From Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ===== Blackadder is attempting to teach Baldrick the basic concepts of addition when he is appointed Lord High Executioner and Minister for Religious Genocide (because the previous incumbent signed his name on the wrong dotted line and so accidentally ordered his own execution). To give himself the middle of the week off, he makes a simple change by moving up the date of execution for Lord Farrow (from Wednesday to Monday). However, this simple change goes completely awry when the Queen allows Farrow's wife to visit her husband in prison on Monday, the day before his originally scheduled execution, not aware that he has already been executed. As he is already too late, Blackadder pretends to be Farrow, disguising himself with a bag over his head, as the Queen had given Lady Farrow a death warrant to give to Edmund should he refuse her. He is nearly thwarted, first when he discovers that Farrow had many individual traits, such as a deep voice, being much taller than him, and missing half an arm, and then when Lady Farrow attempts to take the bag off his head. Nevertheless, he manages to go undetected. Afterward, the Queen decides to pardon Farrow, saying 'He probably is innocent anyway', and everything looks bleak for Blackadder. Deciding that the only way to get around this problem is to pretend that they had been taking Farrow to see the Queen, when he said something traitorous in the hallway, and he and Percy had cut his head off there. Upon searching for the head in Traitor's Cloister, they realise the plan will not work, as the head already looks decomposed. However, Lord Percy notices that the head that Blackadder found on Farrow's spike is not actually Lord Farrow's, but rather that of Lord Ponsonby, another death row inmate whose execution was scheduled for Friday, meaning that Baldrick had killed the wrong man. Blackadder is relieved, until he remembers that the Queen is on her way to the prison at that very moment to visit Lord Ponsonby, and he hurries there just in time to pretend to be Ponsonby for the Queen, just as he had done with Farrow, despite Ponsonby only having one leg and a speech impediment. ===== The episode opens with Melchett informing Queenie that his former tutor's son has been kidnapped and begs for her to pay the hefty ransom. Queenie consults the Lord Blackadder on the matter - he tells her to tell Melchett's tutor's son to get stuffed, stating that only an idiot can be as foolish as to be kidnapped. However, literally seconds later, Blackadder is kidnapped by two Spaniards and held for ransom, followed by Melchett a moment later. They awaken in a damp cell accompanied by a deranged Spanish torturer. Blackadder does not speak Spanish, so he and the torturer engage in a lengthy game of charades to determine the exact insults, threats, and mode of torture (for instance, the Spanish torturer is forced to go through several roles in order to call Blackadder a "bastard son of a bitch", and Blackadder is unable to explain via body language the meaning of "fornicating baboon" due to being locked up in a box covered in spikes). Prince Ludwig the Indestructible, a German pretender to the throne who mispronounces English words, interrupts just as the torturer is about to get started on Edmund; when Edmund does not recognise him, Ludwig reveals that he was once disguised as Big Sally, a waitress at The Old Pizzle in Dover. Edmund is horrified: he had an affair with Big Sally, unaware that it was Ludwig. At Ludwig's request, Lord Melchett is dragged in screaming. Melchett does not recognise Ludwig, until Ludwig tells him that he once impersonated Flossie, a sheep at a monastery in Cornwall. Melchett is also aghast, having unknowingly had a sexual encounter with the madman. Queenie replies that she has decided to spend the requested ransom money on "a big party". Ludwig agrees to imprison them for life instead of killing them in exchange for information on how to get into the palace during the costume party. When he leaves, Blackadder and Melchett escape and make their way back to England, arriving just in time for the party. Queenie is dressed as her father Henry VIII, while Baldrick is a pencil case. Edmund promptly stabs "Nursie", who is revealed to be Prince Ludwig masquerading as Nursie dressed as a cow. Ludwig, however, is still alive and flees, swearing revenge. Blackadder throws a dagger at him stating "you will die and be buried". Everyone asks how Blackadder knew the cow was Ludwig. Blackadder explains that Ludwig was a master of disguise so his costume would always look highly impressive while Nursie – a "sad, insane old woman with an udder fixation" – would be wearing a more ridiculous looking costume filled with udders. Everyone then asks if Blackadder missed them. He tells Percy he wished it was him who was being tortured instead. To Baldrick he says he was not missed at all, and as for the Queen, he states that life without her is like "a broken pencil"; she asks him to explain, and he replies "pointless". But after the credits, it is shown that Blackadder has been murdered by a surprise attack, along with Baldrick, Percy, Queenie, Melchett and Nursie. Ludwig stands over the corpses disguised as Queenie and holding a blood-soaked dagger. He claims that impersonating Queenie is a role he will enjoy - if he can "just get the voice right." ===== Blackadder owes £1,000 to the baby-eating Bishop of Bath and Wells, who threatens to sodomise him with a hot poker if he does not pay. Blackadder tries unsuccessfully to blackmail the Bishop. Blackadder has only £85, which he loses when the Queen wins a bet about him with Lord Melchett. Blackadder and Baldrick then try prostitution but only manage to get six pence from a sailor named Arthur, which the Queen also takes. Lord Percy tries to make them money by alchemy, without success, only producing a green substance, which he seems convinced is valuable. Blackadder manages to bully a couple into buying his house for £1,100, but is again tricked out of the money by the Queen. Finally, as Blackadder is visited by the Bishop for failing to repay his debt, Blackadder drugs the Bishop and has a painting made of him in a highly compromising position. He uses this to successfully blackmail the Bishop into writing off the debt and giving him enough money to buy back his house and live in comfort. The Bishop is impressed by his treachery but asks who the other figure in the painting is, at which point Blackadder reveals Percy. ===== The episode opens with Blackadder at home, preparing to go to court to celebrate the return of Sir Walter "Oooh what a big ship I've got" Raleigh (Simon Jones). Blackadder is typically sarcastic and embittered, refusing to join in the festivities and endures much taunting from children outside his house, to which he retaliates by shooting one with an arrow. Melchett arrives and offers Blackadder a potato, the last having just been discovered by Raleigh on his voyages; Melchett plans to smoke his. Blackadder declines, scoffing that "people will be eating them next". At the court, Raleigh's tales of discovery greatly impress the Queen. Blackadder attempts to upstage him by declaring his intention to circumnavigate the Cape of Good Hope, a journey Raleigh believes is impossible, stating that sailors do not count it as part of the "Seven Seas" owing to its treacherousness. Blackadder enquires of Raleigh which sailor would be insane enough to captain such a voyage, and is told where to find Captain Redbeard Rum. Rum (Tom Baker) is insane, legless, and has no navigation skills whatsoever. Nursie however, is quite taken with him, and agrees to marry him once he returns. Once their journey starts, Rum admits that he does not know the way to the Cape of Good Hope, and intended to resort to his usual trick of circling the Isle of Wight until everybody gets dizzy. Blackadder then reveals that his actual plan is to go to France for a few months, then go back home and falsely claim to have sailed to the Cape of Good Hope. Unfortunately, they soon run into a serious problem; Rum does not know how to get to France either, and in fact does not know how to navigate at all. Utterly lost, they run out of food and water and are reduced to drinking their own urine (joining Rum, who's been swigging his with abandon even before the water ran out) when their ship runs aground on a tropical island with lava streams, mangroves and cannibalistic natives. Two years later, they somehow land back in Britain, but are greeted by a Queenie distinctly fed up of explorers, having spared Raleigh execution only because he "blubbed on his way to the block". After breaking the news to Nursie that her beloved Rum had been eaten by the savage natives, they give her his beard as a memento. Blackadder offers Queenie a stick that, when thrown away, comes back. She is displeased until she witnesses an offhanded throw of the boomerang return and strike Percy in the back of the head. Having been commanded to also present Melchett and Raleigh with a gift, Blackadder offers a bottle of "fine wine", which Blackadder states is in inexhaustible