From Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ===== Zuleika Dobson—"though not strictly beautiful"—is a devastatingly attractive young woman of the Edwardian era, a true femme fatale, who is a prestidigitator by profession, formerly a governess. Zuleika's current occupation (though, more importantly, perhaps, her enrapturing beauty) has made her something of a small-time celebrity and she manages to gain entrance to the privileged, all-male domain of Oxford University because her grandfather is the Warden of Judas College (based on Merton College, Beerbohm's alma mater). There, she falls in love for the first time in her life with the Duke of Dorset, a snobbish, emotionally detached student who—frustrated with the lack of control over his feelings when he sees her—is forced to admit that she too is his first love, impulsively proposing to her. As she feels that she cannot love anyone unless he is impervious to her charms, however, she rejects all her suitors, doing the same with the astonished Duke. The Duke quickly discovers that Noaks, another Oxford student, also claims to have fallen in love with her, without ever having even interacted with her. Apparently, men immediately fall in love with her upon seeing her. As the first to have his love reciprocated by her (for however brief a time) the Duke decides that he will commit suicide to symbolise his passion for Zuleika and in hopes that he will raise awareness in her of the terrible power of her bewitching allure, as she innocently goes on crushing men's affections. Zuleika is able to interrupt the Duke's first suicide attempt from a river boat, but seems to have a romanticised view of men dying for her, and does not oppose the notion of his suicide altogether. The Duke, instead pledging to kill himself the next day—which Zuleika more or less permits—has dinner that night with his social club where the other members also affirm their love for Zuleika. Upon telling them of his plan to die, the others unexpectedly agree also to commit suicide for Zuleika. This idea soon reaches the minds of all Oxford undergraduates, who inevitably fall in love with Zuleika upon first sight. The Duke eventually decides that the only way he can stop all the undergraduates from killing themselves is by not committing suicide himself, hoping they will follow his example. By an ancient tradition, on the eve of the death of a Duke of Dorset, two black owls come and perch on the battlements of Tankerton Hall, the family seat; the owls remain there hooting through the night and at dawn they fly away to an unknown place. After debating whether to follow through with his suicide, while seeming to decide at last to embrace his life as just as valuable as Zuleika's, the Duke receives a telegram from his butler at Tankerton, reporting the portentous return of the owls. The Duke promptly interprets the omen as a sign that the gods have decreed his doom. He proudly tells Zuleika that he will still die, but no longer for her; she agrees as long as he makes it appear that he is dying for her by shouting her name as he jumps into the river. Later the same day, a thunderstorm overwhelms the Eights Week boat races while the Duke drowns himself in the River Isis, wearing the robes of a Knight of the Garter. Every fellow undergraduate, except one, promptly follows suit. All of the Oxford undergraduates now dead, including, with some delay, the cowardly Noaks, Zuleika discusses the ordeal with her grandfather, who reveals that he too was enamoured by all when he was her age. While Oxford's academic staff barely notice that nearly all of their undergraduates have vanished, Zuleika decides to order a train for the next morning... bound for Cambridge. ===== A fifty-year war between the Eastern Federation and Europa ends, with the Federation taking control of the Eurasian continent. A resistance movement rises in Zone 7 and the Federation mobilizes its military. However, the war and heavy industry have exhausted the Federation and polluted the environment. Dr. Azuma presents his discovery of Neo Cells, human cells that, in theory, can be converted to regenerate human tissue. The Neo Cells are only found in the genome of "a primitive ethnic group." He states that he can develop the Neo Cells for human use, but is quickly denounced. But Kaoru Naito, from Nikko Hairal Inc., offers Dr. Azuma sponsorship. Azuma is persuaded when Naito insinuates that accepting will also help Dr. Azuma cure his wife, Midori. A photo shoot at the Azuma Residence follows, commemorating Tetsuya's (Azuma's son) engagement to his girlfriend, Luna. They argue about Tetsuya joining the military. One year later, Tetsuya is deployed to Eurasia Zone 7. He kills civilians, and is killed by a booby trap. Azuma invites Luna's father, Dr. Kozuki, to his lab. They are rivals, since Azuma's cell research makes Kozuki's armor research redundant. However, although organs have been grown from the Neo Cells, they are not usable. Meanwhile, Midori, now almost blind, is visited by Tetsuya's ghost. Shortly after she is told of his death. His body is sent to Azuma's lab. Tetsuya's ghost sees the body. A lightning bolt strikes the facility and stimulates the Neo Cells, causing the limbs and organs to restructure into humans. Naito calls for the military to kill them. But a few escape and encounter Midori in her car, which they hijack. Azuma carries Tetsuya's body into his lab. Tetsuya is resurrected, but his condition is unstable, and he is brought to Kozuki's residence. Kozuki puts him in prototype battle armor. The Neo humans travel to Zone 7, sheltering in a derelict castle, where they discover a robot army. Calling themselves "Neo-Sapiens," they vow revenge and reactivate the robots to wage war upon humanity. Kozuki's residence is attacked and Tetsuya is awakened. He kills a female Neo-Sapien, Saguree, but cannot save Kozuki. He escapes with Luna but is confronted by a robot battalion. After eliminating them, Tetsuya battles the leader, Burai, only to lose consciousness. When he comes to, he and Luna go to Zone Seven, but the route is contaminated, and Luna falls ill. Tetsuya is found in the forest by a doctor and led to a nearby village in Zone Seven, where the doctor treats Luna. It is revealed the people of Zone Seven aren't terrorists at all, but have been slaughtered for decades because of the government's discriminatory policies. The doctor, in conversation, informs Tetsuya of a local legend of a protective deity named "Casshern"-a deity whose statue makes numerous appearances in the movie. Tetsuya fights Barashin as the village comes under attack by the military and Neo-sapiens, and it is here that he first refers to himself as Casshern. While both suffer injuries in the fight, Casshern is the victor and Barashin is killed. Fighting Barashin has caused Tetsuya to lose Luna, who escaped with a non-verbal Neo-sapien and eventually found her way to a train full of captured villagers from Zone Seven. Here, Luna and the Neo-sapien are confronted by a bereaved scientist who blames the Neo-Sapiens for the loss of his daughter. Luna is rescued by Dr. Azuma, but the Neo-Sapien is injured. A coup d'état takes place and General Kamijo's son takes over, while in the laboratory Naito reveals that Neo Cells are not what they seem. The Neo Cells were acquired from the slaughtered "original humans" of Zone Seven for the purposes of prolonging General Kamijo and his cohorts' lives, and the Neo Cell culture did not in fact create the Neo-Sapiens. It simply rejoined the body parts that were harvested from the victims of Zone Seven after being struck by the stone lightning bolt. Even though Dr. Azuma had been spearheading the macabre experiments, he is unable to explain what has happened. As they talk, the stone lightning bolt crumbles and Casshern appears to fall from the sky into the laboratory, which is now in ruins. Burai arrives with an airship and abducts Luna, Casshern and the dying Neo-Sapien, leaving a now fatally wounded Naito, Dr. Azuma and General Kamijo's son alone. Burai gives his reasons for hating humanity, and Casshern finds his mother, but she's apparently dead. Burai launches a giant machine that appears to be set to self-destruct, which slaughters countless soldiers. Casshern uses all his strength to stop the machine, although it still detonates, albeit away from any urban or heavily populated area. In the finale, the General's son kills Burai with a grenade after revealing he was human all along, and it is learned that Tetsuya, during his military service, slaughtered Burai's family. Casshern stops his father from resurrecting his mother, so Dr. Azuma retaliates by shooting Luna in the head. Luna is revived by the blood of Burai, only after Casshern kills his father. The souls of the dead come onto Casshern as he and Luna embrace each other. Luna rips out Tetsuya's containment suit and a pillar of light fires through space and crashing down onto another planet. The film ends with a montage of the characters in happier times. ===== Gen. Ibn (pronounced Ben) Yusuf (Herbert Lom) of the Almoravid dynasty has summoned all the Emirs of Al-Andalus to North Africa. He chastises them for co-existing peacefully with their Christian neighbors, which goes against his dream of Islamic world domination. The emirs return to Spain with orders to resume hostilities with the Christians while Ibn Yusuf readies his army for a full-scale invasion. Don Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (Charlton Heston), on the way to his wedding with Doña Ximena (Sophia Loren), rescues a Spanish town from an invading Moorish army. Two of the Emirs, Al-Mu'tamin (Douglas Wilmer) of Zaragoza and Al-Kadir (Frank Thring) of Valencia, are captured. More interested in peace than in wreaking vengeance, Rodrigo escorts his prisoners to Vivar and releases them on condition that they never again attack lands belonging to King Ferdinand of Castile (Ralph Truman). The Emirs proclaim him "El Cid" (the Castillian Spanish pronunciation of the Arabic for Lord: "Al Sidi") and swear allegiance to him. For his act of mercy, Don Rodrigo is accused of treason by Count Ordóñez (Raf Vallone). In court, the charge is supported by Ximena's father, Count Gormaz (Andrew Cruickshank), the king's champion. Rodrigo's aged father, Don Diego (Michael Hordern), angrily calls Gormaz a liar. Gormaz strikes Don Diego, challenging him to a duel. At a private meeting Rodrigo begs Gormaz to ask the aged but proud Diego for forgiveness (for accusing Rodrigo of treason). Gormaz refuses, so Rodrigo fights the duel on Diego’s behalf and kills his opponent. Ximena witnesses the death of Gormaz and swears to avenge him, renouncing her affection for Rodrigo. When a rival king demands the city of Calahorra, Rodrigo becomes Ferdinand's champion, winning the city in single combat. In his new capacity he is sent on a mission to collect tribute from Moorish vassals to the Castillian crown. He asks that Ximena be given to him as his wife upon his return, so that he can provide for her. Ximena promises Count Ordóñez she will marry him instead if he kills Rodrigo. Ordóñez lays an ambush for Rodrigo and his men but is captured by Al-Mu'tamin, to whom Rodrigo had earlier showed mercy. Rodrigo forgives the Count and returns home to marry Ximena. The marriage is not consummated: Rodrigo will not touch her if she does not give herself to him out of love. Ximena instead goes to a convent. King Ferdinand dies and his younger son, Prince Alfonso (John Fraser) tells the elder son Prince Sancho (Gary Raymond) that their father wanted his kingdom divided between his heirs: Castile to Sancho, Asturias and León to Alfonso, and Calahorra to their sister, Princess Urraca (Geneviève Page). Sancho refuses to accept anything but an undivided kingdom as his birthright. After Alfonso instigates a knife fight, Sancho overpowers his brother and sends him to be imprisoned in Zamora. Rodrigo, who swore to protect all the king’s children, singlehandedly defeats Alfonso's guards and brings the Prince to Calahorra. Sancho arrives to demand Alfonso, but Urraca refuses to hand him over. Rodrigo cannot take a side in the conflict, because his oath was to serve them all equally. Ibn Yusuf arrives at Valencia, the fortified city guarding the beach where he plans to land his armada. To weaken his Spanish opponents he hires Dolfos, a warrior formerly trusted by Ferdinand, to assassinate Sancho and throw suspicion for the crime on Alfonso, who becomes the sole king. At Alfonso's coronation, El Cid has him swear upon the Bible that he had no part in the death of his brother. Alfonso, genuinely innocent, is offended by the demand and banishes Rodrigo from Spain. Ximena discovers she still loves Rodrigo and voluntarily joins him in exile. Rodrigo makes his career as a soldier in foreign lands, and he and Ximena have two children. Years later, Rodrigo, known widely as "El Cid", is called back into the service of the king to protect Castille from Yusuf's North African army. Rather than work directly with the king El Cid allies himself with the Emirs besieging Valencia, where Al-Kadir has violated his oath of allegiance to Rodrigo and come out in support of Ibn Yusuf. After being defeated by the Moors, Alfonso seizes Ximena and her children and puts them in prison. Count Ordóñez rescues the three and brings them to Rodrigo, wanting to end his rivalry with El Cid and join him in the defense of Spain. Knowing that the citizens of Valencia are starving after the long siege, Rodrigo wins them over by throwing food into the city with his catapults. Al-Kadir tries to intercede, but the Valencians kill him and open the gates to the besiegers. Emir Al-Mu'tamin, Rodrigo's army, and the Valencians offer the city's crown to El Cid, but he refuses and instead sends the crown to King Alfonso. Ibn Yusuf arrives with his immense invasion army, and Valencia is the only barrier between him and Spain. The ensuing battle goes well for the defenders until El Cid is struck in the chest by an arrow and has to be carried away to safety. Doctors inform him that they can probably remove the arrow and save his life, but he will be incapacitated for a long time after the surgery. Unwilling to abandon his army at this critical moment, Rodrigo obtains a promise from Ximena to leave the arrow and let him ride back into battle, dying or dead. King Alfonso comes to his bedside and asks for his forgiveness. Rodrigo dies, and his allies honor his wish to return to the army. With the help of an iron frame they prop up his corpse, dressed in armor and holding a banner, on the back of his horse Babieca. Guided by King Alfonso and Emir Al-Mu'tamin riding on either side, the horse leads a charge against Yusuf's terrified soldiers, who believe that El Cid has risen from the dead. Ibn Yusuf is thrown from his horse and crushed beneath Babieca’s hooves, leaving his scattered army to be annihilated. King Alfonso leads Christians and Moors alike in a prayer for God to receive the soul "of the purest knight of all". ===== Peter Burton (Cusack) and best friend Tim Garrity (Spader) nervously await the results of Peter's 1990 congressional election. Tim is telling the story of how they all came to such a thing. The two met seven years earlier following an argument in the parking lot at the University of Virginia law school. After discovering that they are to be roommates, the men become close friends. Peter makes Tim believe he lives a privileged life as well. At Christmas, he claims to be travelling to London with his father participating in "some World Bank thing" when in actuality, he spends the entire holiday alone at school, often researching Senator Stiles, his family and staff. Peter attends a New Year's Eve party at the Stiles residence and shares an inappropriately long kiss with Diana that Tim does not notice. Later, when Tim decides to take them to a working class bar to continue celebrating, Peter is recognized by his ex-girlfriend and her husband, also an old friend of Peter's. An exposed and embarrassed Peter admits that his name is actually Burtowski and that he lied about his entire life. Tim is angry but soon after he forgives Peter and tells him that he understands. Tim plans a career with the Department of Justice, a fact that doesn't sit well with his girlfriend, Diana (Imogen Stubbs), the daughter of Senator Stiles (Widmark). Both men land dream internships is Washington, Peter with Senator Stiles' office and Tim at DOJ. Some of Peter's true nature is revealed while they are there and at the end of the summer, Peter decides to stay in DC and not complete law school. Tim intended to propose to Diana on a sophisticated date night but her doubts about his career plans make him realize she would turn him down and he keeps the ring and his marital intentions secret. The friendship between them is severely tested when Peter confesses to Tim, on the last day of their ski vacation, that he and Diana have been seeing each other and that he plans to ask Diana to marry him. Tim, angry at the betrayal, purposefully speeds off down a hazardous ski trail, thinking Peter might not follow him. The less experienced Peter follows him down with far less grace than Tim. There is a steep cliff at the end. Tim hesitates to warn Peter, but finally does so. Unfortunately, Peter doesn't hear Tim's warning in time and he hurtles down to the bottom, breaking his leg and cracking two ribs. Tim forgives Peter out of guilt and even agrees to be the best man at the wedding. Shortly after marrying Diana, Peter falls under the influence of John Palmieri (Mandy Patinkin), who has ties to organized crime and political corruption. He takes Peter in with promises to fully support and promote Peter's fledgling political career while he secretly plans to use his position for corrupt purposes. Meanwhile, things have begun to spiral out of control in Peter's extended family. Earlier in the film, Stiles is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease, something that, if revealed, could end his political career. Diana has also become highly suspicious of Palmieri's aggressive effort to get Peter elected. Peter seizes the opportunity to manipulate his father-in-law into supporting his run for Congress while out golfing with him. When Stiles refuses, Peter threatens to leak news of the illness to the press. The senator reluctantly acquiesces, not wanting to risk his re election. Palmieri discovers Peter's ties to Tim, and he manipulates Peter into setting up Tim in order to wrongfully earn a lucrative government contract. Tim is suspended because of the leak that knocked Palmieri's competitor off the bid unfairly. Tim realizes that Peter set him up based on DOJ evidence and he offers to work undercover in Peter's campaign, promising to gather evidence against him and Palmieri. Tim's boss reluctantly agrees. Diana is suspicious that Peter set up Tim for Palmieri, but Tim denies it to keep his cover. Tim introduces himself to Palmieri as Peter's new campaign manager and Palmieri has him frisked because of his "prior" job at DOJ. At Peter's campaign announcement event, Stiles reveals the conversation that he had with Peter to Diana and her mother. Diana becomes very angry and storms out. The senator states he will introduce Peter but warns him that if he hurts his daughter, he will destroy him. During the campaign, Tim works diligently undercover to gather evidence of Peter's dealings with Palmieri as well as evidence against Palmieri himself. Shortly before election night, Tim and Diana meet at a bar. Diana warns Tim about Peter and his ability to manipulate people. Tim cryptically asks her to have some faith in him. Peter wins the election as does Senator Stiles. Diana shows up with a bottle of expensive champagne, based on a bet they all made back during the Stiles new years party. She congratulates Peter and he tries to get her to work things out but she also tells him she is filing for divorce. Peter and Tim are left alone in the campaign hotel suite with Peter unaware of the DOJ surveillance camera in the room. He tries to get Peter to reveal the truth about how Palmieri financed the campaign and what he might owe him. Peter gets suspicious of all the questions and that Tim will not "look him in the eye" while they talk. He tells Peter about the camera and that Palmieri is being arraigned at that very moment. Peter viciously attacks Tim physically, saying that Tim is jealous of his success in politics and with Diana. When the fighting subsides and the two calm down, Tim tells Peter he has brought ruin upon himself. Peter says he needed more than one person could offer, more or less saying that the ends justified the means in his betrayal of Tim, the senator and Diana. After Peter gives his victory speech, alluding to the trouble he is in, he is quietly arrested and charged with political corruption. The movie ends a few months later when Peter shows up at Tim's apartment to drop off a case of champagne. Although he got elected, he will not be sworn in, thus technically losing the old bet and rightfully owing Tim the champagne. Peter reveals that he has been offered immunity in exchange for testimony against Palmieri but that he could also take his chances. Tim then tells Peter that he will be forced to testify against him if he does not accept the plea deal. Peter also hints that his political career may not be permanently ruined. The two have a reconciliation of sorts and go their separate ways. ===== The Brewster family of Brooklyn, New York, is descended from Mayflower settlers. Several illustrious forebears' portraits line the walls of the ancestral home. Jean Adair, Josephine Hull and Cary Grant in Arsenic and Old Lace Mortimer Brewster (Cary Grant), a writer who has repeatedly denounced marriage as "an old-fashioned superstition", falls in love with Elaine Harper (Priscilla Lane), the minister's daughter who grew up next door to him. On Halloween day, Mortimer and Elaine get married. Elaine goes to her father's house to tell her father and pack for the honeymoon and Mortimer returns to Abby (Josephine Hull) and Martha (Jean Adair), the aunts who raised him in the old family home. Mortimer's brother, Teddy (John Alexander), who believes he is Theodore Roosevelt, resides with them. Each time Teddy goes upstairs, he yells "Charge!" and takes the stairs at a run, imitating Roosevelt's famous charge up San Juan Hill. Searching for the notes for his next book, Mortimer finds a corpse hidden in the window seat. He assumes in horror that Teddy's delusions have led him to murder. Abby and Martha cheerfully explain that they are responsible, that as serial murderers, they minister to lonely old bachelors by ending their "suffering". They post a "Room for Rent" sign to attract a victim, then serve a glass of elderberry wine spiked with arsenic, strychnine, and "just a pinch of cyanide" while getting acquainted. The bodies are buried in the basement by Teddy, who believes they are yellow fever victims who perished in the building of the Panama Canal. While Mortimer digests this information, his brother Jonathan (Raymond Massey) arrives with his alcoholic accomplice, plastic surgeon Dr. Herman Einstein (Peter Lorre). Jonathan is also a serial murderer trying to escape from the police and dispose of his latest victim, Mr. Spinalzo. Jonathan's face, altered by Einstein while drunk, resembles Boris Karloff's Frankenstein monster makeup. Jonathan learns his aunts' secret and proposes to bury his victim in the cellar. Abby and Martha object vehemently because their victims were "nice" gentlemen while Jonathan's victim is a stranger and a "foreigner". Jonathan also declares his intention to kill Mortimer. Elaine is impatient to leave on their honeymoon but is concerned about Mortimer's increasingly odd behavior as he frantically attempts to control the situation. He tries unsuccessfully to alert the bumbling police to Jonathan's presence. To draw attention away from his aunts and deprive them of their willing but uncomprehending accomplice, Mortimer tries to file paperwork to have Teddy legally committed to a mental asylum. Worrying that the genetic predisposition for mental illness resides within him ("Insanity runs in my family; it practically gallops"), Mortimer explains to Elaine that he can't remain married to her. Eventually Jonathan is arrested, Einstein flees after having signed Teddy's commitment papers, Teddy is safely consigned to an institution, and his aunts insist upon joining him. Upon hearing that Mortimer signed the commitment papers as next of kin, Abby and Martha are concerned they may be null and void; they inform Mortimer that he is not a Brewster after all: his mother was the family cook and his father had been a chef on a steamship. Relieved, he lustily kisses Elaine and whisks her off to their honeymoon while yelling, "Charge!". ===== Through Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, Kluge was aware of the 20 July plot against Hitler; he agreed to support the conspirators' seizure of power if Hitler was killed. In Paris, the conspirators arrested over 1,200 SS and SD members, and after the assassination attempt failed, Stülpnagel and Caesar von Hofacker met with Kluge at his headquarters in La Roche-Guyon. Having already learned of Hitler's survival, Kluge withdrew his support and rescinded the arrest warrants. On 15 August, Kluge's car was damaged in an Allied bombing and he was cut off from all contact with his forces for several hours. Hitler immediately suspected Kluge of negotiating with the Allies. He was dismissed two days later and replaced by Model. When he was recalled to Berlin for a meeting with Hitler, Kluge was convinced he had been implicated in the 20 July plot and opted to commit suicide on 19 August using potassium cyanide. In his final testimony, he affirmed his loyalty to Hitler and expressed the view that Germany needed to end the war, writing that "the German people have undergone such untold suffering that it is time to put an end to this frightfulness." ===== The game plays in fictional alternative reality in the future, several hundred years ahead. The game starts when the name-giving space ship, the "Ironseed," flees a theocracy on Mars. The ship is manned with a disembodied, digitized only crew of rebels originally scheduled for termination. In hastily fleeing, the ship suffers damage and gets lost in time and space. The crew finds itself in unknown space somewhere in the Milky Way with a badly damaged ship and nearly depleted fuel reserves. First objective is therefore finding resources for ship repairs and fuel while gathering intelligence about the surrounding space and also their own history. After encountering other alien species and learning about some greater threat, the ultimate goal becomes to forge an alliance of several alien races to counter this threat. ===== Seventeen-year- old identical twin sisters Jane (Ashley Olsen) and Roxy Ryan (Mary-Kate Olsen) are completely different and never see eye to eye. They live with their widower father, and attend the fictional Atta Westland Grove High Van School in Syosset, a suburban Long Island town. Over a 24-hour period, the two begrudgingly journey together into the city for Jane, an uptight overachiever, to deliver a speech to qualify for a prestigious college scholarship abroad, and for Roxy, a laid-back punk-rock rebel, to get backstage at a music video shoot so that she can give her demo tape to the group. Jane and Roxy board the train into New York but are soon thrown off together after Roxy is found without a ticket. At the station, Jane bumps into Jim (Riley Smith), and they flirt back and forth before he gets on the train. Meanwhile, Roxy becomes unknowingly involved in a shady black-market transaction after an illegal chip device is mistakenly planted in her bag. Bennie Bang (Andy Richter), the man behind the plan, offers Roxy a ride in a swanky limousine and she accepts, dragging Jane along who is reluctant about getting into cars with strangers. He locks them inside but they escape through the sun roof and he chases them into the city subway where they help one another to fight him off. Meanwhile, Max Lomax (Eugene Levy), an overzealous truant officer, is on the hunt to find Roxy after news of her continuously missing school and forging absence letters from her father. Several unlucky incidents occur as they begin their journey such as Jane's heels snapping and being drenched by a hobo's blue slush drink. At the nearest store, Jane realizes she's left her day planner in the limo, which has "her whole life" in it including money and the prompt cards needed for her college speech later that day. To clean up, they break into a posh hotel room and soon receive a phone call from Bennie who threatens to meet him to give the chip back or they won't get the day planner, but before they can leave, they meet Trey (Jared Padalecki), the son of the powerful senator who's staying at the hotel, and his dog, Reinaldo, who swallows the chip. They are forced to take Reinaldo with them. They make their way to their destinations and decide to part ways. Roxy heads to the Simple Plan video shoot being followed by Max, while Jane goes to meet Bennie for an exchange. When he finds out the dog, Reinaldo, has swallowed the chip, he tries to attack Jane who flees from the car and goes to find Roxy. While running from Max and Bennie, the two end up on stage with the band and crowd surf to get away. Trey is also trying to find Roxy who runs into Bennie and gets kidnapped in the trunk of his car. Meanwhile, Jane and Roxy end up in the underground sewer with Reinaldo with Jane's speech in less than two hours. A little later, they walk into the House of Bling where Big Shirl (Mary Davis Bonde) gives them both a makeover. Max hunts them down and they escape in a cab even when Jane failed her driving test. They accidentally pick up the same man that Roxy spilled her drink on in the train. When they stop, they argue. Jane explains that Roxy has never been there for her and never takes life seriously, and she feels she stopped taking responsibility for anything after their mother died, leaving Jane in charge. Conversely, Roxy believes Jane doesn't need to take control of everything and feels she's been pushed away, since she wasn't even invited to Jane's speech. Jane goes to meet Bennie who throws her in the back of a van with Reinaldo and drives her to see his mother, who is in charge of the whole operation: they buy and sell illegal pirated DVDs and CDs. Roxy finds Bennie's limo and retrieves Jane's day planner, but finds Trey locked in the trunk. They both rush to the building where Jane is meant to give her speech, while Jane fends off Bennie and escapes once again and then runs into Jim who gives her a ride to the same place. When they arrive, Roxy pretends to be Jane so she can give a speech on time, but drops the prompt cards beforehand and has to make it up on the spot, which confuses the judges. The head judge is Senator Hudson McGill (Darrell Hammond), the man from the train and the taxi, alongside Trey's mother, Senator Anne Lipton. Jane turns up just in time who tries to explain what their day has been like and the reason for why she wasn't there. Suddenly, Max intervenes who tries to arrest Roxy and Bennie appears who tries to kidnap Jane, but they both exploit his illegal doings and he is arrested by Max. Knowing she has no opportunity to give her speech, Jane leaves with Roxy. Outside, Hudson McGill catches up to Jane who found her prompt cards and gives her a college scholarship to Oxford, because she "didn't just want to win, she absolutely refused to fail." Months later, Roxy is in the studio recording with her band, watched by Jane, Trey, Jim, and even Max (now an official cop) as they celebrate all together. ===== Miles B. Peterson, a wealthy man with the best the world had to offer, turned to God and The Bible in his most desperate hour and from then on pledged to fight evil with the word of God. Disguised in the full armor of God as Bibleman, Miles B. Peterson fights against enemies using scripture. Josh Carpenter finds out about the Bible when his parents are arguing about the groceries. He is a former children's pastor and is the second Bibleman. ===== Artist and graphics designer Patience Phillips is a meek people-pleaser whose