From Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ===== The film closely follows the structure of Charles Dickens' original book, with some changes to the story's detail. On Christmas Eve, 1843 London, Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly corn trader, does not share the merriment of Christmas. Scrooge declines his nephew Fred Hollywell's invitation for Christmas dinner and reluctantly accepts his loyal employee Bob Cratchit's request to have Christmas off since there will be no business for Scrooge during the day. As he leaves for the stock exchange, Scrooge encounters Bob's ill son Tiny Tim waiting across from Scrooge's office. After initially mistaking Tim for a beggar, Scrooge assures him that he will have a long wait for his father in the cold before leaving. In the stock exchange, Scrooge charges three other businessmen 5% extra for corn because they failed to meet his demands the day before, much to their dismay. Scrooge then refuses to give a donation to two gentlemen collecting money for charity, Mr. Poole and Mr. Hacking. In his house, Scrooge encounters the ghost of his deceased business partner Jacob Marley, who warns him to repent his wicked ways or he will be condemned to the same afterlife as his, carrying heavy chains forged from his own greedy ways. He informs Scrooge that three spirits will visit him that night. At one o'clock, the Ghost of Christmas Past visits Scrooge and takes him back in time to his unhappy childhood and early adult life. They visit Scrooge's time as a boarding school student, abandoned there by his father who wanted nothing to do with him after Scrooge's mother died in childbirth. He sees his grim father Silas, who gets him an apprenticeship with Fezziwig, and his older sister Fan, who has since died. Eventually becoming successful in and business, Scrooge becomes engaged to a woman named Belle. However, the Ghost shows Scrooge that Belle left him when he chose his wealth over her. Finally, the spirit shows Scrooge a now- married Belle with her large, happy family on the Christmas Eve that Marley died. Angered, Scrooge extinguishes the spirit with its cap and finds himself back in his bedroom. At two o'clock, Scrooge meets the Ghost of Christmas Present, who shows him the joys and wonder of Christmas Day. Scrooge and the Ghost visit Bob's house, learning his family is surprisingly content with their small dinner. Scrooge takes pity on Tim after the spirit comments that he will not survive until next Christmas. The spirit then takes Scrooge to Fred's house for the Christmas party that Scrooge had earlier declined to attend, where Fred states that he continues to pursue a relationship with Scrooge for the sake of his late mother, Fan, who Scrooge loved deeply, and Scrooge is touched by this and admits that Fred is right. Scrooge and the spirit then go to a desolate street where he shows Scrooge two hideous children named Ignorance and Want and warns Scrooge to beware of them before he disappears. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come appears to Scrooge, and takes him into the future. Scrooge witnesses the businessmen discussing the death of an unnamed colleague where they would only attend the funeral if lunch is provided. Scrooge recognizes several of his stolen possessions being traded to a fence named Old Joe. The spirit transports Scrooge to Bob's residence where he learns Tim had died. Scrooge is then escorted to a cemetery, where the spirit points out his own grave, revealing Scrooge was the man who died. Realizing this, Scrooge vows to change his ways and begs to be spared. Awakening in his bedroom on Christmas Day, Scrooge finds the ghosts had visited him all in one night. Gleeful at having survived the spirits, Scrooge anonymously sends the Cratchits a large, prize-winning turkey for dinner. He then ventures out into the city to spread happiness among the citizens of London. Scrooge finds the charity workers he encountered before and much to their elation, Scrooge agrees to make a large donation. Scrooge also accepts Fred's Christmas invitation after reconciling with him. The following day, he gives Cratchit a raise and becomes like "a second father" to Tim, who escapes death. A changed man, Scrooge now treats everyone with kindness, generosity, and compassion; he now embodies the spirit of Christmas. ===== Prem (Salman Khan) is married to the loving yet traditional Pooja (Karishma Kapoor), and together they have two children. One day, Rupali Walia (Sushmita Sen) arrives at Prem's office to give an interview for the role of a model. Prem and Rupali are attracted to each other and ultimately they fall in love. Rupali is much preferable to Prem due to her modern lifestyle and fashionable choices, as compared to Pooja. On Karva Chauth, a religious ceremony observed by married couples, Pooja discovers Prem at Rupali's house and asks him to choose between his mistress and his family. Prem chooses Rupali and moves in with her, leaving his children and mother (Himani Shivpuri) behind with Pooja. Pooja, meanwhile, with the help of Prem's friend Lakhan (Anil Kapoor), has a make-over, becoming a modern woman and taking on modeling assignments. Pooja sends her mother-in-law and children to live with her husband and Rupali. They intentionally trouble Rupali and convince Prem that Rupali keeps them hungry and wants to poison and kill them. Ultimately the relationship between Prem and Rupali breaks down. In the end, Prem realizes that Rupali only came to him since he gave her material things, while his wife stuck with him through thick and thin. Rupali realizes her mistake and gets back together with her ex-boyfriend, Deepak (Saif Ali Khan). In a twist, Lakhan befriends Rupali, affectionately calling her his sister. While hugging her, his wife Lovely (Tabu) walks upon them and misunderstands the situation. She leaves the house crying, but Lakhan chases after and they make up; with Lakhan saying to Lovely that she is his "Biwi no. 1." ===== The episode is formatted as an industrial training video, with the narrator (Steve Kehela) beginning by congratulating the newly hired employee of the Krusty Krab, SpongeBob SquarePants. SpongeBob asks if he can now make a Krabby Patty burger, with the narrator rebuffing his question for now, and first shares how the restaurant was not always the success it is at present. The narrator briefly tells about its owner, Mr. Krabs, who suffered from a long depression after "the war" before deciding to acquire a bankrupt retirement home and turn it into a restaurant. In present day, the restaurant has since tried to modernize itself and maintain customer satisfaction by acquiring the "latest" fast food technology, such as the spatula and the cash register among others. For the restaurant's employees, the narrator differentiates the characteristics of a potentially good employee and a bad employee through the examples of SpongeBob and Squidward respectively. SpongeBob repeats his question from earlier, to which the narrator replies that he must first know about the acronym "P.O.O.P." (short for "People Order Our Patties") before he can make Krabby Patties. Other matters discussed by the narrator include personal hygiene, the work station, and how to interact with the manager Mr. Krabs, all while SpongeBob impatiently awaits the chance to make a Krabby Patty. With the narrator finished telling SpongeBob about all the basics of being an employee, he asks if SpongeBob is ready to prepare a Krabby Patty. As SpongeBob vigorously answers yes, the narrator is about to tell the burger's secret formula before the training video abruptly cuts to the credits. ===== In 1940, after the fall of France, the fictitious Channel Island of Armorel is occupied by a small garrison of German troops under the benign command of Hauptmann Weiss. He finds that the hereditary ruler, the Suzerain, is away in the army, leaving the Provost in charge. Back in London, the Ministry of Agriculture realise that Venus, a valuable pedigree Guernsey cow, remains on the island. They petition the War Office to mount a rescue operation, and Major Valentine Morland is assigned the mission, with the assistance of the Suzerain's sister Nicola Fallaize who joined the A.T.S. at the outbreak of war. They travel to Armorel by submarine, contact the Provost and other friends on the island, and discover that Weiss, a cattle breeder in civilian life, is about to have the cow shipped to Germany. By a series of elaborate deceptions, they extract Venus from Weiss's command and succeed in returning her to England. ===== The film begins with Phyllis (Diana Dors) telling her story in flashbacks. It begins how she meets rich vintner Paul Hochen (Rod Steiger) from Napa Valley in a bar and marries him soon after. Not long after the marriage, Phyllis begins having an affair with a local rodeo rider, San Sanford (Tom Tryon), seeing him every time her husband is away, which is frequently. One night, her elderly mother-in-law (Beulah Bondi) thinks a burglar is breaking into the house, so she calls the police. Phyllis sees this as an opportunity to kill her husband and blame the burglar for the crime. The plan backfires a day later when she instead kills her husband's best friend. Not wanting to go to jail, she convinces her husband to confess to the killing and they concoct a story that would set him free after the trial. Phyllis lies at the trial and Paul is put away for murder. The "unholy" wife finally gets the punishment she deserves when her mother-in-law dies of poisoning and the blame goes to Phyllis, who is sent to prison for a crime she did not commit. Later, she faces her execution in the gas chamber. The film ends with Paul showing their son Michael (Gary Hunley) the vineyard that will someday be his. ===== Set in a hospital room, the action revolves around Ken Harrison (Claire Harrison in some later productions), a sculptor by profession, who was paralysed from the neck down (quadriplegia) in a car accident and is determined to be allowed to die. Clark presents arguments both in favour of and opposing euthanasia and to what extent government should be allowed to interfere in the life of a private citizen. In portraying Ken as an intelligent man with a useless body, he leaves the audience with conflicting feelings about his desire to end his life. ===== The year is 1997, and world peace seems to have come, with most classic weapons of mass destruction having been abandoned. However, orbiting the Earth there is the European/American space station FLORIDA ARKLAB, capable of controlling the weather at any location on the planet underneath. A civil project by nature, it might be abused as an offensive weapon, since it could deliver devastation to any potential adversary simply by creating natural disasters such as storms and floods. The space station soon becomes the central point in rising political tensions between East and West, next stop World War 3 (as indicated by the tagline "The end of our future has already begun"). The film follows the main protagonist, Billy Hayes, an astronaut aboard the station, as he wades through a plot of secrecy and sabotage trying to tell friend from foe in the process. ===== An interstellar expedition is sent to study a strange planet far from Earth. Despite the fact that creatures from various Earth time periods appear to inhabit the world (mammoths, pterodactyls, dinosaurs, horses, birds, etc.), the stone-age-level natives also possess swords made of metal. «Обыкновенное волшебство». Журнал «Если» № 10, 2009 г. ===== After Groundskeeper Willie takes away Bart's skateboard for destroying his leaf pile, Bart fills up Willie's shack with creamed corn as he is sleeping, destroying it. As Willie is taken away for medical attention, he swears revenge on Bart. Meanwhile, Krusty the Clown's show comes under criticism by the Federal Communications Commission for not being educational enough for children. The Channel 6 executive proposes that Krusty cut ten minutes from his three-hour show to make room for a kids' news program, Kidz News, where children deliver and report news items. Lisa is recruited as a news anchor along with other Springfield Elementary School children. Bart is not chosen at first, but is made sportscaster after he complains to Marge. Lisa is deemed to be boring by the channel's staff, though they are impressed by Bart's performance. Bart is then promoted to be the co-anchor, which leads to jealousy from Lisa. After Bart hears Lisa talking behind his back, he seeks advice from Kent Brockman, who teaches him about the power of human interest stories. Bart becomes successful after creating a segment called "Bart's People", which Lisa disapproves of due to its sappy, emotionally manipulative content. Out of jealousy, Lisa attempts to copy it, but is twice hampered by the Crazy Cat Lady. She eventually sends a letter acting as an immigrant who lives in a landfill who pleads to be on Bart's People, causing Bart to rush to the landfill for a live broadcast. However, he learns that the immigrant is Groundskeeper Willie, wanting revenge on Bart. Feeling guilty after seeing Willie attack Bart on camera, Lisa arrives and saves him by using similar techniques he used in his stories to stir up Willie's emotions. The siblings then decide to make a good educational news program, only to have Kidz News cancelled before their next show. In the subplot, Homer obtains a monkey helper named Mojo after learning Apu has gotten one. Eventually, Mojo becomes tired, weak, and overfed from eating junk food and drinking beer with Homer. Marge forces Homer to return the monkey. ===== D/Generation's plot begins in Singapore on June 27, 2021. A French company called Genoq has developed a series of new genetically engineered bioweapons, which have run out of control and taken over Genoq's Singaporean lab. The main character is a courier making an emergency delivery by jetpack of an important package to one of Genoq's top researchers, Jean- Paul Derrida (a name likely inspired by the philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Jacques Derrida), and who is happily oblivious to the carnage until the lab's doors lock behind him. His customer is ten floors away, all of them crawling with bioweapons. ===== Shivani Chopra (Madhuri Dixit) is an air hostess for Air India. She meets Vijay Agnihotri (Shahrukh Khan), a wealthy industrialist. He instantly falls in love, but she shows no interest in him. This does not stop Vijay and he continues to pursue her, only to be rejected every time. Vijay informs his mother that he intends to marry Shivani. When they approach Shivani's family for her hand in marriage, they see that Shivani is marrying Ashok, an Air India pilot (Deepak Tijori). Vijay is heartbroken and shocked while Shivani and Ashok get posted right after their wedding and move to America. Four years later, Vijay still cannot forget Shivani and turns down all the marriage proposals brought by his mother. Shivani and Ashok now have a daughter named Pinky. Vijay befriends Ashok in hopes of getting closer to Shivani. Ashok is unaware of Vijay's intentions and does not believe Shivani when she tries to convince him of Vijay's true face. One day, Ashok kicks Shivani out after they have an argument. Vijay witnesses this and severely beats him. When Ashok is being treated in the hospital, Vijay removes his oxygen mask, thereby killing him. Shivani attempts to convince the police that Vijay is responsible for Ashok's death. However, Vijay bribes his friend, Inspector Arjun Singh, to provide an alibi, and is not charged. Vijay then begs Shivani to say she loves him. When she refuses, he frames Shivani for his attempted murder and she is sentenced to three years in prison. Pinky is placed in the care of Shivani's sister and drunkard brother-in-law Mohanlal (Tinnu Anand), who treats Pinky poorly. One day, Mohanlal tells his wife to remove Pinky from the house and she refuses. In response, Mohanlal kicks both Shivani's sister and Pinky out. Vijay accidentally kills Shivani's sister and daughter by running his car over them. Shivani learns about their deaths and realises Vijay is the one who killed them. She decides to go to any length to avenge her family. In an attempt to escape from prison, she makes a complaint about the brutality of her prison guard but her plea is ignored. In prison, she learns that she is pregnant with Ashok's child. When the prison guard learns that Shivani complained, she gives her a severe beating, which causes her to have a miscarriage. Shivani kills the prison guard by dragging her to the gallows and hanging her. As there is no evidence, she is not convicted for it. Three years later, Shivani is released from prison. First, she kills Mohanlal by choking him with rupee notes and chewing off a significant amount of flesh from his arm. Inspector Singh suspects Shivani for the murder. While Shivani is mourning her daughter, Singh steps right on her grave to rudely intercept her. He chases her and attempts to rape her in a barn, but Shivani overpowers him and sets the barn on fire, leaving him to die. She learns that Vijay has moved to Tikamgarh. She goes to work at a hospital for the mentally ill and finds Vijay there; he had become paralyzed in the car accident after running over Shivani's family. She volunteers to rehabilitate him. When cured, Vijay begs Shivani once again to say she loves him. Shivani embraces him before stabbing him. She confesses that she nursed him to health for one purpose: to kill him, as it is a sin to kill an incapacitated person who cannot defend himself. In their scuffle, they end up dangling from a cliff with Vijay hanging onto Shivani's foot. Vijay says that if he falls to his death, he'll take Shivani with him. Deciding that it is more important for Vijay to die than for her to live, Shivani lets go, causing both of them to fall to their deaths. ===== Lwaxana Troi returns to the Enterprise, this time as the teacher of an alien race, the Cairn, who are learning to speak. The Cairn's native form of communication is telepathy, but they want to learn spoken language in order to interact with other races. Lwaxana comes aboard with Ambassador Maques and his young daughter, Hedril, who is Lwaxana's star pupil. Suspecting that Lwaxana is not her usual flamboyant self, her daughter, Deanna Troi, tries to investigate. When Lwaxana starts showing signs of fatigue, she is taken to sickbay to be examined. Beverly tells Lwaxana that her interaction with the aliens is more taxing on her telepathic ability than she is used to, and is asked to refrain from contact with the Cairn until she can recover. Deanna helps her mother by verbally communicating with Maques and Hedril, but Lwaxana still uses her telepathy when they don't grasp the verbal concepts. After an incident where Hedril falls into a pool of water in the arboretum, Lwaxana falls into a coma. With no signs of physical trauma, Crusher deduces that her telepathic abilities have caused her mind to collapse in on itself from overuse. Maques uses his ability to form a bridge between Deanna and Lwaxana, and the former finds herself walking through corridors like on the Enterprise. Lwaxana's mental defenses pick up, first conjuring an image of Picard himself ordering her to sever her connection. She then creates an image of a wolf that chases Deanna through the corridor. After escaping through a door, she sees her father in a place where they once lived. She sees through all the ruses and exits back into the corridor. Lwaxana then charges after her screaming for Deanna to get away from her, causing Deanna to break her connection. Deanna and Picard search through Lwaxana's things and find several pieces of the puzzle missing; seven years of entries for a journal Lwaxana kept since being married had been erased, from shortly after her marriage until a few months after Deanna's birth. The image of Hedril in her mother's mind does not add up. She tries again to reach her mother. With the telepathic connection to her mother reestablished, Deanna sees Hedril petting the wolf, and cautions her. When she says Hedril's name, the girl asks who Hedril is. Deanna follows the girl and the wolf through the deck until she encounters a turbolift that opens into space. Hearing her mother call for help, Deanna jumps in and lands in the arboretum where Lwaxana had collapsed. Lwaxana is there, still begging Deanna to leave, but Deanna refuses, stating that a repressed memory is killing her and she must relive the memory in order to survive. Suddenly, an image of a human girl who looks like Hedril is playing by the water with a puppy, and Lwaxana calls her Kestra--her first born child, and Deanna's older sister, whom Deanna never knew she had. Deanna urges Lwaxana to relive what happened, and she tearfully remembers a tragedy when Kestra ran after the puppy when it got away, though it was unclear what had caused her death. However, the clues seem to indicate that she fell into the water and drowned. Lwaxana's repressed memory of Kestra and her resemblance to Hedril led to her coma. As Lwaxana recalls happier memories of Kestra, Deanna tells her to share them so she can learn about the sister she never knew. The women awaken in sickbay holding hands. Later, it is revealed that Mr. Homn saved mementos of Kestra, and Deanna asks her mother to tell her everything about her. ===== After seventeen-year-old Thais Allard loses her widowed father in a car crash, she is forced to leave home. She moves to live with a total stranger in New Orleans. There, she meets her identical twin, Clio Martin. Thais soon learns that she and her twin come from a family of witches and that she possesses astonishing powers. The twins must learn to work together. ===== Gus Matthews (Rob Schneider), Richie Goodman (David Spade), and Clark Reedy (Jon Heder) are three adult "nerds" who spent much of their childhoods longing to play sports, especially baseball, but never got the chance. Clark and Richie were unpopular children who were constantly bullied by the jocks and were never able to play baseball or other sports because of their lack of athletic ability. Gus Matthews, who does not talk much about his past, is surprisingly good at baseball even though he also lacks an athletic record. When a nerdy, unathletic boy named Nelson Carmichael (Max Pardo) and his friends are ruthlessly bullied and kicked off a nearby baseball diamond by a team of bullies who belong to a local little league team, Gus and Clark chase the bullies away. When Gus and Clark come with Richie to the field to play and get back their feel for the game, the bullies return and demand that they leave. Gus challenges the bullies to play them for the field, and the three friends, despite Clark and Richie's poor abilities, win the game due to Gus's superior skill. Days later, a man named Brad, who was one of Clark and Richie's bullies, challenges them to another baseball game with his team, but the three friends win again. Later, Nelson's billionaire father, Mel (Jon Lovitz), tells the trio that he is impressed with their wins, and explains his plan to hold a round-robin with all the mean-spirited little league teams in the state, plus their team. The winners will be given access to a new multimillion-dollar baseball park that he is building. Wanting to capture the spirit and fun in baseball which they never had when they were kids, as well as seeing this as an opportunity to teach children everywhere that bullying is wrong and that all children, regardless of ability, should be given equal opportunities in sports, the three name themselves the Benchwarmers and join the tournament. They play against every cruel little league team in the tournament, despite the fact that they are three adults squaring off against a team of nine kids. The Benchwarmers win every single game, with Clark and Richie's abilities gradually improving, and the team becomes popular among many nerds, children with poor athletic abilities, and the general public. Their success causes increasing frustration and bitterness amongst the mean-spirited teams of jocks, who start meeting to think of plans to defeat the Benchwarmers. At the semi-final game, around halfway through, the competing team's coach Wayne bribes the umpire by entering a 30-year-old Dominican man named Carlos into the league claiming him to be 12 years old. Carlos proves to be a professional, purposely stepping on Gus' hand at one point to injure it too much for him to pitch. But the Benchwarmers eventually manage to defeat Carlos by making him too drunk to actually pitch properly and they manage to win when Richie's agoraphobic and heliophobic brother Howie is hit by the pitch but forces the winning run. After multiple unsuccessful attempts to derail the trio and halt their winning streak, the Benchwarmers' adversaries finally find a weakness that they can exploit. They find evidence that Gus was a bully himself as a child, known for using name calling over physical force and had bullied one boy named Marcus so intensely that he had to be sent to a mental institution. Seizing this opportunity, the bully teams expose Gus' secret to the public, shaming Gus into resigning from the team. However, on his wife Liz's advice, Gus sincerely apologizes to Marcus just before the final game. In return, Marcus forgives Gus in an incredibly moving speech in front of everyone right on the field at the beginning of the final game. Gus re-joins the team, announcing that Marcus is the Benchwarmers' new third-base coach. In the final game, Gus, Clark and Richie do not play; rather, they let a team consisting of Nelson and other non-athletic children play, to give them a chance to compete. The final is played against a team with their heartless coach, Jerry, who is the leader of all the mean bully jocks on the local little league teams, and was Richie and Clark's main bully when they were children. In the final inning, the Benchwarmers are losing, but Jerry's team sees that the Benchwarmers are having fun playing the game anyway despite losing. Seeing how heartless and uncaring Jerry is and realizing the true spirit of the game, they decide to let Nelson hit the ball, and let him score a run, saying that Jerry is "the loser". The Benchwarmers storm the field, celebrating the fact that they were not shut out, and they give an enraged Jerry a taste of his own medicine, giving him a wedgie. Later, the entire Benchwarmers team, along with the kids from Jerry's team, Number 7, Marcus, and even Carlos and Wayne, celebrate at Pizza Hut where Richie and Clark manage to get girlfriends, and Gus ecstatically announces that he is going to become a father. ===== The story centers around a mysterious warrior named Guin, an amnesiac with a leopard mask magically affixed to his head. Remembering nothing but his fighting instincts and the word "Aurra", he confronts a world laden with danger, intrigue, and magic. ===== In 1906, Wilse Dilling (Lon Chaney), a crippled gangster living like a brute in the savage streets of Chinatown, receives a coded message to go to the home of his boss, Ann Cardington (Christine Mayo), known as Queen Anne, a powerful crime boss feared in the underworld. When Wilse meets with her, she sends him to the town of Fallbrook, where he is to await her instructions in dealing with a former lover of hers, a banker named Micha Hadley (William Welsh), who had betrayed her. Dilling is to pose as a telegraph operator in his effort to watch the banker. Being practically dependent on crutches and wheelchair-bound has not stopped Dilling from committing a lengthy series of crimes, but to his surprise, he finds that the small town atmosphere makes him feel differently about everything. He finds a good friend in Hadley's daughter Gertrude (Virginia Valli), whom Dilling not only falls in love with her but she helps him believe that he can make a fresh start. Gertrude, however, is engaged to Jack Cooper (Jack Mower). Dilling's new-found contentment is soon shattered by a series of new developments which includes trying to stop Queen Ann's plot against Hadley and Gertrude. Threatened with exposure as a thief, Hadley lashes out at Dilling when he confesses his part in the scheme. When an attempt to blow up the bank goes badly, Gertrude and Cooper are caught in the blast. With Gertrude severely injured, Cooper's father forces him to break off their engagement. With the bank records destroyed, bank examiners are unable to find evidence against Hadley. After surgery, his daughter is expected to make a complete recovery but Queen Anne still seeks his revenge. Dilling tries to recover a document that his boss is holding, but with her henchmen, she captures Gertrude to Dilling's despair. Before anything can happen, everyone in the Manadarin Cafe, the gangsters' headquarters, as well as the entire city, is caught up in the San Francisco earthquake. Dilling survives and later in recuperation, is able to recover the use of his legs, beginning a new life with Gertrude. right ===== Outspoken and overconfident Rick Monroe is a jock and a popular guy in college in Titusville, Florida. At the end of his final report for his class, Rick cracks a joke and his prim and proper speech professor, Faye Hanlon, is not amused. After chiding him for his joke, she decides to fail him and make him take the course over again. Faye is going through a slump in her marriage to Whitney Hanlon, a rocket scientist who has just been laid off. Faye's free-spirited sister Patsy, visiting from Chicago, takes her to a strip club to cheer her up. The show features a performer called "Ricky the Rocket", who is none other than Faye's student Rick. When he notices Faye in the crowd, he gives her a very special lap dance, kissing her in the process. The next day, Faye and Rick run into each other at a school function. Initially, Rick is interested only in convincing Faye to allow him another chance at his final and is rebuffed. He realizes that she is attracted to him and begins flirting. Faye arranges to meet Patsy near her hotel, only to discover that she has been tricked into seeing another performance by "Ricky the Rocket". Since Patsy has to return home a day early, she turns over use of her hotel room to Faye, who calls Whitney and lies that she and Patsy are staying at Patsy's hotel together. Coincidentally, Rick's mother works in the same hotel, and while visiting his mother, Rick runs into Faye again; they return to Faye's room and have sex. Faye must leave and in her absence, Rick invites his girlfriend Slick to the room where she has sex with him as well. Faye catches them in the shower and, humiliated, flees; she realizes that she has been deceived. Whitney, returning home from an unsuccessful job interview, discovers that Patsy has gone home. Whitney travels to the hotel, where he catches Rick as the latter is exiting. He kidnaps Rick at gunpoint, takes Rick to a skiff at a small dock, and forces him to strip. Rick, sobbing, complies. Whitney threatens Rick repeatedly, but ultimately only shoots holes in the skiff, leaving a naked Rick aboard as it sinks. Faye returns home to find Whitney waiting for her; she apologizes and he forgives her. At the end, the couple talk about their problems and resolve them. ===== Del, a hard-working songwriter, is trying to write the perfect song for his slimeball boss, Mr. Mega, so he can keep his job and his girlfriend Didi. As he rushes to work, he gets lost in a cloverleaf highway and ends up lost in a town called Flooby Nooby, where he meets the town's singing and swingin' mayor, an Elvis-impersonating dog, a noseless cab driver, and a psychotic bellhop as he tries to get to Mr. Mega's office to deliver the song. ===== When the King of Barodia receives a pair of seven-league boots as a birthday present, his habit of flying over the King of Euralia's castle during breakfast provokes a series of incidents which escalate into war. While the King of Euralia is away, his daughter Hyacinth tries to rule in his stead and counter the machiavellian ambitions of the king's favourite, the Countess Belvane. ===== In 1946, bigoted, draft-dodging, gold- digging Henry Warren and his heiress, land-owning wife Julie Ann, are determined to sell their land in rural Georgia to owners of a northern canning plant but the deal rests on selling two adjoining plots as well, one owned by Henry's cousin Rad McDowell and his wife Lou, the other by black farmer Reeve Scott, whose ailing mother Rose had been Julie's wet nurse. Neither farmer is interested in selling his land, and they form a dangerous and controversial black and white partnership to strengthen their legal claim to their land, which infuriates Henry. When Rose suddenly dies, Henry tries to persuade his wife to charge Reeve with illegal ownership of his property, but local black teacher Vivian Thurlow searches the town's records and uncovers proof that Reeve legally registered the deed to his land. Julie, upset with Henry's treatment of their mentally challenged young son, decides to leave him and drops her suit against Reeve. With the help of Ku Klux Klansmen, Henry dynamites the levee above the farms, and Rad's oldest child drowns in the ensuing flood, much to Henry's dismay. Rather than admit defeat, Rad and Reeve decide to rebuild their decimated property with the assistance of their neighbors. ===== Eddie Miller (Arthur Franz), a delivery man, struggles with his hatred of women. This hatred is exacerbated if he feels drawn to a woman who turns out to be unattainable, he tends to see this as a personal affront. Also, he is especially bothered when he sees women with their significant others. Miller knows he is disturbed and, out of despair, burns himself by pressing his right hand to an electric stove. The doctor treating him in an emergency room suspects he might need psychological help, but gets too busy to follow through. Miller begins a killing spree as a sniper by shooting women from far distances with an M1 carbine. Trying to be caught, he writes an anonymous letter to the police begging them to stop him. As the killings continue, a psychologist has the keys (early criminal profiling techniques) to finding the killer. The film is unusual in that its ending is non-violent, despite its genre and expectations raised throughout. ===== The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio is based on the true story of housewife Evelyn Ryan, who helped support her husband, Kelly, and their 10 children by winning jingle-writing contests. Kelly failed to support his family, in part due to apparent alcoholism. He dreamed of being a singer, but lost his singing voice in a car accident, and was often cruel and abusive. Evelyn wins a large freezer, ice buckets, a washer, and dryer set, a trip to New York City, sleds, boots, a pony, a palm tree, a window, a sports car, a shopping spree in her local grocery store, ice crushers, a camera, dance shoes, a boat motor, pogo sticks, a case of dog food, and a lifetime supply of bird seed. Kelly, who feels like his role as provider for the family is being threatened, criticizes Evelyn, and damages the prizes she wins. Their children side with her. Kelly gets angry at Evelyn, and accidentally knocks her over while she is carrying 12 full glass bottles of milk, causing her to nearly sever a ligament. Evelyn is able to talk him down after each incident, and, temporarily at least, he treats her better. Evelyn is largely isolated because of the hours she has to spend caring for the children, and the lack of local intellectual equals. However, she is contacted by a group of other contest-entering mid-western housewives, and befriends them. Ultimately, Evelyn discovers that Kelly had secretly taken out a second mortgage on their house and never made payments on it, leaving the family subject to an almost-certain foreclosure. The children pray for their mother's miraculous victory in a contest sponsored by Dr Pepper. She wins, and pays the mortgage on the house. Years later, it is revealed that after Kelly died, Evelyn finds out that he has placed his pension checks in a bank account especially for her. The actual Ryan children are then shown as adults. ===== Clark and Mary Willingham are a couple traveling through Oregon. Clark is being transferred out of state, so they opt to take a more scenic route. The two plan to visit Toketee Falls, and Clark insists on taking a road through the deep forest despite Mary's fears of becoming lost. While Mary takes a nap, Clark does indeed become increasingly lost on a narrow stretch of road. He is forced to admit to Mary that he's given up hope of finding Toketee Falls and that, furthermore, he had rejected an opportunity to turn around. Frustrated, yet hesitant to push the issue, Mary agrees to press forward in the hopes of reaching a point where they can safely turn around. The couple abruptly comes upon a sign announcing, "Welcome to Rock and Roll Heaven, Ore." The road becomes wider and paved, giving them another chance to turn around. Again, Clark refuses, arguing that it would be easier and safer to do so inside the town itself. They discover Rock and Roll Heaven is a small town with a 1950s theme, described as looking identical to a Norman Rockwell painting. Mary feels worried about the too-perfect town, but Clark becomes irritated and the two argue, although Mary can sense that he is also alarmed. As the two explore the town, Clark insists on entering a local diner. Afraid of being left alone, she follows. Inside the diner, Clark and Mary notice two employees resemble dead musicians. After a waitress named Sissy Thomas (CeCe Pryor in the film version) attempts to warn them off, Clark slips out, and Mary is confronted by the two employees, Janis Joplin and Rick Nelson and two other dead musicians, Buddy Holly and Roy Orbison. At first cordial and friendly, one begins to bleed from his eyes and another vomits hundreds of maggots, revealing that they've simply been playing with her. Clark and Mary drive frantically through the town, chased by dead music legends. As they drive, Mary notices other citizens of Rock and Roll Heaven, all of whom look exhausted and apathetic; she realizes that these are the "true" inhabitants, lured in and trapped in the town. Mary and Clark think they have escaped but are easily captured in the outskirts of town after hitting a psychedelic bus. The mayor (a deceased Elvis Presley) steps off the bus and the chief of police pulls up. The musicians ominously reveal that they couldn't have escaped, as the road out is surrounded by swamp, quicksand, bears, and "other things". As the sun begins to set over Rock and Roll Heaven, Mary and Clark join the ranks of the other imprisoned souls in the park, where the concert is prepared. Mary looks at the other exhausted townsfolk, and chooses to sit next to the waitress from the diner. The young woman has the glazed look of one who is stoned, and talks with the couple. She tells them that her name is Sissy, and reveals that one of her fingers was cut off by Frankie Lymon as punishment for assisting the pair. She also explains that while the concerts must end at midnight, "time is different" in Rock and Roll Heaven; the songs sometimes go on for years. The disc jockey Alan Freed takes the stage and begins to announce an endless series of legendary rock stars. Mary voices her worst fear when she asks Sissy her age; she is twenty-three, and has been that way for seven years. Mary realizes that these are the people who get "lost in the woods" and didn't do anything wrong to deserve this, as Freed continues to scream the names of musicians. He finally shouts: "Rock and roll will never die!", to which Mary thinks the last line of the story: "That's what I'm afraid of." ===== In The Throne of Bloodstone, the player characters take a trip to the Abyss to steal the wand of the demon prince Orcus. This module is recommended for characters between levels 18 and 100. They play the rulers of Bloodstone Pass. A war against the Witch-King of Vaasa has come to a standstill. The players venture into the Abyss, destroy a mighty demon, steal the Wand of Orcus and take it to the Seven Heavens to be destroyed. The battle between the mighty undead army of the Witch-King of Vaasa and the forces of Bloodstone has come to a standstill. As long as the source of the Witch-King's power is at work, his evil forces will never be defeated! This module requires the player characters, as the rulers of Bloodstone Pass if following the series, to find the true power behind the Witch-King and defeat it. The module requires the players to journey to the Abyss, confront Orcus, one of its greatest demons, steal the Wand of Orcus, and destroy it. The wide range of levels the module is for is dealt with in several ways as well as the general principles described above for dealing with 100th level characters. For some encounters either the number and/or type of opponents vary or the NPC's reaction to the characters vary depending on the total level of the party. Some areas in the module like the city of liches or the city of 100,000 demons, are really too difficult for any party to overcome directly and require approaches other than brute force. ===== Harry Fabian (De Niro) is a fast-talking, two-bit New York lawyer who hangs out at a bar called Boxers, owned by Phil (Gorman) and his wife Helen (Lange). Harry has been having an affair with Helen, who dreams of setting up her own bar and leaving Phil. At the bar, he spots an article in the New York Post about a man who was pummeled by a boxer. He calls the man on Phil's phone and pitches a lawsuit against the boxer on the grounds that his fists are legally considered weapons. The fighter is promoted by Ira "Boom Boom" Grossman (King), who tries to muscle Harry off the idea of suing his boxer. The case is promptly dismissed by the judge, who knows that it is baseless. Having seen the world of boxing up close, Harry decides to become a boxing promoter and files for a license. He recruits Boom Boom's estranged brother, former professional prizefighter Al Grossman (Warden), to be his partner. Boom Boom tries to muscle Harry out of the fight business, but when Al protects Harry, Boom Boom cowers in fear. Al asks Phil for a $15,000 loan to cover the cost of the fight. Sensing her opportunity, Helen stages an argument with Harry and demands that he come up with $7,500, promising that Phil will match the amount. Helen fronts Harry the $7,500 herself, allowing Harry to secure the loan. Phil promises that he will pay Harry the money the day before the fight. She gives him another $5,000 to help her set up her own bar by procuring a liquor license. Harry has a friend in the Federal Liquor Administration who supplies him a blank license but asks $7500 for it; because Harry only has $5000, he has to have a printer put in the printed details, making the license essentially a fake. he gives Helen the licence but doesn't tell her all the details of how he got it. Boom Boom tries one last time to persuade Harry to abandon the idea, offering him money to walk away from the fight business. Harry explains that he has spent his career in pursuit of quick and easy cases that can be settled for small cash amounts. He tells Boom Boom that he had a case once where the NYPD had mistakenly beaten up some people because they served a warrant on the wrong house. Instead of taking them to trial, he accepted the NYPD's offer of $20,000 to make the case go away. He insists that, for once, he is not going to take the money and run. Boom Boom threatens to kill Harry if anything happens to Al, who has already had two heart attacks. After a nasty fight at Boxers, Helen finally leaves Phil. Still set on keeping Harry out of promoting, Boom Boom meets with Phil and reveals that Helen has been sleeping with Harry. Enraged, Phil calls the state liquor authority to inform them that Harry had forged Helen's license. He pretends like everything is fine with Harry, and offers to throw a dinner party the night before the fight. After the party, he tells Harry that he will have the $7,500 the next day, which is the morning of the fight. Helen wakes up Harry at his place, and they talk about their new endeavors. Her new bar is opening the night of his fight. Harry goes to Boxers and anxiously waits for Phil. When Phil arrives, Harry asks him for the money. Phil says he thought Harry was joking, and then he reveals that he knows about his affair with Helen, as he beats up Harry. Desperate to keep the fight afloat, Harry borrows $12,000 from the ruthless loan shark Mr. Peck (Wallach). At the venue, Al gets into a fight with one of the staff and has a fatal heart attack. With the fight off, Harry goes to Helen's new bar only to find that it has been shut down because of his forged license. Boom Boom's goons show up to make good on his threat. Harry and Helen run and end up cornered in an alley. Harry tries to talk his way out of what is coming by explaining that the goons should be after the guy who fought with Al and caused his heart attack. He throws Peck's $12,000 in the air as the final exclamation point on his speech and walks Helen past the goons, asking her under his breath, "How'd I do?" The goons shoot Harry in the back and throw their pistols in a dumpster. The film ends with Helen holding Harry's hand as he is put in an ambulance, still talking optimistically about the future. ===== ===== Janet (Elizabeth Dear & Jennie Linden), a girl at finishing school who six years earlier saw her mother (Isla Cameron) stab her father to death, is plagued by nightmares. (Her mother, following the tragedy, was committed to an asylum.) Miss Lewis (Brenda Bruce), a teacher, takes Janet home and in the absence of Henry Baxter (David