supply (seeing as how it is actually Baldrick's urine). ===== In the West Coast of England in 1765, a young boy called Jim Hawkins lives with his mother in a tiny country inn which they run. Captain William Bones, a sickly lodger, gives Jim a treasure map after being visited by two pirates, the second of whom gives the captain a note marked with the black spot, and sends him for help with a mysterious promise to share. Jim returns with Squire Trelawney and Dr. Livesey, only to find Bones dead at the inn, and Jim shows Trelawney the map. Trelawney recognizes the map as belonging to the buccaneer Captain Flint and bankrolls a voyage to discover the pirate's lost treasure. Trelawney hires Captain Smollett and his ship, the Hispaniola, bringing along Dr Livesey as the ship's doctor and Jim as the cabin boy. Before departure, Trelawney is taken in by Long John Silver, a one- legged innkeeper, who agrees to gather a crew. Silver strikes up a friendship with Jim and joins the expedition as the ship's cook. Smollett is concerned about the crew, especially when he reveals to Trelawney that the nature of their journey is common knowledge. At sea, Silver convinces Jim to acquire some rum, which he uses to get the first mate, Mr Arrow, drunk. Silver then kills him, though the rest of the main characters believe he was washed overboard in a storm. Jim overhears Silver and the crew's plan to mutiny, discovering that the seamen hired by Silver are Captain Flint's old crew. Jim reveals the treachery to Smollett, who asks Jim to stay friends with Silver to learn more. Upon reaching Treasure Island, Silver offers to tow the ship to a safer anchorage, using two of the ship's rowboats. While the ship is being towed, one of Silver's men, Merry, leads a mutiny on the ship. Smollett, having been warned of the plot by Jim, can hold them off with the few men loyal to him and imprisons the mutineers below decks. Silver cuts the rowboats from the Hispaniola and heads for shore with the rest of his men, taking Jim as a hostage. Smollett, Trelawney, and Livesey go ashore after them, leaving two guards on the ship. On the island, Jim escapes and meets Ben Gunn, marooned by Flint five years ago. Gunn shows Jim the boat he's built, then leads him to Flint's stockade, where he meets up with Smollett and the others. Meanwhile, Merry escapes, takes the ship and raises the Jolly Roger. Silver returns to the Hispaniola, arms his men with muskets and makes plans to take the stockade. Short of men, Silver attempts to parlay with Smollett, but when he is rebuffed, Silver calls his men to attack. The assault on the stockade fails, but Silver wounds Smollett. Although seemingly protected by the stockade, Smollett surmises that, with the morning tide, Silver could move the Hispaniola into cannon range and level the fort. Jim takes Gunn's boat and cuts the Hispaniola's anchor rope. The pirate Israel Hands discovers Jim and chases him up into the ship's rigging. Hands injures Jim's arm with a throwing knife but is killed by the boy's pistol. The Hispaniola runs aground, Jim strikes the Jolly Roger and hoists the Union Jack. Slowed by his wound, which becomes badly infected by swamp water, it takes him all night to get back to the stockade, which is unguarded. Inside, Jim searches for the doctor to tend his wound, but the man asleep under Livesey's coat is Long John Silver. Jim faints on the spot. Silver finds the map on him as his men wake up. Merry wants Jim dead, but Silver states he wants to trade him for the map, which his men believe is with Smollett. The men go outside to vote, pirate-style. From the stockade's lookout, while calling for Livesey, Silver sees that the ship's aground, flying the Union Jack, and believes that Smollett's party has recaptured the ship. The other pirates give Silver the black spot, but he refuses to acknowledge it. Rattled, they let him bargain with Livesey, who has come to treat Jim's infected wound, for the map. Silver secretly barters with Livesey for leniency in court, inadvertently revealing to him that the ship is no longer under his control. Livesey agrees only when Jim refuses to try and escape with him since Silver saved his life by calling for Livesey. Livesey leaves, and Silver returns with Jim, flaunting the map to convince his men that his bargain was successful. The pirates are overjoyed and take back the black spot, then proceed on a gruelling treasure hunt. When they finally reach the spot where the treasure — supposed to be 700,000 pounds — is supposed to be buried, they discover instead an empty pit, save for one guinea. The pirates turn on Silver, who manages to kill three of them before Smollett's men appear to defeat the rest. Greeting Silver, Gunn reveals that he dug up Flint's treasure and has stashed it in a cave. Despite keeping his end of the bargain, Captain Smollett still wants Silver taken back for trial in England for his mutiny. Hawkins, Trelawney and two others take Silver to the Hispaniola aboard a rowboat loaded with a few chests of treasure. Silver snatches Jim's pistol and forces Trelawney and the others out of the boat but makes Jim stay to steer him out of the cove. Jim instead beaches him on a sandbar, and Silver orders him to push him off at pistol point, though Jim bravely refuses. Silver is unable to carry out his threat to shoot and drops the pistol in the water, attempting to push the boat off on his own. Seeing Silver struggle, Jim helps him, waving a hesitant farewell as Silver rows away with the treasure and bids him farewell in return. ===== Captain Kidd complete movie In 1699, pirate William Kidd loots and destroys the English galleon The Twelve Apostles near Madagascar. He and three confederates bury the stolen treasure on a remote island. He returns to London and hires a gentleman's gentleman. Kidd then presents himself at the court of William III of England as an honest shipmaster seeking a royal commission as a privateer after striking his colors to a pirate. The king is persuaded by Kidd that the captain of The Twelve Apostles was that pirate, who has disappeared with its treasure. The King grants the commission. Kidd recruits a crew from condemned pirates in Newgate and Marshalsea prisons, promising them a royal pardon at the end of their voyage. Among them is the quarrelsome though cultured Adam Mercy. Kidd makes him the new master gunner because of his claimed prior service with pirate Captain Avery. The King sends Kidd and his ship the Adventure Galley to the waters near Madagascar to rendezvous with the ship Quedagh Merchant and provide an escort back to England. The Quedagh Merchant carries Lord Fallsworth, the King's ambassador to the Grand Mughal, his daughter Lady Anne Dunstan, and a chest of treasure from the Indian potentate to King William. Kidd's story about a pirate he fought nearby persuades Lord Fallsworth to switch ships with his daughter and the precious cargo. Kidd's navigator Jose Lorenzo lights a candle in the ship's magazine. Just as the transfer takes place, the Quedagh Merchant blows up. Kidd also arranges a fatal "accident" for Lord Fallsworth, leaving only a frightened Lady Anne. She turns to the only man she thinks she can trust, Shadwell, Kidd's servant. When she mentions the recent battle with pirates, Shadwell tells her it never happened. He advises her to put her faith in Adam Mercy. On the voyage home, Kidd schemes to rid himself of his three close associates (to avoid sharing the booty) and Mercy (whom he suspects of being a spy). Mercy is really the vengeance-seeking son of Admiral Lord Blayne, the slandered captain of The Twelve Apostles. When a smitten Lorenzo tries to force himself on Lady Anne, Kidd is delighted when Mercy engages him in a sword fight. Lorenzo is driven overboard to drown. During the fight, Mercy's medallion is torn from his neck. Kidd finds it and recognizes the Blayne family crest so he strongly suspects Mercy is really a relative of the murdered Captain Blayne. Kidd drops anchor at a lagoon. Kidd, Orange Povey (his only surviving confederate, protected by an incriminating letter that will be sent to the crown authorities if he should die), and Mercy go ashore and dig up the loot from The Twelve Apostles. When Mercy sees the Blayne crest he feigns indifference, but Kidd goads him by insulting his dead father's honor. Mercy is enraged and attacks Kidd, fighting him and Povey. Outnumbered, Mercy is knocked unconscious, falls into the water, and does not resurface. While the others believe him dead, he swims secretly back to the ship. Mercy and a loyal crewman row Lady Anne away in the ship's jolly boat, but are spotted. Shadwell sacrifices himself needlessly to cover their escape, and Kidd blows up the jolly boat. Believing himself safe, Kidd appears before King William with the Mughal's treasure to claim his reward (Lord Blayne's aristocratic title and estate). He learns that Mercy and Lady Anne have survived and preceded him to court. The King's men found the loot from The Twelve Apostles after searching Kidd's cabin. Kidd is tried, condemned, and hanged. ===== In this adaptation of Oscar Wilde's play about mistaken identities, two gentlemen