main support is her best friend Sally. She works for a cosmetics company called Hedare Beauty which is ready to ship a new skin cream called Beau-line that is able to reverse the effects of aging. However, when Patience visits the R&D; laboratory facility to deliver a redone ad design, she overhears a discussion between the scientist Dr. Ivan Slavicky and Laurel Hedare, the wife of company-owner George Hedare, about the dangerous side effects from continued use of the product. Laurel's guards discover Patience and are ordered to dispose of her. Patience tries to escape using a conduit pipe, but the minions have it sealed and flush her out of it, drowning her. Washed up on shore, Patience is mysteriously revived by an Egyptian Mau cat which had appeared at her apartment earlier; from that moment on, she develops cat-like abilities. From Mau's owner eccentric researcher Ophelia Powers, Patience learns that Egyptian Mau cats serve as messengers of the goddess Bast. Patience realizes that she is now a "catwoman," reborn with abilities that are both a blessing and a curse. Disguised as a mysterious vigilante named Catwoman to hide her identity, Patience, under cover of darkness, searches for answers as to who killed her and why. Eventually, her search (which includes finding Slavicky's body, and later being accused of his murder) leads her to Laurel. She asks Laurel to keep an eye on George, to which Laurel agrees. However, when Patience confronts George (who is attending an opera with another woman) as Catwoman, he reveals he knows nothing about the side effects. The police, led by Patience's love interest Detective Tom Lone, arrive and Catwoman escapes. Later on, Laurel murders her husband for his infidelity and admits to having Dr. Slavicky killed because he wanted to cancel the product's release. She contacts Catwoman and frames her for the murder. Catwoman is then taken into custody by Tom, but not before Laurel reveals the side-effects of the product: discontinuing its use makes the skin disintegrate, while continuing its use makes the skin as hard as marble. She also plans to release Beau-line to the public the following day. Patience slips out of her cell and confronts Laurel in her office, rescuing Tom, who came to question Laurel after second thoughts about Patience's guilt in the process, and revealing that Laurel is the one responsible for her death. During the fight, she scratches Laurel's face multiple times, causing Laurel to fall out of a window and grab onto a pipe. Laurel sees her face in a window's reflection and horrified by her skin's rapid disintegration (as a result of the scratches and her own use of Beau- line for years), fails to grab hold of Patience's outstretched arm and falls to her death. Though Patience is cleared of any charges made against her regarding the deaths of Dr. Slavicky and the Hedares, she decides to end things with Tom by choosing to continue living outside the law and enjoying her newfound freedom as the mysterious Catwoman. ===== A ship headed towards the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s catches on fire and all onboard must abandon ship. Passenger Margaret Stanlaw (Eva Gordon) loses her young daughter Ruth (Baby Margie) in the ensuing panic, and is informed by shady gambler Richard Steele (Alexis B. Luce) that she did not survive. In actuality, Ruth is saved by prospective prospectors “Horseshoe” Riley and Bob Dexter (William Dills and Albert Van Altwerp). This new makeshift family arrives in Anchorage and almost immediately strikes gold. 15 years later Ruth is now a young adult (Gladys Johnson), who is having an inexplicable attraction to Dexter, the man who helped raise her and is essentially her father. When Margaret and Richard come into town to run the local saloon, secrets will be revealed, pasts will be confronted, and the Alaskan terrain will be filmed for the first time. ===== Luc (Frédéric Mangenot) spends his holiday at the sea with his slightly older and decidedly more effeminate boyfriend, Sébastien (Sébastien Charles). At the house they have rented, Sébastien's flamboyant dancing and preening frustrates Luc, who rebukes him that the neighbors might see. Irritated, Luc goes off on his bicycle to the beach, hoping to find some solitude. On the beach, Luc is finally alone and goes skinny dipping. Afterward, he sunbathes in the nude, and then he meets Lucia (Lucia Sanchez), a Spanish tourist about his age, who, after some flirtatious conversation, invites Luc to accompany her into the nearby wood for a tryst. Luc, though somewhat bashful, obliges with little hesitation. After having sex, Lucia learns that Luc is erotically involved with Sébastien and has never been with a woman before. The two return to the beach to find that Luc's clothes have been stolen. Lucia lends Luc her summer dress so that he won't have to return home completely naked. Wearing a woman's dress improves Luc's mood as a car honks its horn after him on the ride back. He returns to the cabin with a smile and a renewed sense of freedom. Luc surprises Sébastien on entering, and, after a few amused remarks about the dress (Luc flirtatiously refers to himself as a "beautiful girl"), the two have passionate sex in the kitchen. The dress is partially torn in the act. The next day, Luc mends the summer dress and brings it back to Lucia, who is just leaving, but she refuses to accept it, coyly suggesting that it may come in handy in the future. She kisses Luc goodbye, and the final frame shows Luc watching her depart, the dress wrapped around his neck and fluttering in the sea breeze. ===== Almost 100 years after A. (which we find out stands for Albert) Square's adventures that were related in Flatland, his great-great-granddaughter, Victoria Line (Vikki), finds a copy of his book in her basement. This prompts her to invite a sphere from Spaceland to visit her, but instead she is visited by the "Space Hopper" (a character looking somewhat like the "Space Hopper" children's toy with a gigantic grin, horns and a spherical body). The Space Hopper, more than being able to move between Flatland and Spaceland, can travel to any space in the Mathiverse, a set of all imaginable worlds. After showing Vikki higher dimensions, he begins showing her more modern theories, such as fractional dimensions and dimensions with isolated points. Topology and hyperbolic geometry are also discussed, as well as the Projective "Plain" (complete with intersecting "lions") and the quantum level. Hopper and Victoria also visit the Domain of the Hawk King to discuss time travel and the theory of relativity. ===== Episodes revolve around the lightweight and humorous sorts of situations and problems a middle-class family experienced in the late 1950s and the early 1960s set in fictional Hilldale, state never mentioned. Donna, for example, would sometimes find herself swamped with the demands of community theatricals and charity drives; Mary had problems juggling boyfriends and finding dresses to wear to one party or another; and Jeff was often caught in situations appropriate to his age and gender such as joining a secret boys' club, avoiding love-smitten classmates, or bidding at auction on an old football uniform. Alex was the family's Rock of Gibraltar, but often found himself in situations that tested his patience: in one episode, Donna volunteered him as the judge of a baby contest, and, in another episode, Mary insisted her gawky, geeky boyfriend was the spitting image of her father. Very occasionally eccentric relatives would descend on the Stones to complicate the household situation. ===== ===== Eugene Henderson is a troubled middle-aged man. Despite his riches, high social status, and physical prowess, he feels restless and unfulfilled, and harbors a spiritual void that manifests itself as an inner voice crying out "I want, I want, I want". Hoping to discover what the voice wants, Henderson goes to Africa. Upon reaching Africa, Henderson splits with his original group and hires a native guide, Romilayu. Romilayu leads Henderson to the village of the Arnewi, where Henderson befriends the leaders of the village. He learns that the cistern from which the Arnewi get their drinking water is plagued by frogs, thus rendering the water "unclean" according to local taboos. Henderson attempts to save the Arnewi by ridding them of the frogs, but his enthusiastic scheme ends in disaster, destroying the frogs and the village's cistern. Henderson and Romilayu travel to the village of the Wariri. Here, Henderson impulsively performs a feat of strength by moving the giant wooden statue of the goddess Mummah and unwittingly becomes the Wariri Rain King, Sungo. He quickly develops a friendship with the native-born but western-educated King Dahfu, with whom he engages in a series of far-reaching philosophical discussions. The elders send Dahfu to find a lion, which is supposedly the reincarnation of the late king, Dahfu's father. The lion hunt fails, and the lion mortally wounds the king. Henderson learns shortly before Dahfu's death that the Rain King is the next person in the line of succession for the throne. Having no interest in being king and desiring only to return home, Henderson flees the Wariri village. Although it is unclear whether Henderson has truly found spiritual contentment, the novel ends with an optimistic and uplifting note. ===== The novel describes how, over the course of three days, Julian English destroys himself with a series of impulsive acts, culminating in suicide. O'Hara never gives any obvious cause or explanation for his behavior, which is apparently predestined by his character. Facts about Julian gradually emerge throughout the novel. He is about thirty years old. He is college- educated, owns a well-established Cadillac dealership, and within the Gibbsville community belongs to the prestigious "Lantenengo Street crowd." Our introduction to him comes seven pages into the novel, in the thoughts of the wife of one of his employees: "She wouldn't trade her life for Caroline English's, not if you paid her. She wondered if Julian and Caroline were having another one of their battle royales". Within the three-day time span of the novel, Julian gets drunk several times. One lyrical long paragraph describes one of his hangovers. During the first of two suicidal reveries, we learn that his greatest fear is that he will eventually lose his wife to another man. Yet within three days, he sexually propositions two women, succeeding once, with an ease and confidence that suggest that this is well- practiced behavior. On successive days, he commits three impulsive acts, which are serious enough to damage his reputation, his business, and his relationship with his wife. First, he throws a drink in the face of Harry Reilly, a man who, we learn later, is an important investor in his business. The man is a sufficiently well-known Catholic that Julian knows word will spread among the Gibbsville Catholic community, many of whom are his customers. In a curious device, repeated for each of the incidents, the omniscient narrator never actually shows us the details of the incident. He shows us Julian fantasizing in great detail about throwing the drink; but, we are told, "he knew he would not throw the drink" because he was in financial debt to Harry and because "people would say he was sore because Reilly...was elaborately attentive to Caroline English". The narrator's vision shifts elsewhere, and several pages later we are surprised to hear a character report "Jeezozz H. Kee-rist! Julian English just threw a highball in Harry Reilly's face!" The second event occurs at a roadhouse, where Julian goes with his wife and some friends. Julian gets drunk and invites a provocatively clad woman to go out to his car with him. The woman is, in fact, a gangster's girlfriend, and one of the gangster's men is present, sent to watch her. Both Julian's wife and the gangster's aide see the couple leave. What actually happens in the car is left ambiguous but is unimportant, since all observers assume that a sexual encounter has occurred. There is not any assumption that violence will ensue. However, the gangster is a valued automobile customer who in the past has recommended Julian's dealership to his acquaintances. As Julian is driven home, pretending to be asleep, he "felt the tremendous excitement, the great thrilling lump in the chest and abdomen that comes before the administering of an unknown, well-deserved punishment. He knew he was in for it." Third, the next day, during lunch at the Gibbsville Club, Julian engages in a complicated brawl with a one-armed war veteran named Froggy Ogden, who is also Caroline's cousin. Julian thought of Froggy as an old friend, but Froggy acknowledges to Julian that he has always detested him and had not wanted his cousin Caroline to marry him. In the brawl, which Froggy has arguably started, Julian hits Froggy and at least one of a group of bystanders in the club. He experiences two suicidal daydreams that oddly contrast with each other. In the first of the two scenes, after Caroline's temporary departure, he places a gun in his mouth: He does not, however, commit suicide at that time. His second suicidal reverie is after a failed attempt to seduce a woman, the local society reporter. He believes that as a result of his behavior, and the community's sympathy for Caroline, "no girl in Gibbsville--worth having--would risk the loss of reputation which would be her punishment for getting herself identified with him". He believes that even if he divorces Caroline he is destined to spend the rest of his life hearing: After this and other indications that he had mis-gauged his social status, he commits suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning, running his car in a closed garage. ===== Set in Italy, Gunslinger Girl follows the exploits of the Social Welfare Agency (often referred to as simply "the Agency"), ostensibly a charitable institution sponsored by the Italian government. While the Agency professes to aid the rehabilitation of the physically injured, it is actually a military organization specializing in counter-intelligence and counter-terrorism. It is composed of two independent branches: Public Safety, its surveillance and intelligence-gathering division, and Special Ops, the anti-terrorist division. Special Ops is itself divided into Sections 1 and 2, the latter of which employs young girls who have experienced traumatic and near-death experiences fitted with cybernetic implants as agents. The implants, which consist of synthesized muscles and carbon fiber frames, result in heightened strength and reflexes as well as high resilience to damage and pain. Each girl is paired with an adult male trainer, or "handler", and together they are referred to as a fratello -- Italian for "brother". The handler is responsible for the training, welfare and field performance of his charge, and is free to use whatever methods he considers suitable. While these methods vary according to the handler, a common part of each girl's regimen is brainwashing called "conditioning", which produces a deadly assassin with unquestioning loyalty to her handler but, if used excessively, also limits her life span. Each fratello exhibits a unique dynamic. Most of the handlers have police or military backgrounds and were recruited directly into Section 2. Most also chose their own cyborgs from a list of candidates, though some appear to have been assigned a cyborg. The Social Welfare Agency primarily concerns itself with dealing with the Padania Republic Faction (PRF or RF), an organization seeking an independent Northern Italy through acts of terrorism and bribery. ===== Arvind (Vivek Oberoi) and Lakshmi (Antara Mali) are in love and want to get married. However, Lakshmi's dad, a cop, is against their affair. Hence the two decide to elope from Delhi and travel to get married at Arvind's ancestral haveli in Rajgarh, Alwar, Rajasthan, by road, passing by a desert, in a Tata Safari. After an escape from an aggravated assault, by a mad wayfarer, they bump into a smooth-talking hitchhiker Babu (Manoj Bajpayee), who is stranded in the middle of nowhere. Babu convinces the young couple to give him a lift. Travelling with Babu proves a nightmare for Arvind and Lakshmi, Babu turns out to be a psychopath. Soon, Lakshmi finds herself hostage of an armed Babu. Thanks to the timely intervention of a truck driver Inderpal (Makrand Deshpande) and the highway petrol bunk owner, an aspiring actor Bhanwar Singh (Rajpal Yadav), Arvind rescues Lakshmi from Babu. After a while, Babu again finds a way, after attacking Inderpal, and re- attacks the couple by haunting them on the road, via Inderpal's truck. But, this time, Babu fails to get hold of the couple. After lodging an FIR, in the nearest police station, the couple finds a motel, the couple recuperate. The next day Babu again attacks the couple and elopes with Lakshmi. When the car breaks down on the way, Babu kills his another victim, a traveler (Snehal Dabi) attracted to Lakshmi, and elopes in the traveler's vehicle. As the cops are on their way to catch hold of him, he manages to dodge them. On the other hand, the cops suspect Arvind as the serial killer, as he first eloped with Lakshmi, who is D.C.P's daughter. This irresponsible intervention of the cop (Sayaji Shinde), who fail to trust Arvind, makes it impossible to chase Lakshmi. Finally, a frustrated Arvind, manages to escape with the cops jeep. The full focus of the police is now on Arvind as they believe him to have committed a murder and dumped the body in a car and that the story of Babu and Lakshmi is a fabrication. Arvind manages to flee to a small bar where he reunites with Inderpal. He and Inderpal now try to track Babu down with the help of Inderpal's truck but are spotted by the police who give a chase. Inderpal is injured in the gunfight and Arvind drives him to a hospital. Meanwhile, Babu forces his way into a bungalow by attacking its caretaker while the owner was away. At the bungalow, Lakshmi begins to show signs that she is on Babu's side. The caretaker of the house is tied up but manages to call the police on Babu. At the same time, the police also find Arvind's vehicle and in it, a photograph of himself and Lakshmi, indicating that Arvind is innocent and was telling the truth. At the hospital, Arvind has an encounter with the police and overcomes a cop and is about to tie him up when that cop gets informed through the radio that Arvind is innocent. The police reach the bungalow the following morning where Babu kills two policemen before escaping. Arvind, finally having his name cleared, joins the police in chasing down Babu. He takes control of a police bike after its rider was shot down by Babu. Arvind chases Babu into the desert where the vehicle breaks down again. Babu and Lakshmi get out of the car and Arvind too gets off his bike and starts coming for Babu. Babu tells Lakshmi that there is only one bullet left in the gun and that will kill Arvind. However, just as he is about to shoot, Lakshmi attacks Babu, causing the last bullet to miss. Arvind takes advantage of the distraction and attacks Babu. Arvind badly beats Babu and the couple, reunited, leave Babu to die in the desert and continue on their journey on the police bike. ===== Accused of throwing races back home, American jockey Danny Arnold now rides horses in Italy, where a gangster named Bork insists he deliberately lose a race. Dan double-crosses him, then avoids Bork's thugs, taking young son Joe with him to Paris. Intending to look up an old friend, Dan learns from cafe owner Paule Manet that the friend was murdered by criminals due to unpaid debts. British jockey George Gardner is able to find Dan gainful employment at the racetrack, while Joe persuades his dad that a new horse of theirs called Gilford would make a fine steeplechase racer. Dan disappoints his son by winning money on a fixed race that involved George. Bork and his henchmen turn up. They threaten to kill Dan if he doesn't lose the next steeplechase race. They have their own jockey in the race to make sure things go their way, but Dan defies them, with George's help. He wins the race, but when another horse runs into Gilford at the finish line, Dan is thrown off and killed. ===== Dr. Miranda Grey is a psychiatrist who works at the women's ward of the Woodward Penitentiary, and has a car accident after trying to avoid hitting a girl standing in the middle of the road during a stormy night. She rushes to try to help the girl. The girl turns out to be a ghost who possesses Miranda's body. Miranda wakes up as a patient in the hospital where she works, and receives treatment from her colleague, Dr. Pete Graham. Drugged and confused, Miranda has no memory of what happened after the car accident. She is horrified to learn that her husband, Douglas, was brutally murdered and that she is the prime suspect. While Miranda copes with life in the hospital, the ghost uses her body to carry out tasks, most noticeably, carving the words "Not Alone" into Miranda's arm, which leads her former colleagues to believe Miranda is suicidal and is inflicting the wounds on herself. As a patient, Miranda bonds with fellow inmate and her own former patient, Chloe Sava. Several times in sessions with Miranda, Chloe claimed that she'd been raped while in the hospital, but she had always attributed these stories to mental illness. One night, the door to Miranda's room in the hospital is opened by the ghost that has been haunting her. When she passes Chloe's room in the hospital, she can hear the rape occurring, and momentarily sees a man's chest pressed against the window. The man's chest bears a tattoo of an Anima Sola. Miranda realizes that Chloe was not making up these stories and, when she sees Chloe the next day, she apologizes and the two embrace. Chloe warns Miranda that her attacker said he was going to target Miranda next. Miranda begins regaining some of her memories bit by bit and slowly comes to remember herself killing her husband. She realizes that the ghost had used her body to murder Douglas, thus making Miranda the patsy for his murder. This is why all of the physical evidence points to Miranda. Miranda, along with Pete, tells the whole story to hospital director Phil Parsons, who also doesn't believe her. As she leaves, she sees a photograph of a girl in Phil's office and recognizes her as the ghost that possessed her. Parsons tells her the girl is his daughter Rachel, who had committed suicide four years earlier by jumping off the bridge where Miranda first encountered the ghost. Miranda escapes from the hospital, after being viciously attacked by Rachel in her cell, and begins seeking clues to the mystery of why she killed her husband. She goes to her house and sees the vision of Doug's murder, realizing that she had killed her husband while under Rachel's possession. She remembers Doug going to a farmhouse in Willow Creek, Rhode Island earlier that day and believes there might be a connection there. She arrives at Willow Creek, which was vacant. In the cellar of a barn, she discovers a room containing a blood- stained bed, what appears to be a box containing drugs, restraints, and video equipment. She watches the tape that is still in the camera and the viewer hears a woman screaming as if tortured or raped. In the final seconds of the video, Douglas walks into the shot, covers a woman's lifeless body on the bed with a sheet, and talks to the camera. At this point, police arrive and one officer comes closer to Miranda and draws a gun on her while she is holding a knife to him. Miranda backs up to a staircase and, suddenly, an injured, frantically screaming girl grabs hold of her from the adjoining crawlspace. The police release the girl, and Miranda is taken to jail. While she is in jail, Miranda talks to Phil, telling him that Rachel's death was no suicide and that she was raped and murdered by Doug, both feeling betrayed. Miranda also believes that "Not Alone" meant that Rachel wasn't Doug's only victim. Sheriff Ryan, who was Doug's best friend, talks to Miranda and quizzes her on how she knew all these things. Miranda then discovers the real meaning of "Not Alone"; that there was a second killer. Ryan does not believe her claim that ghosts told her everything, and asks her what sort of person the accomplice would be. Miranda uses her experience as a psychiatrist to give a psychological profile, and as she does so, realizes that Ryan fits the profile perfectly. He reveals himself as the other killer and then attacks her, and in the fight reveals his tattoo (an Anima Sola). As Ryan was about to inject a syringe into Miranda, the lights start to flicker and Miranda was able to turn the syringe on Ryan, drugging him. As he goes searching for Miranda, Ryan, under the influence of the drug, begins ranting that he and Doug had killed before. They then started secretly raping and torturing women at Willow Creek, with Rachel being their first victim. Ryan causes a gas leak in the police station from firing his shotgun and as he sees Rachel's ghost, fires a shot toward her and causes an explosion from the gas leak, setting him ablaze. Miranda then shoots and kills the sheriff. Pete, just a few seconds later, shows up at the station, worried about Miranda's safety after he solves the mystery himself. He looks relieved to see Miranda safe, and through the soundproof window mouths the words "I'm sorry, Miranda." Approximately a year later, Miranda is seen walking with Chloe on a city sidewalk, discussing how each helped the other come to terms with her experiences. Miranda claims to be free of the ghost's influence and sends Chloe off in a taxi. Miranda then sees a young boy standing in the middle of the road who appears as though he is about to be struck by a fire truck. Miranda yells for the boy to move, but after the fire truck passes through the boy without harming him, she realizes he was only a ghost. As Miranda walks away, a poster with the words "Have you seen Tim?" and a picture of the same boy is shown taped to a pole next to the street on which Miranda is walking. ===== Rather than following a usual linear story structure, The Beiderbecke Affair — set in Leeds in 1985 — is a character-led drama with a plot that initially appears rather unclear, moving as it does from one seemingly unrelated event to another. These events—and the characters involved with them—are eventually shown to be interconnected. Geordie Trevor Chaplin (James Bolam) teaches woodwork, enjoys football and is passionate about jazz. Jill Swinburne (Barbara Flynn) is interested in neither football nor jazz but teaches English and wants to help save the planet, standing in a local election as "your Conservation candidate". After Jill left her husband, her colleague Trevor began giving her lifts to school and from there a relationship blossomed. They have an easy-going relationship where half the words seem to be left unspoken but the viewer is never in any doubt as to the subtext. Clayton Grange Flats, Moor Grange, Leeds used as 'The Multistorey Block of Flats' in the Beiderbecke affair, taken in June 2008, 24 years after filming Trevor tries to buy some jazz records from a "dazzlingly beautiful platinum blonde" who calls at the door raising funds for the local Cubs’ football team. When the wrong records are delivered, a hunt begins that draws the pair into unforeseen intrigue. Thrown into the mix are Sgt Hobson (Dominic Jephcott), a suspicious yet seemingly incompetent graduate police detective, and a pair of local black economy tradesmen, "Big Al" (Terence Rigby) and "Little Norm" (Danny Schiller), who agree to help "average-sized" Jill and Trevor with their school supplies problems. There are elements of political and social commentary, whilst bureaucracy (within the police and local government) and the educational system are frequent targets of ridicule. Setting the scene for the sequels, the series ends with Jill and Trevor 'running away to the hills' (Beamsley Beacon, Beamsley). Unlike subsequent episodes the series ends with this scene and Big Al and Little Norm listening to the radio at their allotment; the viewer hears from this that a local senior police officer has been suspended, and a businessman and a councillor have been arrested. It is later revealed in the Beiderbecke Tapes that Mr McAllister and Councillor McAllister were imprisoned. It all unravels to a soundtrack of jazz music in the style of Bix Beiderbecke, performed by Frank Ricotti with Kenny Baker as featured cornet soloist. Extensive use is made of leitmotifs for the various characters. ===== The body of a young woman is found on the grounds of the Temple. The woman had been strangled and evidence points to Rabbi Small - her purse is found in his car, which had been left in the Temple parking lot the night before. ===== The film opens with the passage "Friendship is friendship; history is history." A group of Japanese boys are conscripted into the Youth Corps. They are assigned to the Kwantung Army, and are brought to one of the facilities serving Unit 731, which is headed by Shiro Ishii. Soon, they are introduced to the experiments going on at the facility, for which they feel revulsion. The purpose of the experiments is to find a highly contagious strain of bubonic plague, to be used as a last-ditch weapon against the Chinese population. Meanwhile, the young soldiers befriend a local mute Chinese boy with whom they play games of catch. One day, the commanding officers ask the boys to bring the Chinese child to the facility. Naively, they follow orders believing that no real harm will come to the boy; however, the senior medical staff places the boy in surgery for the purpose of harvesting his organs for research. When the young soldiers realize what has happened, they stage a minor uprising by ganging up and physically beating their commanding officer. As the war goes on, the situation becomes increasingly desperate for the Japanese, and therefore Unit 731. In one of their last experiments, they tie a number of Chinese prisoners to crosses, intending them to be used as targets for a prototype ceramic bomb containing infectious fleas; however, they are not able to contact their airfield due to a retreat. Chinese prisoners break free from the crosses, and attempt to escape; however, Japanese troops hunt them down, and nearly all of them are run over or shot, including several Japanese. Returning to the facility after the aborted experiment, Unit 731 runs out of time and they are forced to destroy their research and all other evidence of the atrocities happening there. Dr. Ishii initially orders his subordinates and their families to commit suicide, but is persuaded instead to evacuate them and only commit suicide if captured. However, he makes it clear that secrecy is to be maintained, with dire consequences. Japanese troops gather at a train station to be transported out of China. One of the Chinese prisoners, having disguised himself and escaped with a group of soldiers, is discovered by an officer. During a short scuffle in which he kills the officer before being killed himself, his blood stains the Japanese flag, to the horror of the Youth Corps. The train leaves the station. The closing passages reveal that Dr. Ishii cooperates with the Americans, giving them his research and agreeing to work for them. Years later, he is moved to the Korean front, and biological weapons appear on the battlefield shortly thereafter. The Youth Corps involved with 731 are revealed to have led hard lives after the war, but kept the vow that none of the atrocities they witnessed would be revealed or discussed to the public. ===== Jarndyce v Jarndyce concerns the fate of a large inheritance. The case has dragged on for many generations before the action of the novel, so that, late in the narrative, legal costs have devoured the whole estate and the case is abandoned. Dickens used it to attack the chancery court system as being near totally worthless, as any "honourable man among its practitioners" says, "Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come here!" All of the main characters are connected in some way through the case, though the legal proceedings appear only as background plot. Aside from the lawyers who sue and defend the case, every character who directly