Knight), Janet's guardian, they are met by John (George A. Cooper), the chauffeur; Mrs. Gibbs (Irene Richmond), the housekeeper; and Grace Maddox (Moira Redmond), an attractive nurse-companion hired by Henry. Miss Lewis leaves Janet in Grace's care. The nightmares continue: a white-shrouded woman (Clytie Jessop) roams the corridors, inviting Janet to burst into her parents' room, where she finds the same woman on the bed with a knife in her chest. When Henry returns, he finds Janet under sedation; her doctors recommend psychiatric care but he refuses and Janet tries to commit suicide. Henry's wife comes to tea and, because she seems to be the woman in Janet's nightmares, Janet stabs the woman to death and is promptly committed to an institution. The woman in white is revealed to be Grace, disguised with a wig and mask and in cahoots with Henry. They marry, but Grace begins believing that Henry is trying to drive her mad. Under the impression that Janet has escaped from the asylum, Grace stabs Henry to death, expecting Janet to be blamed. Janet, however, never left the asylum and Grace is brought to justice. ===== In an unnamed Swedish city, ten year-old Karl Lejon has found out that he is going to die from an unspecified pulmonary disease (most likely tuberculosis). His adored big brother, 13-year-old Jonatan, calms him down and tells him that in the afterlife, all men will go to a land known as Nangijala. One day, a fire breaks out in the Lejon home. Jonatan takes Karl on his back and jumps out of the house's window to save him, but dies himself in the fall. Karl is crestfallen over his brother's death, until, just before his own demise, he receives a sign which allays his fears of death, and when he wakes again, he finds himself in the Cherry Valley of Nangijala, where he is happily reunited with Jonatan. Karl is introduced to the denizens of the valley, particularly Sofia the dove-keeper, Hubert the hunter, and Jossi, a landlord, and assumes the surname Lionheart along with his brother. However, despite first appearances, not all is truly at peace in Nangijala. The adjacent valley, the Thorn Rose Valley, is suppressed by a tyrant named Tengil, his army and a female dragon named Katla, who is controlled by Tengil through a trumpet. The people of the Cherry Valley, led by Sofia, are aiding the resistance movement in the Thorn Rose Valley, but they know someone from the Cherry Valley is helping Tengil, as Sofia's white doves, which transport secret messages between the valleys, are being shot. Soon after Karl's arrival, Jonatan leaves to assist the Thorn Rose people. Prompted by a nightmare in which he sees Jonatan in danger, Karl follows him in the middle of the night; but while hiding in a cave, he witnesses a clandestine exchange between two of Tengil's soldiers and Jossi, who has turned traitor to his people. Soon after Jossi leaves, Karl is discovered by the soldiers and taken to the Thorn Rose Valley after claiming that he lives there with his grandfather. After arriving at a village, Karl throws himself into the arms of the first old man he encounters when he sees white pigeons with him, and surprisingly the old man - by the name of Mattias - takes him in without question. It turns out that Mattias is part of the Thorn Valley resistance and a friend of Jonatan, who is hiding in his house. Jonatan, a hero among the Thorn Rose Valley people, is intent on freeing Orvar, the leader of the Thorn Valley resistance movement who is kept in the cave of Karmanjaka near the Karma Falls, where Katla dwells, with his release sparking the long-anticipated final uprising against Tengil. The Lionheart Brothers soon depart for Karmanjaka and manage to release Orvar moments before he is to be collected and fed to Katla, but their escape is soon discovered. They ride back as fast as they can towards the Karma Falls, but the pursuing soldiers start overtaking Karl and Jonatan. Karl throws himself off the horse and hides so that Jonatan and Orvar can escape, but soon afterwards he encounters Sofia and Hubert, who are being led into a trap by Jossi. Karl denounces Jossi as the traitor, and while trying to escape by boat, Jossi is carried by the river's current to the Karma Falls, where he perishes. The Thorn Rose people rise and engage Tengil's forces in battle, but Tengil calls Katla, who begins to decimate the rebels' ranks, including Hubert and Mattias. Jonatan manages to snatch the trumpet from Tengil and bring Katla under his control, compelling her to kill Tengil. Considering Katla an ever- lingering danger despite her current docility, the people decide to get rid of her once and for all, and Jonatan and Karl volunteer for this task. They lure the dragon to Karmanjaka, where they intend to seal her inside her cave to be weakened by starvation; but while navigating the treacherous path, Jonatan loses the trumpet, which frees Katla from his control and drives her into chasing them. The Lionheart Brothers barely escape with their lives when an ancient lindworm, Karm, suddenly rises from the waters and engages Katla in mortal combat, which ends with the two monsters killing each other. Jonatan and Karl set up a camp for the night, and Jonatan explains that during their flight he was burned by Katla's fire and that he will soon die. Jonatan tells Karl about the land that lies after Nangijala called Nangilima, a land of light where there are only happy adventures. Karl does not want to be separated again from his brother, so he carries him on his back to a cliffdrop. Karl makes the jump, vowing never to be afraid again, but is cut off as they reach the bottom of the gorge. Then the narrative jump-cuts to Karl crying out jubilantly: "Oh, Nangilima! Yes, Jonatan, yes - I see the light! I see the light!" ===== The novel deals with the relationships of three principal characters. Adam Coopersmith, an obstetrician and immunologist, saves the life of his mentor, Dr. Max Rudolph. Although normally an ethical researcher, Coppersmith decides to test a life-saving cancer treatment on a man, against the wishes of the Food and Drug Administration. This man is Thomas Hartnell, an advisor to the President of the United States. While acting as the attending doctor, Adam meets Hartnell's daughter, Antonia, and falls in love. Antonia works as the Assistant Attorney General of the United States. Later, when Adam's mentor, Max, dies, he takes solace in Antonia's arms. They get married and have a daughter of their own, Heather. Though their relationship starts off well, things slowing begin to change. As both Adam and his daughter grow older, they realize that Antonia's top priority is her job. As Adam and Antonia slowly fall apart, he is drawn to another woman, Anya Avilov, the childless and abandoned wife of a Russian émigré. Her husband, Dr. Dmitri Avilov, abandoned her when he realized she was incapable of conceiving a child. Adam jumps at the chance to fill the void that is present in both he and Anya's hearts. Adam soon divorces Antonia and marries Anya. Although Antonia wins custody of Heather, Heather always remains more attached to Adam. Just when Adam's life seems to be on an upswing, he is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Adam also learns during this time that he has won the Nobel Prize, but unable to bear the crushing burden of his fate, Adam commits suicide. Sandy Raven is the son of Sidney Raven, a Hollywood producer. Sandy has an inferiority complex about his looks. This gets reinforced over time as he experiences a conspicuous lack of social interactions throughout his teenage years. His one teenage love, Rochelle Taubman, uses him in order to get to his father. She believes this will help her gain entry into Hollywood. When she does gain contacts in Hollywood, she very conveniently forgets Sandy. Ultimately, Rochelle does seedy bit parts, and ends up on the centerspread of Playboy. Sandy is unable to get over this betrayal and becomes socially repressed and desperate for female company. He enrolls at MIT to study Genetics, where Sandy falls in love with Judy, the daughter of his mentor and laboratory director, Gregory Morgenstern, and get married. Later, Dr. Morgenstern cheats him out of a Nobel Prize, by not mentioning Sandy's contribution on a project. This betrayal eventually leads to Judy and Sandy's divorce. Sandy finds solace in the love of his daughter Olivia. Sandy later finds new love with a Japanese woman, Kimiko, and he goes on to become a well- known geneticist. His daughter, Olivia, grows up to study physics under the tutelage of Dr. Isabel Da Costa. Isabel Da Costa is the daughter of Raymond Da Costa. She is a genius with an IQ far above average. Her father, Raymond, recognizes this early in her childhood and runs her life with an iron hand. His marriage with Isabel's mother, Muriel, suffers as a consequence of his controlling behavior. Isabel's brother, Peter, is very close to her and thinks that Raymond is ruining Isabel's youth. Muriel wants Isabel to have a normal life, and Raymond becomes stubbornly intent on forcing Isabel to work to win a Nobel prize in physics; he does this in order to vindicate his own failed academic career. Isabel is denied all pleasures of a normal teenage life with a punishing schedule in academics. She becomes a post graduate student at Berkeley before she is eighteen years old. She possesses extraordinary powers of comprehension. During her graduate career, Isabel falls in love with Jerry Pracht, the son of her thesis advisor, Karl Pracht. This happens in spite of her father's repeated efforts to keep them apart. Jerry is a genius himself, who left the pressure of academics to become an ace tennis player. Isabel longs to rebel against the pressures of being considered a genius and seeks out this relationship discreetly. Eventually, Isabel's father realizes that his hold on her life is detrimental, and gracefully eases his grasp. Eventually Isabel goes on to win the Nobel Prize in physics and fully commits to her relationship with Jerry. ===== Wyatt Trips (Paul Rudd) is a student at Twin Cities College, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is in a long-distance relationship with his high school girlfriend, Kimberly Jasney (Christine Taylor), who is currently a student at the University of Memphis. Wyatt loves Kim, even though they have never consummated their love. One day when Wyatt calls Kim, her roommate's reply leads him to believe that Kim is cheating on him with some guy named "The Ricker". Heartbroken, he goes to a strip club, gets drunk and becomes acquainted with one of the club's dancers, Ivy Miller (Reese Witherspoon). She suggests to Wyatt that he break up with Kim by sending her a scathing letter and a topless picture of himself with Ivy. Wyatt complies by sending the package through Global Express, an overnight delivery service. The next morning, Kim calls Wyatt claiming "The Ricker" is a dog who she had to dogsit. Regretting his actions, he realizes he has 24 hours to retrieve the package before it gets to her. Wyatt and Ivy go to the Global Express office where, by chance, they encounter a spiteful classmate of Wyatt's (Sarah Silverman) who refuses to help them. Wyatt tries to talk the deliveryman (Larry Drake) into giving him the package, but he thinks Wyatt is a spy for the company, and refuses to break the rules. Wyatt buys an air ticket to Memphis, but his co-passenger turns out to be a serial killer, John Dwayne Beezly (Tobin Bell), who takes him hostage. Wyatt escapes and runs into Ivy on the road. Fearing that if he went back to the airport, the FBI would question him and he would not make it to Memphis in time, he begs Ivy to drive him all the way. They happen upon the Global Express delivery truck at a gas station. Wyatt breaks into the truck and locates the package, but the truck unexpectedly drives off. Ivy gives chase but despite their efforts they fail to retrieve the package. At their next stop, Des Moines, Iowa, airport officials do not allow Wyatt to board the connecting flight. So they decide to travel to St. Louis, Missouri to board another connecting flight. En route to St. Louis they have an argument which leads to an accident which ends up with their vehicle falling into the river. They have dinner in a cowboy diner and then try to run out on the check, but get arrested. After posting bail, they are let off and once again happen upon the delivery truck outside a diner. While the deliveryman is having dinner, Wyatt decides to empty the truck's gas tank in order to stall him, but a carelessly flung cigarette butt sets fire to the gas and causes the truck to explode. But even that doesn't stop the deliveryman (who is clearly over the edge by now) and he drives off. Wyatt and Ivy then steal a drunk's car and drive to Kim's campus. After saying goodbye to Ivy, Wyatt gives chase to the delivery man and stops him in time. But after meeting Kim, Wyatt suddenly realizes that he loves Ivy and not Kim. After breaking up with her, he runs into another guy who is wearing the same kind of locket that Kim gave him long ago. Wyatt correctly surmises that the guy is none other than "The Ricker" and Kim was cheating on him after all. He allows the delivery man to deliver the package, and confesses his love to Ivy, who kisses him passionately. ===== Gil Blas is born in misery to a stablehand and a chambermaid of Santillana in Cantabria, and is educated by his uncle. He leaves Oviedo at the age of seventeen to attend the University of Salamanca. His bright future is suddenly interrupted when he is forced to help robbers along the route and is faced with jail. Frontispiece and title page of a 1761 English translation of The Adventures of Gil Blas He becomes a valet and, over the course of several years, is able to observe many different classes of society, both lay and clerical. Because of his occupation, he meets many disreputable people and is able to adjust to many situations, thanks to his adaptability and quick wit. He finally finds himself at the royal court as a favorite of the king and secretary to the prime minister. Working his way up through hard work and intelligence, Gil is able to retire to a castle to enjoy a fortune and a hard- earned honest life. ===== Twenty thousand years ago, the Fairy race assisted humans in a battle against the Bouma Tribe and sealed them away. Due to modern day pollution and man's destruction of nature, the power of Fairy magic has weakened, allowing the seal to be broken and the Tribes escape. With the help of Dr. Dazai, Seelon, the last of the fairies, summoned five high school seniors. As children, they were showered with the "flames of spirit" of the fallen fairies in a forest, and can now hear Seelon's voice. Donning powered suits, the product of a collaboration between Seelon's magic and Dr. Dazai's science, the five become the Turborangers, juggling days of fighting with their regular school lives, in order to defeat the Bouma Tribe. ===== The film opens at a Moscow airport in summer 1963. A young man, Volodya (Aleksei Loktev), calls out to a young woman he sees singing to herself and dancing. :– Arriving or departing? :– Waiting for arrivals. :– Who is it? :– My husband. :– He's lucky to have someone to meet him. :– Get married, you'll have someone as well. :– And you are both happy? :– Yes, we are. :– It never happens. :– Believe me, it happens.Данелия Г. Н. Безбилетный пассажир: «байки» кинорежиссёра. — М.: Эксмо, 2006. — 416 с. — 5100 экз. — , 5-699-12714-3 Volodya is an aspiring writer from Siberia. His first short story has just been published in the magazine Yunost ("Youth"), and a famous author, Voronin, has invited him to Moscow to discuss his work. In the Moscow Metro Volodya unexpectedly makes a friend, Kolya (Nikita Mikhalkov), who is returning home after a hard night shift. Volodya wants to stay at his old friends' home, but he doesn't know where the necessary street is so Kolya decided to help him to find it. Unfortunately, a dog bites Volodya near Clean Ponds. Then Kolya decided to help his new friend again – they both came to Kolya's home where Kolya sews Volodya's trousers and introduces him to Kolya's large family. Volodya recognised that his old Moscow friends aren't in Moscow (they left for south) and Volodya stays at Kolya's. Then Volodya goes for a walk. At last alone, Kolya decided to sleep, but then came his old friend Sasha (Evgeny Steblov). Sasha is in trouble – he was planning on marrying his fiancée Sveta today, but he has been called up for military service. He begs Kolya to help him. Kolya helps. Then two young men go to the Main Department Store to buy a suit for a bridegroom and they meet Volodya there (Volody has recently bought a new suit for himself). Then friends decided to buy a present for a bride and they go to the music shop, because the saleswoman, Alyona (Galina Polskikh) is a love interest for Kolya... ===== San Francisco ad man Teddy Pierce is amused by, then obsessed with, a beautiful woman whose red dress goes billowing over her head by a gust of wind from crossing over a ventilation grate, and exposing her red satin string bikini panties. Teddy is happily married to Didi, but he cannot get this woman out of his mind. Encouraged by his friends Buddy, Joe, and Michael, he tries to ask her for a date but mistakenly phones Ms. Milner, a plain ad-agency employee who is flattered by his interest. Teddy ultimately does become acquainted with the woman in red, a British model named Charlotte, going horseback riding with her and even inviting her out on what is supposed to be a date but turns out to be a party with his relatives. He radically alters his wardrobe and begins using elaborate ruses to see Charlotte socially. Meanwhile, he incurs the wrath of Ms. Milner, whom he stood up before. Events come to a head in Charlotte's high-rise apartment, where she invites Teddy into her satin bed. He is thrilled until her airline pilot husband suddenly comes home. Trying to escape, Teddy ends up on a ledge, where passersby below believe he is about to commit suicide, all captured on live television. Didi, while watching this on live television, tears up as she believes Teddy is doing this because of her own cheating. He jumps off the window ledge and waits to be caught by the firemen. While falling, Teddy starts to become interested in a newswoman who smiles at him. ===== The story deals with a young girl, Minty (Siri Neal), staying with her aunt after her mother is injured in a car accident. Minty spends much of her time wandering around the grounds of a nearby mansion, and is drawn to a moondial that enables her to travel back in time, where she becomes involved with two children, Tom (Tony Sands), who lives in the Victorian era, and Sarah (Helena Avellano), who seems to live in "the previous century" to that, and must save them from their own unhappy lives. alt=Belton House moondial.jpg Regarded as a nostalgic favourite by followers of 1980s BBC children's drama, Moondial employs extensive location filming (in the grounds of Belton House in Lincolnshire) and fantastical, dreamlike imagery. The series was produced by Paul Stone and directed by Colin Cant. Other cast members include Valerie Lush as Minty's aunt Mary, Arthur Hewlett as the elderly, mysterious Mr. World and Jacqueline Pearce in the dual role of the vicious Miss Vole (who seems to have lived in the 18th Century) and the present-day ghost hunter Miss Raven. The series was released on video in 1990, and reissued in 1995, but only in a shortened "movie edit". This was released on DVD in 2000, but has long since been deleted. The full episodic version was released in 2009 by Reader's Digest and later re-released on DVD by Second Sight in May 2015. ===== Brown Sugar is a film that follows the evolving relationship between Sidney (Sanaa Lathan), an attractive young woman who has just been appointed the editor-in-chief of the hip-hop magazine XXL, and Dre (Taye Diggs), an A&R; for Millennium Records. They have been bound together since their early childhood. The news that Dre is preparing to be married to Reese (Nicole Ari Parker), a successful entertainment attorney, sends Sidney into a subconscious tizzy. Suddenly, she doesn't seem to know how to behave around Dre anymore, and an impulsive kiss on the eve before his wedding sends fissures of doubt cracking in every direction. Dre gets married and begins to settle into his life when a decision to sign an untalented but commercially viable rap group forces Dre to choose between his love for true hip-hop and his job. He decides to quit his job and start his own record company, focusing on bringing back the real hip hop that his generation fell in love with. Reese, however, is not understanding and thus not supportive of this venture. Additionally, as Sidney draws closer to Dre due to their partnership in the label, jealousy develops over Dre and Sidney's friendship. Sidney, who also has begun to live her life with a budding relationship with Kelby (Boris Kodjoe) receives a proposal from her boyfriend which she accepts. Turmoil ensues when Dre finds out Reese has been having secret liaisons with a man from the gym (who texts Reese to confirm a rendezvous). Dre brings Sid to bust her in the act. This leads to a night of shared passion between Dre and Sid and opens Sid's eyes to the fact she is not prepared to marry Kelby. She calls off the engagement and while searching for Dre sees Reese and Dre in a parting embrace that she misconstrues as more. While at Hot 97 waiting for Cavi's (Mos Def) first single to play on the Angie Martinez show, Dre hears Sid talking about her new book I Used to Love H.I.M. Though based on her love affair with hip-hop, it really is a chronicled timeline of her love affair with Dre. He recognizes this and rushes over to the station to confront his feelings, as well. Meanwhile, in the production booth, Sid's cousin Francine (Queen Latifah) finally asks Cavi out on a date, which is something he has been trying for since their first meeting. The film ends with Cavi's song playing in the same park where their love of hip-hop began. ===== The film opens with a fictitious newsreel, showing the opening of the Tunnel of Brotherhood and Unity by visiting President Josip Broz Tito and local dignitary Džemal Bijedić on 27 June 1971. During the ribbon-cutting ceremony, President Tito accidentally cuts his thumb with the scissors. At the beginning of the Bosnian War in 1992, Milan (Dragan Bjelogrlić), a Bosnian Serb, and his best friend Halil (Nikola Pejaković), a Bosniak Muslim, live a quiet life in a small village in eastern Bosnia, playing basketball at a kafana owned by Slobo (Petar Božović). While Milan and Halil are taking a break, Nazim, a Bosniak neighbour of Slobo, asks him if he can look after his house while he is visiting his sister in Tuzla. Halil makes comments to Nazim about moving away rather than visiting his relatives as many of their belongings can be seen in their car and trailer, which Nazim denies. A wounded Milan is then shown in bed at a military hospital in Belgrade, where he taunts a wounded young Bosniak soldier in the neighbouring room, whom he threatens to kill if his friend in the next bed dies. In 1994 during the conflict, Milan joins the Army of Republika Srpska and is attached to a squad that includes: * Velja (Nikola Kojo): a career criminal and thief from Belgrade, who did most of his work in West Germany. During a visit home the authorities came to conscript his younger brother, a promising student. Velja pretended to be his brother, knowing full well he would have been taken to the front lines for draft- dodging, becoming a soldier in his place. * Petar "Professor" (Dragan Maksimović): a Bosnian Serb school teacher from Banja Luka, he seems to have nostalgic feelings towards SFR Yugoslavia. While some of the others loot houses, he is more interested in literature and intermittently reads from a burnt diary he found in one of the villages the squad passed through. * Brzi "Speedy" (Zoran Cvijanović): a heroin addict from Belgrade, the son of a Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) officer and the only one in the group who speaks English. While high on drugs one night, he walked to a highway overpass in Belgrade where the people have gathered to cheer on the troops going to war, jumping off only to land in a JNA truck headed towards the Croatian border. It is left ambiguous whether the jump was a suicide attempt. Brzi was given an ambulance truck to drive and he now sees his involvement in the war as an attempt to get himself off drugs. * Laza (Dragan Petrović): a simple-minded and impressionable family man with old-fashioned values. Laza was so outraged by a Serbian TV news report about atrocities against Serbs that he walked to the nearest highway and hitchhiked to Belgrade to volunteer for combat. On the way there he vents his anger to the truck driver that picked him up, telling him among other things "never again shall a German or Turk set foot here", completely unaware that the person behind the wheel is a Turkish trucker driving through Serbia. * Viljuška "Fork" (Milorad Mandić): a cheerful and jovial Chetnik sympathizer from central Serbia whose only motive for fighting was looking out for his brother-in-law Laza. He is nicknamed Fork because he carries a fork around his neck symbolizing Serbian sophistication in the 14th century, and contrasts Serbian kings to English and German kings at the time, who he says ate using their hands.. * Gvozden (Bata Živojinović): the squad's captain and a professionally trained Yugoslav People's Army officer. Although fighting for the Serbian side, in his heart he still believes in Yugoslavia and its ideals. In 1980, after the death of Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito, Gvozden made the national news when he ran a 350-kilometer marathon alone across the country to attend Tito's funeral. * Marko (Marko Kovijanić): a young man who is often foolish and desperately seeking the approval of his colleagues. He is shown to be very fond of foreign culture; he drew a graffiti of a Serb three-finger salute with the caption saying "Srbija do Tokija" ("Serbia to Tokyo") on the wall of an abandoned house in a war-torn Bosniak village, later holding a Confederate flag when leaving the Bosniak village sitting on top of an M53/59 Praga, and he always wear a headband with the Chinese character for "dragon" (龍) on it. Milan, disturbed with the way the war is being conducted, is frustrated by the fact that war profiteers are looting Halil's property. Milan shoots three of the profiteers out of anger after they set fire to the auto-repair shop he and Halil had built together, wounding them, and is then shocked to find Slobo is looting the property too. Later Slobo tells him that his mother has been killed by Bosniaks from Halil's squad, and Milan returns to home to find it vandalized and covered in his mother's blood. After the squad set a village on fire, they watch it burn and Velja says: "Pretty villages are pretty when they burn. Ugly villages stay ugly, even when they burn." (in Serbian, Lepa sela lepo gore, a ružna sela ostaju ružna, čak i kad gore.) At night Milan and his squad are encircled by Bosniak fighters, telling his surviving squad mates to run to a nearby tunnel he was scared of entering as a child, believed to be home to a drekavac. Milan, Velja, Professor, Fork, Laza, and Gvozden enter the tunnel and fight off the Bosniak fighters, however the group become trapped as they will be shot if they leave. Attempting to contact their allies, the Bosniaks taunt them using Marko's radio, who they are torturing. Shortly afterwards, Speedy crashes his truck into the tunnel, with Liza Linel (Lisa Moncure) an American reporter for CBC News who had sneaked into the back of the truck, and the two also become trapped. The squad stays inside the tunnel for a week but begin to snap: Laza is mortally wounded when trying to throw a grenade. Velja tries to leave the tunnel with the intention of dying, but is shot and the others bring him back. The Bosniaks then announce they are sending a woman to the squad "for their enjoyment" who is revealed to be Milan and Halil's former school teacher who has been sexually abused. As she walks towards them slowly, they decide to shoot her before she gets too close, fearing explosives have been attached to her. None of them can do it until Fork shoots her, then having had enough of the war attempts to leave the tunnel but is killed, and Velja commits suicide. Milan recognizes the voice on the radio as Halil, and the two communicate shortly before the Bosniaks attack the tunnel. Gvozden drives the truck out of the tunnel at full speed (while singing Uz Maršala Tita) before exploding from fires lit at the entrance, killing Gvozden and the troops attacking the tunnel, allowing the others to leave. On the way out Speedy is wounded by a stray bullet and Liza is killed by shrapnel from a grenade. Milan and Halil meet outside, where Halil asks who burned down his garage while Milan asks who killed his mother - both men deny being involved before Halil is then killed by a Serb artillery strike. Milan, Professor, and Speedy escape and all three are sent to the Belgrade military hospital, where Speedy is the friend in the bed next to Milan. Speedy eventually dies, and the following night Milan tries to kill the Bosniak boy as promised, despite being unable to walk. Milan crawls into the next room, followed by an equally disabled Professor trying to stop him. As Milan goes to stab the boy with a fork, he cannot bring himself to do it, and is discovered by the nurses. An imaginary scene then shows the tunnel full of dead bodies, including Milan and Halil, being witnessed by them as children. The film closes on 21 July 1999 with a newsreel, showing the re-opening of the reconstructed tunnel under the new name, Tunnel of Peace. ===== A rich NRI businessman, Kishorilal, is looking for an Indian bride who will also be a good influence on his wayward westernised son, Rajiv. On a visit to India, he is impressed with his friend's daughter, Ganga, in whom he sees all the qualities that he hopes to instill in his son. He decides to orchestrate their match - he first sends his foster son, Arjun, to "prepare" Ganga's family, and then sends his son Rajiv to India a week later. Despite initial setbacks owing to their cultural differences, Rajiv and Ganga approve of each other. They are engaged in the village and Ganga flies to the US with Rajiv to get accustomed to American life. Everything changes almost immediately for Ganga as soon as she lands in the US. She learns that the rest of Kishorilal's family is not so keen on the match, many openly expressing their disapproval of Ganga. She also realizes that Rajiv is not the same person in the US as the one who visited her house in India. Among other things, she discovers his excesses, temper, and secrets of his past affairs. Arjun is the only person she can confide in, though she partly blames him for her situation (having presented an idealized picture of Rajiv before her engagement). To stop any growing closeness between Arjun and Ganga, Kishorilal is urged by his family to relocate him. He also arranges for Rajiv and Ganga to take a trip together to Las Vegas. Things come to a head, however, when a drunk Rajiv insists Ganga have sex with him in their hotel in Vegas. She refuses (wanting to wait for marriage) to do so because she wants him to follow the Indian rules. Rajiv reveals his contempt for his fellow Indians and terms them "hypocrites" and "stupid" and also disrespects India, which prompts Ganga to slap him. She then cancels the engagement that she was supposed to have with Rajiv by discarding the ring and then demands Rajiv to get out. Furious, he tries to assault her. However, he is overpowered by Ganga, who successfully injures him and manages to escape, before being tracked down by Arjun. Rajiv informs Kishorilal that Ganga has gone missing, who quickly starts looking for the missing Ganga. However, Arjun eventually finds her, but he finds out that she is crying at a train station with her clothes torn. He tries to persuade her to go back to Kishorilal's home, but she refuses. Arjun promises to protect her and help her get back to her family safely in India. Meanwhile, unaware of the incident at the Vegas hotel, Kishorilal informs Suraj that Arjun eloped with Ganga and Suraj quickly picks up a family sword that hangs on the wall. He tries to kill Arjun for insulting Rajiv. He also tries to kill Ganga for trying to elope with Arjun. However, Arjun saves Ganga by seizing the sword and promises her father to leave and not to return ever again, but the former requests him not to kill Ganga. Ganga says that Arjun is innocent. However, Suraj doesn't trust Ganga and locks her in a horse shed and she is not allowed to explain further. Ganga's younger siblings and grandmother secretly make their way to the horse shed and advise her to elope with Arjun. Ganga realizes that she is in love with Arjun, and with their help, manages to leave home unobserved. By this time, Kishorilal has arrived in India with Rajiv. Ganga finds Arjun at a temple and wants Arjun to admit that he loves her, but Arjun refuses to marry Ganga because he is still loyal to Kishorilal. Ganga is devastated, but before Arjun walks away. Rajiv brings several goons to kill Arjun, but Ganga can protect Arjun. However, Arjun and Rajiv eventually clash after Rajiv slaps Ganga. And then Rajiv and his goons beat up Arjun. But they stop when they find Ganga and try to get her, which is when he beats Rajiv up. When he is about to kill Rajiv, his father calls him to come to him and he demands him to tell the truth about why he came to India with Rajiv's promised bride. He accuses Kishorilal of having become a true Westerner after all since his wealth has ruined his compassion and ability to examine the truth when it doesn't match what he wants it to be. He says that he truly loves Ganga and says that he never pursued her and has acted honourably, while Rajiv in every way rejected every honourable action and lied about how Ganga came to have returned so suddenly to India. Arjun claims that Ganga was unable to merge with Western culture and also Western values almost utterly ruined Ganga. He also goes, intending never to return. Ganga shows everyone the marks inflicted on her shoulder by Rajiv in Vegas, then tells her father she is willing to die by whatever means he chooses; poison, fire, or hunger. However, Once Kishorilal and Suraj know the truth, they let Arjun marry Ganga. Rajiv is upset about this and tells Kishorilal that he is his son, but Kishorilal slaps his son. Abandoning any hope of correcting him, he orders him to return to the US. Rajiv's friend also escorts him to the US. He then announces that Ganga will also return to the US, but this time as Arjun's bride. A credit montage shows Arjun and Ganga living a happy married life in the US. ===== Kelly is a prostitute who arrives by bus in the small town of Grantville, just one more burg in a long string of quick stops on the run after being chased out of the big city by her former pimp. She engages in a quick tryst with local police captain Griff, who then tells her to stay out of his town and refers her to a cat-house just across the state line. Instead, she decides to give up her illicit lifestyle, becoming a nurse at a hospital for handicapped children. Griff doesn't trust reformed prostitutes, however, and continues trying to run her out of town. Kelly falls in love with J.L. Grant, the wealthy scion of the town's founding family, an urbane sophisticate, and Griff's best friend. After a dream-like courtship where even Kelly's admission of her past can't deter Grant, the two decide to marry. It is only after Kelly is able to finally convince Griff that she truly loves Grant and has given up prostitution for good that he agrees to be their best man. Shortly before the wedding, Kelly arrives at Grant's mansion, only to find him on the verge of molesting a small girl. As he grinningly tries to persuade her to marry him, arguing that she too is a deviant, the only one who can understand him, and that he loves her, Kelly kills him by striking him in the head with a phone receiver. Jailed, and under heavy interrogation from Griff, she must convince him and the town that she is telling the truth about Grant's death. Kelly tries to exonerate herself, but the little girl can not be located, and one disappointment follows another, as enemies old and new parade through the jailhouse to defame her. In despair, she is finally able to identify Grant's victim and prove her innocence. She is released, but, now notorious, has to leave town, boarding a bus to her next destination. ===== Nick's character is a world-class procrastinator with slovenly habits. Work takes second place to eating at Craig and Shona's cafe, and drinking at the local pub. Plots range from Nick taking on one of the locals in a fitness test, to Nick travelling to France at Cressida's invitation, unsuspectingly getting involved in a plot to give a rich man a heart attack so his wife can depart with his money. In series 1 Nick loses one girlfriend because of his habits, and in series 2 he meets a new paramour who actually understands his talking geraniums. He also miraculously lands a contract with an American studio. ===== Set in the late Victorian era, the story tells of how the Purwell family travel to Wiltshire when the father (widowed at some point) is contacted by Sir George Mortenhurze, local squire and a former cavalry officer, to seek out historical evidence of King Arthur. Professor Purwell takes his two children, Diana and Paul, with him. Arriving at the railway station they are collected by the squire's groom, 'Todman', and driven by pony and trap to his estate. On the way they briefly encounter the Moon Stallion, a white horse living wild on the moors, whom Diana is aware of despite her being blind. It transpires that the horse is the mystical messenger of the moon goddess and connected to the story of Merlin. Diana and Paul, with Estelle the daughter of the Sir George, discover that Mortenhurse and Todman seek to capture the horse. Todman, who it turns out is a "horse warlock", desires the power it would offer him as consort to Diana the moon goddess, while the squire blames the horse for his wife's death and seeks revenge. ===== William S. Bowdern (Timothy Dalton) is a World War II veteran who was severely affected by a bad experience in France on All Saints’ Day in 1944. In the first scene of the film, we flash-back through one of Bowdern's dreams to where he was trying to escape from a German advance as Schutzstaffel (SS) soldiers execute wounded American soldiers. A wounded soldier calls Bowdern, the chaplain, to give him the Last Rites; Bowdern at first denies him so he can escape. Bowdern rethinks the matter and does his duty but is bayonetted by an SS soldier. He becomes an alcoholic, tormented by his injuries and the guilt of refusing a dying man's last wish. Years later, Bowdern is teaching his students at St. Louis University (SLU) when, at the end of the lecture, an angry mob smashes the classroom's windows. When Bowdern gets out, he discovers that there is a demonstration against the school's recent racial integration. When the police arrive, he asks them to arrest "those people" -- meaning the protestors -- but the police arrest the black students instead. Angered, Bowdern physically attacks the cops, who arrest him as well. Father Raymond McBride (Henry Czerny) pays his bail, and drives him to the Alexian Brothers Hospital to show where the church places hopeless alcoholics and the mentally ill. Robbie Mannheim (Jonathan Malen) is sitting with his aunt, Hanna (Piper Laurie), who is teaching him how to contact the ‘other world’. Robbie's mother (Shannon Lawson) suddenly discovers the two at the Ouija board. She scolds Aunt Hanna for disregarding her request that she must not expose Robbie to such ideas. Robbie disobeys his mother's demands that he stay away from the supernatural, as he enjoys the contacts. When Aunt Hanna dies, Robbie continues trying to reach the other world. One day one of Robbie's classmates (Sensei Jamie) during school is severely wounded in the hand when a desk falls on top of him. Robbie is blamed. Ultimately, he is expelled from school. His father (Michael Rhoades) demands to know why Robbie hurt his classmate. When Robbie explains to his father that he did not deliberately do that and the desk moved itself, his father does not believe him. During their conversation, the chair on which Robbie is sitting moves out from under him, making Robbie crash to the floor. Robbie's parents feel someone or something is trying to harm their child. They feel he may really be ‘possessed’. They take him to the Lutheran Pastor Reverend Eckhardt (Richard Waugh), who understands what is happening to Robbie and takes him to his house to put him under exact monitoring (by putting him in a special room and attaching a light in front of his bed to help him record daily reactions by his camera). During Robbie's stay, several things occur that convince Pastor Eckhardt that Robbie is being afflicted by demons: strange noises are made in the house, the wall clock is smashed, and Robbie falls into fits of rage and hysteria. When Pastor Eckhardt tells his wife that Robbie should be treated by the Catholics, Robbie attacks him. McBride visits the family in their house to check on Robbie after his parents go to the university requesting help. During one of Robbie's fits of hysteria, the parents find the letters SLU scrawled on his belly. When McBride enters his room, he is attacked and becomes convinced that the child is endowed with some sort of supernatural power. He convinces Bowdern to visit the family. Bowdern visits Robbie in his room, comforting him with his knowledge of comic books. Bowdern notices that Robbie is interested in magic and ventriloquism, while Robbie notices that Fr. Bowdern is affected by his collection of toy soldiers that sets off a post traumatic stress disorder event. When Father Bowdern tries to convince the parents that there is nothing wrong with Robbie, the boy suddenly becomes hysterical, speaking in Latin as things fly across the room. Bowdern becomes convinced that Robbie must undergo treatment. Bowdern and McBride go to Archbishop Hume (Christopher Plummer) to persuade him to give Robbie an exorcism. The Archbishop is skeptical, saying that he is trying to improve the Catholic Church's public image as a modern institution, free of ancient superstition. He requests to speak to McBride alone, and he nominates Bowdern to handle the issue. Bowdern begins Robbie's treatment, assisted by McBride and Father Walter Halloran (Michael McLachlan). They conduct several visits to him during which Robbie starts throwing temper tantrums. He scratches at them, vomits and urinates on them, and swears uncontrollably. During the treatment trials, Bowdern has flashbacks to his war experiences and dreads that this may be another failure. Robbie is transferred twice to two different churches. Finally, Bowdern manages to cure him. The room in the church where the exorcism takes place is locked on Archbishop Hume's orders. ===== The place is New York City, the time is the 1980s. Middle-aged, upper-middle class Greg finds Sylvia, a dog (played by a human), in the park and takes a liking to her. He brings her back to the empty nest he shares with Kate. When Kate gets home, she reacts very negatively to Sylvia and wants her gone. They eventually decide that Sylvia will stay for a few days before they decide whether she can stay longer, but Greg and Sylvia have already bonded. Over the next few days, Greg spends more and more time with Sylvia and less time at his job. Greg and Sylvia go on long walks; they discuss life and astronomy. Already dissatisfied with his job, Greg now has another reason to avoid work. Tension increases between Greg and Kate, who still does not like Sylvia. Eventually, Greg becomes completely obsessed with Sylvia, and Kate fears their marriage is falling apart. Kate and Sylvia are at odds with each other, each committed to seeing the other defeated. Greg meets a strange character at the dog run, who gives Greg tips on how to manage Sylvia and his predicament involving Kate. Greg has Sylvia spayed. Sylvia is angry and in pain, but she still loves him completely. Kate's friend pays a visit and is repulsed by Greg and Sylvia. Greg, Kate and Sylvia sing "Every Time We Say Goodbye". Greg and Kate visit a therapist, Leslie, who is ambiguously male and female depending on her patients' state of mind. After a session with Greg, Leslie tells Kate to get a gun and shoot Sylvia: "I hope you get her right between the eyes." Kate is asked to teach abroad, in London, and tells Greg that the English have a six- month quarantine for any dogs coming into the country. Greg is unwilling, but eventually he succumbs and gives the news to Sylvia, that he must give her away, to a family who have a farm in Westchester County. Greg and Sylvia have a heated and tender moment. Kate and Sylvia say goodbye; but, before Greg and Sylvia leave for Westchester, Sylvia returns the annotated and slightly chewed version of "Alls Well That Ends Well" that Kate has been looking for, and Kate has a change of heart. The last scene is directed toward the audience. Sylvia has died, and Greg and Kate still hold her memory in all fondness. ===== Bart and Lisa want to visit Itchy & Scratchy Land, an amusement park, but Marge has already planned a family vacation to a bird sanctuary. Bart and Lisa persuade their parents to visit the theme park by revealing