in 1890s London use the same pseudonym, Ernest, for their secret courtship activities. Chaos ensues when both men find themselves face-to-face and have to explain who they really are. ===== Jim Gordon (John Wayne in his first war film) leads the Flying Tigers, a squadron of volunteer American pilots who fly Curtiss P-40B fighters against Japanese aircraft in the skies over China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The pilots are a mixed bunch, motivated by money (they receive a bounty for each aircraft shot down) or just the thrill of aerial combat. One day, old friend and former airline pilot Woody Jason (John Carroll) signs up under Jim's command. An arrogant, hot-shot aviator, he starts causing trouble immediately. When the Japanese raid the Flying Tigers' airbase, the enthusiastic new arrival goes after them, taking up a P-40 fighter without permission, not realizing until too late that it has no ammunition. As a result, Woody is shot down. He is unharmed after his fighter crash lands, but the precious P-40 fighter is a total wreck. As time goes on, Woody shows that he has little use for teamwork, alienating and endangering the other pilots. He abandons his wingman, Blackie Bales (Edmund MacDonald), in order to shoot down a Japanese aircraft. As a result, Blackie comes under fire from another and must bail out of his burning P-40. While hanging suspended in his parachute, he is strafed to death by the Japanese pilot. Woody starts romancing nurse Brooke Elliott (Anna Lee), who is considered by all the Tiger pilots to be Jim's girlfriend. One night, they go on a date. When he is late getting back for a night patrol, Jim's right-hand man, "Hap" Davis (Paul Kelly), secretly takes his place, despite having just been grounded by Jim because his vision had deteriorated, notably at night. In the resulting dogfight Hap is unable to judge distances accurately and winds up dying in a collision with a Japanese aircraft he is pursuing. This proves to be the final straw. While sitting at his office desk, Jim fires Woody, explaining that "It's out of my hands now. None of these men will ever fly with you again. And they have to fly". The date showing on Jim's calendar is Sunday, December 7, 1941, the day of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, bringing America into World War II. A day later, Jim receives notice that a vital bridge must be destroyed. The target is so heavily defended, however, that the only way there might be a chance of succeeding is to fly in very low with a single unescorted bomber to attack the bridge; the mission appears likely to be a one-way suicide mission. Jim volunteers to fly the bomber, but Woody invites himself along at the last second, much to Jim's irritation. They proceed to attack the bridge too late to keep a crucial enemy supply train from crossing. Their aircraft is hit by flak and catches fire. Jim bails out with an unexpected push from Woody, expecting Woody to follow. Woody, however, has concealed the fact that he is bleeding, having been hit by shrapnel from a flak burst. He then takes the bomber's controls and heroically crashes into the train, destroying it at the cost of his own life. Back at the Tigers' base, Woody has left a goodbye letter which Jim and Brooke read; in that letter he has asked for his lucky scarf to be given to the next pilot who thinks aerial combat will be "an easy racket". Jim hands the scarf to his youthful new wingman, telling him to "Take good care of it ... it belonged to a pretty good flyer". ===== Merton is an aspiring movie actor. He is a terrible actor but when the movie executives see how funny his overacting is, they cast him in a comedy, but tell him that he's acting in a drama. ===== Melvin Junko (originally Ferd) has been transformed into the superhero known as the Toxic Avenger. He has made Tromaville a safe place again. However, with no more evil to destroy, Melvin has suffered depression until his blind girlfriend Claire (originally Sara) has gotten him a job at the Tromaville Center for the Blind. When the lunch bell rings, all of the residents enter the building when a mysterious limo pulls up. Inside the limo are the Chairman of Apocalypse Inc. and his number one, Malfaire. Apocalypse Inc. is a New York-based chemical company that finds Tromaville to be the perfect home for its new takeover site. However, they know all about The Toxic Avenger. The Chairman hires a member of his team disguised as a PUS deliveryman to deliver a bomb into the center. Claire escapes in time upon learning of the bomb, but everyone else is killed. However, when the deliveryman and an Apocalypse construction worker arrive to begin their takeover, the Toxic Avenger emerges from the rubble and kills the duo. This leads to an all-out assault by various members of Apocalypse Inc. with the Chairman and Malfaire watching. Toxie easily defeats the group of thugs, either killing them or in the case of one, making him run away. The only survivors of the explosion are Toxie, Claire, and a blind mom and her infant daughter. Apocalypse Inc., reeling from their defeat at the hands of Toxie, hatch a plan to lure him out of Tromaville. They discover Toxie's father had left him and his mother when he was just a baby. Using one of their "bad girls" as Toxie's psychologist, the plan will involve sending Toxie to Japan to look for his father. The psychiatrist, using her Freudian psychology, convinces him to go to Japan, even though he has reservations about leaving Claire. Claire tells Toxie to go find his father and that she loves him. The next day, Toxie leaves for Japan but since he cannot exactly go on a plane, he heads to Japan using a windsurfboard and a paper asking for his father from the worker at a local Japanese restaurant. However, forgetting his passport, he enters Tokyo Godzilla-style, shocking a group of beachgoers. His appearance shocks everyone he comes across, including a news reporter who occasionally shows up throughout the film. While on his quest, he runs into Masami, who is at first shocked, but smiles at him. As Toxie tries the Japanese snack taiyaki, a local gang begin to assault Masami, causing Toxie's "Tromatons" to go berserk. He goes after the gang and uses the taiyaki fish- shaper to meld one thug's nose into the shape of a fish. He goes after the ring leader of the group and follows him to a public bath house, where he uses his hot breath power to make the water hot for the gang leader while putting in vegetables and noodles. Finally, he goes after the female member of the trio and follows her inside a local radio station where he ties her up and turns her into a "human transmitter". Thanking him for saving her, Masami befriends Melvin and offers to help him find his father. Meanwhile, as Melvin is in Japan, Apocalypse Inc. takes full advantage and begin a hostile takeover of Tromaville. This causes people who stand up against them to get beaten up, or in the case of a couple of protestors, get run down and killed. Back in Tokyo, Masami and Melvin finally find Big Mac Junko, a Japanese man decked out in a suit. Melvin is elated and run towards his father until his Tromatons go berserk again. Masami sees a shipment of fish dropped on the floor and discovers cocaine in the fish. Big Mac is a Yakuza leader who delves in drug dealing and when Melvin is forced to confront his father, he goes through a series of battles against Yakuza enforcers, a sickle-chain wielding female member, and Kabuki warriors. Using the environment to his advantage, Melvin is able to defeat the entire gang, only leaving him and his father, who becomes a sumo wrestler. Big Mac reveals to Melvin a bottle of "anti-Tromatons", the one weakness that can kill Melvin. However, Melvin is able to kick the bottle out of his father's hand and push him to a fish butcher, who, excited by the action, kills Melvin's dad by chopping him up. The bottle breaks and Melvin begins to weaken. However, Masami takes Melvin to a sumo gym, where he is healed and begins training in the art of sumo before saying goodbye to Masami and head back to Tromaville. Upon his return to Tromaville, he learns that Malfaire and the "bad girls", including his now former psychiatrist, are assaulting Claire. He takes on the bad girls while Claire finally gets the upper hand on Malfaire, incapacitating her. With Melvin back, the people of Tromaville are safe again. That is, until the Chairman hires the Dark Rider to destroy Tromaville. A motorcycle rider with nitroglycerin strapped to his back, the plan is for the Dark Rider to burst into City Hall. Melvin hijacks a taxi with a bickering elderly couple celebrating their anniversary and after a series of turns and misses, ends up crashing the taxi, forcing everyone to get out after an explosion. Then, Melvin hijacks a hovercraft and drives it after the Dark Rider, finally forcing him to bust into a home, causing the Dark Rider's demise. Once again safe from the hands of Apocalypse Inc., the people of Tromaville are elated. A man arrives in Tromaville and is revealed to be Melvin's real father. Melvin learns the Yakuza leader he defeated in Japan was "Bic Mac Bunko", who