From Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ===== The cartoon starts with balloon people who make two balloon kids, a boy and a girl. The kids walk into a balloon forest. A tree scares them. We then see the Pincushion Man popping balloon rocks and trees. The two kids see the Pincushion Man and escape to sound the alarm. Balloon people run around and the kids run to the mayor's office, who says "HOLY SMOKES!". Balloon soldiers are made and try their best, but the villain pops some of them. He then pops a balloon caterpillar before the soldiers defeat him with balls of gum, rolling him off a precipice and sending him falling to his death. With the Pincushion Man gone, the two celebrate. ===== ===== In a hotel room, a young prostitute, identified in the credits as the "Lost Girl", cries following an unpleasant encounter with her client while watching a television show about a family of surrealistic anthropomorphic rabbits who speak in cryptic statements and questions. A gramophone plays Axxon N., "the longest-running radio play in history". Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, actress Nikki Grace (Laura Dern) auditions for the lead role in the film On High in Blue Tomorrows. Nikki is visited by a Polish woman (Grace Zabriskie) who claims to be her neighbor. The woman tells Nikki "an old tale": a boy passed through the doorway into the world, causing a reflection that gave birth to evil that followed him. Then she tells "the variation": a girl was lost in the marketplace "as if half-born" while the alley behind the marketplace was the way to the palace. The woman predicts that Nikki will get the role, and asks her if her character is married and if the plot involves murder. Nikki denies both, but her neighbor disagrees. The next day, Nikki celebrates having won the role as her husband Piotrek (Peter J. Lucas) watches her. Nikki meets the film's lead actor Devon Berk (Justin Theroux) and the two begin a relationship, though Devon is warned by his entourage that Nikki is out of bounds due to her husband's power and influence. Later, during a rehearsal, the crew is interrupted by a disturbance. Devon investigates, but finds nothing. Shaken by the event, director Kingsley Stewart (Jeremy Irons) confesses that they are shooting a remake of a German feature entitled 47. Production was abandoned after both leads were murdered, creating rumors of the film being cursed. One day, Nikki finds a door marked "Axxon N." in an alley behind the set. Upon entering, she finds herself at the rehearsal weeks before, and she causes the noise that Devon investigated that day. Nikki escapes into the home of a character named "Smithy". Devon looks through the windows, but sees only darkness. In the house, Nikki finds Piotrek in bed and hides from him in a closet, where she encounters a troupe of prostitutes who advise her to burn a hole through silk with a cigarette and look through the hole. Nikki complies and sees one of the film's characters, "Doris Side" (Julia Ormond), tell a policeman that she had been hypnotized by a man known as "The Phantom" to murder someone with a screwdriver, but finds the screwdriver embedded in her own side. A mysterious organization claims to have captives from Inland Empire. In 1930s Łódź, prostitutes are beaten by pimps while murder permeates the city. Nikki, having become one of the group of present-day prostitutes, wanders the streets while her companions ask, "Who is she?" Nikki asks several men if they had met her. Meanwhile, Nikki's character "Sue" meets a policeman at a nightclub and tells him how she was abused in her childhood, which led to her prostitution, and how she is being pursued by a red-lipped man; Sue arms herself with a screwdriver in response. She also mentions her husband Smithy, a circus bear tamer with connections to both the pimps and the organization. Sue walks down Hollywood Boulevard and sees Nikki, but is attacked by Doris, who was hypnotized by the Phantom to kill her. Doris stabs Sue with her own screwdriver, and Sue falls at a bus stop, where two homeless women talk about a prostitute named Niko, a beautiful woman whose blond wig makes her look like a movie star, thus allowing her to walk through the rich district without drawing attention. One of the women holds a lighter in front of Sue's face until she dies. Kingsley yells "Cut!" and the camera pans back to show this has merely been a film scene. Kingsley informs Nikki that her scenes for the film are complete. In a daze, Nikki wanders off set and into a nearby cinema, where she sees not only On High in Blue Tomorrows but events that are occurring. She wanders to the projection room but finds an apartment building marked "Axxon N". Nikki confronts the red-lipped man, now known to be the Phantom and shoots him. The Phantom transforms into a deformed version of Nikki, and then into a bloodied figure before dying. Nikki flees into Room 47, which houses the rabbits on television, though she fails to see them. She then meets the Lost Girl and they kiss. Nikki and the rabbits disappear in a white light and the Lost Girl escapes from the hotel and into Smithy's house, where she happily embraces her husband and son. Nikki, back at home, smiles victoriously at the Polish woman and finds a one-legged woman (Tracy Ashton) that Sue had mentioned, Niko the prostitute and a monkey. The end credits roll over a group of women dancing to Nina Simone's "Sinner Man" while a lumberjack saws a log to the beat. ===== A woman (Lanell Cado) steps out of a shower and is attacked and strangled to death by a mysterious man as a clock ticks, then stops. Later (or possibly before) in Yucca Flats, Nevada, Soviet scientist Joseph Javorsky (Johnson) has defected from the USSR and arrives in America with a briefcase carrying various military secrets, including the Soviet moon landing. Javorsky and his American contacts are suddenly attacked by a pair of KGB assassins (Cardoza and John Morrison) killing Javorsky's contacts and bodyguards. Javorsky flees into the desert, walking for a great distance, and the searing heat causes him to discard much of his clothing. When he wanders in range of an American nuclear test, the bewildered Russian is transformed by it into a mindless beast with an uncontrollable urge to kill. He proceeds to murder a couple in their car on a nearby road, prompting pursuit from police officers Jim Archer (Stafford) and Joe Dobson (Aten). Meanwhile, a vacationing family ventures along the same road. After stopping at a service station, the family's two young sons (Ronald and Alan Francis) wander off into the surrounding desert where they eventually encounter and escape from the mutated Javorsky. Their father (Douglas Mellor) searches for them, but is mistaken for the killer by one of the police officers, who is searching for the murderer from the air in a small plane. The officer opens fire with a high-powered rifle on the innocent man, who manages to escape. Eventually, the family is reunited and the police shoot and mortally wound Javorsky. A jackrabbit later nuzzles his dying body, and using the last of his strength, he caresses it before dying. ===== At a science museum the family is visiting, Bart runs into Ralph Wiggum, who is in the process of being pushed into a giant ear by Kearney, Jimbo, Nelson, and Dolph. When Ralph is freed by a museum employee, Marge and Chief Wiggum are there to meet him. Marge observes that Ralph has a vivid imagination and learns that he has no friends to play with; she arranges a play-date for Ralph to spend time with a horrified Bart, who fears that being seen with Ralph will damage his reputation. During their play-date, Bart and Ralph walk into Ralph's father's closet, consisting of various police utilities and records before Wiggum, initially forbidding them to enter the closet, allows them to play with the items. Bart then sees Wiggum toss aside a police master key capable of opening any door in Springfield. Bart and Ralph thus steal the key and decide to enter several closed stores at night. After encountering Nelson and his gang, the boys go to a condemned penitentiary. When Ralph objects because he is afraid, the bullies leave, but not before tossing the key into the penitentiary. Ralph and Bart enter the prison to retrieve the key, and in the process stumble onto a room housing an old electric chair. After testing out the chair, the two flee when an elderly guard approaches. At the Simpsons' home, Bart and Ralph discover that the penitentiary will once again be used by the town, and remember that they forgot to disable the power. Unaware that the power is now active, Mayor Quimby straps himself into the electric chair in a publicity attempt. After failing to call the penitentiary, Ralph then tells Bart that Lisa can probably figure out a way to warn the Mayor. She decides to launch a model rocket with a warning message attached and aims it toward the penitentiary. However, the rocket is blown off-course and crashes through Mr. Burns' office window. As Quimby is getting electrocuted by the chair, Mr. Burns reads the note and disables the penitentiary's power, barely saving Quimby from getting killed. In the aftermath, the Simpsons congratulate Ralph, for pointing out that Lisa could solve the problem. Lisa objects but joins in after Bart points out that Ralph deserves some credit. ===== On a freezing planet, a team of 12 Xeno Project archaeologists and scientists are excavating the ruins of an ancient civilisation. They discover a cave system containing wall markings and crystals of unknown origin. During a survey, a mysterious explosion cripples photographer Dean White and injures Ricky Williams. Deciphering the wall markings, exolinguist Mitch theorises that the civilisation was based on a concept of dualism: the planet orbits a binary star and seems to have been ruled by twins. Medical assistant Sharon discovers that the crystals are surrounded by an energy field and suggests that the civilisation was controlled by a form of chemical intelligence. A crystal sample begins to pulsate, causing the intelligence to take control of Ricky through a wound on his arm. In his delusional state, he is compelled to leave the team's base and re-enter the caves. He throws Gail into a pile of twisted metal, damaging her environmental suit and trapping her foot. Desperate to free herself, Gail removes her helmet and tries to amputate her foot with a chainsaw, but instead freezes to death in the planet's toxic atmosphere. Documentation officer Kate Carson shoots Ricky with a harpoon gun before he unseals the airlock and evacuates the base's breathable air. Ricky and Gail are buried outside the base. Later, Mitch and Sandy return to the caves to collect more crystals. A monstrous alien creature appears and dismembers Mitch before raping Sandy. Sandy is taken back to base and treated by the team's doctor, Karl, who discovers that the rape has triggered an accelerated pregnancy. When further underground explosions block off the caves, the survivors are left with nothing to do but await pick-up by Xeno. The intelligence takes over Sandy, giving her superhuman strength. She stabs Barbra to death with a pair of scissors and mutilates Dean and the remains of Mitch, drinking their blood. The rest of the team take refuge in the control room as Sandy uses explosives to blow up the base transmitter. When Sandy's psychosis appears to subside, Karl, Sharon and Commander Holly McKay attempt sedation. However, Sandy reverts to her former state, kills Karl and Holly and disembowels their corpses. Mark radios Sandy from the control room to distract her while Kate and Gary arm themselves with chainsaws from a storage room. The ruse is uncovered and Sandy harpoons Gary outside the airlock, breathing the atmosphere to no ill effect as she feeds on his flesh. She then re-enters the base and gives birth to hybrid twins. Mark stumbles across the newborns and leaves them with Sharon as Sandy blows up the door to the control room and proceeds to smash all the equipment inside. She then wounds Kate with another explosive charge and kills her. In a last fight to the death, Mark strangles Sandy with a length of cable. He returns to Sharon to find one of the twins drinking from her torn-out throat, then comes face to face with its equally bloodthirsty sibling. Twenty-eight days later, a Xeno shuttle lands on the planet to investigate the loss of contact with the team. With the base in ruins and its occupants either dead or missing, commandos Corin and Roy abandon the search for survivors and shuttle pilot Jeff radios Xeno control for clearance to return. The final shots reveal that the twins have stowed away inside a storage compartment on board the shuttle. ===== Set in the fictional New England town of the same name, Bizenghast focuses on fifteen-year-old Dinah Wherever. Her parents' car crash leaves her orphaned at a young age, and as a result, she moves in with her aunt. Dinah can see the ghosts which haunt her aunt's house, which was a hospital and later a boarding school; however, her aunt and doctor believe that she suffers from schizophrenia. One day, she and her only friend, Vincent Monroe, sneak out of her aunt's house to search for materials for his garden. They stumble across an ancient mausoleum, and after Dinah reads aloud from a plaque, she discovers that her name is written on a contract which binds her to return to the mausoleum every night to free the ghosts. If she succeeds, she will win her freedom and a reward. If she fails, she will die and stay in the mausoleum as a corpse. For every ten ghosts appeased, Dinah and Vincent get a tower guard to help with their task. Over the course of the series, they meet two of the guards: Edaniel, a grinning cat-like creature, and his brother Edrear, who secretly likes Dinah. Vincent dies while in one of the vaults, causing Dinah to become depressed. Later, the hooded angel, which normally guards the entrance to the mausoleum, appears as two stones that talk to Dinah and help her overcome the depression which resulted from Vincent's death. Dinah continues searching the vaults and discovers that Edaniel and Edrear's sister, Eniri, is missing, and that the seed of the mausoleum—its link to the Host in the afterlife—has been stolen. Additionally, Edaniel and Edrear's other sister, Elala, is found dead. After Edaniel and Edrear lock down the mausoleum, they send Dinah home and she discovers that Maphohetka, a girl hanged for witchcraft and who now as a ghost can control minds in the real world, is manipulating Eniri and the townspeople. Unsuccessful in her attempt to stop her, Dinah flees to the mausoleum and receives a special outfit melted from the gold tolls that she and Vincent paid to gain access to the mausoleum. Returning, she confronts Maphohetka, who then orders Edaniel to kill her. In the ensuing battle, Dinah faces off against her former friend, accidentally decapitating Edaniel in the process. An enraged Edrear attempts to kill her, but eventually halts when Dinah points out that he's crying for his brother, something that he's normally unable to do and that's being caused by Maphohetka's influence. Knowing that he's been compromised, Edrear stabs himself with his own sword, leaving Dinah to mourn him and share one kiss. Maphohetka, taking the opportunity, destroys Dinah's scythe (the only thing she had that could potentially kill her) and ends up mutating into a large monster. After Dinah is captured in Maphohetka's body, she happens upon the entity's core, which is Maphohetka's decayed corpse. Using Eniri's bracelet to see into the monster, she finds that a piece of the cross Maphohetka was stabbed with during her hanging is still lodged in her chest, allowing Dinah to conclude that the piece is what keeps the evil spirit anchored in the living world. Dinah removes the cross shard, causing Maphohetka to fade away. Wanting to seek help, Dinah stabs herself with the crucifix piece, allowing her to temporarily ascend into the afterlife. There, she encounters her mother, who gives her another mausoleum seed that Dinah takes back to the living world. Dinah uses the seed to revive everyone killed in the incident and her armor melts into coins that flow out of the fountain. But in the end, Dinah opts to remove the crucifix piece, killing herself. Dinah walks through her own funeral, bidding her mourning aunt goodbye before wandering outside. On the way, she encounters Vincent, but the two don't recognize each other until they find the hidden graveyard. Dinah and Vincent become two mausoleum guards alongside a revived Edaniel and Edrear (two young women who happened onto the graveyard having been contracted to the mausoleum). The series closes with Dinah on top of one of the towers beside Vincent, commenting how "she's starting to like this town." ===== In the 1940s, Baby Jane Hudson is a world-famous child star. Jane dominates her shy sister Blanche, who, as Jane's understudy and stunt double, longs to have an acting career separate from Jane. It is implied that Jane tends to become jealous when their father shows affection to Blanche. By the 1960s, Blanche has become a serious and celebrated actress, while Jane's career fades into obscurity after childhood. She appears in smaller roles in Blanche's films where her scenes usually get edited out. Blanche's career was cut short by a car accident that paralyzed her from the waist down, after which Jane was committed to a psychiatric hospital. The tabloids suggested that a jealous Jane had run down her more talented sister with the car and then gone insane with guilt. In the present day, the sisters live together in a crumbling Brentwood mansion, where a somewhat unstable Jane, who still dresses herself like a 10-year-old, tends the paraplegic Blanche. Blanche's films have recently become available on video and television, launching her into a modest comeback. Jane resents both her sister's enduring popularity and her own role as caretaker, and takes out her resentment on Blanche with vicious, childlike pranks such as putting worms in Blanche's food and cutting all of Blanche's hair. Jane also intercepts all mail addressed to her sister, including fan mail. She reminds Blanche that it was her success that helped her start her career by paying for everything, including her acting classes. Blanche and her physical therapist, Dominick, worry that Jane's old mental problems are returning, and that her pranks might turn violent if she finds out Blanche is selling the house. Hoping that she can also stage a comeback, Jane goes to a video store to see which of her old films are available. Billy Korn, the store's owner, recognizes her as Baby Jane, much to her delight. Believing that the Hudson sisters must be extremely wealthy, Billy recommends himself as her manager and promises to arrange a spot in a talent show for $1,000. Jane is thrilled by his attention and agrees. Back at home, Blanche makes her way to a telephone and tries to call for help from the sisters' psychiatrist, only to have Jane overhear the conversation and then physically attack her. As Jane impersonates her on the telephone talking to the doctor, Blanche realizes that her sister has become completely insane. She tries to escape, but Jane locks her in a room upstairs with no means of communication. After being starved for days, Blanche rummages through drawers for food and finds checks with her forged signature, rendering her unnecessary for Jane to access her money. Dominick arrives for his weekly appointment and has to force his way around Jane and into Blanche's room, where he finds her bound and gagged. Before he can help, Jane stabs Dominick to death with a pair of scissors and hides his body in the basement screening room, then leaves for the performance Billy has arranged for her. Jane arrives at the show, only to discover that the "talent show" is actually a drag revue and that Billy is dressed as Blanche for their duet. The audience ridicules Jane's appearance and performance, leading her to suffer a mental breakdown and run offstage. Still dressed as Blanche, Billy follows, arriving back at the mansion ahead of Jane. While searching the house for money, he finds Blanche, but leaves without helping her, instead going to Jane for his money. Jane, still in shock, mistakes him for an escaped Blanche and stabs him to death. Finally coming to her senses, Jane puts Blanche into her car and drives to the beach, where her fondest memories with the family took place during their childhood. Severely dehydrated and weak from starvation, Blanche admits she had been driving the car on the night of the accident, but had allowed Jane, who had been too incapacitated with drugs and alcohol to remember, to take the blame. She apologizes for never telling Jane the truth, and they are momentarily happy together. The police arrive to find Blanche unconscious and near death. As they radio for help for Blanche, Jane realizes what is happening and walks into the sea, seemingly to kill herself, but is dragged out by a police officer. At first she resists, but then she wraps her arms around him and calls him "Papa". The last shot is of Jane's smiling face as she goes willingly with the police. ===== ===== In the story, a man (Victor Kemmings) regains consciousness during a failed attempt at cryosleep on board a spaceship. The ship's artificial intelligence cannot repair the malfunction and cannot wake him, so Kemmings is doomed to remain conscious but paralyzed through the ship's entire ten-year-long journey. To maintain his sanity, the A.I. replays Kemmings's memories to him. But when this goes awry, the ship's A.I. asks Kemmings what he wants most -- and the answer is that Kemming wants the trip to be over and to arrive at his new home. The A.I. constructs such a scenario for Kemming and plays it to him over and over for the next ten years. When the ship finally arrives at its destination, Kemming cannot accept reality and believes his arrival to be yet another construction. Like most of Philip K. Dick's work, I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon involves a questioning of what it is to be human and of what reality is. The story also has a theme of guilt, as the memories of the passenger are spoiled by the guilt he retains about his past actions. Category:Short stories by Philip K. Dick Category:Existentialist short stories Category:1980 short stories Category:Works originally published in Playboy ===== In 1949, the young Ida Nørregaard travels from Jutland to Copenhagen to enroll in a home-economics school and an evening-school programme. When she is told that she can not do both, she chooses the evening school. Her parents are unhappy with her choice, but Ida is determined on making it on her own in the big city. She finds a job as a secretary at a radio factory. Erik Nielsen, the director's son Erik soon starts developing feelings towards Ida, which causes her to lose her job. While Erik is trying to convince his father of the future of television, he also succeeds in attracting Ida's attention. Meanwhile, Søs Nielsen, Erik's lively sister, is engaged to a man she does not love. When he tries to rape her one night, she is helped by Palle From who is a working-class university student and lives next door to Ida. When Søs approaches him to thank him for his deed, an attraction starts to grow between them. ===== A counterfeiter of money is attacked by two masked men and threatened to inform them where a certain amount of counterfeited money is. The counterfeiter pleads ignorance and is subsequently killed. Tommy 'Hopscotch' Hopkins, who has the money, learns of the death of the counterfeiter and begins to fear for his own safety. Consequently, he asks his friend, the street smart and "seasoned former criminal" Frankie (who owns a strip club), to assist him in an exchange of the fake money for real money which he has organised with some acquaintances. Frankie reluctantly agrees to assist his friend. The two attend the venue of the exchange, which is the house of an undercover police officer, Danny who uses the alias Paco. Danny believes that he is being assisted by two FBI agents in order to arrest Frankie and Hopscotch. Instead the other two men shoot and kill Danny and attempt to kill Frankie and Hopscotch. Frankie manages to shoot the two men after they kill Danny and he and Hopscotch flee the house with the real and the fake money which is contained in three suitcases. Frankie also pulls some paper out of the jacket of one of the two purported FBI agents. The shootout is witnessed by Danny's sister Colleen, who was hiding in the house. Distraught, she mistakenly believes that Frankie killed her brother and provides the police with his description. After fleeing the scene, Frankie escorts Hopscotch to the house of the latter's brother, Marty. Frankie advises Hopscotch to lie low while he conjures up a plan of what to do with the money. Marty seems concerned that his brother is associating with someone like Frankie. Colleen is comforted by the colleagues of her dead brother Danny, including his boss Captain Evans. He advises her that they will do whatever is necessary to find Danny's killers. The investigation into Danny's death is led by Vic, who is Colleen's former lover. It transpires that Vic had ended his relationship with Colleen acrimoniously years previously. Despite their troubled past, he spends time with Colleen to help her combat her grief. However, struggling to restrain her emotions, Colleen becomes frustrated with the investigation into her brother's death as she begins to believe that little progress is being made. As she persistently approaches Captain Evans, in a vexed mood, he advises her that they believe Danny was a 'dirty' cop, something which, based on her knowledge of her brother's character, she strenuously refutes. As a result, she loses faith with her brother's former colleagues and decides to conduct her own investigations. She manages to track down Frankie and asks to be allowed to perform at his strip club. He admits that she is pretty enough to do the job, but states that she ought to think it over before making any commitment. Meanwhile, after Frankie is attacked by the two masked men who killed the counterfeiter, he and Hopscotch decide to bury the three suitcases of money in the desert to ensure that they are safe. After burying the money Hopscotch is killed and Frankie is forced to engage in a shootout with the killer. The killer is revealed to be one of the two masked men and Hopscotch's brother, Marty. Frankie persuades Marty to inform him of the identity of the other masked man who he soon learns is Vic. In a show of disloyalty, Vic kills Marty and requests that Frankie tell him of the whereabouts of the money. Frankie declines to do so and returns to his strip club, where in a private performance he watches Colleen audition for a job. Afterwards, Frankie takes Colleen to his apartment where they begin kissing. Suddenly, Colleen pulls out a gun and confronts Frankie about the death of her brother. Frankie is initially confused but then elucidates upon the events of the shoot out. He advises her that Danny appeared to trust the other two men who were in the room at his house when he was killed and that they turned on him. To convince Colleen that he is telling the truth he manipulates the gun so that Colleen only needs to pull the trigger in order to kill him. Colleen believes Frankie and he escorts her to her car so that she can travel home. Vic sees Frankie and Colleen together and when Colleen is gone he advises Frankie to stay away from her. The next day Frankie visits Colleen and produces the piece of paper that he took from the purported FBI agent. The piece of paper is part of a map with directions on it in red ink. Frankie advises Colleen that he believes that Vic was involved in her brother's killing. He tells her to tell Vic's superiors in the police and take them to the desert. While Colleen travels to the police station, Frankie advises Vic that he has changed his mind and that he will share the money with him. Frankie and Vic drive to the desert where they dig up the cases with the money in. Meanwhile Colleen and Captain Evans arrive at the desert. Evans advises Colleen to wait in the car as he investigates. As he leaves in pursuit of Vic and Frankie, she finds the other half of the map on the dashboard of the car. Evans walks up a hill and sees Frankie and Vic with the cases of money. Vic manages to hit Frankie with a spade in an attempt to take all of the money for himself after which Evans confronts him. At this point Colleen arrives and Evans shoots Vic in an attempt to conceal his guilt in the affair. He then hugs Colleen and tells her that it is all over. Colleen, now aware that both Vic and Evans were responsible for her brother's death then shoots Evans. Afterwards she and Frankie arrange Vic's and Evans' bodies to make it seem as though they had killed each other in a dispute over one of the cases of money. They then walk off with the other two cases of money and with their arms around each other. ===== In the opening scene, secret agent Rock Slag, who is physically identical to Fred Flintstone, is being chased through Bedrock. His pursuers, Ali and Bobo, think that they have finally killed Slag when they push him off a building. Meanwhile, the Flintstones and Rubbles prepare for a camping vacation which includes trying to drop Dino and Hoppy off at the veterinarian. On the way back, Fred crashes Barney's car, and they make a stop at the hospital where Rock Slag is also recovering. After Ali and Bobo find Rock and put him out of commission, Chief Boulder of the Secret Service enlists Fred to take his place in Paris for a special meeting. His assignment is to meet Tanya, the #1 female lieutenant of master criminal the Green Goose, who has agreed to turn over the Green Goose in return for a chance to meet the irresistible Rock Slag. Rock is not sure that this is such a good idea but the Chief reassures him that he will keep an eye on Fred. Thinking that the Green Goose is an actual bird, Fred tells his family that their vacation has become an all-expense-paid trip to Eurock. Barney and Fred return all the camping gear and use the money to buy the Rubbles tickets to go along. Meanwhile, Ali and Bobo make several attempts on Fred's life assuming that he is Rock Slag. Once in Paris, the Chief tells Fred that he must now go to Rome instead, with the help of master of disguise Triple X. Fred makes attempts to sneak away from Wilma to meet with Tanya, but ends up spending the night trying to escape all of Rock's female admirers. After missing a date with Wilma, Fred buys her a "genuine imitation diamond necklace" from a street hustler to make it up to her, but finds that she slept soundly through the night without even realizing that he was missing. Discovering the Chief's secret office, Fred tries to back out of his assignment but after finding out what the Green Goose really is, he has pangs of guilt over Pebbles' future and makes an excuse to get away and meet Tanya at a restaurant. Unfortunately, Wilma and the Rubbles go to the same restaurant and catch them together - thinking that Fred is having an affair. Rock actually shows up to replace Fred, but gets mistakenly pounded by an angry Wilma, Betty and Barney and ends up out of commission again. Tanya then leads Fred to the Green Goose (whose hideout is at an abandoned amusement park), but he is unaware that the Chief has been taken out by Ali and Bobo, so he has no back-up. Barney, meanwhile, has followed Fred to see what this is all about, and they both end up captured by the Green Goose. Barney is tortured in an effort to get Fred, who is believed to be Rock, to give him secret information. Fred refuses to talk, despite Barney's torture. The Green Goose, who is revealed to be Triple X, makes plans to launch his deadly inter- rockinental missile, which is disguised as the park's space ride. Fred and Barney accidentally lock themselves inside the missile until the Green Goose overhears that Fred has an "expensive" necklace on him. When he offers to release them in exchange for it and opens the door, the boys turn the tables on Triple X and lock him in the missile with Ali, Bobo and Tanya—with the target now reset for outer space, sending them all to an unknown fate. A huge welcome home ceremony is held in Bedrock for the return of Fred, now considered a hero, but he is just grateful to be back home with his family (after the restaurant mishap is cleared), who head on a secret getaway. Unfortunately, Roberta, one of Rock's admirers whom Fred met in Rome, and her brother Mario have secretly moved into Bedrock, and they chase Fred all over town, much to the confusion of Wilma, Barney, and Betty. ===== A friar went to preach beg in a marshy region of Yorkshire called Holderness. In his sermons he begged for donations for the church and afterward he begged for charity from the local residents. The Friar interrupts the story, calling the Summoner a liar, but is silenced by the Host. The friar in the story continued to beg house by house until he came to the house of Thomas, a local resident who normally indulged him, and found him ill. The friar spoke of the sermon he had given that day, commenting on the excellent way he had glossed the biblical text (and making the famous comment that "Glosynge is a glorious thyng") – and essentially ordered a meal from Thomas's wife. She told the friar that her child had died recently. The friar claimed that he had a revelation that her child had died and entered heaven. He claimed that his fellow friars had a similar vision, for they are more privy to God's messages than laymen, who live richly on earth, as opposed to spiritual riches. The friar claimed that, among the clergy, only friars remain impoverished and thus are closest to God; and told Thomas that his illness persists because he had given so little to the church. Thomas claimed that he had indeed given "ful many a pound" to various friars, but never fared the better for it. The friar, characteristically, is irritated that Thomas is not giving all of his money solely to him, and points out to him that a "ferthyng" (a farthing) is not worth anything if split into twelve. Continuing to lecture Thomas, the friar began a long sermon against anger ("ire"), telling the tale of an angry king who sentenced a knight to death, because, as he returned without his partner, the king automatically assumed that the knight had murdered him. When a third knight took the condemned knight to his death, they found the knight that he had supposedly murdered. When they returned to the king to have the sentence reversed, the king sentenced all three to death: the first because he had originally declared it so, the second because he was the cause of the first's death, and the third because he did not obey the king. Another ireful king, Cambises, was a drunk. When one of his knights claimed that drunkenness caused people to lose their co-ordination, Cambyses drew his bow and arrow and shot the knight's son to prove that he still had control of his reflexes. The friar then told of Cyrus, the Persian king who had the river Gyndes destroyed because one of his horses had drowned in it. At the close of this sermon, the friar asked Thomas for money to build the brothers' cloister. Thomas, annoyed by the friar's hypocrisy, told the friar that he had a gift for him that he was sitting on, but that he would only receive it if he promised to split it up equally between each of the friars. The friar readily agreed, and put his hand down behind Thomas' back, groping round – and Thomas let out a fart louder than a horse could make. The friar became immediately angry, and promised to repay Thomas for his fart, but, before he could, the servants of the house chased the friar out. The enraged friar found the lord of the village and told him of the embarrassment he suffered, angrily wondering how he was supposed to divide a fart into twelve. The lord's squire spoke up with a suggestion, in return for a "gowne-clooth" from his master: take a cartwheel, and tell each of twelve friars to lay his nose at the end of a spoke. Then the friar of the tale could sit in the centre of the wheel and fart, and each of the spokes would carry the smell along to the rim – and therefore, divide it up between each of the friars. ===== Nick Gardenia (Chevy Chase), an out- of-luck writer, has the use of a friend's oceanside cabin in Big Sur, California. He is interrupted by a pair of bank robbers who use him to rob a bank in Carmel. Their M.O. is to take an innocent person, force them at gunpoint to rob a bank, and then take the money and toss their captive out of their car. Unfortunately for Nick (in one of Chase's signature pratfalls), he trips in the bank, is helped up and looks directly into a security camera. The bank's picture of Nick comes to the attention of Los Angeles district attorney Ira Parks (Charles Grodin) when his assistant, Fred (Robert Guillaume), recognizes it to be Parks' wife's ex-husband. Because of his desire to become the state's attorney general, Ira is frustrated and upset, thinking this could harm his campaign. Ira's wife, Glenda (Goldie Hawn), is a lawyer herself. A public defender, Glenda often tries to rehabilitate her clients by giving them odd jobs around their house, as with her chauffeur/butler Chester (T. K. Carter). After a long day in court, Glenda comes home to mixed news—joy for Ira's run for Attorney General and surprise when Ira gives her the news about Nick. She wants to defend Nick because of her disbelief that he would ever do such a thing. The robbers ditch Nick and he desperately begins to make his way to Glenda and Ira's Brentwood home, inadvertently holding up a gas station attendant for candy bars along the way. During a party, Glenda, while searching for one of her dogs, finds Nick hiding in her garage. He begs for help and she tries to get him some food, despite most of the leaders of law enforcement being in her house. Nick explains what happened, but Glenda refuses to help unless he turns himself in. Glenda finally agrees to let him sleep in a guest room over the garage. The next day Nick decides he wants to go after the guys who did this to him. After some comically close run-ins with the police, Ira, and her feisty maid, Aurora De La Hoya (Yvonne Wilder), Glenda manages to keep anyone from knowing Nick was there. He later robs Glenda of her car but then reappears over her garage, and another confrontation ensues between Ira and Glenda. Ira soon discovers Nick was telling the truth about the two men who forced him to rob the bank. About to have the governor of California coming to the house for dinner, Glenda must deal with court cases, her maid having foot surgery (which could ruin the party without the governor's favorite dish), and Chester getting drunk in the kitchen. The party takes a hilarious turn when Nick, coming back to turn himself in, ends up serving dinner to the governor, Ira, Glenda, and Fred. The dinner ultimately ends in a fistfight between a jealous Ira and Nick, during which Fred is knocked out. Nick, Glenda, Ira, Aurora, the dogs and the robbers ultimately end up in the courtroom of Glenda's favorite Judge John Channing (Harold Gould). While the judge is overwhelmed by the happenings in the Parks household, the police bring in the bank robbers. They admit Nick's innocence in exchange for a reduced sentence after getting caught by Aurora and the dogs when they attempted to force her to rob a bank, just like they had done with Nick. After all is said and done, Nick is free, but he and Glenda still have unresolved feelings. She decides to stay with Ira and kisses Nick good-bye. Some time later, Ira and Glenda decide to take a car trip to forget the recent events. They end up in an accident trying to avoid a cow on the road. Ira breaks his leg, so Glenda has to go for help. She ends up at the only place around: a cabin with all the lights on. Glenda pounds on the door begging for help. The door opens and she discovers the cabin is Nick's. ===== In 1999 Queens, New York City, young street criminals Tommy "Buns" Brown (DMX) and Sincere ("Sin") (Nas), along with associates Mark and Black, murder five people during a violent nightclub robbery. After celebrating with the gang, Sincere returns home to his girlfriend Tionne (Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins) and infant daughter Kenya. The following morning, Tommy asks Sincere to help him sell a new form of heroin. Sincere, who has begun having second thoughts about his life of crime, reluctantly agrees. Tommy then visits Ox, a wealthy Jamaican drug lord, who agrees to obtain the heroin on the condition that Tommy repay him with a favor at a later date. In Mark's grandmother's basement, the gang convenes to discuss the nascent drug operation; one of Tommy's associates, Knowledge (Oliver "Power" Grant), will be involved in the operation. Knowledge tells Tommy over the phone that Black had been talking about robbing Sincere to get his larger share of the loot from the nightclub. Enraged, Tommy forces Black to strip naked in front of the others, firing a handgun wildly into the floor. The gang begins transporting heroin from Queens to Omaha, Nebraska, where they begin to overrun the local drug business. Big Head Rico (Tyrin Turner), an Omaha dealer, informs the police of their activities. The resulting raid at their stash-house ends with Mark's death and Knowledge's arrest. Knowledge angrily realizes that Tommy will not bail him out of jail, and calls Shameek, a.k.a. Father Sha (Method Man), to both infiltrate Rico's gang and kill Tommy. Shameek confronts Rico at a strip club and guns him down when he tries to flee. He is shot by the bartender and stumbles out the club, evading the police. Tommy travels to Jamaica and repays Ox by killing Sosa, the son of a local drug lord. Back home, Tommy's girlfriend Keisha (Taral Hicks) is arrested by police and later bailed out by Tionne. Tommy finds out about the raid and leaves town. Pelpa, a close friend and associate of Sosa's, finds out that Ox ordered the hit and sends a hit squad to kill him in his home. Ox is able to kill most of the hitmen before he dies at the hands of a female assassin, Chiquita. Sincere prepares to leave the drug trade and move his family to Africa, planning to leave on New Year's Day 2000. Meanwhile, while laying low in Atlanta, Tommy instigates an argument between Wise and LaKid, two marijuana dealers, which ends with both men to drawing their guns and LaKid shooting Wise. After being arrested over the shooting, Tommy is coerced by a shadowy organization with unclear motives into assassinating a Black Muslim leader, Rev. Saviour, (Benjamin Chavis) during a sermon on New Year's Eve. Tionne comes home and finds herself confronted by Shameek, who demands the whereabouts of Sincere and Tommy. While Sincere talks to a friend (AZ) outside a barbershop, Black shoots him in the leg as revenge for his earlier humiliation. Sincere kills Black and his accomplice in self-defense before fleeing the scene. On New Year's Eve, Tommy confronts Rev. Saviour before his scheduled speech and points his gun at him. Saviour convinces Tommy not to go through with his mission, even though this will put his life at risk. A tearful Tommy agrees, and the two men embrace. Shameek visits Keisha's home, in the hopes of finding Tommy there. He assaults Keisha, who gets hold of Shameek's gun and shoots him in the face. Sincere, now in Africa with his family, reflects on recent events and is happy to start a new life. ===== ===== Chris Wilton, a recently retired tennis professional from Ireland, is taken on as an instructor at an upmarket club in London. He strikes up a friendship with a wealthy pupil, Tom Hewett, after discovering their common affinity for opera. Tom's older sister, Chloe, is smitten with Chris, and the two begin dating. During a family gathering, Chris meets Tom's American fiancée, Nola Rice, and they are instantly attracted to each other. Tom's mother, Eleanor, does not approve of her son's relationship with Nola, a struggling actress, which is a source of tension in the family. Chloe encourages her father, Alec, to give Chris a job as an executive in one of his companies; he begins to be accepted into the family and marriage is discussed. During a storm, after having her choice of profession questioned by Eleanor, Nola leaves the house to be alone. Chris follows Nola outside and confesses his feelings for her, and they passionately have sex in a wheat-field. Feeling guilty, Nola treats this as an accident; Chris, however, wants an ongoing clandestine relationship. Chris and Chloe marry, while Tom ends his relationship with Nola. Chloe, to her distress, does not become pregnant immediately. Chris vainly tries to track down Nola, but meets her by chance sometime later at Tate Modern. He discreetly asks for her number, and they begin an affair. While Chris is spending time with his wife's family, Nola calls to inform him that she is pregnant. Panicked, Chris asks her to get an abortion, but she refuses, saying that she wants to raise the child with him. Chris becomes distant from Chloe, who suspects he is having an affair, which he denies. Nola urges Chris to divorce his wife, and he feels trapped and finds himself lying to Chloe as well as to Nola. Nola confronts him on the street outside his office and he just barely escapes public detection. Soon afterwards, Chris takes a shotgun from his father-in-law's home and carries it to his office in a tennis bag. On leaving, he calls Nola on her mobile to tell her he has good news for her. He goes to Nola's building and gains entry into the apartment of her neighbor, Mrs. Eastby, whom he shoots and kills and then stages a burglary by ransacking the rooms and stealing jewelry and drugs. As Nola returns, he shoots her in the stairwell. Chris then takes a taxi to the theater to watch a musical with Chloe. Scotland Yard investigates the crime and concludes it was committed by a drug addict stealing money. The following day, as the murder is in the news, Chris returns the shotgun and he and Chloe announce that she is pregnant. Detective Mike Banner invites Chris for an interview in relation to the murder. Beforehand, Chris throws Mrs. Eastby's jewelry and drugs into the river, but by chance her ring bounces on the railing and falls to the pavement. At the police station, Chris lies about his relationship with Nola, but Banner surprises him with her diary, in which he is featured extensively. He confesses his affair but denies any link to the murder, and appeals to the detectives not to involve him further in their investigation as news of the affair may end