it has areas for adults, including bars, bowling alleys and a rehab center. Marge dislikes Itchy & Scratchy Land's violent themes and attractions, but the family's trip goes well until Bart launches a stink bomb into an actor's Itchy suit. After Homer kicks another Itchy character in the butt, he is arrested by park security and joins Bart in a detention cell. Marge lectures Bart and Homer after they are released from custody. Despite a park employee assuring the Simpsons they are programmed to only attack each other, the Itchy and Scratchy robots go rogue and start attacking humans. A worker refuses to allow the Simpsons to evacuate aboard a helicopter because of Bart and Homer's misdeeds. The power supply is cut, plunging the park into darkness. A horde of Itchy and Scratchy robots advances on the Simpsons. While frantically throwing things to repel them, Homer discovers a camera flash short-circuits the robots' systems and immobilizes them. The Simpsons grab dozens of cameras from a gift shop and defeat the entire Itchy & Scratchy army. Employees thank the Simpsons for saving the park. Despite their ordeal, they agree this was their best vacation ever, but Marge insists that none of them ever mention it again. ===== The player assumes the role of William Crowe, an American who experiences the various phases of the Pacific War with Japan, beginning with the Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941. Crowe's brother Charlie is killed during the attack. He is restationed at Wake Island where he comes under the command of Admiral Daniel Howells. He later participates in escorting Howells off the island as it is about to fall to the Japanese. When they make it to the Lexington, Crowe gets a new squadron consisting of Cunningham, Murphy, Slater, and commanded by Callahan. The Battle of the Coral Sea, the Battle of Midway, Guadalcanal, and the Marshall Islands are all featured in one or more missions. The final mission of the campaign is on February 23, 1945 with the raising of the United States flag on Iwo Jima. ===== Lifelong best friends Alice Marano and Darlene Davis take a trip after graduating from high school, giving their parents the impression that they're going to Hawaii. However, Alice talks Darlene into going to Thailand instead, after comparing the prices of both destinations. Darlene agrees, albeit with some reluctance. Once in Thailand, they meet a captivating Australian man who calls himself Nick Parks. Unknown to them, Nick Parks is a drug smuggler. Darlene is particularly smitten with Nick and convinces Alice to take Nick up on his offer to treat the two of them to what amounts to a day trip to Hong Kong. While boarding their flight at Don Mueang International Airport, the girls are seized by the police. Alice and Darlene are shocked to discover that one of their bags contains heroin, which had been planted by Nick. The two girls are interrogated by the Thai police and Darlene signs a confession written in Thai, which she foolishly thinks is her verbatim statement. At their trial, they beg for mercy and are given a lenient 33-year sentence instead of the usual life sentence in prison. In prison, the girls are advised to seek out Henry Greene, aka "Yankee Hank", an expatriate American attorney living in Thailand. As the girls try to deal with the violence and squalor of prison, Hank begins work on their case. He tracks down another girl who had been used as an unwitting drug mule by Nick Parks, but is warned that the smuggler has friends in high places. Hank arranges a deal with a corrupt prosecutor whereby the girls will receive clemency if they "confess" to lying about Parks' involvement and take full blame. The girls agree, but the prosecutor double crosses them on the deal. Realizing that Darlene will not survive their time in prison, Alice begs the King of Thailand to allow her to serve both sentences in exchange for letting Darlene go. The deal is accepted and Darlene is released. She promises to continue working with Henry to try to free Alice. ===== The show opened with two young children from Yokohama discussing the ancient creation of Japan. Soon, an anthropomorphic crane appeared to tell them the whole story. She took them back through time to uncover the ancient Jōmon people and the difficult relationship they encountered with the sea and land. But it changed in the next era when Prince Shōtoku devoted his efforts to 'meet the world' and created a constitution, explored Chinese culture and brought Buddhism, arts and writing systems to Japan. The crane then took them forward through time. They arrived at Tanegashima where Portuguese traders met with locals, introducing Japan to new trade opportunities as well as the outside world. Additionally, firearms and Christianity were introduced during this period. However, because of these elements, the Sakoku policy of self-exile was enacted, leaving the country in isolation, apart from limited trade with the Dutch and Chinese at Nagasaki. Only when US Navy Commodore Matthew C. Perry arrived with his Black Ships did the exile end and Japan 'meet the world' again. The shogun retired and signaled the time of the Meiji Restoration. However, the ruling power took the idea of 'meet the world' from a peaceful one to a destructive and aggressive one. As a result, Japan soon entered "dark days", but the crane reassured the two children that those days have ended and that Japan now led the way of today. The young boy asked the crane if she was the "Spirit of Japan", but she responded that he and all the other people were the "Spirit of Japan". A final montage of Japan's modern accomplishments brought the show to a close as the children and the crane soared to the skies on a hot-air balloon. ===== The film opens up with surveillance camera views of a mansion and its rooms; the views alternate among images of nine people being kidnapped. Lea (Kelly Brook), an abductee, wakes up in a bedroom. She notices others in nearby bedrooms, and runs to the main door, bangs at it, and shouts to be let out. She finds the windows are all walled with bricks; even the basement door is blocked. She has a panic attack and passes out. Lea is awakened by Father Duffy (Dennis Hopper), a priest who is with a group of seven people. A voice (Jim Carter) comes over a speaker which announces they are gathered to play a game. Their friends and family are being "taken care of", so they won't be found. Also, they were chosen "not based on who they are, but what they are". It is like a reality show, only much graver: the rules are that the winner is the last one left alive; he or she would then be freed, and also receive compensation of five million U.S. dollars. The players discuss the situation. They try to break down the door using a dining table as a battering ram, and then try to dig and break through other holes, but nothing works. A sound from the kitchen reveals a dumbwaiter with food. In the dining room, the players introduce themselves. Father Duffy is a priest. Jay is a cop with a pistol. Lea is a dancer. Claire is a tennis player. Francis is a musician, and Cynthia is his wife. Al B is an ambitious rapper who covets Jay's gun, and assumes anything said about him is racially motivated. Shona is a drug addict with an ankle bracelet monitor; some players hope that this may attract outside help. Max Roy (Peter Capaldi) is a clothes designer. After dinner, the players choose bedrooms. Cynthia and Francis take one, and Duffy gets his own; the others share. Jay and Lea talk about their families, until someone sneaks in and tries to steal Jay's gun. Jay and Lea foil the attempt and assemble everyone in the hallway where they all argue. Afterwards, Jay tells Lea that he only trusts her and Duffy. The players open a wine cabinet and have drinks, except for Duffy, who returns to his room. Lea goes for a walk and Jay sits at his bed. Francis leaves with a glass stopper; he breaks it in the bathroom, and hides some shards under the toilet lid. Shona, Claire and Max get drunk. Al B flirts and dances with Cynthia, until Francis arrives. The two men fight, but when Cynthia intervenes, Al B pushes her and knocks the back of her head against the stone railing, which causes her death. Jay "arrests" Al B, and locks him in a room using a pipe. The players are shocked at Cynthia's death. Al B screams to be let out. Duffy brings him food, but he escapes and attacks Jay with the pipe; he beats him to a pulp. With his dying breath, Jay gives Duffy his gun. Al B slowly backs into the room and shuts the door. The next day, the six remaining players find food and wine, along with a card that says "Good work". They run to Al B's room and find that he has hanged himself. Duffy and Lea stand in shock, while the other players leave to eat. Francis retreats and show signs of a mental breakdown. Shona and Claire argue, and it escalates to the point where Claire kills Shona. Meanwhile, Francis goes after Lea, who is washing her face in the bathroom. He rips the light fixture from the wall and throws it into the sink, electrocuting her. Claire tells Duffy that she killed Shona in self-defense. Duffy leaves to look for Lea, and finds her on the bathroom floor. Francis arrives, and pretends to act surprised. Meanwhile, Claire goes to get food, but sees Max. She offers to form an alliance with him; he accepts. Francis attacks Duffy with the assumption he would not retaliate with the gun, but Duffy shoots him in the stomach. As Claire turns around to the sound, Max wraps his belt around her neck. Duffy returns to the foyer and sees Max strangle Claire. Max explains that "she was stealing food", but refuses Duffy's pleas to stop. Duffy shoots Max in the head. The gunshot awakens Lea, who had survived the electrocution. She barricades the door and rushes to the shower, but knocks the toilet lid and discovers the glass shards that Francis hid. She tears a shower curtain and wraps it around one of the shards. Duffy asks Claire if she is okay, but he is stabbed in the back by Francis, and he drops the gun. Francis retrieves it and shoots Claire. Duffy pleads for his life, but Francis uses the last round to shoot him. He then declares victory, repeatedly shouting "I Win!" Upstairs, Lea makes a commotion when she fumbles with the toilet cover. Francis hears the noise and heads upstairs. Lea hides under the bed when Francis walks in the room. After seeing that Lea is no longer in the bathroom, he spots her, and toys with her briefly before pulling her out. In the ensuing struggle, Lea stabs Francis in the leg with the shard, and runs to a balcony. Francis charges her, and they flip over the railing. Lea lands on top of Francis, but when she gets up, she realizes the shard had pierced Francis in the heart. The front door opens, revealing a bright light, and a bag on the floor. Lea walks to the door, picks up the bag, and leaves. ===== After Britain's declaration of World War II, Roy Cronin (Robert Taylor), an army colonel, is being driven to London's Waterloo station en route to France, and briefly alights on Waterloo Bridge to reminisce about events which occurred during the First World War when he met Myra Lester (Vivien Leigh) whom he had planned to marry. While Roy gazes at a good luck charm, a billiken that she had given him, the story unfolds. Roy, a captain in the Rendleshire Fusiliers on his way to the front, and Myra, a ballerina, serendipitously meet crossing Waterloo Bridge during an air raid, striking up an immediate rapport while taking shelter. Myra invites Roy to attend that evening's ballet performance and an enamored Roy ignores an obligatory dinner with his colonel to do so. Roy sends a note to Myra to join him after the performance, but the note is intercepted by the mistress of the ballet troupe, the tyrannical Madame Olga (Maria Ouspenskaya), who forbids Myra from having any relationship with Roy. They meet anyway at a romantic night spot. Roy has to go to the front immediately and proposes marriage but wartime circumstances thwart them from marrying immediately. Roy assures Myra that his family will look after her while he is away. Madame Olga learns of Myra's disobedience and dismisses her from the troupe along with fellow dancer Kitty (Virginia Field) when she scolds Madame for spoiling Myra's happiness. The young women share a small flat and look for work. Myra and Roy's mother, Lady Margaret Cronin (Lucile Watson), arrange to meet, their first introduction to each other. Awaiting Lady Margaret's belated arrival at a tea room, Myra scans a newspaper and faints on finding Roy listed among the war dead. Unhappily, the dazed Myra is taking a long drink of brandy just as Lady Margaret appears. Unable to disclose the dreadful news, her banal and incoherent conversation shocks her prospective mother-in-law, who withdraws without seeking an explanation. Myra falls ill with grief and to cover all their expenses, Kitty becomes a streetwalker. Belatedly, Myra, who believed that Kitty was working as a stage performer, learns what her friend has done. Feeling that she has alienated Lady Margaret and having no desire to live, the heartbroken Myra joins her friend Kitty as a prostitute to support them both. A year passes. While offering herself to soldiers on leave arriving at Waterloo station, Myra catches sight of Roy, who is alive and well; he had been wounded and held as a prisoner of war. A reconciliation occurs—a joyous one for Roy, a bittersweet one for Myra. The couple travels to the family estate in Scotland to visit Lady Margaret, who deduces the misunderstanding that occurred at the tea room. Myra is also accepted by Roy's uncle, the Duke (C. Aubrey Smith), but he inadvertently feeds her guilt with assertions that she would never bring shame to the family. Confronted by the impossibility of a happy marriage, breaking off the engagement seems her only choice. Myra discloses the truth to a compassionate Lady Margaret but is unable to believe herself worthy of marrying Roy. Myra leaves behind a goodbye note and returns to London. Roy follows, and with the aid of Kitty, looks for her despite discovering the truth in the process. Myra, depressed and returning to the Waterloo Bridge, takes her own life by walking into the path of a moving truck. In the present, the older Roy reminisces about Myra's sincere final profession of love only for him. He tucks the charm into his coat pocket, gets into his car, and leaves. ===== The story begins with the United States collapsing economically — bankers inflating the money supply, the government agents struggling to keep their power. Trading in foreign currency is illegal. Businesses are subject to rationing. As a result, there is a growing black market for everything. It's the world as Samuel Edward Konkin III conceived it prior to a successful agorist revolution. Elliot Vreeland, son of Nobel Laureate Austrian School economist Dr. Martin Vreeland, learns of his father's apparent death, and is rushed home from school. But the death is fake, a plot concocted by his father to escape arrest by the government agents who are detaining "radicals" accused of worsening the economic crisis. Elliot is sent by his father to collect some gold coins stored in case the family has to escape. Upon his return home, Elliot finds his family missing. Government agents enter the house searching for Elliot, who manages to escape. Elliot becomes acquainted with the Revolutionary Agorist Cadre, an organization plotting the end of the government agents by means of counter-economics. The cadre is strong and organized, and has its militia. Elliot enlists their help, and meets Lorimer, a girl hiding from the government agents; they develop a relationship. As the government agents weaken, they tighten controls on communication, travel, and trade. This fails to avert economic collapse, causing the private sector — unions, syndicates, and many unorganized individuals — to control the old infrastructure. The 2013 graphic novel and 2014 movie update the book's plot with current references and technology. The location changes from New York city to Las Vegas. ===== The film opens as Leo (Kevin McKidd), an openly gay man celebrating his 30th birthday, arrives home and is very unhappy to find a surprise-party organised by his roommates Darren (Tom Hollander) and Angie (Julie Graham) in full swing. Leo has a complicated personal history with some of the guests and hides in his bedroom, feeling grumpy and old. The film then goes into an extended flashback which explains this history. It turns out that his brother Adam (Christopher Fulford) had encouraged Leo to attend his weekly men's group run by New Age-type goofball Keith (Simon Callow) whose wife is Sybil (Harriet Walter). There, Leo meets hunky Irishman Brendan (James Purefoy) whom he develops a crush on, which he reluctantly reveals to the group. However Brendan is straight and lives with his ex-girlfriend Sally (Jennifer Ehle) who is later revealed to be Leo's high school sweetheart. A series of 'Iron John' group exercises leads Brendan and Leo to develop a friendship. As they bond, it becomes clear that Brendan's curiosity towards Leo starts to grow in a sexual escalade. In the men's group, one of the other groupsmen become very jealous of Leo's "friendship" with Brendan and that he does not have that with Leo. Brendan fights with the lad over Leo. The friendship is soon to become more, as Brendan appears unexpectedly late one night at Leo's door and sleeps with him; after which they become something of a couple, to the consternation of one man in their men's group, though it encourages another, Terry (Con O'Neill), to explore his sexuality. Meanwhile, flamboyant Darren has met real estate agent Jeremy (Hugo Weaving), who gets a kick out of having sex in houses for sale he has been given the keys to. However, he is not interested into "couply" things, despite Darren's attempts. Eventually this leads to them having sex with handcuffs and blindfolds in the bedroom of the house which Sally has on the market, during which she unexpectedly returns home. Jeremy abandons Darren, who dumps him. Leo gets close once more with Sally, and ends up kissing her. Feeling guilty, he leaves in a panic, and ends up telling Brendan what happened, who goes ballistic as he still has feelings for Sally. Leo finds himself in a quandary, and decides to confess to Sally that he is the one who is seeing Brendan (Sally had previously believed it was Leo's roommate Angie). He inadvertently does so while Brendan is there too, and leaves Brendan to face Sally. The film then returns to the party, where Brendan and Terry get into an argument over Leo and take it outside, where Brendan punches Terry on the nose, who crumples. Brendan asks him to go with him for a drink (the same tactic he had employed with Leo). Thus, Brendan starts dating; Leo's brother Adam and Angie get together; Jeremy and Darren make up; and Leo sleeps with Sally. ===== Mine owner William Sharon (Larry Keating) keeps having his gold shipments held up by a gang of bandits. Sharon hires banker Charles Crocker (Thurston Hall), who happens to have connections in the Central Pacific Railroad, to build a spur line from Virginia City to Carson City, so that the gold can be shipped by rail. Silent Jeff Kincaid (Randolph Scott) is the railroad engineer. However, there is opposition to the railroad, chiefly from another mine owner, Big Jack Davis (Raymond Massey). He doesn’t own a working mine; he finds it easier to rob from the other owners. Davis is the brains behind the gang holding up Sharon’s shipments. The technique is to hold up the stagecoach and then provide food and champagne for the passengers, who then don’t care that the gold is robbed. Kincaid vows to rid Carson City of the bandits, but they frame him on a murder charge. In the climax, Kincaid has to contend with a suspicious landslide which kills some of his workers, trapping others, and a gold bullion heist. ===== In the future, where it's faster to travel by exchanging bodies with someone at the destination, a man's body is hijacked by a ruthless terrorist. Toffler (Kim Coates), a member of the privileged "Corpie" (corporate) class, accidentally ends up in the body of a terrorist named Fisk (Kyle MacLachlan), who has in turn taken over Toffler's original body. Unable to continue as Fisk, Toffler is forced to use a cloned body (Stephen Baldwin) with a limited lifespan, in order to track down Fisk and get his original body back. ===== Alan West, British government official in Brazil, is kidnapped by the M.R.B. (Movimento Revolucionario Brasileiro) in order to be exchanged for political prisoners. His guard, Carlos Esquerdo, is a would-be philosopher, reciting quotes by Fanon and Camus, and interested in poetry and chess. He tries to make his hostage understand the ideas behind the revolutionary movement, reads their manifesto to him, and says that the corrupt government must be punished for "selling our country to the interests of US capitalism, which it has allowed to exploit our resources and steal our land, while our people starve and suffer all the miseries of poverty and unemployment". While Esquerdo focuses on the plight of the 90 million Brazilian workers and landless farmers, West is preoccupied with the extinction of the indigenous Indians. In flashbacks, the audience learns that West has long been interested in Indian culture, rituals, and legends, and that he is aware of the genocide under way in the country. He knows that if no measures are taken, there will be few Indians left to tell their tales and perform their cultural rites of the Quarup. They were being murdered by gifts of poisoned sugar, introduced infectious disease, and outright slaughter financed by greedy land owners and speculators, both foreign and domestic. Henchman Ataide Pereira tells an American investigator of the history of murder and mercilessness. The play also criticises missionaries; Reverend Elmer Penn is portrayed as treating "his flock" of converted Indians like domesticated animals not fit to think for themselves. An anthropologist sees the situation as clearly as West but has no power or means to change it for the better. Finally, Esquerdo shoots and kills West. The play ends with the historic bombing during the Quarup celebrations, which extinguished the Cintas Tribe. ===== An evil Archbishop and his followers summon a demon to destroy the world, but the demon's first act is to kill its summoners. It does so in an appropriately unique manner, by turning the bodies of its victims into what appears to be solid shadow, which disintegrates at the first touch of light, any light. Light is in fact the demon's anathema. Unable to stand the slightest glimmer at its creation, the creature gains strength and solidity with each kill, allowing it a greater resistance to the light; and with it the ability to affect and control those around it, including a pack of vicious dogs. As the town is orchestrated towards its own destruction, it proceeds to hunt down a particular child. A pivotal sacrifice, necessary to complete its transition into the light, and unleash its Evil. ===== In the film's prologue, two geological researchers for the American multinational corporation NTI encounter an ancient alien laboratory on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. In the lab is an egg-like container which is keeping an alien creature alive. The creature emerges and kills the researchers. Two months later, the geologists' spaceship crashes into the space station Concorde in orbit around Earth's Moon, its pilot having died in his seat. NTI dispatches a new ship, the Shenandoah, to Titan. Its crew, consisting of Captain Mike Davison (Stan Ivar), Susan Delambre (Marie Laurin), Jon Fennel (Robert Jaffe), Dr. Wendy H. Oliver (Annette McCarthy), David Perkins (Lyman Ward) and Beth Sladen (Wendy Schaal), is accompanied by the taciturn security officer Melanie Bryce (Diane Salinger). While in orbit, the crew locate a signal coming from the moon—the distress call of a ship from the rival West German multinational Richter Dynamics. Their own landing turns disastrous when the ground collapses beneath their landing site, dropping the ship into a cavern and wrecking it. When radio communication fails, a search party is sent out to contact the Germans. In the West German ship, they find one of the containers from the prologue breached, as well as the dead bodies of the crew. The creature appears and kills Delambre when she lags behind the escaping group. Fennel enters a state of shock at the sight and Bryce sedates him. When they return to their own ship, the Americans find that one of the West Germans, Hans Rudy Hofner (Klaus Kinski), has snuck aboard. He tells them how his crew was slain by the creature, which was buried with other organisms as part of a galactic menagerie. He proposes returning to his ship to get explosives, but the crew are unwilling to risk it. It becomes apparent that the creature's undead victims are controlled by the creature through parasites. Unsupervised in the medbay, Fennel sees the undead Delambre through a porthole and follows her outside. She strips naked, and he stands transfixed while she removes his helmet. He asphyxiates, and then she attaches an alien parasite to his head. Now under alien control, Fennel sends a transmission to his crewmates, inviting them over to the German ship. Hofner and Bryce are sent to get some air tanks for the Shenandoah and stand guard over it, while the rest of the crew go over to the Richter ship. Hofner and Bryce stop over at the menagerie on their way, and are attacked by Delambre, who has had a parasite attached earlier. The rest of the crew go over to the Richter ship, and find Fennel with a bandage on his head to conceal his parasite. Davison insists that medical officer Oliver examine his head, so Fennel has her accompany him to the engineering quarters to feed her to the creature. Davison and Perkins notice Fennel doesn't sweat and go check on them. They are too late to rescue Oliver, who is decapitated by the creature, but Perkins blows up Fennel's head with his pistol. Soon afterwards, Sladen runs into an infected Hofner. She escapes the ship, and in her haste, only puts on her helmet after exiting. Perkins spots her outside and opens the airlock. Now unconscious, Sladen is carried in by Hofner to lure the others. They fight, and Davison manages to defeat Hofner by ripping off his parasite. The three survivors formulate a plan to electrocute the creature with the ship's fusion modules, which can only be accessed by going through the engineering quarters. Alarms suddenly sound as a creature makes its way through the ship, committing sabotage. Sladen and Davison go through engineering to construct an electrocution trap, while Perkins goes to the computer room to monitor the creature. Sladen finishes rigging the trap just in time for the creature's arrival, and they apparently electrocute it to death. However, when Davison leaves, it captures Sladen. Davison and Perkins follow her screaming and find her locked inside engineering. Studying the ship's blueprints, they find another entrance to engineering and sends Perkins to lure away the creature while Davison retrieves Sladen. On the way, Perkins locates one of the bombs Hofner had mentioned, just before the creature jumps him. Dying, Perkins manages to attach the bomb to the creature and set off the countdown so Davison can jettison it through the airlock. It climbs back aboard, however, so Davison tackles it, throwing himself out the airlock in the process. When the bomb fails to explode, Bryce appears and shoots it, which sets it off and kills the creature. She recovers Davison and reunites with Sladen, who dresses Davison's wounds. Finally, the trio leaves Titan aboard the West German ship. ===== Set during the Second World War the story follows six children living in the fictional town of Garmouth which regularly suffers bombing raids by the German Luftwaffe. When Chas McGill finds a crashed German Heinkel 111 bomber he removes a fully operational machine gun and over 2000 rounds of ammunition. With the help of his friends, Cem, Clogger, Carrot Juice, Audrey and Nicky they set up their own den called "Fortress Caporetto", named after a World War I battle in which Chas's grandfather fought. Later a bomb lands on Nicky's house and he is presumed dead but actually survives and hides in the fortress, where he is found by the gang. After this, only his friends know he is alive and Clogger leaves his home and joins him. During an attack by a Bf 110 fighter, the children fire their gun at the plane. They miss but the plane is shot down. The pilot is killed but the rear gunner, Rudi Gerlath, bails out. He discovers the children's hidden fortress and is promptly detained by the children, who take his pistol, even though their machine gun is damaged and inoperable. The children do not hand the German over to the authorities, but keep him prisoner at their fort. The children bribe the German with the offer of a boat if he will repair their machine gun. He agrees and mends it before being taken to the dock where he rows off. The same night the church bells ring signalling a German invasion. The children hurry to the fortress but do not see anything; it was a false alarm. Out at sea, Rudi finds he does not have the strength to row to German-occupied Norway and is forced back to England and rejoins the children at the fortress. The next day it is realised that the children are missing, and some Polish soldiers are drafted in to look for them. The children, on hearing troops speak in a foreign language, open fire on them with the gun, believing they are a German invasion force. The children are soon overpowered, however, and forced to surrender. In the chaos, Clogger shoots and wounds Rudi with his own Luger pistol. The very well-made fortress is surrendered to the Home Guard, then Clogger and Nicky are taken to a children's home while the other children are handed over to their parents. ===== Jeremy "Powder" Reed (Sean Patrick Flanery) is a young albino man who has incredible intellect and is able to sense the thoughts of the people around him. Jeremy's brain possesses a powerful electromagnetic charge, which causes electrical objects to function abnormally when he is around them, particularly when he becomes emotional. The electromagnetic charge also prevents hair from growing on his body. Jeremy's mother was struck by lightning while pregnant with him; she died shortly after the strike, but Jeremy survived. His father disowned him shortly after his premature birth, and he was raised by his grandparents. Jeremy lived in the basement and worked on their farm, never leaving their property and learning everything he knew from books. He is taken from his home when his grandfather is found dead of natural causes. Jessie Caldwell (Mary Steenburgen), a child services psychologist, takes him to a boys' home because he is now effectively a ward of the state. Jessie enrolls him in high school, where Jeremy meets physics teacher Donald Ripley (Jeff Goldblum). Donald finds out that Jeremy has supernatural powers as well as the highest IQ in history. While his abilities mark him as special, they also make him an outcast. On a hunting trip with his schoolmates, Jeremy is threatened with a gun by John Box (Bradford Tatum), an aggressive student who views him as a freak. Before John can fire, a gun goes off in the distance, and everyone rushes to see that Harley Duncan, a Sheriff's deputy, has shot a doe. Anguished by the animal's death, Jeremy touches both the deer and Harley at the same time, inducing in Harley what the students assume is a seizure. Harley later admits that Jeremy had actually caused him to feel the pain and fear of the dying deer. Because of the experience, Harley removes all of his guns from his house, although Sheriff Doug Barnum (Lance Henriksen) allows him to remain as a sheriff's deputy without a sidearm. Doug enlists Jeremy to help speak to his dying wife through telepathy. Through Jeremy, the sheriff learns that his wife clings onto life because she didn't want to die while not wearing her wedding ring and without him reconciling with his estranged son, Steven. She tells him that Steven found the ring and that it has been sitting in a silver box on her nightstand the entire time. Doug then places the ring on his wife's finger and reconciles with Steven, letting his wife die peacefully. Jeremy meets Lindsey Kelloway, a romantic interest, but their relationship is broken by Lindsey's father. Before the interruption, he tells Lindsey that he can see the truth about people: that they are scared and feel disconnected from the rest of the world but in truth are all connected to everything that exists. Jeremy goes back to the juvenile facility and packs away his belongings, planning to run away to his farm. He pauses in the gym to stare at a male student washing, noticing the latter's luxurious head of hair as well as body hair which he himself lacks, and is caught at it by John Box, who accuses him of homosexuality. John steals Jeremy's hat and taunts him, but Jeremy reveals that John's words mimic what his stepfather said before beating him when he was 12, infuriating him. John and the other boys humiliate Jeremy, stripping him naked and taunting him. His powers begin to manifest by pulling at their metal buttons and any piercings. Eventually, a large spherical electromagnetic pulse erupts throwing Jeremy into a mud puddle and everyone else to the ground. John is found still, with his heart stopped. Jeremy uses an electric shock to revive him. Jeremy returns to the farm where he grew up, now in probate with the bank, and finds that all of his possessions have been removed. He is joined by Jessie, Donald, and Doug, who persuade Jeremy to come with them to find a place where he will not be feared and misunderstood. Instead, he runs into a field where a lightning bolt strikes him, and he disappears in a blinding flash of light. The electrical jolt hits Jessie, Donald, Doug, and Harley. ===== Da Capo centers around Jun'ichi Asakura, who lives with his adopted sister Nemu on Hatsune, a fictional crescent-shaped island where cherry blossoms bloom all year long, where they attend high school. On this island, people have mysterious powers and attributes, sourced by the unwilting magical cherry tree. Jun'ichi can see other people's dreams. One of his friends, Kotori Shirakawa, is an idol at the school who can "read minds". One day, to Jun'ichi's surprise, his cousin Sakura Yoshino comes back from America all of a sudden, who looks exactly the same girl that moved away six years ago, and has not aged one bit. She returned to remind Jun'ichi of their childhood promise. ===== James Curtayne (Tracy) has retired from criminal law, but when Johnny O'Hara (Arness), a boy from the neighborhood, is accused of a murder, Curtayne takes the case. The boy's parents plead for Curtayne's help, even though they are too poor to pay him a fee. A man Johnny knew was shot and killed during the night by two people in a passing car. The only witness, from a distance, was a man coming out of a diner. Johnny flees when the cops come to question him. Once the boy is in custody, Detective Ricks (O'Brien) and District Attorney Barra (John Hodiak) explain that a gun owned by Johnny appears to be the murder weapon. A young punk, Pete Korvac (William Campbell), is claiming that he was Johnny's accomplice in the crime and is willing to testify that Johnny pulled the trigger. Johnny insists he was working all night, but no one can verify that. What he refuses to tell the authorities, or even his own lawyer, is that he was with Katrina Lanzetta (Yvette Duguay), the young wife of a local gangster known as Knuckles (Eduardo Ciannelli). She has fallen in love with Johnny, but he is determined to protect her honor and her safety. Curtayne's daughter Ginny (Diana Lynn) didn't want her widower dad to take on such a stressful case because he is a recovering alcoholic. Ginny lives with him, putting her own future with boyfriend Jeff (Richard Anderson) on hold. Curtayne expresses confidence he can handle the strain. He goes to see the Korvac family, trying to learn why young Pete, who has a criminal past, would double-cross Johnny this way. He also visits Knuckles, who knew the victim and is volunteering to help Curtayne, but the lawyer neither trusts nor believes Knuckles and declines his offer. The case begins to go badly for the defense. Johnny's alibi about being at work proves to be a lie. Pete's chatty testimony is convincing and Curtayne has been unable to rattle him. Curtayne confides in Ricks, his friend, that he is becoming forgetful at inopportune times in court. Desperate, knowing that Johnny's life is on the line, Curtayne not only resumes drinking, he bribes the eyewitness with $500 after learning the man, Sven Norson (Jay C. Flippen), is willing to change his story for a price. D.A. Barra discovers the bribe. He wins the case, convicting Johnny of murder, then must decide what to do about Curtayne's behavior, possibly seeking to have him disbarred. Curtayne, however, is tipped off by Ricks about the boy's relationship with gangster Knuckles' wife, who is willing to come forward and accept the consequences now that Johnny's been found guilty. Curtayne tries to set up Knuckles, certain that he is the one behind the murder. He wears a wire for the police, looking for a confession. Instead, it turns out one of Pete Korvac's brothers is the man who did the fatal shooting, and Curtayne ends up at gunpoint. By the time Ricks, Barra and others tailing him can get there to make an arrest, Curtayne ends up fatally shot. ===== The play is set in 1974, London, in a single room in Ann's flat. There are three characters: Ann, her former boyfriend Dave, and her lover Patrick. Ann and Patrick are contentedly sitting at home one night, listening to music and talking, when Dave breaks in. His violent temper is clear from the beginning: He punches Patrick on the nose, then refuses to leave, even as Ann threatens to call the police. It soon turns out that Ann used Dave's work trip to Cyprus to break up with him as she had long planned to do. Now a colleague from work--her new boyfriend, Patrick-- has moved in with her. Dave refuses to accept the situation and demands an explanation, bullying Ann, and being overly friendly with Patrick. Ann seems determined not to listen to him, particularly when the two men bond against her. Dave tells her she would be bored out of her mind by Patrick, and asks her to marry him. She refuses. Dave, however, is crafty and clever enough to succeed: he wins her back and moves back in at the end, succeeding in making both of them miserable. ===== Episode 1: It begins with Pink being used as a lure to keep a lusty monster named Monster Mage Viken off guard in a cave. The group's mission is to destroy Viken and collect the cursed Sword of Triton that he guards. After they succeed, the group goes to the town of Tajif where Pink wants to shop and get some new clothes. The shopkeeper is angered by a "cat-slut" coming in his store and yells at her to get out. Pink runs back to the inn, crying from the shopkeeper's rude behavior. Santa follows her and comforts her (amongst other things) before they rest. That night, Santa goes out to hunt something to make Pink some clothing. Much to his dismay, the first thing he encounters turns out to be a helltiger. Bobo appears and helps him kill it, demonstrating he is always there for him. He gives Pink a dress made from the helltiger's fur the next morning, demonstrating how much he cares for her. As they leave the inn, the party is surrounded by Tajif's guards, and taken before the queen. There, they are accused for being responsible for some girls who have gone missing recently, as Santa and Bobo were both seen outside the night before. They state their innocence and agree to embark on a quest to rescue the missing girls. A new mission begins, as the party vows to rescue the missing girls, not knowing something very dangerous is going to be in their way. Luckily they find the girls, but also encounter the villain behind the kidnapping, a Slave Witch. Santa and the party fight hard to defeat her, but the Slave Witch has something up her sleeve—a doll that regenerates her energy. Pink manages to grab the doll before it began to recharge, and Santa kills the Slave Witch by using his sword on a large red orb, which happens to be its heart. The party is victorious and they rescue the captured girls. Santa hoped to receive his "suitable reward" by making love to the queen only to get smashed in the head by an angry Pink willing to keep Santa in line. Episode 2: Santa and the gang use Pink as bait to defeat a kusarimame, a green monster that looks like a pile of goopy slime. With Pierce's fire spell, the monster is destroyed and Santa gets a mid-level magic pearl worth a lot of Gorts. Pink pulls the cart from the forest where they fought the monster to the nearest town, where she slides down a hill and ends up ramming them all into a tree. In the process, Santa's purse (which holds the pearl) was lost. Upon arrival at the town of Gatashi, they decide to treat themselves to a fancy expensive dinner, except for Pink, who was fed cat food. When it comes time for the check, of course, Santa finds his wallet that held the Gorts and the pearl was gone. Pink is left as collateral and he goes to find some quick way to earn money. They then collect the "honey" of a Honeymoon Fairy (by dildo-ing the little fairy with a shroom), which is enough to buy Pink back. When they return to the shop, however, the owner, thinking they had skipped town, has already gone and sold Pink! She is going to be sacrificed to the evil Water Goddess Yuarisla of a nearby town. Yuarisla usually enters her sacrifices and takes their life, but she decides to "play" with Pink before devouring her. Just as she finishes, though, Santa arrives in the nick of time to fight Yuarisla in both mortal and giant crab form. It is a tough battle but Bobo and Santa finally deliver the final blows to destroy Yuarisla and her gargoyles and successfully rescues Pink. When Pink commented that Santa came to save her, he replied he only saved Pink so he wouldn't pay for sex when he can get if from Pink for free. Pink, infuriated with the remark, smashed Santa hard in the head. Episode 3: While walking through a forest, Santa and the others encounter a demon girl named Sina being raped by a rapewing, a giant bat-like monster. With Pierce "powering up" for a powerful spell with Bobo's help, they defeat the rapewing and Sina tells the crew that her family and friends are being held captive in a nearby cave filled with treasure. The adventure from that point on is a cross between a Dungeons & Dragons-style dungeon crawl and a Scooby-Doo-like haunted house. Santa ties a leash on Pink so she can lead the way (and get attacked first by any monsters). However, it was Santa that walks right into the first trap, taking Pink with him. Pierce & Bobo are attacked by Slave Knights, demonic armored warriors each with an innocent young girl at their core. Bobo & Pierce had no alternative but to kill the girls to end their suffering for being used as the cores for the Slave Knights. Meanwhile, Santa & Pink are captured and molested, respectively, by Nymphomania, The Slave Queen, a naga-esque female. Santa was held over a pit of snakes dangling from a rope. When Pink caught the rope, Nymphomania used a Dildo Cobra to dispose of Pink. Pierce & Bobo came to the rescue at the last second before Pink lost consciousness and Santa began to fall. Seeing Pink severely wounded, Santa became enraged uses a special Sword Dancer technique to obliterate the cowering Nymphomania. After Pink recovered, Santa & Co. rescue the kidnapped girls and find the treasure, but the dungeon collapses and the treasure was buried underneath. After returning Sina to her family, the adventurers wander off. Pink managed to save a jeweled necklace from the treasure horde before the dungeon was destroyed, which Santa chased after her so he can sell the necklace for a profit. ===== Will Carlson is a 20-something loser who lives in a duplex house in a rundown neighborhood in New Jersey, where he ekes out a living as a birthday party clown in order to pay the rent for his abusive mother's nursing home and the rent on his rundown house. Despite the difficulties of the job, clowning is Will's one escape from the realities of his miserable existence: Will genuinely likes kids, and takes great joy from making them happy on their birthdays. Struggling to make ends meet, but not wanting to give up his dream job, Will comes up with the idea to be a "bachelor party clown." Will's idea is that men throwing bachelor parties can hire him as well as a stripper; Will enters the room prior to the "real" entertainment, wearing clown makeup and lingerie, tricking the bachelor into thinking that there was a mix-up and a gay clown stripper has been sent in lieu of a female one. Will invents the persona of Vulgar the Clown (after his friend Syd tells him that the entire idea is "vulgar") and solicits himself in the want-ads. Before long, he is hired to appear at a bachelor party being held at a nearby motel. When Will arrives for the party -- wearing stockings, garters, clown makeup, and a trench-coat -- he is attacked and brutally beaten by a middle-aged man, Ed, and his sons Gino and Frankie. The three men then proceed to gang rape Will, taking turns videotaping the attack. The trio hold Will hostage in the motel room for an indeterminate amount of time, during which they subject him to a series of violent and humiliating