associates with it suffers some tragic fate. Miss Flite has long since lost her mind when the narrative begins. Richard Carstone, a former ward of court, dies trying to win the inheritance for himself after spending much of his life so distracted by the notion of it that he cannot commit to any other pursuit. John Jarndyce, by contrast, finds the whole process tiresome and tries to have as little to do with it as he possibly can, one of many examples of the character's wise and self-effacing demeanour. Dickens introduces the case in the first chapter in terms which make the futility of the matter clear: > Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. This scarecrow of a suit has, over the > course of time, become so complicated, that no man alive knows what it > means. The parties to it understand it least; but it has been observed that > no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five minutes without coming to > a total disagreement as to all the premises. Innumerable children have been > born into the cause; innumerable young people have married into it; > innumerable old people have died out of it. Scores of persons have > deliriously found themselves made parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce without > knowing how or why; whole families have inherited legendary hatreds with the > suit. The little plaintiff or defendant, who was promised a new rocking- > horse when Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be settled, has grown up, possessed > himself of a real horse, and trotted away into the other world. Fair wards > of court have faded into mothers and grandmothers; a long procession of > Chancellors has come in and gone out. The ending of the case reduces the whole court to fits of laughter. From Chapter 65: > We asked a gentleman by us, if he knew what cause was on? He told us > Jarndyce and Jarndyce. We asked him if he knew what was doing in it? He > said, really no he did not, nobody ever did; but as well as he could make > out, it was over. "Over for the day?" we asked him. "No", he said; "over for > good." Over for good! When we heard this unaccountable answer, we looked at > one another quite lost in amazement. Could it be possible that the Will had > set things right at last, and that Richard and Ada were going to be rich? It > seemed too good to be true. Alas, it was! Our suspense was short; for a > break up soon took place in the crowd, and the people came streaming out > looking flushed and hot, and bringing a quantity of bad air with them. Still > they were all exceedingly amused, and were more like people coming out from > a Farce or a Juggler than from a court of Justice. We stood aside, watching > for any countenance we knew; and presently great bundles of paper began to > be carried out—bundles in bags, bundles too large to be got into any bags, > immense masses of papers of all shapes and no shapes, which the bearers > staggered under, and threw down for the time being, anyhow, on the Hall > pavement, while they went back to bring out more. Even these clerks were > laughing. We glanced at the papers, and seeing Jarndyce and Jarndyce > everywhere, asked an official-looking person who was standing in the midst > of them, whether the cause was over. "Yes," he said; "it was all up with it > at last!" and burst out laughing too. ... "Mr. Kenge," said Allan, appearing > enlightened all in a moment. "Excuse me, our time presses. Do I understand > that the whole estate is found to have been absorbed in costs?" "Hem! I > believe so," returned Mr. Kenge. "Mr. Vholes, what do you say?" "I believe > so," said Mr. Vholes. "And that thus the suit lapses and melts away?" > "Probably," returned Mr. Kenge. "Mr. Vholes?" "Probably," said Mr. Vholes. ===== The core of the legendThe fictive narratives of Guy were taken as history in chronicles of Thomas Rudborne and John Hardyng (Richmond 1996:ch 4.5), and Guy appears in the Dictionary of National Biography along with Arthur and Robin Hood, and so is not simply a figure in fiction but a character of legend. is that Guy falls in love with the lady Felice ("Happiness"), who is of much higher social standing. In order to wed Felice he must prove his valour in chivalric adventures and become a knight; in order to do this he travels widely, battling fantastic monsters such as dragons, giants, a Dun Cow and great boars. He returns and weds Felice but soon, full of remorse for his violent past, he leaves on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land; later he returns privately and lives out his long life as a hermit (according to local legend in a cave overlooking the River Avon, situated at Guys Cliffe). In one recension, Guy, son of Siward or Seguard of Wallingford, by his prowess in foreign wars wins in marriage Felice (the Phyllis of the well-known ballad), daughter and heiress of Roalt, Earl of Warwick. Soon after his marriage he is seized with remorse for the violence of his past life, and, by way of penance, leaves his wife and fortune to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. After years of absence he returns in time to deliver Winchester for Athelstan of England from the invading northern kings, Anelaph (Anlaf or Olaf) and Gonelaph, by slaying in single combat their champion, the giant Colbrand. Winchester tradition fixes the duel at Hyde Mead, before the Abbey near Winchester. Making his way to Warwick, he becomes one of his wife's beadsmen, and presently retires to a hermitage in Arden, only revealing his identity, like Saint Roch, at the approach of death. ===== The novel is in three parts. There are two epigraphs, the first from Pushkin's poem "Demons" and the second from Luke 8:32–36. ===== The story is written from two viewpoints, equidistant from the novel's publication in 1980. The first thread is set in a 1998 ravaged by ecological disasters such as algal blooms and diebacks on the brink of large scale extinctions. Various other events are mentioned in passing, such as student riots and an event of nuclear terrorism against New York City which took place before the events of the novel. This thread follows a group of scientists in the United Kingdom connected with the University of Cambridge and their attempts to warn the past of the impending disaster by sending tachyon-induced messages to the astronomical position the Earth occupied in 1962–1963. Given the faster-than- light nature of the tachyon, these messages will effectively reach the past. These efforts are led by John Renfrew, an Englishman, and Gregory Markham, an American most likely modeled on Benford himself."He [Benford] and his twin appear briefly in the La Jolla part of the novel, and he acknowledges a considerable degree of personal identification with Greg Markham. The second thread is set in the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), in La Jolla, California, in 1962 where a young scientist, Gordon Bernstein, discovers anomalous noise in a physics experiment relating to spontaneous resonance and indium antimonide. He and his student assistant, Albert Cooper (also likely based on the author and his experiences at UCSD), discover that the noise is coming in bursts timed to form Morse code. The resulting message is made of staccato sentence fragments and jumbled letters, due to the 1998 team's efforts to avoid a grandfather paradox. Their aim is to give the past researchers enough information to start efforts on solving the pending ecological crisis, but not enough that the crisis will be entirely solved (thus making a signal to the past unnecessary and creating a paradox). Due to the biological nature of the message, Professor Bernstein shares the message with a professor of biology, Michael Ramsey. Since the message also gives astronomical coordinates, he also shares it with Saul Shriffer, a fictional scientist who is said to have worked with Frank Drake on Project Ozma. Initially, these characters fail to understand the true meaning of the message. Ramsey believes it to be an intercepted military dispatch hinting at Soviet bioterrorism, while Shriffer thinks the message is of extraterrestrial origin. Shriffer goes public with this theory, mentioning Bernstein in his findings. However, Bernstein's overseer, Isaac Lakin, is skeptical of the messages and wants Bernstein to keep working on his original project and ignore the signal. As a result of this interruption in their experimentation, Bernstein is denied a promotion and Cooper fails a candidacy examination. The signal also exacerbates difficulties in Bernstein's relationship with his girlfriend, Penny. In 1998, Ian Peterson recovers a safe deposit box in La Jolla containing a piece of paper indicating that the messages were received. Meanwhile, it is clear that the viral nature of the algal bloom is spreading it faster and through more mediums than originally expected. Strange yellow clouds that have been appearing are said to be a result of the viral material being absorbed through the water cycle, and it soon affects the planet's agriculture as well, resulting in widespread cases of food poisoning. Flying to the United States, Markham is killed in a plane crash when the pilots fly too close to one of the clouds and experience seizures. In the past storyline, now advanced into 1963, Bernstein refuses to give up on the signals. He is rewarded when the signal noise is also observed in a laboratory at Columbia University (a nod "Tachyons were the sort of audacious idea that comes to young minds used to roving over the horizon of conventional thought. Because of Feinberg I later set part of my tachyon novel at Columbia" towards the inventor of the tachyon concept, Gerald Feinberg of Columbia). Using hints in the message, Ramsey replicates the conditions of the bloom in a controlled experiment and realizes the danger it represents. Bernstein finds out that the astronomical coordinates given in the message represent where the Earth will be in 1998 due to the solar apex. He also receives a more coherent, despairing message from the future. Having built a solid case, Bernstein goes public and publishes his results. This decision has monumental consequences. On November 22, a high school student in Dallas is sent by his physics teacher to the Texas School Book Depository to get a copy of Bernstein's findings. There he interrupts Lee Harvey Oswald's assassination attempt on President John F. Kennedy, attacking the shooter and sending the would-be fatal third shot awry. Though seriously injured, Kennedy survives. This paradox creates an alternate universe and forever ends the contact with the original 1998. The concluding chapters portray the 1998 of the original timeline as a bleak, failing world, the intensified ecological disaster taking a noticeable toll on the human way of life. Peterson retreats to a fortified country farmhouse which he has obviously prepared well in advance. Renfrew continues to send out signals (including the more coherent one that Gordon receives) until the building's generator gives out. Before it does, however, he receives a signal purportedly from the year 2349. In the final chapter, set in the alternate 1974, an awards ceremony is held for achievement in science. In light of Kennedy's survival, the United States President giving out the awards is William Scranton, who is said to have defeated Bobby Kennedy due to a telephone tapping scandal. The scientists whose work stemmed from the signal are honored, including Bernstein, who receives the Enrico Fermi Prize for his discovery of the tachyon. ===== The first illustration in the book by Brett Helquist showing the recipients of the three letters. Two frogs and the V pentomino that belong to the illustration code are hidden in the picture. The book begins with a mysterious letter that is delivered to three unknown recipients, two women and one man. The letter tells them they are of great need to the sender, but begs them not to tell the police. Sixth-graders Calder Pillay, who enjoys puzzles and pentominoes, and Petra Andalee, who aspires to be a writer, are classmates at the Middle School in Hyde Park, Chicago. Their young teacher, Ms. Hussey, is very interested in art and teaches them in a creative way. Through her pressing questions, they discover the artist Johannes Vermeer and his paintings, especially A Lady Writing and The Geographer. Petra also finds a used book called Lo!, written by Charles Fort, at the local Powell's Books, owned by a man named Mr. Watch. They also meet an elderly neighbor, Mrs. Sharpe, who is also a fan of Vermeer and Fort. Calder receives letters from his best friend Tommy Segovia, who is currently living in New York City with a new stepfather. The children learn that A Lady Writing was traveling from The National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. to Hyde Park. The next day there is a story in the paper of how the painting mysteriously disappeared. A letter from the thief appears in the newspaper, telling the public that he will not give back A Lady Writing until they prove which Vermeer paintings were truly painted by Vermeer. This sparks worldwide uproar. Calder and Petra investigate as their friendship grows. Mrs. Sharpe requests police protection and it is revealed that she and Ms. Hussey were two of the three recipients of the thief's letter. Calder and Petra eventually conclude that the painting is hidden in the local Delia Dell Hall, and they sneak out and find it. They barely escape from the thief, who is later found dead from a massive heart attack on the train by the police. They learn that the man is Xavier Glitts, also known as Glitter Man, who was posing as Tommy's stepfather under the name Fred Steadman. A known art thief, he was asked to steal the painting and sell it for sixty million dollars. The other recipient of the letter is revealed to be Mr. Watch. ===== During the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, surgeon Dr. František Svoboda, a Czech patriot, assassinates the brutal "Hangman of Europe", Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich, but his getaway car is discovered and therefore his planned safe house must reject him. When a woman whom he does not know, named Mascha, deliberately misdirects German soldiers close to finding him, he seeks her home as an alternative safe house. This turns out to be the home of her father, history professor Stephen Novotny, whom the Nazis have banned from teaching. This plan works. But because the assassin now cannot be found, the Nazi leaders in Prague decide to create an incentive for him to turn himself in or for others to do so. They arrange - with the help of fifth-columnist Emil Czaka, a wealthy brewer - for 400 citizens, including Professor Novotny, to be executed, forty at a time, until the assassin is named. Through a complex series of events, however, the resistance manages to frame Czaka himself for the murder, but not before the Nazis have executed many of the hostages. ===== Abarat focuses on Candy Quackenbush, a teenage girl frustrated with her life in Chickentown, Minnesota. After an argument with her teacher over a school project and the doodling Candy has done in her school workbook, Candy leaves the school and goes to the edge of town, where she sees the remains of a lighthouse. She finds this incredibly strange because Chickentown is thousands of miles from the ocean. She then encounters a master thief named John Mischief who looks human except for the antlers on his head. Mischief's seven brothers live on these horns, appearing only as heads. Because he is pursued by a sinister humanoid being named Mendelson Shape, Mischief sends Candy to light the lamp in the lighthouse, which summons an ocean known as the Sea of Izabella from a parallel world. Candy climbs the rotting lighthouse stairs while the brothers distract Shape. When she reaches the top, she finds an inverted pyramid with a cup on top. As Shape gets away from Mischief and his brothers and begins to climb the stairs, Candy searches for the ball that goes in the cup and will light the lamp. She finds it and is surprised to see it is covered in swirling lines exactly like the ones she doodled in her school book. After giving her a key to protect and extinguishing the light, Mischief and Candy ride the seas to Abarat. A group of creatures carry them to a nearby island where Candy is separated from him. On the island, Candy learns that the Abarat consists of twenty-five islands, each occupying a different hour of the day, and was formerly connected to Candy's world before the harbour's destruction by Abaratian authorities. Thereafter the story follows her adventures as she discovers the crises affecting the Abarat, and gains intimations that she may be destined to conclude these. The story also introduces her chief antagonists: the sorcerer known as Christopher Carrion, his grandmother Mater Motley, and the industrialist Rojo Pixler, all of whom seek to dominate the Abarat. ===== Two unemployed brothers, Bob and Doug McKenzie (Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas), place a live mouse in a beer bottle in an attempt to blackmail the local beer store into giving them free Elsinore beer, but are told to take up the matter with management at the Elsinore brewery. The brothers are given jobs on the bottling line inspecting for mice in the bottles. Meanwhile, the evil Brewmeister Smith (Max von Sydow) is perfecting a secret plan to take over the world by placing a mind-control drug in Elsinore beer which, while rendering the consumer docile, also makes him or her attack others when certain musical tones are played. Smith tests this adulterated beer on patients of the neighbouring Royal Canadian Institute for the Mentally Insane, which is connected to the brewery by tunnels. Bob and Doug learn that the brewery's former owner, John Elsinore, has recently died under mysterious circumstances and his daughter Pam (Lynne Griffin) has been given full control of the Elsinore brewery. While exploring the massive brewery, they find a shuttered cafeteria containing an old Galactic Border Patrol video game, which supernaturally reveals that Brewmeister Smith murdered John Elsinore and that Pam's bumbling Uncle Claude (Paul Dooley) was deeply involved. Bob recognizes a brewery employee as one-time hockey great Jean "Rosie" LeRose (Angus MacInnes), who suffered a career-ending nervous breakdown and has fallen under Smith's control. Eventually, Bob and Doug wander into the Brewmeister's operations room while he is away, and Doug takes a floppy disk containing a video of John Elsinore's murder (thinking it is a "new wave EP" and not realizing the importance of its contents). Smith and Claude tranquilize the brothers and arrange to frame them for murder, concealing Pam and her father's friend, Henry Green (Douglas Campbell), in beer kegs in the back of their sabotaged van, and instruct the brothers to deliver the kegs to a party. Unable to stop, the brothers crash the van into Lake Ontario. All survive (Pam with apparent memory loss), and the brothers are arrested. The brothers' antics at their trial cause the judge to declare them insane and put them under Brewmeister Smith's care at the asylum. Rosie soon finds them and helps them escape, and they find and rescue Pam. Having figured out Brewmeister's plan, Rosie foments an uprising among the brainwashed mental-patient test subjects. The brothers separate for the first time in their lives. Doug and a group of asylum inmates help capture Claude, while Rosie and another group overpower Brewmeister Smith. The spirit of John Elsinore, possessing the brewery's electrical system, electrocutes Smith when he is shoved against his light-up world map. Meanwhile, Smith has locked Pam and Bob in a brewery tank and is filling it with beer; they escape this possible death when Bob consumes all the beer, expanding to a cartoonish size. John Elsinore's ghost warns them that Smith has already shipped tainted beer to Oktoberfest and urges them to prevent the beer from being consumed. The police accompany the brothers back to their house to retrieve their dog, Hosehead, to invade the party. Enticed by promises of free beer and sausages, Hosehead leaps into the air and flies over the city like Superman. He crashes into the tent at the celebration and, mistaken for a skunk, frightens people away from the tainted beer. In the end, the McKenzie Brothers save the day and Pam and Rosie find true love. Bob and Doug are allowed to haul away the contaminated beer, apparently to try to drink it all. The movie ends with an over-the-credits commentary by Bob and Doug about the movie and select crew members as their names scroll by in the credits. ===== In 1937, Donald Campbell (Kiefer Sutherland) is a sensitive 16-year-old boy coming of age in a dark and uncertain time for both his community and life. His mother (Liv Ullmann) wants him to continue his education after high school and become a priest, but Donald is more interested in girls than prayerbooks. After an unsuccessful attempt by a visiting priest to molest him, followed by losing his virginity to a local girl, Donald politely informs his mother (without revealing why) that he is not going to be a priest. Meanwhile, when he is not in school, Donald spends his time helping his father (Peter Donat) dig a bootleg pit; helps care for his older brother, Joe (Peter Spence), who was the brightest boy in his grade until he got sick and was left disabled; and pursues Saxon Coldwell (Leah Pinsent), one of police Sergeant Coldwell's two daughters. Sergeant Coldwell's wife died a few months earlier. Donald lives a hard-working but fairly happy life, until the night he witnesses Sergeant Coldwell shoot and kill the Jewish couple who are his landlord and landlady. The chief of police is a relative, so Donald feels comfortable admitting he saw the killing but he says he did not see who did it, because he is afraid of Sergeant Coldwell - especially after Sergeant Coldwell lets Donald know that he is aware that Donald did see who committed the murder (because he could not have seen the shooting without also seeing who did it). When the Sergeant comes home and finds Donald (innocently) visiting with his daughter Dianna, he snaps mentally and tries to kill the boy - with the result, his secret is revealed and he is arrested for the murder of the Jewish couple, child abuse, and attempted murder of Donald. After all this happens, and in spite of his strong attraction to both of Coldwell's daughters, Donald loses his virginity to the sexually experienced Mary, the other brightest student in his class, who invites him to study with her as a pretext for seducing him while her parents are away. It's a happy experience for both of them, but doesn't lead to any lasting relationship, though they agree to future trysts. The Coldwell girls have to move away, and Donald sadly bids farewell to them, while preparing to leave home himself to study--but not to become a priest, as he finally tells his mother--which she accepts philosophically. The film also depicts the daily lives of the eccentric locals and tight-knit families. ===== Sophie Amundsen is a 14-year-old girl who lives in Norway. The book begins with Sophie receiving two messages in her mailbox and a postcard addressed to Hilde Møller Knag. Afterwards, she receives a packet of papers, part of a course in philosophy. Sophie, without the knowledge of her mother, becomes the student of an old philosopher, Alberto Knox. Alberto teaches her about the history of philosophy. She gets a substantive and understandable review from the Pre-Socratics to Jean-Paul Sartre. In addition to this, Sophie and Alberto receive postcards addressed to a girl named Hilde from a man named Albert Knag. As time passes Knag begins to hide birthday messages to Hilde in ever more impossible ways, including hiding one inside an unpeeled banana and making Alberto's dog, Hermes, speak. Eventually, through the philosophy of George Berkeley, Sophie and Alberto figure out that their entire world is a literary construction by Albert Knag as a present for Hilde, his daughter, on her 15th birthday. Hilde begins to read the manuscript but begins to turn against her father after he continues to meddle with Sophie's life by sending fictional characters like Little Red Riding Hood and Ebenezer Scrooge to talk to her. Alberto helps Sophie fight back against Knag's control by teaching her everything he knows about philosophy, through the Renaissance, Romanticism, and Existentialism, as well as Darwinism and the ideas of Karl Marx. These take the form of long pages of text, and, later, monologues from Alberto. Alberto manages to concoct a plan so that he and Sophie can finally escape Albert's imagination. The trick is performed on Midsummer's Eve, during a "philosophical garden party" that Sophie and her mother arranged to celebrate Sophie's fifteenth birthday. The party soon descends into chaos as Albert Knag lost his control over the world, causing the guests to react with indifference to extraordinary occurrences. Alberto informs everyone that their world is fictional but the guests react with rage, believing him to be instilling dangerous values in the children. When a Mercedes smashes into the garden, Alberto and Sophie use it as an opportunity to escape. Knag is so focused on writing about the car that he doesn't notice them escaping into the real world. Having finished the book, Hilde decides to help Sophie and Alberto get revenge on her father. Alberto and Sophie cannot interact with anything in the real world and cannot be seen by anyone but other fictional characters. A woman from Grimm's Fairy Tales gives them food before they prepare to witness Knag's return to Lillesand, Hilde's home. While at the airport, Knag receives notes from Hilde set up at shops and gateways, instructing him on items to buy. He becomes increasingly paranoid as he wonders how Hilde is pulling the trick off. When he arrives back home, Hilde has forgiven him now that he has learned what it is like to have his world interfered with. Alberto and Sophie listen as Knag tells Hilde about one last aspect of philosophy—the universe itself. He tells her about the Big Bang and how everything is made up of the same material, which exploded outward at the beginning of time. Hilde learns that when she looks at the stars she is actually seeing into the past. Sophie makes a last effort to communicate with her by hitting her and Knag with a wrench. Knag doesn't feel anything, but Hilde feels as though a gadfly stung her, and can hear Sophie's whispers. Sophie wishes to ride in the rowboat but Alberto reminds her that as they are not real people, they cannot manipulate objects. In spite of this, Sophie manages to untie the rowboat and they ride out onto the lake, immortal and invisible to all but a few. Hilde, inspired and mesmerized by philosophy and reconnected with her father, goes out to get the boat back. ===== The game's protagonist, Donkey Kong Junior, also called simply Junior or abbreviated Donkey Kong Jr. or DK Jr., is trying to rescue his father Donkey Kong, who has been imprisoned. Donkey Kong's cage is guarded by Mario, in his only appearance as an antagonist in a Nintendo video game. Donkey Kong Jr. must rescue his father by working his way through a series of four screens. Mario attempts to stop DK Jr. by releasing animals and putting obstacles in his way. When DK Jr. succeeds on the last screen, Donkey Kong is freed and kicks Mario into the distance, leaving him to run away and to an unknown fate; the game then begins again at a higher difficulty level. ===== The story follows Alice Seno, a fifteen-year-old girl forever in the shadow of her older sister Mayura, who achieves in everything she undertakes. At her school Alice becomes known as "Mayura's little sister." Older girls, judging Alice too meek to retaliate, torment her relentlessly. Alice harbors a deep affection for Kyou Wakamiya, a handsome senpai and member – with Mayura – of the school archery team. On the way to school one day, Alice rescues a white rabbit from the road despite the danger to herself, but she is rescued by Kyô and receives from the rabbit a bracelet with a single red stone. The rabbit she saves, however, is no ordinary rabbit. The rabbit reveals her true form to Alice and introduces herself as Nyozeka. Alice is told that she is destined to become a Lotis Master. The Lotis Masters use the power of words and communication to enter the Inner Heart of others. It is a powerful ability to be used carefully as Alice soon finds out. Using the power of the Lotis Words, which reveal themselves to be in the form of runes, Alice accidentally makes her older sister disappear during a dispute over Kyô, whom Mayura had begun dating. Alice then must use the Lotis Words to try to bring her sister back from the dark. She is joined by Kyô who proves to have the Lotis powers as well, and by Frey, another Lotis master who has trained with the masters and arrives with the intention to marry Alice. Unfortunately, Mayura has been taken by the power of the Maram Words, the dark reflection of the Lotus Words. Their only hope lies in Alice and Kyô becoming the legendary Neo-Masters to discover the lost word binding both Maram and Lotis. Following the conclusion of the story in volume 7 Ms. Watase appended an extra chapter, 'Bunny Heart', set in China about 900 AD. A young Chinese girl, Rakuen, retrieving water during a time of drought, met Nyozeka, and learned the Lotis word "Dana", water. Ms. Watase concludes the chapter by writing that this girl was an ancestor of Pai Mei- Lin. ===== Saddle Rash is based on a small town in the Old West, and narrated by an "old prospector"-type character named Gummy (H. Jon Benjamin). The episode begins with an armless, nameless gunslinger, dubbed Slim by the narrator. In the true style of Western films, Slim is in town for the purpose of revenge against Tommy Morgan (also voiced by Benjamin), who has been hiding in the hills due to a $1000 bounty on his head. While Slim is in town, Hanna Headstrong (Sarah Silverman), the daughter of a rancher in town, falls in love with him. Eventually, Slim and Tommy Morgan stand off. ===== In 1998, the family of the late Roger Maris goes to Busch Stadium to witness Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals break their father's record with a 62nd home run. Maris' widow, Pat, is hospitalized due to complications from arrhythmia and watches the game on television from a hospital bed. Decades earlier in 1961, Maris is presented with the Most Valuable Player award for the 1960 baseball season, but Mickey Mantle remains the New York Yankees' superstar. Mantle starts off hot while Maris struggles. Maris suspects he may be traded, but new manager Ralph Houk has Mantle and Maris switch places in the Yankees' batting order to see if it helps. It does, and Maris begins to hit home runs at a record pace. Mantle keeps pace and it becomes clear that both "M&M; Boys" will make a run at Babe Ruth's record of 60 homers in one season. Mickey's life off the field is taking a toll on his playing. He drinks, enjoys the Manhattan nightlife and arrives at the ballpark hung over. More than once, pitcher Whitey Ford has to bail him out or sober him up. To keep Mantle out of trouble, Maris and teammate/roommate Bob Cerv invite him to move in with them in a modest home in Queens, with one condition: no women. New York's fans and media pull for the popular and personable Mantle, a long-time Yankee. The quieter Maris is viewed as an outsider, aloof and unworthy. As the two men close in on the record, MLB Commissioner Ford Frick, who was Babe Ruth's ghostwriter, makes a decision: unless the record is broken in 154 games, as Ruth did in 1927, the new mark would be listed separately indicating it had been done in baseball's newly expanded 162-game season. It appears Mantle is not going to make it; his health deteriorates and he plays in constant pain. Maris, meanwhile, is unaccustomed to such a high level of public scrutiny and is uncomfortable interacting with the media, who dissect and distort everything he says or does. The fans heckle Maris and even throw objects at him on the field. Soon he begins receiving hate mail and death threats. His wife lives far from New York, usually available only by phone. The stress becomes so intense that Maris' hair