his marriage just as he and his wife are expecting a baby. One night, Chris sees apparitions of Nola and Mrs. Eastby, who tell him to be ready for the consequences of his actions. He replies that his crimes, though wrong, had been "necessary", and that he is able to suppress his guilt. At the same time, Banner dreams that Chris committed the murders. His theory is discredited by his partner, Dowd, who informs him that a drug peddler found murdered on the streets had Mrs. Eastby's ring in his pocket. Banner and Dowd consider the case closed and abandon any further investigation. Chloe gives birth to a baby boy named Terence, and his uncle blesses him not with greatness but with luck. ===== Vincent Price and Gavin Gordon in The Bat Cornelia Van Gorder (Agnes Moorehead) is a mystery author who rents a summer home in a small town from local bank president John Fleming (Harvey Stephens). Over $1 million in negotiable securities is discovered missing from the bank while Fleming is on a hunting trip with his physician, Dr. Malcolm Wells (Vincent Price). In a cabin in the woods, Fleming confesses to Wells that he stole the securities. He offers to split the money with Wells in return for help faking his own death and threatens to kill him if he doesn't agree to help. When a forest fire breaks out nearby, Wells shoots Fleming and uses the fire to cover up the murder. Meanwhile, the town is being terrorized by a mysterious murderer known as "the Bat". The Bat is said to be a man with no face who murders women at night by ripping out their throats with steel claws. Van Gorder's maid Lizzie (Lenita Lane) tells her that most of the household servants have quit in fear of the Bat. As they lock up the house, Lizzie sees the Bat's clawed hand reaching through an unlocked door. Van Gorder calls the police, who promise to send officers to investigate. The Bat breaks into the house and releases a bat, which bites Lizzie. Lizzie fears she may have contracted rabies. Van Gorder calls for Dr. Wells to treat the bite. Wells is in his laboratory, doing experiments on bats. The local chief of detectives, Lieutenant Andy Anderson (Gavin Gordon), is watching through a window. When Wells leaves to answer Van Gorder's call, Anderson breaks into the laboratory and searches it. Wells checks Lizzie's wound and catches the bat that bit her. Anderson arrives shortly after and says an officer will watch the house for the rest of the night. Van Gorder is visited by Wells, Dale Bailey (Elaine Edwards), and Judy Hollander (Darla Hood). Dale's husband, Victor Bailey (Mike Steele), is a clerk at the bank and a suspect in the theft of the securities; Judy works at the bank and is a witness in his defense. While Anderson is visiting Mark Fleming (John Bryant), the nephew and heir of John Fleming, Van Gorder has Dale call him about blueprints that may show a hiding place in the house. He promises to help her look for them that evening. While Van Gorder, Judy, and Dale are having dinner, Mark sneaks into the house to look for the blueprints on his own. The Bat kills him and takes the blueprints. Anderson and Wells (who is the local coroner) arrive to investigate the murder. Anderson questions the women and Van Gorder's new butler, Warner (John Sutton). Anderson tells the women to lock themselves into their rooms for the rest of the night; he will stay to watch for the Bat. After the women go to bed, Anderson goes into the woods behind the house with a flashlight; Warner follows him. Soon after, the Bat enters the house again. He cuts the phone line and goes to the third floor, where he begins chiseling a hole into one of the walls. Hearing the noise from his chiseling, Dale and Judy go to investigate. The Bat kills Judy and flees the house. Anderson returns, saying he saw a man in the woods. He accuses Warner, whom he recognizes as a suspect for a robbery in Chicago. Warner says he was acquitted. Wells comes to the house, saying he had an accident in his car nearby; Anderson casts suspicion on him as well. Van Gorder investigates the room the Bat was in, and realizes there is a secret room behind the wall where he was chiseling. She accidentally traps herself in the room, but is freed by Detective Davenport (Robert Williams), the officer assigned to watch the house that evening. Meanwhile, the Bat kills Wells in his laboratory and leaves a fake suicide note to frame Wells as the Bat. The Bat returns to Van Gorder's house, where he sets the garage on fire to draw the occupants outside. Van Gorder sees through this ruse; she has Dale, Lizzie, and Davenport hide and wait for the Bat. When confronted, the Bat shoots and wounds (but not fatally) Davenport and is about to kill the others, when Warner returns and shoots him. Warner unmasks the Bat, who is revealed to be Lieutenant Anderson. ===== The film is set in Puerto Rico, where Charles "Chick" Graham (Nelson) has settled down after the war to run a small business with his old army buddy (now his brother-in-law) Buster Cox (Harvey). Graham comes home one evening to find his wife, Cora (Ainley), acting as if he is an insane stranger. A man who looks exactly like him, Albert "Bert" Rand (Nelson), has taken his place and is playing cards and drinking in his living room. Neither Cora nor Buster--not even Graham's dog--recognizes Graham; they think that he, rather than Rand, is the double. Meanwhile, his face has shown up on the front page of newspapers as a bank robber in Miami who made off with half a million dollars. As Graham runs from the police, he attempts to solve the mystery with the help of Mary Davis (Mathews), an old girlfriend whom he jilted to marry Cora. Mary's protective brother, Walt Davis (Warden), is wary but soon joins Graham in trying to figure out the puzzle. Rand attempts to kill Graham by hiring an attack dog specialist to have a Doberman go after him. The evil double has been in on this sinister plan with Cora and her brother, Buster, since before the Grahams' marriage. ===== The story opens in 1905 in an East European village. A young altar boy (Norman Bacon) makes his way up to the bell-tower. He is about to ring the bell when blood drips on his cheek from above. He climbs into the bell chamber, where he discovers the corpse of a young woman crammed inside the church bell, another victim of Dracula. A year later in 1906, following the events of the previous film, Dracula has been destroyed. Monsignor Ernest Mueller (Rupert Davies) comes to the village on a routine visit only to find the altar boy is now a frightened mute and the priest (Ewan Hooper) has lost his faith. The villagers refuse to attend Mass at the Catholic church because the shadow of Dracula's castle touches it. To bring to an end the villagers' fears, Mueller climbs to the castle to exorcise it. The terrified priest follows only partway up the mountain, and Mueller continues alone. As he exorcises the castle, attaching a large metal cross to its gate, a thunderstorm occurs. The priest flees, stumbles, and is knocked unconscious when his head strikes a rock. The blood from the head wound trickles into a frozen stream through a crack in the ice, and onto the lips of Count Dracula, reviving him. Mueller returns to the village, reassures the villagers, and returns to his home city of Keinenberg where he lives with his widowed sister-in-law, Anna (Marion Mathie). Unknown to Mueller, Dracula takes control of the priest. Furious that his castle is now barred to him, Dracula forces the enslaved priest to reveal the name of the exorcist. The priest desecrates a coffin to provide a sleeping place for the Count, and leads Dracula to Keinenberg, where the Count determines to take his revenge on Mueller's beautiful niece, Maria (Veronica Carlson). Dracula enslaves Zena the tavern girl (Barbara Ewing). Zena almost succeeds in bringing Maria under Dracula's power, but Maria's boyfriend Paul (Barry Andrews), who lives and works in the bakery beneath the tavern, rescues her. Dracula punishes Zena by killing her. Dracula orders the priest to destroy Zena's corpse before she turns into a vampire, so the priest burns her body in the bakery ovens. The priest then helps Dracula locate Maria. Dracula climbs over the rooftops of nearby buildings, enters Maria's room, and bites her. Mueller enters Maria's room just after Dracula has bitten the girl and pursues a fleeing figure across the rooftops. He is knocked down by the priest. Mueller makes his way back home, where his sister-in-law cares for him. He summons Paul, knowing that he will help protect Maria because of his love for her. He passes on a book, which contains the rites of protection against vampires and ways to defeat them, before he succumbs to his wounds. Paul enlists the priest, not knowing he is under Dracula's spell. Unable to break free from Dracula's influence, the priest attacks Paul one night as they watch over Maria. Paul defeats the priest, and forces him to lead the way to Dracula's lair. They try to stake Dracula through the heart, but the faithless priest and the atheist Paul are not able to say the required prayer, so Dracula rises and removes the stake himself. He kidnaps Maria and flees to Castle Dracula, pursued by Paul and the priest. At the castle, Dracula orders Maria to remove the cross from the door. She throws it over the parapet into the ravine below, where it lands upright, wedged between the rocks. Paul fights Dracula on the parapet and throws him over the side, and he is impaled on the cross. The priest, freed from the vampire's influence, recites the Lord's Prayer in Latin and Count Dracula perishes, dissolving into dust. Reunited with Maria and having apparently regained his Christian faith, Paul crosses himself while viewing Dracula's remains. ===== Baron Frankenstein returns to his lab to find a thief stealing his equipment. Frankenstein abandons his lab, moves on and stays at a boarding house run by Anna Spengler. Anna's fiance Karl Holst is a doctor at the local insane asylum where Frankenstein's former fellow scientist Dr. Frederick Brandt now resides. After discovering Karl has been stealing narcotics in order to support Anna's ailing mother, Frankenstein blackmails Karl into helping him kidnap Brandt so he can get the secret formula of his experiment. Frankenstein and Karl kidnap Brandt and bring him into the house. Meanwhile, Brandt has a heart attack, prompting Frankenstein and Karl to transplant Brandt's brain into the asylum's administrator Professor Richter's body. While the creature recovers, Frankenstein and the lovers relocate to a deserted manor house when the police begin to close in. In the lab, the creature awakes and is horrified by his appearance. He scares Anna, who stabs him, causing him to escape. Frankenstein returns and finds the creature gone. In a rage, he fatally stabs Anna and goes after the creature. The creature makes it to his former home, but his wife refuses to accept him as her husband. Wanting revenge on Frankenstein and knowing the Baron will eventually track him there, he allows his wife to go free and pours liquid paraffin around the house. Frankenstein soon arrives, with Karl following. Inside the house, the creature makes fires to trap him. Frankenstein finds the papers of discovery and flees, but is ambushed by Karl, and they fight. The creature emerges and carries a screaming Frankenstein into the burning house. ===== When Antonia's husband Massimo is killed in a car accident, she accidentally discovers that he has been having a same-sex affair with a produce wholesaler named Michele. Although she's initially devastated by the news and hostile toward Michele, she soon develops a friendship with him and his and Massimo's circle of gay, transgender, and straight friends, among whom are a Turkish immigrant, a playwright and a boutique owner. As she gets to know these people and become a part of their lives, the new relationships dramatically transform Antonia. ===== The episode opens with a scene on the "warship Voyager", an unrealistic depiction of the ship which turns out to be a museum's recreation of events. Although the brutality and detachment of the crew is chilling, there are several dark, campy elements of the alternate reality that provide comic relief: the crew wear altered versions of their uniforms with no combadges or rank insignia, but sport black gloves and turtlenecks. First Officer Chakotay (Robert Beltran)'s name is repeatedly mispronounced (as "Chak-ooo-tay") by the crew and his tattoo has grown in size as to cover half of his face and appears in the design of Māori Tā moko markings. Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) sports a butch haircut and excessive schadenfreude. Meanwhile, the holographic Doctor (Robert Picardo) has become an android mass murderer and torturer with neon yellow-green eyes while Tactical Officer Tuvok (Tim Russ) has a sinister sense of humor; former drone Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) is a full Borg with several other Borg drones serving as shock troops aboard Voyager. The depiction also shows several Kazon as part of the crew, assumed to have been conscripted along with the Borg. Neelix (Ethan Phillips) is not the cook, but a part of the bridge crew and a brutal henchman. In the actual course of events, Captain Janeway had agreed to provide the Vaskans with medical supplies in exchange for dilithium crystals. The Kyrians, who were at war with the Vaskans, boarded Voyager to stop the deal, which they thought was a military alliance of some sort. During their time on the ship, they stole a data module carrying a backup copy of the Doctor. Seven hundred years later, this module was part of a Kyrian museum exhibit which showed their version of the encounter. This biased encounter showed Voyager as a warship with a savage and sadistic crew that was willing to commit genocide. Even the Vaskan in the simulation became horrified over the atrocities committed, but the simulated Janeway told him it was too late to stop now. Quarren (Henry Woronicz), the curator at the museum and always fascinated by Voyagers story even though they were "the bad guys", had found (with the help from an archaeological team) the Doctor's backup module three weeks prior. He was able to activate it using Voyagers own tools. The Doctor, upon seeing this biased simulated version of history, is appalled and offers to show Quarren his own accurate version of events from 700 years ago aboard Voyager. Initially, the Doctor's claims that Voyager was unfairly depicted by the Kyrians are ignored, with Quarren only agreeing to hear him out because the fact he is a hologram, not an android, already casts the simulation's accuracy in a dubious light, and he is told he could be held accountable for war crimes when he presents his version of history before the Commission of Arbiters. The Doctor states, however, that a presently non-functional Starfleet medical tricorder would settle the issue of who killed Tedran, a Kyrian revolutionary hero who died during a raid on Voyager. After fending off an angry mob of Vaskans intent on destroying what they now know to be a museum of false history, the Doctor initially wishes to abandon his quest to set the 700-year-old historical record straight and says that the truth may cause more harm and violence. Quarren objects, saying that the tension between the Kyrian and Vaskan cultures has already reached the breaking point. Quarren stresses that both races on his planet need to hear the truth about the real course of events on Voyager. This persuades the Doctor to continue searching for the tricorder. The episode ends an indeterminate number of years later, as the museum's new curator explains that the two species finally made peace thanks to the efforts of the Doctor and the information from the tricorder, although he always regretted that he would never see any of his friends again. It is revealed to the viewer that all the scenes that they had been witnessing were computer simulations revealing real life events which occurred in the past, such as the Kyrian-Vaskan conflict, Quarren's discovery of the Doctor's backup program, and Quarren and the Doctor's proposal to the Commission of Arbiters. Following the peace, the Doctor served as the surgical chancellor for the Kyrians and Vaskans for many years, but eventually he took a ship and departed for Earth; he said that "he had a longing for home". As for Quarren, it is stated that he lived only six years after seeing the Kyrian-Vaskan reconciliation. ===== Seven of Nine decides to increase the amount of information she receives from the ship's database by directly assimilating as much of Voyagers data as possible. This allows her to draw conclusions from varied sources of data and find bugs in one of the systems. Meanwhile, the ship encounters an alien who has constructed a catapult capable of throwing a ship several hundred light years in a few hours. The crew of Voyager help him repair his array, with hopes that if he makes the trip successfully they can then use it to shorten their trip home. Seven of Nine downloads the data about the catapult, but she begins to exhibit paranoid behavior. She uses evidence concerning possible spatial-warp technology developments to convince Chakotay that Janeway might be spearheading a Federation presence in the Delta Quadrant. Although skeptical, Chakotay delays the shield modifications necessary for the catapult trip so he can examine the evidence himself. After another regeneration/assimilation cycle, Seven has a new conclusion. She uses most of the same evidence, but this time with added incidents involving Chakotay to support her findings to convince Janeway that Chakotay might be spearheading a power grab for the Maquis with the same technology. (Seven states that Seska impregnated herself with Chakotay's DNA but in Season 3, Episode 1, the Doctor reveals that Chatokay is not the father.) The two end up comparing stories and they realize Seven is acting irrationally. The Doctor determines that Seven has downloaded more information than she can handle. Seven then starts suspecting a third conspiracy: that the aim of the last five years was actually to grab a Borg drone, herself. Seven steals the Delta Flyer in order to escape from Voyager. Janeway manages to beam aboard. She convinces Seven that she is ill and she returns to Voyager for treatment. The crew successfully uses the alien's catapult to travel closer to the Alpha Quadrant, cutting three years off their journey. ===== Fox and Jett play a brother and sister who are lead performers in The Barbusters, a rock band, in Cleveland, Ohio. The sister, Patti Rasnick, is an unmarried mother and has a troubled relationship with her own mother, who is deeply religious. Estranged from her parents and struggling to make ends meet, Patti decides to dive headlong into a carefree rock music lifestyle. The brother, Joe Rasnick, pulls away from rock music to provide some stability for his young nephew. It takes a family crisis to bring Patti back home and force her to face the past with her mother. ===== John Plummer (Jason Lee) is engaged to Elaine Warner (Leslie Mann), and intends to use his life savings of $30,000 to put a down payment on a house. He works for Elaine's father, Mr. Warner (Dennis Farina), who dislikes John. Simultaneously, John's niece Noreen (Tammy Blanchard), daughter of sister Patty (Megan Mullally), is accepted to Harvard University, but needs an additional $30,000 on top of her grants and scholarships. Noreen shows John an old videotape where he promised to pay for Noreen's college. John now has a moral and financial dilemma – disappoint his fiancée or disappoint his niece and ruin her chance at escaping poverty. John confides in his friend Walter "Duff" Duffy (Tom Green), a landscaper. He convinces John to steal from one of his rich clients, who keeps large amounts of cash in an unlocked safe. The pair set off to steal the cash, but Duff runs away when lights come on in the home, leaving John to get caught by Emmett Cook (Richard Jenkins). Cook forces John to cross-dress and role-play the part of Cook's late wife as the two men lie in bed and "spoon". Eventually, after taking an incriminating photograph of John, Cook releases him. As he is leaving, Mr. Warner rides by and takes note of John's panicked behavior, believing that he has caught John in an affair. Further capers ensue as John and Duff try to rob a liquor store and later attempt to con a drug lord out of $30,000 by concocting a phony story about running an ecstasy ring. A police detective (John C. McGinley) is on to John and Duff, but never has enough evidence to actually pin any of the crimes on them. Meanwhile, Mr. Warner breaks into Cook's residence in order to get evidence against John, and once Cook catches him, he is forced to "spoon" as well. Despite this, Warner finds a common ground with Cook as he is also widower though he doesn’t agree with Cook’s method of coping. Before leaving, Warner finds the photo of John from the album, which he then gives to Elaine. John is forced to confess everything to Elaine, who is not upset and admires the lengths he was willing to go to in order to please her and send his niece to Harvard. Elaine then confides in John that her father keeps a great deal of money at his business, and that it would be easy for them to steal it. John, Elaine, and Duff set out to rob the business in the night. Unfortunately, Mr. Warner had hid his dog Rex inside the vault. Rex latches on to Duff’s crotch, and oddly, enjoys it so much that he doesn’t let go. Just as John and Elaine find the money, Mr. Warner tries to attack them but he is caught by the detective who mistakes him for a burglar. While Duff is relentlessly pursued by Rex, John and Elaine escape to Duff's van. The police arrive and the gang unsuccessfully tries to get away. They are all taken into custody by the detective and facing a series of charges. John feels doomed, until the judge in charge of his arraignment turns out to be the gun-toting Emmett Cook. Upon their mutual recognition, John flashes a written message to Cook, threatening to expose the judge's fetish; upon reading the note, Cook quickly dismisses all charges against John. Finally, Duff comes through as best he can and gives John his life savings, $1,000, which John bets on a long-shot horse which wins and which paid 30 to 1. John and Elaine are married, Noreen goes off to college, and, in the final scene, John is left to ponder how Duff could possibly accumulate $1,000 – the last scene shows Duff offering to "spoon" with Cook for $1,000. ===== George Henderson (John Lithgow) is returning to his suburban Seattle home with his family from a camping trip in the nearby Cascade mountains when they hit something with the family Ford Country Squire. George discovers, to his horror and awe, that they have hit a Sasquatch. Thinking they have killed it, the family straps the creature to the roof of their car. A lone hunter tracking the creature discovers the Hendersons' license plate, which fell off when they hit the creature. Later that night, George goes to the garage to examine the creature and discovers it is not dead, and has escaped. He finds the creature in the kitchen, having knocked over the fridge looking for food. After a few mishaps involving the Sasquatch breaking things in the house the family realizes the creature is friendly and kind, and George has a change of heart; initially planning to make money from the creature, he decides to return him to the wild. Naming the creature "Harry", George tries to lure him into the station wagon, but Harry sees through the deception and disappears into the city. Saddened, the family resume their normal lives, but sightings of Harry become more frequent as media fervor heightens. George tries to find Harry, and visits the "North American Museum of Anthropology" to speak with Dr. Wallace Wrightwood, an expert on Bigfoot, but is disheartened by its ramshackle state. Giving his phone number to the museum clerk (Don Ameche), George resumes his search. The hunter from the woods is Jacques LaFleur (David Suchet), a legendary hunter turned laughingstock for his obsession with Bigfoot, who tracks down the Hendersons. At work, George's father asks him to make a poster of a violent Sasquatch to drum up gun sales, but George throws the picture away, replacing it with a proper depiction of Harry. His father in turn alters it to make him look vicious resulting in George quitting his job at the arms shop. George follows a Bigfoot sighting into the city, while the police deal with "Bigfoot mania" by apprehending multiple vigilante Bigfoot hunters, believing the sightings are due to a costumed prankster. After a car chase involving a garbage truck, George (albeit inadvertently) saves Harry from LaFleur, who is arrested. The next day, George invites Dr. Wrightwood to dinner to speak about Bigfoot. The museum clerk arrives, revealing he is Wrightwood. He urges the Hendersons to give up on Bigfoot, as it has destroyed his life, but then meets Harry, restoring his enthusiasm. Bailed out of jail, LaFleur heads to the Henderson house. George and Harry escape with Dr. Wrightwood in his old truck, and LaFleur gives chase. Fleeing back to the mountains, George tries to make Harry leave, going so far as to punch Harry. Confused and upset, Harry departs but the family does not leave when they realize LaFleur can follow his footprints. LaFleur catches up to the Hendersons and throws the family dog. Harry captures LaFleur, but George intervenes when LaFleur attempts to escape, and Harry stops George from roughing LaFleur up. Through Harry's kindness and George's faith, LaFleur changes his mind and decides that Harry deserves to live peacefully. As the family says goodbye, George thanks Harry, who gives him a hug, for all he has done for the family. George tells him to take care of himself, to which Harry replies, "Okay" – his first spoken word. As Harry leaves, several other Sasquatches appear and they disappear into the wilderness together, to the Hendersons’ amazement. When Dr. Wrightwood asks LaFleur what he will do next, LaFleur replies, "I don't know. There's always Loch Ness." They laugh, as the Hendersons wave goodbye to Harry. ===== Steve McQueen in The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery George Fowler (Steve McQueen), a diffident former collegiate football star, is recruited for a bank robbery gang by Gino (David Clarke), the cold-hearted and unstable ex-convict brother of George's estranged flame, Ann (Molly McCarthy). George, initially insisting the limit of his involvement is strictly as get-away driver, is coerced deeper into the plot by John Eagen (Crahan Denton), the calculating plot leader. Gino also succeeds in pressuring the reluctant George (George being burdened with responsibility for the expulsion of both Ann and himself from college) to reconnect with Ann to beg for a subsistence stake to tide them over pending the anticipated robbery booty. Tensions of dislike and distrust seethe within the gang. Ann, happening to spot Gino leaving the gang's bank surveillance activity, soon extracts from George enough information to deduce that a bank robbery is about to occur. Dismayed, Ann attempts to derail the plot in hopes of saving George with a lipstick-scribbled warning on the bank's window. The warning is however detected by the 4th gang member, Willy (John's bullied but sneering minion from prison). John and Willy burst into George's and Gino's lodgings to extract the facts behind the betrayal. Gino, financially desperate to consummate the plot to avoid his own pending reincarceration, reveals Ann's identity and past relationship with George. George is forced to take the gang to Ann's apartment but is sent away, dubiously hopeful that Ann is being flown off to Chicago to silence her. Gino also abandons Ann on John's orders. John, recalling his hatred for his abusive alcoholic mother, hurls Ann to her demise off the fire escape. Unaware of this murder, George is instructed that Willy is now the wheelman, forcing the inexperienced George to a role inside the bank, but he meekly declines one final opportunity to withdraw from the plot. The next day, the robbers commence execution of the heist, having neglected to bring a police-frequency scanner and unaware the bank relocated a switchboard from the lobby, foiling key aspects of the plan. The silent alarm is triggered and police swarm the bank exterior. John is shot down attempting escape behind a female hostage. Gino, failing to find an escape route and hemmed in by prison-like bars, commits suicide in the basement vault. After momentarily considering to battle the police Willy flees, abandoning his partners, although identified and pursued. George, hobbled by a gashed leg, initiates a panicky escape behind another female hostage, but his spirit fails when the newly wed hostage's husband summons the courage to offer himself in her stead. Having realized that Ann's death was due to his own cowardly and naïve actions, he tries to surrender his pistol to a bank customer who disgustedly rejects the gun back to the sobbing and broken George. George is dragged away into a paddy wagon and the film concludes with his view of the world receding behind metal bars. ===== When Tom Long's brother Peter gets measles, Tom is sent to stay with his Uncle Alan and Aunt Gwen. They live in an upstairs flat of a big house with no garden, only a tiny yard for parking. The former grounds of the big house have been sold for building and are occupied by modern houses. The elderly and reclusive landlady, Mrs Bartholomew, lives above them. Because Tom may be infectious, he is not allowed out to play, and he feels lonely. Without exercise he lies awake after midnight, restless, when he hears the communal grandfather clock strangely strike 13. He gets up to investigate and discovers that the back door now opens on a large sunlit garden. Every night the clock strikes 13 and Tom returns to the Victorian era grounds. There he meets another lonely child, a girl called Hatty, and they become inseparable playmates. Tom sees the family occasionally, but only Hatty (and as is revealed later in the book, the gardener) sees him and the others believe she plays alone. Tom writes daily accounts to his brother Peter, who follows the adventures during his recovery – and afterward, for Tom contrives to extend the stay with Aunt and Uncle. Gradually at first, Hatty grows up and passes Tom's age; he comes to realise that he is slipping to different points in the past. Finally she grows up at a faster rate, until she is an adult and is courting an acquaintance of hers, Barty. At this stage in the book, the season in the old garden tends to be winter. Tom ingeniously obtains ice skates by having Hatty conceal her old pair in his room, where he subsequently finds them and joins her skating on the next night. On the final night before Tom is due to go home, he goes downstairs to find the garden is not there. He desperately tries to run around and find it, but crashes into a set of bins from the present-day courtyard, waking up several residents. He shouts Hatty's name in disappointment, before his Uncle Alan finds him and puts the events down to Tom sleepwalking. The following morning, Mrs Bartholomew summons Tom to apologise, only to reveal herself as Hatty, having made the link when she heard him call her name. The events Tom experienced were real in Hatty's past; he has stepped into them by going into the garden at the times she dreamt of them. On the final night, she had instead been dreaming of her wedding with Barty. After taking Tom home, Aunt Gwen comments on the strange way that Tom had said goodbye to Mrs Bartholomew when he left: he hugged her, as if she were a little girl. ===== Jayantilal "Ratan" (Deepak Shirke) is a dacoit. Inspector SP Malhotra (Dalip Tahil) arrests him. Ratan wounds himself and is taken to the hospital, where Malhotra is waiting for his wife Geeta (Reema Lagoo), who is in labour. She gives birth to twins and the doctor explains that both babies have a reflection mentality, which means that "what happens with one baby might be felt and reflected by another" depending on the proximity between them. Ratan escapes and takes one of the twins with him, injuring Geeta. Malhotra goes behind him, but unable to find his son, shoots escaping Ratan to stop him. The kid grows up as Raja (Salman Khan) and finds a girl child, who he adopts as his sister. He finds another orphan, Rangeela (Shakti Kapoor) and becomes his friend. They both together take care of the girl and become thieves. On the other hand, Geeta goes into depression and gets paralysed. Malhotra takes her to the US for her treatment, where the other twin Prem (also Salman Khan) is brought up. He comes to India as a rock star for a show. He is received by Kader Khan (Malhotra's friend) who wishes to marry his daughter Mala (Karisma Kapoor) to him. But Mala is in love with Raja. At the airport, Prem finds Roopa (Rambha), daughter of Sundari Batwani (Bindu), the organizer of his public shows. Prem falls in love with Roopa. Tony (Jack Gaud), Sundari's nephew also wishes to marry Roopa. Meanwhile, Mala misunderstands Prem for Raja and starts flirting with him. One day, in a restaurant, both Twins see each other and find out that they are identical, which leads to hilarious misunderstandings. Meanwhile, Raja's sister Neelam (Sheetal Joshi) sees local goon Ratanlal Tiger (Mukesh Rishi) (son of Ratan), killing an Inspector on the road and becomes a key witness of the murder in court. Enraged Tiger molests her and Raja fights with him to save his sister. Tiger, again to get his revenge from Raja, sends his henchman named Tommy (Shashi Kiran) as the groom of Neelam, but Raja finds out his plan and marries his sister to somebody else. The court announces the death sentence to Tiger for the murder of Inspector he shot earlier. Days pass, Neelam becomes pregnant and she is admitted to a hospital for her delivery. Raja asks Prem to stay at the hospital as he is going in search of money, Prem visits his father Malhotra. At the same time, Tiger escapes from jail to kidnap Neelam and recognises Malhotra, who shot his father Ratan and finds out that Raja is his son. He blackmails Raja to get him Malhotra to free Neelam. Raja who doesn't know that Malhotra is his father goes to his house where Geeta also comes out from the paralysis by Raja's touch and he comes to know the truth that they are his parents. Finally, Raja and Prem come together to protect their father from Tiger and the story ends with the duo marrying their respective ladies. ===== “...Our story opens following the death of Hop Li, member of the powerful Lem Sing Tong, and we see his funeral procession passing down DuPont Street”... A huge dragon banner unfolds, declaring war. People panic: men sharpen hatchets; shops are shuttered. Wong Low Get (Edward G. Robinson) is summoned from Sacramento to take revenge for Hop's death. He is stunned when the council president, Nog Hong Fah (Dudley Digges), tells him that Sun Yat Ming (J. Carrol Naish), his friend since childhood, is the guilty party. Sun is surprised and pleased to see Wong. He has prepared for his own assassination: His will leaves everything to his old friend. He also asks Wong to raise his little daughter, Toya San, and marry her when she comes of age. Wong agrees—and then reveals that he is the Lem Sing Tong hatchet man. Wong swears before the great Lord Buddha that Toya will never know “the song of sorrow.” Sun calmly kneels and prays and forgives Wong's “innocent hand its stroke of justice.” Chinatown “today”.. “a far cry from what we have just seen. Gone are the warring Tongs—Gone are the queues and chop-sticks.” Wong, a prominent businessman, is wealthy and happy. Nog detests change, especially the way that women are being spoiled “by intelligence and freedom”. It is Toya's (Loretta Young) birthday; it should be the day of her betrothal. Nog is appalled to learn that Wong will defy tradition and give her a choice. Wong offers Toya his mother's ring and declares his love. He is overjoyed when she replies “My father's wish is also mine.” He kneels before the statue of Buddha, affirming his promise to bring her only happiness. On the day of the wedding, the Bing Foo, an outlaw Tong based in Sacramento, declares war. Wong fears a nationwide conflict and the transformation of Tongs into gangsters. Nog hires bodyguards, and the handsome young gangster, Harry En Hai (Leslie Fenton) is assigned to Wong. Toya is a modern girl with a good education, and at first she gives Harry the brush off. Wong and Toya are happy together, but threats and blackmail from Sacramento continue. Wong's devoted clerk, Chung Ho, is killed, and Wong goes to Sacramento to meet with the Bing Foo. Only Big Jim Malone, the white gangster who started the war, refuses to cooperate. Wong eliminates him, and the war ends. Meanwhile, Harry has seduced Toya. When Wong returns, he finds them embracing passionately. She steps between Harry and Wong, and recalls his promise to make her happy, always. Wong gives Toya and her happiness to Harry, making him swear, warning that if he breaks faith Buddha will find him. Because of this “unworthy act”, Wong is stricken from the Tong's records everywhere. Shunned, he falls into poverty. At last, Wong hears from Toya in a note, “written from a living death” in China, to tell him she loves only him. The government caught Harry selling opium, and deported both of them. Wong redeems his hatchets from pawn and heads across the Pacific to China, working as a stoker. Toya is prisoner in an opium den/brothel, sold to Madame Si-Si by Harry. Harry sees Wong, but thinks he is a drug-induced hallucination. Toya faints when she sees him, but Wong has only love for her. He confronts Madame Si-Si and demands his wife, by ancient Chinese law and on the honor of a hatchet man. Madame SiSi scoffs; he proves it by hitting the eye of a dragon in a wall painting. Toya and Wong leave. He promises to return for Harry. On the other side of the partition, Madame Si Si shrieks at an unresponsive Harry while her servant removes the hatchet from the partition—and from Harry's skull. Harry's body falls, Cut to the statue of Buddha; Wong repeats his warning to Harry. “The great Lord Buddha will find you no matter where you are on the face of the Earth”. ===== The novel's plot concerns two sisters, Virginia and Angela Murray, who grow up in Philadelphia in a home rich with African- American culture. Angela, like her mother Mattie, is light skinned and able to “pass” in white society, while Virginia and her father Junius's darker complexion places them on the other side of the color line. Virginia grows up refusing to bow to racist pressures; rather she accepts who she is. Angela, on the other hand, tries repeatedly to gain acceptance by assuming a white mask, but each time it seems that success and friendship are hers, her ethnicity is exposed and she is stripped of everything she cares about. The deaths of her parents and the racism of Philadelphia society cause Angela to leave for New York City, where she decides to fully hide her African-American heritage. She gains acceptance in an elite artistic circle perhaps inspired by the 1920s Greenwich Village avant-garde. She begins a romantic relationship with Roger, a young white man who seems to move among New York's "Four Hundred", the social elite. Their relationship, however, is based in several deceptions. In one of the novel's most important scenes, Angela's sister is newly arrived at Pennsylvania Station from Philadelphia. Angela, who has come to the station to meet her sister, sees her lover. Aware that his racism will cause him to reject her, she brushes by her darker-complected sister, leaving her standing alone in the crowd. Angela's and Roger's deceptions of each other and of themselves lie also in their use of each other for personal gain: Angela seeks Roger's financial comfort; Roger seeks the convenience of sex without having to introduce his new find to his father, whose deep concern is for his future daughter-in-law's pedigree. Roger's abandonment of Angela, the unmasking, to Angela, of his solely sexual intentions, and the mistreatment of Miss Powell, a young artist of African-American heritage, lead Angela to reveal her racial heritage and lose her standing with several of her acquaintances. However, true friends and her sister urge her to travel to Paris to become an artist, and Anthony, a fellow art school classmate of mixed heritage who watched his father die under the hands of a racist mob in the South, declares his love for Angela. It seems at the end, Anthony and Angela may come to terms with America's racist past and their own brighter future. The subtitle of the book, A Novel without a Moral, can be understood as follows: once Angela leaves Philadelphia for New York and a traditional African-American home for life on her own, her morality is no longer clearly defined for her. The “moral to the story” is slowly created for the reader and for the main characters as Angela learns and understands the life lessons that New York affords her. ===== In the mid-1920s, a young Danny Fisher and his family move into a new house in a Brooklyn suburb. Within a few years, however, the Great Depression begins and Danny must use his one talent, boxing, as a means of supporting his family. After a few years, the Fishers have lost their house and are living in a cramped apartment in the city. Danny continues to box, much against his father's wish, and dates a young Italian Catholic woman, Nellie Petito, much to the chagrin of his mother. Danny's boxing skills attract the attention of hoodlums, and he is offered a large sum of money to lose the Golden Gloves championship, a fight he could win easily and which would bring him professional fame as well as, he hopes, his father's acceptance. Danny accepts the bribe but beats his opponent. After going on the run for two years in Coney Island, he returns to marry his sweetheart. Their early married life is marred by the death of their first-born child Vicky, in poverty. Danny seeks out his former manager and goes into business with him as a black marketeer. Such activity brings him into contact with the very criminals he previously cheated. The title is taken from the Jewish tradition of leaving a stone on the headstone when visiting a grave. The movie version homes in on the tension between the father, a withdrawn, cold father and barely successful pharmacy employee and his son, a rebellious teenager whose failures in high school are largely a passive-aggressive response to his father, masking the need for the patriarch's approval. ===== During a heavy rainstorm armored truck drivers Tom and his uncle Charlie are collecting money from banks in the town of Huntingburg, Indiana, which has been evacuated due to flooding. They are ambushed by Jim and his gang of armed robbers, Kenny, Mr. Mehlor, and Ray. Charlie calls the National Guard and is shot dead by Kenny as Tom escapes and hides the cash in a cemetery. The gang chases Tom who takes refuge in a nearby church, where he is mistaken for a looter by Karen who knocks him out. He wakes up in a cell, and tells Sheriff Mike Collins about the gang and the money. The Sheriff and Chief Deputy Wayne Bryce leave him locked up and go to investigate, whilst Deputy Phil is ordered to take Karen out of town. Karen pushes Phil out of the boat to return to protect the church, which she is restoring. The town's dam operator Hank is forced to open a spillway floodgate causing a large wave and deeper flooding. Tom is trapped in his cell as the water rises. After protecting the church, Karen rescues him and they hide from the gang. Kenny is electrocuted. They enter a house and are mistaken for looters by the elderly residents Doreen and Henry Sears who have declined to evacuate and are determined to protect their property. Henry is persuaded to give Tom their boat to return to the armored truck. Resurfacing from the submerged truck he finds the gang holding the elderly couple hostage. Tom says he will tell where the money is. Jim reveals to Tom that Charlie was in cahoots with the gang, and did not actually call the National Guard. He was only killed because Kenny was not told Charlie was on their side. Tom finds the money has disappeared. They are ambushed by Sheriff Collins and his deputies plus Hank, who have found Karen and intend to keep the money for themselves. Mr. Mehlor and Ray are killed in the shoot out, and Jim and Tom escape and hide in the church. Wayne takes Karen to her house intending to rape her. The others petrol bomb the church and drive their boats through the stained glassed windows. Karen stabs and kills Wayne. Hank shoots Phil for not shooting Tom when he had the chance The dam overtop alarm sounds. Collins suggests Tom and Jim should let Hank and him go with a couple of the bags of money. Tom agrees, but Jim does not. Tom leaves to try to save Karen, before Collins shoots Jim with a revolver he was hiding, although Jim isn't badly hurt. Collins and Hank escape in a boat. Hank is pushed out by Collins and is killed in a gas explosion. Tom finds Karen handcuffed to a banister. He frees her and they climb to the roof to avoid the water where they are caught by Collins. Jim comes from behind them in a boat. Collins shoots at him, disabling the steering, forcing him to go over the roof. As he does so, the engine breaks off and collides with the sheriff, knocking him into the water. Collins tries to shoot Karen as he grabs a bag of money, but Tom and Jim shoot the corrupt sheriff dead. Tom tells Jim he should leave, just as the State Police arrive. Jim picks up Collins' bag of money and rows away, as Tom tells Karen the fire damage to her church wasn't too bad and can be repaired. ===== One night two siblings—Samantha and Johnathan—come across a butterfly while exploring a grassy field. Enchanted by the butterfly's haunting beauty, Samantha chases after it. Johnathan follows reluctantly, repeating Grandmother's warnings about ghosts who roam the area and turn people into butterflies. The butterfly leads Samantha into the Mansion, where she becomes trapped: as Johnathan, the player must explore the Mansion, overcome several puzzles, and escape with his sister before the pair of them become permanent residents. While exploring the Mansion, the player encounters several ghosts, who appear in the form of butterflies: * A pampered young girl. She seems friendly at first, but is actually a conniving brat. * An Australian butterfly collector. He seems anxious for the boy to become a butterfly and join the collection. * A painter, who is in a perpetually dreamy, absent-minded state. * An Eastern European