sexual assaults. They also break a bottle over his head and drug him. A tearful Will goes home and spends the remainder of the night and part of the next morning crying while he washes himself clean in the bathtub. Will spends a considerable amount of time after the attack in a crippling depression, which nearly costs him his home. Eventually, Will fulfills a promise to appear as a clown at one of his past clients' children's party. When he gets to the party, Will discovers a hostage crisis is occurring; the father of one of the children, in the middle of divorce proceedings, has kidnapped his own daughter and is threatening to kill her. In a near-suicidal reaction, Will sneaks past the police barricade, breaks into the house, and subdues the father. News reporters capture some of the event on film, and before long the story makes national headlines. Will becomes known as "the hero clown;" the attention and outpouring of support breaks him out of his depression, and he is eventually given his own syndicated children's television show. The media coverage attracts the attention of Ed and his sons (who are still raping young men). They threaten Will with a copy of the tape of his being raped (edited to look like amateur porn) and begin to extort him. When Will tries to pay the men off, they attack him in a bathroom stall. Will finally strikes an agreement with the men wherein he will come to a motel room and "perform" for them, allowing himself to be taken advantage of again, and they will give him all of the copies of the tape; secretly, Will plans to ambush and murder them with the help of Syd. When the time comes, the gun jams and Will finds himself unable to kill his tormentors. Just as Ed and his sons move in to rape and murder Will, Ed's son Frankie accidentally shoots himself in the face. Then, a shootout ensues with a vagrant lowlife at the hotel, who robs Syd and then plots to do the same to the others. Both the man and Ed's other son (Gino) shoot each other to death. Ed panics, and Will chases him through the motel parking lot to a nearby deserted playground. As Will approaches him with gun- in-hand, Ed has a massive heart attack and dies. Will takes off as he hears police sirens coming. His conscience clear, Will retrieves the tape and goes on to live happily ever after, hosting his television show. ===== On a world called Ovanan, an alien race of immortal and androgynous beings who possess psionic powers is ruled by a corrupt government unit called the Hierarchy. The Hierarchy uses their power to control the Avatar, a singular being who is able to amass all of the psionic power of the Ovanan people and wield that power as a weapon called The Collective. To cement their control over Ovanan and the Avatar, the Hierarchy also uses the Avatar to act as an angelic religious figure who stands in judgment of Ovanan children. The Avatar chooses who lives and dies, supposedly for religious purposes. In actuality, he selectively kills anyone who may mature into a threat to the Hierarchy's power base. Sometimes these undesirables are allowed to live as an Ovanan underclass, who are called Variants. An Ovanan man, Aeren, who was raised in the Avatar's household, was secretly allowed to live, despite having an undesirable and dangerous ability: he is a Disruptor, the opposite of the Avatar. While the Avatar gathers and magnifies psionic energy, a Disruptor disrupts energy. This ability can be used in many ways: to stop a heart, cause electrical disruptions in machinery, or to open any lock. Aeren was secretly involved with the Avatar Etan and his young heir Seren. However, after the suspicious death of the Etan, Aeren escaped to Earth, where he married a human woman and fathered five children, of which two survived: Liana and Jason, 15 and 17, who are born with powers they don't understand and can't control. Incarcerated in a mental hospital where they are the subjects of study, Jason becomes suspicious of the Institute's motives, and urges Liana to run away. During their escape, they become separated. Liana encounters a group of humans and an Ovanan man, and his companion, D'mer, also Rieken's lover, who hails from another planet called Kimar, which is under Hierarchy rule. Liana learns that she is an Avatar, and has the powers of the Ovanan godhead. However, her powers interfere with the ability of the Avatar, who currently sits on the Ovanan throne, to control the Collective, and if she is not eliminated, Ovanan is vulnerable as the Avatar is their greatest weapon. Rieken and D'mer go on a quest to find more humans who will help them save Liana, and to prevent Ovanan from exercising power over Earth. In addition to drawing in several humans, they discover a beautiful Ovanan exile named Bast, who was once one of the Avatar's acolytes. Also, they encounter magical beings from Arthurian myth. The implication is that myth and legend is a kind of Earth Collective, a manifestation of human will that has taken a different form than the psionic energy of Ovanan. Jason, meanwhile, is captured by the Hierarchy and tortured by the beautiful but evil Sere. Believing him to be dead, his captors dispose of his body, but he is actually in a drug-induced coma. He is rescued by the Resistance, which is working with Rieken to try to stage a coup and overthrow the Hierarchy. Unknown to Jason and his companions, Rieken is really Seren, the Avatar in disguise, who has quietly been working behind the scenes to try to overthrow the shackles of the oppressive Hierarchy. With Liana on one side, and Jason on another, the two groups rush to a confrontation. ===== Judith Taverner is a beautiful young heiress who comes to London to join high society. She takes an instant dislike to her unwilling guardian, Julian, fifth Earl of Worth, who, having met her earlier in a small town filled with bucks watching a boxing match, treats her with a familiarity reserved for loose women. Judith soon becomes a sensation in London. She gets many offers of marriage (including one from the Duke of Clarence). Worth does not permit her to marry any one of them. This initially makes Judith very angry, but she comes to appreciate it later. Judith has a younger brother named Peregrine (Perry) who is a young handsome boy with very little sense and a lot of money to spare. Hence, he is always getting into trouble. Perry and Judith's cousin Bernard Taverner seems always so kind and attentive, though there is little love lost between him and Worth. The Black Swan Inn, which stood beside the tollgate at Pease Pottage appears in Chapter XVI Perry keeps getting into scrapes. He is challenged to a duel, gets held up, and nearly gets poisoned. Worth suspects that Bernard is the villain and he sends his brother, Captain the Hon. Charles Audley to watch over Perry. Meanwhile, Bernard tries to convince Judith that it is Worth who is the real culprit. In the end, after Worth provokes Taverner into acting, the truth comes out and Bernard is shown to be the guilty one. The sparring and eventual love affair of Judith and Julian, against the backdrop of Judith's brother Peregrine's romance and danger, make up this novel. Miss Heyer's An Infamous Army is a sequel to Regency Buck. ===== The wild young Viscount Sheringham is fast running through his considerable income through gambling and other extravagant pursuits; and he cannot as yet touch the principal, unless he marries. As the lady with whom he currently fancies himself in love, the beautiful Isabella Milborne, is also an heiress, he proposes. Isabella rejects him unhesitatingly, citing his dissipated lifestyle. A lively quarrel then follows with his obnoxious widowed mother and her brother, who wish to retain control of his father's fortune themselves. The Viscount storms off in a fit of pique, vowing to marry the first female he meets. This turns out to be the pretty but orphaned and shy Hero Wantage, who has secretly loved him since they were children, and who now lives with one of his neighbours in the position of Cinderella, complete with Ugly Sisters. The rest of the novel, chronicling the Viscount's gradual transition to maturity and the realisation that the one he really loves is Hero (the "loving and giving" child of the title), is told with Miss Heyer's characteristic wit, and features some of her most memorable dialogue, plot twists and characters (such as the fiery but lovelorn George Wrotham, whose hobby is fighting duels). ===== Gabe is forced by a hysterical girlfriend to descend into New York City's sewers, into which he has just flushed her aborted fetus. Arriving there, he finds that fetuses populate the sewers, astride similarly disposed-of crocodiles, and the word "Croatoan", crudely lettered on a wall near the entrance to the sewer. ===== Jeffty is a boy who never grows past the age of five — physically, mentally, or chronologically. The narrator, Jeffty's friend from the age of five well into adulthood, discovers that Jeffty's radio plays all-new episodes of long-canceled serial programs, broadcast on radio stations that no longer exist. He can buy all-new issues of long-discontinued comic books such as The Shadow and Doc Savage, and of long- discontinued pulp magazines with all-new stories by long-dead authors like Stanley G. Weinbaum, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Robert E. Howard. Jeffty can even watch films that are adaptations of old pulp fiction novels like Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man. The narrator is privy to this world because of Jeffty's trust, while the rest of the world (the world that got older as Jeffty did not) is not. While waiting in line at the local movie house, Jeffty borrows a portable radio. He tunes in a radio show from the past. The other children, upset that they cannot return the radio to the broadcast of a ball game, beat him badly. Once returned to his home, Jeffty’s mother drowns him in the bathtub. ===== Jack the Ripper appears inexplicably in a sterile futuristic metropolis, where anyone is free to do what they want however arcane or immoral. He is brought before Juliette, a girl who is named after the Marquis de Sade's Juliette. Upon killing Juliette (much to the delight of a City denizen who is her grandfather), Jack the Ripper is returned to the London of his own time, where he commits another of his infamous killings. He is surprised to discover that there are other mental presences or personalities coexisting within his own mind, commenting on the brutality of his acts as if they were spectators at a theatrical performance or aesthetes critiquing a work of art in a museum. Although recognizably human in form, the future City's denizens have powers of matter manipulation, time travel, and telepathy. They can both read and manipulate Jack the Ripper's mind. They proceed for their own malign amusement to mentally expose him to his own subconscious lusts, desires, and petty hatreds; prior to their interference he had suppressed his awareness of these urges. He realizes that he had persuaded himself that his killings were purely moralistic in intent, meant to draw attention to the injustices, inequalities, social wretchedness, and debauchery of industrial Victorian society. To Jack's despair, his actual base motivations are fully revealed to him by the City's denizens, after which they delight in his ensuing psychological anguish. He is recalled to the City of the future by its inhabitants. Enraged, he kills one of his tormentors. Jack is fooled by the City denizens into believing that this murder has caused a breakdown in their society and that they have lost control of the City's functioning. He is implicitly led to believe that he has all the power and is an uncontrollable, random evil in their presence. He embarks on a killing spree to terrify the City's residents and punish them for their manipulation of him. After brutally murdering scores of City denizens in a veritable frenzy of bloodlust, Jack learns to his horror that the City denizens have only manipulated him again to sate their decadent desire for entertainment. The surviving denizens disarm him, leaving him to roam the City streets aimlessly. He cries aloud that he really is a "bad man", a man to be respected and feared rather than mocked and thrown aside. ===== The Gem and the Staff is an adventure for a DM and a single player using a provided thief character. The player must search for a magic gem and a staff of power inside an evil wizard's tower. This module is divided into two separate adventures, which can be played as successive scenarios. The player takes the role of an experienced thief named Eric the Bold, who is pressed in both adventures into special thieving services. In the first adventure, Eric's task is to steal a certain gem from the trap-riddled tower of the wizard Tormag. The second adventure involves Tormag hiring Eric to steal a mighty magic wand from his arch-rival Felspel. Both modules are set with a time limit of thirty real-world minutes to complete the task. ===== Sex, love, lies, bed-hopping and mistaken identities abound in this pop musical- comedy set in Madrid. The gorgeous Paula breaks up with her boyfriend Pedro in order to continue her affair with Javier. The immature Javier however, is unwilling to break up with his current girlfriend Sonia, or confess to their affair to Pedro, who happens to be his best friend. ===== Set during the Clone Wars, the story follows Jedi Knights Obi-Wan Kenobi and Kit Fisto and their adventures as ambassadors on the planet of Ord Cestus, which has started producing so-called "Jedi Killer" droids. While, Obi-Wan Kenobi takes the diplomatic approach with the leadership, Kit Fisto and a clone trooper squad start recruiting and training fighters from the working class of the planet to incite a rebellion, should Obi-Wan fail. While they deal with the intrigue and politicking of the locals, as well as intervention by the Sith minion Asajj Ventress, a love affair forms between one of their clone trooper bodyguards Nate and a female pilot who is attracted to the clone template Jango Fett. ===== It is narrated by the Biblical King David of Israel, and purports to be his deathbed memoirs; however, this David does not recount his life in a straightforward fashion, and the storyline is often hilariously fractured. Indeed, it is possible to read the book as Heller's meditation upon his own mortality, and an exploration of the Jewish view of family, life, death, etc. All of the major touchstones of King David's life are in place: his childhood herding sheep, the prophet Samuel, Goliath, King Saul, Jonathan (and homosexual innuendoes), Bathsheba and Uriah, the Psalms, the treachery of Absalom, Solomon, etc. At some points, David betrays knowledge of the future (he mentions Michelangelo's David, saying it is ironic that a King of the Jews should stand there uncircumcised), and even of heaven (Moses sits on a rock in the afterworld, working on his stutter) - we are left to guess whether or not this stems from his special relationship with God, as no answers are forthcoming. Though not nearly as famous as Heller's Catch-22, God Knows explores many of the same themes. Category:1984 American novels Category:Novels by Joseph Heller Category:Alfred A. Knopf books Category:Novels based on the Bible Category:Cultural depictions of David ===== Gianni (Kim Rossi Stuart) has left his handicapped son Paolo (Andrea Rossi) in the care of others since his birth. He has not been able to cope with Paolo’s mother’s death in childbirth or that Paolo has not developed like other children because of his handicap. Paolo is now fifteen and is about to meet his father for the first time. Gianni has been asked by his son's caretakers to bring him to a Berlin hospital for yearly tests and check-ups. According to their doctor, the "shock" of meeting his father could help Paolo in his treatment. When Gianni boards the night train on which Paolo is already travelling, it is Gianni who is in for a shock. Paolo does not seem particularly impressed nor disturbed by this first meeting with his biological father. He seems more interested in his Game Boy instead. Gianni and Nicole (Charlotte Rampling) meet accidentally in the Berlin hospital and, even though he feels awkward and almost ashamed at being seen as having fathered "such a child", they connect. Nicole has spent her life caring for her daughter and could teach Gianni something if only he were willing to listen. Through a series of chance encounters aided by a book left behind by Nicole (Born Twice Italian title: Nati due volte, incidentally the book on which the film is based), they meet several times and get talking. ===== Tom Sawyer and his half-brother Sid are on their way to school when they see Huckleberry Finn fishing. Tom skips school to join Huck, but changes his mind after he sees Becky Thatcher. He tries to sneak into class, but Sid snitches on him to the teacher, Mr. Dobbins. Tom is made to sit with the girls, which he actually likes since he's able to sit next to Becky. He is also sat beside Amy Lawrence, a friend to whom he became "engaged". She still has romantic feelings for him, but he is too transfixed by Becky to notice. Tom's pet frog Rebel then disrupts the class, meaning they are given early dismissals. On the way home from school, during the musical number "Hook, Line and Sinker", Tom tries multiple times to steal a kiss from Becky, but is thwarted each time by her father, Judge Thatcher. The next day, as Tom is about to go fishing with his friends, Aunt Polly makes him paint the house as punishment for what happened at school. Tom, however, gets his friends to paint the house for him instead. While everyone is still painting, Becky stops by and Tom offers her to paint along with everyone else, but under one condition; she needs to kiss him. As Tom prepares for the kiss, he gets kissed by Rebel as a prank, making everyone laugh at him. That night, when Tom and Huck go treasure hunting, they find Injurin' Joe and his friend Mutt Potter uncovering a chest of gold. Deputy Bean, who is visiting his wife's grave, discovers Joe and Mutt. As the boys watch from behind a tombstone, Joe brutally murders Bean who tried to hit him with a shovel, frames Mutt and captures Rebel. Tom knows that Joe can track him down through Rebel, so he and Huck make a pact never to tell anyone what they have seen. The next day, at school Becky accidentally spills ink on test results. Amy is so happy because she wants to cheat Becky, but Tom takes the blame, for which he receives a thrashing with a ruler by Mr. Dobbins. After school, Tom becomes "engaged" to Becky, before a musical number by Becky and Amy, "One Dream", where the two individually express their shared love for Tom. He then admits he did the same with Amy, causing Becky to call off the engagement. Tom and Huck visit Mutt, who is on death row. They try to get him to remember Injurin' Joe murdering Bean, but Mutt doesn't remember. Joe meanwhile finds Tom and Huck, but they escape on a raft. They celebrate their survival and friendship with a musical number, "Friends for Life". When Tom and Huck return to town, they learn that the townspeople are mourning their deaths, believing the boys to have drowned. They disrupt the service, showing up at their own funeral, and are welcomed back. Amy, wanting to make Becky more upset at Tom, kisses Tom in front of Becky making her believe that Tom has chosen Amy over her and leaves before Tom can get a chance to explain, leaving him heartbroken. Judge Thatcher sentences Mutt to be hanged, but Huck and Tom testify against Joe at the last minute. Joe goes after Tom and Huck but fails and is pulled away by a river, while Mutt is freed and the boys are hailed as heroes. During the celebration, after making up with Tom, Becky talks Tom into exploring a cave. Amy follows them. Tom and Becky go into a cave and Tom says to Becky that she is the prettiest girl who he ever seen. That made Amy very sad and she stopped to follow Tom and Becky. They get lost and Becky begins to lose hope to finding the exit. Tom sings a number, "Light at the End of the Tunnel" to try and reassure her that they will find a way out. Instead of finding an exit, they find treasure - and Joe. Meanwhile, the townspeople notice Tom and Becky missing and Amy, who saw Tom and Becky go into the cave, reveals where they are. The townspeople go to look for them in the cave. With Huck's help, Tom subdues Joe, causing a rockfall which kills Joe, and is reunited with the townspeople and Aunt Polly. In the end Amy becomes Huck's girlfriend (after being impressed with how he assisted Tom against Joe) and Becky becomes Tom's girlfriend. Amy is no longer jealous of Becky. The next day, Sid again tries to snitch on Tom, but it backfires, as Aunt Polly makes Sid paint the house instead of Tom. The movie ends with Tom, Becky, Huck and Amy having a picnic, during which Tom shows the others a gold coin and tells them about another treasure hunt. ===== Jeff Gerber lives in an average suburban neighborhood with his seemingly liberal housewife Althea, who tolerates her husband's character flaws out of love. Every morning when Jeff wakes up, he spends some time under a tanning machine, hits the speedbag, drinks a health drink, and races the bus to work on foot. Jeff presents himself as happy-go-lucky and quite a joker, but others tend to see him as obnoxious and boorish. Althea, who watches the race riots every night on TV with great interest, chastises Jeff for not having sympathy for the problems of black Americans. One morning, Jeff wakes up to find that his pigment has changed. He tries to fall back asleep, thinking that it is a dream, but to no avail. He tries taking a shower to wash the "black" off him, but finds it does not work, when Althea walks into the bathroom, and screams. He explains to her that the "Negro in the bathroom" is him. At first, Jeff believes this to be the result of spending too much time under the tanning machine. He spends almost the entire day at home, afraid to go out of the house, only going out once to venture into the "colored part of town" in order to find a pharmacy to buy "the stuff they use in order to make themselves look white." His attempts to change his skin color fail. The next day, he is persuaded to get up and go to work. Things start out well at first, until Jeff is accused of robbery while running alongside the bus to work. The policeman assumes that, since he is a black man, he must have stolen something. During his lunch break, he makes an appointment with his doctor who cannot explain Jeff's condition either. After several calls, the doctor suggests that Jeff might be more comfortable with a black doctor. Returning home, he finds Althea afraid to answer the phone. He does not understand why until he receives a call from a man who uses racial slurs. At work the next day, a secretary (who had previously ignored him) makes several advances toward him, finding him more attractive as a black man. Jeff's boss suggests that they could drum up extra business with a "Negro" salesman. At home one evening, he finds the people who had made the threatening phone calls are neighbors who offer him $50,000 for his home due to fear of property depreciation. Jeff manages to raise the price to $100,000. Althea sends the children to live with a relative and later leaves her husband. He sleeps with the secretary only to discover she's developed a black fetish and therefore a racist and after he calls her out, she uses slurs towards him. Finally accepting the fact that he is black, Jeff resigns his regular job, buys an apartment building, and starts his own insurance company. The very last scene shows him practicing martial arts with a group of black menial workers, apparently having become one of the militants he used to put down. ===== The plot of Memories of Midnight takes off from the ending of The Other Side of Midnight, where Catherine Douglas is recovering in a convent. The world except Constantin Demiris, known as Costa, thinks that Catherine has been killed by her husband, Larry Douglas, and his mistress, Noelle Page. But Catherine wants to discover herself and know who she is. The only thing she knows is that her name is Catherine Alexander. She requests to see the world outside the convent to reveal her past. This request is granted by the Sister of the convent, but only after getting the approval from their multimillionaire mentor, Constantin Demiris. It is in Greece that she realizes that her husband and his mistress tried to kill her. She remembers them trying to drown her, and this becomes a recurring dream. When she tells all this to Costa, he is a bit angry as he didn’t want her uncovering her past, as she is the last link to the case in which Larry and Noelle were wrongly accused of killing her and sentenced to death. So he sends her off to London to work in one of his offices. At this time, Constantin Demiris seems like a benefactor to Catherine. Trouble starts brewing when Frederick Stavros begins to feel guilty for sending Larry and Noelle to their death, as he was their lawyer and they were all tricked into pleading guilty by Napoleon Chotas. He dies shortly after confiding this news to a priest, who then tells an employee working in the office of Spyros Lambrou, the brother of Costa's wife Melina. This news reaches Spyros Lambrou, who uses this news to destroy Costa, as Costa had mistreated his wife, Spyros' sister. This is when Napoleon Chotas starts fearing for his own life. He leaves a package with a prosecuting attorney, Peter Demonides, and sends a tape referring to this to Costa. The next day Chotas' house is burned down. He seemingly dies, and the package is delivered to Costa, rather than the authorities, by Peter, who starts working for him. Meanwhile, Catherine finds a good friend in Kirk Reynolds, who is in love with her and wants to marry her, although Catherine is a bit reluctant. She confides in him that her husband and his mistress attempted to kill her and were executed for it. Kirk reassures her by saying that, from the little he knows about Greek law, he is confident that their law doesn't sentence anyone to death on account of attempted murder. Still, he will make sure by asking one of his acquaintances, Peter Demonides. Within a day of relating Catherine's story to Peter, he dies. In the meantime, Spyros tries to destroy Costa by narrating this incident to a drug dealer, Tony Rizzoli, and advises him to trick Costa into taking one of his drug shipments to USA. But Constantin Demiris kills Tony, destroys his shipment, and then threatens Spyros by telling him that he will destroy him but will first take care of his sister. When Spyros tells this to Melina, she assures him by saying that she can take care of herself. Her brother's house is attacked but he and his wife survive the attack. This is when she becomes confident that Costa wants to destroy them. Hence, she kills herself and fakes it so that it seems that Constantin Demiris murdered her. Meanwhile, Costa has ordered the killing of Catherine Alexander. Costa gets arrested for the murder of his wife. The only one who can save him is Sypros Lambrou, who can give an alibi for the time of the murder, but won't do so as he detests Constantin Demiris and wants him dead. This is when Napoleon Chotas makes a reappearance, crippled and in a wheelchair, after mysteriously surviving the fire that burned his house. He fights the case of Constantine Demiris. He convinces Spyros into giving testimony for Costa, arguing that, instead of having him dead, it will be better if he forces him to live in poverty. This would be achieved by Costa transferring all the assets of his company to Spyros in return for Spyros' testimony. On the other hand, Costa and Chotas have already planned that the assets of Costa's company will first be shifted to a firm owned by Napoleon Chotas, so that Spyros will get nothing. Catherine goes into psychoanalysis and falls in love with the doctor, Alan Hamilton, who also falls in love with her. Three men arrive in London to study the operation there, and they all seem pretty weird. She has a bad feeling about them, but it is not until she is to be killed that she realizes that it is not the three men but the office boy who came along with them who has come to kill her. He tries to kill her by locking and tying her up in the basement and turning up the thermostat of the boiler, which will explode when it reaches , but she manages to survive by hiding in the bomb shelter. She comes to know the truth about Costa and also that he was convicted. She marries Alan. Constantin Demiris is being tried for a murder he didn't commit but, on the last day of the 10-day trial, Spyros Lambrou testifies, setting Constantin free. Afterwards, on the way to Napoleon's home, Napoleon confides in Costa that even though he liked Noelle Page, he still helped him in killing her. He starts driving faster and tells him that he has donated all the assets of his company to the convent, since he has no wish of being alive after what Costa did to him. Finally, he drives the car over the cliff down the steep mountainside, killing both Constantin Demiris and himself. ===== At the beginning of the film, Leo is an adult and learns that his mate, Lyra, has just given birth to twin cubs: Lune (pronounced Lu-Ney) and Lukio. After a grand celebration, the scene changes drastically to a bustling city where a man named Ham Egg is traveling from jeweler to jeweler to try and sell a special stone he found in the Bajalu Jungle. After being turned down at every pawn shop and jeweler he goes to, the jewelers all inform someone of Ham Egg's whereabouts, and soon he is hauled away in a black car by intimidating men in black suits. As it turns out, the stone that he's been trying to sell is really the "Moonlight Stone", a mineral that could be used as a power source and save the world from an impending energy crisis. A scientific organization led by Dr. Plus and Dr. Minus seek the help of Ham Egg to lead them to the source of the Moonlight Stone so it can be salvaged and used to help humanity. However, Ham Egg is only interested in money and is soon persuaded by Dr. Plus, who is well aware of Ham Egg's illegal poaching activities. Ham Egg agrees to work for them, but demands to be put in charge of the search. Accompanying Ham Egg is Mr. Lemonade of the organization and Dr. Moustache, who is already stationed in the jungle. When they arrive in the jungle, Dr. Moustache and Mr. Lemonade are shocked by Ham Egg and his "friends", who want only to destroy jungle forest land and to shoot any animal they come across. Dr. Moustache constantly argues with them over being respectful to nature, as Mr. Lemonade records everything that happens in his journal. As Leo's son, Lune, becomes more and more curious of the human world, Leo continues to protect the animals of the jungle from whatever may threaten them, including Ham Egg's sinister actions, dissent amongst the animals, and deadly disease that is affecting the animals. With his domain violated by humans in a relentless search for the Moonlight Stone, their actions bring death to the jungle and break up Leo's family. Leaving Leo with the heavy responsibility of bringing peace to the jungle, his family, and even humans. Lune leaves the jungle behind and travels by a log in the water to a nearby city. Lune is found by fishers and taken to a circus. A girl named Mary from the circus decides to take care of him, and he befriends a rat named Jack. Eventually, a bird from the jungle finds Lune, tells him of how the disease is killing off many animals, and she leaves with her flock. Lune is frightened by the idea that his family may be dead. Eventually, there is a fire in the circus, and Lune gets all the animals to help put it out. Lune, Jack, and Mary, who took care of Lune bid their goodbyes, and Lune sneaks onto a boat that will help him get back to Africa. In the jungle, Lyra is affected by the deadly disease and shortly dies. Although Lukio comes down with the same ailment, Dr. Moustache is able to cure her. We see near the end of the film that she gets better. However, we do not see her for the rest of the film. Leo, heartbroken by the disintegration of his family, decides to lead the humans to the center of the mountain where there are many moonlight stones. Many hunters are lost on the way, but finally, they arrive. As they discover the stones, Ham Egg shoots at the trio. At the last minute, Mr. Lemonade jumps in the way, takes the bullet himself, and dies. They soon discover the stones, and Ham Egg, blinded by greed, steals one of the stones and swallows it so no one else can have it, but dies shortly afterward because the stone poisoned him. Dr. Moustache takes Leo and together they escape back down the mountain. It is then that Moustache suddenly realizes that the lion has gone blind. He rids of the stone they got because he believes it has ruined enough lives. The film ends with Lune returning from the human world, and Dr. Moustache taking the cub to see his father's pelt. Leo died on the journey by stabbing himself with Dr. Moustache's knife. He did this so Dr. Moustache could eat his flesh, and clothe himself with Leo's fur so he can tell the humans what they need to know. Lune then begins nuzzling his fur. Dr. Moustache tells Lune about what his father did, "Your father was as wise as he was brave, and you should know what he did to save the world. He was the most courageous soul I've ever met, a true king who gave his life to save the land." Then, both of them head out into a meadow and see clouds in the shape of Leo. ===== The story revolves around Hercules "Kul" Vallejo, a widower working as an attending nurse in a hospital. Prior to the start of the show, he married his fellow nurse who was secretly a witch. As a result, their three daughters (Dinna, Donna, and Duday) are all secretly powerful witches. After his wife's death, he fell in love with a neighboring foreigner named Greta. On the last episode, Kul and Greta bid farewell to their children and friends, and 2 lovers are going to Prague for their new honeymoon. ===== The novel is of investigative crime fiction genre, entailing the main character of Penn Cage. Cage travels back to his home town of Natchez, Mississippi with his young daughter after the death of his wife. A successful novelist with a legal background, Penn finds that his father is being blackmailed over a long-forgotten murder by a criminal he never turned in to the police. While home, Penn is approached by the widow and daughter of a black Korean War veteran long-believed to have been murdered by the Ku Klux Klan. Cage soon realizes that these two cases are inextricably linked, and have much more profound implications than he imagined. Joining forces with Caitlin Masters, a young newspaper publisher from the north, Penn confronts angry Klansmen, the secretive director of the FBI, a guilt-ridden black policeman, and his old high school love in his quest to penetrate the layers of mystery that hide the truth about a small Southern city. ===== Gunn discovers a demon gang war is imminent, unless the head of the leaders is recaptured from Rome, so Angel and Spike travel to Rome to retrieve the head. They find out that Buffy is dating their nemesis "The Immortal". Flashbacks are shown that explain why Angel and Spike hate "The Immortal": he slept with Darla and Drusilla simultaneously while his minions held Angelus and Spike in chains. They discuss the matter and conclude that Buffy must be under some sort of love spell. Spike and Angel visit Buffy's apartment and find Andrew Wells. He said that he lives with Buffy and Dawn, and Buffy went to a club with The Immortal. They go to the club and see Buffy from a distance. They get distracted and leave the demon head in a bag on a table, which is snatched by The Immortal's demon butler. Angel and Spike fight the minions and "accidentally" hit each other a few times, too. The demon butler gets away with the head and mocks the heroes as he leaves. Angel and Spike argue over how "if they had their resources", that they would be able to find the head. Spike points out that there is a Wolfram & Hart office in Rome. Meanwhile, at Wolfram & Hart in L.A., Fred's parents show up and Wesley ushers them into his office to tell them she has been consumed. He is about to tell them when Illyria walks in the door looking and acting exactly like Fred. Later, while her parents are being shown Fred's office, Wesley confronts Illyria. She explains because of Fred's past memories she cannot bear to witness their grief in addition to Wesley's, which she experiences as a physical pain. She explains that she can appear in the form that she wishes. After Fred's parents leave, Wesley asks her if she got what she wanted from that experience. Illyria answers "Yes", and Wesley orders her never to do it again. Angel and Spike go the Rome Wolfram & Hart offices, where they are greeted by the CEO, an ebullient Italian woman. She says the head is being held in a standard ransom situation. Angel and Spike are given money for the drop, which they exchange with the butler for the bag. They open it and in it is actually a bomb, three seconds from detonation. While the explosion isn't shown, Spike and Angel both easily survive, albeit with their clothing heavily damaged and the street destroyed. Spike complains about his ruined jacket that he took from the dead Slayer Nikki Wood. They go back to the Rome Wolfram & Hart - the CEO laughs, saying they always do that (bomb) to first-timers. She replaces their damaged clothing, including Spike's 'irreplaceable' jacket. After being locked out of her office, Spike and Angel declare their intentions to go home, but return to Buffy's apartment and Andrew tells them to let her move on, that "people change," while he leaves the apartment with two sexy women. Frustrated by their inability to contact Buffy and by the demon butler's chicanery on The Immortal's behalf, they decide to go home. Illyria follows Wesley into his office, still appearing and speaking as Fred. She states that she wishes to explore the relationship further and does not understand why Wesley is angry when he obviously loved Fred. He replies that she is not Fred and that he is sickened by the sight of her. He tells her to be anything as long as it's not Fred. She appears somewhat confused and when he leaves the room changes back into her usual form. "As you wish" she says. When Angel and Spike return home, they find the head on Angel's desk with a note signed by The Immortal. They are outraged; this is the second time he "distracted" them while he put the moves on "their" girl. They do, however, vehemently insist to each other that they are both now going to move on. ===== Ted Healy is a salesman for the Schmidt Costume Shop who likes to hang out at the fire station where Moe (billed as "Harry Howard"), Larry, and Shemp (along with Fred Sanborn) work. Old man Schmidt spends more time building crazy inventions (typical of devices by writer/cartoonist Rube Goldberg) than tending to his business; as a consequence he is bankrupt and his business is taken over by his creditors, who send a young man named Carlson to manage the business. Carlson immediately falls for Mr. Schmidt's niece, Louise, but she resists him. Meanwhile, a certain General Avocado wants to organize a revolution in San Stevedore and comes to the costume shop to order uniforms; sadly his army flees in fright without paying at the sound of a child bursting a toy balloon. Ted also swings a deal with the Fire Department to supply costumes for the fireman's ball. Carlson wants to take Louise, so Ted hatches a plan to take Louise, and have himself and Carlson dressed alike, then switch places at the ball. When Louise learns of the switch, she runs back to the shop and locks herself in her room. Carlson chases her home, and unknowingly starts a fire while trying to persuade her to come out. The firemen (the Stooges) arrive to extinguish the blaze — with the unexpected help of one of Old Man Schmidt's inventions — and at last Louise and Carlson are a couple. ===== Private detective Philip Marlowe is hired by wealthy widow, Elizabeth Murdock, to investigate the theft of a rare coin, the Brasher Doubloon, from her deceased husband's private collection. Believing the case to be a fairly routine one, Marlowe soon finds himself confronted by murder and a succession of shady characters and lethal crooks. The course of his investigation leads Marlowe to realise that the source of the mystery hinges upon Merle Davis, the timid and neurotic secretary of Mrs Murdock. ===== In the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, three New Yorkers respond to a new tragedy. June Sickles Fiorilli (JoBeth Williams) lost her firefighter son on 9-11 and now lives with her granddaughter Quinn, not far from the very firehouse that her boy called home. Walter Hartwig (Sean Patrick Flanery) is the lieutenant in charge on the night a jumbo jet crashes on final approach into Kennedy Airport, intertwining him to June and music teacher Catrina Hampton (Melina Kanakaredes), who is awaiting the arrival of her twin sister. ===== At the beginning, the main character Yong-ho wanders to a reunion of his old student group. After causing some general mayhem with his deranged antics, he leaves and climbs atop a nearby train track. Facing an oncoming train, he exclaims "I want to go back again!" What follows is a series of prior events in the main character's life that show how he became the suicidal man portrayed in this scene. The first flashback takes place only three days before Yong-ho's death. At this point he is already clearly suicidal, spending the last of his money on a gun and contemplates who he should use it on. After confronting his former business partner and ex-wife Hong-ja, the husband of his teenage crush Sun-im pays him a surprise visit. Yong-ho is taken to visit a comatose Sun-im in a hospital, and presents some peppermint candies she used to give him. The next flashback shows Yong-ho's life five years earlier. At first glance, he seems to be a rather successful businessman, but the problems in his life become clear when he confronts his wife, who is having an affair with her driving instructor. Yong-ho is unable to claim moral high ground, since he is also shown having an affair, with an assistant from his workplace. Finally, Yong-ho is shown with his wife at their new house, having dinner with his colleagues, where it becomes apparent that the marriage isn't working. On the third flashback, Yong-ho is shown as a police officer in 1987. At the beginning, he is shown along with his pregnant wife at a mundane scene. After this, he is shown apprehending a witness and brutally torturing him for information about another man's whereabouts. This leads Yong-ho to Kunsan where he and his fellow police officers capture the wanted man. While in Kunsan, Yong-ho is distracted from his work by fruitlessly trying to search for Sun-im and instead ends up on a one-night stand with a woman. The following flashback shows Yong-ho when he is just starting his career as a policeman and is pressured by his peers to torture a crime suspect, presumably a student demonstrator. Shortly afterward, he is visited by Sun-im. Yong-ho coldly and cruelly dismisses her by feigning interest in another woman, his future wife Hong-ja. At the final scene of this sequence, Yong-ho is shown sleeping with Hong-ja, whom it is shown he never truly cared about. During the next flashback, it's May 1980 and Yong-ho is performing his mandatory military service. While Sun-im is trying to visit him, his company is taken to quell the Gwangju Democratization Movement. Yong-ho gets shot in the leg and is told to stay behind. This leads to a scene where he confronts a harmless and presumably innocent student, whom he accidentally shoots and kills. The last flashback shows Yong-ho as a part of the student group that reunited at the beginning of the movie. This is also where he meets Sun-im for the first time. The scene poignantly shows the innocence that Yong-ho had, before his country molded him into the violent and jaded man he is at the start of the film by pitting him against his friends. ===== Maya, a young woman, is trying to live the life of a normal citizen. Her background, on the other hand, is anything but normal. She is the daughter of a famous German Harlequin named Thorn, who had been badly injured in an ambush by the Brethren. On a mission she killed two men of the Yakuza, the Japanese mafia. As a consequence Maya had tried to hide and leave her Harlequin past behind until one day her handicapped father calls for her. When visiting him in Prague, she finds him slaughtered by his enemies. Fulfilling her father's last wish, Maya takes a flight to the States supporting Shepherd, the last American Harlequin. She is determined to help him defend the last two potential Travelers alive. However, Shepherd has become a member of the Brethren. Working for the other side now, he tries to kill Maya. With the help of a young woman named Vikki she is lucky to get away. Vikki is a member of the I. T. Jones Church, a church of followers of the Traveler Isaac T. Jones, who was killed by the Brethren in 1889 with a harlequin. Together they are able to find an ally, Hollis, a Capoeira trainer from Los Angeles and a former member of the Isaac T. Jones Community. The three of them search for potential Travelers Michael and Gabriel Corrigan. Maya and her companions find Gabriel, but Michael is captured by the Brethren. The Brethren recently started a new program. They were in contact with a technologically advanced civilization dwelling