is glad to be reunited with both Melvin and his mom and is happy that Bunko, who had used identity theft against him, is no more. Meanwhile, the Chairman and Malfaire attempt to hitch a ride back to New York and fail at doing that. ===== Stringer collects the pagers belonging to D'Angelo's crew and tells them that all business talk will be conducted face to face. Stringer and Avon meet with Levy, who tells them that they need to walk away from Orlando's club. Levy also suggests that Nakeesha Lyles, a female security guard who had planned to testify against D'Angelo, may be a problem. After Levy departs, Stringer convinces Avon to insulate himself from their crew by passing all communication through him. D'Angelo tells Stringer that Wallace has left "the game," and appeals to Avon to leave him alone. Back at the pit, Wallace returns and asks for his old position back. Bodie tells Wallace that he would have to accept a demotion, but D'Angelo overrules him. D'Angelo's mother Brianna arrives with a lunch for him. Daniels visits Greggs and bumps into a drunken McNulty outside of her room. He tells McNulty to either see Greggs or go back to work. McNulty confesses that he is wracked with guilt over his role in starting the detail, saying that the case does not mean anything. Daniels tells him that the case meant something to Greggs and that they must continue their work and find her shooters. McNulty returns to the detail office as Freamon fits Shardene with contact lenses. Freamon tells McNulty that their surveillance is faltering because the Barksdale Organization is changing its operating procedure. He has sent Prez to Annapolis to chase the paper trail in campaign contributions. Freamon suggests that they have Shardene wear a wire in Avon's club. Daniels meets with Burrell and Reed to discuss his investigation. Burrell feels that the case is over now that the wiretaps have gone dead. Daniels argues that they should keep up the surveillance as they still have time remaining on the court order. Burrell orders Daniels to return Santangelo and Sydnor to Homicide, but allows him to keep Freamon and Prez. Burrell still assumes Freamon and Prez are the most useless detectives on his detail, unaware that they have revealed themselves to Daniels as valuable investigators. Pearlman meets with the State's Attorney, who is worried about the political angle in the Barksdale investigation. He gives Pearlman evidence of returned contributions from unknown sources from his own offices to hand over to the detail. Pearlman is distressed that the investigation is worrying her superiors, as this reflects poorly on her, and she denies any knowledge of the detail's actions. Shardene attempts to infiltrate the office at Orlando's while wearing a wire, but has little success in obtaining pertinent information. Later that night, beat officers find Nakeesha's body. Bunk reports the murder to the Barksdale detail and they realize that Wallace may be in danger. Daniels scrambles to organize his men to locate him while Freamon offers to let Shardene stay at his apartment. Daniels is called into a meeting with Burrell and Senator Davis, who is concerned about the detail looking into his campaign finances and his driver. Daniels refuses to apologize for the driver's arrest and tells Davis that if he is clean, he has nothing to worry about. After Daniels leaves the meeting, Davis insists that Burrell needs to control him. Daniels returns to the office and learns that Wallace has left his grandmother's house. Freamon trains Shardene in measuring her steps to map the inside of the club. Using Prez's math skills, the detail installs a camera in Avon's office from an adjacent building. Stringer orders Bodie to kill Wallace, and Poot unsuccessfully tries to dissuade him from doing so. McNulty and Daniels visit Wallace's old squat, but find it abandoned. McNulty finds an address for Wallace's mother, Darcia, and he takes Daniels there to see if she knows his whereabouts. She is little help and is more concerned about her next drink than her son being in danger. After bringing Chinese takeout to the young children whom he looks after, Wallace goes out for a meal with Bodie and Poot. When they return home, the children have all left. Bodie and Poot corner Wallace in his bedroom and Bodie draws his weapon. He steels himself to shoot Wallace as he pleads for his life, but is unable to do so until prompted by Poot. After the first shot, Poot takes the weapon and finishes the task. Bunk investigates Wallace's murder the next day while Avon clears his office at Orlando's, frustrating the detail. Avon asks D'Angelo to drive to New York to receive their next package. With this information, Daniels and McNulty borrow a tracking device from the FBI and install it on D'Angelo's car. D'Angelo is stopped by the New Jersey State Police and brought in by the detail, after which McNulty and Daniels interrogate him without a lawyer. D'Angelo refuses to believe McNulty when he says that Wallace is dead. However, he is enraged when Stringer doesn't answer his questions about Wallace, accepting McNulty's story and refusing to let Levy represent him. Meanwhile, Burrell pressures Daniels to close the case and ignore the political leads, threatening to release the FBI's report on his excess capital. Daniels counters by stating that he is willing to go down for the sake of the Barksdale case, noting that the bad publicity is what Burrell is most afraid of. McNulty and Daniels watch a SWAT team prepare to arrest Avon. McNulty tells Daniels that they should make the arrest themselves, and they go in together. Daniels cuffs Avon but McNulty lets Stringer go, telling him that they will catch him later. At the office, Freamon, Prez, and Sydnor review the board. Freamon adds a newspaper article about a downtown business revitalization project being built in an area where the Barksdales have been amassing property. Sydnor tells them that the case is the best work that he has ever done, but he still feels that it is not finished. At the pit, the dealers' orange sofa stands unused. ===== Humans and robots coexist in the futuristic city of Metropolis, although robots are discriminated against and segregated to the city's lower levels. A lot of Metropolis' human population are unemployed and deprived, and many people blame the robots for taking their jobs. Duke Red, the unofficial ruler of Metropolis, has overseen the construction of a massive skyscraper called the Ziggurat, which he claims will allow mankind to extend its power across the planet. A wayward robot disrupts the Ziggurat's opening ceremony, only to be shot down by Rock, Duke Red's adopted son and the head of the Marduk Party, a vigilante group whose aim is to promote anti-robot sentiments. Private detective Shunsaku Ban and his nephew Kenichi travel to Metropolis to arrest Dr. Laughton, a mad scientist wanted for organ trafficking. Unknown to Shunsaku, Duke Red has hired Laughton to build an advanced robot modeled and named after Red's deceased daughter Tima. Red intends for Tima to function as a central control unit for a powerful secret weapon hidden in the Ziggurat. However, Rock learns of Tima's existence and, not wanting a robot to overshadow Red, shoots Laughton and sets fire to his laboratory. Shunsaku comes across the burning laboratory and discovers the dying Laughton, who gives Shunsaku his notebook. Meanwhile, Kenichi finds the activated Tima. The two fall into the sewers and are separated from Shunsaku. While Shunsaku searches for his nephew, Kenichi and Tima search for a way back the street level. They grow close as Kenichi teaches Tima how to speak. Neither are aware she is a robot. The two are hunted relentlessly by Rock and his subordinates, and encounter a group of unemployed human laborers who stage a revolution against Red. The president and the mayor of Metropolis try to use the revolution to overthrow Red and gain control of Metropolis, but they are assassinated by the president's top military commander, General Kusai Skunk, who has sided with Red. The duke then imposes martial law to suppress the revolution. In the aftermath of the failed revolt, Kenichi reunites with Shunsaku, only to be wounded by Rock, who reveals Tima to be a robot. Rock, however, is disowned by Red and stripped of his command of the Marduks for attempting to kill Tima. Duke Red takes Tima away to the Ziggurat. Still determined to dispose of Tima and regain his father's affection, Rock kidnaps and deactivates Tima, who is now confused about her identity. Shunsaku rescues her and, after following instructions from Laughton's notebook, reactivates Tima. The two discover Kenichi is being held in the Ziggurat, but are then captured by Duke Red and the Marduks on their way to save him. Brought to the top of the Ziggurat, Tima confronts Duke Red about whether she is a human or robot. Duke Red tells her she is a "superhuman" and destined to rule the world from her throne. Disguised as a maid, Rock then shoots Tima, exposing her circuitry. The sudden shock of realizing she is a robot causes Tima to go insane. She proceeds to sit on the throne, where she orders a