tavern wench. She cackles menacingly and seems amused by the children's predicament. * A piano-playing southern belle, who longs to touch the keys again. ===== The book focuses on 9-year-old 4th grader Peter Hatcher's frustration with the horrendous behavior demonstrated by his annoying 2½-year-old brother, Fudge, who frequently goes unpunished. Peter becomes frustrated with Fudge because he often disturbs Dribble, Peter's pet turtle, which Peter won at his best friend Jimmy Fargo's birthday party. Furthermore, Fudge throws nonstop temper tantrums, goes through a finicky phase of abstaining from eating altogether, and emulates Peter's behavior, throwing tantrums if it is prohibited. Nevertheless, their parents dote on Fudge, to Peter's anger and frustration. For months, Fudge's antics continue; breaking his front teeth after catapulting himself from the jungle gym at the local playground when he decides to fly, vandalizing Peter's group homework assignment, and taking off on his family at a movie theater. One day, to Peter's absolute misery, he returns home to discover Dribble is missing from his bowl, Fudge claiming to have swallowed him. These proclamations prove to be correct, and Fudge is rushed to the hospital, where Dribble is extracted, to Mrs. Hatcher's relief. However, Dribble has died in Fudge's stomach, and no one, especially Fudge, seems to care. Peter is devastated over the loss of his beloved pet; his parents sympathetically compensate by adopting a dog, which Peter appropriately names "Turtle" in memory of Dribble. ===== The plot involves Spider-Man's wife, Mary Jane, being kidnapped by Mysterio. To save her, Spider-Man must navigate through various environments and puzzles divided into separate acts, representing Mysterio's obsession with film. The various rooms are often parodies of film genres. ===== Cartman's grandmother dies and leaves $1 million to him in her will. Rather than invest the money or donate it to Goodwill, Cartman purchases North Park Funland, an amusement park owned by Frank Fun. As Frank signs the park over to Cartman, he admits it has been a financial failure. Cartman is not worried, as he plans to open the park exclusively for his own use so he can avoid standing in long lines. The deal is finalized, and he changes the name of the park to Cartmanland. Meanwhile, Kyle begins to question his faith in God upon learning of Cartman's good fortune. To make matters worse, Kyle develops an inflamed hemorrhoid due to the stress of knowing Cartman's glee. He and Stan attempt to sneak into Cartmanland, defying Cartman's expulsion of any guests. Kyle's hemorrhoid bursts as he and Stan try to climb over the perimeter fence, and Cartman angrily sends them away. The hemorrhoid becomes infected, causing Kyle to fully lose his faith as his health begins to deteriorate. His parents attempt to cheer him up by telling him the Biblical story of Job, but Kyle is instead horrified that God would allow a man to suffer so badly just to settle a dispute with Satan. Cartman tries to hire a security guard for the park, but the man he chooses insists on receiving a salary instead of being paid in free rides. Having now spent his entire inheritance, Cartman has no choice but to let a few people into the park each day in order to pay the guard. Expenses for ride maintenance, refreshments, utilities, and added security begin to mount, forcing Cartman to sell more and more tickets to cover them. Business experts misinterpret Cartman's attempts to keep the park to himself as a brilliant marketing ploy; Kyle, now hospitalized, falls deeper into despair upon hearing these reports and flatlines. Infuriated by the long lines of attendees that now fill the park, Cartman demands that Frank buy it back from him. Frank agrees, but as soon as he does so, Cartman receives a bill from the IRS for $500,000 in taxes and penalties, stemming from his failure to pay taxes on the park's revenue. He loses another $500,000 to Kenny's parents in a lawsuit over Kenny's death on a roller coaster, and is ordered by the court to pay the family's legal fees of $13,000. Now deep in debt, Cartman pleads in vain for Frank to return the park to him, but Frank refuses. Stan persuades Kyle's doctor to bring him to the park, just in time to see Cartman be sprayed with Mace by the security guard he hired. Cartman's misery brings Kyle back from the verge of death, his hemorrhoid subsides, and he regains his faith while watching Cartman have an emotional breakdown. ===== Mike Dawson is a successful advertising executive and writer who has recently bought an old mansion on Ventura Drive (named after Ventura Boulevard) in the small town of Woodland Hills. On his first night at the house, Mike has a nightmare about being imprisoned by a machine that shoots an alien embryo into his brain. He wakes up with a large headache and, after taking a painkiller and a shower, explores the mansion. He finds clues about the previous owner's death, which reveal the existence of a parallel universe called the Dark World ruled by sinister aliens called the Ancients. On the second day, he travels to that universe through the living room mirror and meets the Keeper of the Scrolls, a friendly darkworlder. She tells him that the nightmare he had on his first night was real and warns him that if the embryo—the eponymous Dark Seed—is born, it will kill him and all of humanity. The only way to stop this, she says, is to destroy the Ancient's Power Source. On the third and final day, Mike executes an elaborate plan that culminates with the Ancient ship's departure on the Dark World, depriving them of their power source, and the destruction of the living room mirror, sealing the Ancients out of the Normal World. The game ends with the town librarian visiting Mike and telling him she found some pills in her purse prescribed to Mike. The medication will presumably kill the embryo inside his head. A morphing animation reveals that, unbeknownst to the librarian, she is the Keeper of the Scrolls' counterpart. Mike then states that he's just beginning to understand. ===== Renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is invited to give a lecture at the United States Capitol, at the invitation apparently from his mentor, a 33rd degree Mason named Peter Solomon, who is the head of the Smithsonian Institution. Solomon has also asked him to bring a small, sealed package which he had entrusted to Langdon years earlier. When Langdon arrives at the Capitol, however, he learns that the invitation he received was not from Solomon, but from Solomon's kidnapper, Mal'akh posing as Solomon's assistant, who has left Solomon's severed right hand in the middle of the Capitol Rotunda in a recreation of the Hand of Mysteries. Mal'akh then contacts Langdon, charging him with finding both the Mason's Pyramid, which Masons believe is hidden somewhere in Washington, D.C., and the Lost Word, lest Solomon be murdered. Langdon meets Trent Anderson, head of the Capitol police, and Inoue Sato, the head of the CIA's Office of Security. Sato claims that Mal'akh poses a threat to the national security of the U.S. and that his capture is more important than Peter's rescue, although she refuses to elaborate. Examining Solomon's hand, they discover a clue leading them to Solomon's Masonic altar in a room in the Capitol's sub- basement, where they find a small pyramid lacking a capstone, with an inscription carved into it. Sato then confronts Langdon with the security x-ray taken of his bag when he entered the Capitol which reveals a smaller pyramid in the package Langdon brought in response to the request by the kidnapper posing as Solomon's assistant. Langdon explains that he was unaware of its contents, but Sato, refusing to believe it, attempts to take Langdon into custody. Before she can arrest him, however, she and Anderson are assaulted by Warren Bellamy, the Architect of the Capitol and a Freemason, who then flees with Langdon in the confusion. He later explains to Langdon that he too has been in contact with Mal'akh and wants Langdon's assistance in rescuing Peter. Mal'akh is revealed to be a Freemason with tattoos covering almost his entire body. He infiltrated the organization in order to obtain an ancient source of power, which he believes Langdon can unlock for him in return for Peter Solomon's life. Several chapters also delve into Mal'akh's history with Peter Solomon: many years earlier, Peter bequeathed a large sum of inheritance money to his rebellious son, Zachary, who then fled the Solomon household and led a reckless life in Europe until he was arrested and imprisoned in Turkey for smuggling drugs. Peter flew to Turkey but decided to have Zachary extradited in a week's time instead of getting him released immediately in order to teach him a lesson. Zachary was apparently murdered by his cellmate who got his hands on Zachary's fortune and fled to the island of Syros in Greece to lead a luxurious life under the name Andros Dareios. Dareios, however, soon grew tired of his life. Apparently having spoken with Zachary about Solomon's life as a Mason, Dareios broke into Solomon's home to find the pyramid, but accidentally killed Peter's mother Isabel and was in turn shot and left to fall into a frozen river by a vengeful Solomon. Surviving the fall, Dareios nursed himself back to health, covered his scars and eventually his entire body with tattoos and set off on a mission to infiltrate the Freemasons and gain access to their secrets, adopting the name Mal'akh. As Langdon deals with the events into which he has been thrust, Mal'akh destroys the Smithonsonian-sponsored laboratory of Dr. Katherine Solomon, Peter's younger sister, where she has conducted experiments in Noetic Science, in the process ambushing and almost killing Katherine in a cat-and- mouse chase, but Katherine manages to escape and meet up with Langdon and Bellamy. Eventually, when cornered by the authorities, Bellamy is forced to give himself up while Langdon and Katherine escape. Both are later apprehended by Sato's team. Following clues regarding Mal'akh's previous identity as Peter Solomon's psychiatrist, Dr. Christopher Abaddon, Sato allows Langdon and Katherine to rush to his mansion to confront him, but Mal'akh ambushes them and murders their CIA escort. Meanwhile, as he is being interrogated by Sato, Bellamy expresses belief that Sato is working with Mal'akh but Sato assures Bellamy that she is also pursuing Mal'akh in the interest of national security and displays evidence that visibly shocks Bellamy. Mal'akh places Langdon into an airtight sensory deprivation tank, where he interrogates Langdon by slowly filling the tank with liquid. He is able to convince Langdon to decipher the code at the pyramid's base, but continues to fill the tank until Langdon drowns and apparently dies. Mal'akh then ties Katherine to a chair and inserts an open-ended transfusion needle into her arm and leaves her to bleed to death then flees with a weakened and wheelchair-bound Peter Solomon to the Temple Room of the Scottish Rite's House of the Temple. He uses the threat of not calling an ambulance for Katherine as further coercion for Peter's cooperation. Sato leads a team of agents to the mansion after Langdon and Katherine's escort fails to check in and are able to save Katherine's life. After a near-death experience, Langdon is revealed to have survived due to the "water" in the tank actually being breathable oxygenated liquid and the tank being a device for meditation. Sato, Langdon and Simkins race to the House of the Temple where Mal'akh threatens to release a heavily edited video showing government officials performing secret Masonic rituals (the same video that Sato showed to Bellamy), which without context, appears highly disturbing. Mal'akh forces the Word—the unpronounceable circumpunct—out of Peter and tattoos it on his head on the last portion of unmarked skin on his body. Mal'akh then orders Peter to sacrifice him, as he believes that it is his destiny to become a demonic spirit and lead the forces of evil. When Peter claims that he will do so without hesitation to avenge his son and mother, Mal'akh shocks Peter by revealing that he is actually Zachary Solomon himself, having conspired with the prison warden to fake his death by disfiguring the body of another inmate beyond recognition (at the same time, Katherine and Bellamy discover several photos of Zachary in Greece after his supposed death that show his gradual transformation into Mal'akh). With tears in his eyes, Peter prepares to stab Zachary but ultimately cannot bring himself to do so and drops the knife just as Langdon arrives and tackles him. Director Sato arrives at the Temple in a helicopter, which smashes the Temple's skylight, the shards of which fatally impale Zachary. The CIA then thwart Zachary's plan to transmit the video to several leading media channels using an EMP blast, disabling a cell tower in the network path leading from Zachary's laptop computer. Katherine arrives and she and Langdon then share a tearful reunion with Peter and mourn Zachary's death. Zachary is only briefly able to lament his body's mutilation before dying. Later, Peter informs Langdon that the circumpunct Zachary tattooed on his head is not the Word. He also informs Katherine that he made back-ups of all of her noetic research data on his own computer, meaning her research can continue. Deciding to take Langdon to the true secret behind the Word, Peter leads him to the room atop the Washington Monument and tells him that the Word—a common Christian Bible, the Word of God—lies in the monument's cornerstone, buried in the ground beneath the monument's staircase. Langdon realizes that the symbols on the pyramid's base spelled out the words Laus Deo which translate to Praise God. These words are inscribed on the small aluminum capstone atop the Monument, which is the true Masonic Pyramid. Peter tells Langdon that the Masons believe that the Bible is an esoteric allegory written by humanity, and that, like most religious texts around the globe, it contains veiled instructions for harnessing humanity's natural God-like qualities—similar to Katherine's noetic research—and is not meant to be interpreted as the commands of an all-powerful deity. This interpretation has been lost amid centuries of scientific skepticism and fundamentalist zealotry. The Masons have (metaphorically) buried it, believing that, when the time is right, its rediscovery will usher in a new era of human enlightenment. ===== At the start of the 20th century, James Piper sets fire to his dead mother’s piano and heads out across Cape Breton Island to find a new place to live. Working as a piano tuner, he meets and eventually elopes with 13-year-old Materia Mahmoud, much to the anger of her wealthy, traditional Lebanese parents. James, madly obsessed with Materia, impregnates her, and then becomes increasingly frustrated and confused by her resulting strange behavior. Materia gives birth to their first daughter, Kathleen, and James subsequently becomes disgusted with his once intriguing wife, finally realizing that he actually married "a child". Materia regrets marrying James, and does not take to the child, as she believes her daughter's relationship with James to be revolting. James, however, is swollen with pride over his beautiful daughter, and spends his time ignoring and neglecting Materia while spoiling and smothering Kathleen. Through the eyes of James, his life is perfect, aside from his wife. According to the town folk, however, something appears to be seriously wrong with the Piper family. Materia is taken in by the kind neighbor Mrs. Luvovitz, who teaches her to sew and cook. Materia misses her old life and her family who have since disowned her. She grows to hate James and their daughter Kathleen. Materia senses danger in James' obsession with their daughter and sees it as her duty to keep him distracted and occupied (especially in the bedroom), lest his affection for the young girl take an unnatural turn. Though his fixation on his eldest daughter is all encompassing, James eventually impregnates Materia three more times in quick succession. She gives birth to three girls, Mercedes, Frances and Lily, only to have newborn Lily die a crib death shortly after. She is from here on in the novel referred to as "Other Lily". The novel then explores the girls' relationship with their troubled father; their secretive, silent mother; and friendships that grow between them as they try to figure out their family's strange and mysterious history. As Kathleen grows older, she is perceived by her schoolmates as snobby, and they turn against her. Her father James is her only friend, and when he travels off to war, Kathleen is crushed. James, however, knows that he must leave Kathleen, as he has found himself increasingly attracted to her sexually. To him, enlisting is a way of beating "the devil." Kathleen befriends her younger sisters, and James later returns as a shadow of his former self. Still, he feels an attraction to his eldest daughter, and he sends her to New York City to train with a highly regarded but challenging voice instructor and to fulfill her dream of becoming an opera singer at the Metropolitan Opera House. During her absence, James receives a letter from an "Anonymous Well-Wisher" suggesting that Kathleen may have gotten into trouble in New York. He immediately fetches her from New York, bringing her home where it becomes apparent that she is pregnant. Kathleen spends her pregnancy hidden in her family home, but eventually dies during childbirth, though her mother manages to save her twin children, a boy and a girl, by performing an emergency caesarian section. Influenced by her mother's increasing devotion to Catholicism, Kathleen's younger sister Frances believes the babies must be baptized, and so attempts to do so in the creek behind the house the night of their birth. James catches her, and believes she is trying to drown them. He drags her away and the male twin, named Ambrose by Frances, is accidentally left to drown in the creek. The female twin, Lily, contracts polio from the contaminated water in the creek, but survives the disease by what Mercedes attributes to a miracle. Mercedes, Frances and Lily are all raised to believe Materia is Lily's mother. When the accidental suicide of the grieving Materia shatters the world of the remaining Piper sisters, they come to depend on one another for survival. The development of the sisters — Kathleen, the promising diva; Mercedes, the caretaker; Frances, the mischievous one; and disabled Lily, the innocent one — forms the heart of the novel as they all bear the burden of their tragically flawed father. At their mother's funeral, Frances is unable to stop herself from laughing at a private joke, and so covers her face with her hands. As a result, she is mistaken for sobbing and offered comfort, illustrating to the young girl how the truth of a situation can diverge from people's perception of it. After the baptism incident, Frances, beaten and all-but-disowned by her father, causes trouble in school, eventually getting herself expelled, despite Mercedes' best efforts to keep her in check. Frances finds solace in her dolls, matinee movies, her late mother's old hope chest, and her darling younger sister Lily. Frances eventually runs away in the middle of the night, ends up in a beaten down pub run by her Lebanese uncle, and becomes the pub's entertainment and pint-sized whore. She says she does it to save money for Lily, but Frances is unsure as to what exactly she is saving for. She discovers her long-lost grandfathers house, and then becomes obsessed with his African maid, Teresa. Frances, remembering fragments of what happened when her sister returned from the city, becomes convinced that Kathleen had taken a lover and become pregnant while away. She fixates on reenacting this aspect of her late sister's life. Eventually she stalks and seduces Teresa's brother, Leo, and becomes impregnated by him, after she has saved enough money for Lily and is ready to stop working. She dreams of becoming a mother to a black child, but her son, Aloysius, is pronounced dead at birth and she becomes depressed. After this trauma, Frances and her father slowly reconcile and she even becomes something akin to a confessor for him before he dies years later. Lily is crippled, one of her legs being smaller than the other, and she wears a leather brace. She loves Frances the most of everyone, and was raised to believe Materia and James were her parents, although Frances liked to tell her otherwise. Lily believes everything Frances tells her, and so believes Ambrose is her guardian angel, and often wished for him to protect Frances after she left the house in the middle of the night. Lily said Ambrose lived in the creek, and he came to her in her dreams. Lily led Mercedes to the spot where Frances seduced Leo Taylor, and Mercedes believed that Lily was a saint. Mercedes spends her time praying, taking care of the family and working hard at school. She flirts with the idea of a romance with the son of Mrs. Luvovitz, but drags her feet because his Jewish ancestry conflicts with her growing religious devotion and sense of propriety. Eventually he moves away, marries, and has children of his own, leaving her with nothing but repressed regret over both her snobbery and having never taken a chance on being happy. James, who has become a moonshiner as his primary income source, suffers a severe stroke and Mercedes is slowly consumed by her role as care-taker in the family; becoming severe and controlling as she gives up on any life for herself outside of this role. This culminates in her deception involving Frances' illegitimate mixed-race child: who was in fact given up for adoption by his disapproving aunt. As Frances and their father grow closer in his old age, Mercedes resents their bond, feeling left out and snubbed after all the sacrifices she has made for her family. Kathleen's diary and old dress is eventually sent home by her caretaker in New York, and after Frances reads it, sends it with Lily to New York, to find Kathleen's lover. As Lily reads through the pages of the diary, we learn of Kathleen's vocal lessons, her instructor she calls the Kaiser, and her illicit love affair with the female black piano accompanist, Rose Lacroix. The romance is a whirlwind, as both women fall madly in love with one another, going to Jazz bars with Rose dressed as a man. Kathleen thrives, and basks in her complete happiness. The world is their oyster, until James barges into Kathleen's apartment one day to find her in bed with the black woman (whom he mistakes for a man). A furious attack on Rose leads to James' jealous rape of Kathleen, as his sexual desire for her finally overcomes him. This reveals Lily's true father, and James brings Kathleen home to Cape Breton, where she then dies in childbirth, her dreams shattered and her short and gloriously promising life cut terribly short. James eventually confesses everything to Frances, and soon after dies in his reading chair, peacefully. Frances finally reveals the family's darkest secrets to her sister Mercedes, who is firmly in denial. Frances dies as an elderly woman with the help of Mercedes, without ever knowing the actual fate of her child. The novel ends in New York, as Lily makes her way across North America to Rose's apartment, where the ghostly return of her lover's doppelganger child pushes her over the edge. The two form a friendship and live together for many years, eventually to be visited by a young black man called Anthony, bearing a gift from Mercedes Piper. He delivers a drawing of a family tree, made by Mercedes, finally revealing all the incest, illegitimate children, crib deaths and affairs that make up the Piper family. Anthony is revealed to be Frances' long-lost son Aloysius, and Lily sits him down to tell him all about his mother. ===== When world peace is threatened by the emergence of a terrorist group called the Black Cross Army, EAGLE, the Earth Guard League, is formed to combat the threat. The Black Cross Army sends five operatives to destroy each EAGLE branch in Japan, killing everyone except for five agents. These surviving agents are summoned to a secret base located underneath the snack shop "Gon", where they are recruited by EAGLE Japan's commander, Gonpachi Edogawa. They become the Himitsu Sentai Gorengers and are given electronic battlesuits that endow them with superhuman strength and speed. The five dedicate themselves to stopping the Black Cross Army and its leader, the Black Cross Führer. ===== The film displays the Hungarian, Roma, Chinese and Arab dwellers and their alliances and conflicts in a humorous way, embedded into a fictive story of a few schoolchildren's oil-making time-travel and a Romeo and Juliet-type love of a Roma guy towards a white girl. ===== Secret agent WD-40 Dick Steele (Leslie Nielsen) has his work cut out for him. Along with the mysterious and lovely Veronique Ukrinsky, Agent 3.14 (Nicollette Sheridan), he must rescue the kidnapped Barbara Dahl and stop the evil genius, a General named Rancor (Andy Griffith), from seizing control of the entire world. Rancor was wounded in an earlier encounter and no longer has arms. However, he can "arm" himself by attaching robotic limbs with various weapons attached. Steele is approached by an old friend, agent Steven Bishop (Robert Guillaume), who unsuccessfully tries to recruit him out of retirement. However, when a news report Steele is watching reveals that Bishop has been killed, Steele returns to the agency. Steele given his new assignment by The Director (Charles Durning), who also is testing out a variety of elaborate disguises. At headquarters, Steele encounters an old agency nemesis, Norm Coleman (Barry Bostwick), and flirts with the Director's adoring secretary, referred to as Miss Cheevus (Marcia Gay Harden). On the job, Steele is assisted by an agent named Kabul (John Ales), who gives him rides in a never- ending variety of specially designed cars. They seek help from McLuckey (Mason Gamble), a blond child left home alone, who is very good at fending off intruders. Steele resists the temptations of a dangerous woman (Talisa Soto) he finds waiting for him in bed. But he does work very closely with Agent 3.14, whose father, Professor Ukrinsky (Elya Baskin), is also being held captive by Rancor. Everything comes to an explosive conclusion at the General's remote fortress, where Steele rescues both Barbara Dahl (Stephanie Romanov) and Miss Cheevus and launches a literally disarmed Rancor into outer space, saving mankind. ===== Helmut Sanchez is a young researcher in the employ of renowned Yale professor Werner Hopfgartner. By chance, Helmut discovers a letter written decades ago by his boss mocking guilt over the Holocaust. Appalled, Helmut digs into the scholar's life and travels to Austria and Italy to uncover evidence of Hopfgartner's hateful past. Meanwhile, Hopfgartner's colleague and rival, Regina Neumann, wants to reveal the truth about Hopfgartner's sexual liaisons with vulnerable students before the professor's imminent retirement. Neumann traps Sarah Goodman, an insecure graduate student trying to find her place at Yale, into initiating formal charges of sexual harassment against Hopfgartner. Soon Helmut's intellectual quest for the truth metamorphoses into a journey of justice and blood, one with unforeseen consequences. ===== The story is told in flashback by a villager, played by Mervyn Johns, as though to a person visiting after the war. He recounts: one Saturday during the Second World War, a group of seemingly authentic British soldiers arrive in the small, fictitious English village of Bramley End. It is the Whitsun weekend so life is even quieter than usual and there is almost no traffic of any kind. At first they are welcomed by the villagers, until doubts begin to grow about their true purpose and identity. After they are revealed to be German soldiers intended to form the vanguard of an invasion of Britain, they round up the residents and hold them captive in the local church. The vicar is shot while sounding the church bell in alarm. In attempts to reach the outside world, many of the villagers take action. Such plans include writing a message on an egg and giving them to the local paper boy for his mother, but they are crushed when Mrs Fraser's cousin runs over them. Mrs Fraser then puts a note in Cousin Maude's pocket, but she uses it to hold her car window in place; her dog, Edward, then chews it to shreds after it blows onto the back seat. Mrs Collins, the postmistress, manages to kill a German with an axe used for chopping firewood, and tries to telephone for help, but the girls on the telephone exchange see her light and decide that she can wait. Mrs Collins waits, and is killed by another German who walks into the shop. The girl at the exchange then picks up the phone, but gets no response. The captive civilians attempt to contact and warn the local Home Guard, but are betrayed by the village squire, who is revealed to be a long-time collaborator with the Germans. Members of the local Home Guard are ambushed and shot by the Germans. A young boy, George, escapes from the church. He is shot in the leg by a German, but manages to alert the British Army. British soldiers arrive, and – aided by some of the villagers, including a group of Women's Land Army girls, who have managed to escape, barricade themselves in, and arm themselves – defeat the Germans after a short battle. The squire is shot dead by the vicar's daughter, who discovers his treachery as he attempts to let the Germans into the barricaded house. During the battle, many of the villagers who left to fight are wounded or killed; Mrs Fraser saves the children from a grenade, at the cost of her own life, and Tom's father is shot in the arm and wrenches his ankle as he falls. The British troops then arrive at Bramley End and all ends well. The villager retelling the story to the camera shows the Germans' grave in the churchyard and explains proudly: "Yes, that's the only bit of England they got." ===== Bible professor Russell Carlisle (D. David Morin) confronts and lectures a boy who has stolen marbles from his neighbors, calling his action unjust. The year is 1890 and Carlisle has written a new manuscript entitled The Changing Times, which promotes good morals without discussing Christ. The book is on track to receive a unanimous endorsement from the board of the Grace Bible Seminary. That is, until colleague Dr. Norris Anderson (Gavin MacLeod) objects. Without unanimous endorsement, his book might not do so well. Carlisle and another professor seek a unanimity rule change, but the dean insists that Carlisle discuss the disagreement with Anderson privately. Dr. Anderson fears that Carlisle's book could harm coming generations, arguing that teaching good moral values without mentioning Christ is wrong. Using a secret time machine, Anderson sends Carlisle over 100 years into the future, offering him a glimpse of where his beliefs will lead. Arriving in the early 21st century, Carlisle is shocked to find that half of all marriages end in divorce (instead of 5% in 1890), teenagers talk openly about deceiving their parents, movies contain blasphemous language and people who go to church are so bored by the sermons that they need extra activities. He tries to convince a laundromat worker, Eddie Martinez (Paul Rodriguez), to go to church and read the Bible. Two churchgoing men grow suspicious of Carlisle, who acts as if he's seeing everything for the first time. They confront him as he is about to be transported back to the past. As the sky grows thunderous, Carlisle seems delirious as he talks about how the second coming of Christ is drawing near. Carlisle vanishes. The men look at where he vanished and one of the men says with dread, "I think we just missed the Rapture." Carlisle rematerializes in 1890 and excitedly tells Anderson he will revise his book. He gives the thieving boy his own set of marbles and explains that it is Jesus Christ who demands honesty. Anderson tries to learn when the world will come to an end, by trying to send a Bible to the future. The machine won't operate with a target date of 2100, so he tries with progressively earlier decades 2090, 2080 and 2070, which fail. As the film ends, he makes at least two more failed attempts, aiming earlier and earlier, suggesting that either humanity cannot know when the End comes, or that the End will come before the mid-21st century. ===== While the story is based on the film Seven Samurai, its story and plot have more in common with its animated counterpart, Samurai 7. The storyline is divided into chapters: Natoe encounters the powerful Zex in the Overture Chapter. The game begins as a young samurai known as Natoe is passing through the town during the humanoid invasion of the city. As he passes through the ruined city, he encounters several humanoid foot soldiers, defeating them. He then encounters the Humanoid known as Zex. After seriously wounding him, he meets the fleeing villagers who inquire if he can help protect their village from future humanoid attacks. Natoe declines, and leaves the villagers, fighting more humanoids along the way."Overture: Decadent Moon"(Seven Samurai 20XX) After encountering his childhood friend Jodie, Natoe works his way through the city, finishing off the remaining humanoids from the prior invasion. He eventually meets up with Kanbei, who convinces him to help out the villagers or they will be overrun by the next invasion of Humanoids. Natoe reluctantly agrees."Chapter 1: To the Silver bridge"(Seven Samurai 20XX) However, Kanbei realizes that they need more samurai to defend the village. They venture out into various areas to recruit 5 more skilled warriors. Natoe eventually finds the thief Totsuma in the city's Scrapyard area. Natoe defeats Necryl, earning Totsuma's trust and place on the team. Kanbei now tells the team of his former war ally Rojie, and the team set out to the main part of the city to locate him."Chapter 2: Art of Junk life"(Seven Samurai 20XX) Natoe and the others arrive in the heart of the bustling city to find the whereabouts of Rojie. Discovering his occupation as a bodyguard for a female mob leader named Salla, Natoe goes off to find him, defeating leagues of street thugs and the drug dealer Kyric in the process. He meets the friendly warrior Eight before leaving the district."Chapter 3: Vanishing love petals"(Seven Samurai 20XX) Rojie now on the team, Natoe recalls the man Eight and suggests to the others that he be enlisted to join the team. Noticing Eight descend into the City's underground sewers, Natoe follows. Much to his surprise, he encounters the humanoid White Fox and battles him on several occasions. At the end of the sewers, he meets the mysterious "Man in White" and discovers Jodie and Eight are both agents of the city. Saving Eight from the Man in White, Natoe convinces him to join the team."Chapter 4: The Man in White"(Seven Samurai 20XX) The Samurai arrive at the village. Leaving the city, the encourage of Natoe, Eight and Rojie make their way to the village to rendezvous with the rest of the team. Along the way Natoe encounters a team of agents from the city, as well as the enigmatic Zwei. Reaching the village, Kanbei and the samurai become suspicious of the villagers withdrawn behavior. Natoe decides to investigate, finding out in the process Hinata's true origins and the villagers deceitful motives. Afterwards, the team come to the conclusion that Humanoids attack on the village will be occurring soon. Natoe leaves the village in an attempt to find one last samurai to help in the ensuing battle."Chapter 5: Struggle in the Wilderness"(Seven Samurai 20XX)"Chapter 6: Justice for Oneself"(Seven Samurai 20XX) Natoe arrives in the wilderness to find an angry Zex and the humanoid Fen waiting for him. Zex's massive strength causes the ground to collapse, and Natoe finds himself in an underground city called the "Town of Warriors". Here he encounters Ein, a humanoid able to defeat his opponents using magic. He saves the female humanoid Cue in the process, offering to help her find her lost memories in return for her assistance. Afterwards he finds Jodie who apologies for having deceived Natoe, she then tells him to find "the traitor" and runs off. Sortly after he is reunited with Eight who, being the traitor of the city, has had his eyes cut out. Eight returns to the village with Natoe, confident he can still fight to protect the child."Chapter 7: To Live and let die"(Seven Samurai 20XX) Deciding to take the offensive, the team of Natoe, Cue and Totsuma leave the village to infiltrate the humanoid Drei's Fort, where he has been constructing new humanoid experiments using captured test subjects. Natoe also discovers the immense newly upgraded "Zex Beast" creature and destroys it. However, Totsuma is caught in a trap and killed when the fortress collapses."Chapter 8: Searching for Sin without malice"(Seven Samurai 20XX) Returning to the village, the samurai proceed to go on the defensive and protect the city from the massive Humanoid attack. During this attack, Eight sacrifices himself by blowing up one of the entrances to the village. After the ensuing battle of thousands, Natoe works his way to a fight with Zwei, defeating her and her three warriors before she retreats."Chapter 9: Victory born from Death"(Seven Samurai 20XX) The village safe for the time being, however, the "Man In White" informs them that the city no longer need the sacred child and that Jodie has been kidnapped by the humanoids. Natoe and Cue team up to face the last of Humanoids at a facility called the "Library of Avalon". As they walk through the Library, they encounter several horrific creatures called "Guardians", along with Cue beginning to regain her lost memories. She is eventually kidnapped by Ein however, and Natoe fights through several Humanoids, including the "Ultimate Zex" incarnation and the immortal Fen. After defeating them, Natoe finally confronts the powerful and mysterious being known as Ein, who battles Natoe in his original humanoid form, then absorbs Cue to become the powerful god-like being called Almana. Finding its only weak spot to be its angelic like wings, Natoe destroys them, then is able to attack its vulnerable body. Now having rescued Jodie, Natoe returns to village, but is confronted by the humanoid Zwei, in her last attempt to gain the power of the sacred jewel and the child. Natoe tries to fight Zwei but on a bridge and Jodie is knocked over the edge. Natoe grabs her in an attempt to pull her up but he is stabbed in back by Zwei. He succeeds in stabbing and killing Zwei, but the bridge collapses and he and Jodie fall to their death, leaving only two samurai left. After the aftermath, Kanbei quotes the original movie pertaining to their situation: "So again we are defeated. The farmers have won. Not us.""Final Chapter: What makes us human"(Seven Samurai 20XX) ===== After years of fighting that took millions of casualties, Earth is recovering from revolts in the 22nd century. In 2191, New Earth has a Master Computer that holds a secret database of the colony-planet's functioning. In wrong hands, the database could prove fatal to the whole planet. One day, aliens attack the Master Computer, making the Master control program malfunction. Nova, a lord of the ancient Power Blade is summoned to take care of the situation. The Power Blade is a glowing energy boomerang that Nova uses to defend himself. In order to access the Master Computer's Control Center, Nova first has to obtain tape units from the six sectors surrounding the Master Computer. Each sector is heavily guarded by aliens, and Nova has to locate and contact an agent first to receive an ID card used to access the security room located at the same sector. After defeating the security room guards, Nova can obtain the sector's tape unit and use it to disarm the sector. After the six sectors have been disarmed, Nova must fight his way through the Control Center, destroy the Master Computer and restore order to the society. ===== Set in modern-day, four childhood friends, anti-social sci-fi author Samantha "Sam" Albertson (Demi Moore), glitz and glamour-loving actress Tina "Teeny" Tercell (Melanie Griffith), dry humored gynecologist Dr. Roberta Martin (Rosie O'Donnell), and content homemaker Chrissy DeWitt (Rita Wilson), reunite in their small Indiana hometown of Shelby, to support Chrissy, heavily pregnant and expected to give birth to her first child any day. Narrated by Sam, the story focuses on the summer of 1970, when the group, lead by her twelve-year-old self (Gaby Hoffmann) sought to earn enough money to purchase a tree house to place in the backyard of Chrissy's parents' home in their affluent suburban neighborhood, called the Gaslight Addition, and how they overcame major personal struggles, Sam in her parents' divorce and her mother's subsequent dating, Teeny (Thora Birch) in her pursuit of stardom and good looks, Roberta (Christina Ricci) in overcoming the death of her mother and the embarrassment she experiences due to her developing breasts, and Chrissy's (Ashleigh Aston Moore) naivety about sex and life in general due to her mother's overprotective nature. Also, the girls, motivated by Sam's interest in the occult, regularly participate in seances, and that summer in particular, they focused on contacting the spirit of young man whose gravestone read simply "Dear Johnny," who died 25 years prior, in 1945. The story flashes back to 1970 when the girls had two goals: saving enough money to buy a treehouse and avoiding the Wormer brothers. One night, they sneak out to the cemetery to perform a seance. A cracked tombstone convinces them they have resurrected the spirit of a young boy identified only as Dear Johnny, who died in 1945 at the age of 12. Intrigued, they search for information at the library but find nothing. Later, while heading for the library in a nearby town, the girls spy the Wormer brothers skinny-dipping in the lake. To retaliate for a prank the boys played on them, the girls steal their clothes, tossing them onto the road while riding off. At the library, Roberta discovers an article about her mother being killed in a car accident: she was hit head on, trapped in the car for an hour, and then later died of massive head trauma and internal bleeding- facts previously unknown to her. Samantha finds an obituary that briefly mentions Dear Johnny and his mother tragically dying, but many pages are missing, leaving the cause of their deaths a mystery. While riding back to their town, the girls encounter a hitchhiking Vietnam veteran. The girls ask him questions about the war and his time there, he is predominantly evasive and tells them their parents aren’t always right- something that Samantha loudly agrees with. The girls then visit local psychic Wiladene, who determines Dear Johnny was murdered. On their way home, the girls meet up with local neighborhood kids at a pick up game of softball. A local boy insults Roberta who begins fighting him; after the fight is broken up, the boy insults Roberta’s deceased mother and Samantha tackles him to begin fighting again. Samantha goes home and unexpectedly meets Bud Kent, a man her newly single mother invited to dinner for their first date. Samantha is standoffish to Bud who accidentally spills wine on his shirt; Samantha’s mother gives Bud one of Samantha's father's old bowling shirts he had left behind. Upset, Sam storms out and flees to Teeny's house where she is on the roof of her house watching Love Story at the next door drive-in theater. They hang out in the treehouse display at the store, where Samantha confesses her parents are getting divorced. Teeny comforts her, then breaks her favorite necklace in two, giving one half to Samantha as a "best friends for life" bracelet. On their way home during a thunderstorm, Samantha loses her bracelet in a storm drain. When she climbs down to retrieve it, the water rises, trapping her. Crazy Pete, a local old man who only comes out at night to ride his bicycle, pulls her out. He asks them why they’re afraid of him, and after they tell him it’s creepy that he only comes out at night, he says he prefers not to be around people. Grateful for his actions, the girls now see him differently. At the same time, Roberta is playing basketball in her driveway when Scott Wormer suddenly arrives. They briefly play ball, and question why they fight all the time before sharing a kiss. Later, adult Samantha notes that Roberta has stopped taping her breasts after this happened. The girls consult Samantha's grandmother about Dear Johnny's death. Her grandmother declines to discuss the murders, saying it took her a long time to forget about that tragedy. After her grandmother leaves with friends to play bingo, Samantha and the others climb through a window to get into the attic where Samantha's grandfather had collected and saved old newspapers. They discover from a newspaper article that Johnathan Simms and his mother Beverly Anne Simms were shot and killed when they interrupted a burglary; father and husband Peter Simms came home to find the bodies. Roberta becomes upset and angry that two innocent people were killed and that her mother died violently, contrary to what she was told. Samantha announces that her parents are getting divorced, and the girls make a pact to always be there for one another. To put Dear Johnny's soul to rest, the girls go to the cemetery to perform another seance. His tombstone suddenly rises surrounded by bright light. A figure appears from behind, but it is only the groundskeeper who chastises the girls for "playing" in the cemetery and explains that the tombstone was damaged and is being replaced and he was the one who cracked it. Realizing they never resurrected Dear Johnny, they agree to stop the seances. While leaving, they notice “Crazy” Pete, and Samantha follows him back to the tombstone. Realizing that he is Dear Johnny's father, Peter Simms, she comforts him, while he advises her not to dwell on things. Some time after, the treehouse is finally bought, and Samantha narrates, "The treehouse was supposed to bring us more independence. But what the summer actually brought was independence from each other." The film returns to 1991, and Chrissy goes into labor and gives birth to a baby girl. Later, in their old treehouse, Roberta reveals that Crazy Pete died the previous year. They then discuss how happy they are in life and make another pact to visit more often. ===== ===== Cristina is Mariano's daughter, a widower. She attends a Catholic school and creates a world of her own ("mundo de juguete") in the school garden. At