in another realm who offer the Brethren high technology, weapons and plans for a quantum computer. The Brethren want to use a Traveler that can find this other civilization and guide it to the Earth. By offering Michael power, money and everything else he wants, the Brethren convince him to work for them. With a new drug called 3B3, Michael is able to leave his realm. While Michael gains his first experiences with other realms, Maya tries to find a Pathfinder for Gabriel. Hollis stays in Los Angeles to place a false track. The Brethren show up at his house and try to kill him with a new weapon called “Splicer," some kind of genetically engineered animal designed to search and destroy, but Hollis defeats them. Maya and Gabriel find a Pathfinder in the desert in Arizona. While teaching Gabriel how to cross over, she tells him everything she knows about the Travelers and the six realms. There is the first realm of a town like hell, the second realm of a city full of "hungry ghosts", the third is inhabited by animals ignorant of all others, the fourth realm is our own reality, where the sin is desire, the fifth realm is the reality of the "half gods", where the sin is jealousy, and the sixth realm of the "gods" themselves, where the sin is pride. The "gods" and "half-gods" of the fifth and sixth realm are not meant like God as the creator of all life, but like the Tibetans describe them: human beings from parallel worlds. The realms are separated each by four barriers: one barrier of fire, one of water, one of earth and one of air. A Traveler that is capable of passing these four barriers is then able to enter one of the five other realms. If his body on earth dies, his soul, called the light, is condemned to stay forever in the realm it visits at that time. Crossing over into other realities, a Traveler can only carry special objects, called talismans, with him. Such an object is the sword Gabriel’s father gave him. Equipped with this sword, he meets his brother in the realm of the hungry ghosts. His brother tries to convince him to join the Brethren. Gabriel resists the temptation, but he tells his brother where he left his body. As a consequence Gabriel is imprisoned by the Brethren within hours and brought to the research centre where Michael is kept. Maya realizes that an immediate counterstrike is necessary. After a battle in the Brethren's research facility, they free Gabriel but realize that they can not convince Michael to leave the Brethren. Maya and her allies are able to find refuge in a house on a beach in Cape Cod to recover. ===== Wīrāz is chosen for his piety to undertake a journey to the next world in order to prove the truth of Zoroastrian beliefs, after a period when the land of Iran had been troubled by the presence of confused and alien religions. He drinks a mixture of wine, mang, and Haoma, after which his soul travels to the next world. Here he is greeted by a beautiful woman named Dēn, who represents his faith and virtue. Crossing the Chinvat Bridge, he is then conducted by "Srosh, the pious and Adar, the yazad" through the "star track", "moon track" and "sun track" - places outside of heaven reserved for the virtuous who have nevertheless failed to conform to Zoroastrian rules. In heaven, Wīrāz meets Ahura Mazda who shows him the souls of the blessed (ahlaw, an alternate Middle Persian version of the word ardā). Each person is described living an idealised version of the life he or she lived on earth, as a warrior, agriculturalist, shepherd or other profession.http://www.avesta.org/pahlavi/viraf.html Translation of the Book of Arda Viraf With his guides he then descends into hell to be shown the sufferings of the wicked. Having completed his visionary journey, Wīrāz is told by Ahura Mazda that the Zoroastrian faith is the only proper and true way of life and that it should be preserved in both prosperity and adversity. ===== As the DiNapoli siblings—Antoinette (Anne Bancroft), Dominic (Dom DeLuise), and Frank Jr. (Ron Carey) - are growing up, whenever young Dom was unhappy, the one thing his mother did to comfort him and make him feel cared for was to feed him something scrumptious. One example was Dom's mom giving her older son a cannolo after the boy got urinated on by his baby brother Frankie as the baby's diaper is being changed. Because of this, Dom grew up with a love of food, a trait shared by his equally obese cousin, Salvatore (Sal). When Sal suddenly dies at age 39, the family grieves. This prompts Antoinette to urge Dom to visit a diet doctor to avoid his cousin's unhealthy eating habits and not drive himself into an early grave as well. Dom agrees to do so once he recognizes signs that obesity is ruining his health. Dom is deeply disheartened when given his new diet plan, seeing the long list of delectable foods and dishes that he enjoys very much but now must avoid. When the diet fails, Dom's eating habits drive his sister crazy, so she enrolls him in the "Chubby Checkers" support group. Meanwhile, Dom meets Lydia (Candice Azzara), who owns the neighborhood antiques shop, and finds they have a lot in common. But being self-conscious about his body contours, he fears rejection, and can't bring himself to ask her for a date Dom had Frankie padlock the fridge and larder, but that proves to be little help because in the middle of the night, Dom, crazed by cravings for his favorite decadent delights (even having dreamed of marzipan candy), demands the keys from his brother, even threatening him with violence at one point, of which he is extremely ashamed afterward. Now further depressed, Dom seeks comfort from his support group Chubby Checkers—calling Sonny and Oscar (Richard Karron and Paul Zegler) -- who turn out to be no help at all, as their reminiscing about favorite desserts and delicacies causes the intervention to deteriorate into the pig-out party to end all pig-out parties. Sonny even tears the pantry doors off their hinges. To help their brother, Antoinette and Frankie bring together Dom and Lydia. While dating, Dom doesn't realize that he has been eating less and less, and is shocked to discover at how loosely his clothes fit in a matter of weeks. Dom decides to propose to his lovely new sweetheart. When he drops by Lydia's apartment, she is gone. It worries him so much, he ends up eating all of the Chinese takeout food he was supposed to pick up for a family party. Antoinette finds out and attacks Dom with a doll mounted on a stick, and comments how he's hurting the family. Dom admits his acknowledgement of this, and starts to blame his mother for comforting him with food all his life. Antoinette learns this for the first time, and comforts him after a mental breakdown while he insults his mother. Dom notes Antoinette's revelation of his issues, and promises to keep trying. However, he also realizes that he must love himself the way he is, and makes the duo promise to do the same should he die of obesity like Sal. After which, Antoinette and Frank learn to accept him for who he is. Dom then receives a phone call from Lydia, who is at a hospital in Boston visiting her younger brother, who accidentally chopped off a finger. Dom flies in and when the two take a walk through the hospital, watching the newborn babies in the nursery, Dom whispers his marriage proposal into Lydia's ear, and she accepts. The film ends with a photo montage of now-married Dom and Lydia, then their babies — with each photo showing Lydia holding a new baby, while the previous child grows up. Dom's obesity persists through the years, apparently exacting no toll upon the family's happiness, until the final image reveals him surrounded by Lydia and their many children...and seemingly thinner. ===== The film takes place over six days, with footage from a fictional pop group "Dessert" opening and closing the film. In Tokyo on May 27, 54 teenage schoolgirls commit mass suicide by throwing themselves in front of an oncoming train. Shortly after, at a hospital, two nurses commit suicide by jumping out of a window. At both locations, rolls of skin are found, with the skin in the rolls matching that removed from the bodies of the dead. Three detectives--Kuroda (Ryō Ishibashi), Shibusawa (Masatoshi Nagase), and Murata (Akaji Maro)--are notified by a hacker named Kiyoko (Yoko Kamon) of a link between the suicides and a website that shows the number of suicides as red and white circles. On May 28, at a high school, a group of students jump off the roof during lunch, sending the city in search of a "Suicide Club". By May 29, the suicide boom has spread all over Japan. Mitsuko is on her way home when she gets hit by her boyfriend, Masa, who has thrown himself off a roof. Mitsuko is taken to the police station for questioning, where the police strip-search her and discover that she has a butterfly tattoo. On May 30, the police receive a call from a boy who warns that on that evening at 7:30, another mass suicide will take place at the same platform. The detectives organize a stake-out in order to prevent the event but there is no suicide. Meanwhile, individual and smaller-scale group suicides continue all over Japan, claiming many lives, including Kuroda's entire family. Kuroda receives a call from the boy who had warned about the 7:30 suicide, and Kuroda shoots himself after. Kiyoko is captured by a group led by a man named Genesis, whose hideout is a small subterranean bowling alley, where he resides with four glam-rock rock cohorts. During her capture, Genesis performs a song while a girl in a white sack is brutally raped and killed right in front of them. Kiyoko e-mails the authorities information about Genesis. On May 31, the police arrest Genesis, and it is assumed the leader of the "Suicide Club" has been caught. On June 1, Mitsuko goes to her boyfriend's home to return his helmet, where she notices pop group Dessert's posters on the wall and recognizes a pattern on the fingers of the group that corresponds to the letters on a telephone keypad spelling out the word "suicide". The boy from earlier calls to tell her there is no "Suicide Club" and invites her to a secret concert. On June 2, Mitsuko sneaks into the backstage area and sees a group of children in the audience, who ask her questions. Mitsuko impresses the children so they take her to a room where a strip from her skin is shaved off; it is the spot where the butterfly tattoo was. A new roll of skin ends up with the police, and detective Shibusawa recognizes the strip as the one with Mitsuko's tattoo. That evening, he sees Mitsuko at the train station and grabs her hand but she pulls away. She stares at Shibusawa as the train pulls into the station, and again after boarding the train. As the train pulls out, the ending credits begins, in which Dessert announces their disbandment and offer appreciation toward their fans' support, before performing their final song. ===== The movie is mainly Betty Ting's story with Bruce Lee based on real life events. Opens with Betty and Bruce rolling around in bed around the time he died. Continues with Betty telling her story to a bartender, beginning when she was a loner school girl, she meets Bruce when he saves her from a beating one night and gives her some money. She then attempts to break into show biz and meets Bruce again: from there they become lovers until his death. ===== Four children capture a Japanese soldier who washes ashore during the Second World War. Although the horrors of World War II are far removed from the Pacific Coast community where adolescent Duke Cooper (Trevor Morgan) and his three best chums play soldier, experiment with swearing, and earnestly patrol the beach for Japanese submarines, the realities of the war are about to come crashing down around them. Not when a Japanese soldier, stranded and wounded when his sub quickly dived, washes ashore; his capture by the foursome merely allows for more playtime and thoughts of becoming heroes. It's coming because Duke's older brother is on some island awaiting combat and the black sedans with military tags have already begun rolling through town to deliver their grim announcements. And Duke's Japanese American pal Willie Tanaka (Yuki Tokuhiro), all three feet and 55 pounds of him, has suddenly become a threat to national security, so he, his mother, and grandfather are soon to be shipped away to an internment camp. ===== gaku-ran Japanese school uniforms with red armbands. Ouendan details the plight of several characters in hopeless situations who cry out for help. In response, the Ouendan, an all-male cheer squad appear to help each character work through their problems by cheering them through music. The origin of the Ouendan is unexplained in the game, though they are always nearby when help is needed. The Ouendan appear wearing highly stylized black uniforms (based on gaku-ran Japanese school uniforms) with red armbands, a common sight at Japanese school sporting events. Most of the scenarios are inspired by modern Japanese culture, or are heavily influenced by the Japanese form of print comics, or manga. For instance, the first stage features a high school student distracted from studying for his college entrance exams by his family, while a later stage focuses on a pottery master who has lost the inspiration to create unique works. Most of the stories are presented in a light-hearted or comical fashion, emphasized by absurd storyline twists and the sounds of whistles and cheer shouts as the player progresses through each stage. The one notable exception to this is a love story set to the Hitomi Yaida song "Over the Distance," which is told in a more heartfelt, subdued tone further marked by the gameplay's whistle sound effect being replaced with subtle chimes and the initial loud countdown not being used. While the individual stories otherwise have no connecting theme to them, characters from some stories reappear in others as background figures or supporting characters. However, all of the characters reappear in the final story, in which the Ouendan must lead the entire world in a cheer to save Earth from being destroyed by an asteroid. ===== The action opens upon the musical staff in which Mr. B Natural lives. Mr. B addresses the audience directly, in an effort to appear welcoming, and explains what it means to be a spirit of music. Awaiting a person's call for help, Mr. B evinces sympathy and concern for lonely junior high student Buzz Turner. Buzz shows an interest in music like the more popular kids at school, but is so shy that he makes excuses to not attend a dance, even when a girl directly invites him. Dejected, Buzz returns home and puts on a record. This magically summons Mr. B into the adolescent boy's bedroom, whereupon the pixie uses magic, music and dance to convince Buzz to take up playing the trumpet. In visiting the music dealership, Buzz's parents are reassured by the salesman that buying a trumpet is "simply making a small investment in your son's lifetime personality." When Buzz mentions that he didn't care what make his new horn would be, he is reproached by Mr. B Natural, and is treated to a detailed description of the C. G. Conn factory and laboratories. Through the gift of music and the help of his mysterious friend, Buzz finds the confidence and assertiveness he needs to try out for the school band, impress girls, and play solo at concerts and school dances. ===== Lou Arrendale is a bioinformatics specialist, has high-functioning autism, and has made a good life for himself. A new manager at the firm where he works puts pressure on the department where many people with autism work. Lou is pressured to undergo an experimental treatment that might "cure" his autism. Lou does not think he needs curing, but he risks losing his job and other accommodations the company has put in place for its employees with autism. Lou struggles with the idea of going through this "treatment" for his autism while he pursues fencing with "normal" friends and continues to go to work. His friends who have autism, as well as himself, meet together after work and discuss what or what not to do. ===== The novel follows the story of a modern black American man who is able to mentally project himself back to pre-human Africa, where he meets (and eventually mates) with humanity's prehistoric ancestors. At less than 1-year old, John Monegal is abandoned by his mother and adopted by USAF officer Hugo Monegal and his wife Jeanette. Since the very beginning of his life, John dreams of an ancient world and becomes an expert of the Pleistocene epoch, the era of the Homo habilis in Africa. When he is 18, John gets in touch with a paleonthologist, Alistair Patrick Blair, who serves as prime minister in the fictional country of Zarakal (approximately representing Kenya according to the author's preface) and works closely with a US physical scientist, Woodrow Kaprow, who has developed a time machine which brings John back to the era he dreams of. Just before leaving to the past, John discovers his mother wants to publish a book based on voice records of his dreams, and angry and deluded, he leaves her house and changes his name into Joshua Kampa. Almost lost in the remote past of a world which is the frontier between non-human and human life, John/Joshua feels he has reached the reality he always belonged to, and is accepted by a group of individuals who live in the African savanna. He gives a name to all his new friends, and learns to eat and live like them. Joshua starts thinking he will never get back to the 20th century. After a while he falls in love with a pre-historic woman, Helen, who gets pregnant and dies at the daughter's birth. To save his child and let her survive in a better world, Joshua goes back to the area of the time machine, where he is mysteriously saved by two African astronauts apparently coming from the future. Back to his actual life, Joshua finds he lost his dreaming power and learns that only a month in modern world's time has passed since he left; this is why he struggles in being believed about his daughter. As years pass, Joshua learns his daughter has the same dreaming power he used to have, but she is projected towards the future. After several years Joshua becomes a minister of the Zarakali government, and his 15-year-old daughter escapes with an agent from Uganda, Dick Aruj, who has convinced her to join a program of time travel to the future. ===== The non-linear plot, shifting back and forth in time from the 1940s to 1960s, mainly concerns Andrew Hale, a scholar and occasional operative for a secret British spy organization. Early in World War II, Hale is recruited as part of Operation Declare, an investigation of the true nature of several mysterious beings living on Mount Ararat, and how the Soviet Union has attempted to harness their vast supernatural powers. In this effort he is opposed by real-life communist traitor Kim Philby, a supporting character in the novel, who did travel extensively in the region. The novel proposes that the Great Game, the prolonged geopolitical conflict between the British and Russian empires in the 19th century over domination of Central Asia, was actually part of Operation Declare. The Okhrana, or Tsarist secret police, are cast as the Russian counterpart to Operation Declare. A sub-plot concerns Hale's on-off romance with Spaniard Elena Teresa Ceniza-Bendiga. A devoted Comintern agent and lapsed Catholic when she first meets Hale, Ceniza-Bendiga eventually rejects communism. While imprisoned in Moscow's notorious Lubyanka prison, she returns to her faith upon discovering the horrible motivation behind the deliberate mass starvation and violent political purges of Stalinist Russia: the placation of an entity called Zat al-Dawahi ("Mistress of Misfortunes") or Machikha Nash ("our stepmother"), a demonic being who demanded human sacrifice in exchange for protecting the nation from foreign invasion. ===== Sixteen years after the events of Predator's Gold, the former ice city of Anchorage has settled on an island in North America unaffected by the fallout from the Sixty Minute War and has become a static city named Anchorage-in-Vineland. Most of the inhabitants are happy with their new life, but Wren Natsworthy, the teenage daughter of Tom Natsworthy and Hester Shaw, is bored with her life and seeks adventure. When she sneaks out one night Wren encounters three Lost Boys, Remora, Fishcake and their older leader Gargle; who have come to Anchorage in search of a mysterious Rasmussen family artifact named the Tin Book. The Book, bearing the insignia of the President of the United States of America, contains the activation codes for the final remaining orbital weapons left over from the Sixty Minute War; potentially with firepower far greater than that of MEDUSA, which destroyed the Traction City of London in Mortal Engines. After meeting former Lost Boy now Anchorage resident Caul, who refuses to help him, Gargle persuades Wren to retrieve the Tin Book for him and to join them on their journeys around the world. Wren begins her mission by asking the now- adult margravine Freya Rasmussen, knowing that the Book is in the palace's library. Freya tells Wren of the Book's origins but explains that no one knows its purpose or meaning. When Wren reports to Gargle he tells her that Nimrod Pennyroyal's book about the time he spent in Anchorage has revealed the Lost Boys' existence to the raft cities that they previously robbed. As a result, the Lost Boys have been forced to loot cities further afield, but most of the Lost Boys' limpets never return. Gargle explains that raft cities have also begun searching for Grimsby and claims the Tin Book contains information that could get the sunken city moving again; but in actuality he intends to sell it to Stalker Fang for protection. Unaware of Gargle's true intentions, Wren steals the Book and gives it to him, whilst Caul alerts to Tom and Hester that Wren is missing. Hester finds the limpet and, believing that Wren is in danger, shoots and kills Gargle and Remora. Fishcake, devastated by the death of his comrades, kidnaps Wren with the intention of taking her to Grimsby. En route to the sunken city, Fishcake receives a communication from the raft resort of Brighton, claiming that the parents of kidnapped Lost Boys have united to track down their missing children. Fishcake, believing that he will be reunited with his parents and persuaded by Wren who believes her best chance of escape is there, changes course to Brighton. Arriving at the raft- city pleasure resort, the pair's limpet is captured and the two are taken in as slaves, the communication being a ruse to stop the Lost Boys. The owner of the slave trade company, Nabisco Shkin, intends to sell the two to Traction Cities in Nuevo Maya, but Wren convinces him to give them to Pennyroyal, who is now Mayor of Brighton; due to Wren's knowledge of Anchorage (and thus can expose Pennyroyal's lies). Shkin interrogates Fishcake, who reveals the location of Grimsby, prompting Brighton to change course and destroy it with depth charges. Shkin takes Wren up to Pennyroyal's floating palace above Brighton, Cloud 9. The slave-owner attempts to extort a hefty sum from Pennyroyal for Wren and to have the truth silenced, but Wren suddenly claims that she is a Lost Girl and has never been to Anchorage. She gives Pennyroyal the Tin Book and is employed in his household, to serve as a handmaiden for his overbearing wife Boo-Boo. Shkin, angered by Wren's lie, employs Fishcake to lead him to Anchorage and to enslave everyone there. Tom and Hester take an old limpet with Caul and Freya to Grimsby to save Wren. When they arrive, they find the wreckage of the sunk city and the bodies of many Lost Boys. The four meet Uncle in his chamber, who informs them that Gargle's limpet hasn't returned and that Wren is likely in Brighton. Uncle seemingly wins Caul back to the Lost Boys, who locks Tom, Hester and Freya up; but Caul later frees them when Uncle is asleep. Uncle eventually discovers them, but is killed when he shoots the balloon holding his monitoring screens and they collapse on him. Tom and Hester take Caul's old limpet to find Wren, whilst Caul and Freya take the remaining Lost Boys back to Anchorage where the pair marry. Meanwhile, the Stalker Shrike, who was seemingly killed by Tom in Mortal Engines is 're- resurrected' to mark the Stalker Fang's birthday by Dr. Oenone Zero; albeit with his previous memories wiped. Zero is promoted to Fang's Surgeon-Mechanic, though she intends to assassinate the Stalker as revenge for her aviator brother Eno being resurrected into a Stalker. Fang has the Green Storm armies extend their borders via bombing and destroying Traction Cities, starting a war with the Traktionstadtsgesellschaft. Zero is followed by Shrike to a Christian chapel, where she confides aloud that she will kill the Stalker Fang with a mysterious weapon. He prepares to kill her, but cannot bring himself to, nor alert the authorities of her treachery. Shrike realises that Zero has implemented a barrier that disables him from betraying her; but he intends to stop her from assassinating Fang. Wren makes friends with fellow slave Cynthia Twite and another young African slave, Theo Ngoni, who used to be a Green Storm kamikaze aviator that was captured. Wren plots to escape on Pennyroyal's private sky-yacht the Peewit by enlisting Theo's help, but he refuses. Shkin meets with Pennyroyal's advisor on Old-Tech, Walter Plovery, who explains what the Tin Book contains and orders him to retrieve it for him. The Moon Festival, a time when no city hunts nor eats each other, arrives as Brighton meets a few other cities on the shores of Africa. Plovery is invited to a dinner-party held by Pennyroyal and breaks into the Mayor's office, but is killed by an intruder. Wren and Theo are nearly arrested by Pennyroyal, as she tricked Cloud 9 aviators to refuel the Peewit, but Boo-Boo saves them, falsely believing that Wren and Theo are in love. Tom and Hester arrive in Brighton, and split up to search for Wren. Hester discovers Pennyroyal's corrupted version of the events of Predator's Gold, including that she sold Anchorage to Arkangel and the renamed exhibited Jenny Haniver. Tom meets with Shkin to negotiate Wren's release but is captured. Shkin plans to use Tom and Wren to expose Pennyroyal as a fraud and retrieve the Tin Book to sell off to the highest bidder. Told by Tom via a note that he was going to the Pepperpot, Shkin's base of operations, Hester plans to release the slaves inside to create a panic. At the Moon Festival, Shkin confronts Wren and asks her to fetch the Tin Book for him. Wren manages to get Theo's help and discovers a Green Storm Stalker-bird inside the safe. Destroying it and taking the Tin Book, the pair discover that Cloud 9 has been set adrift and that a Green Storm airship is heading toward Brighton. Hester breaks into the Pepperpot and releases the Lost Boy slaves. Fishcake visits Tom in his cell and tells him that Wren is on Cloud 9, and Tom promises to take Fishcake away to live in Anchorage. Tom and Fishcake meet Hester, who kills Shkin's men in the pandemonium. Zero discovers the Stalker Fang has commanded General Naga, the Green Storm's second-in-command, to destroy Brighton. On board the Requiem Vortex, Fang's personal ship, Shrike finds out that Fang covets the Tin Book, after reading about Anchorage when she wanted to know more about Tom, whom she met at Rogue's Roost in Predator's Gold. Wren discovers that Cynthia is a Green Storm agent, that she killed Plovery, installed the Stalker-bird in the safe and set Cloud 9 adrift; she explains that the Tin Book will help the Green Storm win the war against the Traktionstadtsgesellschaft. Cynthia takes the Tin Book and holds them at gunpoint, but the two are saved by Pennyroyal who knocks Cynthia out. Making their way to the Peewit, they discover Shkin attempting to escape Brighton inside it. Shkin shoots Pennyroyal, seemingly takes the Tin Book and makes off on the Peewit, but the airship is destroyed by Stalker-birds. Wren and Theo had tricked Shkin into taking a decoy, but are captured by Naga and brought before Fang. Fang takes the Book and memorizes the codes. Zero interrogates the pair, who explain to her what the Book contains. Knowing that Fang will kill thousands with it, Zero commands Shrike to kill Fang; he realises that he is the weapon she spoke of. Shrike manages to seemingly destroy Fang, scattering her battered pieces across the coastline of Africa. Suddenly remembering Hester, Shrike escapes from Naga. As Cloud 9 begins to burn and descend, the Tin Book's pages begin to blacken. Tom and Hester recover the Jenny Haniver, but Hester leaves Fishcake behind as revenge for taking Wren, despite Tom's pleas to go back for him. Wren and Theo discover Pennyroyal survived his wounds and take him with them as they try to escape. Zero also attempts to escape but is blocked by Naga. Secretly disgusted by Fang's actions in the war and wasting men, Naga commends Zero for orchestrating the Stalker's demise and takes control of the Green Storm. Naga takes Zero and the passengers from Cloud 9 on board the Requiem Vortex and leave. Pennyroyal tells Wren that Hester sold Anchorage to Arkangel, one of the few elements of his book that was true, but she doesn't believe him. Tom and Hester find the three, and Hester attempts to kill Pennyroyal to make sure that her crime to Anchorage isn't discovered, but Wren tells Tom about what she did to stop her. Hester flees into the burning wreckage of Cloud 9 in despair, where Shrike finds her. Tom, Wren, Theo and Pennyroyal escape in the Jenny Haniver as Cloud 9 finally collapses onto the African shore. As scavenger towns arrive, Shrike takes Hester's unconscious body into the nearby Sahara Desert. Fishcake, escaping from the Lost Boys, swims to the African coast. Wandering alone on the dunes, he encounters the remains of the Stalker Fang, who asks him to rebuild her, which he agrees to. ===== Ladies in Lavender is set in picturesque coastal Cornwall, in a tight-knit fishing village in 1936. A gifted young Polish violinist from Kraków, Andrea is sailing to America when he is swept overboard from his ship in a storm. When the Widdington sisters, Janet and Ursula, discover the handsome stranger washed up on the beach below their house, they nurse him back to health. However, the presence of the musically talented young man disrupts the peaceful lives of the sisters and the community in which they live. Holidaying artist Olga Danilof, the sister of famed violinist Boris Danilof, becomes interested in Andrea after hearing him play the violin. Olga writes a letter to the sisters, telling them who she is and that she would like to introduce her brother to Andrea. Instead of giving him the letter, understanding her sister has feelings for Andrea, Janet burns it. As time progresses, Olga and Andrea grow closer, and one day Andrea angrily confronts the sisters about the letter. Andrea, realizing that Ursula has feelings for him, apologizes for getting angry and they reconcile. Olga tells her brother of Andrea's talent, and he asks to meet Andrea in London. When Andrea meets with Olga to discuss the letter from her brother, she tells him that they must leave on a train immediately because her brother is only in London for 24 hours. Although Andrea cares deeply for the sisters, he knows this is his chance to start a career, and he leaves with Olga without saying goodbye. The sisters, worried that something has happened to him, call a friend of Andrea's who tells them he saw Andrea and Olga getting on a train. Thinking she'll never see him again, Ursula is heartbroken and Janet consoles her as best as she can. Andrea later sends them a letter, along with a portrait of himself painted by Olga, thanking them for saving his life. The sisters travel to London to attend Andrea's first public performance in Britain, while the rest of the village listens in on the wireless. ===== While stuck in a traffic jam, Dante and Randal have another philosophical, pop culture-laden conversation — this one sparked when Randal asks Dante what he would hypothetically sacrifice in exchange for marketing rights to a flying car from The Jetsons. The hypothetical scenarios Randal continues to suggest grow increasingly ridiculous, culminating in Dante agreeing to have his foot cut off with a hacksaw, get knocked out, and get molested by the German inventor and his friends in exchange for the flying car. Randal expresses disgust that Dante would "do it with a bunch of guys just to get a car". ===== On the eve of the winter solstice, Morbius the Malevolent kidnaps Eleanor, Princess of Arcadia, to sacrifice her ritually and become the Evil Baron of Darkness. Shadax the wizard, after witnessing the kidnapping, heads to Morbius' stronghold, the fortress Kâstleröck, to rescue Eleanor. Once while researching Kâstleröck in the Library of Arcadia to find a way to overthrow Morbius, Shadax learned of a secret entrance into Kâstleröck and the whereabouts of the Staff of Demnos, an ancient weapon with the power to defeat Morbius. The staff was hidden in Kâstleröck because that was where Morbius would least expect to find it. Morbius' spies searched for the Staff but did not find it because it was broken into six pieces and made invisible. However, every one hundred years on the winter solstice, all six pieces become visible. Knowing a way in, Shadax enters Kâstleröck to reassemble the Staff of Demnos, overthrow Morbius' forces of darkness, and save Princess Eleanor.Solstice instruction manual, pp. 7–10 Upon restoring the Staff of Demnos, Shadax seeks out and frees Eleanor from imprisonment and destroys Morbius with the Staff. ===== Maurice Legrand (Michel Simon), a meek cashier and aspirant painter, is miserably married to Adèle, an abusive woman who mistreats him. After a celebration in the company where he works, Maurice stumbles upon a man called André "Dédé" Jauguin (Georges Flamant) hitting a young woman called Lucienne "Lulu" Pelletier (Janie Marèse) on the street. Maurice protects Lulu and brings her home. Lulu, who is a prostitute, tells the naive Maurice that Dédé is her brother, but Dédé is actually her pimp. Maurice rents an apartment for Lulu and she becomes his mistress. Soon he brings his paintings to the apartment, since his wife Adèle intends to throw them away. But Dédé sells the paintings to an art dealer for a large amount, telling the dealer that Lulu had painted them using the alias Clara Wood. When Maurice stumbles upon Adèle's former husband who was supposedly killed in the War, he plots a scheme to get rid of Adèle. He succeeds in his intent, only to discover Lulu and Dédé in bed during the night. Shocked, he leaves, but returns in the morning to talk to Lulu. She confesses that she loves Dédé and humiliates Maurice, saying that the only reason she stayed with him was his money. Maurice attacks her with a knife and leaves the apartment with no witnesses. Dédé arrives moments later and discovers Lulu's body. Dédé is blamed for Lulu's death owing to his reputation, and he is executed. Maurice becomes a vagrant. ===== Trinity and Brother Dave are a pair of devil-bats looking for a party to break up. They come across a party in Harlem. Although Trinity is eager, Dave warns him not to touch it. "When black folks throw a party, they don't play!" Trinity joins the party, already in progress, thrown by Miss Maybell in honor of her niece Earnestine's birthday. Trinity first tries to break the records ("you can't have a party without music"), but finds that they are unbreakable. He drinks an entire bottle of liquor, thinking he has depleted their supply of alcohol, but finds out that all of the guests have brought their own bottles, and when he tries to eat all of the sandwiches, another plate is brought in. Trinity finds himself unwilling to continue being mean after he insults Earnestine, making her cry. Trinity apologizes to her, and tells her that he has fallen for her. Three more guests show up, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, and their college-educated son Harold. Earnestine ignores Trinity for Harold. Trinity becomes jealous. Brother Dave arrives in human form, eager to break up the party, but Trinity is unwilling to. Mr. Johnson tells Harold not to get involved with Earnestine, because her family is too "common," and he can't risk the big future he has ahead of him. Earnestine approaches both Harold and Trinity to dance, but they are pulled back by Mr. Johnson and Dave. Dave persuades Trinity to try to break up the party before midnight, when they will both be turned into the thing that they pretend to be: human beings. As time runs short, Dave and Trinity find themselves at the dinner table with the rest of the guests. Dave insults Mrs. Johnson, prompting her to leave with her husband and son. The rest of the guests tell Dave that they're glad that they left. After the dinner, Trinity stands up and announces that he and Earnestine are getting engaged, an announcement which infuriates Dave. Dave makes one last attempt to break up the party by trying to make a move on Miss Maybell. When Dave finds that she is all too willing, he turns himself into a cockroach and tries to sneak out the door before being smashed by Miss Maybell. ===== Kati and Steffi, inseparable since childhood, are teenagers at school. Kati endures a modest and difficult home life with a neurotic mother but Steffi's family are well off and harmonious. Everything changes when in a night club the two see Steffi's father entwined with another woman. Furious at this treachery, Steffi plots revenge against the woman's daughter Tessa. First she sends the girl to audition for a band, but it emerges that she can sing well and the band like her. That having failed, Steffi sends her to a pornographer, having got the address from a schoolmate Yvonne, who posed to earn some money so that she could leave home. Kati gets worried over Steffi's obsessive behaviour and, tracking down Tessa, rescues her as she is being raped by the pornographer. Furious, Tessa's mother storms round to the home of Steffi's parents and tells them what's been going on, upon which Steffi's mother leaves home. In the meantime, a nationwide police search has been launched for the missing Yvonne. Suspecting the pornographer, Kati recounts all she knows to the police, who tell her Yvonne has in fact been murdered. Going to see Steffi, she tells her that it was she who saved Tessa and so triggered the crisis in Steffi's family. When Steffi does not appear at school next day, Kati breaks into her home to find she has slashed both wrists. By calling an ambulance, Kati saves her life and at the hospital Steffi's parents turn up, apparently reconciled. Kati's mother at last shows sympathy towards her daughter and in a final shot the recovering Steffi makes it up with Kati. ===== Southern California teenager Les Anderson (Corey Haim) tries to get his driver's license in order to impress his crush, Mercedes Lane (Heather Graham). He fails the knowledge portion of the exam, but inadvertently causes a computer surge. Les' failing marks are thought to be irretrievable, but the Department of Motor Vehicles lets him pass the exam after comparing him to his twin sister's high marks. He eventually passes the road test, but his real test scores are finally retrieved and his license is revoked. Les tries concealing the truth from his parents, but his mother finds out the truth and grounds him for two weeks. Les made plans to drive his grandfather's prized 1972 Cadillac Sedan de Ville prior and decides to sneak away anyway for a joyride with Mercedes. Mercedes and Les get drunk and accidentally cave in the roof of the car after dancing on it. Mercedes passes out; Les panics and goes to his best friend Dean's (Corey Feldman) house to have him fix the dent in the car's hood. Dean persuades Les to continue the joyride along with their friend Charles (Michael Manasseri), but are unaware Les still does not have his license. The three put Mercedes in the trunk of the car and continue their night on the town, causing even more damage to the Cadillac. Meanwhile, Les' pregnant mother wakes up her husband late in the night announcing she is in labor. The next day, Les drops off Charles and Dean at their homes. Mercedes wakes up and believes that the night prior was a dream. Les drops her off at her house, where they share a kiss. Les gets in trouble with his father after returning home with the completely damaged Cadillac. Les' mother is still in labor, but the car is unable to be put in drive, so he drives his family to the hospital in reverse. Les' mother is taken into the hospital, but a crane fails outside and a falling steel girder crushes the Cadillac, much to the shock of Les and his father. The family tries to explain the state of the Cadillac to Les' grandfather, but Les' grandfather laughs it off as he reveals he has severely damaged Les' father's own car, a BMW, in an accident. Les' father gives the BMW to him and jokingly tells him to take good care of it. Although Les thanks his father, he has changed his mind and doesn't want it anymore. Mercedes pulls up in a white Volkswagen Golf Cabriolet and picks up Les, who gets in the driver's seat and drives away with her without his license. ===== After another failed attempt at stealing a sheep from Sam Sheepdog, Ralph Wolf returns home after his shift to relax and enjoy some television in his chair. Daffy Duck bursts in and declares that Ralph is the newest contestant on the game show "Sheep, Dog, and Wolf" or as Daffy likes to call it, "Who Wants to Be a Sheep Stealer". In this show, Ralph is tasked with successfully stealing sheep from Sam in a variety of environments, though he is not allowed to harm the sheep in any way. Despite many obstacles and encounters with various characters such as Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Gossamer, Toro and Road Runner, Ralph is finally able to steal Sam's entire flock, but as he is declared the winner, Marvin the Martian gatecrashes the show, angry at Ralph and Daffy because a specific sheep that Ralph was forced to fire into the sky using Yosemite Sam's cannon in order to win actually landed on Planet X while Marvin was experimenting with his instant Martians, causing a serious accident which led to the Martians scattering across the planet. Marvin forcibly takes Ralph to Planet X with the task of recovering the Martians. Ralph eventually completes his task and is returned home by Marvin along with the stranded sheep. However, once inside, the sheep is revealed to be Sam in disguise, who grabs Ralph and prepares to beat him vengefully when Ralph's alarm clock sounds and he wakes up from his sleep, revealing that the game's events were only a dream. Disappointed, Ralph goes outside to start another shift of sheep stealing from Sam. ===== Late one night at the Russell Square station in the London Underground, university students Patricia and her American exchange student boyfriend Alex find an unconscious man collapsed on the stairwell. Fearing the man may be diabetic, Patricia checks his wallet and finds a card that reads James Manfred, OBE. Alex and Patricia inform a police officer about Manfred, Alex and the officer return to the stairwell to Alex's surprise find that Manfred has vanished. Inspector Calhoun is assigned to look into the disappearance. Calhoun antagonistically questions Alex, who asserts the man was a drunk, and suggests he and Patricia robbed the man. While discussing the case of the missing Manfred, Calhoun's colleague tells him about the history of the London Underground, particularly the Victorian railway workers who constructed the tunnels under dire conditions, and an urban legend that a group of descendants who survived an 1892 cave-in still live below ground in an abandoned section of the tunnels. Meanwhile, one of the last surviving members of a family of these railway workers watches his female companion die; they have survived in the underground by resorting to cannibalism of the railway patrons. In an empty chamber, Manfred's body lies, mutilated. The man laments the woman's death, as he is now left in complete solitude. The man goes into a rage and brutally murders three Underground maintenance workers, taking one to his lair. Calhoun remains suspicious of Alex and Patricia, and calls Alex in for repeated interrogations. After seeing a film one night, Alex and Patricia take a train home and get off at Holborn station. While de- boarding, Patricia realizes she forgot her textbooks on the train. Alex attempts to retrieve them, but the doors close before he can exit; just as the train leaves, Patricia yells through the window that she will meet him at home. Once the train exits the platform, Patricia is attacked by the cannibal man and incapacitated. When Patricia fails to meet him at their flat, Alex seeks help from Calhoun, who is dismissive of him. Alex returns to Holborn station to search for Patricia, and enters the tunnel against the orders of a station attendant. He manages to breach an abandoned area of the Underground that had caved in, and finds remnants of the miners who worked there over a century ago. Meanwhile, Patricia awakens in the cannibal's lair. She finds him to be aphasic and unable to communicate with her. When he begins grabbing her aggressively, she hits him over the head and manages to flee, escaping into a tunnel. He finally corners her and attempts to communicate with her, but becomes frustrated and violently attacks her. Alex stumbles upon the scene and begins fighting with the cannibal, stomping him on the head. Patricia, however, begs Alex not to hurt him, and they watch as the cannibal stumbles