biological and nuclear attack on humanity. While the others flee, Kenichi tries to reason with Tima. Robots drawn by Tima's command attack Duke Red. Not wanting his father to die at the hands of "filthy robots", Rock kills himself and Duke Red in a massive explosion. As the Ziggurat starts to collapse around them, Kenichi finally reaches Tima and separates her from the throne. Seemingly lost, Tima tries to kill Kenichi, but falls off the tower in the struggle. Out of love for her, Kenichi tries to save Tima and pull her up using one of the cables still grafted to her. As the cable begins to fray, Tima remembers the time Kenichi taught her language and asks Kenichi, "Who am I?", before she loses her grip and falls to her presumed death. The Ziggurat collapses, destroying a large part of Metropolis. In the aftermath, Kenichi searches the ruins and discovers a group of robots have salvaged some of Tima's parts in an effort to rebuild her. While Shunsaku and many other human survivors are evacuated, Kenichi chooses to remain behind; he eventually rebuilds Tima and opens a robot workshop. ===== Lulu Dark is a sixteen-year-old girl with attitude and fashion sense, and a keen eye for clues, who thinks girl detectives (such as Nancy Drew) are dumb. However, after her fake Kate Spade handbag gets stolen at a club, Lulu must become a girl-sleuth to retrieve it. But Lulu did not realize that it would get her entangled in a murder that only she believes has happened. At the end she solves more than one mystery of mistaken identities, and manages to do it in style with the help of her best friends, Daisy and Charlie. ===== The story and characters are adapted from Mahabharata which is a story of conflict between two half- brothers—Mansen and Siddhartha (Dhritarashtra and Pandu)-- and their families. The lead, Bhoomika (Subhadra), and her husband Arjun (Arjuna), portray the eternal couple who try to bring peace between the warring families. Along with them is Manasvi (Draupadi) who becomes the center of a conflict between two brothers Satya (Yudhishthira) and Suraj (Karna).While the antagonists are Shifali (Bhanumati), and her husband Yuvraj (Duryodhana). ===== The protagonist, Robin of Loxley, is robbed of his castle by the Sheriff of Nottingham and has to get it back with the help of Maid Marian, Little John, Will Scarlet and Friar Tuck. ===== Savage Reign is set in the first half of the 21st century in the fictional city of South Town (the same city used in the Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting series), which has now been upgraded and renamed as Jipang City. A mysterious legendary fighter known only as King Leo has risen up from the shadows of secrecy and issued a challenge on television for the strongest of fighters to battle against him in a fighting tournament known as the Battle of the Beast God. He promises immense wealth beyond anyone's dreams and legendary fame beyond imagination. Nine fighters have come to the tournament, each with their own sole purpose and reason for battling against King Leo. ===== The story begins in Mexico, where Samson is on the trail of his Soviet opposite number: Erich Stinnes, a KGB major working in East Germany whom London Central wishes to coax over to the West. The task of laying the delicate and elaborate groundwork for Stinnes' defection propels Samson from Mexico to London, Paris, Berlin, and the East-West border. What happens along the way—a temporary abduction, an unnecessary murder, an inconvenient suicide—happens so fast that Samson hardly seems able to keep London Central informed of developments. Or is it that Samson wants to keep his colleagues in the dark? Certainly London Central's entire senior staff—from Samson's immediate supervisors, locked in their endless internecine office warfare, to the dotty Director-General himself—would have reason to suspect that Samson might be working for the other side. He was, after all, closer than any of the other to the former traitor-in-their-midst. And Samson himself is losing control—indeed, events seem to be controlling him. As he finds himself in a series of ever more incriminating positions, as one by one the avenues of escape or vindication close before him, the novel winds back toward Mexico.. and toward the astonishing climax - at the scene of the defection Samson has so painstakingly orchestrated—in which the allegiances of all involved are finally and fatefully revealed. ===== Samson suspects that there is a traitor within his department of MI6, due to the appearance of a memorandum which was leaked to the KGB. It transpires that it is part of a plot conducted by his wife—now working for East German intelligence—to frame his superior, Bret Rensselaer, as a KGB agent. When Samson's old friend Werner Volkmann is arrested by the East German police Samson organizes an unauthorised exchange of defector Erich Stinnes for him, but the operation ends in a shootout on the Berlin S-Bahn. ===== The novel begins with Bernard Sampson visiting his old friend and ex-SIS colleague in Washington named Jim Prettyman as part of an investigation regarding some missing funds. Soon after, Prettyman is murdered in a mugging. All his allies start losing interest in the investigation, and after digging deeper Bernard is sent to America once again, where it is revealed that Bret has not indeed died (as hinted at the end of the first trilogy, and discussed in this book.) but is in fact in rehabilitation. Bernard returns to Europe, where he confronts a man called "Dodo" and is saved from an untimely death by Prettyman, who it turns out has gone under "deep-cover". Bernard then takes his evidence to the Director General, who in a surprise turn of events orders his arrest, which thanks to some quick thinking by Werner Volkmann, Bernard evades for the while. The novel concludes with Bernard seeking an explanation from Frank Harrington, before disappearing into the night. Category:1988 British novels Category:Bernard Samson novels Category:Hutchinson (publisher) books ===== The novel starts with Bernard Samson in hiding in Berlin after the events in the first book of the series. He is soon found by the SIS and is invited by Frank Harrington to sit in on a debriefing of an undercover agent, where it is revealed that Erich Stinnes has been smuggling drugs into East Germany. Bernard is eventually recalled to London, and sent on a mission to Vienna to pick up a package from a stamp auction. This is revealed to be a Russian passport, which he uses to meet his wife Fiona, whom it is now revealed is a double agent (It is not made clear for how long Bernard knew this). Finally, Fiona attempts to escape from East Germany, whereupon Erich Stinnes, and Fiona's sister Tessa are both killed. Bernard and Fiona escape back to the other side of the wall and are transported to America for debriefing. Category:1989 British novels Category:Bernard Samson novels Category:Hutchinson (publisher) books ===== Spy Sinker starts in 1977 and ends in 1987. It tells the entire story in the previous five novels from the third person perspective (Bernard Samson's bosses, his colleagues, his girlfriend Gloria, and most of all his wife Fiona). Thus it fills in the gaps in the story, as the previous five books only reveals what Bernard can see and think he understands. It also tells the back story leading up to the story in the five novels, which has only been hinted at previously. Category:1990 British novels Category:Bernard Samson novels Category:Hutchinson (publisher) books ===== Marvin the Martian has developed an ultimate weapon that will allow him to finally destroy Earth, which will ultimately allow him to take control of the universe. Upon the demonstration of the weapon, a slight snag hinders Marvin from completing his devious deed. The weapon is out of atoms, which it runs on, so he sends his minions (all of which are characters from the Looney Tunes universe) to gather atoms to fuel his weapon. Duck Dodgers is informed by his academy of Marvin's deeds and sets out to find the one-hundred Atoms before Marvin can. This ultimately has Dodgers and his sidekick, Cadet, trekking to four different planets, including a large pirate ship, to obtain the upper-hand over Marvin. ===== The story follows a group of interns and nurses working at St. Albert's, the worst teaching hospital in Canada, as they try to deal with work and relationship stress. Run by administrator Dr. Cyrill Kipp, the hospital only manages to stay open because Kipp sells the hospital's equipment on the black market. During on-the-job training taught by Dr. Olson, interns brave blood, vomit and exploding colostomy bags. The students include Mike Bonnert, whose parents are physicians, Mitzi Cole, who works as a stripper to pay her way through school, and the innocent Christine who loses her inhibitions when intoxicated. Mike discovers that his girlfriend, Mitzi, became sexually active with another intern. They begin to fight in the morgue, using human organs as weapons. They are caught and expelled from St. Albert's. But when a 76-car pile up occurs, they return to ER to help the patients. One patient, who was saved in an emergency