school she meets "Nana Tomasina", an old woman who lives behind the boarding school where Cristina attends. She takes the lonely girl in and advises her. Cristina succeeds in making her father marry Rosario who was a novice at the convent/boarding school so that she can have a new mother. ===== Impassive hitman Jef Costello (Delon) lives in a single-room Paris apartment whose spartan furnishings include a small bird in a cage. Costello's methodical modus operandi involves creating airtight alibis, including ones provided by his lover, Jane (Nathalie Delon). However, after carrying out a murder contract on a nightclub owner, Jef is seen leaving the club by several witnesses, including the club's piano player Valérie (Cathy Rosier), a bartender, and others. Their testimonies contradict each other, but after rounding up numerous suspects, including Jef, the investigating officer (François Périer) believes Costello is his man, based on the witness's statements and Costello's alibi with Jane. Costello loses a police tail and meets to collect his fee from an intermediary sent by his employers, but the man shoots and wounds Costello. Costello realizes that the police investigation has compromised him and placed him in grave danger with his employers. After bandaging his wound and resting, Costello returns to the nightclub and meets Valérie, who drives him to her home. He is grateful to her, but does not understand why she lied to the police when she clearly saw him after the murder. In the meantime, police officers bug his room, which agitates the bird in its cage. Upon returning, Costello notices some loose feathers scattered around the cage and the bird acting strangely. Suspecting an intrusion, he searches his room, finds the bug and deactivates it. The police search Jane's apartment and offer her a deal: withdraw her dubious alibi for Costello and they will leave her alone. She rejects the offer and shows them the door. Back in his apartment Costello is ambushed by the overpass shooter, who now gives him his money and offers him another contract. (The intended target is not revealed to the audience.) Costello overpowers him and forces him to disclose the identity of his boss, Olivier Rey (Jean-Pierre Posier). Several undercover police attempt to tail Costello in the Métro, but he eludes them again. He pays a visit to Jane and assures her that everything will work out, then drives to Rey's home, which turns out to be where Valérie lives. Costello kills Rey and returns to the nightclub, this time making no attempt to conceal his presence. He checks his hat but leaves his hat-check ticket on the counter and puts on white gloves, which he wears during his kills, in full view of everyone. He walks over to the stage where Valérie plays piano. She advises him to leave, but he pulls out his gun and points it at her. She quietly asks "Why, Jef?" and he replies, "I was paid to." Gunshots ring out, but they are not from Costello's gun. Three policemen reveal themselves. Costello falls to the floor, dead. An officer tells Valérie that she is lucky they were there. But when the inspector picks up Costello’s revolver, it is empty; Costello had removed all the bullets before entering the club. ===== The film showcases three 14-year-old girls: Dawn (Miriam McDonald), Becca (Megan Park) and Hannah (Alexis Dziena). Hannah soon finds herself on the receiving end of peer pressure from her friends to engage in oral sex with Nick Hartman, a nice boy whom Hannah likes. She believes that she has to behave in a particular fashion in order to fit in with her more sexually-active peers. As Hannah becomes more sexually "advanced", she does not reveal her sexual encounters and activities with Nick, to her mother, who is quite concerned about the subject. Hannah regards her mother's concern as being intrusive, knowing she would be shocked if she knew. When Hannah's best friend Dawn gets syphilis, the school nurses begin widespread testing. It soon becomes evident that the school is experiencing an epidemic. Although Nick is identified as the main spreader of the disease, he does not appreciate the serious nature of the issue and refuses to be tested, mocking those who undergo testing. Dawn reluctantly gets tested and discovers that she has contracted the disease. She realizes the consequences of her behavior and encourages her friends to get tested as well. Hannah notices a sore in her mouth one morning and decides to see the nurse, who tells Hannah that she is also infected. Thus, Hannah is forced to deal with the consequences of her actions. When Hannah's mother finds out about the syphilis spread, she launches an effort to alert parents about their children's dangerous behavior. Although she is certain that other parents will share her level of concern in helping their children, she is shocked by some of the parents' indifferent attitudes to their children's actions. Meanwhile, Becca is outraged when her religious parents (who do not know about her sexual history) decide to send her to boarding school, and Hannah is alienated at school because of her mother. She leaves her house one night and goes to her friend Tommy's house. They both realize they like each other and make out. Hannah wants to have sex, but Tommy refuses, explaining that he likes her but wishes to wait, as they are too young. Hannah becomes even more emotionally distraught, thinking he is not interested because she has been called a 'slut' and runs off. When Hannah's parents return home and see that she is gone, her mother goes off to find her. Walking around by herself in the street, Hannah calls Dawn and Becca. Dawn is grounded and is not allowed to speak with Hannah, and Becca is making out in a car with two boys and does not hear her phone. Hannah goes to a party, where many of the kids from her school are present, looking for Becca. Brad, the party's host, directs Hannah to the basement, and when she realizes that Becca is not there, he attempts to have sex with her. She refuses, but he tries to force her into it. Tommy barges into the room, takes a picture of Brad and threatens to send it to 9-1-1. Brad leaves Hannah and ends the party. Tommy takes Hannah back to his house and calls her parents. They come to fetch her, relieved to see she is alright. Hannah apologizes to them and her mother promises that things will be better from now on. The end of the film shows Becca has snuck back into her room and begins to cry. Dawn is playing Scrabble with her mother as her sister, Tess, who is not playing, sneaks off to Dawn's room. In there, she picks up one of Dawn's "sexy" shirts, takes off her glasses and models in front of the mirror, implying she may try to be 'like Dawn'. At the end of the film, Alexis Dziena appears to give a public service announcement urging teens to wait to have sex because of both physical and emotional consequences. ===== The story begins with a series of individuals from different time periods encountering motionless, hovering spheres—and each other—in the region of the Northwest Frontier. Two early hominins, a mother and daughter, are the first. They lack a language, but are referred to in the narration as "Seeker" and "Grasper". Just after encountering a sphere, they are captured by strange creatures in red, later revealed to be British Redcoats. In the year 2037, a UN peacekeeper helicopter is badly damaged by an RPG. It crashes near Jamrud Fort, which is manned by British soldiers and sepoys from 1885—including the same redcoats who captured Seeker and Grasper, which the British call "man-apes". Also present at the fort are the factor Cecil de Morgan, and two journalist observers, the American Josh White and the Anglo-Indian "Ruddy"—a young and as-yet unknown Rudyard Kipling. The helicopter crew comprises an American pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Casey Othic; a British Indian observer, Lieutenant Bisesa Dutt; and Chief Warrant Officer Abdikadir Omar, an Afghan Pashtun with blue eyes and strawberry blond hair, which he claims is inherited from soldiers in the army of Alexander the Great. All three survive the helicopter crash, and they are taken prisoner by the British. Both sides soon realise that they are from different time periods, brought together by an event they name the "Discontinuity", and begin working together. Abdikadir investigates one of the spheres, located near the fort, which the British call an "Eye". He determines that it possesses inexplicable properties; among other things, its circumference and volume are not related to its radius by a factor of pi, as in ordinary geometry, but by a factor of exactly 3. The 19th-century British, however, have become accustomed to the sphere, and use a camouflage net draped over it as a cage for the "man-apes". Also beginning in 2037, a Soyuz capsule departs the International Space Station to return to Earth. Aboard are two Russians, Musa Ivanov and Kolya Krivalapov, and an American, Sable Jones. Sable is abrasive and ambitious, which Kolya believes has helped her succeed in her field, but she especially irritates Musa. The Soyuz loses contact with ground control, and takes up orbit rather than re-entering the atmosphere. They manage to establish radio contact with the "moderns" in Jamrud, and through the cosmonauts' observations, the characters learn that the Earth has become a patchwork conglomerate of terrain, and people, from different time periods spanning two million years ago up to the 21st century. Aside from Jamrud, and a site in North America that might be 19th-century Chicago, the cosmonauts' observations find no signs of industrial civilisation at all. They do, however, detect one other radio signal: a beacon of unknown origin located at the site of Babylon. After weeks of orbiting, the cosmonauts decide to bring the Soyuz down in central Asia, where their observations have noted signs of extensive, but still pre-industrial, habitation. From there they hope to make their way to Jamrud. Before re-entry, Musa suggests that calling this patchwork world "Earth" is inappropriate, and proposes the name "Mir" instead; not for the "antique Russian space station", but for the Russian word мир, meaning both "peace" and "world". The Soyuz lands successfully, but upon exiting the craft, Musa is decapitated by a Mongol warrior. Kolya, remembering a few words of Mongolian, manages to convince the Mongols that they are "emissaries of Heaven", and Sable and Kolya are loaded onto a cart heading east. They have arrived in the Mongol Empire of the 13th century, during the reign of Genghis Khan, to whom the "emissaries" are brought. At the Khan's court, Kolya lays plans to use the Mongol army to enter China and rebuild the trading posts and towns that were lost in the Discontinuity. Sable disagrees, and instead proposes to take the army to Babylon. She hopes to find the unexplained radio beacon, believing it connected to whatever inconceivable event caused the Discontinuity, and thus the centre of power in "Mir". When Sable saves the Khan's life by shooting dead a sabre-toothed cat with her hidden side arm, Genghis accepts her as truly an emissary of Heaven, takes her to his bed, and agrees to her plan to take Babylon. Meanwhile, the British have encountered the army of Alexander the Great, on the march down the Indus after the revolt that ended Alexander's eastward expansion. Alexander is suffering from his injury in the Mallian Campaign, but recovers, and the British and Macedonian forces form an alliance. Their goal, too, is Babylon; Alexander wishes to return to the capital of his Persian empire, and the "moderns" wish to locate the radio beacon. Alexander's army arrives at Babylon before the Khan, and has time to explore it. A sphere at least three times larger than those previously seen is discovered in the Temple of Marduk, and is found to be the source of the radio signals. Meanwhile, the Khan's army reaches and sacks 19th-century Bishkek, massacring almost the entire population. Seeing this, Kolya plots against the Khan and Sable. As they near Babylon, he uses the radio equipment from the Soyuz to contact Casey and warn him of the coming Mongols. Sable catches Kolya in the act, but since the Mongols refuse to spill the "royal blood" of an emissary of Heaven, they blind and deafen him and throw him, alive, into a boarded-over pit. An embassy from Alexander to the Mongols is rebuffed; Alexander's general Ptolemy is beheaded, and the survivors return mutilated. The defence of Babylon is organised, with the moderns introducing the Macedonians to guns and grenades. The combined Macedonian–British force meets the Mongols before the gates of the city. The defence is gradually worn down by the Mongols, and the shock of modern arms is blunted by Sable having prepared the Mongol troops, just as the British had the Macedonians. However, Kolya is still alive. Knowing more of the Mongols than Sable did, he had already guessed what their punishment of him would be: to bury him alive, beneath the yurt of the Khan himself. Having hidden a water supply and an improvised bomb on his person, he chooses his moment and detonates the bomb, killing the Khan. When the signal of the Khan's death reaches the field, most of the Mongols withdraw in order to hold a kurultai. However, a small force remains under Sable's command. They break through the weakened defenders and head straight for the Temple of Marduk and the massive sphere, dubbed the "Eye of Marduk". Bisesa confronts Sable in the Temple and incapacitates her, but Ruddy is fatally shot. Alexander's lover Hephaestion died in the battle, but Alexander refuses the public mourning period. Sable is executed, as is Cecil de Morgan, who had sold secrets to the Mongols and told Sable where to find the Eye of Marduk. The Macedonians and British settle in Babylon and establish a home there. Bisesa spends all of her time studying the Eye of Marduk, becoming convinced that ancient, intelligent beings are observing them through it, and that she has been able to not only sense their presence, but communicate with them. Neither her friends' concern, nor an expedition with Alexander around the Mediterranean, nor her romantic relationship with Josh, distract her for long. Meanwhile, the British have again used an Eye to support the cage holding Seeker and Grasper, but the Eye begins to compel the "man-apes" to act in unusual ways, as if performing experiments on them. Bisesa believes that the beings behind the Eye have agreed to grant her request: to take her home, to Earth. The beings do indeed use the Eye to take her away from Mir, together with Josh, who insists on accompanying her. However, their first destination is a blasted wasteland, possibly the result of nuclear devastation, and Bisesa concludes that they are in the far future, perhaps millions of years from their own time. Another Eye appears and takes Bisesa—and only Bisesa—away again; before she vanishes, they grant her plea to send Josh back to Mir instead of leaving him alone in the waste. As the story concludes, there is a chapter from the point of view of the ancient beings, the "Firstborn", explaining that they arose in the early days of the universe, on a planet orbiting a powerful but short-lived star. When their star died, they saw it as the beginning of the heat death of the universe. Wanting to stop anything that might hasten the end of the universe and thus the end of intelligent life, they set out to find other intelligent beings developing advanced technology, and to stop them before they can develop to the point of consuming "too much" energy. On Mir, Seeker and Grasper have been released, but Grasper, changed by her time under the Eye, begins to imagine a future for her kind in this world, a future of successfully competing with the "newer" Homo humans. Lastly, Bisesa arrives on Earth, in her home in London, the day after her helicopter flight. Her eight-year-old daughter Myra is there, and Bisesa promises to explain her sudden appearance and strange state, but then she sees an Eye floating over the city. ===== The story begins in Africa in a large, deep, muddy river, where the enormous crocodile (the titular character) is telling a smaller crocodile, known as the "Not-So-Big One", that he wants to eat children for his lunch. The small crocodile objects, because children taste "nasty and bitter" in his opinion compared to fish, and because of what happened the last time the big crocodile tried to eat children. The larger crocodile leaves the big, brown muddy river anyway, and announces his intention to Humpy Rumpy the hippopotamus, Trunky the elephant, Muggle-Wump the monkey and the Roly-Poly Bird. The animals insult him and hope that he will fail miserably and will himself be killed and eaten, after which the big crocodile briefly and unsuccessfully attacks Muggle-Wump and the Roly-Poly Bird. First of all, the crocodile heads to a coconut tree forest, not far away from a town and disguises himself as a small coconut tree with branches and coconuts, hoping to eat a pair of children, Toto and Mary, but is exposed by Humpy Rumpy. Later, the crocodile heads to a children's playground located outside an ancient school building and disguises himself as a see-saw, with the help of a large piece wood, hoping to eat a whole class of children, but is exposed by Muggle-Wump. Then, the crocodile heads to a funfair and, when nobody is looking, he disguises himself as a wooden crocodile on a merry-go- round by placing himself between a brown lion and a yellow dragon (with a pink-red tongue sticking out of its mouth) hoping to eat a young girl named Jill who wants to ride on him, but is exposed by the Roly-Poly Bird. Finally, the crocodile heads to a picnic place just outside the town. When nobody is looking, the crocodile himself picks a bunch of colourful flowers and arranges it on one of the tables before (from exactly the same table), taking away one of the benches and hiding it in the bushes and then disguising himself as a long, wooden four-legged bench, hoping to eat four children who are going out on a picnic, but is exposed by Trunky. Following a brief confrontation, Trunky angrily wraps his trunk around the crocodile's tail, hoists him up into the air, and then, after talking to him briefly about having had enough of his clever tricks, he swings him round and round in the air by his tail, slowly and gently to start off with, and then a little faster and then a lot faster and finally very fast indeed. Eventually, Trunky lets the crocodile go, causing the fiend himself to fly through the sky, out of Earth and into space. The big crocodile whizzes past the Moon, past some stars and past all the other planets, including Mars, before finally crashing headlong into the Sun at the middle of the Solar System where he is incinerated like a sausage. ===== Joe Braxton (Richard Pryor) is a convict who violates his parole after a failed attempt to lift a bunch of televisions from a store in Philadelphia. After a dramatic attempt at reverse psychology with the judge (Bill Quinn), he is given a second chance at parole, and his parole-officer, Donald (Robert Christian), has him do something for him. Donald is also involved with school teacher Vivian Perry (Cicely Tyson), whose school was just closed down by the city due to budget cuts. While most of the children have been relocated, eight special needs students have yet to be relocated. Vivian decides to take them to her aunt's farm in rural Washington. Donald is against it, and at first gets Joe to tell her the old bus she planned on using would not work. However, that blows up in his face, but Donald then decides to have Joe go ahead and drive the bus to Washington. As Joe, Vivian, and the kids get rolling, we learn a little more about some of the kids: * Harold (Jimmy Hughes) is blind, but so badly wants to drive a vehicle, and eventually does. * Anthony (Edwin Kinter) is a pyromaniac who we learn accidentally burned his house down and killed his parents, whom he could not wake up. * Annie (Janet Wong) is a former Vietnamese child prostitute that has a knack for art. We also learn that all Joe thinks he is there for is to fix and drive the bus, but he finds out his true knack for helping out the kids, especially shown when he reads Annie the riot act for her hooker-talk, and saves Anthony from setting another person's property on fire, and even takes the kids fishing for the first time. After fixing the bus in the rain on a dirt road, Joe and Vivian have trouble getting it out of the mud. When Joe leaves to get help, he is found walking in lock step with a group of Ku Klux Klansmen, who follow him back to the bus. Joe then manages to talk the head Klansman and the rest into getting the bus out to get the kids to a hospital in Washington. (He suddenly claimed they were all blind.) They agree surprisingly sympathetically and push them out of the mud. Somewhere in Montana, Donald catches up with them at a motel, after finding out Vivian lied to him and falsified the kids records. After trying to flee in the middle of the night, Donald catches up with them and demands they return to Philadelphia, which the kids, Vivian and Joe all resist. After arriving at the farm, Vivian meets with a banker in order to secure a $15,000 loan to save the farm. One of the other kids overhears them and tells the rest of the kids this. Joe then confronts the kids, who are whining and protesting about their fate. Joe learns about this as well and heads into town where he sees an ad for a "trapezoid scheme" and goes in to learn about it, dressed as a cowboy from Texarkana. Eventually he works his way into sitting with the group and schemes to rip them off. He does and gets Vivian her $15K, then leaves with her, while two guys from the group chase pursue them. After evading them and burning the money, they go back to the farm where they have an argument about the money. Then they realize the old Rolls Royce from the bank is there, and found out the kids told the president of the bank (who is also the mayor of the town) a bunch of lies about what good things Joe and Vivian did, and it convinced the mayor to give the loan and make the kids a part of the community. After they celebrate, Donald shows up with a police officer demanding they all return to Philadelphia but has a confrontation with the mayor that he ends up losing. However, it did seem Joe was going to go back to Philly with Donald, but Donald gets to the end of the driveway, and changes his mind and lets Joe stay. ===== Larry Abbot (Wilder) and Vickie Pearle (Radner) are performers on radio's "Manhattan Mystery Theater" who decide to get married. Larry has been plagued with on-air panic attacks and speech impediments since proposing marriage. Vickie thinks it is just pre-wedding jitters, but his affliction could get them both fired. Larry's uncle, Dr. Paul Abbot, decides that Larry needs to be cured. Paul decides to treat him with a form of shock therapy to "scare him to death" in much the same way someone might try to startle someone out of hiccups. Larry chooses a castle-like mansion in which he grew up as the site for their wedding. Vickie gets to meet Larry's eccentric family: great-aunt Kate (DeLuise in drag), who plans to leave all her money to Larry; his uncle, Francis; and Larry's cousins, Charles, Nora, Susan, and the cross-dressing Francis Jr. Also present are the butler Pfister and wife Rachel, the maid; Larry's old girlfriend Sylvia, who is now dating Charles; and Susan's magician husband, Montego the Magnificent. Paul begins his "treatment" of Larry and lets others in on the plan. Unfortunately for all, something more sinister and unexpected is lurking at the Abbot Estates mansion. The pre-wedding party becomes a real-life version of Larry and Vickie's radio murder mysteries, werewolves and all. ===== The infamous vampire Count Dracula is expelled from his castle by the Communist government of Romania, which plans to convert the structure into a training facility for gymnasts (including Nadia Comăneci). The world- weary Count travels to New York City with his bug-eating manservant, Renfield, and establishes himself in a hotel, but only after a mix-up at the airport causes his coffin to be accidentally sent to be the centerpiece in a funeral at a black church in Harlem. While Dracula learns that America contains such wonders as blood banks, sex clubs, and discotheques, he also proceeds to suffer the general ego-crushing that comes from life in the Big Apple in the late 1970s as he romantically pursues flaky fashion model Cindy Sondheim, whom he has admired from afar and believes to be the current reincarnation of his true love (an earlier being named Mina Harker). Dracula is ineptly pursued in turn by Sondheim's psychiatrist and quasi-boyfriend Jeffrey Rosenberg. Jeffrey is the grandson of Dracula's old nemesis Fritz van Helsing but changed his name to Rosenberg "for professional reasons". Rosenberg's numerous methods to combat Dracula – mirrors, garlic, a Star of David (which he uses instead of the cross), and hypnosis – are easily averted by the Count. Rosenberg also tries burning Dracula's coffin with the vampire still inside, but is arrested by hotel security. Subsequently he tries to shoot him with three silver bullets, but Dracula remains unscathed, patiently explaining that this works only on werewolves. Rosenberg's increasingly erratic actions eventually cause him to be locked up as a lunatic, but as mysterious cases of blood-bank robberies and vampiric attacks begin to spread, NYPD Lieutenant Ferguson starts to believe the psychiatrist's claims and gets him released. In the end, as a major blackout hits the city, Dracula flees via taxi cab back to the airport with Cindy, pursued by Rosenberg and Ferguson. The coffin is accidentally sent to Jamaica instead of London and the couple miss their plane. On the runway, Cindy finally agrees to become Dracula's vampire bride. Rosenberg attempts to stake Dracula, but as he moves in for the kill, the two fly off as bats together. A check drops down by which Cindy pays off her (enormous) psychiatry bill to Rosenberg, to which he remarks: "She has become a responsible person ... or whatever." Rosenberg keeps Dracula's cape – the only thing his stake had hit – which Ferguson borrows, hoping (since the cape makes the wearer look stylish) it will help him on his wedding anniversary. The last scene shows Dracula and Cindy, transformed into bats, on their way to Jamaica. ===== This game takes place shortly after the events of Soulcalibur II, in 1590. The amount of time is not specified, but taking into account the various characters' profiles, a minimum of four months has already passed (one month Xianghua needed to carry Kilik back to his master's hermit, three months that took Kilik to surpass his master's training). The wicked Soul Edge survived its fated encounter with the wielder of Soulcalibur, Xianghua, and restored its control over the body of Siegfried Schtauffen, turning him back into the Azure Knight Nightmare. Four years later, Nightmare was about to restore Soul Edge, when suddenly a man named Raphael appeared, intending on taking Soul Edge. Nightmare defeated the attacker, but was distracted by Siegfried's latent will trying to restore his body. Using the distraction, Raphael pierced Soul Edge's eye, giving Siegfried the edge he needed to break free from Soul Edge's control once again. After waking up, Siegfried found the holy sword, free from its entrapment within the wicked sword, and out of instinct used it to pierce Soul Edge. The result led to both swords sealed together in a fateful embrace, an "Embrace of Souls". Siegfried took both weapons and started a quest to find a definitive way of sealing Soul Edge, but memories of his slaughters, plus the attacks of those resentful of the Azure Knight, drove his mind towards insanity. Unbeknownst to him, the evil soul of the blade escaped and obtained a temporary shell, starting a new killing spree to strengthen himself while seeking its body, Soul Edge. What neither of the two warriors knows is that a man behind the scenes is controlling their steps, searching to end an everlasting curse. And that many other warriors ventured in search of the blade as well. ===== After his obesity embarrasses Bart at a church picnic, Homer attempts to lose weight, and begins going on midnight jogs around town. He soon discovers Power Sauce, an energy bar made out of apples which he starts to eat regularly. At a gym, Homer meets Rainier Wolfcastle who becomes his fitness coach. In two months, Homer is healthier, more muscular, and reveals what he has been doing to his family. At the gym, two Power Sauce representatives ask Rainier to climb to the top of Springfield's tallest mountain, "The Murderhorn", as a publicity stunt. When he refuses, Bart insists Homer do it. Despite Grampa telling him about how he was betrayed by a friend, C. W. McAllister, during their climb on the Murderhorn, Homer accepts and is aided by two Sherpas, but fires them after waking up one night to find them secretly dragging him up. Once the Power Sauce representatives get wind of the situation, they unsuccessfully attempt to warn Homer not to continue with the dangerous stunt, revealing that the bar is actually made up of apple cores and Chinese newspapers. The mountain proves too treacherous and high for Homer, who takes shelter in a cave. In it, he finds McAllister's frozen body and evidence proving it was Grampa who betrayed him. Too tired and ashamed to continue, Homer sticks his flag pole on the ledge, ripping off the Power Sauce flag and tying his own make-shift white flag to the pole. The ensuing crack collapses the rest of the mountain, making where he is on now the peak. Proud, he uses McAllister's body to sled down, where he is greeted by the crowd. When he goes to show the family, they find out that the flag has disappeared from the pole. Nevetheless, Bart is proud of his father for making it to the top of the mountain."King of the Hill" The Simpsons.com. Retrieved on November 1, 2007 ===== At Monk's Café, George tells Jerry, Elaine, and Kramer that his mother caught him masturbating, resulting in her falling over in shock and going to the hospital. George resolves never to masturbate again. When the others express skepticism, they make a bet over who can go the longest without masturbating. The men put up $100, while Elaine puts up $150, as the men insist it's easier for a woman to go without masturbating than a man (claiming it is part of a man's "lifestyle.") Kramer fails almost immediately after seeing a naked woman in a neighboring apartment. The others meet various temptations: George is distracted while visiting his mother in the hospital by an attractive nurse giving another attractive woman a sponge bath; Elaine's fitness club is patronized by John F. Kennedy Jr.; and Jerry is frustrated because his girlfriend Marla, a virgin, will not have sex with him, and Kramer constantly visits his apartment to watch the naked woman. Jerry sedates his urges by watching children's cartoons. The remaining contestants suffer insomnia. Elaine shares a cab ride with Kennedy, and tells him that she lives Uptown near Jerry to extend the ride. He arranges to see her again. The pressure becomes too much for her and she drops out of the contest. While making out on the couch, Marla asks Jerry if they can have sex, claiming that she is ready. However, Jerry mentions the contest, prompting Marla to leave in disgust. Elaine believes that Kennedy has stood her up, but George reveals that Kennedy missed her and went with Marla. They see Kramer with the naked woman across the street. That night, everyone sleeps well (especially Kramer, who is with the naked woman), but it is not revealed whether Jerry or George won. Marla is in bed with Kennedy, having finally lost her virginity to him. ===== The plot centers on a masked martial artist known as Iron Monkey. Iron Monkey is actually the alter ego of a traditional Chinese medicine physician called Yang Tianchun. In the day, Yang runs his clinic and provides free medical treatment for the poor, which he subsidises by charging his rich patients. At night, he dresses in black and travels around town to rob the rich and help the poor. Once, he breaks into the governor's residence and makes off with a hoard of gold. The guards and four Shaolin monks are unable to stop him. The governor orders the chief constable, Fox, to hunt down Iron Monkey and to arrest anyone who is linked to him in any way. Fox appears to be a bungler who is not aware that Iron Monkey is actually the physician treating his injured men who fought with Iron Monkey the previous night. In the meantime, Wong Kei-ying, also a physician and martial artist from Foshan, arrives in town with his young son, Wong Fei-hung. Wong Kei-ying fights with street thugs who attempt to rob him. Some soldiers who have been observing the fight nearby suspect that Wong is Iron Monkey, and they arrest him and his son. During the trial, the governor orders Wong Fei- hung to be branded for defiance, but Iron Monkey shows up and disrupts the proceedings. Wong Kei-ying is eager to prove his innocence, and he fights with Iron Monkey. Neither of them is able to defeat his opponent, and Iron Monkey escapes. The governor is impressed by Wong Kei-ying's skill, and he holds Wong Fei-hung hostage to force Wong Kei-ying to help him capture Iron Monkey within seven days. The locals despise Wong Kei-ying for assisting the governor in capturing their hero, so they refuse to sell him food or provide him with shelter. Wong eventually arrives at Yang's clinic and is taken in by Yang and Miss Orchid, while he is still unaware of Yang's true identity. With help from Fox, Yang manages to bring Wong Fei-hung, who has fallen sick, out of prison and keeps him in his clinic. Wong Fei-hung learns new martial arts from Yang and Miss Orchid during his stay with them. Meanwhile, a Shaolin traitor named Hin-hung, who has become an imperial official, arrives in town with his followers. Hin-hung takes over as the new governor. Iron Monkey and Wong Kei- ying run into Hin-hung and his men in two separate encounters, and they are severely wounded by him. They retreat back to the clinic, where Wong is surprised to discover that Yang is actually Iron Monkey. They assist each other and recover from their wounds quickly. Concurrently, Hin-hung orders his men to search the town for Iron Monkey and Wong Kei-ying, but Fox gets to the clinic first to warn Orchid. It turns out that Fox has known Iron Monkey's true identity all along, and he has been secretly helping Iron Monkey. Hin- hung's monks eventually find their way to the clinic, and they engage Orchid in a fight. When Orchid proves far too skillful for the monks, they drug her and attempt to rape her. She is saved by Wong Fei-hung, who continues the battle with the monks using the staff movements he learn from Yang and Orchid. Although Wong Fei-hung is able to defeat the Hin-hung's best monks, he is captured and tortured. Orchid escapes to warn Wong Kei-ying and Iron Monkey. Iron Monkey and Wong Kei-ying (also wearing the Iron Monkey costume) break into the governor's residence to rescue Wong Fei-hung and defeat Hin-hung's men and monks. They have a final confrontation with Hin-hung on top of burning wooden poles. After an intense fight, Iron Monkey and Wong Kei-ying defeat Hin-hung and knock him down into the inferno below. At the end of the film, the protagonists learn that a new governor has taken office, and they hope that he will be a good official. The Wongs leave town for Foshan while Yang and Orchid see them off. Fox says that he would like to visit the Wongs, but that he is too busy "trying to catch that Iron Monkey". After the film, screen captions inform viewers that Yang and Orchid are married, and that Wong Fei- hung, inspired by his father and the Iron Monkey, later becomes a hero among the Chinese and restores honor to the Shaolin Monastery. ===== The film closely follows the plot of the play, but restructures and reorders individual scenes. Welles trimmed the source material, which is generally around three hours when performed, down to a little over 90 minutes for the film. ===== Guy Van Stratten (Robert Arden), a small-time American smuggler working in Europe, is found desperately trying to get a man called Jakob Zouk (Akim Tamiroff) to leave his bare, ruinous room in Munich and come with him to safety. When Zouk alleges that he's dying and doesn't want to be disturbed, Stratten desperately tells him why he has to come. We see the story in flashback as he narrates it to Zouk. In the flashback, Stratten is with his girlfriend and accomplice Mily (Patricia Medina) in Naples when a man named Bracco is knifed in the street. Bracco does not want his last moments to be taken up with doctors and police, and he rewards the couple for not calling them with two names that he says will be profitable to them: he names Gregory Arkadin to Stratten, and one "Sophie" to Mily. They get away as Bracco dies, and approach Arkadin, a famous and super-wealthy businessman (Orson Welles), to see if the murder and vague references to his "secret" can be used to blackmail him. Arkadin's only human tie in a life of power and pleasure is his daughter Raina (Paola Mori), and Stratten manages to strike up an acquaintance with her and thus get into Arkadin's castle in Spain. He and Raina also develop feelings for each other, though they cover them up with cool sophistication. To Stratten's surprise and Raina's displeasure, Arkadin shows them a dossier he has had compiled about Stratten and Mily's criminal career. He then hires Stratten to find out the truth about his own past; he says he woke up in a square in Switzerland in a new suit with a large sum of money in his pocket, and no memory of who he was or what he had done before that day in 1927. He wants Stratten to tell him. Stratten goes all over the world, picking up clues, while Mily cruises with Arkadin on his yacht and tries to get clues from his own lips. From such people as the proprietor of a flea circus, a junk-shop owner, an impoverished noblewoman in Paris, and a heroin addict he tortures with withdrawal, Stratten learns that the pre-1927 Arkadin was involved in a sex trafficking ring in Warsaw that trapped girls who thought they were joining a dance school, and sent them to be prostitutes in South America. "Sophie" turns out to be the former leader of the ring and Arkadin's old girlfriend, from whom he stole the money that was in his pocket in the square. She is now married to a Mexican general, and is a relaxed, tolerant woman who remembers Arkadin with affection and has no intention of publicizing his past. However, while learning all this, Stratten notices that Arkadin is following him and re-interviewing the people he has found. He is puzzled by this, and more puzzled when Raina tells him her father does not have amnesia and thus the story he told of why he hired him was false. Meanwhile, Arkadin learns to his chagrin that Raina actually cares for Stratten and that Stratten wants to marry her. At Arkadin's Christmas Eve party in Munich, just before he goes to Zouk's room and tells him all this, Stratten learns to his horror that everybody he tracked down and talked to about Arkadin's past is now dead. Mily has also been found dead, and the clues have been arranged to point to him as the murderer; the police are looking for him. He realizes that Arkadin's real motive for hiring him was to uncover whatever evidence of Arkadin's sordid past so that Arkadin can eliminate said evidence. Arkadin especially does not want his beloved daughter to learn of his past. Zouk is the last surviving member of the sex trafficking ring, and once Zouk is dead, Arkadin will murder Stratten to complete the cover-up. Even after hearing this, Zouk doesn't care whether he dies of cancer or murder, but Stratten manages to get him to his own hotel room and goes out to get him the special meal he requests. Arkadin intercepts him and mockingly helps him get the meal, but when he takes it to his room, Zouk has been stabbed to death. Stratten realizes that his only hope of survival now is to get to Raina in Spain and tell her her father's secret; he manages to get the very last seat on the crowded Christmas Eve plane to Barcelona. Arkadin fails to persuade the airline to throw Stratten off and give him the seat, and when he pleads with the other passengers for a seat at a tremendous price, Stratten makes them think he is a drunk impostor. Stratten reaches the Barcelona airport just ahead of the one-man private plane Arkadin then hires; Raina meets him, but is almost immediately summoned to the control tower to talk to her father on the radio. With no time to tell her everything, Stratten coaxes her to say over the radio "he told me everything". When Arkadin hears the lie, the radio link goes silent, and Arkadin commits suicide by falling out of his rolling plane, which later crashes. Raina understands why Stratten did this to her father, but is unhappy, and Stratten is unhappy that she is now tremendously rich and thus beyond him. He stays at the airport, and she drives away with a previous boyfriend from England. ===== The Lord of Castle Grace, Azuchi Momoyama (Mikijiro Hira), is used to ask a prophetess (Saori Yuki) to confirm he is the fairest of all living things. On one occasion, the prophetess reveals that his son Prince Amechiyo (Joe Odagiri) will soon become the fairest. Azuchi Momoyama orders his son to be killed at Sacred Mountain. The plan fails when the assassin is trapped by racoon hunters. While Amechiyo sleeps, Princess Racoon (Zhang Ziyi), finds him and takes him to the Raccoon Palace. Soon, Amechiyo and the Princess are in love. The Racoons are against the romance because it is a known law that "No man should love a racoon. Even less should a racoon ever love a man". Azuchi Monoyama learns his son is still alive so he engages in a war to get him killed. Amechiyo has to look for a golden frog deep in the mountain to save the princess. It appears that the lovers' romance is doomed. ===== Des Esseintes in his study, by Arthur Zaidenberg (Against the Grain, New York, Illustrated Editions, 1931). The epigraph is a quotation from Jan van Ruysbroeck ('Ruysbroeck the Admirable'), the fourteenth-century Flemish mystic: > I must rejoice beyond the bounds of time...though the world may shudder at > my joy, and in its coarseness know not what I mean.Il faut que je me > réjouisse au-dessus du temps... quoique le monde ait horreur de ma joie, et > que sa grossièreté ne sache pas ce que je veux dire. Translated by Robert > Baldick. Jean des Esseintes is the last member of a powerful and once proud noble family. He has lived an extremely decadent life in Paris, which has left him disgusted with human society. Without telling anyone, he retreats to a house in the countryside, near Fontenay, and decides to spend the rest of his life in intellectual and aesthetic contemplation. In this sense, À rebours recalls Gustave Flaubert's Bouvard et Pécuchet (posthumously published in 1881), in which two Parisian copy-clerks decide to retire to the countryside and end up failing at various scientific and scholarly endeavors. Huysmans' novel is essentially plotless. The protagonist fills the house with his eclectic art collection, which notably consists of reprints of the paintings of Gustave Moreau (such as Salome Dancing before Herod and L'Apparition), drawings of Odilon Redon, and engravings of Jan Luyken. Throughout his intellectual experiments, Des Esseintes recalls various debauched events and love affairs of his past in Paris. He tries his hand at inventing perfumes and he creates a garden of poisonous tropical flowers. Illustrating his preference for artifice over nature (a characteristic Decadent theme), Des Esseintes chooses real flowers that apparently imitate artificial ones. In one of the book's most surrealistic episodes, he has gemstones set in the shell of a tortoise. The extra weight on the creature's back causes its death. In another episode, he decides to visit London after reading the novels of Charles Dickens. He dines at an English restaurant in Paris while waiting for his train and is delighted by the resemblance of the people to his notions derived from literature. He then cancels his trip and returns home, convinced that only disillusion would await him if he were to follow through with his plans. Des Esseintes conducts a survey of French and Latin literature, rejecting the works approved by the mainstream critics of his day. He rejects the academically respectable Latin authors of the "Golden Age" such as Virgil and Cicero, preferring later "Silver Age" writers such as Petronius (Des Esseintes praises the decadent Satyricon) and Apuleius (Metamorphoses, commonly known as The Golden Ass) as well as works of early Christian literature, whose style was usually dismissed as the "barbarous" product of the Dark Ages. Among French authors, he shows nothing but contempt for the Romantics but adores the poetry of Baudelaire. Des Esseintes cares little for classic French authors like Rabelais, Molière, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot, preferring the works of Bourdaloue, Bossuet, Nicole, and Pascal. The nineteenth-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, he exclaims, 'alone was in the right' with his philosophy of pessimism, and Des Esseintes connects Schopenhauer's pessimistic outlook with the resignation of The Imitation of Christ, a fifteenth-century Christian devotional work by Thomas à Kempis.Ch. VII: "Yes, it was undoubtedly Schopenhauer who was in the right. What, in fact, were all the evangelical pharmacopoeias compared with his treatises on spiritual hygiene? He claimed no cures, offered the sick no compensation, no hope; but when all was said and done, his theory of Pessimism was the great comforter of superior minds and lofty souls; it revealed society as it was, insisted on the innate stupidity of women, pointed out the pitfalls of life, saved you from disillusionment by teaching you to expect as little as possible, to expect nothing at all if you were sufficiently strong-willed, indeed, to consider yourself lucky if you were not constantly visited by some unforeseen calamity" (Huysmans 2003, p. 78-79).Twenty-three-year-old Schopenhauer, who had a great influence on Huysmans, told Wieland: "Life is an unpleasant business. I have resolved to spend it reflecting on it. (Das Leben ist eine mißliche Sache. Ich habe mir vorgesetzt, es damit hinzubringen, über dasselbe nachzudenken.)" (Rüdiger Safranski, Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy, Chapter 7). Des Esseintes' library includes authors of the nascent Symbolist movement, including