begins to fall out in clumps. The Yankees owner also tries to favor Mantle by asking Houk to switch Mantle and Maris in the batting order, but Houk refuses, because the redesigned lineup has been winning a higher percentage of games. Chronic injury and alcohol abuse catch up with Mantle, and an ill-advised injection by a doctor infects his hip and lands him in a hospital bed. With Mantle gone from the lineup, the stage becomes set for Maris. He fails to break the record in the 154th game of the season, but he does finally hit his 61st home run during the final game of the season. ===== Sportswriter Al Stump is hired in 1960 as ghostwriter of an authorized autobiography of baseball player Tyrus Raymond "Ty" Cobb. Now 73 and in failing health, Cobb wants an official biography to "set the record straight" before he dies. Stump arrives at Cobb's Lake Tahoe estate to write the official life story of the first baseball player inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He finds a continually-drunken, misanthropic, bitter racist who abuses his biographer as well as everyone else he comes in contact with. Although Cobb's home is luxurious, it is without heat, power and running water due to long-running violent disputes between Cobb and utility companies. Cobb also rapidly runs through domestic workers, hiring and firing them in quick succession. Although Cobb is seriously ill and prone to frequent physical breakdown, he retains considerable strength and also keeps several loaded firearms within easy reach at almost all times, making the outbreak of violent confrontation always an immediate possibility in his presence. Cobb almost gets killed in an automobile accident off the Donner Pass, driving recklessly in a blizzard. Stump rescues him, but Cobb then seizes control of Stump's car until he gets into another accident. The car has to be towed to Reno. Stump and Cobb go see a show at a Reno resort hotel featuring Keely Smith and Louis Prima, whose act Cobb rudely interrupts. A cigarette girl, Ramona, becomes interested in Stump, but when Cobb barges into the hotel room, he's in a jealous rage. He takes Ramona to another room, where he physically abuses her. Cobb and Stump travel together cross-country by automobile to the Baseball Hall of Fame's induction weekend in Cooperstown, New York, where many star players from Cobb's era are in attendance, including Rogers Hornsby and Mickey Cochrane. Cobb is haunted by images from his violent past as he views film footage of his career. From there, Cobb and Stump drive south to Cobb's native Georgia, where his estranged daughter continues to live. She refuses to see him. Stump, having spent months with Cobb witnessing his behavior and absorbing considerable abuse, is torn between creating the autobiography that Cobb hired him to write and writing his own book on Cobb's true self. Cobb begins to regard Stump as a friend of sorts; it is clear his conduct has driven away virtually all his legitimate friends and family. Stump writes two books simultaneously: the one Cobb expects, and his own, sensational, merciless account which will reveal the real Cobb, warts and all. Stump plans to complete Cobb's version while the old man is still alive, guaranteeing his payment for the project, letting Cobb die happy, then issue the hard-hitting followup after Cobb is gone. After a long night of drinking when his own personal life begins to unravel, Stump passes out. Cobb discovers his notes for the no-punches-pulled version, bringing on an epic explosion. Cobb begins to cough up blood and is taken to a hospital, where he wields a gun and treats doctors and nurses as harshly as he has everyone else. Stump gains a grudging respect for the player's legendary intensity and fearsome competitive fire, as well as an understanding that the murder of Cobb's father may have been partly responsible for his antagonistic personality. Cobb reveals to Stump that his father's murder was not committed by his mother, but by his mother's lover. Stump is conflicted in his opinion of Cobb, and, in the end, completes the glowing autobiography Cobb hired him to write. ===== At some point in the indeterminate near future, the cloning of animals and human organs has become routine. Cloning entire humans, however, is prohibited by what are known as "Sixth Day" laws. Billionaire Michael Drucker, owner of cloning corporation Replacement Technologies, hires charter pilot Adam Gibson and partner Hank Morgan for a ski trip. Due to Drucker's prominence, the two must first undergo blood and eye tests to verify their aptitude. On the day of Drucker's arrival, Adam finds that his family dog Oliver has died, and Hank offers to pose as him to fly Drucker instead to allow Adam time to have the pet cloned by RePet. After visiting a "RePet" shop, he remains unconvinced and purchases an animatronic doll, a SimPal, named Cindy instead. On the ski trip, however, Drucker and Hank are shot by one of the skiers. Adam returns home and discovers that not only has Oliver already been cloned, but a purported clone of himself is with his family, along with another SimPal Cindy. Replacement Technologies security agents Marshall, Talia, Vincent and Wiley arrive with the intention of killing Adam. Adam kills Talia and Wiley in the ensuing chase and escapes, but both are later cloned. Adam goes to the police, but they do not believe his story, as the clone already reported his car stolen, and deem him insane. They call the security agents, but he escapes and seeks refuge at an alive Hank's apartment. Hank hardly believes his story, but when he shows him the clone Adam he helps him. Adam contemplates killing his clone but finds himself unable to do it and they return to Hank's apartment, where they are ambushed by Tripp, the skier who shot Drucker and Hank. Tripp shoots and kills Hank, but is mortally injured by Adam. Revealed as a religious anti-cloning extremist, Tripp informs Adam that Hank was a clone, since he killed the original one on the mountaintop earlier that day, to be able to kill Drucker, who was also a clone, and there is now a new Drucker clone. Tripp then commits suicide to avoid being captured by Marshall and the others. The agents arrive again and Adam is able to disable Marshall and kill Talia again, and steals her thumb. Seeking answers, Adam sneaks into Replacement Technologies with Talia's thumb and finds Dr. Griffin Weir, the scientist behind Drucker's illegal human- cloning technology. Weir confirms Tripp's story, adding that to resurrect Drucker, the incident had to be covered up and Adam was cloned because they mistakenly believed he had been killed when he and Hank switched places, which they discovered only later and had Hank cloned as well, which is also why the agents are trying to kill Adam. Weir explains that Drucker – who already died years before – could lose all of his assets if the revelation became public, since clones are devoid of all rights. Sympathetic with Adam's plight, Weir gives him a memory disk (syncording) of the Drucker clone but warns him that Drucker may go after the other Adam instead, putting Adam's family in danger. Weir also discovers that Drucker has been engineering cloned humans with fatal diseases as an insurance policy against betrayal. Upon finding out that his own wife was one such victim, Weir confronts Drucker and resigns. Drucker reluctantly shoots him dead after promising to clone both him and his wife. Drucker's agents abduct the Gibson family and Adam comes face to face with his clone. The two reluctantly team up and devise a plan to destroy Drucker's facility. While Adam wrecks the security system and gets himself captured, the clone sneaks in, plants a bomb and rescues his family. Drucker, however, tells Adam that he himself is the clone; the other Adam is the original one. Enraged, Adam fights off Drucker's agents and Drucker is mortally wounded while Talia, Wiley, Vincent and Marshall are killed for the final time. Drucker manages to clone himself before he dies but the malfunctioning equipment causes the new Drucker to be incomplete. As the cloned Adam fights his way to the rooftop, he is rescued via helicopter by the real one as Drucker falls to his death before the facility explodes. Now having a more moderate view of cloning, the real Adam arranges for his clone to move to Argentina to start a satellite office of their charter business. The clone's existence is kept a secret, especially upon discovering that his DNA has no embedded illnesses, giving him a chance at a full life, since he was of no political value to Drucker. As a parting gift to the Gibson family, the clone gives them Hank's RePet cat, Sadie. The real Adam gives the clone a flying send-off. ===== Kid superheroes Captain Crandall, Skate Lad, and Rope Girl protect their unnamed city from various bad guys when called in by Governor Kevin. They take on bad guys like Baron Blitz, Madame Snake, Laser Pirate, Helius Inflato, Dehydro, Mr. Large, and other bad guys while also occasionally interacting with the other local superheroes. ===== A naval battle. Close combat was very rare during Admiral Yi's operations. The Korean navy was again to play a crucial part in the second invasion, as in the first, by hampering Japanese advances on land by harassing supply fleets at sea.Lee, Ki-Baik, A New History of Korea, Translated by Edward W. Wagner and Edward J. Shultz, Ilchorak/Harvard University Press, 1984, p. 214, . However, despite his previous successes, Yi Sun-sin was both demoted and jailed by King Seonjo, largely due to a Japanese plot to deceive the Korean court and take advantage of the court's political infighting. Government officials gave direct orders to launch a surprise naval operation against the Japanese, based on a tip from a presumed reliable Japanese spy. Yi refused to obey these orders, knowing that this was an obvious trap meant to have his own fleet sail in to an ambush. This development allowed others within the court to further advance their personal agendas while Yi was severely punished. Ultimately, Won Gyun was appointed in Yi Sun-sin's place at the head of the Korean navy. ===== The cast of Dead or Alive as they appear in Dead or Alive: Dimensions, as seen from top left to bottom right: Ein, La Mariposa, Eliot, Bayman, Zack, Leon, Hayate, Christie, Tina Armstrong, Bass Armstrong, Kokoro, Ryu Hayabusa, Kasumi, Jann Lee, Leifang, Brad Wong, Helena Douglas, Ayane, Hitomi, Raidou, and Gen Fu. The Dead or Alive series depicts a collection of skilled martial artists in a worldwide competition named the Dead or Alive tournament. DOATEC (Dead or Alive Tournament Executive Committee), a massive corporation with unknown motives, holds the fighting competition in arenas ranging from the North Pole to the Amazon rain forest. Dead or Alive, the first game in the series, introduced the initial characters and their reasons for entering the tournament. For example, Zack enters for profit, while Kasumi, a runaway female ninja and the series' main protagonist, enters the tournament to seek revenge against Raidou who crippled her brother Hayate. Kasumi wins the first DOA tournament, however the strict laws of ninja society prevent Kasumi from returning to her village, and she becomes a hunted fugitive. Dead or Alive 2 is set less than a year later, as Tengu threatens the world. Kasumi's brother Hayate, previously injured by Raidou, returns from being a subject in DOATEC's bio-weapon experiment Epsilon. New fighters include Ein (Hayate), Helena Douglas and Leon. Eventually, Ryu Hayabusa defeats Tengu and wins the tournament. Dead or Alive 3, takes place shortly after the defeat of Tengu. This game's plot concerns a secret goal of DOATEC's mad scientist Victor Donovan to produce the ultimate fighter, called the Omega project. Through Epsilon and Alpha stages, DOATEC wipes the ninja Genra's memory, turning him into the vicious Omega; a third tournament is held to test Omega's abilities. In the end, Kasumi's half-sister Ayane defeats her former master and wins the tournament. The game introduces four more fighters, the first playable appearance of Hayate, and the brand new fighters Brad Wong, Christie, and Hitomi. Dead or Alive 4 again explores DOATEC's attempts to create a powerful clone of Kasumi with the Alpha project. The various fighters discover the true nature of DOATEC and set out to stop it. Helena wins the tournament and decides to give the title to Zack. The game introduces three new fighters, Eliot, Kokoro, and La Mariposa. The fifth game, Dead or Alive 5, is set two years later. DOATEC is newly reformed with Helena still in control and Zack appearing to be in employ. Jann Lee beats Hitomi in the last round of the tournament, thus winning. However, Jann Lee still felt that there is one person whom Jann Lee wants to defeat in order for him to be a true winner, Rig, who at first has an amnesia, but presumably ruse, and calling Donovan, “dad”. Meanwhile, Kasumi, Ryu, and Ayane, with the help from Helena, fight to destroy the Alpha project and stop Donovan. Continuing to Dead or Alive 6, DOATEC and Mugen Tenshin discovers that MIST is after the fifth tournament qualifier participant Honoka, due to having a similar power signature as Raidou, causing them to keep an eye on her in different ways. Even worst part by the time when the sixth tournament begins, Rig is indeed amnesia and was unknowingly being implanted by MIST with a trigger into having him brainwashed to serve them under the alias “Victor Donovan Jr.”, causing everyone like Bass and Jann Lee begin to worry and suspicious of Rig's current situation. For the final tournament match, Jann Lee once again officially a winner, but unofficially defeated by a worthy street fighter, Diego. Ayane and Honoka are soon kidnapped by MIST into unwillingly revive Raidou, their biological father as an undead cyber ninja demon. As her older-half-sister Honoka still weaken, Ayane can still catch up with Kasumi and Hayate to kill the revived Raidou once and for all, leaving no trace of him behind. Helena, who arrived at one of MIST's hidden laboratory to secure the place, approaches a young scientist who act as Lisa's replacement and responsible behind Raidou’ resurrection, NiCO. Although NiCO attempt to revive Helena's mother, Maria, Helena found out what she will be planning on reviving those who were dead, and completely disagree for good reason to keep moving forward, much to NiCO's denial and escape from Helena. ===== The hero ninja Ryu Hayabusa put a stop to the evil doings of Tengu, but it was too late to stop him from triggering a massive worldwide collapse. A dense cloud covered the entire planet in a shroud of darkness and fear. DOATEC has gone astray, turning into the hunting grounds for power-hungry scam artists. This is when DOATEC's development department (a fortress for state-of-the-art military technology) witnesses the success of a genius. Following Project Alpha and Project Epsilon, the ever ambitious scientist, Dr. Victor Donovan completes the Omega Project, producing a new superhuman: Genra. The man, who was once leader of the Hajin Mon ninja of the Mugen Tenshin clan, is no longer human, but a force of singular and unprecedented capabilities known as Omega. To test the subject Omega's skills, DOATEC announced the third Dead or Alive World Combat Championship. The ninjas Hayate, Ayane, and Ryu Hayabusa enter the third tournament to defeat Genra. Bayman, the assassin who was once hired by Victor Donovan to kill Fame Douglas during the first tournament, enters the third tournament to get revenge on Donovan after he sent a mysterious sniper to kill him. Helena Douglas, daughter of Fame Douglas was captured by the anti-Douglas faction of DOATEC under the orders of Donovan. Donovan challenges Helena to win the third tournament. If she wins, she will regain her freedom and learn the truth behind DOATEC. Hayabusa is prepared to bring down Genra but Hayate states to Hayabusa that he does not know Genra like he does and that as the new leader of the Mugen Tenshin, he should defeat Genra instead. Later, both Ayane and Hayate argue on who should defeat Genra. Ayane, as Genra's foster daughter, feels it was her duty to and that fate commands her to put Genra out of his misery. Eventually, Hajin Mon's Ayane wins the third DOA tournament and kills Genra. ===== Zack gambles his winnings from the Dead or Alive 3 tournament at a casino. In the process, he hits the jackpot, earning a ridiculously large sum of money. The money is used to purchase a private island, which he promptly turns into a resort named after himself ("Zack Island"). He then invites the women from the previous tournament (along with one newcomer -- his girlfriend, Niki) to his island under the pretense that the next Dead or Alive tournament will be held there. The women arrive and after discovering the truth, (namely that it was merely a hoax) decide to make the best of the situation by spending two weeks vacationing on the island. At the end of the two-week time period, the ladies depart, leaving only Zack and Niki on the island. Shortly thereafter, a volcano, previously thought to be inactive, spontaneously erupts, threatening to destroy Zack's island. In the chaos, Niki escapes using Zack's jetpack. Zack survives the volcanic eruption, but the island itself is completely destroyed. While not part of the game itself, Zack's later Dead or Alive 4 ending shows the pair robbing an ancient tomb and escaping with a truck filled with gold, suggesting a possible financing source for a sequel. In the sequel, it is confirmed that this is indeed the source for financing "New Zack Island". ===== Two friends — Derek Scully and "Outspan" Foster — get together to form a band, but soon realise that they don't know enough about the music business to get much further than their small neighbourhood in the Northside of Dublin. To solve this problem, they recruit a friend they'd had from school, Jimmy Rabbitte, to be their manager. He accepts graciously, but only if he can make fundamental changes to the group, the first being the sacking of the third, and mutually disliked, member — their synth player. After this, Rabbitte gets rid of their name, making them "The Commitments" (stating "All the good 60s bands started with a 'the'") and, most importantly, forming them from another synthpop group into the face of what he thinks will be the Dublin-Soul revolution. ("Yes, Lads. You'll be playing Dublin Soul!") He witnesses a young man singing drunkenly into a microphone at a friend's wedding and is struck by the fact he is singing "something approximating music". Jimmy places an ad in the local paper reading "Have you got soul? Then Dublin's hardest working band is looking for you". Eventually, he gets together a mismatched group with seemingly no musical talent, led by mysterious stranger Joey "The Lips" Fagan, who claims to have played trumpet with Joe Tex and the Four Tops. They quickly start learning how to play their instruments and perform a number of local gigs. With music fanatic Jimmy Rabbite as their manager, the Commitments seek to fulfil their goal of bringing soul to Dublin. In the beginning, Jimmy includes all of the country Ireland, but later realises that the culchies have everything whereas the Dubliners are the working-class and have nothing. Bringing soul music to Ireland is then reduced merely to the city. * Steven "James" Clifford – Pianist * Imelda Quirke – Backing vocalist * Natalie Murphy – Backing vocalist * Mickah Wallace – Bouncer/2nd drummer * Bernie McGloughin – Backing vocalist * Dean Fay – Saxophonist * Liam "Outspan" Foster – Guitarist * Billy Mooney – 1st drummer (quit because he couldn't stand Deco) * Joey "The Lips" Fagan – Trumpet * Derek Scully – Bassist * Declan "Deco" Cuffe – Lead Vocalist Tensions run high between the band members, not helped by the jealousy and animosity Joey receives from other male members due to the attention he receives from the female backing singers. The band slowly becomes more and more musically competent and draws bigger and more enthusiastic audiences. But the band falls apart after a gig when Joey is seen kissing Imelda and a fight ensues — all while Jimmy is negotiating to record the band's first single with an independent label. Fagan soon goes to America after Imelda tells him she is pregnant (it turns out she was actually lying, only saying this for the attention). In the end, Jimmy, along with the band's other founding members and Mickah, form The Brassers, an Irish hybrid of punk and country. They plan on inviting James into the band after he's finished his medical degree, and they discuss getting the ladies involved as well. ===== Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha recounts (approximately) one year in the life of a Dublin ten-year-old, Patrick "Paddy" Clarke, especially his relationships with Sinbad (Francis), his younger brother, his parents and his schoolmates and teachers. It begins with him being a mischievous boy roaming around local Barrytown and ends with his father departing from the family, forcing the boy to take up adult responsibilities in his now single-parent home.Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha: Plot, BBC GCSE Bitesize ===== The protagonist of the game is Lester Knight Chaykin, a young genius physicist. In the opening cinematic, Lester arrives at his high-tech underground laboratory in his Ferrari 288 GTO during a thunderstorm and goes to work on his experiment using a particle accelerator, attempting to reconstruct what happened when the universe was born. Immediately before the particles reach their intended destination, a lightning bolt strikes the laboratory and interferes with the accelerator, causing an unforeseen particle fusion and an explosion, opening a hole in time and space and teleporting Lester to a barren, alien planet. After evading a number of dangerous indigenous animals, Lester is captured by a race of humanoid aliens and taken to a subterranean prison camp. Lester escapes along with an alien captive known as "Buddy" and the two of them must evade capture while travelling through a series of dangerous environments, battling alien soldiers and wild creatures while solving numerous puzzles in order to survive. The duo traverse the prison complex, a cave system and a tower structure. In the game's climax, Lester is severely wounded by one of the aliens, but with the help of his alien friend, manages to kill his attacker and escape. After reaching the top of the tower, Lester collapses, but is promptly joined by Buddy, who picks Lester up and the two escape on a dragon- like creature, flying off to the horizon. ===== Porky is well equipped and ready to begin duck hunting. Porky practices with his rifle, frightens his dog, Rover and shoots a man upstairs, who comes down to punch Porky in the snout. At a lake, Porky spies a duck, but other duck hunters suddenly appear and shoot at it for several seconds. They all miss. A cross-eyed duck hunter tries to shoot the same duck but instead shoots down two planes. Porky puts out duck decoys. Daffy arrives and blends among them. Porky wears a decoy on his head, walks underwater and tries to shoot Daffy, but the gun shoots out water instead of bullets. Daffy then flies onto a floating barrel of poison (labeled 'XXX' – a period designation for whiskey). Porky shoots the whiskey-filled barrel but Daffy escapes. Some fish are attracted to the poison and get drunk. The fish come onshore, commandeer a boat and drunkenly sing 'On Moonlight Bay'. Daffy bites Porky on the nose as he peers through the grass. Porky shoots Daffy down and instructs Rover to bring the duck back, but when he comes back, it's Daffy carrying the dog and throwing him back on the bank. Porky whips out a notepad, leafs through it and notes that this scene 'wasn't in the script'. Daffy yells out his first words, that he is "just a crazy, darn fool duck", and proceeds to do his signature 'crazy dance' on the lake. After a humorous scene where Daffy eats an electric eel and shocks himself, Porky tries hunting from a rowboat but is taunted by the ducks when he stops for lunch. In his hurry to fire at them he inadvertently sinks the boat, cueing Joe Penner to rise from underneath the water with his signature line "You wanna buy a duck?". Alerted by Rover that Daffy is back, Porky makes several attempts to cock the gun and shoot, but when Daffy covers his ears with his hands once again the gun fails to fire each time. Daffy comes out of the water, takes the gun and fires it after the first cock. Daffy takes to the air and is met by Porky shooting his gun rapid-fire and being driven into the ground by the recoil, apparently not hitting anything. Porky tries to use a duck call, but the other duck hunters mistake it for a real duck and shoot at Porky. Disgusted, Porky throws the duck call to the ground, but it bounces and Rover accidentally swallows it. Rover gets the hiccups, quacking with each one, drawing constant fire and forcing Porky and Rover to flee from the lake. Porky and Rover trudge home, disappointed with their failure to bag a duck. When Porky gets home, he sees the ducks outside doing a trapeze act in the sky at his window. Porky tries to shoot them with his gun but, thinking the gun is empty, throws the shotgun to the floor. The gun fires into the ceiling, getting the guy from upstairs to come and punch Porky in the snout again. The cartoon ends with Daffy dancing and bouncing around the "That's All Folks!" title card. ===== The show takes place in a separate canon and continuity than any other Sonic the Hedgehog media. Queen Aleena, the former ruler of Mobius, was overthrown by Dr. Robotnik and his lackeys Sleet and Dingo. Robotnik seized control of the planet and forced Queen Aleena into hiding. To preserve the dynasty, Queen Aleena separated her three children: Sonic, Manic, and Sonia after the Oracle of Delphius told her of a prophecy, proclaiming that one day, Queen Aleena would reunite with her children to form the "Council of Four," and overthrow Robotnik. Meanwhile, Dr. Robotnik did his best to set up an autocratic government, and legally turned anyone who stood against him into robots devoid of free will, and forced the nobles into paying large amounts of money to him as tribute. When Sonic, Manic, and Sonia grew up, the Oracle of Delphius revealed the prophecy to them. After that, Sonic, Manic, and Sonia decided to go on a quest, searching throughout Mobius for Queen Aleena. Dr. Robotnik, with the assistance of the Swat-Bots and his bounty hunters Sleet and Dingo, tries constantly to capture the royal hedgehogs and prevent the prophecy from being fulfilled. The Oracle of Delphius has assigned the three siblings powerful "medallions" that can change into musical instruments, and can also be used as weapons. Sonic's medallion is an electric guitar, Sonia's medallion is a keyboard that functions as a smoke machine, and Manic's medallion is a drumset that can be used as an "earth controller" with cymbals that can deflect laserfire. All of the medallions can be used as laser guns. The three use the amulets not only to fight Robotnik's forces but also as instruments for their underground rock band, "Sonic Underground." ===== The film follows five railway workers – John, Paul, Mick, Gerry and Len – in a Yorkshire depot affected by the privatisation of British Rail in 1995. The men are informed by their supervisor that they are now working for a company called East Midlands Infrastructure, and are competing with rival track companies. On a maintenance job, one of the workers is sent away because his depot is now owned by a rival firm. His departure leaves the rest of the crew unable to finish the job. The railwaymen are introduced to their new managing director, Mr Hemmings, by watching a video about the "age of change" in Britain's rail industry. Hemmings says that the culture will change too, and the days of a job for life are over, though new opportunities have arisen for those prepared to take the initiative. East Midlands Infrastructure is renamed Gilchrist Engineering. Gerry argues with his boss about procedures being imposed without consultation. Management make a concession that the crew points out is no concession at all. The Managing Director visits the depot in person, and demands that, since "the slate has been wiped clean", there must be no concessions or agreements, forcing the supposed concession to be withdrawn. To the railwaymen's surprise, they are ordered to destroy their old equipment with sledgehammers as it no longer meets current standards. They are interrupted with news of a derailment at Dore. There they meet a former colleague, Len, who is working for an agency and earning much more than he did with the company. After his pay is reduced to pay for additional child support, Paul agrees to take voluntary redundancy and join an agency. John follows suit. Mick and Gerry try to talk them out of it, pointing out that they will lose any job security. However, the few remaining Gilchrist employees are soon notified that the depot is no longer competitive and will be closed. They are given twelve weeks' notice of their redundancy. Mick visits an employment agency and discovers that, while work is available, he will receive no sickness benefits and must pay for his own transport, equipment and training. He goes to a job but the crew he joins is four men short and includes builders with no railway experience. Mick argues with the supervisor, and is given a negative report which leaves him unemployed for weeks. He finally manages to get another assignment that leads to a reunion with his former colleagues. Their happiness at working together again is marred by a passing train spewing toilet waste over them. The men are given a job pouring a cement signal base, but they are next to an active track with no look out. After dusk, Jim is hit by a locomotive and badly injured. Since they could be barred from working for breaching safety procedures, Mick and Paul carry Jim to the side of a road so that they can claim he has been hit by a car. Jim dies from his injuries. Gerry is now the only one of the original five remaining at Gilchrist, and his job is due to end in days. ===== Gundam SEED Destiny sets the story two years after the original series and it starts when the leader from Orb, Cagalli Yula Athha, reunites with PLANT's chairman Gilbert Durandal to discuss the construction of new mobile suits made for the military organization ZAFT. Three of them are stolen by a group called Phantom Pain, which is controlled by the Blue Cosmos terrorist organization. Cagalli's bodyguard Athrun Zala joins ZAFT pilot Shinn Asuka to stop them. During the fight, ZAFT's battleship Minerva is ordered to destroy the ruins of a space colony to prevent it from crashing into Earth. They find out that rogue ZAFT soldiers are controlling the colony in order to crash it into Earth. After failing to completely destroy the colony, a second war starts between the factions, the Earth Alliance and ZAFT, once news has spread that ZAFT soldiers caused the colony to collide on Earth. The neutral country of Orb allies with the Earth Alliance, with the former having also joined Blue Cosmos. This leads these three faction to confront the ZAFT soldiers several times, with Athrun having returned there. Later in the war, the Archangel battleship interferes in the fights between ZAFT and the Earth Alliance's faction. Allied with the Archangel, Cagalli fails to stop her country from fighting and the Archangel intervenes. Athrun becomes disaffected after Gilbert Durandal orders the destruction of his friend Kira Yamato and the Archangel, deeming them as enemies. He defects with Meyrin Hawke when Durandal frames him as a traitor. Cagalli is able to regain leadership from Orb, causing the Blue Cosmos' members to flee to space. The leader of Blue Cosmos, Lord Djibril, orders the weapon Requiem to be fired which destroys several space colonies of PLANT, resulting in many deaths. The crew of the Minerva successfully kills Lord Djibril and capture the Requiem. Gilbert Durandal then announces the "Destiny Plan", a plan where a person's job or task will be based on their genetics, and uses the Requiem to destroy anyone who opposes him. This brings Shinn and the crew of the Minerva into direct conflict with the Archangel