surgery, was a billionaire, and saves the hospital from going bankrupt. ===== The narrative starts on the eve of the year 1900 with Harald Winter, a German businessman with two sons, Peter and Paul, two very different brothers, whose lives are inextricably linked with Germany in the years leading up to the Second World War. One a scholar and one a romantic, their lives diverge, leading one into the inner mechanisms of the Nazi Party and one into exile in America, the birthplace of their mother. From their sheltered childhood through their violent coming of age in the Great War, from the chaos of 1920s Berlin to the spreading power of Hitler they are wrenched apart by conflicting ideals and ambitions. Their story is further complicated by their father's long standing affair with a Hungarian woman, eventually revealed to be Jewish; their love for him is overshadowed by their loathing of his behaviour. Since the entire story unfolds as a flashback from the time of the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials after the Nazis' defeat, the readers know that both would make a career as lawyers, but in widely divergent directions: one would enter the Nazi Party and think up various "legal" ways to legitimise their crimes, while the other brother would be a staunch anti- Nazi, go into exile and come back to Germany after the war as a member of the American war crimes prosecution. But the reader cannot be sure, until deep in the book's plot, which is which. ===== It is Christmas 1911 and Arthur Winslow, a London banker, is making final preparations for a dinner to seal the engagement between his daughter Catherine, an outspoken supporter of the cause of women's suffrage, and Captain John Watherstone. The family and guests are toasting the upcoming marriage when Arthur discovers that his youngest son Ronnie, a 13-year-old cadet at the Royal Naval College, Osborne, is unexpectedly home. Ronnie has been accused of the theft of a postal order. An internal enquiry, conducted without notice to his family and without benefit of representation, finds him guilty and Mr. Winslow is "requested to withdraw" his son from the college (the formula of the day for expulsion). Ronnie proclaims his innocence and his father believes him—enough so that he demands an apology from the College. When the college refuses to reinstate Ronnie, Arthur decides to take the matter to court. With the help of his daughter and Desmond Curry, a solicitor and friend of the family, Mr. Winslow decides to hire the most highly sought after barrister in England at the time, Sir Robert Morton, known also to be a shrewd opposition Member of Parliament. The government is unwilling to allow the case to proceed. The Naval College is a representative of the Admiralty and the Crown, and as such British law presumes they are infallible and above question; their judgment can be legally questioned only with the permission of the Attorney General. However, after heated debates in the House of Commons, the government yields, and the case does come to court. Catherine had expected Sir Robert to decline the case, or at best to treat it as a political tool; instead, he is coolly matter-of-fact about having been persuaded of Ronnie's innocence by his responses to questioning (in fact, a form of cross- examination, to see how young Ronnie would hold up in court) in the presence of his family. Catherine is not enthusiastic about Morton, whom she considers cold and heartless. Catherine is also disturbed by Sir Robert's establishment views: he is a conservative opponent of women’s suffrage. "He always speaks out against what is right," she observes to her father, though she admires his legal skills. Morton, for his part, obviously is quite taken with Catherine from the moment he meets her in his offices; later he stares at her as she arrives at the House of Commons and as she watches the proceedings from the ladies' gallery. In the meantime, the case creates media hysteria and puts a heavy toll on the Winslow family – their funds are rapidly depleted in order to cover legal expenses. Mr. Winslow's physical health deteriorates under the strain and the happiness of the Winslows' home is destroyed. Arthur's wife, Grace, begins to wonder if the real issue is justice or a father's stubborn and foolish pride. Forced to make economical sacrifices, Grace Winslow is unwilling to take the drastic measure of dismissing Violet, who has been the family’s maid for over twenty years. The eldest son, Dickie Winslow, has to leave Oxford due to the lack of money destroying his chance at a career in the Civil Service. Instead, he is compelled to find employment in his father’s bank. Catherine's marriage settlement is also gone. Her fiancé John Watherstone breaks off the engagement in the face of opposition from his father (an Army Colonel), forcing her to consider a sincere and well- intentioned offer of marriage from Desmond, whom she does not love. Sir Robert has also declined appointment as Lord Chief Justice, rather than drop the case. The least affected is Ronnie, who happily has been transferred to a new school. At trial, Sir Robert, working together with Desmond Curry and his firm, is able to discredit much of the supposed evidence. The Admiralty, certainly embarrassed and presumably no longer confident of Ronnie's guilt, abruptly withdraws all charges against him, proclaiming the boy entirely innocent. When their resounding victory arrives, not a single member of the Winslow family is present at court. It is Violet, the maid, who tells Mr. Winslow and Catherine what has happened at court. Shortly after, Sir Robert appears in the Winslows’ home to share the good news. The film ends with a suggestion that romance might yet blossom between Sir Robert and Catherine, who acknowledges that she had misjudged him all along. ===== Arthur Winslow goes home from his job at the bank after 46 years, retiring because of arthritis. He has a normal domestic life for a middle-class family: his eldest son is at Oxford University is daughter is a non-militant suffragette, and his youngest son is starting as a naval cadet. The next door neighbour, John, asks for his daughter's hand in marriage. Ronnie Winslow (Neil North), a cadet at the Royal Naval College, appears unexpectedly back home, soaking wet. He has a letter for his father from the college which he is too scared to give him. He is accused of the theft of a postal order for five shillings (£0.25). An internal enquiry which grants him no chance of defence, finds him guilty and his father, Arthur Winslow (Sir Cedric Hardwicke), is requested to remove his son from the college. Unwilling to accept the verdict, Winslow and his daughter Catherine institute their own enquiries and engage a friend and family solicitor, Desmond Curry (Basil Radford) to assist them, including the briefing of the best barrister in England at the time, Sir Robert Morton (Robert Donat), should the case come to court. The father takes the matter to his MP, who raises it at the House of Commons under the issue within the Magna Carta that no subject of the country may be condemned without trial. He hires Sir Robert Morton to take the case. When the solicitor's bill reaches £634, well beyond his overdraft limit, the father is advised to cut his losses and abandon the case. He tells the eldest son that he is taking him out of Oxford to cut his expenses and will find him a job at the bank instead. After aggressively interrogating Ronnie over discrepancies in his recollection and his habit of copying his friend's signature (which purportedly could have been used to steal the postal order), Sir Robert is convinced Ronnie is innocent and agrees to take the case. The government is unwilling to allow the case to proceed but yields after heated debates in the House of Commons, and the case does come to court. Morton is able to discredit much of the supposed evidence, and the government finally withdraws the charges against Ronnie. Although the family wins the case, each of them has lost something along the way: Dickie Winslow (Jack Watling) has been forced to leave Oxford out of lack of money, Catherine (Margaret Leighton) loses her marriage settlement and subsequently her fiancé, John Weatherstone (Frank Lawton), and Arthur Winslow loses his health. ===== At the age of 21, Roger Thursby has just completed his barrister's examinations and has been called to the bar. He commences his pupillage in the chambers of Mr Kendall Grimes, but finds he learns more from Henry, his colleague, and fellow pupils Peter and Charles, to say nothing of Alec, the chambers clerk. Although supposed to 'shadow' Grimes, he finds himself on his feet before a judge within a few days, all at sea on a knotty legal point. Roger lives with his slightly vague widowed mother, and also balances the affections of two girlfriends, Sally and Joy. Joy obtains his first brief for him from her uncle, a solicitor; an undefended divorce case, which Roger manages to lose, to the lady's fury. Roger slowly gains more experience and confidence. He is given a 'dock brief', a case of fraud. Despite the odd behaviour of his client, Roger gets him