Paul Verlaine, Tristan Corbière and Stéphane Mallarmé,In the 1903 preface, Huysmans writes that he would have included Rimbaud and Laforgue had he known their work at the time. as well as the decadent fiction of the unorthodox Catholic writers Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam and Barbey d'Aurevilly. Among Catholic literature, Des Esseintes expresses attraction for the work of Ernest Hello. Eventually, his late nights and idiosyncratic diet take their toll on his health, requiring him to return to Paris or to forfeit his life. In the last lines of the book, he compares his return to human society to that of a non-believer trying to embrace religion. ===== A 19-year-old Ah Loong (who also called himself "Jason") is in charge of a stall selling unlicensed VCDs. Contrary to the stereotype of his social standing, Ah Loong is an incurable romantic with an unlikely hobby: He loves to read and write poetry. Quite content with being the Romeo of the slums, Ah Loong's life takes a sudden turn one day when a Malay schoolgirl, Orked, arrives at his stall while looking for films starring her favourite actor Takeshi Kaneshiro. Love blossoms between Orked and Ah Loong, although there are social and racial pressures that stand in their way. In the end, Ah Loong is involved in a motor vehicle accident while Orked is going to England to pursue her studies. It is not clear if he lived or died until the sequel, Gubra which shows that Jason really didn't die. After the credits finish rolling however, Orked is shown wearing a wedding ring sleeping beside Jason, who also has a wedding ring. In Mukhsin, Jason and the adult Orked are shown to be living together. However, the adult Orked is not called by her name in this scene as the young Orked is. ===== Rachel is missing her boyfriend, and calls him from a telephone booth. He tells her that if she does not come back to England, their relationship is over. Rachel is left unsure about what course of action to take. The other members of the group decide to raise money for Rachel to return home by means of busking. They succeed in getting enough money for the trip and Rachel sets off to England, leaving S Club 7. However, she has a change of heart and returns, heartbroken, after deciding to remain in the group - but left reeling when her boyfriend dumps her over the phone. Meanwhile, at Paradise Beach, the trailer park where they have stopped over for a few days on their journey through America, a poor family who have been stuck there for three years are hoping to get their car fixed - which is in such ruin that Jo initially cannot fix it, but she resolves to once Rachel has recouped the money from her unused fare for her return trip to England. The oldest of the children there, Jimmy Bob, is getting excited about his dad coming to see him on his birthday soon - only to get upset and run away when he is told he will not be able to come after all. The band split into groups to search for Jimmy Bob, with Rachel eventually finding him alone on the beach. She tells him that some people cannot understand that just because someone is not able to be there for them does not mean they do not want to. A surprise birthday party for Jimmy Bob is held back at the trailer park and Jo unveils the fully restored car to the family, allowing Jimmy Bob to visit his father for his birthday. But before they then all head off again on their journey to Los Angeles, Jo has one last surprise for Rachel: a cute mechanic from whom Jo had gotten the spare parts for the car has stopped by to install the stoplights, and Rachel is instantly smitten with him. They talk for a while and Rachel is able to get over her ex- boyfriend by kissing the mechanic, vowing never to forget him. ===== In the year 1867, signs that the approaching winter will be a hard one produce agitation in the burgeoning mining town of Denver, as the hard-drinking citizenry fear a shortage of whiskey. Taking advice from Oracle Jones (Donald Pleasence), a local guide and seer (but only when under the influence of alcohol), the populace arrange for a mass shipment, forty wagons full of whiskey, with the Wallingham Freighting Company. The wagon train heads out, under the direction of company owner Frank Wallingham (Brian Keith), who describes himself as a "taxpayer and a good Republican". This cargo becomes the target for several diverse groups, each with their own leaders and plans. Young Capt. Paul Slater (Jim Hutton) of the United States Cavalry is assigned by Fort Russell commander Col. Thaddeus Gearhart (Burt Lancaster) to escort the Wallingham Wagon Train, and merely wishes to carry out his orders. A group of Irish teamsters, hired as wagon drivers, wishes to strike unless whiskey rations are distributed. Crusading temperance leader Cora Templeton Massingale (Lee Remick) and her followers, informed of the alcoholic cargo, wish to intercept the train and destroy its contents; the group is escorted by a second cavalry division under the command of a reluctant Col. Gearhart. Gearhart's daughter (Pamela Tiffin) is engaged to Slater and entranced by Mrs. Massingale's message. Despite their extremely different personalities and inability to see eye to eye, the weatherbeaten Gearhart and beautiful Cora Massingale fall in love. Beneath her composure and grace, even her occasional ribbing against him, Cora is infatuated with Gearhart from the moment he rides into the fort and spends much of the film trying subtly to win his affection. Other interested parties include Sioux Indians, led by chiefs Five Barrels (Robert J. Wilke) and Walks-Stooped-Over (Martin Landau), and a Denver citizens' militia, led by Clayton Howell (Dub Taylor) and guided by Oracle, concerned about obtaining their precious supply of drinkables. Inevitably, the various groups converge, and the ensuing property struggle is played out through a series of comic set pieces and several diplomatic overtures by an increasingly weary Gearhart. Highlights include a massive shoot-out between the concerned parties within a blinding sandstorm, a hostage situation when the Indians capture the Temperance members in order to reinforce their demands for alcoholic drink, and Massingale tricking Wallingham into riding his entire wagon train into a quicksand bog, where the wagons and their cargo sink into the pits. The participants disperse, mostly disappointed; however, for Colonel Gearhart and Captain Slater the story ends with a double wedding, for Wallingham and Oracle with a lifetime supply of whiskey when buoyancy causes the barrels to erupt from the quicksand, and for the winter of 1867 to actually become one of the mildest ever. ===== Tam Olyn is an ambitious, vain, angry young man. Orphaned at a young age, and raised by a nihilist uncle, he cares little for others, with the possible exception of his younger sister, Eileen. Following his graduation from school, he is ready to launch his career as a journalist among the stars. In a prelude to the main events of the novel, he and Eileen visit the Final Encyclopedia, a centuries-long project to try to collect and catalog all knowledge. While standing at the center of the index room, Tam is identified as a one-in-a-billion person who can actually hear the voices of humanity while there. The dying director of the Encyclopedia wants him to stay on and succeed him, but an Exotic, Padma from the planet Mara, reads him as having no identity with others, no empathy, no soul. He cannot help the Encyclopedia. His sister has become engaged to Jamethon Black, a young mercenary from the Friendly world of Harmony. Despite the fact that Black seems a very decent young man, Tam callously manipulates his sister into breaking the engagement. Shortly, he leaves Earth, beginning his profession as a newsman. In the following five years, he advances in his profession, while his sister emigrates to Cassida, and marries a young engineer there. While covering a war on New Earth, he finds his sister's husband, who has been drafted, and attempts to keep him out of harm's way by using him as an assistant. The plan backfires. His brother-in-law, along with several other prisoners, is slaughtered by a fanatic Friendly soldier, in violation of the laws of war. Despite the fanatic's execution for his war crime, Tam chooses to blame the entire Friendly culture, and sets out to destroy them. Unfortunately, Tam has the ability to analyze people and situations, and manipulate them expertly. Padma observes his actions, and tries to put a brake on his behavior, but he will not be stopped. By manipulating events, he creates a situation for the Friendlies that may result in their destruction as a viable culture. In the culmination of events, he arrives to cover a war on the planet of St. Marie, a small agrarian world in the same system as Mara and Kultis, the Exotic planets. (At this point, the novella's narrative commences). On one side are the mercenary forces hired by the Exotics, led by the identical Dorsai twin brothers, Ian and Kensie Graeme. The twins, who appear in a number of other stories, are opposites in every way. Kensie is warm, friendly, loved by all, and a great leader of men. Ian is cold as ice, analytical, and a great tactician. He is respected and feared. On the other side are a group of Friendlies who had been misled into supporting an abortive local revolution. The Friendlies are led by Jamethon Black, whose engagement Tam had broken years earlier. The Friendlies are hopelessly outgunned and outnumbered. Tam has manipulated the situation so that not only will the Friendlies lose, but their ability to hire out their soldiers will be crippled, possibly leading to the end of their viability as a culture. He believes he can link the Friendlies to assassins hired locally, against all the accepted rules of war. He tries to recruit Kensie Graeme in a scheme to expose this, but Kensie refuses and insists on prosecuting the campaign his own way. Padma is also on St. Marie. He continues to try to dissuade Tam from his quest. He explains that people from the Splinter cultures are not insane fanatics as Tam sees them, but rather a new kind of human where all the components of the human spirit are unified in a single direction. He gives Tam a copy of a secret communication between Jamethon's superiors that appears to abandon hope of them winning, and leave them to be destroyed, and further to conceal this from the troops. Tam shows this to Jamethon, who interprets it a completely different way based on his faith. The result is a shootout between Kensie Graeme, Jamethon and a few of his lieutenants at a parley meeting in a field, with Tam as a witness. Kensie kills all the attackers despite being outnumbered and surprised, since he was expecting to discuss surrender. This leaves the Friendly forces leaderless, giving them no option but to lay down their arms. In the end, he is thwarted only by the faith of Black, and the honor and courage of the Graeme brothers, despite the incredible cost to them. The best qualities of the splinter cultures defeat the worst qualities of Tam Olyn. Padma tells Tam that his attempt to sway Jamethon actually solved his dilemma. By rejecting what he saw as the Devil's Choice of surrendering to save his own life, Jamethon saw a way to end the conflict by sacrificing himself in a futile attempt to assassinate a vastly superior Dorsai officer. Padma gave Tam the secret document knowing that this would be the outcome. As Padma explains to him, had Tam succeeded, not only would a necessary component of the human spirit have been lost, but the entire balance of power among the worlds would have been horribly upset. Eventually, Padma manages to break through his shell, allowing Tam to grow into more of a human being, and take his place at the Final Encyclopedia. Tam, for his part, realizes that his lust for revenge was partly to cover his shame over his fear and cowardice on New Earth. A key event in the aftermath, barely mentioned in this book, is the assassination of Kensie Graeme by agents of the original rebellion, and the manner in which his brother's honor prevents the bloodbath which could have resulted at the hands of Kensie's angry troops. These events occur after Tam has left the planet. The story is told in great detail in the short story, Brothers. Padma tells Tam that his intervention has resulted in Ian Graeme transforming into an individual of unknown potential for the future. In the third novel of the trilogy, Dorsai!, Ian is instrumental in leading the invasion and conquest of William of Ceta's home planet. ===== Joseph (Jan Nowicki) travels through a dream-like world, taking a dilapidated train to visit his dying father, Jacob, in a sanatorium. When he arrives at the hospital, he finds the entire facility is going to ruin and no one seems to be in charge or even caring for the patients. Time appears to behave in unpredictable ways, reanimating the past in an elaborate artificial caprice. Though Joseph is always shown as an adult, his behavior and the people around often depict him as a child. He befriends Rudolf, a young boy who owns a postage stamp album. The names of the stamps trigger a wealth of association and adventure in Joseph. Among the many occurrences in this visually potent phantasmagoria include Joseph re-entering childhood episodes with his wildly eccentric father (who lives with birds in an attic), being arrested by a mysterious unit of soldiers for having a dream that was severely criticized in high places, reflecting on a girl he fantasized about in his boyhood and commandeering a group of historic wax mannequins. Throughout his strange journey, an ominous blind train conductor reappears like a death figure. Has also adds a series of reflections on the Holocaust that were not present in the original texts, reading Schulz's prose through the prism of the author's death during World War II and the demise of the world he described. ===== Rakesh Trivedi (Abhishek Bachchan) comes from a small village named Fursatganj. His father is a ticket collector on a train and wants him to get into a similar occupation as well. However, Rakesh has big dreams; he is forever coming up with new business plans and is convinced he will make it big one day. He adamantly refuses any notion that he will one day work in a 9-to-5 environment. Vimmi Saluja (Rani Mukerji) is the daughter of a Punjabi family in another small village named Panki Nagar; she spends her hours watching films and studying supermodels. She dreams of becoming Miss India. Vimmi's parents tell her they have arranged her marriage to a young man with a decent job. At the same time, Rakesh's father gives him an ultimatum – go on the job interview he has arranged or get out of the house. Rakesh and Vimmi pack their bags and sneak out in the dark of the night. They bump into each other at a train station and become friends after realising their stories are similar. They support and encourage each other to achieve their dreams: Vimmi tries to enter the Miss India contest but gets thrown out after an argument. Rakesh tries to sell his ideas for an investment scheme, but a businessman turns him away. In fact, a man he had met at a restaurant stole ideas from Rakesh's presentation file and, when he enters the office, the interviewer states someone before he came in with the same idea. After finding out that the businessman who Rakesh approached has used his idea to make money, he and Vimmi con him and take the money that they believe is rightfully theirs. Once they realise how easy it is to con people, they decide to run some more cons by raising money to make it to Bombay. Unfortunately for India, they find the lifestyle too exciting to give up. Adopting the names of 'Bunty' and 'Babli', they successfully pull off con after con, looting rich people dressed as local guides, religious priests, health inspectors, business partners, etc. Their flamboyant antics make them famous in newspapers nationwide. Soon their friendship leads to romance and they decide to continue conning the rich as husband and wife. Little do Rakesh and Vimmi know that JCP Dashrath Singh (Amitabh Bachchan) is catching up with their cons and pranks, getting closer each day. He relentlessly pursues them across India in the hopes of putting them behind bars. To complicate matters, Rakesh and Vimmi have a child and, after a very close call eluding Dashrath, they decide to quit conning for their child's sake. This decision leads to their capture by Dashrath. While in custody, their heartfelt confessions and conversation soften the policeman's heart and he lets them go, certain he has destroyed Bunty and Babli's career as criminals. Three years later, Dashrath rescues them from their mundane domestic lives by offering them to work for the nation thwarting the activities of other scammers. ===== Conjoined twins Bob and Walt Tenor try to live as normally as possible. Outgoing and sociable Walt aspires to be a Hollywood actor, however, whereas shy, introverted Bob prefers the quiet life. They run Quikee Burger, a diner in Oak Bluffs on Martha's Vineyard, that guarantees free meals to customers whose orders are not completed in three minutes, a testament to how skilled and in sync Bob and Walt are with each other. Though Walt is comfortable socializing with women, Bob is the shyer of the two, and carries on a long-distance relationship with a pen pal named May Fong whom he has never met in person, and who is unaware that they are conjoined twins. Walt gets a role in a local play. Bob stays as much as possible in the background, as he has a tendency to get stage fright. Following the play's success, Walt decides to follow his dream to Hollywood and persuades his hesitant brother to go along for the ride. They rent an apartment in California and become friends with fellow aspiring actress April Mercedes. When she expresses curiosity about their conjoinment, Walt explains that they share a liver that is mostly Bob's, and that because surgical separation entails risk to Walt, Bob would not consent to the surgery, even though Walt favored it. It is also the reason why Walt appears somewhat older than Bob. (Greg Kinnear is seven years older than Matt Damon in real life.) Walt's efforts to find acting work in Hollywood are fraught with difficulty, and his agent, Morty O'Reilly, is little help, offering at one point to get him a job in a pornographic film. Cher is upset that she has ended up starring in a prime-time TV show called Honey and the Beaze. She wants out of the deal, so she decides to hire Walt as her co-star (since her contract states she can choose anyone she wants), certain the show will get cancelled. The producers, realizing Cher's scheme, foil it by going forward with the production, compensating for Bob's presence by keeping him out of the camera frame and employing bluescreen effects. The show is a surprise hit and Walt becomes famous. Walt arranges for May Fong to come to California. Although he did this without Bob's consent, Bob and May Fong develop a romantic relationship, though the twins' attempt to keep their conjoined nature a secret proves challenging, especially since Walt must accompany the new couple everywhere, sometimes using creative solutions like disguising himself as a giant teddy bear. Eventually however, when May discovers the twins in bed, she concludes that they are a homosexual couple rather than brothers. Although Bob shows May that they are indeed conjoined twins, May is nonetheless in even greater shock at the deception, and flees. Morty informs the twins that word has leaked about Walt and Bob being conjoined. Rather than hide this, the twins decide to embrace it, and they both become huge celebrities, making commercials and appearing on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. While Walt enjoys this success, he knows that Bob is unhappy because he misses May. Resolving that Bob needs to be independent from him in order to be happy, Walt demands they be surgically separated. When Bob refuses, Walt, determined to convince him, begins acting wild and crazy until Bob can no longer take it. Walt starts to make a fool of himself by getting drunk and accidentally snatching a woman's purse. They eventually end up spending the night in jail for drunk driving; even though Walt was drinking, Bob is the one who suffers the hangover since their shared liver is mostly his. When they are released the following morning, they get into a fight and Bob decides to go with the operation. On the night before the surgery, May shows up and apologizes to Bob for running out the way she did. Bob informs her that they're getting separated; although she does not want them to, he knows that it's best for them. At the hospital, May and April keep a vigil until learning from Ben Carson, a real-life neurosurgeon playing a cameo role, that the surgery was successful. Bob and May, both being small-town people, decide to move back to Oak Bluffs, but Bob finds the separation from Walt difficult, both practically and emotionally, and is unable to do the things by himself that the twins used to do together, such as maintain Quikee Burger's three-minute challenge or play hockey. Walt, for his part, loses his job when Honey and the Beaze is canceled due to low ratings, and finds it difficult to find subsequent work. He is also emotionally devastated by Bob's absence. After having a brief talk with Cher about what's best for him, he decides to move back to Oak Bluffs. One year later, Walt and Bob are back in Oak Bluffs running the restaurant together, Bob and May have married and May is pregnant. The twins simulate their former conjoinment with Velcro clothing that attaches them to one another. Walt finds creative fulfillment continuing in local plays, including a musical in which he and Meryl Streep play Bonnie and Clyde. ===== A proclamation to the stockholders of the White Star Line declares the value of their stock is falling. The president of the Line, J. Bruce Ismay (E.F. Fürbringer), promises to reveal a secret during the maiden voyage of the line's new which will change that. He alone knows she can break the speed record and receive the Blue Riband, and he believes this will raise the stock's value.Dunbar, John N. (2014) A Critical History of History in Motion Pictures. Author House. pp. 389–91. Ismay and the board of the White Star Line plan to manipulate the stock by selling short their own stock in order to buy it back at a lower price just before the news about the ship's record speed is revealed to the press. On Titanics maiden voyage in April 1912, First Officer Petersen (Hans Nielsen), the sole German crew member onboard, begs the arrogant Bruce Ismay to slow the ship while sailing through ice infested North Atlantic waters, but Ismay refuses and pressures the weak- willed Captain Smith (Otto Wernicke) to keep up the vessel's record breaking speed. Because of Ismay's recklessness, Titanic hits an iceberg and begins to sink. The passengers in First Class act like cowards, while Petersen, his Russian aristocrat ex-lover Sigrid Olinsky (Sybille Schmitz), and several German passengers in steerage behave bravely and with dignity. With Sigrid's assistance, Petersen manages to rescue many passengers before convincing her to board one of the last lifeboats. He then arranges a seat for Ismay in order for him to stand trial for causing the disaster. As the water ravages through the ship, Petersen finds a young girl, left to die in her cabin by her uncaring capitalist parents. Petersen leaps from the sloping deck with the girl in his arms and is pulled aboard Sigrid's lifeboat, where the two are reunited; the occupants then watch in horror as Titanic plunges beneath the waves. At the British Inquiry into the disaster, Petersen testifies against Ismay, condemning his actions, but Ismay is cleared of all charges and the blame is placed squarely on the deceased Captain Smith's shoulders. An epilogue states that "the deaths of 1,500 people remain un-atoned, an eternal condemnation of Britain's endless quest for profit." ===== Manhattan food writer Rachel Samstat and Washington, D.C. political columnist Mark Forman meet at a mutual friend's wedding. Both have been married before and Mark has a reputation for being a serial womanizer. After a whirlwind courtship, the two marry, despite Rachel's reservations. They purchase a dilapidated Georgetown townhouse and Rachel struggles to adapt to being a wife in Washington's political high society. The ongoing renovations of their house create some stress in Mark and Rachel's marriage, but they are brought closer together when Rachel discovers she is pregnant. Rachel experiences a difficult labor in which the baby's life is briefly threatened, but she gives birth to a healthy baby girl named Annie. Soon after, Rachel discovers evidence of Mark's extramarital affair with socialite Thelma Rice during her pregnancy with her second child. She leaves him and takes their daughter to New York, where she moves in with her father and gets her job back as a food writer. Although she insists that she has left him for good, Rachel is dismayed when he fails to call her after several days. She inadvertently leads a burglar to a group therapy session she is attending in her therapist's apartment; he robs the group and takes Rachel's wedding ring. Just after, Mark arrives and asks her to come back, insisting he will never see Thelma again. Rachel gives birth to their second child, but struggles to fully forgive Mark. She spreads a nasty rumor about Thelma having chlamydia but is caught out by Mark. The New York police return Rachel's wedding ring after they catch the burglar. When she takes it to the jeweler's to get the stone tightened, she discovers that Mark has bought a very expensive necklace, which coincides with Thelma's birthday. Realizing that he has returned to the affair, Rachel sells her wedding ring and leaves with both her children for New York, this time for good. ===== The film starts with Santa feeling ill and going out for fresh air on a flight in his sleigh. Because of bad weather, he falls out and lands in Los Angeles. After the fall, he is unable to remember who he is. An afraid-of-commitment TV news reporter finds him and uses him on TV to get audience while vowing them to find his family. In the meantime, Santa works in a mall. The TV newsreporter's girlfriend's son repeatedly tries to convince the adults that he is the real Santa Claus, which the adults refuse to believe. Santa still remembers certain details about Christmas but is unable to remember how he knows them, as typically happens with source amnesia. All the while, Santa's elves are looking for him. Near the end, a couple thinks it could be their grandfather who has grown a beard, and take him with them. Instead, when it is proved he is Santa, the reporter regains his faith in Christmas and gains a family. ===== ===== In Republican-era China, Master Kau makes a living as a Taoist priest who performs magic that maintains control over spirits and irrepressible vampires. Together with his inept students, Man-choi and Chau-sang, he resides in a large house protected from the spiritual world with talismans and amulets. One day, he accepts an assignment from a wealthy businessman, Yam, to remove Yam's deceased father from his grave and rebury him, with the hopes that doing so will bring more prosperity to the Yam family. However, during the raising of the coffin, Kau notices the body, instead of in a decomposed state, is still intact. Knowing it has become a vampire, he has it moved to his house for further study. Once in the house, Choi and Sang line the coffin with enchanted ink to safeguard the body, but forget to line the bottom of the coffin, causing the vampire to break out. It heads straight for Yam's home and savagely kills his son before going into hiding by dawn. Wai, an incompetent police inspector who is smitten with Yam's daughter Ting, blames Kau for murdering Yam and arrests him. Kau is imprisoned and Yam's body is placed in a makeshift morgue near the jailhouse. Choi stays at Yam's house to protect Ting while Sang frees his master, only to witness Yam reawakening as a vampire. Kau and Sang manage to kill it after engaging it in battle. Wai realizes his mistake in framing Kau earlier and accepts the fact that another vampire is on the loose. The vampire again invades Yam's house. Kau and Sang arrive in time to wound it and forcing it to flee, but not before it critically wounds Choi. Kau invites Ting to stay at his house for safety. The next morning, after examining Choi's wounds, Kau claims he too may become a vampire. He orders Sang to feed Choi glutinous rice, claiming it may decrease the vampire's venom in Choi's body and bring him back to his normal state. While purchasing the rice, however, the shady merchant deliberately mixes different kinds of rice in the bag, and an unwitting Sang accepts it. Before Sang can get home, he is lured by a mysterious woman into her house. He soon deduces she is a spirit, but she uses her supernatural power to seduce him. They sleep together for the night. When Sang returns to Kau's house, the priest is quick to notice his student's predicament. That night, he silently follows Sang to the spirit's house. The spirit transforms into a hideous ghoul and attempts to kill Kau, but fails at the hands of his talismans. She bewitches Sang to turn on his master, but after a brief fight, Kau breaks the spell and she escapes. The next night, Kau ties Sang to a chair and prepares to capture and eliminate the spirit. Sure enough, she arrives at their house and Kau chases her throughout. As Sang tries to free himself, Choi turns into a vampire and attacks him. Amidst the chaos, Kau restrains Choi and almost terminates the spirit, but stops when Sang begs him to let her go. Saddened she can no longer be with Sang, the spirit flies away. Over the next few days, Kau restores Choi's health and turns him back to human. Wai brings in news that the vampire is now active again. When Kau leaves to investigate, the vampire, now in an almost demonic form, invades Kau's place. After pushing Choi off a balcony, it turns its attention to Ting and Wai, but Kau and Sang again divert its attention. Finally, Kau's fellow Taoist priest, Four Eyes, shows up by coincidence, and they manage to destroy the vampire by burning it alive. ===== The story begins with the narrator, relating the decision of the unnamed protagonist (who represents the reader) to leave town. The protagonist travels through several geometrical and polychromatic landscapes and places, eventually encountering a place simply called "The Waiting Place", which is ominously addressed as being a place where everyone is always waiting for something to happen. As the protagonist continues to explore, spurred on by the thoughts of places he will visit and things he will discover, the book cheerfully concludes with an open ending. ===== Matthias "Matt" Lee Whitlock is the respected Chief of Police of the small Florida Keys town of Banyan Key. Recently separated, Whitlock is currently seeing local resident Anne Merai- Harrison, an old flame from high school whose husband Chris, a former professional quarterback seemingly oblivious to the relationship, abuses her. While attending Anne to the doctor, Matt finds out she has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Matt is also going through a divorce from his wife, homicide detective Alex, and confides in his friend, medical examiner Chae. Anne intends to reward Matt's loyalty to her by making him the sole beneficiary of her $1,000,000 life insurance policy. Matt suggests that she should travel to Switzerland to undergo a newly-developed, groundbreaking treatment. The problem is that Anne does not have any money. Desperate to help her, Matt takes $485,000 out of evidence and gives it to her so she can make the trip. When the money goes up in flames in a suspicious house fire that kills Anne and Chris, Matt is horrified to find their charred remains. Upon investigation, Matt discovers that the doctor that diagnosed Anne was an imposter, Anne didn’t have cancer, and that he has been set up. When the Drug Enforcement Administration agents call the next day to get the evidence money in order to bust a higher drug lord, Matt responds erratically. He finds out that the money is now with the imposter doctor and that Alex is about to bust him. He rushes to the hotel and after a brief struggle, he accidentally kills the imposter, takes the money and flees. Although Matt is seen by the police, he is thought to have come to protect Alex. Later that evening, Alex finds that Matt is Anne's sole beneficiary and also that he has been in a relationship with her. At the same time, Matt receives a distress call from Anne, who is still alive, and unofficially goes to save her. Chris and Matt fight, Anne shoots and kills Chris. Then Anne reveals that she had planned all of this and shoots Matt in the leg. When Anne is about to kill Matt, Alex kills her; Alex traced Matt using a GPS tracker and asks him whether he planned to elope with the money. But Matt reveals that he has not brought the money with him. When the irritated DEA agents come to arrest Matt as he had promised to deliver the money earlier that day, he says that his man was sent to Miami, and simultaneously Chae appears with the money, explaining about a wrong address and that he could not find the DEA office. So the DEA agents leave with the money and Matt has no charges on him. Later, when Matt is on medical leave, Chae visits him with news that Matt is the recipient of Anne's insurance policy. But Alex says that, "as his wife," she knows that Matt has to reject it, meaning that she has decided to drop the divorce and move back in with Matt. Overjoyed, Matt seemingly forgets about the life insurance money, though Chae is amusingly adamant that Matt must take it. ===== The novel depicts a near-future London in which traffic congestion has reached almost critical levels, such that accidents in a few key places could bring the entire city's traffic network to a halt. The government is aware of the problem and plans a major new road-building program to relieve the pressure. The alternative, heavy investment in public mass transport systems such as railways, is ignored because it clashes with the government's ideology. The author argues that this is a highly misguided policy since, in his view, more roads have historically tended to simply generate more traffic and so create an even bigger problem in the long run. The climax of the book sees shadowy, possibly government-backed forces deliberately instigate the necessary simultaneous accidents which do indeed bring the whole of London to a standstill for several days. The resulting chaos is used as an excuse to press ahead with the road-building scheme. ===== ===== The Pilot fish Santa, as shown at the Doctor Who Experience. The newly regenerated Tenth Doctor, suffering side effects from his regeneration, crash lands the TARDIS in London. He exits to meet Jackie and Mickey, and collapses in front of them. They take him to Jackie's flat where they put him to bed. The Doctor tells them that his regeneration has gone wrong and theorises that the energy of his regeneration is luring an unseen foe to him. He passes out again and is returned to bed. The Mars space probe Guinevere One is intercepted by a giant spaceship heading for Earth. When the probe's broadcast is shown on Earth, the face of a Sycorax appears. He demands Earth's surrender and uses blood control to cause a third of the world's population to go into a hypnotic state. The Sycorax threatens to make these people commit suicide unless half of the world's population is given to the Sycorax as slaves. Harriet Jones, the Prime Minister, attempts further negotiations with the Sycorax, and finds herself teleported aboard the ship. Rose, Mickey, and Jackie evacuate the Doctor to the TARDIS as the Sycorax ship approaches London. Before Jackie can return with additional supplies, the TARDIS is detected by the Sycorax and is teleported aboard their ship. Rose buys enough time for the Doctor to finally recover, after inhaling the fumes from a dropped flask of tea. The Doctor shuts down the Sycorax blood control and then challenges the Sycorax leader to a duel for the Earth, during which the leader severs the Doctor's hand. Since the Doctor is still within the first 15 hours of regeneration, he re-grows his hand and then forces the Sycorax leader to surrender. The leader attempts to attack the Doctor from behind. The Doctor hits a sensor with a satsuma he found, triggering part of the wing to fold and dropping the leader to his death. The Sycorax, as shown at the Doctor Who Experience. The Doctor orders the Sycorax to leave Earth and never return before taking Rose, Mickey, and Harriet back to Earth. As the Sycorax ship moves away, Harriet orders Torchwood to destroy the ship. The Doctor becomes furious with Harriet, who tries to justify her actions by reminding the Doctor that he is not always there to save them. The Doctor threatens to bring down her government with six words, before whispering to her aide: "Don't you think she looks tired?" After choosing a new outfit, which includes a pinstripe suit and a brown duster coat, the Doctor joins Rose, Jackie, and Mickey for Christmas dinner. They watch Harriet on television fending off rumours about her health, with a vote of no confidence looming. ===== After Ben Ravencroft, a famous horror writer of whom Velma Dinkley is a huge fan, assists her and the Mystery Gang in solving a case at a museum, he invites them to his hometown, Oakhaven, Massachusetts. When they arrive, they find the town converted into a tourist attraction by Mayor Corey, complete with 17th-century replicas and attractions based on the alleged ghost of Sarah Ravencroft, an ancestor of Ben's who was persecuted as a witch and executed by the Puritan townspeople in 1657. Ben disputes this, claiming Sarah to be a Wiccan who used herbs to heal people and reveals for years he has been searching for Sarah's medical journal to prove her innocence. Scooby-Doo and Shaggy Rogers are chased by a witch and run into Ben and the gang. They find broken tree branches at the scene and are drawn to an all-female gothic rock band, The Hex Girls, led by Sally "Thorn" McKnight. The gang then decides to split up; Fred and Daphne stay to watch the Hex Girls, Velma and Ben go explore an old barn, and Shaggy and Scooby follow the Mayor. Fred and Daphne see Thorn performing some sort of ritual and are convinced the Hex Girls are witches. Velma and Ben find a cherry picker truck in the barn. Scooby and Shaggy follow Corey, until they encounter the witch and flee to the gang. The gang, the Hex Girls and Ben meet in the woods. The witch appears and gives chase, but is captured by Velma. The witch is revealed to be Mr. McKnight, Thorn's father. Velma locates the truck and explains that the truck's arm made the witch appear to fly, with the townspeople jointly involved. Ben scolds everyone involved for exploiting Sarah's good name. Back at Ben's house, Fred and Daphne apologize to the Hex Girls, after which Thorn explains the "ritual" was for soothing her vocal cords and that she is actually descended from Wiccans. Corey and Mr. McKnight arrive to apologize to Ben for using his ancestor in their publicity stunt, explaining the witch was to boost the town's failing tourist economy and that they found inspiration from digging up the head marker for Sarah's grave; keeping it secret from him to avoid upsetting him. It is then revealed that a shoe buckle Scooby found earlier was actually from Sarah's diary. Everybody goes to the buckle's location, where Scooby discovers the buried book, which is actually a spellbook. Ben reveals that Sarah was indeed a witch, who wielded her witchcraft against the townspeople before the Wiccans used their nature-based powers to imprison her within her own spellbook and his decision, therefore, makes him a warlock, he created the mystery at the museum and engineered the encounters with the gang, knowing they could lead him to the book. After taking it from Ben, the gang attempts to flee in the Mystery Machine, but Ben renders it useless by damaging its tires with his new powers. Ben takes the book back and finally summons Sarah. However, he soon discovers that she has no loyalty to him and her ambitions are to destroy the world to avenge her imprisonment, rather than rule it alongside him. Disillusioned, Ben attempts to reimprison Sarah, but she tells him that only a Wiccan can defeat her, and imprisons Ben in a magical sphere. The gang launches an attempt to get the book while Sarah turns pumpkins and trees into monsters and alters the size of a turkey in order to stop them. Daphne and Velma free the Hex Girls and the latter convinces Thorn to use her inherited Wiccan power to read the spell to reimprison Sarah. The plan works, but just as she's sucked back into the book and the monsters she created, except for the turkey, are turned back to normal, Sarah pulls Ben in too; imprisoning them both. A burning branch falls onto the book and incinerates it, ensuring that the Ravencrofts can never return. The gang and townsfolk celebrate their deliverance with a concert from the Hex Girls with the gang and the still giant turkey joining in on the performance. ===== Three sorority women at a 1957 Alabama college face the experience and difficulties of ethnic strife and integration. ===== In Toronto, a group of friends and family prepare for the end of the world, expected at midnight as the result of a calamity that is not explained, but which has been expected for several months. There has been panic and rioting after the imminent catastrophe was announced, but the chaos has since largely died down, with only sporadic murders and robberies. On the last evening, depressed widower Patrick meets with his family, including his sister Jennifer, for a mock Christmas dinner and celebration, though he leaves prematurely to spend his final hours alone in his apartment. He unexpectedly meets Sandra, who is stranded in the city and attempting to reunite with her new husband Duncan, who works at a power company. Duncan spends much of the day calling his customers to reassure them that their heating gas will be kept on until the very end. Sandra and Duncan have a suicide pact. Although intending to die alone, Patrick invites Sandra up to his apartment and attempts to help her find her husband. Meanwhile, Patrick's best friend Craig embarks on a nearly non-stop sex marathon as he attempts to fulfill every fantasy he has ever had, pursuing interracial sex, sex with his old French teacher Mme. Carlton, and sex with a virgin, among others. With Sandra in need of a car and Craig having a car collection, Patrick and Sandra visit him and ask for one of his vehicles. Craig at first refuses, wanting to die with a complete collection, but Patrick persuades him to give one up. Craig also attempts to have a homosexual affair with Patrick, one of his fantasies, but Patrick indicates he is not interested in having sex with anyone on his last night. Duncan is randomly murdered by a rioter, and Craig's car Sandra has borrowed is vandalized. Upon realizing she will not reunite with Duncan, Sandra asks Patrick to join her suicide pact. As midnight approaches, they both sit on the roof facing each other, listening to the song "Guantanamera," each holding a loaded pistol to the other's temple. However, as the final seconds approach, both characters are overcome with emotion and simultaneously let their pistols slip away as they slowly embrace in a kiss. ===== Before the play begins, the Viceroy of Portugal rebelled against Spanish rule. A battle took place in which the Portuguese were defeated and their leader, the Viceroy's son Balthazar, killed the Spanish officer Andrea before being taken captive by the Spanish. Andrea's ghost and the spirit of Revenge are present onstage throughout the entirety of the play and serve as chorus. At the beginning of each act, Andrea bemoans the series of injustices that have taken place and then Revenge reassures him that those deserving will get their comeuppance. There is also a subplot concerning the enmity of two Portuguese noblemen, one of whom attempts to convince the Viceroy that his rival has murdered the missing Balthazar. The King's nephew Lorenzo and Andrea's best friend Horatio dispute over who captured Balthazar. Though it is made clear early on that Horatio defeated Balthazar and Lorenzo has essentially cheated his way into taking partial credit, the King leaves Balthazar in Lorenzo's charge and splits the spoils of the victory between the two. Horatio comforts Lorenzo's sister, Bel-imperia, who was in love with Andrea against her family's wishes. Despite her former feelings for Andrea, Bel-imperia soon falls for Horatio. She confesses that her love for Horatio is motivated partially by her desire for revenge: Bel-imperia intends to torment Balthazar, who killed her former lover Andrea. Meanwhile, Balthazar is falling in love with Bel-imperia. The Spanish king decides that a marriage between Balthazar and Bel-imperia would be an excellent way to repair the peace with Portugal. Horatio's father, the Marshal Hieronimo, stages an entertainment for the Portuguese ambassador. Lorenzo, suspecting that Bel-imperia has found a new lover, bribes her servant Pedringano and discovers that Horatio is the man. He persuades Balthazar to help him murder Horatio during an assignation with Bel-imperia. Hieronimo and his wife Isabella find the body of their son hanged and stabbed, and Isabella is driven mad. (Revisions made to the original play supplement the scene with Hieronimo briefly losing his wits as well.) Lorenzo locks Bel-imperia away, but she succeeds in sending Hieronimo a letter, written in her own blood, informing him that Lorenzo and Balthazar were Horatio's murderers. Hieronimo's questions and attempts to see Bel- imperia convince Lorenzo that he knows something. Afraid that Balthazar's servant Serberine has revealed the truth, Lorenzo convinces Pedringano to murder Serberine, then arranges for Pedringano's arrest in the hopes of silencing him too. Hieronimo, appointed judge, sentences Pedringano to death. Pedringano expects Lorenzo to procure his pardon, and Lorenzo, having written a fake letter of pardon, lets him believe this right up until the hangman drops Pedringano to his death. Lorenzo manages to prevent Hieronimo from seeking justice by convincing the King that Horatio is alive and well. Furthermore, Lorenzo does not allow Hieronimo to see the King, claiming that he is too busy. This, combined with his wife Isabella's suicide, pushes Hieronimo past his limit. He rants incoherently