into a passageway. Calhoun and several other detectives who have entered the Underground discover Alex and Patricia. As they search through the abandoned section of the Underground, the detectives uncover a room full of corpses laid in bunk bedsthe generations of survivors from the cave-in that occurred a century before. There they find the cannibal, bleeding profusely, and he collapses in front of them, apparently dead. The detectives return meet Alex and Patricia, who have been waiting outside the cannibal's lair, and head to the station platform. After they leave, the cannibal screams "Mind the doors!" as the credits roll. ===== In 2021 off East Timor, a US-led multinational taskforce commanded by Admiral Phillip Kolhammer prepares to liberate the Indonesian islands from an Islamic government calling itself the Caliphate, which is slaughtering the Chinese nationals living there. In the book's backstory, the Chinese government was planning to send a task force but was warned by the US government not to do so. The flagship of the task force is the aircraft carrier USS Hillary Clinton, named after "the most uncompromising wartime president in the history of the United States". The task force is made up mainly of US and British units alongside French, Australian, Japanese, and Free Indonesians, along with a few other units like Spetsnaz from Russia and Kommando Spezialkräfte from Germany. Alongside the navy task force is JRV Nagoya, a scientific ship that is experimenting with wormholes; the navy ship protecting it is ordered to join the task force. A new ship from the Royal New Zealand Navy is sent as escort, but prior to its arrival, Nagoyas project director, Manning Pope, decides to make a trial run. The task force is constantly watched by a Caliphate spy on the mainland. In 1942, Rear Admiral Raymond A. Spruance and Lt. Commander Daniel Black are on the bridge of , on their way to face the Japanese sent to invade Midway. A growing commotion outside the bridge prompts them to investigate, only to find a large group of what are, to them, unknown and strangely designed ships. They spot a ship with the Japanese ensign and assume it is the Japanese fleet sent against Midway and they order their own ships to open fire. The multinational task force Combat Intelligence, referred to as CI, takes defensive action; the 21st-century fleet nearly wipes out the US fleet, including and . During the battle, Kolhammer and the rest of the multinational task force commanders learn that not all ships of the task force came through and those that did, did not all end up in the same place. HJIMS Ryūjō encounters the Free Indonesian ship KRI Sutanto and boards it. The Indonesians are taken captive, the Japanese learn of the force sent against them at Midway, and the rest of the Japanese navy is warned and ordered back home. After the battle between the 1942 US naval force and the 21st-century multinational task force, an unsteady peace starts after they both reach Pearl Harbor. However, murders, rapes, and riots happen as the 21st-century people try to mix with the locals. Kolhammer is flown to California to meet President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Albert Einstein. As time goes by with no sight of JRV Nagoya, more and more 21st-century personnel start to realize they are stuck in 1942. Captain Karen Halabi and HMS Trident, a Trident-class trimaran stealth destroyer, is ordered back to the Home Island for evaluation and possible transfer of Trident. However, prior the ship's and her departure, they take part in a prisoner of war rescue in Singapore and Luzon. The rescue is carried out by both 21st-century and 1942 personnel. Through the Japanese, Hitler learns about the results of the invasion of the Soviet Union and sends Ribbentrop to negotiate peace with the Soviet Union. ===== Grubitsch "Grubbs" Grady, the younger child of chess-obsessed parents, grows increasingly uneasy with the recent strange, nervous behavior of his parents and sister. One night, he finds the mutilated bodies of his family and encounters Lord Loss, a gruesome human-like demon who sets his two familiars, Vein and Artery, on Grubbs. Although Grubbs manages to escape, he is deeply traumatized and is placed in a mental institute. He refuses to respond to treatment until he is visited by his father's younger brother, Dervish Grady, who tells Grubbs that he knows demons exist and convinces Grubbs to finally accept help. After Grubbs recovers, he lives with the rather eccentric Dervish in his mansion near the village of Carcery Vale. Dervish explains to Grubbs that using magic is possible as Grubbs himself used magic to flee from Lord Loss and his minions. As Grubbs begins to settle down, he meets and befriends Bill-E Spleen, another orphan who visits Dervish often to learn magic. Bill-E tells Grubbs of his belief that Dervish may actually be his father, given how close they were before then, but tells Grubbs to keep it a secret from him, which he agrees. Later, when exploring the cellar, Grubbs comes across a book on demonology, and opens to a page containing an illustration of Lord Loss, which seemingly comes to life and calls to him. Grubbs immediately closes the book and runs out of the cellar. Time passes, and later, Grubbs and Bill-E discover animal corpses being left in the nearby forest. They also notice Dervish collecting them and disposing of the remains. Fearing for Grubbs’ safety, Bill-E eventually shares his theory that Dervish is a werewolf, as many Gradys were prone to lycanthropy, which manifests itself at puberty. However, Bill-E is later revealed to be the real werewolf, though he doesn't know it himself. Dervish confirms to Grubbs that the Gradys are indeed cursed, only that it has been going on for centuries. Dervish later explains that Bill-E is Grubbs' half-brother from one of his father's affairs. The only way to cure him is by winning three out of five simultaneous chess games with the powerfully magical demon master Lord Loss while another person battles his familiars. Neither one is permitted to fail. This is also revealed to be the reason his family was killed, when his sister Gret also succumbed to the family curse. Meera Flame, a friend of Dervish, who is knocked out while trying to restrain a transformed Bill-E, was supposed to help battle the demons. Dervish convinces an extremely reluctant Grubbs, who is still haunted by nightmares, to take her place. While confronting Lord Loss, Dervish is constantly distracted from his chess match as Grubbs is unable to fight off the two familiars. Dervish finally uses magic to save Grubbs, but Lord Loss sees this as breaking the rules of the game and is about to let his familiars kill Dervish, Grubbs, and Bill-E. However, Dervish is able to convince Lord Loss to let Grubbs finish the chess game, while he battles the familiars. A terrified Grubbs then makes a bad game worse. Then Grubbs realizes that Lord Loss is feeding on his despair and then decides to play with an aloof attitude. This throws Lord Loss' concentration, allowing Grubbs to win the game. Lord Loss then cures Bill-E, but someone must battle him in his realm. Grubbs offers to go, but Dervish refuses to let Grubbs fight and goes instead. Dervish leaves to the Demonata universe, leaving Grubbs behind with Bill-E. Grubbs lies to Bill-E, telling him that Dervish used a calming spell to try to cure his lycanthropy. Grubbs figures that it's better for Bill-E to believe that Dervish is his father, since his real father is dead. Fourteen months later Grubbs has been caring for Dervish in his zombie-like state, also dealing with the fear that he'll turn into a werewolf. One morning, Grubbs wakes up to find blood under his nails and hair in his teeth. Thinking that he has turned, he prepares to call the mysterious Lambs Dervish told him about, to kill him before he does any harm. As Grubbs reaches for the phone he hears someone call his name. Turning to look he sees Dervish, with his senses regained, holding a tin of paint and a woollen scarf. The book ends with Dervish saying, "The look on your face!" ===== In October 1986, two women are found raped and murdered in a ditch. Local detective Park Doo- man, not having dealt with such a serious case before, is overwhelmed — evidence is improperly collected, the police's investigative methods are suspect, and their forensic technology is near non-existent. Park claims he has a way of determining suspects by eye contact. He decides to first question a scarred mentally handicapped boy, Baek Kwang-ho, who resides in the town. He uses his eye contact method, thinking Baek is responsible, and has his partner Cho beat confessions out of Baek. Seo Tae-yoon, a detective from Seoul, volunteers to assist them. However he and Park's methods clash. Seo deems Baek's hands too weak and scarred to be able to commit such an elaborate crime, clearing his name. After more murders are committed, they realize that the killer waits until a rainy night and only kills women wearing red. Officer Kwon Kwi-ok realizes that a local radio station is always requested to play a particular song during the nights the murders are committed. At the latest crime scene, Park, Cho and Seo all arrive to investigate in different ways, but a local man there masturbates in a woman's red lingerie. Park and Cho apprehend the man, brutally beating him. Seo finds a survivor of the killer with Kwon's help. Upon learning that the killer's hands were noticeably soft, Seo clears the man, as his hands are rough. Infuriated that they lost their suspect, Park scuffles with Seo until Kwon alerts them that the song on the radio is playing. They realize it's raining but arrive too late, finding another woman murdered. Park, Seo and Cho finally decide to work together. Upon doing an autopsy of the latest victim, they discover pieces of a peach in the body. Clues lead them to a factory worker, Park Hyeon-gyu. Seo notes that his hands are soft like the survivor had described. Hyeon-gyu begins to show discomfort when Seo presents the peaches and they think they've found the killer. Cho loses control and beats Hyeon-gyu, prompting their superior to ban him from the interrogation room. Park and Seo listen to Baek's earlier confession. Seo points out that he talks as if someone else did it and they realize he knew details of the murder because he witnessed it. They go to Baek's father's restaurant, only to discover a drunken Cho there. As people watch news and ridicule police officers, he beats everyone and Baek joins the fray, swinging a wooden board at Cho's leg and accidentally piercing it with a rusty nail. Park and Seo chase Baek and question him, but he gets frightened and runs into the path of an oncoming train, where he is hit and killed. Park learns that Cho's leg will have to be amputated because the nail caused tetanus, leaving him feeling guilty. They discover semen on one of the bodies, but because of lack of technology, the sample has to be sent to the United States to confirm if suspect Hyeon-gyu is the killer. That night, a young girl is killed. At the crime scene, Seo recognizes the girl as the same schoolgirl he had befriended while investigating. Enraged, he attacks Hyeon-gyu until he is interrupted by Park bringing the results from America. The sample does not match Hyeon-gyu's DNA. Park lets Hyeon-gyu go. In the end, the crimes remain unsolved. While visiting the crime scene years later in 2003, Park Doo-man, now a businessman, learns from a little girl that the scene had recently been visited by an unknown man with a 'normal' face, someone who looked very ordinary. The little girl had asked the man why he was looking at the ditch; the man had responded that he was reminiscing about something he had done there a long time ago. The film ends as Park, realizing the truth, looks straight at the camera, seemingly using his eye-contact method to spot the killer among the audience. ===== The plot concerns Michael, a professional violinist, who never forgot his love for Julia, a pianist he met as a student in Vienna. They meet again after a decade, and conduct a secret affair, though she is married and has one child. Their musical careers are affected by this affair and the knowledge that Julia is going deaf. A recurring element throughout the plot is the pair's performance of Beethoven's Piano Trio Opus 1 No.3, which they first perform in their college days. ===== Predator is the fourteenth book of the Dr. Kay Scarpetta series by author Patricia Cornwell. ===== Dr. Kay Scarpetta, now freelancing with the National Forensic Academy in Florida, takes charge of a case that stretches from steamy Florida to snowbound Massachusetts, one as unnerving as any she has ever faced. The teasing psychological clues lead Scarpetta and her team—Pete Marino, Benton Wesley, and Lucy Farinelli—to suspect that they are hunting someone with a cunning and malevolent mind whose secrets have kept them in the shadows, until now. ===== The narrator Egaeus, a studious young man, grows up in a large, gloomy mansion with his cousin Berenice. He suffers from a type of obsessive disorder, a monomania that makes him fixate on objects. Originally beautiful, Berenice suffers from an unspecified degenerative illness, of which periods of catalepsy, are a symptom, which he refers to as a "trance". Nevertheless, they are due to be married. One afternoon, Egaeus sees Berenice as he sits in the library. When she smiles, he focuses on her teeth. His obsession grips him, and for days he drifts in and out of awareness, constantly thinking about her teeth. He imagines himself holding the teeth and turning them over to examine them from all angles. At one point, a servant tells him that Berenice has died and shall be buried. When he next becomes aware, with an inexplicable terror, he finds a lamp and a small box in front of him. Another servant enters, reporting that a grave has been violated, and a shrouded disfigured body found, still alive. Egaeus finds that his clothes are covered in mud and blood, and he opens the box to find that it contains dental instruments and "thirty-two small, white and ivory-looking substances": Berenice's teeth. The Latin epigraph, "Dicebant mihi sodales si sepulchrum amicae visitarem, curas meas aliquantulum fore levatas" at the head of the text may be translated as: "My companions said to me, if I would visit the grave of my friend, I might somewhat alleviate my worries."Dicebant mihi sodales si sepulchrum amicae visitarem, curas meas aliquantulum fore levatas. From Ibn Zaiat. The second part of the poem is Dixi autem, an ideo aliud praeter hoc pectus habet sepulchrum? :My companions said to me, if I would visit the grave of my friend, I might somewhat alleviate my worries. I answered "could she be buried elsewhere than in my heart?" From "The Works of Sir William Jones, Vol. 2", London 1799 This quotation is also seen by Egaeus in an open book towards the end of the story. ===== High school student Brendan Frye (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) discovers a note directing him to a pay phone, where he receives a call from his terrified ex-girlfriend Emily Kostich (Emilie de Ravin), begging for help. She mentions a "brick", "Tug", and "the Pin" before abruptly hanging up, apparently afraid of a passing black Ford Mustang, from which a distinctively-branded cigarette is thrown. Unable to locate Emily, Brendan enlists his friend Brain (Matt O'Leary) for help. An encounter with another ex-girlfriend, Kara (Meagan Good), leads him to a party held by flirtatious upper-class girl Laura Dannon (Nora Zehetner) and her boyfriend, Brad Bramish (Brian J. White). Laura points Brendan to Dode (Noah Segan), who arranges a meeting with Emily. Emily dismisses the phone call and tells Brendan to let her go. Brendan steals her notepad and finds a note that leads him to her dead body in a tunnel the following morning. Distraught, Brendan decides to investigate her murder, hiding the body to avoid police intrusion. Brendan discovers that "the Pin" (Lukas Haas) is a secretive local drug baron. As Brad is a frequent drug user, Brendan picks a fight with him, hoping to attract the Pin's attention. Later, a man wearing a beanie attacks Brendan. Brendan sees the black Mustang in a parking lot and tries to break into it. He is beaten up by the car's beanie-wearing owner. Rather than fight back, Brendan repeatedly asks to meet the Pin. The man is Tug (Noah Fleiss), the Pin's main enforcer, who reluctantly takes Brendan to the Pin's house. Brendan asks the Pin for a job, and the Pin says he will investigate him and either hire or kill him by the next day. Laura reveals herself and drives Brendan back to school. She explains that Emily stole a "brick" of heroin after being rejected by the Pin's operation. Laura offers to help Brendan, but he distrusts her. The next day, Brendan learns that the Pin has hired him. Dode calls Brendan and says he saw Brendan hide Emily's body. Believing Brendan is the murderer, he threatens to ruin him. Brendan meets the Pin, who suspects that Tug is planning to betray him. At the Pin's house, Tug tells Brendan that the Pin recently bought ten bricks of heroin. He quickly sold eight wholesale. The ninth was stolen and later returned contaminated, and the final brick remains to be sold. The Pin arrives and says that someone wants to meet to discuss Emily, revealing that Tug was romantically involved with her. Brendan intercepts Dode on the way to the meeting and discovers Emily was pregnant when she died; Dode believes it was his baby. Brendan passes out from his accumulated injuries and arrives at the meeting late, where Dode is demanding money to reveal who killed Emily. Tug goes berserk and shoots Dode in the head, then threatens the Pin, who walks away as Brendan faints again. Brendan awakens in Tug's bedroom, and Tug tells him they are at war with the Pin. Brendan arranges a meeting between the two and waits in Tug's bedroom. Laura comforts him as he grieves Emily, and they kiss. Brendan recognizes her cigarette as the same brand that was dropped from the Mustang during the call with Emily. At the meeting, chaos erupts when it is discovered that the tenth brick is missing. Tug beats the Pin to death while Brendan flees, escaping just as police arrive. As he goes, he passes the partly-open trunk of Tug's car, where he has placed Emily's body to ensure that police blame her murder on Tug. The next day, Brendan meets Laura at the school. Brendan explains that he knows Laura set Emily up to take the fall for Laura's theft of the ninth brick, then manipulated Emily into meeting Tug, who panicked and killed her after she told him he was the father of her unborn child. Brendan has written a note to the school administration stating that the tenth brick is in Laura's locker. Laura vindictively tells Brendan that Emily did not want to keep the baby because she did not love the father, and that Emily was three months pregnant when she died, meaning the unborn child was his. ===== ===== Upon his release from prison, Hong Jong-du (Sol Kyung-gu) goes looking for his relatives in Seoul. He is back on the streets after serving a three-year prison term for a hit-and-run accident. He discovers that during his absence, his family moved without telling him. Oblivious to society's rules, he again ends up in police custody for non- payment of a restaurant bill. He is bailed out by his younger brother Jong-sae (Ryoo Seung-wan) and reunited with his estranged family, who reluctantly take him back in. Slightly mentally disabled and an incurable social misfit, Jong- du is hired as a delivery boy for a Chinese restaurant on the recommendation of his older brother Jong-il (Ahn Nae-sang). In an awkward attempt at reconciliation, Jong-du seeks out the family of the man killed in the accident. He finds the man's son, Han Sang-shik (Son Byong-ho) is moving out and leaving behind his cerebral palsy-stricken sister Gong-ju (Moon So-ri) to be cared for by the neighbors while he uses her disability status to get a better subsidized apartment where he pretends she is living. The family is horrified at Jong-du's intrusion, but he becomes intrigued by Gong-ju. Jong-du decides to woo her by sending flowers and discovers where her house keys are hidden. He lets himself in at a time when he knows she is alone. He awkwardly make conversation and leaves his card for her to call him if she wants. Leaving, he notices and becomes interested in her feet, claiming to have never seen a woman's bare foot before. Gong-ju is startled and distressed at this extremely invasive comment from a complete stranger. Trying to pacify the startled Gong-ju, Jong-du loses control and starts to sexually assault the helpless woman, stopping only when she faints. Fired from his job after crashing the scooter, Jong-du is given the opportunity to work in his brother's auto repair shop, where he also sleeps at night. A couple of days later to his surprise, Gong-ju calls him in the middle of night. After a number of secret encounters and outings, nearly being discovered by their families or the neighbors, the two misfits become inseparable. Gong-ju tells him how frightened she is of a shadow from a tree outside her window. Jong-du promises her that she no longer has to be afraid because he will make the shadows disappear by magic. On their adventures outside of the apartment, the couple is faced with the harsh reality of a discriminating society but is comforted by the innocent sanctity of their love. When Jong-du naively brings Gong-ju to his mother's birthday celebration, tempers flare and viewers learn that his older brother was the actual culprit of the hit-and-run: his family was glad when Jong-du volunteered to go to jail in his place. Wanting to be treated like a woman, Gong-ju invites Jong-du back to her apartment, where they make love. When her brother arrives on a surprise visit, chaos erupts. Jong-du is arrested and charged with raping a handicapped woman. Gong-ju's family and the police ignore Gong-ju who is too overcome with emotion and distress at the misunderstanding to make herself heard or understood. In a final burst of passion, Jong-du escapes from the police and rushes to Gong- ju's apartment. The couple reaffirms their love as Jong-du fulfills his promise of making the shadows disappear by climbing the tree and cutting the branches off. He then falls and is hauled off to prison, having committed several additional crimes in his trip to see Gong-ju whose exoneration can no longer fully protect him. In the last scene, Gong-ju is cleaning her apartment alone, while Jong-du's voice is heard reading a letter to her, promising to come back when he is released. ===== The film starts with a Polaroid photograph of a dead man. As the sequence plays backward, the photo reverts to its undeveloped state, entering the camera before the man is shot in the head. The film then continues, alternating between black-and-white and color sequences. The black-and-white sequences begin with Leonard Shelby, a former insurance investigator, in a motel room speaking to an unseen and unknown caller. Leonard has anterograde amnesia and is unable to store recent memories, the result of an attack by two men. Leonard explains that he killed the attacker who raped and strangled his wife, but a second clubbed him and escaped. The police did not accept that there was a second attacker, but Leonard believes the attacker's name is "John G" or "James G". Leonard investigates using notes, Polaroid photos, and tattoos. Leonard recalls Sammy Jankis, another anterograde amnesiac, from his insurance industry days. After tests confirmed Sammy's inability to learn tasks through repetition, Leonard believed that his condition was at best psychological (and perhaps faked) and turned down his insurance claim. Sammy's distraught wife repeatedly asked Sammy to administer her insulin shots for her diabetes, hoping he would remember and would stop himself from giving her a fatal overdose. However, Sammy continued to administer the injections, and his wife died. The color sequences are shown reverse-chronologically. In the story's chronology, Leonard self-directively gets a tattoo of John G's license plate. Finding a note in his clothes, he meets Natalie, a bartender who resents Leonard because he wears the clothes and drives the car of her boyfriend, Jimmy Grantz. After understanding Leonard's condition, she uses it to get Leonard to drive a man named Dodd out of town and offers to run the license plate as a favor. Meanwhile, Leonard meets with a contact, Teddy, who helps with Dodd, but warns about Natalie. Leonard finds that he had previously annotated his Polaroid of Teddy, warning himself not to trust him. Natalie provides Leonard with the driver's license for a John Edward Gammell, Teddy's full name. Confirming Leonard's information on "John G" and his warnings, Leonard drives Teddy to an abandoned building, leading to the opening, where he shoots him. In the final black-and-white sequence, prompted by the caller, Leonard meets with Teddy, an undercover officer, who has found Leonard's "John G," Jimmy, and directs Leonard to the abandoned building. When Jimmy arrives, Leonard strangles him fatally and takes a Polaroid photo of the body. As the photo develops, the black-and-white transitions to the final color sequence. Leonard swaps clothes with Jimmy, hearing him whisper "Sammy." As Leonard has only told Sammy's story to those he has met, he suddenly doubts Jimmy's role. Teddy arrives and asserts that Jimmy was John G, but when Leonard is undeterred, Teddy claims that he helped him kill the real attacker a year ago, and he has been using Leonard ever since. Teddy points out that since the name "John G" is common, Leonard will cyclically forget and begin again and that even Teddy himself has a "John G" name. Further, Teddy claims that Sammy's story is Leonard's own story, a memory Leonard has repressed to escape guilt. After hearing Teddy confess all of this, Leonard burns the photograph of dead Jimmy and in a monologue explains that he is willing to lie to himself in order to get justice against anyone who has wronged him. He therefore targets Teddy by ordering a tattoo of Teddy's license plate number and writing a note to himself that Teddy is not to be trusted so that he will mistake Teddy for John G. and kill him. Leonard drives off in Jimmy's car, confident that, despite this lie, he will retain enough awareness of the world to know that his actions have consequences. ===== Following the games' storyline, movie lover Joe and his girlfriend Silvia enjoy a seemingly normal trip to the movies to see an action flick starring Joe's idol, Captain Blue, when suddenly the leader of the evil Jadow force reaches out of the screen and takes Silvia into the movie. Joe is forced to follow her by Captain Blue's mecha, Six Machine (renamed "Machine Six" in the English anime dub), and meets Captain Blue in the flesh who grants Joe the power to become an action movie hero in his own right called Viewtiful Joe. ===== Mark Thackeray (Sidney Poitier), from British Guiana by way of California, took a teaching position in a London East End school in the 1967 film. He spent twenty years teaching and ten in administrative roles. He has taught the children of his former pupils, and is now retiring. Thackeray's former students, Pamela Dare and Barbara Pegg (Judy Geeson and Lulu reprising their roles from the original film), come to the farewell party. Thackeray announces that he is leaving for an inner-city school in Chicago where he will teach again. In Chicago, he meets his former colleague Horace Weaver (Daniel J. Travanti) who is the principal of the school. Thackeray learns that there is an A class with good students and an H (for "horror") class for the "no-gooders". He convinces the principal to let him take the H class as, in his own admission, that is what he does best. His new pupils are noisy, unruly and engaged in destructive behaviours. As he did in London, he starts by teaching them respect for others. He addresses the pupils as Mr or Miss and their last names, and expects to be called Mr. Thackeray or Sir by them in return. Gradually, he learns their personal stories: Wilsie (Christian Payton) is a gang leader who protects his younger brother. A black female battles against double prejudice. Evie (Dana Eskelson) hides growing up without parents to avoid being fostered. A fellow teacher, Louisa Rodriguez (Saundra Santiago) admires him. It is revealed that as a teenager in British Guiana, Thackeray fell in love with a girl from Chicago. They lost contact and he went to Britain to study, became a teacher, and got married. Now a widower, Thackeray took this teaching opportunity hoping to find his earlier love. At the new school, he sets out to teach the troubled students their true potential by taking their fates in their hands. He teaches about the non- violent resistance of the historic fighters of civil rights. When he discovers Wilsie smuggling a gun into the school, he confronts him and convinces him to yield the weapon and he delivers it to the police as a found object. Later, the police pressure him to reveal the identity of the gun owner because the gun had been used to kill a police officer. He refuses and has to leave the school. Evie, who works at a newspaper, investigates Thackeray's old love, Emily Taylor (Cheryl Lynn Bruce). Evie arranges for him to meet Taylor, and also meets her son. Thackeray learns that Taylor returned his affections, but her father kept Thackeray's letters from her because she was pregnant with Thackeray's son. Thackeray learns that Wilsie is hiding because he thinks that the police are after him. He convinces Wilsie's brother to take him to the hiding place. Thackeray convinces Wilsie to give up violent gang life. After he confronts a rival gang looking for Wilsie, Wilsie and a friend with access to more firearms turn themselves in to the police. The pupils stage a "stand in" to force the principal to reinstate their beloved teacher. The term ends with a graduation ceremony and dance. Thackeray announces that he is not returning to Britain but staying in Chicago to teach the new generation. ===== The novel opens at the alternate close of the Second Punic War. Hannibal offers terms to the Romans: abandon their city and move north of the Alps, or be destroyed. The Romans, under the dictator Quintus Fabius Maximus, accept the offer and withdraw into Germania, vowing to return. The Carthaginians declare victory and go home. One chapter and several generations later, the Romans have long since reestablished their republic. These Romans, largely out of need, have adopted a practice of Cultural Romanization more pronounced than the historical Romans did: large numbers of Germans have been adopted into the Roman society, forming a large proportion of both the legions and the Senate. A series of auspicious omens prompt the Senate to send a delegation south into Latium. The expedition leaders are subtly but immediately at cross purposes: the commander, Marcus Scipio, a scion of the ancient patrician Cornelii Scipiones family, is wholly motivated by a desire to reestablish the Republic in the Mediterranean basin. His deputy, Titus Norbanus, one of the newer, Germanic Romans, seeks personal glory, at least in part to ensure that the Germans (particularly his own family) remain as powerful within the expanded Republic as they do under the current scheme. It quickly becomes clear to the Romans that generations of constant warfare in Germania have strengthened them, whereas the Carthaginians have grown soft in the absence of real opposition. The Republic quickly begins playing the Carthaginians off against the Egyptians, the only other serious power in the Mediterranean, reclaiming Latium in the process. At the close of the novel, the Egyptian army, led by Scipio and armed with fearsome weapons from the School of Archimedes from the Library of Alexandria, outlasts the Carthaginian force, which hurriedly retreats upon hearing the news of the Roman reconquest of Italy. The four Roman legions led by Norbanus, technically Carthaginian auxiliaries, decide to ignore Scipio's offer to join him in Alexandria, and chart their own path to Rome. ===== Lina is one of six school children in the small fishing village of Shora. When she writes an essay for school that asks why there are no storks in their village, she sets all the others to wondering. Their teacher encourages the class to find out for themselves. The children set out to bring the storks back. They have to overcome many obstacles. They discovered that the roofs on the village's homes are pitched so steeply that the storks cannot find space to nest on the sharp ridges, and placing a wagon wheel on each roof ridge would give storks a place to nest. The task of finding a wagon wheel in the tiny village proves difficult, and the children meet several interesting personalities during their search. This simple, yet compelling plot teaches that if people think and wonder why, things will begin to happen and dreams will come true. The schoolchildren are: Lina, the only girl in the small school; Jella, the biggest of all the children; Auka, an average boy; Eelka, who is fat and awkward; and Pier and Dirk, the inseparable twins. These six kids are aided by their teacher, Grandmother Sibble III, legless Janus, old Douwa, and the "tin man". Other characters include the fathers of the children, who are all fishermen; Lina's aunt, who lives in Nes; Evert, the man living across from Lina's aunt; Lina and Auka's younger siblings, Linda and Jan; Jana, Janus's wife; and the mothers of the children. The dedication reads: "To my nieces, Shirley and Beverly, and their flying fingers". ===== A little boy named Petey takes his big Snoopy doll on his airplane trip, only to lose it after landing at the airport. Petey looks for the doll as it goes on an adventure of its own and is passed around from person to person. ===== Gideon Oliver Dobbs is a man with a mental disability. He moves into a nursing home known as Lakeview, with many elderly inhabitants. They are all grumpy old men and women. Gideon is much younger than the other residents, which causes confusion when he first introduces himself. His view of life makes the seniors look at their lives in a different way. ===== Evie Harris (Jack Plotnick) is a washed-up, alcoholic, aging C-List actress (star of kinescope, stage, television, and film in such works as the TV special Christmas Evie, vaudeville-era appearances promoting 'Dr. Vim's Miracle Elixir,' Court TV: Celebrities Who Kill, Tabitha and the sad 1970s disaster epic Asteroid [tagline: 'Earth Might Get Crushed!']). She lives in a tackily out-of-style bungalow with Coco (Clinton Leupp), a homely, lonely, doormat of a spinster who carries a torch for the handsome young doctor who performed her abortion years ago. Evie's life is turned upside-down by the arrival of a new roommate, Varla Simonds (Jeffery Roberson), the voracious, starry-eyed daughter of Evie's rival, late actress Marla Simonds (whose claims to fame included playing Chesty on Fill Her Up, the short-lived but widely acclaimed spinoff of C.P.O. Sharkey, and almost being cast as the lead in "Asteroid" before Evie captured that "breakout" role). Evie acts very competitive around Varla, especially as she recognizes the growing chemistry between the young up-and- comer and her sweet, handsome and microscopically endowed son and "ambulance chasing" lawyer, Stevie (Ron Mathews). When Varla snags a plum starring role in commercials for "Bizzy Gal dinners," tensions and jealousies amongst the three women reach a boiling point and treachery soon rears its ugly head. ===== Part of what Kerouac considered the 'Duluoz Legend', Maggie Cassidy tells the tale of Jack Duluoz and his romantic involvement with Irish-American Maggie Cassidy. Duluoz is a high school athletics and football star who meets Maggie Cassidy and begins a devoted, inconstant, tender adolescent love affair. ===== The novel begins with Jackie Duluoz, based on Kerouac himself, relating a dream in which he finds himself in Lowell, Massachusetts, his childhood home town. Prompted by this dream, he recollects the story of his childhood of warm browns and sepia tones, along with his shrouded childhood fantasies, which have become inextricable from the memories. The fantasies pertain to a castle in Lowell atop a muted green hill that Jackie calls Snake Hill. Underneath the misty grey castle, the Great World Snake sleeps. Various vampires, monsters, gnomes, werewolves, and dark magicians from all over the world gather to the mansion with the intention of awakening the Snake so that it will devour the entire world (although a small minority of them, derisively called "Dovists," believe that the Snake is merely "a husk of doves," and when it awakens it will burst open, releasing thousands of lace white doves. This myth is also present in a story told by Kerouac's character, Sal Paradise, in On the Road). The eponymous Doctor Sax, also part of Jackie's fantasy world, is a dark but ultimately friendly figure with a shrouded black cape, an inky black slouch hat, a haunting laugh, and a "disease of the night" called Visagus Nightsoil that causes his skin to turn mossy green at night. Sax, who also came to Lowell because of the Great World Snake, lives in the forest in the neighboring town of Dracut, where he conducts various alchemical experiments, attempting to concoct a potion to destroy the Snake when it awakens. When the Snake is finally awakened, Doctor Sax uses his potion on the Snake, but the potion fails to do any damage. Sax, defeated, discards his shadowy black costume and watches the events unfold as an ordinary man. As the Snake prepares to destroy the world, all seems lost until an enormous night colored bird, an ancient counterpart of the Snake, suddenly appears. Seizing the Snake in its beak, the bird flies upward into the heartbreakingly blue sky until it vanishes from view, leading the amazed Sax to muse, "I'll be damned, the universe disposes of its own evil!" ===== Guy Stone (Matt Letscher) is blissfully closeted, picking up tricks for one-night-stands, while capturing the country's heart as "America's most eligible bachelor" (starring in such films as The Love Barrel and I Married the Ghost). However, Guy's carefully managed façade collapses when he comes up for the lead in S.R.O. studio's version of Ben-Hur. Things turn sour for the film idol when a fellow actor, Freddie Stevens (Jack Plotnick) (famous in the film for portraying "Captain Astro" in a succession of Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon-type serial films), decides to steal the lead in Ben-Hur from Guy by taking a picture of Guy exiting a gay bar. Freddie plans to out Guy to the world and ruin his career. Jerry (Veronica Cartwright), Guy's repressed lesbian ball- bustingly ambitious agent, connives to cover up the impending outing and ensure Guy the role in Ben-Hur by marrying her client off with great fanfare to the studio head's secretary, Sally (Carrie Preston), who just happens to also be a slavishly devoted Guy Stone fan. However, Sally isn't aware the marriage is a sham. To avoid his adoring new bride as much as possible, Guy has Jerry sign him onto the next available film, which turns out to be 'Blood Mine' — a disastrously arch pro-union film about the corrupt goings on at a coal mine (with lines like 'how can they call this a MINE when everything is THEIRS!?!'). The studio head, in fear of the red-baiting going on in Hollywood at the time, decides — true to Hollywood stereotype — rather than stop production on the film to instead water down the pro-union content wherever possible. The young, idealistic, and terribly handsome writer of the novel that the film is based on, Rick Foster, quickly gets roped into convoluting the plot of this already-bad adaptation of his heartfelt book largely because of a chance meeting between him and the film's star, Guy. The attraction the two men feel for one another is instantaneous and propels the rest of the plot forward. ===== On May 14, 1989, six-year-old abductee Martin Bristol, whose face has been disfigured by his captor, watches as he butchers a young woman in the basement of a farmhouse. Over ten years later, on September 20, 1999, Julian and his girlfriend Marylin enact a bank heist with Marylin's ex-convict brother, Max, and accomplice Kurt, taking around $500,000. Max, who was shot by a security guard in the melee, dies in the car with Julian and Marylin; Kurt leaves in a separate car with the money, but breaks down en route to their meeting place: An abandoned house in the woods. Kurt takes Samantha Harrison and her adolescent daughter, Courtney, hostage from a gas station, forcing them to drive him to the house. When they arrive, he binds and gags them, and leaves a large portion of the money stowed in the van. Courtney manages to free herself and flees, stumbling upon a large abandoned farm nearby. In pursuit, Kurt searches a vacant garage on the property before entering a house, which is dilapidated and filled with degraded furnishings. Inside, he is clobbered with a metal pulley and stabbed to death by an unseen assailant. After burying Max's body in a field, Julian and Marylin drive to the abandoned house to meet with Kurt and divide the money. Arriving at nightfall, they find Samantha tied up and sleeping on the floor, and Kurt nowhere in sight. Julian takes his car to search for Kurt, leaving Marylin alone at the house with Samantha. From the foyer, Samantha watches as a man wearing Kurt's sack mask descends the stairs, but is unable to warn Marylin as her mouth is taped shut. The man drags Marylin into the dining room and stabs her to death. Meanwhile, while driving on backroads, Julian catches the attention of a parked police officer, and quickly retreats to the house, where he finds the entryway floor soaked in blood, and Samantha hiding in a closet. Samantha tells him that Kurt returned to the house and killed Marylin. Julian and Samantha leave on foot to search for Courtney, and also stumble upon the adjacent farm property. While investigating the house there, they find Courtney locked in an upstairs closet with Kurt's corpse. As Samantha unties Courtney's arms, the man in the sack mask attacks Julian and incapacitates Samantha and Courtney. Samantha awakens in the basement hanging from the ceiling. As the killer approaches her with a knife, she manages to pull down the metal piping from the ceiling, freeing herself, and flees with Courtney. The killer pursues them, and Julian is left alone in the farm, where he discovers numerous corpses in various states of decay, and finds Marylin's body posed against an arrangement of human and animal bones. Samantha and Courtney return to the adjacent house to retrieve the van keys. As they are about to leave, Samantha sees the killer coming toward the house, and the two retreat to a bedroom upstairs to hide, but the killer finds and attacks them. Julian arrives and shoots him, but he does not die immediately. Samantha smashes a chair over the killer's head, knocking him unconscious. Julian removes his mask, revealing a young man with a scar across his face; the killer is Martin Bristol, now a teenager. The three flee, and the police officer arrives at the house just as Samantha and Courtney exit. Julian stumbles out after them holding a gun, and the officer shoots him to death. When the officer goes upstairs to locate Martin, he has vanished. The following morning, forensic investigators remove numerous bodies from the farm property, and uncover journals from the serial killer who abducted Martin and groomed him to be a killer himself. The journals suggest that Martin, who gained strength as he grew into adulthood, killed his abductor in the manners in which he was taught. That evening, Samantha prepares to go to bed; on the floor is the duffel bag full of the money that Kurt left in her van. While she and Courtney lie down to sleep, the closet door behind them opens. ===== The novel opens in the year 2198 and shows several preliminary scenes both on Earth and on alien planets; however, most of the action takes place much later, in the year 2374, on planet Cavanagh's Star. The planet is far from Earth, but very similar to it in atmosphere; it is claimed already by three alien races when a group of gethes (alien term for humans) arrives to explore, led by former police woman, Shan Frankland. The Bezeri (squid-like water dwellers) are the planet's natural inhabitants, the Isenj are invaders here to take advantage of unused land, and the Wess'har are the mediators, here to defend the Bezeri from Isenj pollution. Also coexisting on the planet is Constantine - a Christian colony of humans (led by Josh Garrod) who landed on the planet several generations ago in an attempt to escape the corruption of Earth. Constantine is guided by the Wess'har, Aras, who is plagued with a strange disease which outcasts him from Wess'har society. The political balance is tenuous, and Shan must play the mediator between her anxious, disobedient crew and the powerful military force of these alien beings. At the same time, she is troubled by her own past and the strange relationship that seems to be forming between her and Aras, as she struggles to lead a mission whose goal she doesn't yet consciously know. ===== On Planet Earth, Superintendent Shan Frankland (A hardened, self-sufficient, and brutally honest female cop) is preparing for retirement when she is confronted by politician Eugenie Perault, who recruits Shan to lead a top-secret mission into outer space on a ship named the Thetis. Her destination is Cavanagh's