriff Bryce Hammond, are able to request help from the military Biological Investigations Unit. The police managed to find only one clue as to what was causing the town's disappearances and deaths. A victim of whatever was trying to kill him managed to write the name Timothy Flyte on a mirror moments before he was killed. Flyte is a British academic and author of a book, The Ancient Enemy. His book catalogs and describes various mass vanishings of people in different parts of the world over the centuries. It is discovered that the town was built over the hibernating place of one such Enemy, a creature known as an amoeboid shapeshifter. This Ancient Enemy rarely feeds, but when it does, the effects are devastating. It was theorized that the Enemy either caused or aided in the extinction of the dinosaurs, as well as many of the great mysterious mass vanishings: Mayan civilization, Roanoke, ghost ships, etc. The creature consumes other life forms to increase its mass and is able to perfectly mimic other creatures. It can create small "probes" or "phantoms" imitating consumed life forms to go forth and hunt more prey, obeying the orders of its "hive mind"; in addition the creature absorbs the mental capacity of those it consumes. Its only vital organ is a nucleus located in the center of its main body. The creature's cells are similar in molecular structure to fossil fuels; upon discovering this the scientists use oil-eating bacteria to destroy the Enemy's core or brain. (The genetically modified bacteria are the real-life creations of Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty.) =====