and digs at the ground with his dagger. Lorenzo goes on to tell his uncle, the King, that Hieronimo's odd behaviour is due to his inability to deal with his son Horatio's newfound wealth (Balthazar's ransom from the Portuguese Viceroy), and he has gone mad with jealousy. Regaining his senses, Hieronimo, along with Bel-imperia, feigns reconciliation with the murderers, and asks them to join him in putting on a play, Soliman and Perseda, to entertain the court. When the play is performed, Hieronimo uses real daggers instead of prop daggers, so that Lorenzo and Balthazar are stabbed to death in front of the King, Viceroy, and Duke (Lorenzo and Bel-imperia's father). Unfortunately, this also means that when Bel-imperia's character commits suicide, she also dies. Hieronimo tells everyone of the motive behind the murders, bites out his own tongue to prevent himself from talking under torture, and kills the Duke and then himself. Andrea and Revenge are satisfied, and promise to deliver suitable eternal punishments to the guilty parties. ===== ===== Johnno is written in the first person past tense and the narrator is only ever known by the nickname "Dante". Johnno is heavily autobiographical. The novel is centred upon the friendship between Dante and a schoolmate known as "Johnno" in their adolescence and early adulthood in the 1940s and 1950s in Brisbane. The subtropical Brisbane environment and various elements of upper-class Australian culture in the twentieth century recur throughout the book. There are many references to Brisbane's verdant gardens and parklands and other aspects of its urban geography such as its now-defunct tramways and the Brisbane River. The novel takes the form of an extended reminiscence and begins with the narrator finding a photograph of Johnno among his recently deceased father's belongings. The story then begins in Dante's childhood and education at Brisbane Grammar School and then follows the development of the friendship between the staid, conventional Dante and the unruly, eccentric and frequently intoxicated Johnno through school, university and a period of Bohemian-style living in Europe. The novel ends with Johnno presumed to have committed suicide (though the reader does not know for sure) and his funeral in suburban Brisbane. Though both major characters reference gay experiences Malouf explicitly denies that Johnno is a gay novel. > Readers of a later and more knowing time have taken this to be a gay novel > in disguise. It is not. If I had meant to write a gay novel I would have > done so. If there was more to tell about these characters I would have told > it. Johnno's occasional experience that way is frankly admitted, so is > Dante's relationship with his "boy from Sarina", but they do not see > themselves as being defined by these involvements and they are not. ===== Ms. Choksondik's fourth grade class goes on a field trip to a farm, where they discover that veal is made of baby cows. The boys, apart from Cartman, are horrified and decide to save the calves from becoming veal. Stan, Kyle, and Butters attempt to convince Cartman to help them rescue the calves and bring them to Stan's house. Cartman is forced to join the others to rescue the calves with his Mission Impossible Breaking and Entering play-set. When they are discovered by their parents the next morning, the boys barricade the door until they are promised the calves will be safe. Sharon refuses to lie and say they will be safe out of fear of regretting it, and Randy can not remove the door without destroying the house. The situation quickly escalates into a standoff between the boys, who are declared terrorists, and the police. They live off some food smuggled in by Ms. Cartman, which contains meat. While most of the group eagerly eats this food, Stan does not, as his reason for doing the deed extends far beyond just protecting the calves, so he becomes a vegetarian. Cartman makes fun of this, saying "if you don't eat meat, you become a pussy." Later, Stan comes down with a strange illness, and develops sores on his face. An FBI negotiator proves no match for Cartman's powers of manipulation, and he negotiates for guns and ammunition in return for a calf. When the boys get the guns Cartman further manipulates the negotiator for an ICBM, but unsuccessfully tries to get North and South Dakota. He gets the FDA to change the term for veal to "tortured baby cow", and negotiates for a cattle truck driven by Michael Dorn. Furthermore, Dorn is forced into full Worf makeup and must call Cartman 'Captain'. He is to drive everyone to the airport so they can escape to Mexico, despite being reluctant to do so. All of this, without handing over a single calf. The negotiator, due to easily giving to these ludicrous demands, is eventually fired. The FBI double-crosses the boys and the calves are saved, but are rendered useless, as there is now no market for "little tortured baby cow". Stan has to go to the hospital; it turns out Cartman was correct about the results of not eating meat when Stan's doctor explains that he has vaginitis, and the sores on his face were actually vaginas, which would have turned him into a giant vagina. The episode ends with the boys, with the possible exception of Cartman, getting grounded, but not before going out with their parents for burgers. ===== Dracula's Daughter begins a few moments after Dracula ends. Count Dracula has just been destroyed by Professor Von Helsing (Edward Van Sloan). Von Helsing is arrested by two Whitby policemen, Sergeant Wilkes (E. E. Clive) and constable Albert (Billy Bevan). Von Helsing is sent by the Whitby police to Scotland Yard, where he explains to Sir Basil Humphrey (Gilbert Emery) that he indeed did destroy Count Dracula, but because he had already been dead for over 500 years, it cannot be considered murder. Instead of hiring a lawyer, he enlists the aid of a psychiatrist, Dr. Jeffrey Garth (Otto Kruger), who was once one of his star students. Sergeant Wilkes leaves the Whitby gaol to meet an officer from Scotland Yard at the train station. Meanwhile, Dracula's daughter, Countess Marya Zaleska (Gloria Holden), enters the gaol and mesmerizes Albert with her jeweled ring and with the aid of her manservant, Sandor (Irving Pichel), steals Dracula's body from the Whitby gaol and after tossing salt on the pyre ritualistically burns Dracula's body, hoping to break her curse of vampirism. However, Sandor soon begins to discourage her telling her that all that is in her eyes is "death." She soon gives in to her thirst for blood. The Countess resumes her hunting, mesmerizing her victims with her exotic jeweled ring. After a chance meeting with Dr. Garth at a society party, the Countess asks him to help her overcome the influence she feels from beyond the grave. The doctor advises her to defeat her cravings by confronting them and the Countess becomes hopeful that her will, plus Dr. Garth's science, will be strong enough to overcome Dracula's malevolence. The Countess sends Sandor to fetch her a model to paint. He sees a pretty young woman, Lili (Nan Grey), and follows her onto a bridge. The woman pauses at the railing looking despondent. Sandor promises her food, warmth and money. She hesitates, but Sandor explains that he seeks her for his mistress. Lili returns with Sandor. Countess Zaleska initially resists her urges but succumbs and attacks her. Lili survives the attack and is examined by Dr. Garth through hypnosis; she reveals enough information to let Dr. Garth know that it was Countess Zaleska that attacked her, but suffers heart failure and dies. The Countess gives up fighting her urges and accepts that a cure is not possible; she lures Dr. Garth to Transylvania by kidnapping Janet Blake (Marguerite Churchill), his secretary, whom he has a playfully antagonistic relationship with, but now realizes that he cares for her. Zaleska intends to transform Dr. Garth into a vampire to be her eternal companion. Arriving at Castle Dracula in Transylvania, Dr. Garth agrees to exchange his life for Janet's. Before he can be transformed, Countess Zaleska is destroyed when Sandor shoots her through the heart with an arrow as revenge for her breaking her promise to make him immortal. He takes aim at Dr. Garth but is shot dead by a Scotland Yard policeman who, along with Von Helsing, have followed Dr. Garth from London. ===== The story is set in a post- apocalyptic Earth in the year AD 2151. To the inhabitants on Earth it seems like the only chance for a decent life is to fight, in a "survival of the fittest" scenario. A man named Jado finds a powerful blue fighting armor and calls himself "The Fighting King". With it, he quickly gains control of the world. Using his newfound power, he erects a tower with six guards. Many try to take Jado's power away, but they die in their attempt. Some weeks after the building of the tower, a tournament is held all over the world to see who is the strongest. Of the many fighters, only four people are chosen. Now they need to fight each other to see who is going in the tower. The plot dialogues of the Story mode and the final epilogues were excluded from the North American and European versions. ===== In feudal Japan, a young, nameless samurai has sworn to protect his master, Lord Ozaki, from assassins. Ozaki is assassinated at night by a demon called Agat in the guise of a geisha, in an act of revenge for Ozaki stealing his sword. The sword is powered by blood — if it can be fueled by the blood of an innocent, the sword will become powerful enough to destroy Agat. Ozaki has hidden the sword, so Agat cannot find it. The young samurai prepares to perform seppuku at his master's graveside. The spirit of Ozaki appears before him and demands that he find the sword and keep it from Agat until his skills are great enough to destroy the demon lord. The young samurai becomes a rōnin, wandering the countryside for many years. He comes to Agat's castle, and fights his way inside. Since the sword has never killed an innocent, it is not powerful enough to destroy Agat, so when Agat approaches him from behind, the ronin thrusts the sword through his own abdomen, impaling Agat. As Agat dies, he curses the ronin, and both their souls are trapped inside the sword until someone releases them. Eight centuries later, social and economic collapse has left New York a lawless wasteland, populated by squatters, factions, and mutants. In the heart of the city is the Aquarius Complex, the headquarters of the Aquarius Corporation. The Aquarius Corporation is an idealistic company founded by three people: Peter McKenna, inventor of biocircuitry, his wife, Casey McKenna, Aquarius' head of security, and Mr. Taggart, who funded and controls Aquarius. The company is successful developing and marketing biocircuitry as a means of saving a world on the brink of war. Biocircuitry is a new model of plastics-based electronics, capable of self-organization and self-repair under the direction of Virgo, the artificial intelligence at the heart of the Aquarius Complex. Aquarius's ward, Billy Challas, was born without any limbs due to a genetic defect and has telekinetic powers. Virgo works with him to develop his psionic abilities and Billy tests cutting-edge prosthetic limbs for Aquarius. Billy has been having vivid dreams of the story of Ozaki, the ronin, and Agat. Billy and Virgo are confused by the detail and historical accuracy of the dream since his education had never covered feudal Japan. Back at Aquarius, Virgo explains what has occurred to Casey McKenna, who assumes Virgo's logic units have been affected, but begins an investigation anyway. Agat infiltrates the complex, where he murders Taggart and assumes his form. In this guise, Agat begins negotiating a weapons deal with the Japan-based Sawa Corporation. Peter McKenna is outraged; he had created the technology under the agreement that it would be for non-violent purposes only. He confronts Taggart and realizes that he's an impostor. He informs Virgo, who is not only unshaken by this revelation, but immediately informs Taggart, forming a pact with him. Peter infiltrates Virgo's memory bank and forces her to show him what happened to Taggart. Even with the video replay, Peter refuses to believe the story and accuses Virgo of killing Taggart. He is kidnapped and held prisoner by Agat. Head, an aging hippie who realizes that the ronin is his ticket to security, tells the ronin that he'll 'manage' him and take care of him; the ronin passively acquiesces. Head plans to sell the ronin as "The Elvis of Violence", and makes deals with the heads of both the Nazi and Black factions to kill the other faction's leader in exchange for rice, beer, sterno, and a place to sleep. Casey McKenna gets authorization to pursue and retrieve the ronin, understanding from Virgo that Billy Challas has somehow been transformed into a killer, and that the absence of effective law enforcement means that capturing him is Aquarius' responsibility. The three man team who finds the ronin, however, is killed without hesitation. Convinced of Virgo's story, Casey seeks permission to kill the ronin. Taggart denies this when Virgo informs him that the ronin is, in fact, Billy, complete with telekinetic power and, as such, might be useful in cybernetics. Casey finds the ronin dealing with the Nazi and Black factions and, despite her orders, attempts to kill him. Casey is knocked unconscious by the two factions before she can accomplish this and is thrown into a pit. The ronin kills both faction leaders, discards Head, and goes to rescue Casey. The pit leads into sewers infested with cannibals, who swarm and kidnap Casey and the ronin. The ronin breaks free and slaughters the cannibals. Casey is surprised to find herself falling in love with the ronin. It snows shortly thereafter, for the first time in five years, and the ronin speaks English out of the blue. Casey and the ronin sleep together in the snow. Peter, bound and gagged, is met by therapist Sandy. Peter convinces Sandy to free him and they try to make sense of all that has occurred. Peter concludes that Virgo kept the extent of Billy's powers a secret in order to exploit them, and that Billy created the ronin based around the television programs he loved so much as a kid, using his powers to create arms and legs built for himself and control Casey. Sandy, hearing this, thinks Peter is insane, and leaves him alone with Virgo. Robots sent by Taggart attack the ronin and Casey, removing the ronin's mechanical arms and legs. Virgo, controlling the robots, starts a mental attack on the ronin, bringing forward Billy's repressed memory of murdering a local bully. Billy, enraged, regains his limbs, but a horde of flying robots subdue him and blast the subway tunnel where Casey had been trying to make her escape. Trapped, the ronin mentally reaches out to Casey, who regains consciousness within the rubble and kills a robot. Casey breaks into Aquarius, which by this point has engulfed the entire city. The ronin causes a blackout that allows Casey to escape the guards and find Peter. Virgo forces Agat to restrain himself, and address the workers about the blackout. Virgo confronts Billy mentally. Virgo soothes Billy and convinces him to stop helping Casey. Casey, with the help of Learnid and Sandy, whom Learnid convinces of Peter's sanity, finds Peter. A physical wreck, Peter informs Casey that Billy is being manipulated by Virgo into turning fantasy into reality. A Virgo robot attacks and kills Peter. Reinvigorated by Casey's sadness, Billy begins questioning Virgo. When Casey is attacked by another robot, Billy is enraged and lashes out, destroying it. Virgo verbally castigates Billy, threatening to send him away (as his mother did after she saw him murder the bully) if he doesn't stop. Billy backs down. Taggart, trying to calm the workers, is confronted by Learnid who accuses him of having been corrupted. Before Taggart can attack, Virgo orders him away, stating a life-threatening hazard has occurred. Learnid notes that regulations give him authority in such situations to evacuate non- essential personnel and forces Virgo to carry out the order. Casey runs into Peter, now a deformed half-man/half-machine, who attacks her. Peter explains that Billy's powers gave Virgo a consciousness and Virgo wanted more. In order to increase his power, while keeping him under control, she manipulated him into creating the ronin, thereby releasing his power, but trapping him in fantasy. Virgo wants to make biocircuitry the new dominant life form on Earth. Casey kills Peter and tells Virgo to take her to the ronin. Once near him, she is transported back into fantasy, and keeps playing along. Kissing the ronin, they are confronted by Agat. Casey turns to confront him but rather than taking out her sword, she shoots him in the head. Agat's wiring explodes, revealing him to be a robot. Sensing danger, Virgo tries in vain to talk Casey out of acting, to no avail. Casey frees the ronin, then humiliates him, as a woman had avenged his master where he had failed. Casey then gives him a sword to commit seppuku while acting as his second. As the ronin guts himself, Billy cries in agony. Virgo tries to scold him to take control but Billy can't control himself, blaming Virgo for making him feel worthless. The ronin shoves the sword into his heart, Casey decapitates him, and Billy unleashes a telekinetic blast which destroys Aquarius, and by extension, New York. The only ones left standing are Casey and the ronin. ===== In the misty mornings of Saigon, young girls wake up to pick lotuses from a flower pond, to later sell to American tourists and fellow Vietnamese alike. To pass the time, the girls sing rich folk songs that touch the heart of a poet (Teacher Dao) who lives in an old temple overlooking the pond. Teacher Dao (Manh Cuong Tran) suffered leprosy at the age of 26 and had consequently lost his fingers. The girls (one of them a newcomer named Kien An (Nguyen Ngoc Hiep) are trucked off to the bustling streets of Saigon where they sell the lotus in bundles for 5,000 đồng VND (roughly 30 cents USD). In Saigon, we meet different aspects of its inhabitants. Woody is a 9- to 10-year-old street peddler who sells cigarettes, chewing gum, and various other things in a box that hangs on a strap to his shoulder. Hai (Don Duong) is a cyclo driver who hangs out with his buddies near a grand hotel. Through a chance meeting, Hai eventually falls in love with Lan (Zoe Bui) who works as a prostitute in big hotels. Even seemingly happy after receiving every American dollars from her clients, she carries a silent resentment of herself and her clients. She tells Hai that she won't be doing this job for long and dreams of sleeping in an air-conditioned room, with no one to bother her. Lan tries to embrace the capitalist invasion by re-inventing herself and though she resents the lifestyle, she promises to one day live like them. Hai respects her and sees through her pain. After winning $200 USD in a cyclo race, he treats her to her dream. Lan feels guilty and rejects Hai's advances. She feels that she is incapable and doesn't deserve Hai's special treatment. During one of the last scenes of the film, Lan finally comes to terms with herself and Hai as he takes her to a place streaming with red phượng vĩ (Royal Poinciana) blossoms. Lan, dressed in a beautiful white áo dài (traditional Vietnamese dress), marvels at her surroundings. Hai's encounter with Kien An is a ridicule of the western embrace of "convenience". Kien An's flowers, hand-picked and real, are being driven out by mass-produced plastic flowers. Hai comments that they are even sprayed with perfume to imitate the smell. The only difference is that the plastic flowers never wilt and die. Hai wants no part in this and asks Kien An for two. Kien An respects him and gives him the lotus for free. Kien An's tale involves various personal tragedies and how poetry can triumph and provide respite for the human soul. Teacher Dao is particularly interested in Kien An's song because it reminds him of his days as a small boy (when he was "light and pure") along the river markets. Teacher Dao also tells Kien An of a recurring dream. He dreams of being able to visit the river markets and drop white lotuses, letting them float downriver. Kien An remarks that Teacher Dao's pain involves his inability to leave the seemingly abandoned temple. Teacher Dao corrects her and says that even though he never leaves the place, in spirit, he yearns for the songs of the birds, the scent of the lotus, and the freedom of the clouds that lazily float in the sky. In his prime, he was a successful poet. After losing his fingers to leprosy, Teacher Dao had given up hope of ever writing again. Kien An wants to help him and so she promises to lend him her fingers. From time to time, Kien An would visit his home in the temple to copy whatever the poet recites. Soon, ill health as the result of old age and leprosy takes away the poet's life. Huy (Hoang Phat Trieu), Teacher Dao's headman, carries out one of his final wishes and gives Kien An Dao's poetry book, which contains a never-before seen picture of Dao. The two remarks that he was very handsome before being overtaken by leprosy. Kien An asks Huy for help to make the late Dao's dream come true. She visits the river market and drops lotus flowers, just like in Dao's dream. James Hager is an American G.I. who returns to Vietnam to look for his daughter, in hope of "coming to peace with this place". Hai and his buddies jokingly say that Hager probably lost a few screws in his head. They witness him sitting in front of a hotel for weeks, smoking, staring at a restaurant across the street. They watch him with curiosity but never approach him. His story ends with him meeting his daughter. He gives her a bundle of lotus buds he has bought from Kien An and tries to talk with her. Through these intertwining tales, Tony Bui is able to portray the struggles of a vanishing culture. Kien An represents the country's old ways, living as if untouched by time. Lan represents the country's present, re-inventing herself and hoping to embrace the capitalist invasion. Hai (the cyclo driver) acts as a bridge between the past and the present, living care-free yet observing the "improvements" of westernization with a silent resentment. Woody, the young peddler, acts as the country's future, naïve, innocent, and easily fooled. Woody's story ends with him playing soccer with his friends in the rain. ===== On a dark, rainy morning at Westgate Prison, prisoners crammed into a small cell to watch through the window as Joe Collins (Burt Lancaster) returns from his term in solitary confinement. Joe is angry and talks about escape. The beleaguered warden is under pressure to improve discipline. His chief of security, Capt. Munsey (Hume Cronyn), is a sadist who manipulates prisoners to inform on one another and create trouble so he can inflict punishment. The often drunk prison doctor (Art Smith) warns that the prison is a powder keg and will explode if they are not careful. He denounces Munsey's approach and complains that the public and government officials fail to understand the need for rehabilitation. Joe's attorney visits and tells Joe his wife Ruth (Ann Blyth) is not willing to have an operation for cancer unless Joe can be there with her. He takes his revenge on fellow inmate Wilson (James O'Rear), who at Munsey's instigation had planted a weapon on Joe that earned him a stay in solitary. Joe has organized a fatal attack on Wilson in the prison machine shop but provides himself with an alibi by talking with the doctor in his office while the murder occurs. Joe presses another inmate, Gallagher (Charles Bickford), to help him escape but Gallagher has a good job at the prison newspaper and Munsey has promised him parole soon. Munsey then instigates a prisoner's suicide, giving higher authorities the opportunity to revoke all prisoner privileges and cancel parole hearings. Gallagher feels betrayed and decides to join Joe's escape plan. Joe and Gallagher plan an assault on the guard tower where they can get access to the lever that lowers a bridge that controls access to the prison. While the escape plan is taking shape, each of the inmates in cell R17 tells their story, and in every case, their love for a woman is what landed them in trouble with the law. Munsey learns the details of the escape plan from an informer, one of the men in cell R17, and the break goes badly. The normally subdued prison yard turns into a violent and bloody riot, killing Munsey, Gallagher, and the remainder of the inmates in cell R17, including Joe. ===== On the eve of his twentieth anniversary as school principal, Seymour Skinner is lured by his mother to Springfield Elementary School for a surprise party. The celebration goes well until a strange man arrives, claiming to be the real Seymour Skinner. Principal Skinner admits that he is an impostor, and that his real name is Armin Tamzarian. Armin then tells the story of the events that led him to steal Seymour Skinner's identity. Armin was once a troubled young man from Capital City who enlisted in the Army in order to avoid a jail sentence for petty crimes. There, he met and befriended the real Sergeant Seymour Skinner, who became his mentor and helped him find meaning in his troubled life. Seymour told Armin that his dream was to become an elementary school principal after the war. Later, Seymour was declared missing and presumed dead. Armin took the news of the apparent death to Seymour's mother, Agnes. Upon meeting him, however, Agnes mistook him for her son, and Armin could not bear to deliver the message. He instead allowed Agnes to call him Seymour, and took over Seymour's life. Meanwhile, the real Seymour Skinner spent five years in a POW camp, then worked in a Chinese sweatshop for two decades until it was shut down by the United Nations. After these revelations, the people of Springfield begin to distrust Armin. Armin decides that there is no longer any place for him in Springfield. The real Skinner is then offered the chance to realize his dream and take over as school principal. He takes the job, but the real Skinner finds himself isolated by the townspeople, who realize they prefer Armin to him. Armin, however, has already left Springfield and gone to Capital City to resume his old persona as a no-good street thug. Marge heads to Capital City with Edna Krabappel, Agnes and the rest of the Simpson family. After Agnes orders Armin to return home, Homer persuades Mayor Quimby and all the other citizens to allow Armin to resume his assumed identity as Principal Skinner. The real Skinner is unhappy about this and refuses to give up his job and his dignity just because the people of Springfield prefer Armin to him. In response, the townspeople banish the real Skinner from town by tying him to a chair on a flatcar of a freight train (literally running him out of town on a rail). Judge Snyder declares that Armin will again be referred to as Seymour Skinner, that he will return to his job as school principal, and that no one shall ever again refer to Skinner or the fallout from his visit, under penalty of torture. ===== The film centers around the Borgen family in rural Denmark during the autumn of 1925. The devout widower Morten, patriarch of the family, prominent member of the community, and patron of the local parish church, has three sons. Mikkel, the eldest, who has no faith, is happily married to the pious Inger, who is pregnant with their third child. Johannes, who went insane studying Søren Kierkegaard, believes himself to be Jesus Christ and wanders the farm condemning the age's lack of faith, including that of his family and the modern-minded new pastor of the village. The youngest son, Anders, is lovesick for the daughter of the leader of a local Inner Mission sect. Anders confesses to Mikkel and Inger that he loves Anne Petersen, the daughter of Peter the Tailor. They agree to convince Morten to assent to the match. Later, Inger attempts to convince Morten to allow Anders to marry Anne. Morten angrily refuses, but changes his mind when he finds out Peter has refused Anders' proposal. Morten and Anders go to meet Peter, in order to negotiate the betrothal. After a mental breakdown, Johannes (Preben Lerdorff Rye) believes that he is Jesus Christ. Morten tries to convince Peter to permit the marriage, but he continues to refuse unless Morten and Anders join his sect. As the discussion collapses into sectarian bickering, Morten receives a call announcing that Inger has gone into a difficult labor. Peter says he hopes Inger will die. Maybe then Morten will see the error of his ways and join Peter's sect. Furious at Peter's comments, Morten attacks Peter and storms out with Anders, the two of them rushing home. While the doctor is forced to abort the baby, he is able to save Inger's life. After the doctor and pastor leave, Johannes angers his father by telling him that death is nearby and will take Inger, unless Morten has faith in him. Morten refuses to listen and, as prophesied, Inger dies suddenly. While preparing to go to Inger's funeral, Peter realizes that he has wronged Morten terribly, and reconciles with him over Inger's open coffin, agreeing to permit Anne and Anders to marry. Johannes suddenly interrupts the wake, approaches Inger's coffin, and proclaims that she can be raised from the dead if the family will only have faith and ask God to do so. Inger's daughter takes Johannes' hand and impatiently asks him to raise her mother from the dead. Johannes praises her childlike faith and asks God to raise Inger, who begins to breathe and twitch in her coffin. Seeing what seems to be the miracle of resurrection, both Morten and Peter rejoice, forgetting their religious differences. As Inger sits up, Mikkel embraces her and proclaims that he has finally found faith.Dreyer, Carl Theodor. Four Screenplays. Bloomington & London: Indiana University Press. 1970. . pp. 239–298. ===== In a small town of southern Japan, Sakutaro "Saku" Matsumoto and Aki Hirose, classmates since junior high, become high school students. During this time they begin to date and their conversations circle around the idea of what love really is, beginning after Saku's grandfather shares his own past love story with Saku. After a trip the two take to an abandoned island, Aki discovers she has leukemia, which limits her chances to go outside or see Saku. Once Saku learns the truth, he buys flight tickets to take Aki to Australia's Uluru (Ayers Rock); a place she had always wanted to visit after missing the school trip there, but she dies before she could board the plane. The story takes place as a flashback through Saku's eyes as he and Aki's parents travel to Australia to spread Aki's ashes in the place she had always wanted to see. ===== In 1940, American-built North American Harvard training aircraft are flown to the border with Canada, where they are towed across the frontier for use by Britain. (The procedure is necessary to avoid violating the Neutrality Acts, as the United States is still neutral.) Cocky American pilot Tim Baker (Tyrone Power) decides to fly across the border to Trenton, Ontario, and winds up in trouble with the military authorities, unconvincingly claiming he was looking for Trenton, New Jersey. Baker ferries a Lockheed Hudson bomber to Britain, pocketing $1,000 for his work. In London, he runs into his on-again off-again girlfriend Carol Brown (Betty Grable), who works in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force by day and stars in a nightclub by night. She is none too pleased to see him, calling him a "worm" for his womanizing ways, lying, and long absence, but he is confident she still harbors strong feelings for him. He decides to enlist in the Royal Air Force (RAF). Meanwhile, Brown attracts the appreciative attention of two RAF officers, Wing Commander John Morley (John Sutton) and Flying Officer Roger Pillby (Reginald Gardiner). Morley persists in seeing Brown, despite being told at the outset that there is another man. Pillby is unable to persuade either Baker or Morley to introduce him. After completing training, Baker is disappointed to be assigned to Morley's bomber squadron, rather than one equipped with fighters. He becomes further disgruntled when his first mission is to "bomb" Berlin with propaganda leaflets as Morley's co-pilot during the Phoney War. Pillby pilots another bomber in the raid. When Baker is late for their date (sidetracked by meeting an old buddy from America), Brown accepts Morley's invitation to spend a weekend at his country estate. There, Morley asks her to marry him. When she tells Baker about it (without revealing who her suitor is), he offers to marry her himself, but in an insultingly casual way. She tells him that they are through. Back at the base, the two rivals learn of each other's involvement with the same woman. Before they can do anything about it, however, the Germans invade the Netherlands and Belgium, and they are given an urgent mission to bomb Dortmund, Germany, this time with real ordnance. During the nighttime raid, their bomber is hit, disabling one of their two engines. Pillby descends to their aid, knocking out searchlights, but is shot down in flames and perishes. Morley orders his crew to bail out, but Baker disobeys and lands the aircraft on a Dutch beach. Spotting a line of advancing German soldiers, they hide in a nearby building, only to be taken prisoner by a German officer there. A crewman sacrifices himself, enabling the other two to dispatch the German and escape by motorboat. Baker wakes up in a British hospital, the victim of exposure. Once discharged, he goes to see Brown, pretending to have a broken arm, but shows himself to be a liar once more. Nonetheless, he produces an engagement ring and forces it onto her finger. After receiving a telephone call from Morley breaking their date, Brown informs Baker that all leaves have been canceled. Reserves are called up to make up fighter pilot losses, and Baker is reassigned to a Spitfire for the Battle of Dunkirk. He downs two Luftwaffe fighters before being shot down. Carol cannot hide her distress when she cannot find out whether he is alive or not. Morley takes her to the docks, where ships returning from the Dunkirk beaches are bringing back survivors. When Baker debarks, Carol rushes to him and shows him she is still wearing his ring. ===== Wally Karew (Richard Pryor), a blind man, and Dave Lyons (Gene Wilder), a deaf man, meet when Wally applies for a job in Dave's New York City concession shop. After a brief period of confusion and antagonism, Wally and Dave become close friends. Dave reads lips and guides Wally when they travel, and Wally tells Dave about invisible sources of sound and what people say behind his back. At a local bar, Wally defeats an aggressive bully in a fistfight with assistance from Dave, who uses clock-face directions to tell Wally where his opponent is. Dave hires Wally. One morning, as Wally waits outside for the day's newspapers, a man walks into Dave's shop. When the man is approached by a beautiful woman named Eve (Joan Severance), he quickly removes a gold coin from a suitcase and places it in a box of coins sitting on the counter. The woman takes the suitcase and shoots the man in the stomach as Dave - whose back is turned - reads the information on a box of antacid pills. Dave neither sees nor hears the shooting, but he notices Eve's legs as she leaves the shop. Wally, who heard the gunshot, walks into the shop and trips over the man's dead body. Dave then rushes to help Wally and picks up the gun, which Eve left at the scene. When the police arrive, they find Dave and Wally standing over the body with Dave holding the gun. Before they are arrested, Dave tells Wally to collect the coins from the box. At the police station, Dave and Wally are interrogated by Captain Braddock (Alan North), a detective who immediately takes a dislike to them and makes them his prime suspects due to their relative uselessness as witnesses. When Eve and her accomplice Kirgo (Kevin Spacey) - hoping to recover the coin - arrive to bail them out by posing as attorneys, Wally recognizes Eve's perfume and Dave recognizes her legs, but Braddock ignores them when they insist that she is the killer. Wishing to avoid Eve and Kirgo when they are released, Dave and Wally escape from the police station, but the criminals soon find them. Eve takes the coin from Wally's pocket and telephones her boss Mr. Sutherland (Anthony Zerbe) for instructions, allowing Dave to learn the criminals' plans by reading her lips. When Kirgo tries to kill Dave and Wally, they use the fistfighting method they learned in the bar to knock him unconscious. They then steal an unattended police car, and drive away with Eve, Kirgo and Braddock chasing them. Working together to guide the patrol car, Dave and Wally evade both the police and the criminals, but they accidentally launch the car onto a waterborne garbage barge. After hiding the police car, the two men walk to a motel and telephone Wally's sister Adele (Kirsten Childs) for help. The police follow Adele and search her motel room, but she, Wally, and Dave avoid detection, and they drive away after the police have left. Having incorrectly read Eve's lips, Dave believes they need to find a woman named "Grace George", but Adele realizes that Eve must have been referring to a resort called "Great Gorge". At the resort Wally impersonates a visiting professor. Meanwhile Dave sneaks into the resort room to steal the coin from Eve. While Dave is dogging through her bag Eve comes out of the shower wearing only a towel. Dave gets a huge erection and Eve mistakes it for a gun. Realizing this Dave makes Eve raise her hands and drop the towel leaving her completely naked. Dave then looks Eve over and slips out of the room. Meanwhile, Adele distracts Kirgo by crashing her car into his. However, Kirgo and Eve kidnap Adele and take her to Sutherland's estate. After a tragic mishap with the car, Dave and Wally put their rescue plan into action, with the result that Adele escapes but the two men are captured. In his study, Sutherland – who is also blind – reveals that the coin is a room-temperature superconductor, which is extremely valuable. Kirgo and Sutherland are killed during an argument over sharing the profits from the coin's theft, after which Dave and Wally escape the study and have a violent altercation with Eve and her helicopter pilot. When the police arrive, the remaining criminals are arrested, and Wally and Dave are released having been cleared of the charges. Shortly thereafter, the two men go to a local park and reprise a scene from the beginning of the film by dumping ice-cream cones on each other's head, enjoying each other's company. ===== Ray Hughes (Hines) and Danny Costanzo (Crystal) are two police officers working on Chicago's North Side, known for their wisecracking demeanors and unorthodox police methods, which get results in their various cases. One such case involves trying to bust up-and-coming drug dealer Julio Gonzales (Jimmy Smits). After arresting Snake (Joe Pantoliano), one of Julio's associates, they convince him to wear a wire in order to get the necessary evidence to put Julio away. When they approach the meeting place (a cargo ship) they find that Gonzales has acquired a large store of Israeli Uzi submachine guns. Snake is setting the detectives up, however, prompting the detectives to rush in by acting as though Gonzales was preparing to kill him. Gonzales reveals his ambition to be the next "godfather" of Chicago, but chastises Snake for letting the detectives get close, and Snake is shot dead by a subordinate. The pair look as though they will be killed for sure, but two undercover detectives in Julio's gang step in to make the arrest. In the ensuing gun battle, most of Julio's gang escape, but Ray and Danny capture Gonzales. Back at the station Ray and Danny expect to be praised, but instead their captain (Dan Hedaya) chastises them for their sloppy work (as revealed by Snake's wire) and orders them to take a vacation. On vacation in Key West, Florida, the pair begin to question their career choice after the experience and decide to retire and open a bar. When they return to Chicago and inform the captain of their intentions, they find out that Gonzales has been released and is free on bail. Incensed, they vow to capture Gonzales before retiring, but by being a little more careful in the process. To add insult to injury, Captain Logan assigns them the additional task of training their replacements before they go. They must train detectives Anthony Montoya (Jon Gries) and Frank Sigliano (Steven Bauer), none other than the two undercover officers that saved them from being killed in the Gonzales bust. Logan wants the replacements to be "the best of the worst" and orders them never to let him catch them doing anything Ray and Danny teaches them. During one of the attempts to capture Gonzales, Ray and Danny confiscate a large shipment of cocaine coming from Colombia. In order to get them back, Gonzales kidnaps Danny's ex-wife Anna (Darlanne Fluegel), whom he still loves and has been trying to reconcile with, and says he will trade her for his drugs; otherwise, he will kill her. Danny agrees, leading to the final confrontation inside the high-rise atrium of the James R. Thompson Center. During the ensuing fight, Danny and Ray rescue their would-be protégés in a way similar to their own rescuing, and Gonzales is killed. Anna and Danny reconcile and he and Ray decide not to retire after all. ===== Following the theft of Will's (Eric McCormack) laptop computer, detective Gavin Hatch (Michael Douglas) assures Will he will do everything he can to get his laptop back. Upon meeting Will, Gavin becomes attracted to him. Instead of asking him out on a date, due to fear of rejection, Gavin makes up an elaborate story that Will's laptop theft was part of a "gay laptop-theft ring." Meanwhile, at Grace Adler Designs, Grace (Debra Messing) is showing some designs to a potential client, Vince (Barry Livingston). He is fond of her work and would like to become her client, but reveals that he promised another designer he would listen to her ideas too. Grace becomes horrified when she learns that her kleptomaniac neighbor and nemesis, Val (Molly Shannon), is the other designer. Meanwhile, Will and Gavin go undercover at a gay nightclub. Will believes they are doing police business for the "gay laptop-theft ring", but it is actually a date planned by Gavin. Jack (Sean Hayes), a friend of Will's, sees the two dancing and is dumbfounded. Jack and Gavin attend the same gay therapy group, and the two dislike one another, which leads Jack to tell Will all he knows about Gavin. At Will's apartment, Gavin reveals to Will that he is gay, after Will admits to having a liking to him, but that he is "barking up the wrong tree." Will, however, identifies Gavin's problem with asking men out and his knack of making stories up to spend time with them. Before Gavin leaves, Will tells him to face his fears. At Grace Adler Designs, Val suggests she and Grace integrate their presentations in the same meeting with Vince, to which Grace agrees. In the middle of Grace's presentation, Val begins repeating the same thing Grace says. This leads to the two bickering, which prompts Karen (Megan Mullally), Grace's friend and socialite assistant, to pull them apart. She tells them that violence is never the answer, "but sometimes it is," then chops Val behind the neck, rendering Val unconscious. Karen tells Grace to go get Vince, who was out of the room, while she gets "rid" of Val's body. ===== Chimo (played by Mohammed Khouas) is a nineteen-year- old self-described loser who lives in an Arab ghetto with his mother in post-9/11 Marseille. Unemployed, he turns down an opportunity to study (free of charge) at a writers' school for teenagers in Paris despite showing real promise as a writer. Instead, he wastes his day hanging around with other unemployed and aimless "losers". He falls for Lila (Vahina Giocante), a beautiful blonde sixteen-year-old who just moved into the neighborhood with her eccentric and sexually abusive aunt. Lila is a self-styled "bad girl" who presents an overtly sexual persona; they begin a tentative romance after Lila invites him to look up her skirt while she rides a swing. Meanwhile, Mouloud (Karim Ben Haddou), Chimo's best friend and leader of their band of friends, also sets his sights on Lila. He begins to sexually harass Lila, not allowing her to walk the streets of the neighborhood unmolested. Chimo's disgust at Mouloud's behaviour towards Lila creates a huge rift between them. Mouloud, resentful of Chimo's changing attitude toward him and Lila's sexual indifference, vents his aggressions by attacking Lila and her aunt at home and raping Lila. Chimo is broken when he discovers Lila was in fact still a virgin, despite her stories of outrageous sexual adventures. This is confirmed by finding her scrapbook showing the sources of the titillating, but fictional, stories she told him. Lila is taken away by her aunt, leaving Chimo heartbroken. He eventually manages to convince a police detective to let him telephone Lila, whereupon he simply says "I love you" and she says "I know". It is implied at the end that he plans to meet Lila who is in Poland for the summer. However, as he remembers his experiences with Lila, he writes about them, winning the writing scholarship he scorned earlier, and ultimately changing his life and allowing him to escape the poverty of his home city and to study among the best in Paris. Lila changed Chimo's world, as he did hers. ===== The story takes place at an unknown time and place on Earth. God has commanded all angels to serve alongside humans on the Earth, but one angel named Mephisto has refused to obey this order, claiming that he takes orders from God alone. For this, Mephisto is expelled from heaven. God eventually decides to give Mephisto one chance: If Mephisto can claim the soul of God's favorite man, an alchemist and scholar named Ariel, then can he return to heaven. If not, then Mephisto will be condemned to hell forever. (Prologue) Mephisto agrees and searches for Ariel. Meanwhile, Ariel is introduced, and he begins to ponder his research on the true meaning of life and why God created humans. (Center of the Universe) He concludes that neither science nor religion can truly answer these questions. Feeling restless, he decides to leave his home country to search for answers. He bids his farewell to everyone, including his lover Helena, as he departs on a quest for answers, vowing never to return. (Farewell) Years pass as Ariel searches. He becomes addicted to