Star; a planet hundreds of light years away, but with an atmosphere strikingly similar to that of Earth. However, rather than risk exposure of the classified information Shan will need to carry out the unknown mission, Perault gives Shan a Suppressed Briefing (SB), which installs the information into Shan's subconscious mind, only to be brought forth when circumstances call for it. Knowing only that she was preceded on this journey by a colonist group named Constantine (who have never been heard from again), and that the time in speed-of-light travel will amount to 75 years on Earth but only months for her ship, Shan sets off in command of a mix-matched group of specialized civilians (called the "payload") anxious to use the planet for their own gain, and competing for control with Commander Lindsay Neville, the independent leader of a small force of marines. When Shan and the Thetis crew reach Cavanagh's Star, however, they have big surprises ahead of them. Not only do they find Constantine alive and thriving as a religious colony within a carefully controlled biosphere designed to grow crops brought from Earth, but they also discover a unique and complex environment of alien plants and animals, including such species as the scavenger rock velvets, and the bog-dwelling predator shevens. The civilian scientists are itching to take samples and compile medical information. But the small band of humans soon learns that the planet isn't theirs to claim. Two unique alien races inhabit Cavanagh's Star; the water-dwelling, squid-like Bezeri, and the bipedal Wess'har. The Wess'har, who originate from Wess'ej, the planet's moon, are strong environmentalists who see each species as an intelligent race; they are extreme vegans, and take pride in the fact that their architecture is subterranean and unobtrusive. For centuries, they have protected Cavanagh's Star and the Bezeri from the Isenj - a third alien race who once attempted to colonize the planet. When the pollution from Isenj cities which they had built on the planet got so bad that it was killing Bezeri by the millions, the Wess'har stepped in. Now, not a single trace of the enormous Isenj civilization can be found on the planet - a stunning example to Shan's crew of what the Wess'har military is capable of. On the planet, Shan meets Josh Garrod - the Christian leader of Constantine - who explains to her the ways of the Constantine people. They live in a hardworking, god-oriented society in which crime is almost non-existent and technology is kept to a minimum. Josh is in contact with the Wess'har (mainly through a representative named Aras) and follows their orders compliantly, knowing that the Wess'har could obliterate Constantine at any time, should they so wish. According to the agreement between Shan and the Wess'har (made through Josh), the Thetis has been allowed to land and to make camp within the boundaries of Constantine. However, both Constantine and the Wess'har are wary of the Thetis and its intentions. The crew is permitted to explore the planet (with Wess'har or Constantine guides) but are given one ultimate rule: no samples. The Thetis must leave nothing and take nothing - and that means no scientific samples. Shan's crew grumbles at the arrangement, and some resolve not to heed the warnings given to them. Through Josh, Shan eventually comes in contact with Aras, the Wess'har representative and protector of the Constantine colony. However, Aras is not a normal Wess'har, nor does he even look like one, though Shan does not yet know this. He used to be completely Wess'har, but his appearance, along with many of his attributes, had altered since he had been infected with a disease unknown to humankind. This "disease," called c'nataat, is actually a symbiotic creature which uses genetic information from previous hosts and ingested materials to alter its current host's genetics to fit its own needs. Though in many ways it had made Aras more efficient (it gives him an indefinite lifespan, and allows him to hold his breath under water for extended periods of time), the disease, which is transferable by touch, has cut him off from everyone he knows and left him suspended in time as his friends and family slowly die off. When Shan learns about his trouble - and touches Aras for the first time in 170 years - a bond begins to form between the two of them. In the meantime, within the Thetis crew, issues are rising. Shan must fight for the power and respect she requires to run her mission; the "payload" scientists are angry at the restrictions placed on them, and Commander Neville is sore at her lack of power as only second in command. However, Shan and Neville learn to work together as the anger of the payload increases and Neville discovers she has yet another issue on her hands - an unplanned pregnancy has occurred from a hookup just days before the launch of the Thetis. Abortion pills are available, but Neville decides to have the baby, despite the fact that medic Hugel tells her it could be complicated. At the same time, Shan begins to get little whispers from her SB, telling her to look for a gene bank that Constantine supposedly possesses. It is a compilation of seeds and embryos from Earthly plants and animals, and rumored to be the largest ever compiled. Also, she keeps thinking the name "Helen," but does not know who this is. This is the first of a series of 6 books dealing with the complications and consequences of the actions taken in the first book. ===== Based on a short story of the same name written in the 1950s by the Taiwanese intellectual and democracy activist Bo Yang, Dragon Eye Congee tells the story of a second-generation Taiwanese American, Shaun Tam, who, since childhood, has repeatedly dreamt about the same woman in the same scenes, complete with a haunting melody and the fragrant smell of rice congee with dried longan. He is totally mystified about the significance of the dream until he comes to Taiwan for the first time on a business trip and stumbles upon an old house and a woman played by Fann Wong, resembling those in his dreams. Eventually, he realizes that the woman was his lover in a previous lifetime in Taiwan. ===== The Scooby Gang considers plans to foil Glory, but can only suggest killing Buffy's sister Dawn before Glory uses her in the ritual, which Buffy refuses to consider. Anya suggests using the Dagon Sphere, which repels and confuses Glory, and the hammer of Olaf the troll. They hope to delay Glory until her deadline for completing the ritual has passed, preventing an apocalypse and making Dawn useless to her. As Buffy trains with Giles, she reveals to him that the First Slayer told her, on her vision quest (in "Intervention"), that death was her gift, an idea she rejects. Buffy also notes that while she survived killing Angel despite loving him, losing Dawn will destroy her. Xander proposes to Anya. Buffy and Spike gather weapons. She asks him to protect Dawn. Spike tells Buffy he knows she'll never love him, but is grateful that she treats him like a man rather than a monster. Glory's minions build a tower for the ritual to open the gates between dimensions. Buffy and her allies confront Glory just as the ritual is to begin. Willow launches a magic attack, confusing and dazing Glory, while restoring Tara's sanity. Buffy attacks Glory with the Dagon sphere, but Glory manages to destroy it. As they fight Glory punches off her head, revealing she is actually fighting Buffy's robot double. Buffy surprises Glory by attacking her with Olaf's hammer, and then races to save Dawn, but Glory slows her down as they battle on the tower. The two of them fall to the ground below and Xander uses a crane to hit Glory with a wrecking ball. Buffy beats Glory with the hammer until she reverts to Ben, but spares his life, telling him that Glory must never return or they will both die. With the others' attention diverted, Giles kills Ben by suffocating him, to prevent Glory's re-emergence. With the window of time to stop the ritual about to close, the Scoobies spot someone up on the scaffolding with Dawn. Willow telepathically tells Spike to go up to Dawn, and she and Tara magically clear a path for him by throwing aside Glory's minions and guards. Spike finds the demon Doc threatening to start the ritual. A fight ensues, but Doc tosses Spike off the scaffolding and then cuts into Dawn with shallow cuts, starting the apocalyptic ritual. Buffy reaches the top, pushes Doc off and frees the captive Dawn just as the portal between dimensions opens. Dawn is willing to sacrifice herself to seal the portal, but Buffy, realizing the true meaning of the First Slayer's revelation, stops her. Buffy throws herself into the portal, which closes when she dies. She is buried with the epitaph, "She saved the world. A lot." ===== High school student Brad (Friedle) has had an unrequited crush on a classmate named Brooke (Marley Shelton) for years. After she asks him to come over one night to tutor her, she ends up wanting to have sex with him. But she only wants safe sex, and he does not have a condom (the use of Trojan in the title is a pun on the condom brand of the same name). In his quest to buy some condoms, he runs into all sorts of trouble; his dad's Jaguar gets stolen and then wrecked, he has a run-in with a crazy bus driver (Anthony Michael Hall), he is held hostage, he is pursued by a school janitor (Paulo Tocha) who accuses him of drawing graffiti, an odd pair of Hispanic siblings (Christine Deaver and Mike Moroff) who thinks he looks like David Hasselhoff, Brooke's dog, Brooke's jealous boyfriend Kyle (Eric Balfour), and a homeless man (David Patrick Kelly) who wants two dollars from him (and has secretly stolen his wallet), and he is arrested. After all of this and finally receiving a condom from a police officer (Lee Majors, who played Steve Austin in the 1970s TV series The Six Million Dollar Man; Major's policeman-character here is named "Officer Austin" as a nod to Majors' previous well-known role) who releases him, he realizes that the perfect girl has been there for him all along: his best friend Leah (Jennifer Love Hewitt), who has had feelings for him for a long time unbeknownst to Brad. Finally, Brad realizes his own feelings for Leah while also discovering Brooke is not as great as he thought she was, after he finds out that she only wants a one night stand with him instead of a relationship. Brad runs out to find Leah and professes his feelings to her, and they kiss each other by moonlight. After the end credits, Brad's parents are shocked by the sight of what is left of their car after the tow truck driver brings it back. ===== ===== The story sees brother and sister Tom and Ellen Bowen as stars of a show Every Night at Seven, a Broadway success. They are persuaded to take the show to London, capitalizing on the imminent royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten. Peter Lawford, Jane Powell and Fred Astaire in Royal Wedding On the ship, Ellen meets and quickly falls in love with the impoverished but well-connected Lord John Brindale. Whilst casting the show in London, Tom falls in love with a newly engaged dancer, Anne Ashmond. Tom assists Anne to reconcile her estranged parents and also asks his agent to locate Anne's supposed fiancé in Chicago – only to discover that he's married and therefore Anne is free to do what she likes. Carried away by the emotion of the wedding, the two couples decide that they will also be married that day. Thanks to the resourcefulness of Tom's London agent, Edgar Klinger, who knows someone in the Archbishop's office who can cut through the official red tape and also has a cooperative minister in his pocket Anne and Tom, and Ellen and John, are in fact married on the royal wedding day. ===== Various people board a U.S. Army train, the Main Seiner, to Frankfurt: * Frenchwoman Lucienne Mirabeau (Merle Oberon) * American agricultural expert Robert J. Lindley (Robert Ryan) * Dr. Bernhardt (Paul Lukas), a renowned German activist working for peace and the reunification of his country * Frenchman Henri Perrot (Charles Korvin) * British teacher James Sterling (Robert Coote) * Soviet Lieutenant Maxim Kiroshilov (Roman Toporow), and * German businessman Herr Otto Franzen (Fritz Kortner) Dr. Bernhardt tries to become better acquainted with the other passengers, but they all rebuff his overtures because he is a German until Sterling realises who he is, which immediately changes the atmosphere. When he retires to his compartment, he is killed by a bomb. While the others are questioned at the next stop, Frankfurt, they learn that the dead man was actually one of the doctor's bodyguards. Bernhardt had been posing as another passenger, and Lucienne is his secretary. Bernhardt's enemies are not foiled for long. He is kidnapped from the busy train station in broad daylight after he greets Walther (Reinhold Schünzel), an old, trusted friend. The U.S. Army quickly institutes a search of the city, but when Lucienne begs her fellow travelers to help look for Bernhardt (as they know what he looks like), they at first all decline. One by one, however, they change their minds. Lucienne suggests they go see Walther, unaware that he has betrayed Bernhardt in return for his missing wife's location. When they get there, they discover only Walther's body. He hanged himself after the kidnappers revealed his wife was dead all along. The group then splits up to cover the city, with Lindley accompanying Lucienne to various illegal nightclubs. At the last one, Lindley notices a woman smoking an unusually long cigarette, just like the ones Bernhardt likes. He picks up a discarded butt and shows Lucienne that it has a "B" monogram on it. When the woman turns out to be an entertainer, pretending to know the answers of questions posed by the customers, Lindley asks her where Bernhardt is. Her clown assistant impedes Lindley, allowing her to get away. When Lindley and Lucienne question Sergeant Barnes (Michael Harvey), the American soldier who was sitting with the woman beforehand, he reluctantly agrees to lead them to where she lives. It is a trap, however. When they get to an abandoned brewery, Barnes turns out to be working with the kidnappers. Now all three are prisoners. However, an undercover agent had knocked out the clown and taken his place, accompanying the others to the hideout. He is shot when the real clown shows up, but manages to get back to the nightclub and inform the authorities where Bernhardt is being held. American soldiers break in just as Bernhardt and Lucienne are about to be shot, and free the three unharmed. Kessler (Otto Waldis), the ringleader, is killed by Perrot, who turns out to be Bernhardt's would-be assassin. The passengers board the connecting Berliner 2 train for Berlin. Perrot suggests that each of them take a turn guarding Bernhardt in his compartment, with him going first. Afterward, Lindley pieces together various lies Perrot had told and recalls that he knew that the bomb was made from a grenade, but the others dismiss his suspicions. Luckily, he sees Perrot strangling Bernhardt in the reflection from a passing train and saves the doctor's life. Perrot is shot dead as he tries to flee. ===== ===== An earthquake strikes Mexico, resulting in the overnight birth of a new volcano. Geologists Dr. Hank Scott and Dr. Arturo Ramos are dispatched to study this crisis at the village of San Lorenzo, the two men finding a destroyed house and a totaled police car en route. They find a dead policeman nearby, and an abandoned and seemingly orphaned infant. They take the infant to San Lorenzo and give it to friends of the child's missing parents, while being welcomed by the village's priest, Father Delgado. Delgado reveals the property damage is caused by something that is slaughtering the livestock, the villagers believing the culprit to be a demon bull and have been pestering Delgado for divine assistance. Undaunted, Hank and Arturo begin their geological survey as members of the Mexican army under Major Cosio arrive in San Lorenzo to begin disaster-relief efforts. Hank meets and falls in love with local rancher Teresa Alvarez, and makes friends with a young boy named Juanito. When the volcano erupts again, the culprits behind the disappearances and deaths are revealed as giant prehistoric scorpions. After killing a crew of telephone repairmen, the scorpions attack San Lorenzo with the Mexican military unable to harm them. The next morning, the scorpions have returned to their underground lair (which is also home to giant worms and spiders), leaving the authorities to seek the help of renowned entomologist Dr. Velasco. Velasco enlists Hank and Arturo to figure out means of destroying the scorpions or seal off the entrance to the cavern. Despite collapsing the cave entrance, the giant scorpions took refuge in the caves before resurfacing days later to attack a train. Some of the passengers are killed as in-fighting among the scorpions resolves with the largest of them killing the others before heading for Mexico City. Hank and Arturo come up with a plan to lure it to a stadium with a truckload of meat, with the military distracting it long enough for Hank to kill it by shooting an electric cable attached to a spear into its throat, which is its only vulnerable spot. After destroying several tanks and helicopters, the surviving fighters detonate the electric charge, finally slaying the last scorpion. ===== Seventeen years after slaughtering all but one member of a family, "The Sandman" (Michael Harris) is pending execution. Before his execution the jailers allow a minister (Michael D. Roberts) to visit him. The minister is a voodoo priest and an ally of the prisoner which the jailers did not realize. A hex is placed onto The Sandman so when his execution is over his soul can travel to a new body made of sand. The Sandman then plots to kill a young man named Griffin (Jay Underwood), who was the last survivor of the family he attempted to slaughter. The film features Ken Foree in a cameo role as a police detective. ===== The year is 2001. After ten years of construction, the government announces to the world the completion of a top-secret project based in the Pacific Ocean, known as Stiver Island (Capital Island in the Japanese version). In a feat of revolutionary technology, the government used its top engineering talent to transform a minor spur of rock that barely stood above the ocean waves into a thriving man-made island, complete with a state-of-the-art metropolis called Capital City. In June 2005, Keith Helm (Masayuki Sudō), the protagonist and player character is on his way to Capital City for the first time, to start his dream job as an editor for the prestigious Town Crier newspaper. Upon his arrival, an earthquake occurs. Soon after regaining consciousness, he comes across another survivor, Karen Morris (Mari Aizawa). They travel together as strong aftershocks continue until they meet a man named Greg Bach (Kōji Jin'nai). Further on, the group decides to split up. Keith (the player) can either go with Karen to find her dog or go with Greg to help a girl named Kelly Austin (Natsumi Higa) find her brother Jason (Haruhiko). No matter whether the player accompanies Karen or Greg, Keith ends up at the Town Crier building. He meets William (Hideaki Nishiyama), who directs him to the construction company that built the island. There it is revealed that the disaster was deliberate. After escaping the building Keith can either help a wounded William evacuate or leave him and Karen/Kelly so he can escape. William is evacuated and Keith goes to a stadium, where the player can switch which girl they are escorting. Keith and Kelly/Karen are chased into an abandoned mall by the construction company's goons. After escaping they meet up with Greg, Kelly/Karen is evacuated, and they meet the man who oversaw Stiver Island's Construction - Terry Stiver (Yoshitaka Shinzaki). Terry tells them that he caused the quake to get revenge on the government because his family was killed in a landslide. Keith reveals to the man that his business partner Albert (Takumi Hatta) caused the landslide to make him want to destroy the island. After escaping from an attack chopper in a river chase, they are again confronted when their makeshift boat lands on the Capital District. At this point, a mini-tsunami occurs, forcing them into a car showroom and up through it onto the roof. Upon reaching the top the trio sees the chopper once again, which drops two enemies onto the building. While risking his life to save Karen/Kelly, Greg is shot by an enemy, after which the building "sinks" and the enemy is killed. Greg dies after asking Keith to write an exposé on the government's misdeeds in constructing the island. Keith and Karen/Kelly then make their way into another skyscraper. Terry dies with Albert and depending on the player's relationship with Karen/Kelly, either ends with the two escaping, or them holding each other as the water rises towards them. ===== Catherine, a gynaecologist in her forties, accidentally learns that her husband Bernard, a businessman, has cheated on her. She hires an upmarket prostitute, who works as a hairdresser, to seduces her husband and tell her the details of their meetings. She asks the girl to play a character for this and to be called Nathalie. Nathalie accepts and a very ambiguous relationship is created between the two women. Nathalie uses very crude words to describe her meetings with Bernard. Many times the contract between the two women is broken (because it goes too far or because Catherine is no longer sure of what she wants) but each time Catherine relaunches the relationship. The two women get so close that when Nathalie finds herself homeless, Catherine finds her new accommodation, she also introduces Nathalie to her mother. The relationship is complicated when Nathalie, still playing her role, announces to Catherine that Bernard wants to live with her. Catherine asks for explanations from her husband who swears that he has no other woman in his life. Perplexed, Catherine leads Bernard into the bistro which is her meeting place with Nathalie. When Nathalie enters the establishment and sees the couple, she flees. Nathalie then confides in Catherine that she made everything up and that she never met Bernard. Catherine decides to "forgive and forget". ===== Barbara, a wealthy female socialite intent on reforming capitalism is lured into the Socialist cause by Herman, a Socialist agitator. Her concerned boyfriend Norman hears her lecture on the virtues of international socialism and is converted to her views. Prompted by Herman, she raises money among her wealthy friends to buy Paradise Island off the Florida coast to establish a collective colony, a society of "happiness and plenty." Norman tries to raise money from his father and is rebuffed. His father expects Norman will benefit from the experience: "He'll get his island and a lesson along with it." When the wealthy colonists settled on their island, they elect Norman their "Chief Comrade." They quickly discover that none of them has any worthwhile skills. Most identify themselves as "assistant managers." Faced with disorganization, the colonists replace Norman with Herman, as the activist had long intended. He establishes a police force, abolishes marriage, and has the state assume ownership of the women and children. He imprisons Norman, which prompts Barbara's epiphany: "The poor deluded people will starve and die as they are in Russia." She rejects Herman's advances and Norman's father arrives at the head of a Navy fleet to save the day. Norman lowers the Red flag and raises the American flag to general cheers.Hagedorn, 176-8 ===== The narrative follows the course of a man's life from his schoolboy days to his adulthood. The son of a north German merchant and a "Southern" mother (Consuelo) with artistic talents, Tonio inherited qualities from both sides of his family. As a child, he experiences conflicting feelings for the bourgeois people around him. He feels both superior to them in his insights and envious of their innocent vitality. This conflict continues into Tonio's adulthood, when he becomes a famous writer living in southern Germany. "To be an artist," he comes to believe, "one has to die to everyday life." These issues are only partially resolved when Tonio travels north to visit his hometown. While there, Tonio is mistaken for an escaped criminal, thereby reinforcing his inner suspicion that the artist must be an outsider relative to "respectable" society. As Erich Heller –who knew Thomas Mann personally– observed, Tonio Kröger's theme is that of the "artist as an exile from reality" (with Goethe's Torquato Tasso (1790) and Grillparzer's Sappho (1818) for company).Erich Heller, The Disinherited Mind: Essays in Modern German Literature and Thought (Cambridge, Bowes & Bowes, 1952), p. 167. Cf. id., The Disinherited Mind (Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1961), p. 187. Yet it was also Erich Heller who, earlier, in his own youth, had diagnosed the main theme of Tonio Kröger to be the infatuation and entanglements of a passionate heart, destined to give shape to, intellectualize, its feelings in artistic terms.Erich Heller, Flucht aus dem zwanzigsten Jahrhundert: Eine kulturkritische Skizze (Vienna, Saturn-Verlag, 1938), p. 9. ===== Six years after the events of the first film, Malcolm Turner (Martin Lawrence) has been assigned a desk job in public relations as an FBI agent, since he wants to live with his wife, Sherry Pierce (Nia Long), during her delivery for the couple's new baby boy. Meanwhile, an incident occurs in Orange County, California, where Malcolm's old friend, Doug Hudson (Kirk B.R. Woller), has been killed while he was going undercover. FBI agent Kevin Keneally (Zachary Levi) is doing surveillance on a former U.S. Army military intelligence specialist named Tom Fuller (Mark Moses), who has since retired and is working for a private corporation called National Agenda Software. The FBI has discovered that Tom is developing a computer worm which will create backdoors into the databases of all the branches of the U.S. government. Affected by his friend's death, Malcolm asks FBI chief, Crawford (Dan Lauria), to put him on the case, but Crawford refuses and tells him to stay away for safety analysis. By eavesdropping via the webcam, Malcolm finds out that the FBI is sending one of the agents to infiltrate Fuller's house as a nanny. Giving Sherry the pretext of attending a safety conference in Phoenix, Arizona, Malcolm leaves for Orange County and takes the "Big Momma" costume with him. Malcolm reprises his disguise as Big Momma and shows up at Fuller's house as Mrs. Fuller (Emily Procter) is interviewing several other candidates. Big Momma eliminates the three other applicants for the nanny position by pointing out the sexually attractive qualities of the first, the drug use of the second, and the FBI agent's concealed firearm of the third. Big Momma meets the three Fuller children: Molly (Kat Dennings), Carrie (Chloë Grace Moretz), and Andrew. After failing to perform the housekeeping tasks assigned to her, Big Momma is fired, and works all night cleaning up and makes a large breakfast. Upon seeing it the next day, Mrs. Fuller changes her mind when the family awakes to find this. Big Momma is soon accepted within the household and becomes a daily part of their lives. His tasks include accompanying Mrs. Fuller to the spa, taking the family to the beach, watching out for trouble, and simply playing a game of bingo as part of her routine. After Big Momma finds out the password from Tom, Molly calls him who tells her that she needs her at a nightclub. Big Momma goes at once, only to find that Molly was lured by Fuller's bosses, who kidnaps her and Big Momma. Big Momma and Molly are tied up and placed in the back of the van. Big Momma has a switchblade, which Molly reaches for and uses to free them. He sees that they are at the waterfront and witnesses Tom giving a disc to a man who puts it in his laptop and is granted full access to FBI data. Big Momma gets on a jet ski and jumps it onto the dock, sending it into two men, and landing on one himself. Big Momma helps Tom and they attempt to escape, but one of the men shot him. The FBI shows up, and Keneally gives Malcolm handcuffs to put on Tom, but Malcolm tells the agent in charge that Tom's family was threatened, and that no charges should be filed. Malcolm and Keneally agree, and the case is closed. Sometime later, Big Momma goes to the girls' state cheerleading championships. Their stuntwoman broke her leg, and Big Momma helps them out by doing the routine and winning the competition. He later leaves and gives the family a farewell letter saying he must go on, but to look out, because one day he might be back. ===== An insectoid species called the Killik have been expanding beyond their borders, encroaching on Chiss territory. All of the Jedi survivors of the mission to Myrkr in Star by Star, most notably those who were students at the Jedi Academy on Yavin 4 in the Young Jedi Knights series, are called through the Force to help, and they depart into the Unknown Regions of the Galaxy. The Chiss lodge a formal complaint, accusing the Jedi of interfering in their border dispute with the Killik. The Jedi find that their old friend Raynar Thul, who had been presumed dead after the events of Star by Star, had come upon the Killik and been absorbed into their hive mind as a "Joiner".The Joiner King, Softcover pg 124 Thul, now known as UnuThul,The Joiner King, Softcover pg 124 has been influencing the hive mind from the top, and is the reason the Jedi have been drawn into the conflict so early. The Jedi find that they, too, are at risk of being absorbed by the collective consciousness of the nest since the collective accepts even non-insectoid species. Meanwhile, Tenel Ka, the Queen Mother of the Hapes Consortium, has become pregnant by Jacen Solo, and delays her pregnancy through use of the Force to reduce the chance of their daughter's paternity being discovered. When the child is born, she is named Allana. One year after the events in The Joiner King Jaina and Zekk work as a team to track down smugglers. They find evidence indicating that the Gorog, or "Dark Nest", are alive and somehow involved in smuggling.The Unseen Queen, Softcover pg. 10 UnuThul explains to Mara Jade that the Dark Nest is after her because it had absorbed the consciousness of the wife and daughter of Daxar Ies, a man she killed back when she was an Emperor's Hand operative. The Swarm War takes place where The Unseen Queen ends, and involves a three way war between the Chiss, the Killik, and the Galactic Alliance. Luke Skywalker declares himself Grand Master of the Jedi, and succeeds in unifying them to an extent, and leads an assault on the Dark Nest. Lomi Plo meets her death at Skywalker's hand, and UnuThul is defeated by Luke as well after losing an arm. Thul is taken in by the Jedi for psychological treatment as the Killik revert to their naturally peaceful state, no longer unified by the Hive Mind or driven by the ambitions of the Dark Nest. ===== Six years after the Yuuzhan Vong War ended, all of the survivors of the Mission to Myrkr back in Star by Star, except for Hapan Queen Mother Tenel Ka Djo, respond to a call through the Force. They all leave their current posts and travel into the Unknown Regions. After this happens, an envoy from the Chiss Ascendancy, Mitt'swe'kleoni (Tswek for short), comes to the Jedi Masters' Council on Coruscant to file a complaint. He asks why the Jedi Knights are involved in a border dispute with an enemy of the Chiss who Tswek refuses to give the name for. None of the Masters give an answer, but Luke Skywalker agrees to look into it. He takes his wife Mara, their son Ben, and Saba Sebatyne into the Unknown Regions in order to learn what the Knights are up to. When Han and Leia Organa Solo discover this, they join the Skywalkers and Saba in their journey after they rendezvous inside an insect- like hive in space, which is filled with beings from all over the galaxy, along with strange insect beings. The Skywalkers, Solos, and Saba all meet up with Captain Jae Juun and his rude copilot Tarfang, who agree to take the group to the planet Yoggoy, where they will be able to find the Jedi Knights. On Yoggoy, instead of meeting any of the Jedi Knights, the Skywalkers, the Solos, and Saba all meet up with the leader of the strange insect beings that populate the world of Yoggoy, UnuThul. As it turns out, UnuThul is the badly burned and psychologically scarred Raynar Thul, a Jedi Knight who was taken by the Dark Jedi Lomi Plo and Welk during the Mission to Myrkr. UnuThul reveals that the ship that Plo and Welk took him in had crashed onto the surface of Yoggoy while the Yuuzhan Vong War was still commencing, and the insect beings who now call themselves the Colony took Raynar in to repair his badly burned form to the best of their abilities. A side effect of being with those of the Colony is that they eventually become part of their hive mind. Due to Raynar's Force-sensitivity, however, he had accumulated such power that he actually become the leader of the Colony, and he helped them expand their territory from Yoggoy. When asked about what happened to Lomi Plo and Welk, Raynar tells the group that he has never even heard of them before. Afterwards, as the Skywalkers, the Solos, and Saba find evidence that the Colony is really the long-lost species of the Killiks, the clan is attacked by dark blue Killiks. They survive the attack and confront UnuThul about the matter, who denies any knowledge about it. Regardless, the Skywalker-Solo-Sebatyne clan leave Yoggoy for Qoribu, where the Jedi Knights are fighting alongside the Killiks against the Chiss. Leia figured this out because when the clan visited the crash site of the ship that brought Raynar to Yoggoy, she saw a vision of her son, Jacen, telling her this information. As it is, Jacen had previously visited the Yoggoy crash site and had a vision of his mother visiting the crash site, and he decided to tell the vision where the Killiks and Jedi were fighting the Chiss. At Qoribu, where the Skywalker-Solo-Sebatyne clan plan to confront the Knights, they are once again attacked by the mysterious blue-black Killiks. They once again survive the attack, and they confront the Knights as expected on Qoribu's moon of Jwlio. From this, they come to an agreement: some of the Knights will stay behind in order to save Lowbacca from Chiss captivity, as he was lost in the previous battle against the Ascendancy. Jaina and Zekk are the ones who stay behind, but strangely enough, they don't sense Alema Rar's intent to come with Han and Leia back to Ossus. This prompts suspicion from Han and Leia just as Saba gets into a fight with a mysterious figure who is no doubt Welk. Saba is injured thanks to Welk and a couple of his blue-black Killik assistants, and she is knocked into a coma as a result. Before she was knocked out, however, she was able to discern that the remaining Killik who attacked her went to the Skywalkers' ship, the Jade Shadow. The Millennium Falcon takes a wounded Saba and a suspicious Alema back to Ossus. Ben gets in trouble by Mara for eating too much gelmeat. In Ben's defense, he says that it was really his new Killik friend who did it, which Mara takes to be a lie. Meanwhile, Luke looks into R2-D2's systems in order to find out what the cause of the strange malfunctions that the astromech droid has been suffering. Luke finds a recording of his father talking to a mysterious woman, which R2-D2 denies any knowledge about. Luke becomes suspicious of R2-D2's motives after this. As the Millennium Falcon travels back to Ossus with Alema and Saba, Leia subtly interrogates Alema in order to understand what she is really up to. When Alema refers to herself as "we," the conversation awkwardly ends on Alema's part, and Leia knows that something more is going on. Later, after the Falcon undergoes a mysterious malfunction in hyperspace that was no doubt caused by Alema, they end up in an unnamed nebula and land on a planet full of plant life that, strangely, has no animal or insect life on it. When Leia and Alema go to repair the Falcon, Alema betrays her and everyone else on the ship, as Leia suspected, and she fights Leia and her Noghri bodyguards, Cakhmaim and Meewalh. Although Alema is able to defeat the Noghri, Han is the one who defeats Alema by activating an escape pod that knocks her unconscious. Later, after the Falcon is repaired, they take an imprisoned Alema the rest of the way back to Ossus. On Ossus, the Jedi Knights are tested for the hive mind that shared with the Killiks as Luke and Mara meet with a representative from the Chiss, Chaf'orm'bintrano (Formbi for short), in order to clarify the conflict between the Ascendency and the Colony. Formbi explains that the war between the Killiks and the Chiss goes beyond that of the border conflict, and was even somewhat responsible for the plot against the Fel family back in Force Heretic II: Refugee. Then, after Saba is healed from the injuries she sustained in her fight with Welk, Mara is quickly informed that there is indeed a blue-black Killik that had sneaked aboard the Jade Shadow. Realizing that Ben wasn't lying about the gelmeat, Mara rushes to her son's room and fights the Killik infiltrator. She defeats it, and has it tested along with Alema and the Knights. Alema and the Killik have the strongest connection, as the other Knights don't seem to feel what Alema and the Killik feel. Jedi Master and medical healer Cilghal concludes from this blue-black Killik, whose nest is of the Gorog as it turns out, that it and Alema are part of an unconscious nest among the Colony; this explains why UnuThul was unable to explain their presences. It wasn't because he lied about them, but rather, it was because he was unaware of their existence. Meanwhile, computer slicer Zakarisz Ghent accesses more of R2-D2's memory files and finds another recording of Anakin Skywalker talking to the mysterious woman that has to be his wife, and therefore, is Luke and Leia's mother. They, along with their friends and family, find the time to watch the newly found footage. Back to the main plot, the Jedi Knights are able to sneak out of their captivity and elicit the help of other allies in order to help the Killiks fight the Chiss. Tesar Sebatyne enlists the help of Raynar's mother, Aryn, while Jacen seeks out the help from Tenel Ka Djo. Tenel Ka reveals that she was able to withstand UnuThul's call through the Force by locking herself in her room until the call passed, as she couldn't leave her duties as Queen Mother of the Hapes Consortium. Tenel Ka agrees to lend the Killiks the assistance of the Hapan fleet if Jacen will agree to sleep with her. Jacen complies, and so does Tenel Ka. The Jedi on Ossus hypothesize a way to get rid of the Gorog, which they nickname the Dark Nest (hence, the title of the trilogy). They put tracking beacons on all of the ships on the Academy's hangar bay and have Alema and her fellow Gorog take one to return to the Dark Nest's base. They follow Alema and the Gorog back into the Qoribu as the Killiks and their new allies engage in an all-out battle against the Chiss forces. Luke and Mara follow Alema and her Gorog friend down to Qoribu's moon of Kr, and they battle off and kill and wound many of the Dark Nest before they confront Alema and Welk. Mara is wounded in combat, but she survives a suicide bombing from the Gorog she fought on Ossus by putting a Force shield around herself. Amidst the smoke cloud that followed the explosion, Mara saw a mysterious image lurking there. Alema escapes the conflict, though severely wounded. Meanwhile, Luke ends up in a one-on-one lightsaber duel against Welk. Though both put up a good fight, it is inevitably Luke who wins and ends Welk's life. Soon, all of the other Gorog on Kr are killed by the Skywalkers' backup forces, and the Battles of Qoribu and Kr end. UnuThul investigates the bodies of the Gorog, and they find Dark Nest cells filled with Chiss captives that are being used for Gorog offspring. This explains both the Dark Nest's motivation for going to war against the Killiks, as well as why the Chiss were going against the Colony. UnuThul agrees to let the Chiss have Qoribu, and the Hapans help the Killiks relocate to the unnamed nebula that the Solos found before Alema was revealed as a traitor. The Chiss return Lowbacca back to the Jedi, and UnuThul separates his fellow Knights from the rest of the Killik hive mind, their purpose in defending the Colony now over. Jaina and Zekk, however, due to their extensive time with each other, have an unbreakable hive mind with each other, which makes it awkward when it comes to Jaina's relationship with Jagged Fel. ===== Pearl Tull is a rigid perfectionist. She has three children with her husband, traveling salesman Beck, who abandons the family. After Beck leaves, Pearl struggles to maintain a front as if nothing is wrong at all. Cody, the oldest, is wild and adventurous, but is envious of his brother Ezra, whom he believes is Pearl's favorite. As they grow up, this plays out in endless pranks. Ezra is passive, and never tries to get back at Cody. He is nurturing and sweet, traits that often interest Cody's girlfriends, furthering Cody's resentment. Ezra goes to work at a restaurant, which he later manages and ultimately inherits, while Cody becomes a wealthy and successful efficiency expert. When Ezra becomes engaged to Ruth, his star cook, Cody becomes obsessed with luring her away, and ultimately succeeds, but his marriage to Ruth is not easy. Ezra never recovers, and remains at home with Pearl; he is a caregiver, both for Pearl and his customers, but this is underlain by sadness. Jenny is the third child and the most scholarly of the Tulls, but in college, she marries on an impulse with unhappy results. Only in her third marriage to a man with six children whose wife has abandoned him does she find stability in family life and in her successful, if harried, career as a pediatrician. A recurring scene in the novel involves Ezra's unsuccessful attempts to bring the family together for a meal at his "Homesick Restaurant", reflecting his desire to unite and mend the family. At Pearl's funeral, Beck returns to the family for the first time. However, they never seem to be able to get through a single dinner without conflict, this time with Cody facing down his father, causing Beck to leave in the middle of the dinner. Ultimately, the entire family searches the town to find Beck, eventually bringing him back to the restaurant to finish their meal together. ===== The story begins with the idea that the Wizard controls all of the fairy tales and maintains the balance of good and evil in Fairy Tale Land. With the help of his assistants, the uptight Munk and the goofy Mambo, the Wizard is checking to make sure that all the fairy tales under his care are "on track" to have their traditional happy endings. As we meet him however, the Wizard is leaving for Scotland for a long-overdue vacation. He leaves the kingdom in the hands of Munk and Mambo. Ella is a girl who is better known as Cinderella. She lives as a servant to her stepfamily and often dreams of the Prince who will sweep her off her feet. Her best friend at the palace is Rick, the palace dishwasher. Rick takes it upon himself to deliver the invitations to the royal ball to Ella. Ella sees Rick only as a friend, but Rick secretly loves Ella, although he is too cool and proud to admit it. Rick can't really understand what Ella likes about the Prince. Rick's Three Amigos, the comic chefs in the palace kitchen, believe that Rick has a bad case of "Prince envy". The Prince does everything by the book, and plans to meet his maiden at the ball. However, things don't go as planned at the ball. Thanks to the assistants, Ella's evil stepmother, Frieda gains access to the Wizard's lair during the Prince's ball. She manages to chase off Munk and Mambo and tip the scales of good and evil, causing a series of fairy tales to go wrong and have unhappy endings, including Jack getting stepped on by the Giant yet surviving, Rumpelstiltskin winning his bet with the miller's daughter and taking her baby, and the unseen demise of Little Red Riding Hood. She summons an army of trolls, witches, three Big Bad Wolves, and Rumpelstiltskin to her castle. Ella finds out and escapes to the woods where she meets Munk and Mambo. The trio set out to find the prince who has goes looking for his maiden (not knowing it was actually Ella) in hopes that he will defeat Frieda and save the day. Together, they flee to the Seven Dwarfs' home. Witches and trolls led by The Ice Queen attack them. The Seven Dwarfs hold off the trolls, while they flee with the help of Rick who had stolen a flying broom. Frieda decides to go after Ella herself. She succeeds in capturing her and returns to the palace, with Rick, Munk and Mambo in pursuit. Frieda tortures Ella because if the story had run its course she would have married the prince while Frieda would never get anywhere in life. Rick, Munk, and Mambo slip into the castle and attack Frieda. During the fight, Frieda generates a pit in the floor. Mambo knocks her in, but she uses her staff to fly back up again. After a short battle, in which Rick takes a blast meant for Ella and falls into a deep sleep, Frieda creates a portal by accident. Ella knocks Frieda back and punches her into the portal. Rick awakes from the spell and he and Ella kiss, finally admitting their feelings for each other. Ella and her true love Rick decide to choose their destinies