faction. Kira and Athrun with their new mobile suits and their allies, defeat the ZAFT forces and destroy the Requiem. Durandal is killed by one of his own followers, Rey Za Burrel. The series' ending was expanded in both the original video animation and the last compilation film. Soon after Durandal's death, the Earth Alliance, ZAFT, and the Orb Union meet to end the war, with Lacus Clyne acting as the negotiator. After fighting between each other various time in their mobile suits, Kira and Shinn meet in person for the second time and promise to join forces for a better future. ===== Sue Murdock searches for redemption throughout the novel. Her father repeatedly laments his inability to relate to his daughter. Sue rejects his assistance because she believes he is trying to control her. She has a stormy relationship with Jerry Calhoun, who, perhaps because he is profoundly naive and not particularly bright, is unable to understand her. Jerry clings to quaint notions of Southern honor and is respectful of the power and authority Bogan Murdock represents. Therefore, Sue can never be happy with him. Sue rejects Jerry and soon finds herself with Slim Sarrett, a writer with a room full of pseudo-intellectual friends. Sue falls for Slim, who rejects honor and power in a way Jerry never could. In the end, however, nothing about Slim is real: he is a dedicated liar, deceitful to the last detail. As Sue discovers the depths of his lies -- about his past and sexuality -- she also discovers that he is not even, in fact, a particularly talented writer. After rejecting Slim, and his artist's pose, she falls into a tepid relationship with Sweetwater. Sweetwater is a cynic, unlike Jerry, and a realist, unlike Slim. Sweetwater is also profoundly honest and struggles to maintain true to himself. Sweetwater falls in love with Sue, but she never loves him in return. One can read Sue to represent the Southern lower class, abused and controlled for generations. Who can help the lower class escape its shackles? Not the lower-class man who tastes a bit of success and abandons his class to serve selfish interests, as Jerry does. Not the intellectual, the artist, who poses at everything and is unable to fight for anything. The seduction is great, but the reward is small. Perhaps the honest man, Sweetwater's labor organizer, can save the class he tries to raise up even as he is betrayed and rejected by it. Perhaps Sue knows that Sweetwater's realism and devotion to cause can save her, but she is little interested in it. ===== The older Paul Verlaine meets Arthur Rimbaud's sister, Isabelle, in a café in Paris. Isabelle and her mother want Verlaine to hand over any copies he may still have of Rimbaud's poems so that they can burn them; they fear the lewdness of his writings. Verlaine reflects on the wild relationship he had had with Rimbaud, beginning when the teenaged Rimbaud had sent his poetry to Verlaine from his home in the provinces in 1871. Verlaine, instantly fascinated, impulsively invites him to his rich father-in-law's home in Paris, where he lives with his young, pregnant wife. The wild, eccentric Rimbaud displays no sense of manners or decency whatsoever, scandalising Verlaine's pretentious, bourgeois in-laws. The 27-year-old Verlaine is seduced by the 16-year-old Rimbaud's physical body as well as by the unique originality of his mind. The staid respectability of married, heterosexual life and easy, middle class surroundings had been stifling Verlaine's admittedly sybaritic literary talent. His taking up with Rimbaud is as much a rebellion and a liberation as it is a giving in to self- indulgence and masochism. Rimbaud acts as sadistically to Verlaine as does Verlaine to his young wife, whom he eventually deserts. A violent, itinerant relationship ensues between the two poets, the sad climax of which arrives in Brussels when a drunken and enraged Verlaine shoots and wounds Rimbaud and is sentenced a fine and two years in prison for sodomy and grievous bodily harm. In prison, Verlaine converts to Christianity, to his erstwhile lover's disgust. Upon release he meets Rimbaud in Germany, vainly and mistakenly seeking to revive the relationship. The two men part, never to meet again. Bitterly renouncing literature in any form, Rimbaud travels the world alone, finally settling in Abyssinia (modern day Ethiopia) to run a "trading post". There he has a mistress and possibly a young boy-lover. A tumour in his right knee forces him back to France where his leg is amputated. Nevertheless, the cancer spreads and he dies at the age of 37. When he dies, the image of one of his most famous poems, Le Dormeur du val, appears. During her conversation with Verlaine, Isabelle Rimbaud asserts that her brother had accepted confession from a priest right before he died, showing Christian penitence, which is why only the censored versions of his poetry should survive. Verlaine pretends to agree but tears up her card after she leaves. Later, Verlaine, drinking absinthe (to which he has become addicted), sees a vision of the sixteen-year-old Rimbaud, returned from some transcendent realm to express the love and respect Verlaine has thus posthumously earned. The film ends with the young Rimbaud walking alone on a mountain range, Verlaine proclaiming that they were both happy together, and Rimbaud claiming to have finally found eternity. ===== Taki Minase, a high school student, finds a book of black magic in the isolated storage room of his school. He begins practicing black magic, which has extreme sexual effects that benefit him and his friends, until evil comes forth from the dark craft. Eventually, the origins of the book are revealed, as is the incident on Walpurgis Night twelve years prior, when the evil force was at its strongest. After coming to his senses, Minase struggles to get himself out of the darkness into which he has put himself and his best friend and secret love, Kurumi Imari. ===== The patriarch (François Marthouret) of a seemingly normal nuclear family returns home one day with a small white rat. The animal soon has an adverse effect on his wife (Évelyne Dandry) and children, influencing them into enacting their darkest, most hidden desires. The son, Nicolas (Adrien de Van) loudly announces his homosexuality and begins throwing wild orgies, the daughter Sophie, (Marina de Van) deliberately flirts with death and practices sadomasochism on her boyfriend (Stéphane Rideau), while the mother seduces her son so she can "cure" him of his orientation. After the father eventually kills and devours the offending rat, he turns into one himself; when his family discover this, they band together and brutally slay him. ===== At the start of the game, the player is asked by an Omikronian police officer named Kay'l 669 to leave their dimension and enter Omikron within his body. After doing so, the player continues with the investigation of serial killings that Kay'l and his partner were originally working on. The player begins the investigation in the Anekbah sector, where they uncover information that suggests the serial killer they are looking for is not human, but actually a demon. Members of an apparent underground, anti- government movement contact the player and confirm their suspicions. The investigation deepens and uncovers further information; one of Omikron's chief police commanders, Commandant Gandhar, is a demon pretending to be human and luring human souls into Omikron from other dimensions by way of The Nomad Soul. Kay'l 669 asking the player to help him turned out to be a trap: supposedly, if the in-game character dies, the real human playing the video game will lose their soul forever. Despite many assassination attempts on the protagonist's life by other demons working behind the scenes, the player destroys Gandhar with supernatural weaponry. After this brief victory, the anti-government movement is revealed to be named "The Awakened", who invite the player to join them. They work in tandem with an ancient religious order led by Boz, a mystical being that exists in purely electronic form on the computer networks of Omikron. The Awakened refer to the protagonist as the "Nomad Soul", since they have the ability to change bodies at will. The Nomad Soul learns afterwards that what is going on in Omikron is merely an extension of an old battle between mankind and demons spearheaded by the powerful Astaroth. Astaroth, who was banished to the depths of Omikron long ago, is slowly regenerating power while using demons to both collect souls and impersonate high members of the government. The Nomad Soul harnesses ancient, magical technology in order to destroy Astaroth. They return to their own dimension, and prevent their soul from being captured by demons. ===== Writer Nick Eliot (Cary Elwes) secures a job at Pique magazine and lodging in a guest house belonging to Cliff and Liv Forrester (Kurtwood Smith and Gwynyth Walsh). The handsome Nick soon makes the acquaintance of the Forrester's 14-year-old daughter, Adrian (Alicia Silverstone) a precocious girl who develops an intense attraction to him. She secretly helps Nick by sneaking into his room and rewriting one of his Pique stories, which subsequently wins a rave review from his editor/boss, Michael (Matthew Walker) at a party thrown by the Forresters. Nick agrees to accompany the lonely girl on a nighttime drive to a romantic spot, where she kisses him. This intensifies Adrian's crush on Nick, but he quickly wises up and attempts to put her off, having begun a budding romance with coworker Amy (Jennifer Rubin). Adrian continues to boldly pursue him, even going so far as to undress in his view while he is hiding in her closet. When Nick continues to rebuff her advances, Adrian's actions become destructive; she defaces a car he's restored and erases his computer discs, yet he's unable to convince her parents of her guilt. Cheyenne (Amber Benson), a friend of Adrian's who tries to warn Nick about her, meets with an "accident" at the riding school they attend together. After Adrian spies on Nick in bed with Amy, she locks Amy in her darkroom and empties a wasps' nest into the vents, knowing of Amy's spheksophobia. Amy survives, and Nick, now convinced that Adrian is big trouble, attempts to find new lodging. However, Adrian accuses him of sexually assaulting her with "evidence" obtained from a used condom from Nick's trash, leading to him being arrested by the police. After Michael bails him out (and suspends him until trial), Cheyenne informs Nick that she knows he is innocent and that Adrian has a history of obsessive behavior, citing a camp counselor named Rick who "accidentally" died by eating something poisonous. Cheyenne also informs Nick of a diary Adrian kept that can exonerate him. After Cheyenne departs, Nick hears strange noises coming from the Forrester's house. He investigates and finds Cheyenne bound and gagged in the attic on the carousel. Adrian confronts and attacks him, leading Cliff to attack Nick in turn, mistaking him as the aggressor. Adrian then knocks her father unconscious, leaving Nick free to subdue her with one punch. Acquitted, Nick goes to live with Amy while Adrian is confined to a psychiatric hospital. Though she laments that Nick refuses to speak to her or accept her apologies, her doctor comments that she is making good progress, unaware that she is developing a crush on him now. Ultimately, Adrian returns to her room in the psychiatric hospital, where she looks at her doctor's wedding photo with an evil glare. ===== On June 16, 1994, Jesse meets Céline on a train from Budapest, and they strike up a conversation. Jesse is going to Vienna to catch a flight back to the United States, whereas Céline is returning to university in Paris after visiting her grandmother. When they reach Vienna, Jesse asks Céline to disembark with him, saying that 10 or 20 years down the road, she might not be happy with her marriage and might wonder how her life would have been different if she had picked another guy, and this is a chance to realize that he himself is not that different from the rest; in his words, he is "the same boring, unmotivated guy." Jesse has to catch a flight early in the morning and does not have enough money to rent a room for the night, so they decide to roam around in Vienna. After visiting a few landmarks in Vienna, they share a kiss at the top of the Wiener Riesenrad at sunset and start to feel a romantic connection. As they continue to roam around the city, they begin to talk more openly with each other, with conversations ranging from topics about love, life, religion, and their observations of Vienna. Céline tells Jesse that her last boyfriend broke up with her six months ago, claiming that she "loved him too much". When questioned, Jesse reveals he had initially come to Europe to spend time with his girlfriend who was studying in Madrid, but they broke up soon after he was there. He found a cheap flight home, via Vienna, but it did not leave for two weeks so he bought a Eurail pass and traveled around Europe. When they are walking alongside the Donaukanal (Danube canal) they are approached by a man who, instead of begging, offers to write them a poem with a word of their choice inside. Jesse and Céline decide on the word "milkshake", and are soon presented with the poem Delusion Angel (written for the film by the poet David Jewell) - a poem that Jesse cynically claims the man had already previously written and just inserts the words people choose. In a traditional Viennese café, Jesse and Céline stage fake phone conversations with each other, playing each other's friends they pretend to call. Céline reveals that she was ready to get off the train with Jesse before he convinced her. Jesse reveals that after he broke up with his girlfriend, he bought a flight that really was not much cheaper, and all he really wanted was an escape from his life. They admit their attraction to each other and how the night has made them feel, though they understand that they probably will not see each other again. They decide to make the best of what time they have left, ending the night with the implication of a sexual encounter between them. At that point, Jesse explains that, if given the choice, he would marry her instead of never seeing her again. The film ends the next day at the train station, where, just as Céline's train is about to leave, the couple decides not to exchange any contact information but instead meet at the same place in six months. ===== Rock band No Vacancy performs at a nightclub three weeks before auditioning for a Battle of the Bands competition. Guitarist Dewey Finn engages in on-stage antics, including a failed stage dive that abruptly ends the performance. The next morning, Dewey wakes up in the apartment he lives in with his friend, Ned Schneebly, and Ned's girlfriend, Patty Di Marco. They inform Dewey that he is overdue on his share of the rent, and that he must make up for it within one week or move out. When Dewey meets No Vacancy at a rehearsal session, he finds out that he has been replaced by another guitarist named Spider. Later, while attempting to sell some of his equipment for rent money, Dewey answers a phone call from Rosalie Mullins, the principal of the Horace Green prep school, inquiring for Ned about a short-term position as a substitute teacher. Desperate for his rent money, Dewey impersonates Ned and gets the position. On his first day at school, "Mr. S" (the name Dewey adopts when realizing he doesn’t know how to spell Schneebly) behaves erratically, much to the class' confusion. The next day, Dewey overhears the students playing their instruments in music class and devises a plan to form them into a new band to audition for Battle of the Bands. He casts classical guitarist Zack Mooneyham as lead guitarist, percussionist Freddy Jones as drummer, cellist Katie on bass, pianist Lawrence on keyboard, and himself as lead vocalist and guitarist. He assigns the rest of the class to various roles of backup singers, groupies, roadies, with Summer Hathaway as band manager. The project replaces normal lessons, but helps the students to embrace their talents and gain confidence. He reassures Lawrence, who is worried about not being cool enough for the band; Zack, whose father personally disapproves of rock music; and Tamika, an overweight girl who is too self-conscious to audition for backup singer despite having a powerful singing voice. During one eloquent lesson, Dewey teaches the kids that rock and roll is the way to "Stick it to the Man" and stand up for themselves. Band "groupies" Michelle and Elani, with Summer's approval, pitch the band name "The School of Rock." Two weeks into his hiring, Dewey sneaks some of his students out of school to audition for a spot in the competition, while the rest of the class stay behind to maintain cover. When Freddy wanders off, Dewey retrieves him, but the group is rejected because the bill is full. After Summer tricks the staff into thinking that the students all have a terminal illness, the band is added to the bill. The next day, Mullins decides to check on Dewey's teaching progress, forcing Dewey to teach the actual material. Mullins explains that a parents' night will take place at the school the day before Battle of the Bands. While Dewey prepares for the parents' night, Ned receives a paycheck from the school via mail, and eventually learns of Dewey's treachery. During the parents' meeting, the parents inquire about what Dewey was teaching the kids, so he explains to the parents as best he can. The meeting is halted when Ned, Patty, Mullins and the police arrive. Dewey then reveals his real name, admits he's not a licensed teacher and abruptly leaves after the parents misinterpret his statement about “touching” the kids and being "touched" by them. Back at the apartment, Dewey and Patty clash, while Ned intervenes and informs Dewey that he should move out. The next morning, the parents cause an uproar in front of Mullins at her office, while the kids decide not to let their hard work go to waste. When the new substitute discovers that the kids are missing, she informs Mullins, and Mullins and the parents race to the competition. Fed up of being constantly bulldozed around by Patty, Ned finally stands up for himself by breaking up with her and leaves to see the band perform. A school bus comes to pick up Dewey, who leads the kids to the Battle of the Bands, and decides that they should play a song written by Zack. Initially dismissed as a gimmick, the band wins over the entire crowd. Much to Dewey's dismay, No Vacancy wins, but the audience chant for School of Rock and demand an encore. Mullins and the parents, while upset at the deception, admit to being impressed by the children's talent and confidence on stage. Some time later, an after-school program known as the School of Rock has opened as Dewey continues to coach the students he played with before, while Ned teaches beginners. ===== Nine years after the events of the original film, Jesse Wallace has written a bestselling novel, "This Time", based on his experience with Céline in Vienna. During a book tour in Europe, he does a reading at the Parisian bookstore Shakespeare and Company. Three journalists attend the reading to interview Jesse: one is convinced the book's main characters meet again, another that they do not, and a third who wants them to but is doubtful that will occur. As Jesse speaks with the audience, his eyes wander and he sees Céline there, smiling at him. Jesse has to leave for the airport an hour after the presentation, but he and Céline decide to grab coffee and catch up anyway. Their conversations soon become deeply personal, very similar to their first night together. They passionately discuss work and politics and lament their failure to meet in Vienna as planned six months after their first encounter. Céline says she did not return because her grandmother had died suddenly, and Jesse claims that he did not return either. However, after Céline asks him why he didn't, he confesses that he in fact did return looking for her. Since the pair had never exchanged phone numbers, they had no way to contact each other at the time. They reveal how their lives have changed during the nine years they spent apart. Jesse is married and has a son named Hank, while Céline has become an environmental activist and has a photojournalist boyfriend. They each express dissatisfaction with their lives as they walk around Paris, and their old romantic feelings are slowly rekindled. Jesse says his book was inspired by his hope of seeing Céline again and she says that reading it brought back painful memories. Céline and Jesse arrive at the former's apartment, even after continuous insistence that Jesse should go before he misses his plane. Jesse persuades her to play a waltz on her guitar, which is about their earlier brief encounter. Jesse puts a Nina Simone CD on the stereo system, prompting Céline to dance to the song "Just in Time" as he watches her. Céline imitates Simone, saying, "Baby... you are gonna miss that plane." Jesse smiles and says, "I know." ===== ===== Cliff Richard stars as Jonnie, who works as a waiter on a travelling ferry with his bandmates (The Shadows) and his fellow waiter friends. Through a pyrotechnics accident, the power cuts on the ferry and the group are fired on the spot, stranded on a tiny boat with nothing but their instruments. They float around in the Mediterranean until they reach the Canary Islands, where they spot a young woman wearing tartan clothing, and they try to follow her, accidentally confusing her with a Scottish man wearing a kilt. The group ends up in a sand dune, miserable and confused, wondering what to do next. They are briefly confused by a mirage of a ferry but then decide to set off again in the direction they were originally heading. Jonnie spots a figure on an out-of-control camel and rushes to save her, but discovers that he had accidentally ruined a scene being filmed for a movie. Despite the disruption, Lloyd Davis the director (Walter Slezak) offers him a job as a stunt double and gives the rest of Jonnie's group jobs as runners. Later that evening, Jonnie spots a blonde woman sitting at his opposite table reading from a script. Her name is Jenny (Susan Hampshire) and she explains that she was the woman in tartan that he and his group had met earlier, as well as the woman that he tried to "save" on the camel, wearing a dark wig to portray the daughter of a sultan. She is very nervous because she doesn't believe that she is a good enough actress to be the leading lady but Jonnie tells her to ignore the cameras and the crew watching her, and imagine that she isn't acting, as if she really was a princess. However, the advice does not help her and she continues to irritate Lloyd, who rants behind the scenes to the leading man (Gerald Harper) about his regret of hiring her. Between filming scenes, Jonnie's band perform for the bored cast, realising that they could cheer everyone up by making the movie a musical, disguising their spare camera behind various objects, such as a crate of tea, a touring cart, and a wooden box buried in the ground, inspired by the Trojan horse. They decide not to tell Jenny, fearing it will pressurise her, filming much of their scenes when the official cameras are rolling, or when the original crew had finished for the day, but Jonnie's uptight friend Edward (Richard O'Sullivan) scalds them for their ignorance of filmmaking and their beliefs that it is easy to make one that would be successful. As Edward talks about significant moments in film history, a montage is shown of the characters impersonating movie actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood, including Al Jolson's blackface scene in The Jazz Singer, Charlie Chaplin outwitting a group of policemen, a satire of Errol Flynn's Objective Burma, a scene from West Side Story, the Ursula Andress bikini scene from Dr. No, and a running gag with Greta Garbo, Harpo and Groucho Marx gate crashing a scene. The group successfully race through the filming under Lloyd and Jenny's noses, filming a musical number by telling Jenny to sing her script along with the music secretly played by Jonnie's band hiding behind a wall. They are caught by an eavesdropping Lloyd who threatens to fire them, but Jonnie convinces him not to. Lloyd smugly tells him that he will allow them to continue but not with any of his equipment. Jonnie and his friends decide to film when the actual team is not around to witness, and borrow a camera from Miguel, a Spanish photographer that they met in a restaurant when they first arrived on the Islands, but worry about filming the finale without Jenny's knowledge. They discuss a plan in a restaurant about secretly filming before Lloyd, who is frequently late, arrives on the set, and Jonnie's friends joke about how deceiving he is, unaware that Lloyd and Jenny are on an adjacent table. It is then revealed that Lloyd is Jenny's father and he hired her through nepotism, and vows to hinder their work as he comforts her, ordering her not to go to the set on the day. The next day, Jonnie finds Jenny at the nearest swimming pool and begs her to help them, and she agrees, snapping that she never wants to see him again. When filming is over, the mood is melancholy, surprisingly in both camps; Lloyd is disappointed that his final cut for the film isn't up to his standard and Jonnie isn't happy about the musical adaptation either. They decide to join forces and combine their movies, rewriting the tale as a story about two brothers and a princess. It is shown at the movie premiere and the audience's reception is positive. Lloyd expresses his gratitude to Jonnie during the applause and tells him that Jenny wants to marry him. Jonnie is confused, but then remembers that he and Jenny agreed to marry after filming during one of their rehearsal breaks. ===== A writer named Wrigley (Richard Hearne) creates a comic strip character named Miss Robin Hood for a children's story paper. It is a modernized retelling of the Robin Hood legend in which the heroine robs banks with the assistance of a gang of teenage girls and then redistributes the money. Unfortunately the cartoon is dropped from the paper, and Wrigley leaves his job. However, Miss Honey (Margaret Rutherford), who is director of a home for the orphans of London in Hampstead, recruits Wrigley to carry out a little light safebreaking, believing that he has such skills because he created Miss Robin Hood. Difficulties arise when Scotland Yard becomes involved. ===== The Fourth Doctor has a precognitive vision about the President of the Time Lords being assassinated. The Doctor goes to Gallifrey to stop the assassination. At the Panopticon, a Gallifreyan ceremonial chamber, he notes a camera stationed on an unguarded catwalk. He also spots a sniper rifle next to the camera. The Doctor fights his way to the catwalk, warning that the President is about to be killed. Unbeknownst to the Doctor, the assassin is among the delegates and shoots the President dead. However, the crowd sees the Doctor on the catwalk with the rifle and assumes he is the killer. Under interrogation, the Doctor maintains that he has been framed. Eventually, Castellan Spandrell starts to believe him and orders Engin to assist him in an independent investigation. To delay his possible execution, the Doctor invokes Article 17 and announces that he will run for President, which guarantees liberty for those running for office during the course of an election. During the course of the investigation, the Doctor realises that it was the Master who had sent the Doctor the premonition of the assassination through the Matrix, a vast electronic neural network which can turn thought patterns into virtual reality. He decides to enter the Matrix to track the Master. In the Matrix, the Doctor confronts an assassin who eventually reveals himself as Chancellor Goth. The Master, realising that Goth has been effectively defeated, tries to trap the Doctor in the Matrix by overloading the neuron fields. Engin gets the Doctor out of the Matrix, but Goth is fatally burnt. The Doctor and Spandrell, accompanied by soldiers, make their way to the chamber where the Master and Goth were accessing the Matrix. They find the Master without a pulse and Goth dying. Goth reveals that he found the Master, near death, on Tersurus. The Master was nearing the end of his final regeneration. Goth went along with his schemes mainly for power: he knew the President had no intention of naming him as a successor, but if a new election was held, Goth would be the front- runner. Before he dies, Goth warns that the Master has a doomsday plan. Attempting to piece together what the Master and Goth were planning, the Doctor inquires as to what becoming the President entails. He is told that the President has access to the symbols of office: the Sash and Great Key of Rassilon. As Engin plays records that describe how Rassilon found the Eye of Harmony within the "black void," the Doctor realises these objects are not merely ceremonial. He also realises that the Master injected himself with a neural inhibitor that mimics a deathlike state and is still alive. The Doctor, Spandrell, and Engin arrive at the morgue to find that the Master has revived. The Master seizes the Sash from the President's corpse and traps the three in the morgue. The Doctor explains that the Eye is actually the nucleus of a black hole, an inexhaustible energy source that Rassilon captured to power Gallifrey; the Sash and Key are its control devices. The Doctor deduces that the Master was planning to steal this energy to gain a new cycle of regenerations; however, if the Eye is disrupted, Gallifrey will be destroyed and a hundred other worlds will be consumed in a chain reaction. Inside the Panopticon, the Master makes his way to the obelisk containing the Eye. He unhooks the coils that connect it to Gallifrey and is prepared to access the energy. The Doctor makes his way to the Panopticon via a service shaft. The Citadel begins to quake, and cracks appear in the floor. The Doctor and the Master fight, until the Master loses his footing and falls into a chasm. The Doctor reconnects the coils and saves Gallifrey, although half the city is in ruins and many lives have been lost. The Doctor is now free to return to his TARDIS. He bids farewell but also warns that the Master may not be dead as he had harvested energy from the obelisk before he was stopped and may have been able to channel it. As the Doctor's TARDIS dematerialises, Spandrell and Engin witness the Master sneak into his own TARDIS and escape. ===== Jane (Whoopi Goldberg), a musician who has undergone a break-up with both her girlfriend and her band, decides to move from New York City to Los Angeles for a new gig. She answers a newspaper ad for a traveling companion from Robin (Mary-Louise Parker), a real estate agent who's also looking to move to California. Thinking Robin's a square, Jane initially declines to join her, but agrees after her car gets towed. Jane and Robin leave and make a stop in Pittsburgh to see Jane's friend, Holly (Drew Barrymore). Jane and Robin stumble across a fight between Holly and her abusive boyfriend, Nick (Billy Wirth), over some missing drugs. As the three women work together against Nick, Holly hits Nick in the head with a bat to stop him from attacking Jane, knocking him out. The three bind Nick, who regains consciousness, to a chair with tape and leave. Hours later, Nick frees himself from the chair, falls and hits his head on the bat and dies. The three women form a special friendship, and after learning that Nick is dead and Holly is pregnant, all decide to continue to California together. During a stop in Tucson, Arizona, Robin has to be hospitalized for pneumonia, at which point Jane and Holly learn she has HIV. The three decide to stay in Tucson and start new lives there. Things are cheerful for a while, as the three live together and Holly falls in love with a local police officer (Matthew McConaughey) named Abe Lincoln. Jane has an unrequited crush on Robin, and Robin tenderly buys Jane a piano. However, things fall apart. Jane and Robin's friendship crumbles when Jane, well-intended, tells a friendly bartender (James Remar) interested in Robin that she has HIV. Feeling betrayed, Robin