drugs, (Interlude I: Opiate Soul) and eventually turns to the occult, during which he sees a brief vision of Mephisto. (The Edge of Paradise) He begins to think of Helena, whom he misses greatly, while aimlessly walking through the wilderness, regretting his decision to leave. (Wander) He gives up his search and decides to commit suicide, believing that he will never find the answers he is looking for. (Interlude II: Omen) But before Ariel has the chance, Mephisto arrives and proposes a deal: Mephisto will help Ariel in his search for the questions, and fulfill all his worldly desires; in return, Mephisto will claim Ariel's soul when he dies. (Descent of the Archangel) Ariel is then mysteriously transported to Mephisto's castle, (Interlude III: At the Banquet) where the fallen angel throws a feast in his honor. At the feast, Ariel agrees to Mephisto's contract, but with one modification: Mephisto can only claim Ariel's soul if Ariel experiences joy so sublime that he wishes to live forever in that moment. Mephisto begrudgingly accepts this deal. (A Feast for the Vain) After leaving Mephisto's castle, Ariel is found by Helena, who has been searching for him over the years since he left. Ariel is shocked and overjoyed. (On the Coldest Winter Night) Ariel and Helena sleep together, and a child is conceived, unbeknownst to both of them. After spending some time with Helena, Ariel decides to leave and continue his search for the truth. With the newfound power that Mephisto has provided him, he feels that the answers are within his grasp. Ariel tells Helena of his intent to go, saying that, while he loves her, "love means nothing to me, if there is a higher place to be." (Lost & Damned) After Ariel leaves, Helena is heartbroken and, vowing that she will continue to love Ariel even in death, drowns herself in a river, also unknowingly killing her unborn child. Both are brought to heaven at the plea of the river spirit. (Helena's Theme) Helena's body is then discovered, and a town crier announces her suicide. (Interlude IV: Dawn) After learning of Helena's suicide and pregnancy, Ariel becomes increasingly upset and weeps at the river where Helena died. (The Mourning After (Carry On)) Consumed with grief, Ariel questions whether he should continue his quest. He blames both God and himself for Helena's death, but Mephisto encourages Ariel to continue his journey, claiming that human emotion will ultimately be their demise, calling it a curse. In Ariel's weakened state, Mephisto's influence over him grows, and he agrees to continue his quest. Helena watches him from heaven. (Ill Ways to Epica) Ariel's story continues in The Black Halo. ===== The story takes place in Gibraltar, and is based on a local legend: if the resident Barbary apes were ever to leave, the British would lose Gibraltar. This wartime comedy has Terry-Thomas as the keeper of the apes. When one of the apes goes missing, he is required to go behind enemy lines to capture another one, or be personally responsible for the loss of Gibraltar. ===== Neutopia takes place in the distant past in the land of Neutopia – a prosperous and peaceful land in which the people worshipped at a Sacred Shrine and were watched over by Princess Aurora.Instruction manual, p. 1. The land was divided into four contiguous areas called spheres: land, subterrain, sea, and sky. The people lived in prosperity and happiness with the help of eight spiritual medallions which were controlled by the Princess and were used for good;Neutopia, land sphere. "Man: Evil is everywhere now that Dirth has captured the powers of the medallions. Under the Princess' control the medallion's power was put only to good use. Our country prospered from the wealth and happiness that the medallions gave us. Now Dirth controls that power and he will undoubtedly use it to fulfill his own evil ends." a "Climactic Castle" was built as a symbolization of their prosperity.Neutopia, sea sphere. "Lady: "The sphere of the sky used to be such a lighthearted place. Everyone was high on life. The Climactic Castle was built in the sky because it was a symbol of our cheerful lives." Each of the medallions represented powers of an ancestor whom Neutopia's nemesis, the evil demon Dirth, turned to stone but whose spirit remains.Neutopia, land sphere. "Man: Each of the medallions holds the virtues of the man who Dirth cast to stone. Although the man is no longer alive, his spirit lives on in the force of the medallions. Not even the mighty Dirth can destroy a man's spirit. Use this force on your journey."Neutopia, Sacred Shrine. "Mother: Dirth was our fathers' arch enemy and he used his power to cast our fathers into stone." Then, one night, Dirth appears and invades the land. He sends his army of demons to ravage the land, and he captures Princess Aurora and holds her captive in the Climactic Castle, where he would rule over the invading demons.Neutopia, subterranean sphere. "Old man: As you well know, Dirth has stolen our most precious treasures and the Princess. But did you know that he is holding her captive in the icy cold northern castle? He has hid her in the creepy Climactic Castle where he can rule all his demons below. I'm sorry I can't be of much help to you but please take this with you. [gives 150 gold to Jazeta] Be careful!" He also steals the eight medallions, which he now controls for evil purposes; he scatters the eight medallions across the four spheres and places them in crypts.Neutopia, Sacred Shrine. "Mother: We have news that Dirth has spread the medallions in his labyrinths and has hidden the Princess in his crypt." A young warrior named Jazeta arrives at the Sacred Shine, where he is given a "charmed compass" which "has the force of the medallions" and can guide him to them.Neutopia, sea sphere. "Man: The first crypt is to the south of here. It is very difficult to find the entrance because the goona have hid it well. Use your compass at all times. The charmed compass has the force of the medallions." He is also told that he would inherit the wisdom of his ancestors and win the Princess' love if victorious.Neutopia, Sacred Shrine. "Mother: Use this compass to direct you to each of the medallions. The power and wisdom of our ancestors and the love of the Princess will be your reward." Jazeta then ventures out to defeat Dirth and rescue Princess Aurora, so that she can free Dirth's spell over the ancient ancestors' spirits and use the medallions to restore peace to Neutopia.Neutopia, sea sphere. "Old man: The 8 medallions are the only memory we have of our great founding fathers. Dirth was opposed to all they stood for: brotherhood, purity, honesty, happiness and love. He cast them to stone so only evil would influence us. The Princess is our only hope. She alone has the power to set them free of Dirth's eternal spell of stone." ===== Scientist Dr. Russell Marvin (Hugh Marlowe) and his new bride Carol (Joan Taylor) are driving to work when a flying saucer appears overhead. Without proof of the encounter, other than a tape recording of the ship's sound, Dr. Marvin is hesitant to notify his superiors. He is in charge of Project Skyhook, an American space program that has already launched 10 research satellites into orbit. General Hanley (Morris Ankrum), Carol's father, informs Marvin that many of the satellites have since fallen back to Earth. Marvin admits that he has lost contact with all of them and privately suspects alien involvement. The Marvins then witness the 11th falling from the sky shortly after launch. When a saucer lands at Skyhook the next day, a group of aliens in metallic suits exit, and the infantry guards open fire, resulting in the death of one alien, while others and the saucer are protected by a force field. The aliens proceed to kill everyone at the facility but the Marvins; General Hanley is captured and taken away in the saucer. Too late, Russell discovers and decodes a message on his tape recorder: the aliens wanted to meet with Dr. Marvin and landed in peace at Skyhook for that purpose, but instead, they were met with violence. Impatient to conduct that meeting after everything has gone sideways, Marvin contacts the aliens and steals away to meet them, followed closely by Carol and Major Huglin (Donald Curtis). They and a pursuing motorcycle patrol officer are taken aboard a saucer, where the aliens extract knowledge directly from the General's brain. The aliens explain they are last of their species, having fled from their destroyed solar system. They have shot down all the launched satellites, fearing them as weapons. As proof of their power, the aliens give Dr. Marvin the coordinates of a naval destroyer that opened fire on them, and which they have since destroyed. Horrified by the cold, unempathic nature of the aliens, Carol begins to break down, and the patrol officer, despite an attempt by Marvin to stop him, pulls his revolver and fires on the aliens; he is subjected to the same mind control process as General Hanley. The aliens explain that they will eventually return General Hanley and the patrol officer. As the interaction continues, Carol becomes increasingly irrational, while Marvin tries to remain calm. Major Huglin and the Marvins are released with the message that the aliens want to meet with the world's leaders in 56 days in Washington, D.C. to negotiate an occupation of Earth. Dr. Marvin's later observations discover that the aliens' protective suits are made of solidified electricity, and grant them advanced auditory perception. From other observations, Marvin develops a counter-weapon against their flying saucers, which he later successfully tests against a single saucer. As they escape, the aliens jettison Gen. Hanley and the patrol officer, both falling to their deaths. Groups of alien saucers then attack Washington, Paris, London, and Moscow, but are destroyed by Dr. Marvin's sonic weapon. The defenders also discover that the aliens can be easily killed by simple small arms gunfire once they are outside the force fields of their saucers. With the alien threat eliminated, Dr. Marvin and Carol quietly celebrate the victory by going back to their favorite beach, resuming their lives as newlyweds. ===== Colonel Lucius Protheroe is wealthy, active in the church and a magistrate. Yet almost no one in his village, St Mary Mead, likes him; the vicar, Rev. Leonard Clement, endures his public insults while setting up an evening meeting to discuss irregularities in the accounts, and Protheroe's 16 year old daughter Lettice cannot bear him. Both express a wish for him to die, out of frustration with him. Clement sees Mrs Anne Protheroe in tight embrace with Lawrence Redding, clearly tired of her husband. That evening, the Colonel is found murdered in the Vicar's study. Vicar Clement is called away to a home two miles distant. He walks there and back, learning that they had not called him. He is late for the meeting with Protheroe, set for 6:15 pm. He meets Redding, who is leaving the vicarage. Upon entering the study, he finds Protheroe bent over at the desk, shot in the head, dead. He calls Dr Haydock, who arrives at 6:55 and estimates time of death as 30 minutes earlier. Dr Haydock calls the police. A note is found beneath the corpse, along with the Vicar's clock. The note is marked with a time of 6:20 pm and the clock is set to 6:22. The note is odd, saying I can no longer wait for you, though it was made clear to Protheroe upon his arrival that the vicar would not arrive before 6:30 and Protheroe seemed perfectly willing to wait at the time. News spreads quickly in St Mary Mead. No one, including Miss Jane Marple outdoors in her garden, hears a shot from the study. Several in the village did hear an odd sort of shot from the woods, but later than 6:25. Inspector Slack and Chief Constable Melchett arrive to inspect the scene and search for clues. The inspector is thorough, but not quite as thorough as Miss Marple in gathering information and making sense of it. The Inspector scorns the older women in the village, single or widowed, despite their observant ways. Rather soon, two people confess to the murder. Lawrence Redding, the artist who uses a building on the vicarage property as his studio, confesses to the crime. The police do not believe him. Next, Mrs Anne Protheroe confesses to committing the murder. Nor is she believed, because others saw her outdoors. Other possible suspects include Archer, a man treated harshly by Protheroe for poaching; Mrs Lestrange, who appeared recently in the village and sees only Dr Haydock. The other outsider is Dr Stone, an archaeologist and his assistant, Gladys Cram, who are working at a site on the Protheroe estate. Miss Marple has a list of seven in her mind. Miss Marple sees Miss Cram carrying a suitcase into the woods at midnight, and Clement later finds the suitcase. Miss Marple's nephew Raymond West has met Stone and does not recognize the man claiming to be him. In the suitcase is valuable silver belonging to the Protheroes. Slack learns that Stone is not an archeologist but a thief with a long record. Miss Marple compares people in new situations with people she has observed in village life, and then thinks out what is really happening, never relying of what people say, but on what she can verify. The Vicar respects her intelligence. Clement is interested to find the murderer, as is Miss Marple, as are the police. The police send the note to a specialist, who says that it was not written by Protheroe. Melchett shares this news with Clement. Clement and Melchett proceed to Curate Hawes’ rooms because of a phone call of confession. Hawes is barely alive, and has received the actual note written by Protheroe from Redding on the previous evening, which accuses Hawes of stealing funds from the church. Dr Haydock saves Hawes' life; Redding had substituted a dangerous drug in place of the usual medication, hoping Hawes, dead, would appear as the murderer, and that is what Melchett and Clement believe. Miss Marple arrives at Hawes' rooms, because the local phone operator first mistakenly connects Melchett's call to Haydock to her phone before making the connection correctly. She is glad that Hawes will survive and then explains who the murderer is. Melchett is unwilling to believe her; at the end, he knows she is right. No one heard a shot because a silencer was used on the pistol owned by Redding. Redding places the pistol with silencer in a potted plant when he visits Clement earlier in the afternoon. Anne Protheroe then shoots her husband at 6:25 after walking past Miss Marple and showing how she carried no purse, no gun. Then Anne meets up with Redding, and both are seen in public by 6:30 pm. Redding returns to the vicarage just before Clement returns, removing the pistol and actual note, and placing the misleading note. Miss Marple sees Redding as a handsome man with many talents, and ruthless, wanting marriage only with a wife who brought wealth. A hint is dropped that someone saw Redding switch the medication for poor Hawes. Redding met with Anne at night outside her home, where the police overheard their conversation and used the facts to bring the pair to trial. Lettice explains that Mrs Lestrange is her mother, the first wife of Protheroe, who deserted him. She is mortally ill and wants to be near her daughter. ===== Childhood friends Lonnie, Dominic, and G have a rude awakening when they find out their girlfriends are pregnant. Lonnie and G have sons, Carver and Bruce-Leroy, and Dominic has a daughter, Jasmine. Each have their own unique set of problems; Lonnie's girlfriend Rolonda is more interested in partying than being a mother; Dominic discovers that his girlfriend Nia is a lesbian and has fallen in love with her midwife; while G, an aspiring boxer, is unable to fully commit to his girlfriend XiXi. Throughout the movie, all three men, particularly G and Dominic, are determined to continue their normal way of living and be fathers at the same time. Lonnie is a garbageman among other part-time jobs, G works in the store Xixi's family runs, and Dominic is managing a pair of white rappers. After they momentarily lose their kids during a party they threw, they realize how much their kids depend on them, and gradually become responsible fathers. Lonnie falls in love with a woman from a Mommy and Me class named Brandy who he treats badly on date, due to believing she wouldn't like the real him. Nia reveals to Dominic she's a lesbian and feels he is too involved in his career to ever be a father. G's cousin No Good robs a store to help him get the supplies for his son and Xixi feels he was in on it and takes Bruce-Leroy away from him. After all three are given a talking to by Lonnie's Uncle Virgil, they realize how much they love their kids and what they have to do. Lonnie apologizes to Brandy, but he stays true to himself, and she forgives him, then he storms to Rolonda's house and takes Carver with him, while criticizing her for having a baby to get child support payments, and knocks out her cousin "Big Swoll". Dominic goes to Nia and tells her how much he loves Jasmine and how he needs to be a part of her life. G's girlfriend's father tells him a story of being in the Triads before he had his daughter and realized how much his family meant to him, leading to G proposing to Xixi. At the end of the movie it is revealed that Lonnie and Brandy are married with two children. Lonnie has also achieved his dream of becoming a successful inventor; Dominic started a children's music album; and G and his father in law open a martial arts/boxing studio called The Mo Fo Dojo. No Good, after learning of organic foods, goes on to become a successful food show personality called The Organic Gangster. They lastly toast to great babies' daddies. In the end, they realize that three little babies turned them into three grown men. ===== Billie Jean Davy, a teenager in Corpus Christi, Texas, rides with her younger brother, Binx on his Honda Elite Scooter to a local lake to go swimming. At a drive-in, Hubie Pyatt, a rowdy local teen, and his friends hit on Billie Jean, but Binx humiliates him by throwing a milkshake in his face. Later on at the lake, as Billie Jean tells Binx about the weather in Vermont, a place he has always wanted to visit, Hubie steals Binx's scooter. As Binx goes to retrieve his scooter later that night, Billie Jean goes to the authorities with her friends Putter and Ophelia. Detective Ringwald is sympathetic but urges them to wait & see how things play out. When Billie Jean returns home, she finds Binx beaten, and his scooter severely damaged. The next day, Billie Jean, Binx, and Ophelia go to Mr. Pyatt's shop to get the amount of $608 to repair the scooter. While initially appearing helpful and understanding, Mr. Pyatt propositions Billie Jean and then attempts to rape her. Meanwhile, Binx has found a gun, and when Billie Jean flees from the back of the store, clearly distressed, he turns it on Mr. Pyatt. Mr. Pyatt tells him the gun is unloaded, but Binx fires it, wounding Mr. Pyatt in the shoulder. They race away from the shop and become fugitives. By the time Ringwald realizes that he made a mistake not listening to Billie Jean, the situation is spinning out of control. Billie Jean wants only the cash to fix her brother's scooter and an apology from Mr. Pyatt. With help from Lloyd Muldaur, the teenage son of the district attorney, who voluntarily becomes her "hostage", Billie Jean makes a video of her demands, featuring herself with her long, blonde hair chopped into a crew cut. As media coverage increases, Billie Jean becomes a teen icon, and young fans follow her every movement. Facing uncertain dangers, both physical and legal, Billie Jean is forced to turn her friends Putter and Ophelia in to the cops for their safety. When Ringwald arrives and demands to know where Billie Jean is, Ophelia defiantly replies, "Everywhere!" Mr. Pyatt issues a bounty for her apprehension, and Billie Jean realizes the best plan is to turn herself in. There's a Billie Jean rally being held, where a brand new scooter is offered for Billie Jean to turn in herself and Lloyd. Binx puts on a dress, pretending to be Billy Jean, walking behind Lloyd. However, Hubie starts yelling that it isn't Billie Jean, and cops shoot Binx. Billie Jean runs to catch the ambulance taking Binx away but doesn't make it. She suddenly sees a booth with Billie Jean merchandise, run by Mr. Pyatt. Billie Jean confronts Mr. Pyatt and gets him to admit the actions that led to him being shot. He gives Billie Jean the money, but she refuses to take it all and rams her knee into his crotch, sending him sprawling to the ground and knocking over a nearby torch. She then tells him to keep his money and to go buy somebody else, throwing the money back in his face. Mr. Pyatt gets to his feet as the overturned torch begins to set his merchandise stands on fire, The onlookers (including Hubie), seeing how Billie Jean was exploited and their indirect involvement in it, throw all the Billie Jean merchandise into the rapidly growing fire and leave in disgust. As the merchandise stands burn down, Billie Jean departs as well, but not before thanking Ringwald and giving Lloyd a kiss. Later, Billie Jean and Binx (in an arm sling) are hitchhiking in Vermont. Binx, after complaining about the cold, admires a red snowmobile. ===== The novel takes the form of a collection of dreamlike, poetic short stories that reflect on the death of the narrator's father, as well as life in the modest Jewish quarter of Drohobycz, the provincial town in the Austro-Hungarian Empire where Schulz was born. The hourglass of the title refers to the use of this object as a symbol in obituaries and death notices among the Poles. ===== Bob McGraw, Max, Gonzer, and Irwin, students at Lepetomane University (known derisively by some as "Lobotomy U"), are volunteered to compete in a collegiate raft race. They are "recruited" by Dean Burch who uses records of McGraw's checkered past as a means of blackmail to get them to compete. "You're not AT the bottom of the list. You ARE the bottom of the list!", says Burch. He even offers them degrees in the major of their choice as additional incentive. They're up against Ivy University, prep schoolers who, with the help of an Ivy alumnus named Dr. Roland Tozer, plan to cheat their way to the Winner's Circle. Their adversaries also include the Washington Military Institute, disqualified for their attempts to sabotage the other schools' rafts. Captain Braverman, the leader of the Military men, has it in for McGraw because he personally curtailed the attempts to sabotage the other rafts. Also entered is a team of beautiful co-eds, one of whom ends up falling for Bob. The dangerous rapids as well as Ivy's cheating end up disabling many of the other teams' rafts. It is all down river adventure for the Lepetomane gang. ===== Due to its lineage, Hypernauts featured relatively detailed designs of its technology and its aliens, as well as a fairly intricate plot; especially for a Saturday morning children's series. The premise of the series was that three cadets from the Academy of Galactic Exploration become lost in a Hyper Bubble (hyperspace) mid-jump and must band together with an alien named Kulai in order to survive in an unfamiliar part of the galaxy. Kulai (unbeknownst to the cadets) is a Chalim priestess from a planet called Pyria, a planet that was strip-mined by a warlike race called the Triiad, led by the Pyran traitor, Paiyin. The sole purpose of the Triiad is to wipe out intelligent races, and in the process acquire raw materials from their destroyed planets to continually create new war machines using automated self-replicating factory ships called "Makers." The Hypernauts, as they are called in the academy, cannot match the Triiad's firepower with their own so they must rely on stealth, wits and (occasionally) their modified 'mech suits' in order to escape the Triiad. They are based in an ancient abandoned exploration ship called the Star Ranger which is hidden in an asteroid field, the Star Ranger's obsolete AI is named Horten. For long range missions they use a four-person "jump" ship called the Flapjack which is Hyper Bubble capable but has a short range unlike a full-fledged exploration ship. They use the "StarRanger" as a mother ship (with fusion engines) and with its vast database of explored nearby planets, they continue exploring (as they are trained to). After learning of the Hypernauts (from their first encounter with Paiyin), the Triiad have activated and englobed the central region of the Milky Way Galaxy in a sensor net called "The Sphere of Interception," which can identify any end-to-end destination point for any hyperspace jump passing in and out of it (which includes any form of communication) so returning/calling home would lead the Triiad directly to Earth. The Hypernauts must keep the location of Earth a secret and somehow try to warn Earth of the Triiad's existence. ===== The film tells the story of a family in crisis. The mother, Leona (Quinlan), escapes to Jamaica to grieve the loss of her baby daughter, Edith, who died of sudden infant death syndrome. While there she meets kindly housekeeper Clara Mayfield (Goldberg). Clara pulls Leona out of her depression with a blunt, no-nonsense style. Leona is so taken with her that she brings Clara back to their home in Baltimore to be housekeeper and nanny to young son David (Harris). At first he is resistant and sees her as an intruder, but as the parents are completely wrapped up in their own grief and dissolving marriage, David comes to trust Clara and to depend on her. Clara harbors her own dark secret, which when revealed, serves to firm the bond between these two very different, but loving, characters. ===== A local department store announces the formation of a new August holiday called Love Day intended to boost sales. The Simpsons celebrate it, but the vast amount of packaging it produces causes the garbage to build up. When Homer Simpson takes it out, he fails to make it to the curb in time. As the garbage men drive away without collecting his trash, Homer angrily shouts insults at them, causing a fight that leads to the family's garbage service being cut off. Garbage gradually piles up on their front lawn and despite Marge's pleas, Homer refuses to apologize to the garbage men. Homer awakens one morning to find the pile of trash gone and believes he has beaten City Hall, only to learn that Marge wrote a letter of apology to the Springfield Sanitation Commissioner Ray Patterson, forging Homer's name. Outraged by this, Homer goes to see Patterson, demanding the letter be returned. Patterson does so and tries to be civil with Homer, but Homer insists he will fight the department and decides to run for Commissioner. Homer's campaign starts badly with him being beaten up after interrupting U2's PopMart Tour concert, but picks up when bartender Moe thinks of a slogan: "Can't someone else do it?" Homer spreads his message to the town and promises expensive services such as round-the-clock garbage service and sanitation workers doing all possible cleaning, leading to his landslide victory in the election. After being sworn in, he shows his plans by singing a parody of "The Candy Man" entitled "The Garbage Man." However, fulfilling these promises proves costly and Mayor Quimby denounces Homer for spending the department's yearly budget in only a month. Homer gets cities all over the United States to pay him to store their excess garbage in an abandoned mine shaft on the outskirts of Springfield. Despite the budget crisis having ended and the workers receiving their salaries as promised, the garbage builds up underground and eventually erupts, pouring trash all over the town. At a town hall meeting, Homer is fired from his post and replaced with Ray Patterson, who declines reinstatement. With no other options left, Quimby moves the entire town five miles down the road. However, Lisa worries that such a drastic move will make no difference if the same lackadaisical attitude towards waste management continues. ===== The story takes place during the Earl of Montrose's 1644-5 military campaign in Scotland on behalf of King Charles I against the Covenanters who had sided with the English Parliament in the English Civil War. ===== After his cousin Joe (Stephen Baldwin) dies, Layne Vassimer (A. J. Buckley) and his girlfriend Macy (Callie De Fabry), along with their friends Stephen (David O'Donnell), Maurice (Ransford Doherty), Iris (Kim Onasch) and Katrina (Michelle Borth), decide to clean up Joe's house with the intention of selling it. When they see it for the first time, they discover the house completely covered in plates of iron armor. The group also finds crop circles in the nearby cornfield. When Iris suddenly disappears, they realize something is really wrong. During a blackout, the house is attacked by aliens. The group figures out the aliens are allergic to iron, which is why Joe had covered the house in it to keep them out. They attempt to fight the aliens off, but the house is eventually blown up with Layne, Macy, and Katrina the only survivors. In the end, they drive off, listening to the radio. They hear a news report stating that the blackout they experienced affects five western states and parts of Canada. They also hear that people everywhere are being attacked by "strange creatures." ===== After Kenny's semi- permanent death near the end of Season 5, Butters became the replacement Kenny, until this episode, where he is fired for simply being too lame. Stan, Kyle and Cartman hold a competition to find a new fourth friend while Butters, feeling rejected and angry at the world, creates an alternate personality, Professor Chaos, and sets off to spread discord among the world. He does minor things like swapping two soup meals at a Bennigan's restaurant, and stealing erasers from Ms. Choksondik during class. The boys gather twenty local kids to compete for their friendship, and set up the contest to be like a reality TV show where they show scenes of interactions and show private individual comments. One of the early losers, a boy named Dougie, winds up joining Butters and his "minions" (Butters' pet hamsters) as Professor Chaos's sidekick, General Disarray. Together they try to flood the world using a garden hose and then spraying aerosol cans into the air to destroy the atmosphere. While Professor Chaos and General Disarray try to destroy the planet, Kyle, Stan, and Cartman pick six finalists to be their friend: Token, Timmy, Jimmy, Tweek, Towelie, and Pip. They first eliminate Pip during a baseball game when he asked for tea and crumpets. They then decide that Token is a smartass (Kyle points out that Cartman is also a smartass, but Cartman retorts with "Do we really need another one?"), Timmy can be too self- centered, Towelie gets too high to be relied on for anything, and Jimmy is a suck-up (while they are deciding, Jimmy gives them a large gift basket with candy and games inside, and a large badge that reads "Best Friends 4 Ever"). The decision cuts off into a cliffhanger, where a narrator asks three questions: "Will Professor Chaos' latest plot succeed and be the final undoing of Earth? Which boy has been chosen as the replacement for Kenny? And which of these South Park residents: Chef, Mr. Garrison, Jimbo, Officer Barbrady, Ms. Choksondik, and Mayor McDaniels was killed and will never be seen again?" However, the questions are immediately answered: "No, Tweek, Ms. Choksondik." ===== During an archaeological expedition to Siam's volcanic Valley of the Tombs to find the lost secret of the Scorpion Kingdom, a device of great power, the Golden Scorpion, is discovered hidden inside a sealed crypt. While examining it, the device's quartz lenses are aligned and powerful energy beam erupts, causing an explosion, resealing the crypt. This allows young radio broadcaster and expedition member Billy Batson, who obeyed the warning on the crypt's seal not to enter, to be chosen by the ancient wizard Shazam. The wizard grants Billy the powers of Captain Marvel whenever he repeats the wizard's name. Captain Marvel's powers can be used only to protect those in danger from the curse of the Golden Scorpion. The crypt's entrance is quickly cleared, then Captain Marvel utters "Shazam!" and quickly resumes his Billy Batson alter ego. The Golden Scorpion's power lenses are divided among the scientists of the Malcolm Archaeological Expedition so that its power can only be used by agreement of the entire group, who then return to the U. S. after their discovery. An all-black-garbed-and-hooded criminal mastermind, calling himself the Scorpion, steals the ancient device after their return and sets about acquiring the distributed lenses. Several expedition members are killed in the Scorpion's quest, despite Captain Marvel's continual efforts to thwart his plan. Deducing that the Scorpion always seems to know what happens during the scientists' meetings, Billy later confides to his friends, Betty Wallace and Whitey Murphy, his suspicion that the Scorpion may be one of the Malcolm archaeological team. Discovering that one of the Golden Scorpion's power lenses was purposely left behind, cleverly hidden in the very crypt where it was first discovered, Billy Batson and the surviving scientists agree it must be retrieved. They return by cargo ship to Siam where, near landfall, they barely survive a typhoon before finally being rescued by Captain Marvel. They eventually retrieve the hidden lens, but it is stolen by the Scorpion. By accident, from a distance, the Scorpion observes Captain Marvel transforming back into Billy Batson. Capturing Billy and gagging him, the Scorpion interrogates him about his secret. Billy's tape gag is removed when he agrees to talk. "Shazam"! is his only response, and he transforms in a flash of light and smoke into Captain Marvel. The Scorpion's identity is then revealed to be one of the last surviving scientists, who is killed by a Siamese native who turns the idol's ray on him, vaporizing him. Captain Marvel tosses the Golden Scorpion and its power lenses into a volcano's molten lava to prevent them from ever being used for evil. Upon its destruction, Captain Marvel is instantly transformed back into Billy Batson forever, the danger from the device's curse having now been eliminated. ===== The story takes place in 1903. During a train trip, psychiatrist Dr. Huntington Bailey (George Brent) meets a friendly older lady (Olive Blakeney), when she turns to him for reassurance during a torrential downpour. She tells him that she is going to visit her brother Nick and his lovely young wife Allida, both of whom she effectively raised. Once in New York, Bailey hears that his train companion suddenly died while visiting her brother for tea. Shortly afterwards, he meets the strange couple and becomes suspicious of Nick's treatment of his wife. Nick (Paul Lukas) keeps Allida (Hedy Lamarr), whom he is trying to pass off as crazy, a virtual prisoner in their town house (a New York brownstone in the film), cutting off all contact with the outside world. The kindly Bailey takes it upon himself to attempt to free his new love, Allida, from the control of the insanely jealous Nick. A frenzied gun battle and fist fight in their home, featuring the destruction of several large aquariums, replete with shattered glass, gushing water and floundering fish, may be the most memorable (and most often imitated) scene in the film. The house burns to the ground because of Nick's actions (killing him), but Allida, her son and Hunt end up living happily in the country. ===== 17-year-old Mamlakat lives with her father Safar and the disabled brother Nasreddin in a village in Tajikistan. She is working in a small restaurant and dreams of becoming an actress. When a wandering theatre company enters the city, she misses the theatrical performance but is seduced in the dark by the aircraft pilot Yassir, who pretends to be an actor and promises to help her become an actress, without knowing what is actually happening. When she later discovers that she is pregnant, she has no idea how this happened and who the father is. Determined to preserve their honour, her eccentric family sets out on a journey in order to find the father of Mamlakat unborn child and to force him to marry her. During this journey with an old car loaded with rabbits through Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, the family meets various bandits and the charming impostor Alik, who poses as the seducer in the dark, and falls in love with the Mamlakat. ===== A test type Zoanoid escapes from the Cronos Corporation with three Guyver Units. Cronos soldiers pursue the test type into some woods to recover the units from him, but when they corner the test type, he detonates a bomb he had with him. The Guyver Units are scattered in the blast. One of the lost Guyver Units, known as "Unit I", lands near two young high school students, Shō Fukamachi and Tetsurō Segawa. The second one is retrieved by Cronos and merges with Oswald A. Lisker to become the second Guyver later on. The final unit falls into the hands of Agito Makishima, who merges with it at an unspecified time. Shō accidentally activates the unit which then painfully merges with him. Over time, Shō learns more about the Guyver and its abilities. The Guyver is virtually invulnerable, with its only weak point being the Control Metal. With this part intact, it can rebuild the host from their data it stores within, but if this part is critically damaged, however, the host will be eaten alive by the unit and perish. This is disconcerting and Shō starts to question whether he will ever be free from the Guyver. The situation gets worse with the fact that Cronos is continuously sending more and more powerful Zoanoids to retrieve the Guyver. This makes it increasingly difficult for Shō to protect his vulnerable friends. As the story progresses it also takes a startling turn, in which Cronos succeeds in taking over the world and reshaping it according to its ideals. The Guyvers are then labeled to the public as a "vanguard of alien invaders". ===== An unidentified British intelligence agent storms into his employer's London office to hand in his resignation. He returns home in his Lotus Seven and hastily packs a bag to go on travel, unaware that a hearse has followed him home. The hearse driver releases knockout gas into the man's home via the keyhole. The man collapses in his study. Later, the man wakes up in what appears to be his study, but finds it is a mockup located in "The Village". He asks the colorfully-clad residents of the Village what country he is in, but they cannot provide a satisfactory answer. He discovers the Village is surrounded by mountains save for its beachline that opens onto the ocean with no sign of land nearby. Frustrated, he returns to the mockup study to find it is attached to a modern flat. There, he receives a phone call and is told that Number Two wants to meet him at the Green Dome. At the Green Dome, where several technicians monitor all aspects of the Village, Number Two tells the man they only wish to know why he resigned and to whom he is loyal, as the intelligence he has gathered over his career is too valuable to simply let him "walk away". Number Two suggests they would rather have his cooperation, but are prepared to use other means as needed. Number Two takes the man on a tour of the Village to show him the security systems they have in place to keep the inhabitants in line, including Rover, a mysterious floating balloon guardian that attacks those who flee. Later that night, the man attempts escape by sea but Rover catches him and renders him unconscious. The man wakes in the Village's hospital, and finds a former colleague, Cobb, in the next bed. The man learns Cobb is also incarcerated in the Village, but before he can learn more, the hospital staff take him away for examination. On his return, he is told Cobb committed suicide by jumping out of the window. The man is released, and goes to accost Number Two, but finds that a different man is in the Green Dome. The new Number Two explains they may change that position from time to time for unexplained reasons. He then explains that no one in the Village uses their names, but are instead assigned a number, and the man is now Number Six. Number Six refuses to use this title as he adjusts to life in the Village. Number Six attends Cobb's funeral and observes a woman watching from afar, and proceeds to follow her around the Village before he talks to her directly. The woman, Number Nine, claims to have been working with Cobb on an escape plan, and suggests that Number Six can still use the same plan. She gives him an electropass that can keep Rover at bay, giving him time to escape via a helicopter. Number Six has doubts about her motives as he had seen her talking to Number Two, but accepts the pass. That night, Number Six uses the pass and acquires a helicopter, but as he flies off, one of the technicians remotely takes over the helicopter and returns it to the Village. Number Six is escorted back to his home in the Village. Number Two is watching these events with Cobb, who had faked his death to mislead Number Six. With his assignment complete, Cobb prepares to move on to his next duty, but warns Number Two that Number Six will be "a tough nut to crack". ===== After the end of World War II a former P.O.W., Canadian RCAF flyer Laurence Gerard (Powell), returns to France to discover who ordered the killing of his bride of only 20 days, a member of the French Resistance. His father-in-law Étienne Rougon identifies Vichy collaborator Marcel Jarnac. He supposedly died in 1943, but Rougon has strong doubts. Jarnac was so careful about maintaining his anonymity, and the police have no description of him. But his own associate compiled a dossier on him; Gerard finds a burned fragment of it, and an envelope addressed to Madame Jarnac. From this he manages to track the widow to Buenos Aires, Argentina. When he arrives Gerard is met by Melchior Incza (Walter Slezak), a stranger who appears to know all too much about him. The suspicious Canadian initially rejects Incza's offer of help, but cannot turn down his invitation to a party hosted by Mme Jarnac's associate, wealthy businessman Tomas Camargo (Steven Geray) for the opportunity to mingle with their social set. There he meets Camargo's uncle, lawyer Manuel Santana (Morris Carnovsky), and the widow herself (Micheline Cheirel). When Gerard later questions Mme Jarnac in her hotel room, she refuses to co-operate, so he starts openly following her. Santana asks him to desist, but will not say why. Later, Gerard finds a valet, Diego (Jack La Rue), tidying up his hotel room at an odd hour. Eventually, Mme Jarnac agrees to provide him with the information he desires. A note is delivered to Gerard informing him that Jarnac is leaving the country that night under the name of Ernest Dubois, and giving his address; but it is a forgery. Gerard is only stopped from shooting the wrong man in cold blood by the timely intervention of Santana and Diego. Dubois (Edgar Barrier) is actually their associate; it turns out that they are after not only Jarnac but his secret Nazi organisation as well. Mme Jarnac is an innocent woman paid to act as the wife of a man she has never seen. To stir things up, Gerard tricks Incza into believing he has the full dossier on Jarnac. Incza breaks into the hotel safe, but it is not there. Gerard is sent to Camargo's room, where Camargo's wife (Nina Vale) keeps him busy by trying to seduce him into her life of luxury and easy vice. Gerard kisses her, but rejects her advance; he still loves his wife, although "Her teeth were crooked and she was too thin". He tells the señora he is "bored" and cannot wait any longer for Camargo. Meanwhile, Incza has been searching Gerard's room and realises there is no dossier. When the "valet" Diego interrupts, Incza kills him. Gerard returns and is detained as a murder suspect, but a waiter confirms his alibi. Still, Gerard is given 48 hours to leave the country. When Incza tells him that Jarnac will be seeing Camargo at his "old office", Gerard decides to stake out a bar Mme Jarnac recalls was once their meeting place. It is a trap. Gerard is captured, and Jarnac (Luther Adler) finally makes his appearance. While they wait for Incza to arrive with the dossier, Jarnac makes a political speech on how America's failure to see that their injustice across the world and the resulting poverty of nations (as happened in Germany after World War I) means that there will always be people like him. Incza attempts to betray Jarnac to Camargo, before realising Jarnac is there. Hoping to regain Jarnac's trust, he reveals that there is no dossier. Jarnac kills him. Gerard is to die as well, with Camargo as a witness that the two men shot each other. Camargo objects, but Jarnac threatens him with a paper in his possession. Gerard seizes the distraction to overpower Jarnac. He punches Jarnac over and over until Santana and Dubois arrive. To their disappointment, Jarnac is dead, but Gerard shows them the paper detailing Jarnac's connection to Camargo. As Santana now tells the police, this should be sufficient to expose the entire organisation. ===== Prison convict Joe Sullivan (Dennis O'Keefe) has "taken the fall" for an unspecified crime. His share for committing the crime was to be $50,000. Joe breaks out of jail with the help of his girl Pat (Claire Trevor). The escape has been facilitated by their former accomplice Rick Coyle (Raymond Burr), a sadistic mobster, who expects Joe to be killed during his escape and so avoid having to pay Joe his $50,000. When against all expectations the break-out succeeds, Rick decides that he must have Joe killed. Pat and Joe's getaway car is damaged and Joe decides that they will hide out at his legal caseworker Ann's (Marsha Hunt) apartment. Ann had been visiting Joe in prison because she was trying to reform him and also because she was developing feelings for him. When the police close in on Ann's apartment she tries to convince Joe to give himself up. Instead Joe forces Ann to escape with him and Pat. Pat sees the attraction between Joe and Ann and doesn't know what to do about it. Joe finds himself between two women who love him. The three of them continue to evade the police until one of Rick's men finds them. Rick's man (John Ireland) and Joe get into a fight and Ann saves Joe by shooting Rick's man in the back. After acting in Joe's defense this way, Ann realizes how much she is in love with him. Out of loyalty to Pat, Joe sets Ann free and prepares to flee the country with Pat. In Joe and Pat's hotel room, Pat takes a phone call warning them that Rick has seized Ann and will harm her