in a world of happy endings and get married. Rumpelstiltskin has shown that he has come to care for the baby and the miller's daughter lets him stay in the castle as the baby's nanny. The Wizard returns from vacation where he wasn't told about what happened while he was away. In the final scene, Frieda is shown trapped in the Arctic surrounded by elephant seals. ===== The game's plot is relatively straightforward. Gir Draxon, an evil alien overlord in charge of a powerful interstellar empire has conquered a range of star systems and has now arrived in our solar system on Mars, intending on crushing humanity. The hero of the story has a super-tank that he can use to defeat Draxon's forces, though it was called into service before being finished and thus is protected only by energy shields and has no armor. From a game mechanics perspective, this explains why the tank simply is destroyed when its shields (hitpoints) run out. The hero fights his way through 7 star systems controlled by Draxon's empire, until arriving on the last planet - Arcturus itself - to face Gir Draxon. The alien overlord confronts the hero in personal combat in his own super-tank; when defeated, an escape pod is clearly seen rocketing off into space, making it clear that Draxon survived. Note that the second game in the series (Nova 9) would vastly expand the in-game plot, adding cut scenes, dialog, and more story-related tension. Not much information is provided about the world's background at the time. ===== Lucifer (Guri Weinberg) ejects Gabriel from Hell, claiming the War of Heaven isn't his to fight and Hell isn't big enough for both of them. Gabriel's new mission is to prevent the birth of a child, a nephilim, the offspring of an angel and a human. The coming of this child, said to precede reconciliation between the warring factions in heaven, has been prophesied by Thomas Daggett, now a monk. The child's conception takes place when Valerie, a nurse, is seduced by an attractive stranger (the angel Danyael) whom she hit with her car. She finds a few days later that she is pregnant. Gabriel attempts to find the whereabouts of the child from Daggett, but kills him when he refuses to help. When Danyael kills members of Gabriel's army of angels, Gabriel instead employs the assistance of a teenage girl (Izzy) who has just committed suicide with her boyfriend. Gabriel keeps her alive to help him in his search for Valerie (despite his powers as an angel, he is completely naive about technology, and is unable to drive a car or work a computer and has her use her computer skills to find her and drive him around). Gabriel's war against Danyael and the other angels climaxes in a battle in Eden, now an industrial wasteland. Danyael and Izzy are killed, but Valerie defeats Gabriel by seizing him and jumping from a building, confident that God will protect her as He told her He would (she reveals that Gabriel is unable to hear His voice as he simply does not listen); she is indeed unharmed, but Gabriel is impaled on a spike. As punishment, Gabriel is turned into a human by Michael. Valerie raises the child by herself, accepting the risk that the angels may come for her. The film ends with Gabriel as a derelict; a face in the sky and ominous clouds show that the war in Heaven is not over. ===== Eccentric and cat-loving counter-terrorism consultant Rufus Excalibur ffolkes is asked by Lloyd's of London to develop a contingency plan, should any of the North Sea oil installations it insures be threatened. Months later, a North Sea supply ship named Esther takes on board a group of men posing as reporters who are to visit the oil production platform Jennifer. The leader of this group, Lou Kramer, hijacks the ship; the gangsters attach limpet mines to the legs of Jennifer and its accompanying oil drilling rig, Ruth, then issue a ransom demand for £25 million to the British government. Esther's crew tries to fight back, but is thwarted by Kramer's vigilance, and two of their number end up dead. When the British Prime Minister and her staff consult Lloyd's, where both platforms are insured, about providing the ransom, the CEO informs them about ffolkes, and after some initial hesitation he is hired to take out the terrorists and retake the platforms. ffolkes enacts his plan by traveling to Jennifer as the aide of Admiral Brindsen, who was tasked by the Prime Minister to supervise the operation. With Ruth out of Esther's sight, ffolkes first asks the admiralty to prepare a fake explosion in order to distract Kramer from blowing up Ruth and to buy them more time, then arranges for having Brindsen and himself brought aboard the supply ship to take out the terrorist leaders from within while his men board from underwater. However, Kramer distrusts ffolkes and has him removed from Esther. With his original plan thus upset, ffolkes persuades the Prime Minister to have the ransom helicopter drop off a bomb on Esther in case his team fails to take out Kramer's gang in time. Then he approaches the ship from underwater, and despite some mishaps he manages to thwart the activation of the detonators, leaving Kramer for dead, and prevent the bomb drop on Esther. Kramer, mortally wounded, makes one last attempt to blow up Jennifer, but is stopped by ffolkes and expires. Following the successful conclusion of the mission, ffolkes is rewarded for his service with three kittens named after Esther, Ruth and Jennifer. ===== The novel tells the story of the Angeluzzi-Corbos family, a family of immigrants living an adopted life in New York City. The head of the family is Lucia Santa, a wife, widow and mother of two families. It is her formidable will that steers them through the Great Depression and the early years of World War II. But she cannot prevent the conflict between Italian and American values. ===== Fools Die starts in Las Vegas, where a group of close friends, including John Merlyn, Cully Cross, and Jordan Hawley, spend several weeks gambling at the Hotel Xanadu. None of these now close friends have met before meeting in Vegas, and indeed they are not long term friends, but simply people who for their own personal reasons have decided to stay in the hotel to gamble. The intro has adventures both gambling and womanizing in Vegas. One night, after a huge $500,000 baccarat and craps win, a depressed Jordan kills himself in his hotel room. Jordan's suicide was in spite of tying a dramatic winner take all $500,000 hand of baccarat, betting against the casino's owner, Alfred Gronevelt. After Jordan's death, Merlyn returns to his family in New York City and continues his life. Cully Cross decides to stay in Las Vegas permanently, and through his prowess as a gambler and a hustler, he has caught the eye of Alfred Gronevelt, the Xanadu Hotel owner. Gronevelt eventually recruits Cully as a key employee, and as time goes on, he grooms Cully as his second in command, and Cully prospers running the casino, and acting as a casino host. In New York, John Merlyn, who was an orphan and is now a government worker and moonlighting novel writer, struggles to make ends meet for his family. His father in law had helped him get the job as an administrative officer in a US Army Recruitment Center. One day, because he is near broke, Merlyn is persuaded by a crooked colleague at work to start taking bribery kick backs in return for getting the adult children of wealthy people out of the military draft by having them join the military reserve before their mailed draft notice is filed. Eventually, authorities find out about the draft scam, and Merlyn is put under grand jury investigation. Merlyn narrowly escapes any Federal charges by calling his old friend, the now mob connected casino manager Cully Cross in Las Vegas. Cross is able to use his political and business connections to get Merlyn off the legal hook. Soon thereafter, Merlyn is offered a job writing book reviews for a large magazine. There he meets a world-famous writer named Osano, and they become close friends. During this time, Merlyn has a successful novel published, and Hollywood studios bid on making the novel into a movie. The winning studio flies Merlyn to L.A to help with the novel's movie script, and to work with the movie producers. In California, Merlyn slowly falls in love with Janelle, a film actress. In the meantime, Merlyn becomes estranged from film production as he becomes aware of the subordination of writers to profit and studio drama that dominates in Hollywood. One several years, most of the people Merlyn feels closest to die. His dear friend, Cully Cross had been involved in an elaborate money exchange scheme with a Japanese millionaire customer at the Hotel Xanadu he worked at. While in Japan, in a move ordered by Gronevelt, the Xanadu owner, Cully is murdered. Merlyn's brother, Artie, dies after a sudden heart attack. After many years of partying and carousing with Merlyn, and even sleeping with Merlyn's girlfriend Janelle, Osano finds he suffers from an incurable disease and decides to kill himself. As his business heir, Merlyn is surprised to find out that the manuscript Osano said he had been working on for more than ten years actually consists of completed six pages (pages that are used as introduction to "Fools Die"). Eventually, even Janelle also dies, from a brain aneurysm. ===== In 1950, Michael Corleone, the son of American Mafia Don Vito Corleone, is preparing to return home to America after his exile in Sicily. He meets with Don Croce Malo, the most powerful Sicilian Mafia boss. Don Croce and Michael's father have allied to help the famous bandit Salvatore "Turi" Guiliano escape Sicily and go with Michael to America. Michael learns of a set of documents Guiliano has that would cause the downfall of the current Italian government, to be released upon Guiliano's death or capture, called the Testament. Michael also meets Guiliano's parents and Gaspare "Aspanu" Pisciotta, Guiliano's best friend and second in command. In 1943, Turi Guiliano and Aspanu Pisciotta are stopped by the Carabinieri, the corrupt Italian police, while smuggling food, but they refuse to give up the food or the name of who they were trading with. Guiliano is shot, but he manages to kill his attacker, a police Sergeant. Turi is carried by Aspanu to a local monastery, where he recovers from his wounds and learns more about the criminal side of Sicily under the care of the Abbot Manfredi. After he recovers, he and Aspanu makes their way back to Guiliano's home in Montelepre, where he is still being sought for the murder. While discussing his future with family and friends, the local police attempt to arrest Turi. Turi and Aspanu open fire on the trucks pursuing them and kill some policemen. They flee to the mountains. Innocent citizens of Montelepre are arrested in retaliation. Turi and Aspanu are met by Turi's godfather, Hector Adonis, who fails to dissuade them from becoming bandits. Turi and Aspanu decide to free the prisoners and break into the local police barracks where they are being held. Turi narrowly escapes death at the hands of the Corporal Canio Silvestro whose pistol fails when he pulls the trigger at Turi's head. The freed prisoners include local bandits Passatempo and Terranova, who join Turi's band. Guiliano begins to becomes famous throughout Italy after a high-profile robbery, and he becomes a hero in Sicily, as he gives away much of his band's earnings to the poor. Silvestro, disgraced after being spared by Guiliano, asks to join his band. They test his loyalty by asking him to execute Frisella, a barber who informed on Guiliano. Silvestro does so and they attach a note to his body saying "So die all who betray Guiliano". Guiliano comes to dominate the entire northwest corner of Sicily. Guiliano orchestrates a kidnapping of a Sicilian nobleman, Prince Ollorto. Ollorto's ransom is arranged by Don Croce, who Ollorto had been paying protection money to. The kidnapping causes Guiliano to come into direct conflict with Don Croce and the Mafia for the first time. Don Croce allows Guiliano to be assassinated by the other Dons, but Guiliano manages to avoid them all. Don Croce finally sends assassin Stefan Andolini, a cousin of Don Corleone's, whose life is only spared by Guiliano due to the intervention of the Abbot Manfredi, his father. Andolini joins Guiliano's band and acts as an emissary between Guiliano and Don Croce. In 1950 Trapani, Michael Corleone is joined by Peter Clemenza, a capo of Don Corleone's, who is helping with the escape. Michael meets Justina, Turi's pregnant wife, and Hector Adonis. She leaves for America. Adonis informs Michael that the Testament is hidden in a gift Guiliano's mother gave him and Michael sends it to his father in America. In 1947, Don Croce is aligned with the ruling Christian Democratic party, mostly to deny power to the Socialist parties that he believes could destroy the Mafia. Don Croce, along with Italy's Minister of Justice Franco Trezza, draw up plans to mount an offensive against Guiliano, but intend give foreknowledge of the plans to Guiliano in return for his help in swinging the upcoming election for the Christian Democrats. Guiliano accepts these terms, along with a promise of a pardon, and helps the campaign using propaganda and intimidation. A Socialist parade celebrating recent victories over the Christian Democrats takes place in the towns of Piani dei Greci and San Giuseppe Jato and converge at a plain called the Portella della Ginestra. Guiliano agreed to suppress the parade, giving his two chiefs, Passatempo and Terranova, orders to "shoot over their heads" to get the crowds to disperse. The men end up shooting too low, and massacre many people, including women and children. The massacre proves devastating for Guiliano's image in Sicily and destroys any hope of a pardon. Guiliano discovers that Passatempo had been paid off by Don Croce to shoot the paraders and Guiliano executes him. He also executes six Mafia chiefs who were defending the estate of Prince Ollorto from land claims by the local peasants. A large force in Sicily assembles under the command of Colonel Luca to take down Guiliano. Guiliano's parents and many citizens of Montelepre are arrested for conspiring with him. In retaliation, Guiliano robs a heavily guarded truck that held the money for paying the Carabinieri. Colonel Luca then calls for the rest of the reserve force to come in. Guiliano's band is falling apart, with Silvestro escaping to England and Andolini and Terranova being killed by police. With Colonel Luca's forces closing in and Don Croce having betrayed him, Guiliano knows he must leave for America or die in Sicily. Aspanu Pisciotta meets with Michael and tells him where to meet Guiliano. The next day, Clemenza and Michael are heading to the meeting place when they hear that Guiliano has been killed by the Carabinieri. They are arrested by Inspector Velardi, but are released soon after due to the intervention of Don Croce. Michael and Clemenza find out that, having grown increasingly paranoid and resentful of Guiliano, Pisciotta has betrayed Guiliano to Don Croce. Pisciotta had shot and killed Guiliano in a moment of panic, fearing that Guiliano knew of his betrayal. Later, imprisoned for banditry, Pisciotta is poisoned by Hector Adonis with the help of Don Croce. Adonis leaves a note in Pisciotta's pocket reading, "So die all who betray Guiliano". With Guiliano dead, Don Croce and the Mafia enrich themselves more than ever at the expense of the people of Sicily. Michael returns home to Long Island. Don Corleone tells him that they will not release Guiliano's Testament, under the deal he made with Don Croce to ensure Michael's safety. Michael, shocked, realizes that he had been unknowingly working against Guiliano, and that giving the Testament to his father had allowed Guiliano to be killed. Don Corleone teaches Michael a lesson: it is better to remain alive at whatever costs than to be a dead hero. ===== Deb DeAngelo (Debi Mazar), a young woman is desperate for a luxurious, cheaply priced New York City apartment. She lies to the landlady about having a job with a temp agency and then hurries to the agency to beg for work before the landlady calls and discovers the lie. The agency is run by Joan (Joanna Gleason), an uptight businesswoman. Joan reluctantly takes on Deb as an employee but sends her out on strange assignments. In the pilot episode, she is sent to work as a makeup artist at a mortuary. The following episodes generally revolved around Deb's various temporary assignments and how they affected her personal life. The series was heavily derided by critics and had low viewership and was canceled after six episodes. ===== Jack Friar is a police detective who, while doing a friend a favor and searching for a runaway teenager on Turk Street, stumbles upon a bizarre band of criminals about to pull off a bank robbery. Jack finds himself being held hostage while the criminals decide what to do with him, and the leader's beautiful girlfriend Erin is left alone to watch Jack. Erin, who is a master manipulator of the men in the gang, reveals another side to Jack – a melancholy romantic who could have been a classical cellist. She finds Jack's captivity an irresistible turn-on and he cannot figure out if she is being honest or if she is manipulating him as well. Before the gang returns, Jack and Erin's connection intensifies, leaving the fate of the money in question. ===== Viola Hastings (Amanda Bynes) is a teen girl who plays for Cornwall's soccer team until the team gets cut. Her dream is to play for the North Carolina Tar Heels. Meanwhile, her twin brother, Sebastian (James Kirk), is supposed to enroll in Illyria, an elite boarding school, but he secretly goes to London with his fledgling band instead. Viola agrees to cover for him and decides to pass herself off as Sebastian, in hopes of joining their boys' team and beating Cornwall to prove their coach and her cocky ex-boyfriend, Justin (Robert Hoffman), wrong for suggesting cancellation of the ladies' soccer team. With the help of her stylist friend, Paul (Jonathan Sadowski), she is transformed into "Sebastian" and attends Illyria in his place. While moving in, she meets her roommate, Duke Orsino (Channing Tatum), an attractive soccer player and Illyria's team captain. During tryouts, Viola fails to impress Coach Dinklage (Vinnie Jones) and is assigned to second string, much to her dismay. Her teammates, including Duke, initially dislike "Sebastian" due to his awkward and strange behavior. However, with help from Paul once again, they begin to accept him into their social circle. "Sebastian" then gets the popular and pretty Olivia (Laura Ramsey) as his lab partner, which frustrates Duke, as he has feelings for her. "Sebastian" agrees to put in a good word for Duke if he promises to train him to be a better soccer player. Coach Dinklage eventually notices "Sebastian's" effort and improvement, thus promoting him to first string. At the Junior League carnival, where her mother has made her volunteer, Viola works a shift at the kissing booth and shares a kiss with Duke. Duke expresses to "Sebastian" that he might move on from Olivia as he is starting to like Viola now. Viola is delighted as she secretly feels the same way. Olivia who now has a crush on "Sebastian", asks Duke out on a date in hopes that it will make "Sebastian" jealous. Viola, who is unaware of Olivia's true intentions, is enraged instead because Duke has now abandoned his interest in Viola. When Viola finds out the truth, she encourages Olivia to tell "Sebastian" directly about her feelings. The situation becomes even more complicated when the real Sebastian returns from London a day early, unbeknownst to Viola. As soon as he arrives at Illyria, Olivia confesses her feelings and kisses him. Duke, seeing this, believes his roommate has betrayed him. When "Sebastian" returns to their room, the two have an argument and Duke kicks him out. Viola oversleeps and misses the first half of the game, while the real Sebastian is mistaken for "Sebastian" and winds up poorly playing his sister's game instead. At half-time, Viola explains the situation to Sebastian and they switch places again. Duke, still furious at "Sebastian", refuses to cooperate with him on the field. Determined to makes amends with Duke, "Sebastian" explains that he is actually Viola. Illyria wins the game when Viola scores a goal, finally humiliating Justin and the rest of the Cornwall boys. Everyone at Illyria celebrates their victory over Cornwall, except for Duke who is hurt about Viola's deception. Viola introduces Sebastian and Olivia officially, and they begin dating. Viola and Sebastian's divorced parents also make up, exchanging contact information so as to be better parents towards their children. She invites Duke to her debutante ball, with an invitation delivered by Sebastian, now Duke's actual roommate. Still hurt, Duke doesn't respond to Viola's invitation, which devastates her. At the ball, Viola is skeptical that Duke will show up; she distracts herself by assisting Olivia, who is being escorted by Sebastian to the ball, and is touched when Paul asks to be her date. Her mother shows up with a dress that will suit Viola's "no ruffles" policy, but Viola decides to go for a walk instead. She runs into Duke outside, who tells her that he has feelings for her, but that he doesn't want there to be any more deception on her part; Viola promises to be honest with him. Later, Monique (Alex Breckenridge) is escorted by Justin, Olivia is escorted by Sebastian, and Viola and Duke enter the stage late, but together, with Viola in her new dress, much to the joy of her mother. Viola and Duke share a kiss before joining the crowd. At the end of the film, Viola and Duke are shown happily playing on Illyria's soccer team together. ===== Three prisoners escape from a chain gang, and two of them, Wayne and Harry (Zahn and Northam) run away to Happy, Texas, where they pose as the gay organizers of a beauty pageant. They put on a show with the small girls of the town while hiding from the law and waiting for the opportunity to rob the local bank. Their scheme is complicated by the fact that the local sheriff (Macy) is gay, and he is attracted to the prisoner Harry. Straight Harry, on the other hand, is attracted to local lady banker Josephine (Walker). Meanwhile, "gay" David, also actually straight, gets it on with the local pageant coordinator, Doreen (Douglas). ===== The story, written in first-person narrative is Lovecraft's first and only foray into science fiction, and depicts the life and death of a prospector on the planet Venus who, while working for a mining company, becomes trapped in an invisible maze. The story takes place in the future, when humanity has developed space travel and begun to explore Venus. There, they discover valuable crystal orbs that can be used as a source of electrical power, as well as a race of primitive lizardmen who guard the crystals fervently and who attack any humans who try to take them. The narrator, Kenton J. Stanfield, is one of many explorers employed to collect the crystals. He is equipped with a breathing apparatus fueled by oxygen cubes (as Venus' atmosphere cannot sustain human life) and has a leather protective suit, as well as a "flame pistol" to use against lizardmen. While on a routine mission, the narrator encounters a bizarre structure: a maze whose walls are completely invisible, inside of which is a crystal of unusually large size. The prize is held by a dead prospector. The protagonist, feeling confident he can map out the maze, makes his way to the center after collecting the crystal in order to explore the structure. However, he soon discovers that he has misjudged the maze, and is unable to relocate the entrance point. Trapped in the maze, the narrator's oxygen and water supply steadily begins to run out, and lizardmen soon begin to gather at the outside of the maze to observe and mock him. Realizing the futility of his situation, the narrator begins to grasp the religious significance of the crystals to the lizardmen, and also realizes that the maze's nature as a constructed structure, and as a trap, indicates that the lizardmen are actually more intelligent than the humans are willing to admit. In time he realizes that he will face the same fate as the preceding prospector. Dying, the narrator writes down his observations on a futuristic form of recording paper. He describes how in his last moments he has developed a feeling of kinship with the lizardmen, and pleads with his superiors to leave Venus, the lizardmen, and the crystals alone, as they hold mysteries humanity cannot begin to grasp, and mankind does not really need to exploit them. The narrator's testimony, along with his body, are soon recovered by a search party, who discover an additional exit just behind the ground where Stanfield died, which the prospector missed when attempting to map out the maze. However, his dying pleas for humanity to leave Venus alone are dismissed by his employers as unfortunate dementia caused by his desperate situation, and instead the crystal mining company decides to use draconian measures to annihilate the lizardmen completely. ===== A young bank employee, Keshavan Nair, Hindu by religion, Nair by caste lodges on the upper floor of the house belonging to Saramma's father. Saraamma is a Christian by religion, beautiful, young, unmarried, unemployed, happy-go-lucky with a sting on the tip of her tongue. Keshavan Nair is an honest simpleton hopelessly in love with her. The book gets its title from the letter that Keshavan Nair composes to reveal to Saramma his love for her. The setting is 1940s Kerala. The story is a sarcastic commentary on the dowry system and is in favour of inter-religious marriage. But this is disguised in a funny love story. Basheer was not a Nair or a Christian, he was a lover of humanity. Saramma is an educated woman, and she is trying to get a job, and she has applied for jobs in many countries( because the story is set in Travancore, which was a country, or princely state). At last she gets a job. The job provider was Keshavan Nair, and the only job assigned to Saramma was to love him!He pays for that too in a monthly basis. Now the serious questions arise. They belong to different religions, then which religion will their children follow? They decides to teach their children every religion and it is up to the children to choose their religion. They plan to grow their children "Religion less". Then comes the other serious issue, How will they name the child? They cannot choose a Hindu name or Christian name, Keshavan Nair asks "Shall we go for Russian names?"Saramma asks "How will it be?" "Anything ending with 'Visky'is a Russian name" Saramma was not happy with it. Keshavan Nair asks "Shall we go for Chinese names like Kwang" Saramma is still not happy. Finally they decides to go with names over objects like sky, sand, Air, toffee, balloon. They finally decide to take a lot of these objects, The result of the lot will be two chits which say "Sky" and "Toffee". They name their child as "Skytoffee". Keshavan Nair shouts saying "Mr.Skytoffee","Skytoffee","Comrade:Skytoffee". Saramma interrupts "Do you want our child to become a communist" Keshavan Nair says "Let him decide on that". The story ends happily. ===== The Palm-Wine Drinkard, told in the first person, is about an unnamed man who is addicted to palm wine, which is made from the fermented sap of the palm tree and used in ceremonies all over West Africa. The son of a rich man, the narrator can afford his own tapster (a man who taps the palm tree for sap and then prepares the wine). When the tapster dies, cutting off his supply, the desperate narrator sets off for Dead's Town to try to bring the tapster back. He travels through a world of magic and supernatural beings, surviving various tests and finally gains a magic egg with never-ending palm wine. ===== Architect Sir Alistair Sinclair and his foreman, Dennis McKay, have been slain in the midst of rehabilitating the medieval west tower of the Royal Palace of Holyrood—the very wing where Mary, Queen of Scots, had lived, and where David Rizzio had met his brutal, politically motivated end. Mycroft Holmes fears these murders portend new threats against Britain's present monarch—the elderly Queen Victoria, who occasionally lodges at the palace—by a known assassin, perhaps in nefarious league with the German Kaiser. En route north, Holmes and Watson are menaced aboard their train by a red-bearded bomb thrower (supposedly a rabid Scots nationalist), only to discover that still greater dangers await them, and others, at Holyroodhouse. The plaintive drone of a weeping woman, cruelly punctured and shattered corpses, a pool of blood "that never dries", and a disembodied Italian voice with unexpected musical tastes all imply the wrath of wraiths behind recent atrocities. But Holmes and Watson deduce that greed, rather than ghosts, may be to blame. ===== Joe Yabuki is a young drifter who meets Danpei Tange, a former boxing trainer while wandering through Doya, a fictional slum near Tokyo. Several months later, Joe is arrested for fraud and is thrown into a temporary jail where he fights Nishi Kanichi, the leader of a group of hooligans. He and Nishi then go to the , a juvenile detention center miles away from Tokyo. There Joe meets Tōru Rikiishi, a former boxing prodigy, and a rivalry develops between them after Rikiishi stopped Joe and Nishi from escaping the prison. They attempt to resolve the rivalry by facing each other in a boxing match in which Rikiishi dominates Joe until the latter hits him with a cross-counter, resulting in both being knocked out. Feeling that the outcome of the match did not resolve anything, Joe and Rikiishi vow to fight again. As Rikiishi learns he is meant to leave the prison, he challenges Joe to a fight in the future, and the two promise to meet again, this time as professional boxers. Upon his release from prison, Joe initially has trouble gaining a boxing license due to his lack of formal education but succeeds in his second attempt with the help of Danpei and Nishi. Joe manages to go up to Bantamweight, after provoking a champion boxer named Wolf Kanagushi. Joe quickly rises in the ranks and gains popularity for his brawling style, and trademark cross-counter KO wins. Joe manages to perform a triple-cross counter on Wolf. Joe then earns the right to fight Rikiishi in the professional ring. Although Rikiishi is assured a promising career, he is intent in settling his score with Joe, whom he feels stands in his path. Because Rikiishi is three weight classes above Joe, he has to cut down a massive amount of weight and undergoes an incredibly taxing weight loss program which includes severe dehydration. Rikiishi knocks Joe out in the 8th round and wins, but dies after from the combined effects of the extreme weight loss on his body and brain hemorrhage that he sustained from Joe during the fight. Joe is still shaken up from that match, both mentally and physically. Soon after, during matches, his trainer Danpei realizes that Joe is unable to give headshots to his opponents, Rikiishi's accidental death having traumatized him. It takes Joe quite some time to get over it and costs him three straight losses and finally conquers his fears when he faces the globally #6 ranked Carlos Rivera. The fight ends with a draw, yet it gives Joe tremendous fame and respect around the world, especially since Carlos was going to face the World Champion José Mendoza in his next match. Joe starts to climb up the boxing ladder, but struggles with maintaining bantamweight due to a late growth spurt, forcing him to undergo strenuous training similar to what Rikiishi had to. He defeats the Asian–Pacific Champion, Kim Yong-bi, a South Korean boxer and survivor of the Korean War, dedicating the win to Rikiishi. After winning the title match, Joe defends his title. He wins all defenses, ultimately defending it against the Malaysian fighter Harimau. He is now given the chance to face the World Champion José Mendoza, who defeated Carlos Rivera with a KO punch in the first round, ending his boxing career. It is later revealed that Carlos had developed permanent brain damage from his fight. The fight is held in a packed stadium, and is attended by many of Joe's friends and former rivals, including Wolf and the now sickly and haggard Carlos. Joe faces Mendoza, even though he is at a disadvantage since it was revealed he was punch-drunk, and has lost vision in one eye. The match is a brutal back-and-forth with Joe able to knock down the Champion more than once. Though originally composed, José starts losing his mind as Joe keeps getting up no matter how much damage he takes, to the point that he wonders if he is trapped in a nightmare. The match goes all of its fifteen rounds, with Mendoza barely gaining a win by points, but much to the shock of the audience, José has seemingly aged decades in minutes from the toll the fight has taken on his body, with his hair turned snow white from the trauma he has experienced. Danpei turns to console Joe only to find him unresponsive, but with a smile on his face. It has been debated among fans whether Joe died or not and Chiba even said that he drew the ending scene at the last minute.http://www.manga-audition.com/tetsuya-chiba-interview/ ===== ;Act 1 While Meg prepares to serve her husband Petey breakfast, Stanley, described as a man "in his late thirties" (23), who is dishevelled and unshaven, enters from upstairs. Alternating between maternal and flirtatious affectation toward Stanley, Meg tells him that "two gentlemen", two new "visitors", will be arriving (30–31); Stanley appears concerned and suspicious at this information. At "[a] sudden knock on the front door", Meg goes offstage while Stanley "listens" at a voice coming "through the letter box," but it is just Lulu carrying in a package delivered for Meg. Right after Meg and Lulu exit, Goldberg and McCann arrive, but Stanley immediately "sidles through the kitchen door and out of the back door" to eavesdrop (38), but they speak only vaguely about "this job" they must do with bureaucratic clichés (41), nevertheless rendering McCann "satisfied" (41). After Meg's new "guests" go up to their room, Stanley enters and Meg gives him the package brought by Lulu containing his birthday present. He opens it to reveal a toy drum. ;Act 2 Stanley encounters McCann and the two talk. McCann is determined to stop Stanley from leaving the house. Stanley's behaviour and speech start to become erratic. He denies the fact that it is his birthday, insists that Meg is mad for saying so, and asks McCann if Goldberg told him why he has been brought to the house. Goldberg enters and sends McCann out to collect some whiskey that he has ordered for the party. When McCann returns, he and Goldberg interrogate Stanley with a series of ambiguous, rhetorical questions, tormenting him to complete collapse. Meg then enters in her party dress, and the party proceeds with a series of toasts in Stanley's honor. Lulu then arrives and engages with Goldberg in romance. The party culminates with a game of blind man's buff, during which McCann further taunts Stanley by breaking his glasses and trapping his foot in the toy drum. Stanley then attacks Meg and, in the blackout that immediately follows, attacks and attempts to rape Lulu. The act ends with Goldberg and McCann backing the maniacally laughing Stanley against a wall. ;Act 3 Paralleling the first scene of the play, Petey is having breakfast, and Meg asks him innocuous questions, with important differences revealing the aftermath of the party. After Meg leaves to do some shopping, Petey begins to express concern to Goldberg about Stanley's condition and Goldberg's intention to take him to an unseen character called Monty. There then follows an exchange between Goldberg and McCann during which Goldberg's usual confident style temporarily abandons him, though he seems to recover after asking McCann to blow in his mouth. Lulu then confronts Goldberg about the way he was the previous night (during unseen events that occurred after the party) but is driven from the house by McCann making unsavoury comments about her character and demanding that she confess her sins to him. McCann then brings in Stanley, with his broken glasses, and he and Goldberg bombard him with a list of his faults and of all the benefits he will obtain by submitting to their influence. When asked for his opinion of what he has to gain, Stanley is unable to answer. They begin to lead him out of the house toward the car waiting to take him to Monty. Petey confronts them one last time but passively backs down as they take Stanley away, "broken", calling out "Stan, don't let them tell you what to do!" (101). After Meg returns from shopping, she notices that "The car's gone" and as Petey remains silent, he continues to withhold his knowledge of Stanley's departure, allowing her to end the play without knowing the truth about Stanley. ===== The events of the original movie take place entirely in Norway; in the English-language version of the movie, the story begins in Britain, and ends up in Norway with the travelling circus. At night, an animal testing laboratory in grimy downtown Oslo is broken into by the "urban guerrillas", a group of bumbling, vegan animal rights activists. They first release some rabbits, which refuse to leave. They then set the rats free, then cats, which to the horror of the activists, eat the rats. They then release a small yapping dog which in turn, again to their horror, kills the cats. They bury the dead animals, vowing to at some point take revenge on "animal oppressing" society. One of them, Sonia, a highly-strung, anxiety-stricken woman, keeps the dog and names the dog "Karma". Meanwhile, three inept stoners and bungling habitual criminals named Odd, Gaz and Flea (Odd, Geir and Kælle in the Norwegian version) sit around in a decrepit apartment, watching the news story about the lab break-in. Their shady American friend Roy Arnie (a fellow Norwegian childhood friend in the original) arrives and offers them a once-in-a-lifetime job opportunity with Circus Stromowski, a travelling Russian circus led by Ringmaster Igor Stromowski. The lads agree as they are in debt with Roy Arnie, and it is apparently a good money-raiser, and to escape a local gangster named Ivan. However, upon arriving at the circus, they find Stromowski to be utterly deranged, the acts dangerous, and performers suicidal. The entire circus is full of useless, miserable has-beens and tired animals that will only perform under the influence of narcotics. What's more, the four lads are actually to be animal handlers with the dangerous animals in the circus stable. The star attraction is "Jimmy", a captive large male elephant who is paranoid of police and with an earring and half a tusk sawn off. Roy Arnie gives Jimmy speed to incite the animal to go crazy and perform in the ring for the spectators. At night, he gives Jimmy heroin to sedate him. Soon the elephant becomes addicted. Roy admits to the others that he has stolen over a million pounds worth of heroin from a tanker owned by the Russian Mafia, and that he joined the circus to escape them. The four lads hatch a plan to smuggle the heroin out of Norway by putting it inside the elephant. Roy makes an incision in Jimmy's buttocks, places the bags of drugs inside, and then sews it back up. He has a plan to set up his own circus with the money he makes from the heroin, the "Roy Arnie Circus", and believes Jimmy to be the key to his dream. However, on the night the lads plan to steal the elephant, Jimmy escapes when he is accidentally given speed instead of heroin, and bolts out of a door left open by the animal rights activists. Jimmy's drug-induced escape causes widespread chaos. Flea comically steals a van with no windshield in the ensuing chase of Jimmy, which leads them up into the frozen moorland. Three bikers dressed in traditional Sámi garb have been tailing the lads the whole time. These bikers turn out to be members of the highly feared "Laplander motorcycle gang", who have been hired by the Russians and are looking for the heroin, and revenge on Roy Arnie. After overhearing their conversations they learn of where the drugs are, and decide to first go after the elephant. Meanwhile, the animal rights activists are hot on Jimmy's trail with the intention of rescuing Jimmy. Jimmy is also hunted by a group of trigger-happy, redneck-type Scottish big game hunters (trøndere in the Norwegian version) want to shoot something bigger than a moose or a deer for a change. So begins a mad-cap cross-country road trip to find Jimmy, with each group having different motives. The four stoners crash a log cabin which is occupied by an elderly American couple, but the three Lappish Mafia bikers find them there, kill the couple, and torture the four stoners for information on the whereabouts of Jimmy the elephant. Jimmy nearly dies on the moors as he begins to go through withdrawal, although a seemingly intelligent and benevolent moose with golden antlers befriends the elephant and attempts to nurse him back to health by nudging him towards water and bringing him grass to eat. The moose pushes Jimmy into a rocky overhang, protecting the elephant from the elements. The moose forces Jimmy to stand on occasion by pushing him up and holding him up with his antlers, bringing back the strength in Jimmy's legs. Over the course of a few painful days, with the moose's help, Jimmy makes a full recovery from the drugs, and again becomes one with nature away from the ugly trappings of man. When the groups converge on Jimmy's location, chaos ensues which results in most of the people involved getting killed in various ways, mostly violent and bloody. As the elephant and the moose escape into the sunset, the elephant accidentally steps on Sonia the activist's dog, Karma, splatting it. Sonia momentarily loses her temper and picks up one of the hunters' rifles and shoots Jimmy in the behind, unwittingly bursting the bags of heroin inside and causing Jimmy to die quickly of massive drug overdose. This causes Sonia to recoil in horror in what she has done, and she flees amidst nervous breakdown in the knowledge she has harmed an animal. The moose causes a landslide which buries Jimmy's body, and after the moose sits poignantly by the mound of rocks which now entomb the elephant, the moose gallops off into the sunset alone. The only other survivors of the massacre, the four stoners, do not witness these events, and back at their apartment assault Roy for leading them to the situation in the first place, because of his mad circus dreams, and "for Jimmy", "our mate." Finally, Roy, full of remorse over his actions in the past, wanders out onto the moors alone to look for the elephant, unaware that Jimmy is already dead and entombed under rocks and out of sight. Roy disappears into a terrible blizzard calling out "Jimmy" in vain. ===== Inspector Chan Ka-kui has been demoted to highway patrol as the result of his handling of his previous case, which involved the violent arrest of crime lord Chu Tao and heavy property damage. The new duty pleases his girlfriend, May, who is glad that her boyfriend is no longer taking difficult cases and has more time to see her. However, the happy mood changes when Ka-Kui is greeted by Chu Tao and his bespectacled right-hand man John Ko. It seems Chu Tao is terminally ill with only three months left to live, so he has been released from prison, and while he is still alive he vows to make life difficult for Ka-Kui. John Ko and some henchmen show up at Ka-Kui's apartment and intimidate him, baiting the policeman to attack. Later, May and her aunt are beaten by John Ko and his men. Ka-Kui can no longer hold back, and he lashes out against John Ko and his men at a restaurant. Ashamed of his behavior, Ka-Kui resigns from the Royal Hong Kong Police Force. He plans to take a trip to Bali with May, but while he is at a travel agency in a shopping mall, some police officers see him and report that the mall is under a bomb threat. Unable to resist the urge to get involved in police work, Ka-Kui tells the officers to sound the fire alarm and have the mall cleared, and agrees to take responsibility for the decision. A bomb does indeed explode, and the entire mall is leveled by the blast. Ka-Kui is praised for his efforts, and he is reinstated and assigned to solve the case of the bombing. Ka-Kui plants a covert listening device in the mall property company's office to try to learn more about the bombers. This leads to a suspect who is a deaf-mute and is a fierce martial artist and explosives expert. The bombing gang, aware that the police are on to them, plan a simultaneous bombing of the property company and the police headquarters. They double their ransom demand to $20 million and kidnap May, luring Ka-Kui into a trap in which he is strapped with an explosive vest and forced to pick up the extortion money from the property company. However, after picking up the money, Ka-Kui tells the gang that they are being followed and split up. Ka- kui, still holding the ransom, is able to drive his car into a tunnel so that the bomb he is wearing cannot be activated and he strips it off. He then goes to rescue May, who is being held in a warehouse full of fireworks. Ka-Kui again faces the deaf-mute man, who throws small firebombs at him. Ka-Kui then gains the upper hand and brutally retaliates against the mute man, finally throwing him off a third story catwalk onto a pile of plastic drums below. Ka- Kui then rescues May and departs the warehouse, just as it explodes in a huge ball of fire. =====