asks Jane to move out. When Abe proposes to Holly, Holly tells him about Nick and he arrests her, despite still intending to marry her. Holly is taken back to Pittsburgh to stand trial for murder. Jane and Robin also return to Pittsburgh and make peace with each other in the courthouse. Holly takes an offer of involuntary manslaughter with one to two years in prison. Robin collapses after the trial from a lung infection, and in the hospital, Jane and Robin confess how they loved each other. Time passes, and Holly is free and living happily with Abe and her daughter, who Abe has adopted. Robin is now in a wheelchair, very far along with AIDS and not expected to live much longer. At the party, Robin weakly begins to sing the Roy Orbison song "You Got It" as a reference to her first conversation with Jane, and Jane gently finishes the song. In the final scene, Robin has died from AIDS, Holly and Abe plan to stay in Arizona and raise a family, and Jane hits the road to seek a new life in Los Angeles. ===== Beverly Hills Police Captain Andrew Bogomil (Ronny Cox), Detective Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold), and Sergeant John Taggart (John Ashton) are trying to figure out who is behind the "Alphabet Crimes", a series of mostly high-end-store robberies distinguished by their monogrammed envelopes with an alphabetical sequence the assailants leave behind. Complicating matters is the new "political" state of the Beverly Hills Police Department, headed by incompetent and verbally abusive new police chief Harold Lutz (Allen Garfield), who is doing everything he can to stay on Mayor Ted Egan's (Robert Ridgely) good side. Unimpressed when Rosewood calls the FBI to help solve the case, Lutz holds Bogomil responsible as commanding officer and suspends him, despite Bogomil's efforts to convince the chief that Rosewood was only following a hunch. Lutz also punishes Taggart and Rosewood by placing them on traffic duty. On the way home, Bogomil is shot and injured by Karla Fry (Brigitte Nielsen), the chief enforcer of Maxwell Dent (Jürgen Prochnow), who is secretly the mastermind behind the Alphabet Crimes. After hearing about the shooting on a news report, Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) secretly abandons his current undercover duties and immediately flies out to Beverly Hills to help find out who shot Bogomil, finding Taggart and Rosewood all too happy to assist him. Posing as an undercover FBI agent to get past Lutz with the aid of Detective Jeffrey Friedman (Paul Reiser), Axel soon makes the connection between the robberies and Dent. He first finds out that the ammunition fired at one of the robberies was made by a gunsmith for Charles Cain (Dean Stockwell), the manager of a gun club owned by Dent. Axel has Bogomil's daughter Jan (Alice Adair) use her connections as an insurance agent to find out about Dent's financial dealings. Dent is robbing his own businesses on purpose in order to finance firearms transactions with an arms dealer named Nikos Thomopolis (Paul Guilfoyle) and is discreetly using Cain as the front man for his operations. Bogomil was shot because his investigation was on the correct track into the case. Having foiled a robbery attempt at a bank depot, Axel tricks Dent's accountant Sidney Bernstein (Gilbert Gottfried) into letting him use his computer, discovering that Dent and Karla are planning to leave the country. Axel also learns from Jan that all of Dent's businesses have had their insurance coverage canceled and are about to go bankrupt except his racetrack. Hurrying to the racetrack, Axel solves the latest riddle sent to the police, and is convinced that this riddle was made easily solvable in order to implicate Cain as the Alphabet Bandit and throw the authorities off Dent's trail. The trio arrive too late to prevent the robbery and find Cain, shot by Karla, among those killed. While Lutz announces publicly that the Alphabet Crimes have been solved, Axel notices some red mud at the stables, which leads him, Taggart and Rosewood to Dent's oil field, where Dent is making his final arms deal with Thomopolis. The three get into a shootout with everyone involved in the deal. Dent confronts Axel in the warehouse, but Axel gets distracted by one of Dent's henchmen on the roof above him and Dent gets away. Dent then crashes through the wall in his car and Axel shoots Dent through the windshield. The car hits Axel and goes down a hill, erupting in flames. Karla appears and is about to kill Axel, but is shot dead by Taggart. Just as the last criminals are about to flee, the police arrive on the scene and arrest the remainder of Dent's goons and Thomopolis. Lutz and Mayor Egan come as well. Lutz is furious at Rosewood and Taggart for their insubordination and attempts to arrest Axel. However, both Taggart and Rosewood stand up to an infuriated Lutz and prove that Dent was the real Alphabet Bandit and the rest of the alphabet crimes were about the arms deal. They are also able to convince Mayor Egan of Lutz's incompetence, and the mayor fires Lutz for his abusive attitude towards his own men and for jeopardizing the investigation. Mayor Egan chooses Bogomil to replace Lutz as the new Police Chief. Axel returns to Detroit, but not before he gets chewed out by Inspector Todd (Gil Hill) over the phone, after Egan called Todd to congratulate him on allowing Axel to assist them on this case. ===== Will has surprisingly come into a large amount of money, around $32,000. His photograph screwing in a light bulb has been made a silhouette and is being used as a picture for the company's light bulb boxes. He is uncomfortable having this money, since he feels he did nothing to earn it, and is left with a sense of guilt and purposelessness. Shortly after receiving the sum, Will and Hand's mutual childhood friend, Jack, was involved in a car accident. The pair had delusional ambitions to use the money to save his life but to no avail. After Jack's death, Will and Hand are asked to help go through Jack's possessions in a storage facility, where Hand decides to wander around and leaves Will. During Hand's absence, Will is brutally beaten by three men. Will and Hand agree that it is best not to go to the hospital, lest the attackers attempt to track them. As a result of his confusion due to a conglomerate of issues, such as the large sum of money, Jack's death, Will's beating, and other personal issues, Will and Hand plan to travel around the world visiting obscure countries and giving away all the money, bit by bit, to people they arbitrarily decide are most deserving. According to Hand, they gave to people for the benefit of both parties, as a sacrament with the purpose of restoring a faith in humanity. The two devise many creative ways of distributing the unwanted money. One plan involves taping money to a donkey in a graph paper pouch that reads "HERE I AM ROCK YOU LIKE A HURRICANE" and another creating a treasure map for Estonian children. While on the journey, the two friends do many wild and spontaneous things, including practicing rolling over cars and jumping from tree to tree while 20 feet in the air. However, without a solid set of criteria, or a definitive direction in their plan, their quest proves surprisingly difficult, and they experience much awkward confusion and moral uncertainty, and they often fear being robbed and killed. Will becomes unstable and begins to lose his composure. The plot is both a log of the journey and a look into the mind of the narrator, Will. A pseudo-sequel, titled The Only Meaning of the Oil-Wet Water, follows Hand and the minor character Pilar in Central America. This short story is featured in the collection How We Are Hungry: Stories (2004). ===== A Swiss family from Bern—Father, Mother, and their three sons—are relocating to a colony in New Guinea to escape the Napoleonic Wars when their ship is attacked by pirates and flees into a storm. The crew abandons ship, leaving the family on board, and the ship grounds on rocks off an uninhabited island. The family makes their way ashore along with the captain's two Great Danes. Father, eldest son Fritz, and middle son Ernst salvage supplies and livestock from the shipwreck. The pirates locate the ship, but Father scares them off by putting up a quarantine flag, signaling disease aboard. The family soon discovers that the island contains a diversity of wildlife, including a dangerous tiger. To provide safety and comfort, Father, Fritz, and Ernst construct an elaborate tree house complete with a water wheel. Youngest son Francis collects various animals including a young Asian elephant, a monkey, and an ostrich. The bookish Ernst theorizes that the island may once have been part of a land bridge connected to Asia. As the family settles in, Father opines that by going back to nature they have found everything they need in life. Mother, however, worries that her sons will never have the chance to raise families of their own if they are not rescued, and consents to allow Fritz and Ernst to circumnavigate the island in an outrigger boat they have built to map it and search for other settlements. During their expedition, Fritz and Ernst come across the pirates, who have captured another ship and taken its captain and cabin boy captive for ransom. They rescue the cabin boy, but the captain stays behind as they escape the pirates. Making their way through the jungle, they learn that the cabin boy is really a girl named Roberta; the captain, who is her grandfather, dressed her as a boy to disguise her sex from the pirates. They survive an attack by an anaconda but become lost. The brothers fight over what to do, the rugged Fritz insisting that they press on. They rescue a zebra from predators and, using it as a mount, arrive back at the tree house just in time for Christmas. Anticipating that the pirates will come looking for Roberta, the family scuttles their wrecked ship to hide their location. They fortify a rocky clifftop, building defenses and booby traps. Fritz and Ernst become rivals for Roberta's affections. Believing that her grandfather will return for her once ransomed, she intends to return to London; Ernst is interested in going to school there, while Fritz would rather go on to New Guinea to build a home of his own. Despite this, a romance develops between Fritz and Roberta, and the brothers come to blows over her. To relieve tension, Father declares a holiday to be held. That night, Francis manages to catch the tiger in one of the pits they have dug. The holiday begins with a race, the boys and Roberta riding on various animals. The pirates, sailing nearby, hear the sound of the starting pistol and come ashore. The family retreats to their fort, and the attackers fall victim to their traps and defenses. The pirate captain demands that they hand over Roberta, while his men sneak up the cliff side and attack from the rear. As the family is about to be overwhelmed, a ship captained by Roberta's grandfather appears and destroys the pirates and their ship with cannon fire. The captain offers to help Ernst get into a London university, and to take the rest of the family back to Europe or on to New Guinea. Father and Mother, however, decide that they would rather stay on the island and keep Francis with them for a few more years. The captain speculates that the island will become a new colony, and that Father will be nominated to be its governor. Fritz and Roberta, having fallen in love, also decide to stay on the island. ===== Doug Ross was raised by his mother, Sarah, after his father, Ray, abandoned their family. In Season 1, Ross revealed to a patient that he had a son, and he tells nurse Wendy Goldman that he doesn't know his son's name as he's never seen him. Not much else is known about Doug's past. Despite his jumbled personal life, Ross is a dedicated ER pediatrician. He has always been committed to medicine and children and to helping no matter the rules or the consequences. During Season 2, Doug rescued a boy trapped in a flooding storm drain during a rainstorm. His heroic efforts were filmed on local television, making him a media star. This event helped him earn back his job at County, because his supervisor in pediatrics originally wasn't going to renew his fellowship due to his disrespect for authority. During Season 2, Ray tries to reconcile with Doug, who has difficulty reconnecting with the man who abandoned him and his mother. Ray owns a ritzy hotel in Chicago, and Doug lets his guard down a little but is disappointed when his father offers to take him to a Chicago Bulls game and then stands him up. Ross later reveals that he and his mother were abused by his father. Doug later has an affair with Ray's girlfriend, a woman from whom Ray stole money, but ends the relationship when it becomes clear that she has many problems. Ross is a womanizer who dates and leaves many women throughout the course of the show. His womanizing days abruptly end after a one-night stand with an epileptic woman who hides her condition and dies in the ER. Ross learns her name only after she dies, after which he stops dating for a while until he gets back together with Carol Hathaway, the head nurse of the ER at County. Warner Bros. Television, the studio which produces ER for NBC, kept secret from NBC Dr. Ross' cameo in "Such Sweet Sorrow", which promoted the episode as Carol Hathaway's goodbye, with no mention of Ross' appearance. The original version of "Such Sweet Sorrow" that Warner Bros. sent to NBC ended after the scene where we see Hathaway on the plane to Seattle. At the eleventh hour, Warner Bros. sent an "edited" version of the episode by messenger to NBC headquarters in New York for broadcast. NBC was miffed that it was kept in the dark as it could have generated valuable ad revenue if it had aired promos that the episode marked the return of George Clooney. Clooney cited the fans of the show for his reason for making the cameo (he wanted Hathaway's and Ross's characters to get back together, which many fans hoped for). Clooney reportedly only asked to be paid scale for the cameo. In the season 15 episode "Old Times," Ross is working as an attending physician at the University of Washington Medical Center. He is helping a grieving grandmother (Susan Sarandon) whose grandson was gravely injured in a bicycle accident. He talks to Sam and Neela after finding out that they are from County, asking them whether any of his old colleagues still work there. Doug and Carol are responsible for getting the kidney for Carter and a heart for another County patient, but they never discover who receives the organs. ===== Set in Elm Haven, Illinois, in 1960, Summer of Night recounts its five pre- teen protagonists' discovery that eerie, terrifying events are unfolding in the Old Central School. Operatives, including a dead soldier; giant worms with rows of sharp, serrated teeth; the animated corpse of a deceased teacher; schoolyard bullies; the driver of a rendering truck; their school teacher, and the principal of the school, serve a centuries-old evil that seeks to be reborn in their time — and in their town. It is only by banding together that the pre-teens can hope to defeat the monstrosity before it destroys them, their friends, their families — and, possibly, the world. The sequel to Summer of Night is A Winter Haunting, in which Dale Stewart, now grown, returns to Elm Haven. Another sequel is Children of the Night, which features Mike O'Rourke, now a Roman Catholic priest, who is sent on a mission to investigate bizarre events in a European city. Another Summer of Night character, Dale's younger brother, Lawrence Stewart, appears as a minor character in Simmons' thriller Darwin's Blade, while the adult Cordie Cooke appears in Fires of Eden. ===== The story imagines the difficulty of Averroës, the famed Islamic philosopher and translator, in translating Aristotle's Poetics because he was not able to understand what a play was, owing to the absence of live theatrical performances from Averroës' cultural milieu, in contrast to that of ancient Greece. In the story, Averroës casually observes some children play-acting, then later hears a traveler ineptly describe an actual theatrical performance he once saw in a distant land, but still fails to understand that the tragedies and comedies of which Aristotle writes are a kind of performance art, rather than merely literature. The process of writing the story is meant to parallel the events in the story itself; Borges writes in an afterword to the story that his attempt to understand Averroës was as doomed as Averroës's attempt to understand drama. "I felt that the work mocked me, foiled me, thwarted me. I felt that Averroës, trying to imagine what a play is without ever having suspected what a theater is, was no more absurd than I, trying to imagine Averroës yet with no more material than a few snatches from Renan, Lane, and Asín Palacios." ===== Bernard is a story-teller, always seeking some elusive and apt phrase. Some critics see Woolf's friend E. M. Forster as an inspiration for him. Louis is an outsider who seeks acceptance and success. Some critics see in him aspects of T. S. Eliot, whom Woolf knew well. Neville, who may be partly based on another of Woolf's friends, Lytton Strachey, seeks out a series of men, each of whom becomes the present object of his transcendent love. Jinny is a socialite whose world view corresponds to her physical, corporeal beauty. There is evidence that she is based on Woolf's friend Mary Hutchinson. Susan flees the city, preferring the countryside, where she grapples with the thrills and doubts of motherhood. Some aspects of Susan recall Woolf's sister Vanessa Bell. Rhoda is riddled with self-doubt, anxiety and depression, always rejecting and indicting human compromise, always seeking out solitude. She echoes Shelley's poem "The Question" (paraphrased: I shall gather my flowers and present them — O! to whom?). Rhoda resembles Virginia Woolf in some respects. Percival, partly based on Woolf's brother, Thoby Stephen, is the Miraculous but morally flawed hero of the other six. He dies midway through the novel, while engaged on an imperialist quest in India. Percival never speaks on his own in The Waves, but readers learn about him in detail as the other six characters repeatedly describe and reflect on him. The novel follows its six narrators from childhood through adulthood. Woolf is concerned with the individual consciousness and the ways in which multiple consciousnesses can weave together. ===== Wing (Anita Yuen) is a sassy girl who deeply idolizes Rose (Carina Lau), a pop singer, and Rose's boyfriend, top record producer and songwriter Sam (Leslie Cheung). Rose has been groomed by Sam, achieving stardom and international acclaim. With her success, Sam decides to try his hand at bringing up a male singer. He decides to announce a country-wide, males-only talent search, much to his former protegée's chagrin. Wing, desperate to meet her idols, seizes this opportunity and enters the contest disguised as a male. Her childhood friend (Jordan Chan) trains her to perfect this whimsical idea. As fate would have it, Wing succeeds in the audition thanks to the poor quality of those auditioning and in part to Rose's taunts. Rose challenges Sam to see to the idea of him bringing up a (relatively) talentless Wing. Wing is later invited to stay at Sam and Rose's home for her/"his" musical education. Wing tries unsuccessfully to reconcile the two lovers' difference. Trouble and comedy ensue as she finds herself falling for Sam and vice versa, despite him thinking she is a he. ===== During the American Civil War, five Northern prisoners of war escape during the siege of Richmond, Virginia, by hijacking a hydrogen-filled observation balloon. The escapees are Cyrus Smith, a railroad engineer in the Union army (named Cyrus Harding in Kingston's version); his ex-slave and loyal follower Neb (short for Nebuchadnezzar); Bonadventure Pencroff, a sailor (who is addressed only by his surname; in Kingston's translation, he is named Pencroft); his protégé and adopted son Harbert Brown (called Herbert in some translations); and the journalist Gedéon Spilett (Gideon Spilett in English versions). The company is completed by Cyrus' dog "Top". After flying in a great storm for several days, the group crash-lands on a cliff-bound, volcanic, unknown island, described as being located at , about east of New Zealand. They name it "Lincoln Island" in honor of Abraham Lincoln. With the knowledge of the brilliant engineer Smith, the five are able to sustain themselves on the island, producing fire, pottery, bricks, nitroglycerin, iron, a simple electric telegraph, a cave home inside a stony cliff called "Granite House", and even a seaworthy ship, which they name the "Bonadventure". Map of "Lincoln Island" During their stay on the island, the group endures bad weather and domesticates an orangutan, Jupiter, abbreviated to Jup (or Joop, in Jordan Stump's translation). There is a mystery on the island in the form of an unseen deus ex machina, responsible for Cyrus' survival after falling from the balloon, the mysterious rescue of Top from a dugong, the appearance of a box of equipment (guns and ammunition, tools, etc.), and other seemingly inexplicable occurrences. The group finds a message in a bottle directing them to rescue a castaway on nearby Tabor Island, who is none other than Tom Ayrton (from In Search of the Castaways). On the return voyage to Lincoln Island, they lose their way in a tempest but are guided back to their course by a mysterious fire beacon. Ayrton's former companions arrive by chance on Lincoln Island and try to make it into their lair. After some fighting with the protagonists, the pirate ship is mysteriously destroyed by an explosion. Six of the pirates survive and kidnap Ayrton. When the colonists go to look for him, the pirates shoot Harbert, seriously injuring him. Harbert survives, narrowly cheating death. The colonists at first assume Ayrton has been killed, but later they find evidence that he was not instantly killed, leaving his fate uncertain. When the colonists rashly attempt to return to Granite House before Harbert fully recovers, Harbert contracts malaria but is saved by a box of quinine sulfate, which mysteriously appears on the table in Granite House. After Harbert recovers, they attempt to rescue Ayrton and destroy the pirates. They discover Ayrton at the sheepfold, and the pirates dead, without any visible wounds. The secret of the island is revealed to be Captain Nemo's hideout, and home port of the Nautilus. Having escaped the Maelstrom at the end of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, the Nautilus sailed the oceans of the world until all its crew except Nemo had died. Now an old man, Nemo returned the Nautilus to its secret port within Lincoln Island. Nemo had been the mysterious benefactor of the settlers, providing them with the box of equipment, sending the message revealing Ayrton, planting the torpedo that destroyed the pirate ship, and killing the pirates with an "electric gun". On his death bed, Captain Nemo reveals his true identity as the lost Indian Prince Dakkar, son of a raja of the then-independent territory of Bundelkund and a nephew of the Indian hero Tippu-Sahib. After taking part in the failed Indian Rebellion of 1857, Prince Dakkar escaped to a desert island with twenty of his compatriots and commenced the building of the Nautilus and adopted the new name of "Captain Nemo". Before he dies, Nemo gives them a box of diamonds and pearls as a keepsake. Nemo's final words are "God and my country!" ("Independence!", in Verne's original manuscript). The Nautilus is scuttled and serves as Captain Nemo's tomb. Afterward, the island's central volcano erupts, destroying the island. Jup the orangutan falls into a crack in the ground and dies. The colonists, forewarned of the eruption by Nemo, find shelter on the last remaining piece of the island above sea level. They are rescued by the ship Duncan, which had come to rescue Ayrton, but was redirected by a message Nemo had previously left on Tabor Island. After they return to the United States they form a new colony in Iowa, financed with Nemo's gifts. ===== The core concept of 100 Bullets is based on the question of people willing to act on the desire of violent revenge if given the means, opportunity, and a reasonable chance to succeed. Many of the first issues involve the mysterious Agent Graves approaching someone who has been a victim of a terrible wrong. Graves gives them the opportunity to take revenge by providing a handgun, 100 bullets, and documentation about the primary target responsible for their woes. He informs the candidate the bullets are completely untraceable by any law enforcement investigation, and as soon as they are found at any crime scene, investigations will immediately cease. Although all the revenge murders enabled by Agent Graves are presented as justifiable, the candidates are neither rewarded nor punished for accepting the offer other than their own personal satisfaction. Several people decline, but others who accept find varied success or failure. The attaché and Graves' "games" are later revealed to be only a minor part of a much broader story. Agent Graves is the leader of a group known as The Minutemen, a group of seven men (plus one "Agent") who serve as the enforcers and police of a clandestine organization known as The Trust. The Trust was originally formed by the heads of 13 powerful European families who controlled much of the Old World's combined wealth and industry. The Trust made an offer to the kings of Europe by which they would leave the continent and their considerable influence and holdings, in exchange for complete autonomy in the still unclaimed portion of the New World. When England ignored this proposition and colonized the Roanoke Island late in the 16th century, the Minutemen were formed. The original Minutemen, seven vicious killers, eradicated the colony and all of its inhabitants, leaving behind only the cryptic message "Croatoa" as a warning, reclaiming the land for the Trust. Since this time, the Minutemen's charge has been to protect the 13 Houses of the Trust, serving as their force against outside threats and more frequently as police of the internal conflicts between the Trust families themselves. The groups' interactions are often facilitated by a person holding the title "Warlord" for the Trust, who serves as the Houses' liaison to the Minutemen. Sometime in the late 20th century, the Minutemen were betrayed by the Trust and disbanded after Agent Graves refused to reenact "The Greatest Crime in the History of Mankind" (a re-expansion of the borders of the Trust). The Minutemen retaliated with the assassination of a hooded figure in Atlantic City, and they were then sent into hiding. Most of the Minutemen of that time were "deactivated" by Graves. These former Minutemen had their memories repressed for their own protection and were returned to "normal" lives. These events occurred prior (presumably some years) to the beginning of 100 Bullets. As the story plays out, many of those who are offered the chance for vengeance by Graves are revealed to have been people wronged by the Trust or its agents, and six are revealed to have been Minutemen at the time of the events of Atlantic City. With his planning, some luck, and the importance of his "game", Agent Graves seeks to reactivate several of his Minutemen and recruit potential new members during the course of the series. With the occasional aid of the Trust's current Warlord, the charismatic and secretive Mr. Shepherd, Graves sets into motion a complicated and deadly plot of revenge against the Trust, which divides into factions, with younger members plotting against the older ones. The series culminates in the downfall of the Trust and its agents, eventually revealing that the attaché and its contents are a metaphor for the limitless power of the Trust. ===== The story is about three orphans and their two father figures. They are taken in by both a wealthy crime boss which leads to their close friendship, and a kind police officer. Nevertheless, the trio grows up learning high-tech methods of theft and specialise in stealing treasured paintings. After a heist in France goes awry, Red Bean Pudding is thought to be dead and James takes his place as Red Bean's lover. However, Pudding returns in a wheelchair, and the group begins planning their next heist for themselves, fall out of favour with Chow, and various complications and gun battles ensue. ===== The Last Chronicle of Barset concerns an indigent but learned clergyman, the Reverend Josiah Crawley, the perpetual curate of Hogglestock, who stands accused of stealing a cheque. The novel is notable for the non-resolution of a plot continued from the previous novel in the series, The Small House at Allington, involving Lily Dale and Johnny Eames. Its main storyline features the courtship of the Rev. Mr Crawley's daughter, Grace, and Major Henry Grantly, son of the wealthy Archdeacon Grantly. The Archdeacon, although allowing that Grace is a lady, doesn't think her of high enough rank or wealth for his widowed son; his position is strengthened by the Reverend Mr Crawley's apparent crime. Almost broken by poverty and trouble, the Reverend Mr Crawley hardly knows himself if he is guilty or not; fortunately, the mystery is resolved just as Major Grantly's determination and Grace Crawley's own merit force the Archdeacon to overcome his prejudice against her as a daughter-in-law. As with Lucy Robarts in Framley Parsonage, the objecting parent finally invites the young lady into the family; this new connection also inspires the Dean and Archdeacon to find a new, more prosperous, post for Grace's impoverished father. Through death or marriage, this final volume manages to tie up more than one thread from the beginning of the series. One subplot deals with the death of Mrs. Proudie, the virago wife of the Bishop of Barchester, and his subsequent grief and collapse. Mrs. Proudie, upon her arrival in Barchester in Barchester Towers, had increased the tribulations of the gentle Mr. Harding, title character of The Warden; he dies of a peaceful old age, mourned by his family and the old men he loved and looked after as Warden. ===== In 1987 Hong Kong, newspaperman Yuen (Alex Man) and his girlfriend, Chor (Emily Chu) are drawn into a doomed 1930s romance when the ghost of courtesan Fleur (Anita Mui) places an advertisement, looking for her lost lover Chan Chen-Pang (Leslie Cheung). She has waited in the afterlife for Chan for 53 years and believes he has become lost. Chan was the playboy son of a wealthy family, but longed to be an actor, who met and fell in love with talented, beautiful Fleur in one of Hong Kong's teahouses. Realising their romance would never be accepted, the couple committed suicide by opium overdose in order to be together in death. Pragmatic Yuen and Chor become dazzled by the romance of Fleur's story and the ghost's glamorous beauty, but as their search for Chan reveals the truth - that Chan did not die with Fleur, frittered away his inheritance and now lives impoverished as a Chinese opera stand-in - they see the value of their own, honest relationship. The title refers to a rouge case Chan gave to Fleur, which she returns to the now- elderly, guilt-wracked man, before leaving the living world. ===== All's Well, Ends Well is a comic romance of three hapless brothers, who eventually learn through their amorous exploits and misadventures that love is only won through gradual nurturing, and quickly lost through the quick, dishonest, selfish ways which they have always taken for granted. Moon (Raymond Wong) is eldest brother and head of the family. The film begins with the celebration of his 7th anniversary wedding with Leng, which celebration he deserts, preferring instead the company of his mistress (Sheila Chan). He turns up at home with her later, forcing his wife (whom he calls 'hag') to leave the house in dismay. Although she is very devoted to her husband and tolerates him for all his misbehaviors, her tolerance stops short of accepting his mistress openly in the family home. So (Leslie Cheung) is an effeminate floral arranger and lecturer at an art school, who is good at cooking and enjoys women's hobbies. His