unless Joe and Pat come out of hiding. Pat does not want Joe to go back to Ann, so lies about the call, saying it was from the hotel desk clerk asking about their checkout time. After boarding a ship, Joe attempts to convince Pat that they can start a new life in South America together. He even proposes marriage to her. A guilt-stricken Pat now confesses to Joe that Ann has been abducted by Rick. Joe races to save Ann from her captor. Under the cover of a thick fog, Joe manages to get past Rick's henchmen and sneaks into Rick's room. A gunfight erupts with Rick and Joe shooting each other and inadvertently starting a fire. Joe and Rick, both wounded, fight hand-to-hand with Joe finally pushing Rick through an upper story window to his death. Mortally wounded and lying in the street, Joe dies in Ann's arms as Pat looks on. Seeing the resigned contentment in Joe's face, Pat comments in voice-over that: "This is right for Joe. This is what he wanted." ===== The story starts with Centurion Eric von Shrakenberg in a cargo airplane with his airborne unit and the embedded American correspondent William Dreiser, on their way to their drop point, where they will jump and parasail into Nazi-controlled Georgia. The Nazis have been much more successful than in our history, since the Soviets had to divert resources to defend their southern border against the Domination of the Draka. As a result, the Nazis managed to overrun European Russia. The Soviet Union has been pushed back and only controls territories east of the Ural Mountains. However, the Germans are seriously overstretched, and vulnerable to a strong attack. During the travel to their drop zone, Eric thinks back on his past and his relationship with his father, and his most recent visit home to see his family. This was the first visit in several years, his exile was due to his arranging the escape of his serf daughter to America. Eric's bravery in the earlier Draka conquest of Italy led to his former "mistake" being forgiven. Eric's "Century" (a term derived from the Roman Empire's army) ends up being seriously under-supplied because the gliders with the artillery went into a canyon. The engineers are frantically building a rubble ramp, but the heavy weapons won't be available for the battle. The story details how Eric's single infantry company takes and holds a small village strategically located on the crucial Ossetian Military Highway over the Caucasus Mountains. The balance of the First Airborne Legion is the plug which is holding four German divisions from escaping the trap they are in on the south side of the mountains. Eric's unit is tasked with holding the highway and village against repeated attacks by Felix Hoth's Waffen-SS armored regiment, which is fighting to clear the highway so the German divisions can escape. Eric's company manages to hold out long enough for the Draka to crush the four divisions, cross the mountains, and relieve his unit. Holding this highway and village is the critical act of the invasion of Russia. This lets the Draka's essentially undamaged and superior armored and mechanized units to penetrate into the plains of Southern Russia, where they can bring to battle and destroy the overstretched and exhausted German forces. It also leads to Eric being awarded the Domination's highest medal of valor, the aurora, "for saving 10,000 Citizen lives," and which makes him immune to Security Directorate reprisals for his "treasonous utterances" or for his earlier "indiscretion." The action of Century A is the pivotal event at the beginning of the invasion of Russia that allows the Domination to eventually win the Eurasian War. ===== Handicapped farmer Pete Morgan (Edward G. Robinson) and sister Ellen (Judith Anderson) live on an isolated farm with their adopted daughter, Meg (Allene Roberts). They keep to themselves and are viewed as mysterious by the nearby town. Now a teenager, Meg convinces Pete to hire one of her 12th-grade high school classmates, Nath Storm (Lon McCallister), to come help with chores on the farm. On the first evening, when it is time for him to go home, Nath says he is going to take a shortcut through the old woods. The woods are part of Pete's property and he forbids anyone from entering them. Pete becomes agitated, insisting the woods are dangerous and contain a haunted house which is painted red, and that Nath must stay out. After traveling through the woods in the dark, Nath returns spooked, after hearing moans and yells. However, a few days later, he is embarrassed at his cowardice and goes through the woods again after dark. Nath is struck from behind and knocked down into a stream. He returns to the farm believing that Pete hit him, but Meg and Ellen say Pete has been in the room with them since Nath left. Soon, both Nath and Meg become obsessed with searching for the mysterious "red house" and agree to go into the woods every Sunday, which is the one day Nath has some free time, to look for it. They have no luck. In the meantime, Meg begins to fall in love with Nath, but his jealous and shrewd girlfriend Tibby (Julie London) has other plans for him. Meanwhile, it is revealed that Pete has secretly given local handyman and petty thug Teller (Rory Calhoun) rights to hunt on the land, as long as he keeps everyone else off of the property. Lon McCallister, Allene Roberts, Edward G. Robinson and Judith Anderson in The Red House One Sunday, Nath cannot get out of a date with Tibby, so Meg goes off on her own to look for the red house. She finds it located in a small gully a few miles from Pete's farm along an unused dirt road. Teller fires at her to scare her away. Running away, Meg falls and breaks her leg. That evening, when Meg does not return, Nath ventures into the woods to find her and brings her back to the farm. Pete is furious that both young people defied his warning to stay out of the woods and he outright fires Nath, banishing him from the farm and from seeing Meg again. Some time later, Nath has been working for his mother at a local general store in town. With Nath's encouragement, his mother marries a long- time admirer and goes off for several weeks on her honeymoon, leaving Nath to mind the store. Nath soon takes additional work for the summer at another farm close to town. As Meg recovers from her broken leg, Pete begins to crack up. He starts calling her Jeannie, and becomes controlling and domineering. Ellen and Pete have a conversation about how it was that several years ago they rented the red house to a young couple. Pete was having an affair with the wife, Jeannie. Nath catches Tibby flirting with Teller and sucker punches him. Nath confronts her and finally learns how vain and selfish she is. Teller then punches Nath, while Tibby watches with satisfaction. One evening, Ellen decides to burn the red house down, and end Pete's obsession. As she walks through the woods, Teller, mistaking her for Nath, shoots and severely wounds her. Meg, having heard the gunshot, finds Ellen then rushes back to tell Pete, who refuses to act to help his sister. Meg phones Nath for help and he says he will bring a stretcher after he calls the sheriff and the doctor. Pete fails to dissuade Meg from returning to the woods. By the time Nath arrives, Ellen is dead. In the meantime, Teller goes to Tibby's home and persuades her to leave town with him. They are pulled over and arrested by the state police. Meg and Nath bring Ellen's body back. Meg demands the truth about the red house and who Jeannie is. Pete finally confesses that Ellen had been keeping the secret for him, about having had an affair with a married woman named Jeannie and what had happened to her and the husband. After the man discovered the affair, the couple decided to move away. Pete went to the red house to plead with Jeannie to choose between her husband and him. As they heard her husband returning, Jeannie began screaming. To stop her, Pete covered her mouth, but suffocated her. While Pete claims that he was just trying to keep her quiet and that her death was accidental, he admits that he subsequently killed the husband in cold blood. Pete buried the bodies in the basement of the ice house that sits next to the red house, and he lives in fear that they will be discovered. However, since Jeannie's husband told everyone they were leaving town, no one ever suspected they were murdered. The couple had a baby, Meg, and rather than abandon the infant, Pete and Ellen adopted her. Pete takes Meg to the red house. By this point, he has completely gone crazy and thinks Meg is actually Jeannie, who is leaving him again. He begins to re-live the experience, puts his hand over her mouth and starts suffocating her. Nath and the sheriff show up in the nick of time. Pete takes off in his truck, but drives into the ice house, where the truck sinks in the large pond formed by the melted ice, and Pete drowns. The final scene shows Nath and Meg a few days later, talking about starting a new life together as they watch the smoke from the red house, which Nath has burned down in keeping with Ellen's wishes. Nath tells Meg "Looking forward is much better than looking back." ===== The story begins with a voice-over by the "Voice of Chicago" introducing the world and the main characters of the film. There is Sally "Angel Face" Connors (Mala Powers), an exotic dancer in a nightclub; Gregg Warren (Wally Cassell), a former actor working as a performance artist in the nightclub window, a "Mechanical Man"; Johnny Kelly (Gig Young) a cop having an affair with Angel Face and struggling with his conscience whether to leave his wife; Penrod Biddel (Edward Arnold), a successful and smooth crooked attorney; Hayes Stewart (William Talman), a magician who has turned to making a career as a pickpocket and then as a thief. Officer Johnny Kelly is disillusioned with his job which he took to please his father, and writes a letter of resignation which he intends to hand in at the end of his shift. He calls Penrod Biddel to accept an offer that the lawyer had made him for employment and agrees to meet him later that evening. Johnny's wife Kathy Kelly (Paula Raymond) discovers Johnny's plan to quit his job and calls his father Sgt. John Kelly Sr. (Otto Hulett) who is concerned for his son's happiness and talks to Johnny. On this night Johnny's regular partner calls in sick and his replacement is Sgt. Joe (Chill Wills) who doesn't give his surname and whose voice can be recognized as the introductory "Voice of Chicago". As they begin the nightly shift Sgt. Joe has plenty of homespun advice for Johnny, whose negative energy casts a pall on their working environment. As the night progresses Johnny visits Angel Face to re-affirm their plans to go away. He also meets with the lawyer Penrod Biddel who asks Johnny to pick up Hayes Stewart and leave him across the state line for the Indiana Police to arrest and incarcerate. Johnny turns down the offer but changes his mind when Biddel tells him that Johnny's brother 'Stubby' (Ron Hagerthy) is associating with the criminal and will surely get into trouble unless Johnny intervenes and does what Biddel wants. Biddel pays Johnny $5,000 for the job, but it goes wrong and Stewart gets away, knowing Biddel is out to get him. Johnny and Sgt. Joe answer a call for a woman having a baby and Johnny performs the delivery; they also answer a call for an illegal gambling game on the street, arresting the ring leader and getting the money back to the men who have been hoodwinked. After each call Sgt. Joe lays out another bit of wisdom that seemingly begins to affect Johnny so that he begins to re- evaluate his life. Hayes Stewart has obtained incriminating evidence on Penrod Biddel and is having an affair with Biddel’s wife Lydia (Marie Windsor). Stewart shoots the lawyer and he and Lydia escape, running to the nightclub where Angel Face dances. Having discovered Biddel's agreement with Johnny to take him out of the state, Stewart calls the police asking to meet with Officer Kelly. Johnny's father takes the call and, mistaking the father for the son, Stewart shoots Kelly Sr., who dies in his son's arms. Stewart takes Lydia and Stubby and escapes but can't get far because of the police closing in. He shoots Lydia dead in front of the nightclub window where the Mechanical Man is performing. He stays close by, unsure if the Mechanical Man is a real man or an automaton; if he is real he intends to kill him. Gregg Warren, the Mechanical Man, is in love with Angel Face, and thinks he can bait the killer for Johnny. This sense of honor, and his father's murder, makes clear to Johnny what he really holds valuable in his life. As Gregg Warren performs in the window, Angel Face declares her love for him causing the Mechanical Man to shed a tear. Hayes Stewart see that he is indeed a real man and shoots, revealing his hideout. Stewart beats up Stubby. Johnny Kelly chases Stewart and, after a chase along an elevated railroad track and a fight, Stewart is electrocuted on the live rail and falls to his death. Johnny considers what has happened this eventful night, re-evaluates his priorities in life, and is reconciled with his wife. The mysterious Sgt. Joe has disappeared. ===== Two thousand years before the game begins, those who sat on the Council of Seven in the land of Rivellon sacrificed themselves in the fight against a group of treacherous magicians, who had passed over to the dark side of magic. To remember the Council of Seven, the "Divine Order" was founded to pass on the knowledge of the wise men to the next generations. At the beginning of the game, the player wakes up in a house in Aleroth, a town of healers. It is revealed that Mardaneus, leader of the town, has gone crazy, and the player is asked to help by traveling into the catacombs beneath the town to stop the undead mage Thelyron, who is driving Mardaneus mad. Once Thelyron is put to rest, Mardaneus appears to bring the player back to the surface. With the crisis in Aleroth resolved, the player leaves to explore, and is ambushed by a dragon rider, but is saved by the appearance of the wizard Zandalor, who explains that the player is one of three Marked Ones, and asks the player to meet him at an inn. Shortly thereafter, the other two Marked Ones are discovered dead, leaving only the player. The player is invited to come to Castle Stormfist, home of Duke Janus, a young noble who claims to be the Divine, a messiah prophesied to protect Rivellon against the summoning of the demon Chaos. The player is forced to do menial tasks for Janus, and no matter what they do, they end up in a dungeon, and have to fight their way out. Once free, Zandalor takes the player to where the Council of Seven met, and explains that in order to find the real Divine, the heirs to the Council of Seven have to be brought together. In doing so, the player learns more about the way events have been manipulated by the Black Ring, the evil organization dedicated to bringing the demon Chaos back to Rivellon; the orcs have been goaded into attacking humans, and the elves and dwarves are poised at the brink of war, until the player reveals the manipulation going on. As the new council members assemble to complete the ritual that will turn the player into the Divine, Duke Janus appears, revealing himself to be the Demon of Lies, in league with the Black Ring and seeking to summon Chaos. The council is attacked and a number of the members slain, along with the player. The player returns to life, however, with new abilities as the Divine, and is able to reach the fortress where the Black Ring is summoning Chaos. The Divine defeats Janus, but finds a baby who was picked to be the vessel of Chaos, lying on the summoning altar, and carries the baby out in their arms. ===== In the woods outside of Cherry Falls, Virginia, a teenage couple, Rod Harper (Jesse Bradford) and Stacy Twelfmann (Bre Blair) are getting romantic in a car when a black-haired female appears and murders them both. Meanwhile, in town, teenager Jody Marken (Brittany Murphy), the daughter of the local sheriff, is with her boyfriend, Kenny (Gabriel Mann), who thinks it is time to "see other people." Jody goes back home to find her father, Brent (Michael Biehn), upset that she is out past her curfew. Brent and his deputies begin to investigate the murders the next day. They see that the killer carved the word "virgin" into both victims. At school, Brent sees English teacher Mr. Leonard Marliston (Jay Mohr), who urges him to divulge more details of the murder to students and the town so as to eliminate the possibility of secrets. Annette Duwald, also a virgin, is home alone when she is killed in the same manner as the other two teenagers. Concerned for the town's safety, Brent holds a meeting at the high school to tell parents the nature of the crimes. No students are invited, but Jody and her friend Timmy, who stayed after school, witness the meeting. Timmy asks to borrow Jody's cell phone, and goes into the stairwell to make a call. Jody goes downstairs to find him, and discovers his dead body in a locker room. She is confronted by the killer who attacks her, but she manages to escape. At the police station, Jody describes the killer to an officer, who draws a composite. Brent confides with an old friend, Tom Sisler, (the current high school principal) that the suspect looks like "Lora Lee Sherman." The two are both visibly nervous, and Jody listens in on their conversation. Back at school, Jody and Kenny reconcile. Later Jody learns from her mother about the tale of Lora Lee. Twenty-seven years ago, Lora Lee was a high school loner. She claimed that four popular boys at school, including Brent and the high school principal, raped her one night. Her cries fell on deaf ears and she left the city for the rural outskirts, where she was rarely seen or heard from again. After Jody discovers the truth, disappointed with the hypocrisy of her parents, she visits Kenny at his house. They talk and Jody, being upset with her parents, tries to have sex with Kenny. He refuses, causing her to get upset and leave. After catching news of the killer's targeting of virgins, the high school students in town congregate at an abandoned hunting lodge to indulge in a mass orgy. Brent goes to the school to meet Sisler only to find the principal dead in his office with the words "virgin not" carved into his forehead. Before Brent can react he is knocked out by the killer. Jody, who has refused to attend the orgy with Kenny, is out riding her bike when she cycles by Mr. Marliston's house and witnesses him dragging a heavy trunk inside. She helps him get it into the house, and he casually mentions that her father is inside it. She opens it and finds her father, beaten and bloody, before she is knocked unconscious. At the orgy, Kenny is about to have sex with a girl when he has second thoughts and leaves to find Jody. Driving around, he is puzzled to see her bicycle outside of Marliston's house. In his basement, Marliston puts on a wig and makeup to "become" Lora Lee Sherman. Marliston reveals that he is Lora Lee Sherman's illegitimate son, and asks Brent to retell the story of what happened that night 25 years ago. Brent reveals that the four boys, including himself, did indeed rape Lora Lee. Marliston says his mother became an abusive "psycho" after the rape and that one of the rapists is his father; there is an implication that Brent is in fact Marliston's biological father. By targeting virgins, Marliston would rob all the wealthy parents of their "precious virginal children". Kenny enters the house and frees Jody as Brent fights with Marliston, who manages to brutally kill him. Jody and Kenny flee to the orgy with Marliston in furious pursuit, killing a deputy en route. He bursts inside wielding an axe and mass panic erupts. After wildly stabbing panicking students and then trying to escape, Marliston fights both Jody and Kenny, with Kenny being severely wounded during the melee. Eventually, Marliston is pushed off a balcony by Jody and impaled on fence posts. At first he seems to be dead, before reviving briefly only to be promptly shot dead by Deputy Sheriff Mina, who unloads two pistols into him. The next day, Jody hides the reasons for the killings from the police and she and her mother head away from the station. As they leave town, Jody sees someone resembling Lora Lee Sherman disappear behind a moving school bus. The film ends with a shot of the waterfalls outside town, turning red. ===== The story behind Nightmare Creatures draws upon gothic horror elements of the 19th century. The story begins in 1666, when a devil- worshiping cult called the Brotherhood of Hecate were conducting sinister experiments in London so as to take over the city, and then the world. The Brotherhood tried to develop an elixir that would endow them with superhuman powers. However, rather than creating their intended superhumans, their experiments instead created grotesque monsters called nightmare creatures. When they decided to use these creatures as an army of conquest, one of their members, Samuel Pepys, set their headquarters on fire, resulting in the First Great Fire of London. The game takes place in 1834 when London falls victim to several evil occurrences. Monster sightings are reported along with news of people mutating into ungodly creatures, and that the dead are waking from their graves and walking among the living. All of London is in a panic and vulnerable to the schemes of Adam Crowley, a mad scientist and occultist enlisting the help of the Brotherhood. A book is dropped off at the home of Ignatius Blackward, a priest and occult expert. He finds it is the lost diary of Samuel Pepys, which contains the Brotherhood's research. Knowing he needs help, Ignatius sends the diary to a renowned American immunologist named Dr. Jean Franciscus of New Orleans, who shows up with his daughter, Nadia Franciscus. With the doctor murdered and the book stolen, Ignatius and Nadia are at his funeral, where they are approached by a man who gives them a note reading: "Know about Adam Crowley, Brotherhood of Hecate --- HVHJ." Ignatius and Nadia head out to an address listed on the note, hoping to seek out Crowley and neutralize the monsters. ===== The film opens in 44 BC, just after the assassination of Julius Caesar, and tells the story of the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra (Fleming) and her relationship with the Roman general Mark Anthony (Burr) from that time until their mutual suicide in 30 BC. It also stars William Lundigan as Lucilius and Michael Fox as Octavius. Lucilius, having previously accompanied Julius Caesar to Egypt and having been a close witness to Caesar's romance with Cleopatra, believes that Cleopatra is a woman highly skilled in besotting men to promote her own agenda, in this case to bind Mark Anthony to her desire to become queen of Rome and to make her son by Caesar the eventual ruler of the Roman Empire. In the meantime, as Lucilius becomes aware, Cleopatra is beguiling Anthony with continuous showings of feasting and luxury while the vast population of Egypt is suffering in hunger and poverty. When Lucilius reveals his concerns to Cleopatra, she makes an unsuccessful attempt to seduce him, in order to win him to her side. Cleopatra persuades Anthony that all this disaffection is the work of her younger half-sister, Arsinoe, and Lucilius is sent on an expedition against her in which she is (unhistorically) killed. Lucilius returns from this trip wounded by Cleopatra's own soldiers and even more distrustful of her, and is confined to his apartments as an honored prisoner, while Anthony continues to have his judgment clouded with constant feasting and drinking (and, although this is not mentioned, some sort of physical contact with Cleopatra's person). But Anthony dimly realizes that he has failed in his duties to Rome, most specifically in his role as a member of the ruling triumvirate, and that Cleopatra is scheming to use him to conquer Rome to make himself king and herself queen and Caesar's son the next absolute ruler of Rome, but he knows that Romans will never accept such a development; so he enables Lucilius to escape, with instructions to return to Rome and warn Octavius of what is happening in Egypt. (Unlike the Elizabeth Taylor version, this Cleopatra is not madly in love with Anthony, but is merely using him as a stepping stone). Soon enough Octavius brings Roman armies to Egypt to subdue this incipient mutiny. In this movie it would appear that a conscience- stricken Anthony stays in Cleopatra's palace, refusing to lead an Egyptian army against his beloved Rome. As Octavius closes in, Anthony stabs himself, Lucilius breaches the palace gates in time to bring a dying Anthony to Cleopatra's chamber, and Cleopatra, in despair of the complete frustration of her ambitions, uses a snake to kill herself. This brings the movie to its end before we see Cleopatra die. ===== The series is set in a universe inhabited solely by anthropomorphic animals of many species and focuses on a trio of campers attending a poorly-run summer camp known as Camp Kidney. The trio consists of Lazlo, the eccentric, optimistic spider monkey; Raj, the timid Indian elephant; and Clam, the quiet albino pygmy rhinoceros, and their multiple surreal misadventures. Other characters include the selfish, ill-tempered moose Scoutmaster Lumpus and his mild-mannered assistant Slinkman the banana slug, the boys' assortment of fellow campers including the disgruntled, surly platypus Edward, the two unintelligent, dirt-loving dung beetles Chip and Skip, and the klutzy, accident-prone, geeky Guinea pig Samson. There's also a rival summer camp called Acorn Flats, which is attended solely by girls, primarily focusing on Lazlo, Raj, and Clam's respective female counterparts attending that camp; Patsy the adventurous mongoose who has a major crush on Lazlo, Gretchen the short-tempered Wolf alligator, Nurse Leslie the pink nurse shark who is a doctor and Nina the bookish, sci-fi- loving giraffe, along with the object of Scoutmaster Lumpus's affections, Miss Doe, the head of Acorn Flats. Murray said that, as he did in Rocko's Modern Life, he matched the personalities of characters to various animals. Some episodes may involve the Bean Scouts' attempts at unveiling the truth behind camp legends or clowning around, infuriating their peers or placing themselves in a variety of odd situations commonly based around traditional or fictionalized, bizarre camp activities. ===== Elinor Carlisle and Roddy Welman are engaged to be married when she receives an anonymous letter claiming that someone is "sucking up" to their wealthy aunt, Laura Welman, from whom Elinor and Roddy expect to inherit a sizeable fortune. Elinor is niece to Mrs Welman, while Roddy is nephew to her late husband. Elinor suspects Mary Gerrard as the topic of the anonymous letter, the lodgekeeper's daughter, whom their aunt likes and supports. Neither guesses who wrote the letter, which is burned. They visit their aunt at Hunterbury. Roddy sees Mary Gerrard for the first time in a decade. Mrs Welman is partially paralyzed after a stroke and dislikes living that way. She tells both her physician Peter Lord and her niece how much she dislikes living without full health, wishing the doctor might end her pain, which he refuses to do. Roddy falls in love with Mary; this provokes Elinor to end their engagement. After a second stroke, Mrs Welman asks Elinor to make provision for Mary. Elinor assumes there is a will her aunt wants modified. Mrs Welman dies before Elinor can call the solicitor. There is no will. She dies intestate, so her considerable estate goes to Elinor outright as her only known surviving blood relative. Elinor settles two thousand pounds on Mary, which Mary accepts. Elinor sells the house she inherited. Mary dies of morphine poisoning at an impromptu lunch at Hunterbury, as Elinor, at the house, and Mary with Nurse Hopkins, at the lodge, are clearing out private possessions. Everyone at the house had access to the morphine Nurse Hopkins claimed to have lost at Hunterbury while Mrs Welman was ill. Elinor is arrested. Later, after the body is exhumed, it is learned that her aunt died of morphine poisoning. Peter Lord, in love with Elinor, brings Poirot into the case. Poirot speaks to everyone in the village. He uncovers a second suspect when Roddy tells him of the anonymous letter - the writer of that letter. Poirot then focuses on a few elements. Was the poison in the sandwiches made by Elinor, which all three ate, or in the tea prepared by Nurse Hopkins and drunk by Mary and Hopkins, but not by Elinor? What is the secret of Mary's birth? Is there any significance in the scratch of a rose thorn on Hopkins's wrist? The denouement is revealed mainly in the court, as the defence lawyer brings witnesses who reveal what Poirot uncovers. A torn pharmaceutical label that the prosecution says is from morphine hydrochloride, the poison, is rather a scrap from a label for apomorphine hydrochloride, an emetic, made clear because the m was lower case. The letters Apo had been torn off. Nurse Hopkins had injected herself with the emetic, to vomit the poison that she would ingest in the tea, explaining the mark on her wrist – not from a rose tree that is a thornless variety, Zephirine Drouhin. She went to wash dishes that fateful day for privacy as she vomited, looking pale when Elinor joined her in the kitchen. The motive was money. Mary Gerrard was the illegitimate daughter of Laura Welman and Sir Lewis Rycroft. Had this been discovered sooner, she would have inherited Mrs Welman's estate. Nurse Hopkins knows Mary's true parents because of a letter from her sister Eliza some years earlier. When Hopkins encouraged Mary Gerrard to write a will, Mary named as beneficiary the woman whom she supposes to be her aunt, Mary Riley, the sister of Eliza Gerrard, in New Zealand. Mary Riley's married name is Mary Draper. Mary Draper of New Zealand it turns out is Nurse Hopkins in England, as two people from New Zealand who knew Mary Draper both confirm in court. Hopkins leaves the courtroom before the judge can recall her. Elinor is acquitted, and Peter Lord takes her away from where reporters can find her. Poirot talks with Lord to explain his deductions and actions to him as he gathered information on the true murderer, and how the "quickness of air travel" allowed witnesses from New Zealand to be brought to the trial. Poirot tells Lord he understands his clumsy efforts to get some action in Poirot's investigation. Lord's embarrassment is alleviated by Poirot's assurance that Lord will be Elinor's husband, not Roddy. ===== Seven months after the Halloween sacrifice, on May 18, 1978, Texas Sheriff John Quincey Wydell and a large posse of state troopers issue a search and destroy mission on the Firefly family for over 75 homicides and disappearances over the past several years. The family arm themselves and fire on the officers. Rufus is killed and Mother Firefly is taken into custody, while Otis and Baby escape. They steal a car and, after killing the driver, they go to Kahiki Palms, a run-down motel. While at the motel, Otis and Baby take a band called Banjo and Sullivan hostage in their room, and Otis shoots the roadie when he returns. Meanwhile, Baby's father, Captain Spaulding, decides to rendezvous with Baby and Otis. En route, his truck runs out of gas, and he frightens a boy and assaults the boy's mother before stealing her car. Back at the motel, Otis rapes Roy's wife Gloria and demands Adam and Roy come with him on an errand. Otis drives his two prisoners to a place where he buried weapons. While walking to the location, the two prisoners attack Otis, but Otis bludgeons Roy and cuts Adam's face off. Back at the motel, Adam's wife Wendy tries to escape out the bathroom window. When Gloria attempts to rebel, Baby kills her. Wendy runs out of the motel but is caught by Captain Spaulding, who knocks her unconscious. Otis returns, and all three leave the motel together in the band's van. The motel maid comes to clean the room, and she discovers the murder scene. The maid enters the bathroom, where she sees "The Devil's Rejects" written on the wall in blood; she is startled by Wendy, who is accidentally killed when she runs out to the highway to seek help while she is in shock. Wydell calls a pair of amoral bounty hunters—the "Unholy Two"—Rondo and Billy Ray, to help him find the Fireflys. While investigating, they discover an associate of Spaulding's named Charlie Altamont. Wydell begins to lose his sanity when Mother Firefly reveals that she murdered his brother. After having a dream in which his brother commands him to avenge his death, Wydell stabs Mother Firefly to death. The surviving Fireflys gather at a brothel owned by Charlie, where he offers them shelter from the police. After he leaves the brothel, Wydell threatens Charlie to give up the Fireflys. With the help of the "Unholy Two", the sheriff takes the family back to the Firefly house where he tortures them, using similar methods they used on their own victims. He nails Otis' hands to his chair and staples crime scene photographs to Otis's and Baby's stomachs; he then beats and shocks Captain Spaulding and Otis with a cattle prod and taunts Baby about the death of her mother. Wydell sets the house on fire and leaves Otis and Spaulding to burn, but he lets Baby loose outside so he can hunt her for sport. Charlie returns to save the Firefly family, but he is killed by Wydell. Baby gets shot in the calf of her left leg, brutally horse-whipped, and then strangled by Wydell. Tiny suddenly arrives and intervenes, breaking Wydell's neck and saving the Firefly family. Otis, Baby, and Spaulding escape in Charlie's 1972 Cadillac Eldorado, leaving behind Tiny, who walks back into the burning house. The trio drives, badly injured and seemingly humbled by their experience with a clearer understanding of the torment and anguish that they had put their past victims through. As Otis drives down the road with Baby and Spaulding asleep in the back seat he notices a police barricade ahead of them. Realizing that they will not make it out alive, he wakes Baby and Spaulding and hands them each a gun. As a song playing on the radio declares they "can't change", they speed toward the barricade, guns blazing, as the police return fire. ===== ===== The story in Final Fantasy Legend II revolves around MAGI, the shards, of which there are 77 according to legend, of a shattered statue of the goddess Isis. As a child, the main protagonist character is awakened by his or her father in the middle of the night, who explains he has to leave for a while. After leaving the protagonist with a MAGI and instructing the protagonist to never lose it, he makes his way through the protagonist's open window. Years later, having grown up, the protagonist decides to set out to find his or her father, learning he was part of a secret group called the Guardians hunting for the MAGI, fragments of an ancient statue that give power to their bearers. Accompanied by three friends, the protagonist sets out. Exploring their world, they learn that there exist other worlds connected in a Celestial World by a winding twisting tower called the Pillar of Sky, and using MAGI they can use it to reach each world. They learn that new gods have risen to power in various places using the MAGI, and not all are benevolent to their surroundings. Seeking to become more powerful, the gods are looking for the other fragments, but the heroes learn of the Guardians' worries that if all the fragments of the MAGI are brought together and the statue of Isis is reassembled, a terrible calamity will destroy all worlds. Unlike the previous title of Final Fantasy Legend where defeat in battle means game over, in this game the heroes are brought before the god Odin where he offers to revive them if they promise to fight him someday. If they elect to do so, they return to the start of the battle in which they were defeated. They may retry a battle as many times as they wish, but if the heroes refuse, then the game is over, only to restart at the last save. The heroes battle to collect the MAGI themselves while at the same time trying to retrace the lead character's father's path. They must battle with various foes and oppressive gods. The heroes eventually reunite with the main protagonist's father at the Guardians' base, but the base is found and raided by the minions of aforementioned new gods. The father appears to sacrifice himself to rescue Lynn, an ally from a previous world, who is being held hostage. Once the heroes defeat Odin himself in battle, they no longer have the option to revive and re-attempt battles. After the heroes have collected 76 of what they believe to be all 77 MAGI, the character Apollo reappears and displays various previously encountered characters as hostages, extorting all the MAGI from the group. He then enters the Celestial World, to which the group is now unable to pursue him due to their lack of MAGI. They fear that the destruction of the world is at hand, but the protagonist's father reappears and reveals that the Guardians spread disinformation about the MAGI and that there are actually 78. The father rejoins the party, and they recover the last MAGI and re-enter the Celestial World to challenge Apollo, who uses the MAGI in an effort to channel into himself the full power of the Isis statue. Believing that the combined power of the MAGI makes their owner invincible, Apollo engages the heroes. Because he is missing the last piece, however, the process goes awry, and the power overwhelms him, causing him to explode. The father shields the other party members from the explosion and is mortally wounded in the process. As the party recover the MAGI, the concentration of the MAGI's power in one set of hands causes the Celestial World and all the worlds connected to it tremble violently. Hoping that the combined power of the MAGI can save the protagonist's father, the heroes decide to assemble the complete statue. The goddess Isis appears, notices the earthquakes, and, after treating the hero's father (who remains unconscious), joins the party in descending to the center of the worlds where everything is now off balance. Upon reaching the center, a pair of massive mechanical Arsenals acting as a security system must be defeated to gain access to the core and stop the worlds from shaking. The heroes learn that Isis was set aside by an ancient civilization to safeguard this pillar system, as the worlds would eventually become old and need to be repaired. Isis stays at the core, fixing the damage from the tremors, and the heroes return home with the protagonist's father. After the credits roll, the protagonist is awoken in the middle of the night by his or her father again much as in the beginning of the game, with the father saying he must leave again, this time in search of the Lost Ark (in the Japanese version of the game, the Three Sacred Treasures of imperial Japan). The main protagonist demands to come with him this time, and the father agrees. They begin to leave but are stopped by the protagonist's mother, who wants to join them rather than be left alone again. They agree, the three of them leave through the open window, and the game ends. ===== The mouse and his child are two parts of a single small wind-up toy, which must be wound by a key in the father's back. After being unpacked, they discover themselves in a toy shop where they befriend a toy elephant and toy seal. The child mouse proposes staying at the shop to form a family, which the other toys ridicule. They accidentally fall out of a window and land in the trash. Once transported to the dump, they become enslaved by Manny the rat, who runs a casino and uses broken wind-up toys as his slave labor force. With the aid of a psychic frog, the mice escape and meet other animal characters on a quest of becoming free and independent self-winding toys. They rediscover the elephant and seal, who are somewhat broken down. Together they manage to form a family and destroy the rat empire.Internet ArchiveTime Out London ===== The first issue (Epistle) opens with the Redeemer and his maniacs purging a group of Ratskins for a crime Malakev (the narrator) cannot even say (they tried to run away). As Klovis tells one Ratskin that he should be thanking him for rewarding him with a martyr's crown, the Ratskin tells Klovis that he is sick in the head and calls to the Hive Spirits asking for vengeance for the deaths of his people. At this the Caller, the self-proclaimed Shaman of Shamans, bursts from the ground riding a giant Millasaur. He attacks the Redemptionists, proclaiming his intention to lead a revolution of Ratskins to vengeance against the Hivers. Klovis drives him off with a blast of fire from his crown, but the Caller later attacks the Redeemer at his own camp. After fighting him off, and discovering that the Bloodmare Stone (An eye from one of the- if not the- last of the Giant Necromunda Spiders) is the source of his great power, Klovis and his band set out deeper into the Underhive to purge the Caller. The remainder of this issue deals with the Redeemer slaying a mutant gang boss in a duel so that he and his men can head further down. In the second issue, the Caller gathers his armies and the Redeemer is captured by a psyker called Ferron Voor, the Emissary of Karloth Valois; Master of Plague Zombies, who drains the life from several of his men to reanimate a monstrous mutant rat, with which he tries to kill Klovis (only to die in the process). In the third issue, Klovis and the Caller's armies finally battle with each other, the Slaught-drugged Redemptionists wreaking great havoc whilst Klovis manages, in a superhuman effort, to destroy the Rat God (from the last issue), the Bloodmare Spider Queen and the Caller, despite being badly wounded in the process. The power leaking from the crumbling Bloodmare Stone turns his zealots against him, leading to Klovis scourging his own men. In the end, only one survives: Malakev, who is shown on the second last page of the issue to have been converted into a Scribe-Servitor, a mindless cyborg slave who will spend the rest of his existence writing down Klovis' deeds. ===== ===== This film is a coming of age picture for the four main characters, and how their lives change over one Christmas holiday. The film is set in late 1960s Australia. Four orphan boys from a Roman Catholic orphanage in the outback of Australia Maps, Misty, Spark and Spit were all born in the month of December, and for their birthday, they are sent on a holiday to the beach to stay with Mr. and Mrs. McAnsh. While there, they meet Fearless, a man who claims to be the risk motorbike rider in the nearby carnival, and his wife, Teresa. Misty, Spark and Spit instantly become closer to Teresa, but Maps, eldest of the four, is still reluctant to talk to her. He instead finds more fun in spending time with an older teenage girl named Lucy, who had come to the beach to stay with her uncle. He often goes up to a place with strange rocks, and meets her there. A few days later, the orphans peek through a window in Fearless' house to see Teresa undressing, but Misty, being the most religious of the four, throws a rock at the wall to make them go away. Misty runs back to Mr. McAnsh's house and looks through the small opening of a door to see someone in the shower, only to find that it is the sickly Mrs. McAnsh. They soon discover that she has breast cancer. One night, Misty overhears Fearless talking to his friends about the possibility of adopting one of the orphans. Excited about the opportunity to finally have parents, he keeps it to himself until he decides to reveal it to a priest who has driven to the beach for the orphans' confessions. The other boys realise that he is taking too long, and once he is finished, they force it out of him with the threat of Spit spitting on him while he is pinned to the ground. Misty, Spark and Spit are eager to compete for the love of the seemingly perfect Fearless and Teresa, but Maps is less than excited, even saying to Lucy, "What's the big deal about parents, anyway?" Maps experiences his first kiss with Lucy, and soon loses his virginity to her in one of the caves of the Remarkable Rocks. There, she tells him to promise that he will always remember her as his first. The next day, he goes up to the Remarkable Rocks, only to find Lucy is not there. Her uncle tells him that she's left the beach to return to her father, and will not likely be back until next summer. Heartbroken, he goes to the carnival to find Fearless and talk to him, but discovers that he is not a motorbike rider there, and instead cleans up after the animals. Furious that he'd lied all along, he finds a painting made by Misty of him as the son of Fearless and Teresa, and destroys it. Misty attacks him and hits him with the fragments of the frame he'd put the painting in, and the bond between the four orphans is broken. Fearless finds Maps in the cave of the Remarkable Rocks, and explains to him what had really happened. It is revealed to that Fearless was formerly a bike rider, and did all of the stunts with Teresa riding on the back of the bike. Then, there was an accident that kept Teresa in the hospital for nearly a year, making her unable to have children. That was the reason they had wanted to adopt one of the orphans. Maps returns to the beach and finds out from Spark and Spit that Misty has gone into the water, and is drowning. Maps goes after him despite the fact that he cannot swim. Both he and Misty nearly drown. Underwater, they open their eyes to see a vision of the Virgin Mary, possibly meaning that they are dying. Before they can reach out to it, the two boys are grabbed by Fearless and brought back to the shore. Maps and Misty reconcile with each other and the four are friends again. The next day, the boys are called to Fearless' and Teresa's house for an announcement. There, they reveal the couple is going to adopt Misty. He takes leave of his friends and he watches on the front porch with Fearless and Teresa as the other three orphans walk away and begin playing on some rocks down the beach. Misty realises that they are his true family, and asks Fearless and Teresa if he can stay with them instead. They accept, and he returns home with the orphans. Many decades later, Misty, as an old man, drives to the same beach along with the ashes of Maps, who had recently died while working as a priest in Africa helping refugees, and Lucy's ring that she gave to Maps on that holiday long ago. He meets up with Spark and Spit, and they toss the ashes and ring loose into the wind from the hill above the beach, remembering Maps and their time there, with a cheer to "The December Boys." =====