second cousin Mo-seung comes to his house on that same evening, and entirely devours an elaborate gourmet banquet which So had intended as a gift for Leng on her otherwise disastrous wedding anniversary. From that day on, So and Mo-seung are constantly at loggerheads over trivial issues, insulting each other with vulgar metaphors during a mahjong game session, apparently irreconcilable. Foon is a local radio DJ who flirts shamelessly while on air and is well-known among his legion of female fans for his impressive kissing technique. Holli-yuk (Maggie Cheung) calls him on air one day and arranges a date with him. She is an avid Hollywood movie lover who enjoys re-enacting particular love-scenes from movies. She is convinced that Foon shares her romantic outlook and they soon become lovers. Foon, however, is a notorious playboy not eager to settle down. Predictably, Holli-yuk catches him in an act of infidelity. After a freak accident leaves Foon suffering from a mildly debilitating mental illness, Holli-yuk offers to become a nurse for him. Taking advantage of her role as his nurturer, she gleefully devises methods to punish him for his callous behaviour. The brothers' dilemmas are later resolved in similarly titled sequel films. Each story concludes on a cheeky and high-spirited note. ===== Bogart as Dixon Steele Dixon "Dix" Steele is a down-on-his-luck Hollywood screenwriter who has not had a hit, "since before the war." While driving to meet his agent, Mel Lippman, at a nightclub, Dix's explosive temper is revealed when, at a stoplight, he engages with another motorist in a confrontation that almost becomes violent. At the nightclub, Mel cajoles him to adapt a book for a movie. The hat-check girl, Mildred Atkinson, is engrossed in reading the copy meant for Dix; since she only has a few pages left to go, she asks to finish before passing it on to Dix. Dix has a second violent outburst when a young director bad-mouths Dix's friend Charlie, a washed-up actor. Dix claims to be too tired to read the novel, so he asks Mildred to go home with him, ostensibly to explain the plot. As they enter the courtyard of his apartment, they pass a new tenant, Laurel Gray. As soon as Mildred is convinced that Dix is not trying to seduce her, she describes the story, in the process confirming what he had suspected—the book is trash. He gives her cab fare to get home. The next morning, he is awakened by an old army buddy who is now a police detective, Brub Nicolai, who takes him downtown to be questioned by Captain Lochner. Mildred was murdered during the night and Dix is a suspect. Laurel is brought to the police station, she confirms seeing the girl leave Dix's apartment alone and unharmed, but Lochner is still deeply suspicious. Although Dix shows no overt sympathy for the dead victim, on the way home from the police station, he anonymously sends her two dozen white roses. Laurel takes a frightening ride with Dix When he gets home, Dix checks up on Laurel. He finds she is an aspiring actress with only a few low-budget films to her credit. They begin to fall in love and, with Laurel assisting him, Dix finds new energy and goes back to work with enthusiasm, much to his agent's delight. Dix remains notoriously erratic, however, and sometimes behaves strangely. He says things that make his agent Mel and Brub's wife Sylvia wonder if he did kill the girl. Lochner sows seeds of doubt in Laurel's mind, pointing out Dix's long record of violent behavior. When he learns about this, and that Laurel has not told him of her meeting with Lochner, Dix becomes furious and irrational. With her a terrified passenger, he drives at high speed until they sideswipe another car. Nobody is hurt in the collision, but when the other driver accosts him, Dix beats him unconscious and is about to strike him with a large rock when Laurel stops him. Laurel gets to the point where she cannot sleep without taking pills. Her distrust and fear of Dix are becoming too much for her. When he asks her to marry him, she accepts, but only because she is too scared of what he might do if she refused. She secretly makes a plane reservation and tells Mel she is leaving because she cannot take it anymore. Dix finds out and becomes violent, almost strangling her before he regains control of himself. Just then the phone rings. It is Brub with good news: Mildred's boyfriend (named Henry Kesler, the same as the film's associate producer) has confessed to her murder. It is too late, however, to salvage Dix and Laurel's relationship. ===== The series was hosted by Dan Aykroyd, who presents dramatic stories inspired by the paranormal investigations of the "Office of Scientific Investigation and Research" (O.S.I.R.). ===== A nuclear device explodes in Washington and destroys the White House. The Royalist Party and the National Rifle Association are nominally those responsible but Condon's target is Reaganism and its legacy, embodied in the character of an Army colonel, Caesare Appleton, who becomes Emperor Caesare I. ===== Nana tells the story of Nana Coupeau's rise from streetwalker to high-class prostitute during the last three years of the French Second Empire. Nana first appeared near the end of Zola's earlier novel Rougon-Macquart series, L'Assommoir (1877), where she is the daughter of an abusive drunk. At the conclusion of that novel, she is living in the streets and just beginning a life of prostitution. Nana opens with a night at the Théâtre des Variétés in April 1867 just after the Exposition Universelle has opened. Nana is eighteen years old, though she would have been fifteen according to the family tree of the Rougon-Macquarts Zola had published years before starting work on this novel. Zola describes in detail the performance of La blonde Vénus, a fictional operetta modeled after Offenbach's La belle Hélène, in which Nana is cast as the lead. All of Paris is talking about her, though this is her first stage appearance. When asked to say something about her talents, Bordenave, the manager of the theatre, explains that a star does not need to know how to sing or act: "Nana has something else, dammit, and something that takes the place of everything else. I scented it out, and it smells damnably strong in her, or else I lost my sense of smell." Just as the crowd is about to dismiss her performance as terrible, young Georges Hugon shouts: "Très chic!" From then on, she owns the audience. Zola describes her appearance only thinly veiled in the third act: "All of a sudden, in the good- natured child the woman stood revealed, a disturbing woman with all the impulsive madness of her sex, opening the gates of the unknown world of desire. Nana was still smiling, but with the deadly smile of a man-eater." In the course of the novel Nana destroys every man who pursues her: Philippe Hugon is imprisoned after stealing from the army to lend Nana money; the wealthy banker Steiner bankrupts himself trying to please her; Georges Hugon stabs himself with scissors in anguish over her; Vandeuvres incinerates himself after Nana ruins him financially; Fauchery, a journalist and publisher who falls for Nana early on, writes a scathing article about her later, and falls for her again and is ruined financially; and Count Muffat, whose faithfulness to Nana brings him back for humiliation after humiliation until he finds her in bed with his elderly father-in-law. In George Becker's words: "What emerges from [Nana] is the completeness of Nana's destructive force, brought to a culmination in the thirteenth chapter by a kind of roll call of the victims of her voracity". Zola has Nana die a horrible death in July 1870 from smallpox. She disappears, her belongings are auctioned and no one knows where she is. It comes out that she has been living with a Russian prince, leaving her infant son in the care of an aunt near Paris, but when a smallpox epidemic breaks out she returns to nurse him; he dies, and she catches the disease. Zola suggests that her true nature, concealed by her physical beauty, has come to the surface. "What lay on the pillow was a charnel house, a heap of pus and blood, a shovelful of putrid flesh. The pustules had invaded the whole face, so that one pock touched the next". Outside her window the crowd is madly cheering "To Berlin! To Berlin!" to greet the start of the Franco- Prussian War, which will end in defeat for France and the end of the Second Empire. ===== In June 1808, Hornblower is in command of the 36-gun frigate HMS Lydia, with orders to sail to the Pacific coast of Nicaragua (near modern Choluteca, Choluteca) and supply a local landowner, Don Julian Alvarado ("descendant" of Pedro de Alvarado by a fictional marriage to a daughter of Moctezuma), with muskets and powder. Don Julian is ready to revolt against the Spanish (at this point allied with Napoleon). Upon meeting Don Julian, however, Hornblower discovers he is an insane megalomaniac calling himself El Supremo ("the Almighty") who views himself as a deity, and who has been killing (by tying to a stake and leaving until death by thirst) all those who are "unenlightened" (that is to say, all those who do not recognise El Supremo's "godhead"). El Supremo claims to be a descendant of Moctezuma, the holy god-made-man of the Aztecs, and also of the Alvarado who invaded Mexico. While Hornblower replenishes his supplies, the 50-gun Spanish ship Natividad is sighted off the coast heading his way. Unwilling to risk fighting the much more powerful ship in a sea battle, Hornblower hides nearby until it anchors and then captures it in a daring, surprise nighttime boarding. El Supremo demands that it be turned over to him so that he may have a navy. After hiding the captured Spanish officers to save them from being murdered by El Supremo, Hornblower, needing his ally's cooperation, has no choice but to accede. After offloading the war supplies for El Supremo, Hornblower sails south. Off the coast of Panama, he encounters a Spanish lugger; an envoy, taking passage on the lugger, informs him of a new alliance between Spain and England against Napoleon. Another passenger on the lugger, the young Englishwoman Lady Barbara Wellesley, the (fictional) sister of Marquess Wellesley and Sir Arthur Wellesley (the future Duke of Wellington), comes aboard. The packet ship she was on in the Caribbean had been captured some time ago. Freed by Spain's changing sides and fleeing a yellow fever epidemic ashore, she requests passage back to England. Hornblower reluctantly agrees, and takes Lady Barbara and her maid Hebe aboard, warning her that he must first hunt and destroy the Natividad before El Supremo can ravage the entire coast of Central America. In the subsequent battle, Hornblower uses masterful tactics to sink the Natividad, though the Lydia herself is heavily damaged. Limping back to Panama to effect repairs, Hornblower (now that there is no further threat from the Natividad) is curtly informed that he is not welcome in any Spanish-American port. He manages to find a natural harbour on the island of Coiba, where he refits. After completing repairs, Hornblower encounters the haughty Spanish official once more, on the same lugger. He is invited aboard the lugger for some interesting news. There he finds El Supremo, a wretched, and still insane, captive chained to the deck, on his way to his execution. Hornblower sets sail for England. On the long voyage home, he and Lady Barbara become strongly attracted to each other. Nearing the end of their trip, she makes the first overt advances, and they embrace passionately. Although he is also strongly attracted to her and initially responds strongly, Barbara's maid Hebe walking in on them brings Hornblower to the realisation that he as captain is about to indulge in sexual dalliance with a passenger. He uses as an excuse to Barbara the fact that he is married to withdraw from the situation. Also, as a man of humble social standing, he is horribly aware that he cannot afford to risk offending the influential Wellesley clan by dallying with her. After her rejection, the embarrassed Lady Barbara avoids him as best she can. An English convoy is sighted soon afterwards and she transfers to a more spacious ship. They make stilted, formal good-byes. ===== Narayan Shankar has been the strict principal of Gurukul, a prestigious all- boys college, for 25 years. He believes in bringing the best out of his students by emphasizing honour, tradition, and discipline, with no room for fun and games. He is particularly intolerant of romance, decreeing that any student who is caught having a romantic affair will immediately be expelled. Despite this draconian rule, three Gurukul students — Sameer, Vicky, and Karan — all fall in love. Sameer is head over heels in love with Sanjana, his childhood friend who already has a steady boyfriend named Deepak. Vicky is attracted to Ishika, a sporty and feisty student at the neighboring all-girls college who rebuffs his attempts to woo her. Karan falls for Kiran, an elegant young widow whose military pilot husband has been shot down and whom Karan sees alone one night in a train station. Meanwhile, Narayan hires Raj Aryan Malhotra as Gurukul's new music teacher. Friendly and a firm believer in the power of love, Raj Aryan makes it his mission to spread love throughout Gurukul. He sympathizes with the predicaments of Sameer, Vicky, and Karan, and encourages them to not give up and stay loyal to their loves. He tells them that he had a special love himself and that although she is dead, he imagines her to be by his side every day. One day, as part of his plan to spread love throughout the school, Raj Aryan throws a party and invites the students of the all-girls college. Narayan walks in on the party and furiously threatens to fire Raj Aryan. At this point, Raj Aryan reveals that he had been a student at Gurukul over a decade earlier and that he had fallen in love with Megha, who happened to be Narayan's only daughter. Narayan had expelled Raj Aryan from the school without even seeing his face, and a distraught Megha, unable to live without Raj Aryan, committed suicide. Raj Aryan declares that he has come back to Gurukul to honor Megha's memory by reversing the school's zero- tolerance policy on romance, and promises that before he leaves he will fill the school with so much love that even Narayan will be unable to stop it. A shocked Narayan takes this as a challenge and allows Raj Aryan to remain for a while longer. Sameer, Vicky, and Karan are all able to win over Sanjana, Ishika, and Kiran, respectively, but Narayan retaliates by tightening the rules of Gurukul. The student body, however, encouraged by Raj Aryan, continues to defy the rules, and in a last-ditch effort to preserve the school atmosphere he has built up for 25 years, Narayan expels Sameer, Vicky, and Karan. Raj Aryan speaks up on their behalf, stating that they did nothing wrong by falling in love and accusing Narayan of causing his own daughter's death with his intolerance of love. He also says that he feels Narayan lost the challenge because his daughter left him and now Raj Aryan (who considered Narayan an elder) is leaving him as well. Raj Aryan's harsh words sting Narayan, and he tearfully realizes his strict no-romance policy has been misguided. Narayan apologizes to the student body and resigns as principal of Gurukul, nominating Raj Aryan as his successor, who accepts and reconciles with Narayan. ===== Horrified by the consequences of the First War of the Races, most of the Druids at Paranor stopped studying the arcane arts and turned to the sciences of the Old World. Brona, now known as the Warlock Lord, had been behind the First War of the Races, and was thought to have died during it. But he had secretly survived, and now has come to make a new war upon the Races. He is now stronger than ever, gathering spirits from the netherworld and a massive Troll and Gnome army under his banner. Brona's first target is Paranor, the home of the Druids who defeated him during the First War of the Races. He easily wipes out the Druid order. The only survivors are the followers of Bremen, an outcast Druid who continued to study the mystic arts and tried to warn the council before it was too late. Bremen had been cast from the Druid Council because he had an interest in magic, now forbidden since the disaster that turned the Druid Brona into the Warlock Lord. As a result, the council didn't trust him. Along with Tay Trefenwyd and Risca, who are the only Druids who believe Bremen and leave with him, Bremen leaves Paranor. Later, the three are joined by Mareth, an apprentice Druid with innate magic, as well as empathic powers. After reaching the Hadeshorn and summoning the shade of Galaphile, Bremen is given four visions. Bremen learns that the Warlock Lord seeks the Black Elfstone, which would grant him tremendous power. Bremen sends Tay Trefenwyd to recover the Black Elfstone before the Warlock Lord can, and sends Risca to warn and aid the Dwarves from the army of the Warlock Lord. Tay Trefenwyd, along with his best friend Jerle Shannara go to the king to seek his aid. However, the entire royal family is destroyed by the Warlock Lord's minions, all but for two young grandchildren. Tay starts to go and search for the Black Elfstone, believing action better than inaction, taking with him Jerle Shannara, as well as a small party of Elven Hunters, and Preia Starle, who loves Jerle Shannara, but whom Tay Trefenwyd loves. However, Tay never even speaks of his love for her, as his loyalty to Jerle is so strong. Tay eventually comes upon where the Black Elfstone is hidden, with an ancient race called the Chew Magna, who have been subverted by the magic of the Black Elfstone. Cloaking himself in magic that makes him one of them, Tay manages to recover the Black Elfstone. However, upon leaving the Chew Magna, they are discovered by the Warlock Lord's minions, and Tay has no magic left, having spent it all recovering the elfstone. Although he had been warned by Bremen on what would happen if the Black Elfstone is used, he uses it so that his friends can escape with the Black Elfstone. He destroys all the enemies, but is forced to sacrifice himself, drawing the air from his lungs rather than be subverted by the Black Elfstone. Meanwhile, Bremen, Kinson Ravenlock, and Mareth travel back to Paranor, fearing that the Druids are all already dead. On reaching Paranor, every Druid who remained is dead, and Bremen manages to recover the Eilt Druin, which he saw as pivotal in the creating of a weapon that can defeat the Warlock Lord. Bremen knows that only magic can fight magic, so he devises a plan to create a magical weapon to destroy the Warlock Lord: the Sword of Shannara. Bremen learns how to make a metal stronger than iron from Cogline, and manages to create the sword by the mixing of science and magic. Upon finding a smith skilled enough to create the sword, the reader discovers that the smith is the ancestor of Panamon Creel. Bremen also discovers his successor as a Druid, the boy who is revealed to be Allanon, and possesses incredibly penetrating eyes, an immense intelligence, and a talent for magic. The Sword is created by truth of existence, the only thing remaining to the shades of former Druids. The Warlock Lord could never face the truth that he had died centuries before, and the Sword would force that truth on him. Armed with truth, Bremen leads the battle in the Westland. He equips Jerle Shannara, the Elven King, with the Sword. After several battles, the Elves drive the Warlock Lord's armies from the Westland, and right into a trap set by the remains of the Dwarf army. During the final battle, Jerle confronts the Warlock Lord, and manages to defeat him but he fails to destroy him. To properly wield the talisman of truth, one must first be prepared to face the truth of his own life. Jerle simply could not reconcile the guilt he felt at his best friend's death, and so he lacked the ability to force truth on Brona. In this final battle, Risca is also killed. Kinson Ravenlock and Mareth are married (with Mareth forsaking the Druid ways), as are Jerle Shannara and Preia Starle. Meanwhile, Bremen spends three years teaching Allanon what he needs to know in order to be a Druid. Afterwards, Bremen, in old age, succumbs to death, walking into the Hadeshorn, to be carried to the afterlife by the shade of Galaphile. Before he goes, he reveals to Allanon that the Warlock Lord was not destroyed, but simply forced into hiding, and that the task of destroying him will be given to Allanon. ===== The game opens on a text narration discussing the origins of the "Tsortean wars", and the disappearance of the Tsortese Falchion. There is then a cutscene of Lewton being chased through the streets pursued by an unseen attacker, eventually being stabbed through the chest with a sword. Lewton begins an off-screen narration on being dead, before recalling how it all started. The game flashes back to Lewton taking a case for a woman named Carlotta, who asks him to find a man named Mundy. As Lewton pursues the case he runs into an old flame, Ilsa, and is told to "find Therma" by a troll named Malachite who has escaped from prison. Lewton finds Mundy but is immediately knocked unconscious. He awakes to find a murdered Mundy and the City Watch, thus ending the game's first act. Commander Vimes names Lewton as his prime suspect and a suspect for all the Counterweight Killings, a series of ritualistic murders, before letting him go. When Lewton grills the Parrot's owner, he reveals he cut Mundy down and looted his body, handing Lewton a small unusual coin. Once Lewton has the coin, he is ambushed by a dwarf named Al-Khali, who searches him, finds the coin, and takes him to troll criminal Horst. Horst believes Lewton has killed Mundy and found the "Golden Sword", and is willing to offer Lewton a large sum of money should Lewton deliver it to him. Lewton discovers the Parrot's singer, a troll named Sapphire, has suddenly run into a large amount of money. Lewton confronts Sapphire, and after Lewton exposes her cover story she reveals she has been blackmailing Therma. In exchange for Lewton keeping quiet she will arrange a meeting with her for him. At a casino, Lewton foils an assassination attempt on Ilsa and Two-Conkers, a man revealed to be Ilsa's husband from the Agatean Empire, and is allowed to continue looking for why Mundy was killed by Carlotta. After all these events have happened, a note from Sapphire arrives in Lewton's office, revealing the details of the meet-up with Therma and allowing the player to progress further in the game. Lewton decides to bring Malachite along and as they get there, Lewton is again knocked unconscious, and when he wakes up he is being interviewed in a Watch interrogation room and Malachite has been murdered. Act III starts with Lewton being taught about his new werewolf abilities by Gaspode, a talking dog. In the fourth and final act, Lewton stands in the middle of the temple after the rubble has settled, and aside from Carlotta, busy tending the wounds of Anu-Anu, all the cultists are either dead or have fled. Lewton begins hunting down the surviving members of the cult, discovering a cult-within-a-cult who deliberately sabotaged the ritual for Nylonathatep. He discovers he needs both the sword and the jewel to stop the creature, and obtains a star map from Two-Conkers leading him to the jewel. Lewton also retrieves the sword from the dead body of a cultist member. Horst ambushes Lewton after he finds the jewel, and uses Ilsa as a hostage to get Lewton to give him the sword. Lewton tracks down Horst and finds him in a heavy argument with Carlotta, about to kill her. Lewton saves Carlotta and kills Horst, but turns her over to the Watch before confronting and defeating Nylonathatep. At the end, Lewton convinces Ilsa to leave with Two-Conkers rather than stay with him. ===== At the beginning of the story, the mouse Hermux Tantamoq is a watchmaker in Pinchester, a Manhattan-like metropolis inhabited by rodents, birds, and mustelids. He is hired by aircraft-pilot Linka Perflinger (another mouse) to mend her wristwatch. When the watch is requested, without Linka's permission, by a criminal rat, Hermux refuses to hand it over, and later witnesses Linka's capture by similar rats, who are working on behalf of antagonist Dr. Hiril Mennus. Investigating this, Hermux learns that Mennus, in partnership with sub-antagonist Tucka Mertslin, seeks to patent a rejuvenation formula obtained by Linka's client, Dr. Turfip Dandiffer. Assisted by the mole journalist Pup Schoonagliffen (Mennus in disguise), Hermux infiltrates Mennus' clinic, but is himself captured; whereupon Mennus places Hermux and Linka in a mousetrap to die. To maintain control of Tucka Mertslin, Mennus memorizes and destroys the formula; but by an inept use thereof, reduces himself to infancy. Hermux and Linka are thereafter rescued by Dr. Dandiffer's sponsor, Ortolina Perriflot. Some days later, Hermux approaches Linka, intending to propose marriage, but finds her already engaged to Dandiffer. Later, he uses the remnant formula to restore the eyesight of his friend Mirrin Sentrill. ===== The Leonardo da Vinci portrait Head of a Woman (c. 1508) is portrayed in the film as a depiction of Danielle In 19th century France, the Grande Dame summons the Brothers Grimm to discuss their interpretation of “Cinderella”, showing them a glass slipper and telling the story of Danielle de Barbarac: In 1502 Renaissance-era France, eight-year-old Danielle is the daughter of Auguste de Barbarac, a wealthy widower. He brings home his new wife, the Baroness Rodmilla de Ghent, and her daughters Marguerite and Jacqueline, and gives Danielle a copy of Sir Thomas More's Utopia. As he departs for business two weeks later (a fortnight) Auguste suffers a fatal heart attack just as he is approaching the gate, and delivers his dying declaration of love to Danielle, sparking Rodmilla's jealousy. Ten years later, the de Barbarac manor is in debt under Rodmilla's negligence and expensive lifestyle. Danielle is forced to work as her step-family’s servant, mistreated by Rodmilla and Marguerite. She stops a man stealing her father's horse, only to realize he is Prince Henry of France, who gives her 20 gold francs. Fleeing a marriage arranged by his parents, King Francis and Queen Marie, to Princess Gabriella of Spain, Henry is caught after stopping to help Leonardo da Vinci recover the Mona Lisa from gypsy bandits and returns home. Disguising herself as a noblewoman, Danielle takes the gold to buy back her family servant Maurice, whom Rodmilla sold into slavery. Henry witnesses the argument between Danielle and the slave cart driver and intervenes, although not recognising Danielle. Intrigued by her, Henry orders Maurice's release and begs for her name; Danielle lies and gives the name of her late mother, Comtesse Nicole de Lancret. King Francis announces a masquerade ball, where Henry must choose a bride by midnight or wed Gabriella, leading Rodmilla to scheme to marry Marguerite to Henry. Danielle’s friend Gustave tells Henry where the "Comtesse de Lancret" lives, forcing her to run home and change clothes in time to accompany Henry to a Franciscan monastery’s library. They are accosted by the gypsies, whom Danielle impresses into inviting her and Henry to their camp, where she and the prince share their first kiss. The next day, Danielle defies Rodmilla and Marguerite, who steal her late mother's dress and shoes for the ball, leading Danielle to attack her stepsister. Marguerite threatens to throw Auguste's book into the fire, forcing Danielle to surrender her mother’s glass slippers, but burns the book anyway and Rodmilla has Danielle whipped. Tending to her wounds, Jacqueline bonds with Danielle. Discovering that Danielle is the mysterious courtier Henry is pursuing, Rodmilla lies to Queen Marie that the “Comtesse” is engaged. Danielle meets with Henry to confess her identity, but he interrupts that she has given his life new purpose, and returns her father’s book; Marguerite burned a copy from the library. Unable to tell him the truth, Danielle runs away. Refusing to tell Rodmilla and Marguerite where she has hidden the gown and shoes, she is locked in the pantry. Gustave finds Leonardo, who frees Danielle and makes her a pair of wings to wear with her mother's dress and slippers to the ball. There, Danielle tries again to tell Henry the truth, but Rodmilla exposes her fraud and Henry rejects her. Humiliated, Danielle runs away, leaving a slipper behind. Henry resigns himself to marrying Gabriella, but realizes she also loves someone else, and calls off the wedding. He searches for Danielle, whom Rodmilla has sold to the lecherous Pierre le Pieu. Pierre attempts to force himself on Danielle, but frees her after she threatens him with his own swords. Henry finds her, apologizing for his behavior, and proposes to her by placing the slipper on her foot. Rodmilla and her daughters are summoned by King Francis, who accuses her of lying to Queen Marie about Danielle. The queen strips Rodmilla of her title and threatens to banish her and Marguerite to the Americas. Danielle enters, now a princess, and requests a more fitting punishment: Rodmilla and Marguerite are sentenced to work as servants in the palace laundry. Jacqueline begins a romance with Laurent, the captain of the guards whom she met at the ball, and Leonardo gives the royal newlyweds a portrait of Danielle. The Grande Dame explains that Danielle was her great-great-grandmother, whose portrait hung in the university built by Henry until the outbreak of the French Revolution. She declares that while Henry and Danielle did live happily ever after, the point is that they lived. ===== Dolly Varden as painted by William Powell Frith, 1842 Gathered around the fire at the Maypole Inn, in the village of Chigwell, on an evening of foul weather in the year 1775, are John Willet, proprietor of the Maypole, and his three cronies. One of the three, Solomon Daisy, tells an ill-kempt stranger at the inn a well-known local tale of the murder of Reuben Haredale which had occurred 22 years earlier on that very day. Reuben had been the owner of the Warren, a local estate which is now the residence of Geoffrey, the deceased Reuben's brother, and Geoffrey's niece, Reuben's daughter Emma Haredale. After the murder, Reuben's gardener and steward went missing and were suspects in the crime. A body was later found and identified as that of the steward, so the gardener was assumed to be the murderer. Joe Willet, son of the Maypole proprietor, quarrels with his father because John treats 20-year-old Joe as a child. Finally having had enough of this ill-treatment, Joe leaves the Maypole and goes for a soldier, stopping to say goodbye to the woman he loves, Dolly Varden, daughter of London locksmith Gabriel Varden. Meanwhile, Edward Chester is in love with Emma Haredale. Both Edward's father, John Chester, and Emma's uncle, the Catholic Geoffrey Haredale – these two are sworn enemies – oppose the union after Sir John untruthfully convinces Geoffrey that Edward's intentions are dishonourable. Sir John intends to marry Edward to a woman with a rich inheritance, to support John's expensive lifestyle and to pay off his debtors. Edward quarrels with his father and leaves home for the West Indies. Barnaby Rudge, a simpleton,Barnaby Rudge wanders in and out of the story with his pet raven, Grip. Barnaby's mother begins to receive visits from the ill-kempt stranger, whom she feels compelled to protect. She later gives up the annuity she had been receiving from Geoffrey Haredale and, without explanation, takes Barnaby and leaves the city hoping to escape the unwanted visitor. The story advances five years to a chilly evening in early 1780. On the 27th anniversary of Reuben Haredale's murder, Solomon Daisy, winding the bell tower clock, sees a ghost in the churchyard. He reports this hair-raising event to his friends at the Maypole, and John Willet decides that Geoffrey Haredale should hear the story. He departs in a winter storm taking Hugh, hostler of the Maypole, as a guide. On the way back to the Maypole, John and Hugh are met by three men seeking the way to London. Finding that London is still 13 miles off, the men seek refuge for the night. Beds are prepared for them at the Maypole. Lord George Gordon head of the Protestant Association These visitors prove to be Lord George Gordon; his secretary, Gashford; and a servant, John Grueby. Lord George makes an impassioned speech full of anti-papist sentiment, arguing (among other things) that Catholics in the military would, given a chance, join forces with their co-religionists on the Continent and attack Britain. Next day the three depart for London, inciting anti-Catholic sentiment along the way and recruiting Protestant volunteers, from whom Ned Dennis, the hangman of Tyburn, and Simon Tappertit, former apprentice to Gabriel Varden, are chosen as leaders. Hugh, finding a handbill left at the Maypole, joins the Protestant throng which Dickens describes as "sprinkled doubtless here and there with honest zealots, but composed for the most of the very scum and refuse of London, whose growth was fostered by bad criminal laws, bad prison regulations, and the worst conceivable police." Barnaby and his mother have been living quietly in a country village, their whereabouts unknown despite Geoffrey Haredale's attempts to find them. The mysterious stranger finds them and sends Stagg, the blind man, to attempt to get money from them. Barnaby and his mother then fled to London, hoping to lose their pursuer again. When Barnaby and his mother arrive at Westminster Bridge, they see an unruly crowd heading for a meeting on the Surrey side of the river. Barnaby is duped into joining them, despite his mother's pleas. The rioters then march on Parliament and burn several Catholic churches and the homes of Catholic families. A detachment led by Hugh and Dennis head for Chigwell, intent on exacting revenge on Geoffrey Haredale, leaving Barnaby to guard The Boot, the tavern they use as their headquarters. The mob loots the Maypole on their way to the Warren, which they burn to the ground. Emma Haredale and Dolly Varden (now Emma's companion) are taken captive by the rioters. Soldiers take Barnaby prisoner and held in Newgate, which the mob plans to storm. Haredale captures the mysterious stranger haunting Mrs. Rudge at the smoldering ruins of the Warren. He turns out to be Barnaby Rudge Sr., the steward who had murdered Reuben Haredale and his gardener years earlier. It is revealed that he had switched clothes with the dead gardener to divert suspicion from himself. The rioters capture Gabriel Varden, with the help of his wife's maid Miggs, and attempt to have the locksmith help them break into Newgate to release prisoners. He refuses and is rescued by two men, one of whom has only one arm. The rioters then burn Newgate where Barnaby and his father are being held. All of the prisoners escape, but Barnaby, his father, and Hugh are betrayed by Dennis the hangman and captured by soldiers. Dennis has changed sides, believing he will obtain the bounty offered for them as well as numerous clients needing his special talents. With the military patrolling the streets, the rioters scatter, and many are killed. The one-armed man turns out to be Joe Willet, who has returned from fighting against the American revolutionaries. Joe and Edward Chester turn out to be the rescuers of Gabriel Varden. The pair then rescue Dolly and Emma. Hugh and Dennis five minutes before execution (Book illustration) Dennis is arrested and sentenced to die with Hugh and Barnaby. Hugh and Dennis are hanged. Barnaby, through the efforts of Gabriel Varden, is pardoned. Joe and Dolly are married and become proprietors of the rebuilt Maypole. Edward Chester and Emma are married and go to the West Indies. Miggs tries to get her position back at the Varden household, is rejected, and becomes a jailer at a women's prison. Simon Tappertit, his legs crushed in the riots, becomes a shoe-black. Gashford later commits suicide. Lord George Gordon is held in the Tower and is then judged to be innocent of inciting the riots. Sir John Chester, now a member of parliament, turns out to be the father of Hugh and is killed in a duel by Geoffrey Haredale. Haredale escapes to the continent where he ends his days in a monastery. Barnaby and his mother live out their years tending a farm at the Maypole Inn where Barnaby can work effectively due to his physical strength. ===== Federal Marshal William O'Niel is assigned to a tour of duty at the titanium ore mining outpost Con-Am 27, operated by the company Continental Amalgamated on the Jovian moon of Io. Conditions on Io are difficult; gravity is 1/6 that of Earth's with no breathable atmosphere, and the spacesuits are cumbersome with limited air. Shifts are long but significant bonuses are paid. The general manager, Mark Sheppard, boasts that productivity has broken all records since he took over. Carol, O'Niel's wife, feels she cannot raise their son Paul on Io and leaves with their child to the Jupiter space station to await a shuttle back to Earth. Tarlow, a miner, suffers an attack of stimulant psychosishe sees spiders and rips open his spacesuitresulting in death by explosive decompression. Cane, another miner, enters an elevator without his spacesuit during another psychotic episode and dies from decompression. With the reluctant assistance of Dr. Lazarus, O'Niel investigates the deaths. Another incident involves a worker, Sagan, who takes a prostitute hostage and threatens to kill her with a knife. O'Niel attempts to calm the man while Montone, his sergeant, sneaks in via the air duct and kills Sagan with a shotgun. O'Niel and Lazarus discover that Sagan had traces of polydichloro euthimal, a powerful amphetamine-type drug in his bloodstream, which would allow the miners to work continuously for days at a time until they burn out and turn psychotic after approximately ten months of use. O'Niel uncovers a drug distribution ring run by a corrupt Sheppard and sanctioned by now repentant Montone. Using surveillance cameras, O'Niel finds and captures Nicholas Spota, one of Sheppard's dealers, who is murdered before he can be questioned. Montone is found garrotted. In a meat locker, O'Niel finds the latest shipment of drugs, which was shipped from the space station. He is then attacked there by another dealer, Russell Yario. O'Niel knocks him out, then destroys the shipment of drugs. When Sheppard finds out, he threatens O'Niel and contacts his drug distributor, asking him to send in professional hitmen. O'Niel is prepared, having been monitoring Sheppard's communications. O'Niel waits for the arrival of the hitmen on a supply shuttle from the other side of Jupiter. Realizing what is coming and with only Dr. Lazarus willing to help him, O'Niel sends a message to his family promising to return to Earth when his "job is done". O'Niel ambushes the hitmen one by one. Lazarus helps him kill the first by trapping him in a pressurized corridor; O'Niel activates a bomb, causing an explosive decompression that kills the hitman. The second is killed in a glass greenhouse structure of the outpost when O'Niel tricks him into shooting a window, causing it to break open and blow him out to his death by explosive decompression. O'Niel is then confronted by Sheppard's inside man - one of his deputies, Sgt. Ballard. The two fight outside the outpost near the satellite structure until O'Niel pulls Ballard's oxygen hose, suffocating him as he pushes him into an electrical generation station, vaporizing him on impact. O'Niel then confronts the surprised Sheppard inside the outpost's recreation bar, knocking him out with one punch. It is implied Sheppard will now be brought to justice or murdered by his own associates. O'Neil, however, has already contacted his superiors about Sheppard's associates, some of whom are Con-Am executives, and shortly before his departure receives a communication that warrants have been issued for their arrests. O'Niel bids farewell to Lazarus and leaves on the shuttle to join his wife and son on the journey back to Earth. ===== ===== After seven years at college, Thomas R. "Tommy" Callahan III (Chris Farley) barely graduates from Marquette University and returns to his hometown of Sandusky, Ohio. His father, industrialist and widower Thomas R. "Big Tom" Callahan, Jr. (Brian Dennehy), gives him an executive job at the family's auto parts plant, Callahan Auto. In addition to the new job and office, Big Tom reveals that he plans to marry Beverly Barrish-Burns (Bo Derek), a woman he had met at a fat farm, and that her son, Paul (Rob Lowe), will become Tommy's new stepbrother. However, Big Tom dies from a sudden heart attack during the wedding reception. After the funeral, doubting the future of the company without Big Tom, the bank reneges on promises of a loan for a new brake pad division and seeks immediate payment of Callahan Auto's debts. Tommy suggests a deal: he will let the bank hold his few inherited shares and house in exchange for the bank giving time to sell enough brake pads to prove the new division's viability. If enough brake pads are sold by the deadline, the bank will grant the loan. Tommy then sets out on a cross-country sales trip with his father's sycophantic assistant, Richard Hayden (David Spade), a childhood acquaintance who is annoyed over Tommy's ability to be lazy and yet be rewarded. Meanwhile, Beverly and Paul are shown kissing romantically. They are not mother and son, but rather married con artists with criminal records. Instead of eventually suing for divorce and taking half of Big Tom's estate, Beverly has inherited controlling interest in the company. To turn that into cash, she seeks a quick sale to self-described "auto parts king" Ray Zalinsky (Dan Aykroyd). On the road, Tommy's social anxiety and hyperactivity alienate several potential buyers. The lack of any progress leads to tension between Tommy and Richard. When all hope seems lost, Tommy persuades a surly waitress to serve him after the kitchen has closed and Richard suggests he use his skill at reading people’s minds to make sales. The two start to become friends and quickly make their sales goal. However, Paul sabotages the company's computers, causing sales posted by sales manager Michelle Brock (Julie Warner) to be either lost or rerouted. With half of the sales now canceled, the bank (now backed by Beverly and Paul) decides to sell Callahan Auto to Zalinsky. Hoping that they can persuade Zalinsky to reconsider, Tommy and Richard travel to Chicago boarding a plane posing as flight attendants. In Chicago, they get a brief meeting with Zalinsky, but he tells them he wants only the reputation connected with the Callahan brand and will close down the company and lay off its workers. Tommy and Richard are denied entrance to the Zalinsky board room since Tommy has no standing. As they wallow on the curb in self-pity, Michelle arrives with Paul and Beverly's police records. Tommy devises a plan: dressed as a suicide bomber by using road flares, he attracts the attention of a live television news crew and then, along with Michelle and Richard, forces his way back into the board room. Back in Sandusky, Callahan workers watch the drama on a television. In a final move of pure persuasion, Tommy quotes Zalinsky's own advertising slogan, that he is on the side of the "American working man." As the TV audience watches, Zalinsky signs Tommy's purchase order for 500,000 brake pads. Although Zalinsky says that the purchase order is meaningless as he will soon own Callahan Auto, Michelle shows her police records, which includes Paul's outstanding warrants for fraud. Since Beverly is still married to Paul, her marriage to Big Tom was bigamous and therefore never legal. Thus, all of Big Tom's controlling shares actually belong to Tommy, the rightful heir. Since Tommy does not want to sell the shares, the deal with Zalinsky is off, and since Tommy still holds Zalinsky's purchase order, the company is saved. Paul attempts to escape, but is arrested. Zalinsky admits that Tommy outplayed him and invites Beverly to dinner. The film ends as Tommy is appointed the president of Callahan Auto and starts a romance with Michelle. ===== A vast lake, known as Lake Agassiz, covered much of North Dakota, Manitoba and Minnesota during prehistoric times. The story begins when farmer Tom Lasker and his son, Will, uncover a seemingly brand new yacht. Found on a landlocked farm, it draws tourists to the area. Max Collingswood, a friend of Tom's, tries to help discover the origins of the boat. Collingswood enlists April Cannon, a worker at a chemical lab who discovers that the yacht is made of an unknown material. In fact, it is a fiberglass-like material with an impossible atomic number (161). Collingswood and Cannon discover something else on a nearby ridge which is part of a Sioux reservation. The Sioux assist in its excavation and examination. It turns out to be a green glassy roundhouse-like structure, made from the same material. Eventually, they gain access to it, revealing a dock for the sailboat, but no entrance for it. The discovery that the structure contains the means to access other sites not on Earth sets off a struggle between the Government and the Reservation for control of it. ===== An elderly man (Bruce Campbell) at The Shady Rest Retirement Home in East Texas is known to the staff as Sebastian Haff, but claims to be the real Elvis Presley. He explains that during the 1970s, he grew tired of the demands of his fame and switched places with an Elvis impersonator named Sebastian Haff (also Campbell). He claims it was Haff who eventually died in 1977, while he, the real Elvis, lived in quiet, happy anonymity and made a living pretending to be himself. After a propane explosion destroyed documentation which was the only proof that he was actually Elvis, he was unable to return to his old life. A hip injury during a performance causes him to get an infection and slip into a coma. Twenty years later, living at the retirement home as the film opens, he is contemplating his age, frailty, loss of dignity, impotence, and "a growth on [his] pecker". Elvis's only friend is a black man named Jack (Ossie Davis) who insists he is President John F. Kennedy, claiming to have been dyed black after an assassination attempt, and abandoned by Lyndon Johnson in a nursing home. Initially skeptical of Jack's story, Elvis does spot a mysterious scar on the back of Jack's head. It could be from the head wound seen in the Zapruder film, but then it might not be. Eventually, Elvis and Jack face off against a re-animated ancient Egyptian mummy that was stolen during a U.S. museum tour, and then lost during a severe storm in East Texas when the thieves' bus veered into a river near the nursing home. The mummy strangely takes on the garb of a cowboy and feeds on the souls of the residents of the home. It is dubbed 'Bubba Ho-Tep' by Elvis, who is given a telepathic flashback of the mummy's life and death when he looks into its eyes. The slow, plodding mummy is a real and credible threat, as instead of going against young adults who could potentially outrun or overpower it, the mummy gives chase to the elderly. Jack and Elvis lack mobility and need a motorized wheelchair and a walker to get around the grounds. Elvis and Jack create an elaborate plan to destroy the mummy. Destruction of the mummy would release the trapped souls of their dead friends, and they would be able to go to their final resting place. Elvis and Jack battle the mummy in the middle of the night, with Jack in an electric wheelchair and Elvis wielding a makeshift flamethrower. Jack is knocked out of his wheelchair by the mummy and is about to have his soul sucked. Elvis hops in the wheelchair, crashes into the mummy to save Jack, and damages the flamethrower, getting a large gash in his abdomen in the process. Jack dies from a heart attack. Elvis becomes committed to getting rid of the mummy, and douses it with gasoline before throwing a match at it, incinerating the mummy. Elvis lies on a hill near the river bank, dying from the blood loss from the gash and broken ribs. He talks in his mind about how he doesn't fear death, knowing that he still had his soul and that he saved all of the fellow people at the Shady Rest Retirement Home. As he reflects upon this, the stars align into a message for Elvis, saying: "all is well". With a dying "Thank you, thank you very much", Elvis passes away. ===== A New Wave fashion show is to be held in a crowded Manhattan nightclub. Among the models are bisexual, cocaine-addicted Margaret and her similarly cocaine-addicted nemesis Jimmy. Margaret's drug-dealing girlfriend, Adrian, is constantly hassled by Jimmy because he does not have the money to pay for more drugs. A small UFO lands on the roof of the penthouse apartment occupied by Margaret and Adrian. Jimmy accompanies Margaret home before the show, but he's actually trying to find Adrian's drugs. Margaret is being watched by a tiny, shapeless alien from inside the UFO. Margaret and Jimmy return to the club to participate in the show. During preparations, both agree to a photo shoot the following night on Margaret's rooftop. They are assured that there will be plenty of cocaine available at the shoot. Jimmy's mother, Sylvia, a television producer, lives in the building across from Margaret's penthouse. German scientist Johann Hoffman has been secretly observing the aliens from the Empire State Building. Johann needs somewhere to continue his surveillance when the observation deck closes. He seeks help from the only person he knows in the U.S., college drama teacher Owen, who is on his way to meet a former student. Seeking a vantage point on his own, Johann stumbles into Sylvia's building. Sylvia, who has a free evening, invites him to her apartment for dinner. Across town, Katherine states her objection to the heroin use of her boyfriend, failed writer and addict Paul. Margaret is seduced by Owen, her former acting professor. Then she is coerced into sex by Paul, Adrian's client. Paul had returned to seduce Margaret after walking out on a party held by Katherine when she insisted he pull himself together and help greet her business clients. The people who have sexual relations and reach orgasm with Margaret promptly die, with a crystal protruding from their head. Margaret realizes she can kill people by having sex with them. From Sylvia's apartment, Johann continues his observation between dinner and dodging Sylvia's attempts to seduce him. Adrian arrives home and helps Margaret hide Owen's body. Later the crew arrives at the apartment for the fashion shoot. During the shoot Margaret is taunted by Jimmy, so she agrees to have sex with him knowing it will kill him. Later, a vengeful Margaret reconnects with a soap opera actor who had raped her the night of the nightclub fashion show. Johann reveals that the alien is extracting the endorphins produced by the brain when an orgasm occurs. Margaret survives because she never experiences an orgasm. Margaret finally learns of the aliens from Johann, whom she stabs to death, something Sylvia witnesses through a telescope. Seeing the alien craft leaving, Margaret injects herself with heroin to induce a wild autoerotic orgasm to ensure the aliens take her with them. Sylvia and Katherine arrive at the apartment together and reach the penthouse in time to see Margaret vaporized and taken aboard by the aliens. ===== Libby Parsons (Ashley Judd) and her husband Nick (Bruce Greenwood) are wealthy residents of Whidbey Island, Washington. With her best friend, Angela Green (Annabeth Gish) offering to look after their 4-year-old son, Matty (Benjamin Weir), Libby and Nick go sailing for the weekend. After a romantic day, Libby falls asleep. She awakens to find blood everywhere and her husband missing. The Coast Guard patrol, having received a distress call from Nick, arrives and finds Libby holding a bloody knife on deck. Even with Nick's body unaccounted for, Libby is arrested, tried, and convicted of murder. Libby asks Angela to look after Matty while she is in prison. At first, Angela brings Matty to see Libby in prison, but the visits eventually cease and Angela disappears with Matty. Libby tracks Angela to San Francisco and calls her. In the midst of their conversation, Nick is seen entering their apartment as Matty yells, "Daddy!" right before the line goes dead. Libby realizes that Nick faked his death and framed her, leaving Matty as the sole beneficiary of his life insurance policy. After unsuccessfully attempting to get investigative help, a fellow inmate tells Libby to get paroled for good behavior by falsely claiming remorse for "killing" Nick. Once free, Libby can kill Nick with impunity due to the Double Jeopardy Clause in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. After six years, Libby is paroled to a halfway house, under the close supervision of parole officer Travis Lehman (Tommy Lee Jones), a former law professor whose wife left him due to his alcoholism. To search for Nick, Libby violates curfew and breaks into Matty's old school on Whidbey Island to get Angela's records. Libby is caught. As Lehman is delivering Libby back to prison via a car ferry, he handcuffs her to the car door handle while he goes up top. As he left the car keys, Libby maneuvers the car back and forth trying to knock off the door handle. Lehman returns and the car goes overboard as they struggle. Lehman uncuffs Libby and she is able to swim ashore while ferry crew rescues Lehman. Libby flees to her family's mid-west farm where her mother gives her cash to enable her to search for Nick and Matty. Libby discovers that Angela recently died in Colorado in a home gas explosion, likely an accident staged by Nick. A clue leads her to New Orleans where she finds Nick running a small luxury hotel under the alias, Jonathan Devereaux. Libby confronts Nick during a fund-raising auction at his hotel. She demands he return Matty in exchange for her walking away. Nick says he faked his death to collect insurance, as his business was going under. Libby discounts his claims he never believed she would go to jail. Lehman arrives in New Orleans to warn "Jonathan" (Nick) that Libby believes he is her dead husband and plans to kill him. Meanwhile, Libby evades police. Nick agrees to bring Matty to Libby and arranges to meet in Lafayette Cemetery No. 3. He uses a decoy boy to distract Libby, knocks her unconscious, and locks her in a casket inside a mausoleum. Using a handgun snatched from Lehman, Libby shoots off the casket's hinges and escapes. Lehman now believes Libby's story and obtains Nick's photo through the Washington State DMV. After intercepting Libby as she makes her way to Nick's hotel, the two team up. Lehman visits Nick in his office saying he knows Nick's true identity and claims he wants money to remain silent. He secretly tape records Nick's remarks implying he murdered Libby, the only witness to his previous life; Libby enters, holding Nick at gunpoint. Nick is given a choice of surrendering to the authorities or a vengeful Libby shooting him, who says she will go free because of double jeopardy. Nick pulls out a hidden gun and shoots Lehman, and fires at Libby. Lehman pulls out his gun, but Nick overpowers him until Libby shoots Nick dead. Lehman promises to help Libby get fully pardoned, and they later travel to Matty's boarding school in Georgia. Matty (Spencer Treat Clark), now eleven years old, recognizes his mother and they reunite. ===== Francis "Frank" Wyatt (Emilio Estevez), his brother John (Stephen Dorff), with their friends Mike Peterson (Cuba Gooding Jr.) and Ray Cochran (Jeremy Piven), who agrees to drive them in his luxurious RV and watch a professional boxing match in Chicago for the night. With the freeway gridlocked, Ray exits the expressway and cuts through a poor residential neighborhood. The four friends are alarmed when they accidentally hit a man named Teddy (Michael DeLorenzo) with Ray's RV and are doubly alarmed when they find that he has been shot. Teddy also has a paper bag filled with stolen drug money. The group notice a police car, which they rush after for help. Suddenly the RV is sideswiped by a Cadillac, which leaves the RV hopelessly stuck in a narrow alleyway, upsetting Ray who now realizes that he'll now have to payback the RV in full. Moments later three gangsters Rhodes (Everlast), Travis (Michael Wiseman), and Sykes (Peter Greene) force their way into the RV; they drag Teddy outside warning the group that they would be killed if they try to stop them. Fallon (Denis Leary), a local crime lord for whom the hoods work and from whom Teddy stole the money shows up. He executes Teddy point-blank with his pistol, and then decides to kill the RV's other four occupants who have now just become witnesses to Teddy's murder. The Wyatt brothers and both of their friends escape through the front windshield of the RV, which is now set on fire by Frank in order to slow down the gangsters. Mike, Ray, and the Wyatts are chased by Fallon's hoods into a rail yard. They hide in an old streetcar in which several bums are using for a homeless shelter. The bums demand payment, or they'll alert Fallon and his men to their presence. The group hand over their spare cash and jewelry as well as Frank's wallet and Mike's jacket to their new "hosts". The hoods overhear one of the homeless men freaking out, and recognize Mike's jacket. While Ray and Mike flee along with the Wyatt brothers, Fallon massacres several bums before noticing his mistake. He also discovers Frank's residential address as well as his full name and that he has a wife and daughter, by taking his wallet off a slaughtered bum. Taking refuge in an apartment building, the four friends are noticed by some local kids who unfortunately are on Fallon's payroll. Mike, Ray, and the Wyatt brothers look for a phone to contact the police; but the tenants are too scared of Fallon to help. They approach a woman who is throwing out her garbage and convinces her to let them in. She has a young daughter and another adult woman in the apartment. They call the police, but they are taking too long to come. Sure enough, Fallon's henchmen soon barge into the apartment complex, kicking open doors and terrorizing the tenants for the group's location. Frank, Mike and John decide they must leave the apartment so that they don't put this woman and her family in danger. Ray, who is obviously scared, says that he's not leaving. He proceeds to pull a gun on his friends and threatens to kill them if they leave. Mike is very shocked and angry to learn that he had a gun this entire time, and is now pulling it on them. Ray sobs and is talked into giving the gun to Frank. The woman tells the four friends that there is an escape route to another building through the roof. They leave as Fallon and his gang are still terrorizing the other tenants. Mike and both of the Wyatts use a ladder that was setup by the street kids to cross over to the other rooftop. Ray, who has a phobia of heights, can't bring himself to follow. Instead, he attempts to bargain for his life and that of the group with the promise of money, Fallon later reveals to Ray that he hates him and his friends for their privileged lifestyle and that no amount of money will stop him and his henchman from the pursuit, he then kills Ray by throwing him off the rooftop. The trio are chased into the sewers by Fallon and his henchmen. At one point, Mike says that they have to stop running, take a stand, and fight. Armed with pipes, they wait for the bad guys in the sewer. Sykes, Fallon's aide-de-camp, almost shoots Mike. But Frank jumps him and in the end, Mike winds up shooting Sykes to his chagrin because he thought he didn't have the guts to do it. The three then climb out of the sewer. Fallon and his other two men come across Sykes’ dead body and Travis starts to complain that the chase is no longer worth it. This angers Fallon who doesn't want to hear his “whining” and proceeds to clock him in the face and drowns him. Meanwhile, Mike berates John for almost getting him killed back in the sewer as he didn't have his back like he said he would. He froze and that's why Frank was the one who had to subdue Sykes. Frank comes to his little brother's defense and Mike backs down as he calls him “boss”. They then take refuge in an abandoned building, John cries that he is scared. Frank tries to console him, Mike just looks on from afar, then proceeds to call Frank “boss” again and says that the street is clear. Frank tells Mike to cool it with the “boss” stuff. They soon see a bus and try to flag the driver down, but the bus driver refuses to stop. This prompts Mike to start shooting at the bus. Frank tells him to stop because he's going to give them away and get them killed. Mike punches Frank. Frank yells that he has a wife and a baby to get back to. Frank and John start to leave and Mike calls after them to wait for him. The trio than break into a swap meet, hoping to summon the police by setting off the building's alarm. This alerts over two security guards to arrest them, but the group is happy to see them and begin to think that the ordeal is over and that they are home- free. One guard goes to turn off the alarm and to call the cops, but he is met with Fallon who kills him. Fallon's other lieutenant, Rhodes, proceeds to kill the second security guard who is still arresting the group. Rhodes kills the guard and thus begins a deadly game of cat and mouse, Rhodes eventually shoots Mike but not before Mike gets two shots into Rhodes himself. Rhodes tries to finish Mike off, but his wounds proves to be too much, and he falls down and dies. John retrieves Mike, but Fallon shoots John in the leg. The three friends make their way to a bathroom where Frank tries to patch his brother and Mike up. Frank leaves to try to get help, but spots Fallon, who is about to discover John and Mike in the bathroom closet. Frank distracts Fallon and later sneaks up behind Fallon to attempt to choke Fallon to death with his belt, but Fallon was able to get off of Frank's grip on him and a fight ensues. Fallon wins the fight, but then starts telling Frank that he will visit his house to kill his wife and daughter after he kills him. This enrages Frank who overpowers Fallon and throws him off a ledge to his death. Soon after Frank checks Fallon's body to be sure that he is dead. The police arrive and attempt to arrest Frank, but Frank successfully convinces the police that he is the victim. Mike and John are rushed to a hospital with the paramedics telling Frank that both are expected to survive their wounds, Frank then receives his wallet back from a police officer who comments that he has a good looking family. ===== In the game, you decide the fate of the entire Galactic Federation. The aggressors from the planet Velian, having new weapons that make them almost invincible, are trying to destroy the Federation and capture all of its colonies. The Velians are ruthless to those who are trying to get in their way. They calmly burn entire planets if they show resistance. The player will have to go from the cadet of the Training Center of the Air Force of the Federation to one of the best Air Force aces, who is assigned the most difficult tasks. ===== Gex is a gecko who has a passion for television which makes him a target for the cybernetic being Emperor Rez. Emperor Rez is determined to overthrow The Media Dimension, the "world" of television. ===== A former nude model and prostitute, Ruth is manageress of a London drinking club frequented by racing drivers and lives in a flat above with her illegitimate son, Andy. Another child is in the custody of her estranged husband's family. In the club she meets David, an immature young man from a well-off family who wants to succeed in motor racing but suffers from lack of money and overuse of alcohol. Ruth falls for his looks and charm, but it is a doomed relationship: without a job, he cannot afford to marry her and his family would never accept her. When he makes a drunken scene in the club, she is discharged from her job, which also means that she is made homeless. A wealthy admirer secures a flat for her and her son but she still sees David. When she tells him she is pregnant, he does nothing about it and she miscarries. Distraught, she goes to a house in Hampstead where she believes David is at a party. He comes out and goes with a girl to a pub. Ruth waits outside the pub and, when he emerges, shoots him dead with four shots. She is arrested, tried and hanged. ===== =====