off. As his period as a pupil comes to its end, Henry leaves to take a position in another set of chambers, and Roger considers joining him. ===== The film opens with Angela Arden kneeling in front of her twin sister Barbara's grave. Angela is a lounge singer who is attempting to resuscitate her floundering career, which became obsolete around the same time Barbara committed suicide. She's unhappily married to her film director husband Sol Sussman, with whom she has two children-Lance, who is gay and emotionally disturbed, and Edith, a "daddy's girl" who is openly contemptuous of her mother. Also living in the house is the snoopy maid Bootsie, who is infatuated with Sol. Bored and unhappy, Angela begins cheating on her husband with Tony Parker, a tennis-playing "lothario" and failed actor who is reputed to be well endowed. Sol finds out after hiring a private detective to follow Angela around. He confronts her about it but he refuses to divorce her. Instead, he gives her "life in prison". Not only does he cancel all of Angela's credit cards, he forbids her from performing at an engagement in New York, destroying the contract before she has a chance to sign it. Feeling trapped and eager to get her hands on her husband's money, Angela poisons an ever-constipated Sol with an arsenic-laced suppository. Despite the fact that Angela receives virtually nothing in Sol's will, her children, along with Bootsie, begin to suspect Angela's involvement. And the suspicious circumstances of Sol's death bring old questions about Angela's sister's death to light. Edith-and later Lance-hatch a plot to get her to confess. Meanwhile, Tony successfully seduces both the children, taking an unusual interest in the details surrounding Aunt Barbara's death. After Bootsie is found dead, the children eventually get Angela to confess her crimes by lacing her evening coffee with LSD. During her bender, Angela not only reveals that she poisoned Sol, but that she is not Angela but really Barbara. In flashback, Barbara reveals how as Angela's career flourished, her own fell apart, culminating in her arrest for jewelry theft. After serving her sentence, Barbara arrived at Angela's mansion, greeted with scorn and ridicule from the immensely egotistical Angela. Watching the physical and emotional abuse Angela doled out to Sol and the children, Barbara devised a plan to poison her sister and take over her life, her family and, most importantly, her career. The children watch with confusion as Barbara announces she killed Angela. As they turn the tape over to Tony, Edith and Lance fight over who will be the one to run away with him, while he respectfully refuses both of them. Meanwhile, a masked assailant pops up and tries to dispatch Barbara; in the scuffle, Barbara pulls off the assailant's mask, revealing Sol underneath. With all the primary players in the room, Sol reveals how he and Bootsie faked his death for him to escape outstanding mob debts he couldn't pay back and how he was forced to kill Bootsie to protect his secret. Tony then reveals he is really an FBI agent who's been heading a case investigating Angela's murder before arresting Sol. The children-finally understanding Barbara's motives and desperation-hug Barbara while Tony says he will destroy the evidence to protect her from an eventual prison stint and trip to the gas chamber. But Barbara tells them, as she walks to her waiting police escort outside, that by finally being herself, she will finally gain her freedom from living under her sister's shadow. ===== Hal Weber, a handsome, downtrodden newspaperman, arrives at Copper City to take a job offered by a former lover, Rust Masson. Rust is the cunning, beautiful widow of the prominent political leader Buck Masson. She now intends to take over the political fortunes of the city for herself, with the assistance of her cold- blooded, violent henchman, Monk Shirl. Her stepdaughter, Audrey Masson, warns Hal of Rust's machinations, but Hal is smitten and easily ensnared by Rust's deceitful attractions. Meanwhile, a rival political power, Marcus Jeffers, also schemes to gain political control, but he is outwitted by Rust and violently beaten by her henchmen, with Hal forced to participate. Plagued by self-loathing, Hal is finally convinced by Audrey's innocence and probity to stand up to Rust. He writes a lengthy expose of Rust and her activities in his newspaper, which causes the city to rise up against her. In a climactic confrontation at the nearby mining facility, Rust's efforts to quell a popular uprising turn fatal when one of her henchmen begins shooting at the miners. Rust and Monk climb into an elevated mining bucket to address the agitated crowd, with Rust proclaiming that "Power belongs to whoever has the guts to take it!". At that moment, Marcus Jeffers, recovered from his injuries, rushes to the control panel, intending to dump the mining car carrying Rust and Monk. Though he is shot to death by Monk, Jeffers is able to set the cars in motion, sending Rust and Monk toppling out of the car to their deaths in the mine pit below. Hal and Audrey, observing from the ground, are cheered by the crowd. Later that evening, Hal realizes he loves Audrey alone, and the couple embrace. ===== Set on the planet Ciress, in which sorcery is an apprenticed profession organized in guilds, the story centered on sisters Genevieve and Giselle. The former had devoted her life to becoming a top sorceress; the latter is a spoiled socialite who much against her wishes is granted great power and responsibility via a mysterious sigil. The magic guilds at the start of the series are: Dark Magi Guild, Astral Guild, Shaman Guild, Enchantress Guild, Tantric Guild, Djinn Guild, and Nouveau Guild. The first six issues of Mystic describe Giselle's gaining of the Sigil and the efforts of the guild leaders to regain her power. Giselle gains her Sigil in the first issue and without intending to, steals the spirits of the ancient (and long dead) guild leaders. She also gets a guide in the form of a talking cat-like creature with yellow eyes and a love interest named Thierry Chevailier (an artist but without any magical ability). Starting in issue 4, Giselle gains the attention of one of The First who goes by the name Darrow. At first Darrow seems to help Giselle but later we learn he is under orders from Ingra to sway Giselle to the side of House Sinister. The efforts of the other guild leaders to strip Giselle of the spirits of the long dead guild leaders fail (issue 6) but the leaders of all but two of the magic guilds regard the situation as unacceptable. To destroy Giselle the guild leaders (with the exception of Astral and Nouveau) break the prison which confined Animora. This sets in motion a conflict which lasts for the next 12 issues between Giselle (and her sister Genevieve, the leader of the Nouveau guild) against Animora and the other guild leaders. Darrow rapidly switches sides and supports Animora also. With the reluctant aid of the spirits of the former guild leaders, Giselle is able to defeat all her enemies (issue 14 and again in issue 20) but at a cost. After her second defeat, Animora was able to establish a psychic link to Giselle and over time this turned into a form of possession. As this control was growing, Giselle alienated her good friend Thierry Chevailier and he fell in love with the older sister Genevieve (issue 24). Eventually Giselle meets Ingra and after a battle - in which Ingra easily defeats Giselle - Ingra breaks Animora's hold over Giselle and imprisons Animora (issue 23). Part of the reason why Ingra is able to defeat Giselle is that due to Giselle's recent behavior, the spirits of the guild leaders refuse to help her. Giselle, without their aid, finds that her knowledge of magic is very poor. She resolves to become a master of magic and starts with learning the magic of the Nouveau guild from her sister Genevieve, before moving on to the Shaman guild, the Djinn guild and the Astral guild (issues 25–28). Note: In CrossGen Chronicles #5 it was revealed that an eighth guild named Taroc had existed but vanished long ago. The Taroc guild leader sacrificed herself to imprison Animora, one of The First, who had been banished by Ingra, the leader of House Sinister. It was later revealed that a secret guild exists,(issue 33) called the Geometer guild; the members of which are allied with the Dark Magi guild and the Tantric guild. The Geometers believe themselves to be manipulators of all the other guilds; the guildmaster is named Archemus. ===== Much different compared to the film, Roderick St. James lives in an apartment, in Kensington, with his owners, until they go away for a holiday. Gilbert and Sulivan, who weren't seen in the film, all help Roddy out with his obstacle course and fencing skills. As they explore more, they hear an explosion, coming from the kitchen. They found that Sid has raided the kitchen and is planning to stay. Roddy schemes to get rid of Sid, but quickly backfires as Sid flushes him down the toilet, thinking of it as a trap. As soon as Roddy ends up in another world, Ratropolis, he bumps into Socketset, who gives him his first task: Collect a jar of flies. Meanwhile, Rita sneaks into the Toad's lair, grabs the ruby and after escaping Spike and Whitey, escapes on her Jammy Dodger. Roddy investigates but bumps into Rita, who then decide to team up to escape Spike, Whitey and the other rats. After escaping the rats, using ammunition and speed, Rita swerves the Jammy Dodger out of control and crashes onto a platform, where Spike and Whitey capture them both and take them to the Toad. They are sent to the freezer, locked up, and be frozen for theft of the precious ruby. However, Roddy and Rita escape and the Toad orders his henchrats to chase the escapees down. Roddy desperately tries to catch up to Rita, while avoiding either Spike, Whitey and the Toad's henchrats along the way. He makes it to the bridge, jumps off the walkway and lands onto the Jammy Dodger, spraining his back while trying to escape the henchrats. Rita allows Roddy to stay on the Jammy Dodger, as he had dropped in. He then, painfully, thanks Rita for the lift. Later, Roddy is claimed "The Chosen One" by the prophet rat and is told to speak with Charlie Wu, who gives Roddy a rescue mission, to save the orphanage from flooding. In order to do this, he and Rita must journey, via the Jammy Dodger. They reach the clogged drain and as soon as Roddy launches the catapult, it releases the water and it starts draining too fast, giving Roddy and Rita the signal to get clear. Charlie Wu is pleased that his children are safe. Then, Socketset gives Roddy another job: Collect another jar full of flies. Upon exploring the caves, Roddy finds a deeper cave, where he comes across an arachnid, who sees Roddy as lunch. Roddy defeats her and then retrieves a new sword, which is a reference to Disney's The Sword in the Stone. After a few side missions, from Socketset and Charlie Wu, Roddy ventures through Little Soho and Chinatown, to complete his side tasks. As Roddy and Rita venture more on the Jammy Dodger, they hear a lot of cheering and shouting going on. It turns out that England has made it to the World Cup Finals and the rats go down to Little Soho to stir things up. After encountering hooligans, Roddy finds a door that is blocked by wooden and metal crates. Eventually, after the puzzle is solved and the door is unlocked, both Roddy and Rita can continue their journey. However, they find that the fans have decided to have a battle called "Castle Siege." In order for England to win, Germany's flags must be eliminated. England wins and Germany loses, so Roddy and Rita continue their journey. Along the way, they encounter Le Frog and his henchfrogs. As soon as Rita speeds and crashes the Jammy Dodger on the dock, completely knocking Le Frog and his henchfrogs off their feet. Le Frog and his henchmen split apart, so does Roddy and Rita. Roddy faces Le Frog and then defeats him. Upon leaving, Le Frog gets up and tries to get Roddy back, but is knocked out by a falling chandelier, that had the rope cut by Roddy's sword. As Roddy and Rita leave, they are captured by Spike and Whitey and are taken to the Toad's lair. Once they arrive at the Toad's lair, the Toad tells Roddy and Rita his greatest plan to flush all the rodents, with a giant wave, by opening the floodgate. However, Roddy and Rita soon tell the Toad that thousands of toilets, in London, are used, as many people are watching the football on TV. When it is halftime, many people will go to the toilets, dispose of their liquids and then flush it down the drain. When the toilets start flushing, it will cause a huge wave that will destroy the city the rats live. The Toad, enraged about having his plan being revealed, kicks both Roddy and Rita off, unaware that they are hanging on to each other, and then tells his henchrats to stop Roddy and Rita from escaping. The final battle occurs when Roddy is faced with dodging the Toad's throwable objects, by hitting each console 3 times. Then, Rita is faced to fight Fat Barry, Lady Killer and Thimblenose Ted, by using, everything she can, to weaken them and make it easy for them to take a hit. She also uses some lights, blinding Thimblenose Ted and by blowing Lady Killer's wig off his head with a wind from the vent. After the henchrats are defeated, Roddy and Rita's final task is to defeat the Toad. Rita's bungee manages to weaken the supports and the Toad is left hanging, with his tongue stuck to something, as he is defeated. Afterwards, Rita is asked by Roddy if she needs a first mate, which she obliges and runs off. However, Roddy runs after her and lands perfectly on the Jammy Dodger, with Rita controlling the Jammy Dodger, allowing it to speed up, making Roddy fall over. However, Rita then tells Roddy that he can be the captain, every other day. As the screen fades out, the words 'The End' with a question mark at the end, appear on the centre of the screen. ===== Fred's pen-pal, Alejo Otero, a man who lives in Veracruz, Mexico, invites Fred and the rest of the gang to visit him and his family there. Fred and the rest of the gang talk about it until they decide to go. However, after Alejo sent the invitation to Fred, a big long-haired monster started to terrorize the population of Veracruz. Alejo and his young son, Jorge, and their pet Chihuahua, Chiquita, see the monster, and the locals start calling him "El Chupacabra". Later, when Mystery, Inc. arrives in Veracruz, they meet Alejo, who recognizes them all from Fred's letters. Alejo and his family run a huge and fancy hotel, and he shows them around and where they will be staying. He then introduces to them his family, which includes his wife, Sofia, his mother, Doña Dolores, his brother Luis, and Luis's fiancée, Charlene, who is originally from the United States. Luis tells the gang he met Charlene when he visited America, at a theme park run by Mr. Smiley. The gang and the Otero family enjoy a meal, and Dolores talks about her late husband. Then, a man named Señor Fuente arrives and asks to speak with Alejo and Luis. Dolores tells the gang that Fuente has been trying to get her to sell the hotel to him ever since her husband died the previous year. Meanwhile, Alejo and Luis tell Fuente once again that they do not want to sell the hotel. Fuente leaves, and the family go inside because of a fierce storm. When inside, Alejo's forced to tell the gang about El Chupacabra. He says that he does not have many other guests besides the gang because El Chupacabra has been scaring them away. Luis and Charlene tell the gang to lock their doors when they go to sleep. During the night, Shaggy and Scooby-Doo are scared when they think they hear a noise. They then hear a loud growl and run screaming out of their cottage. After seeing footprints outside of Shaggy and Scooby's window, Fred declares that there is a mystery they have to solve. The next day, the gang and the Otero brothers set out to search for El Chupacabra. Charlene gives Luis a charm for good luck. Daphne interviews the townspeople, but none of them are able to find El Chupacabra. When they get back to the Mystery Machine, they find someone has written a threat written in Spanish on it, warning them to get out of solving the mystery. The gang realizes this is serious and decide to search at night. Fred, Velma and Daphne go one way, Alejo and Luis go another way, and Shaggy and Scooby stay at the Mystery Machine. At night, Shaggy and Scooby sleep in the van, while someone drains their brake fluid. Fred, Velma and Daphne search the woods, and find El Curandero, a medicine man. El Curandero tells them they need to look at history and that they are in grave danger. Meanwhile, Alejo and Luis are searching when Alejo sees El Chupacabra. Alejo is chased and nearly falls off a cliff. He calls for Luis, but there is no answer. El Chupacabra disappears, and Luis shows up, saying he was knocked on the head by El Chupacabra. Luis helps his brother up from the cliff. Shaggy and Scooby start driving, but then realize they cannot stop due to the brake fluid tank being tampered with. They meet up with Fred, Velma, Daphne, Alejo and Luis, who were being chased by El Chupacabra. Eventually, the van runs out of gas and stops right in front of a gas station. The Mystery Machine gets fixed, and Daphne gets some ice for Luis's head wound, but Luis does not have a bump on his head. The gang drives along and finds a sign to a history museum, and thinking that is what the medicine man said, go to it. When they get there, they meet a suspicious and hyper museum guide who leads them into an auditorium. There they see a performance about ancient Mexican customs. The guide then makes Daphne volunteer, and she kidnaps her. The rest of the gang find a secret passageway and follow it, until they come to Aztec pyramids. They find Daphne at the top of one and rescue her, but the tourists chase after them, after they are accused of destroying a statue. After a long chase scene and fights against giant living statues, they finally return to Veracruz. The next day is the Day of the Dead, and all go to the cemetery, where Dolores informs them that Charlene has been captured by El Chupacabra. The family gives offerings to the grave of Señor Otero and hope Charlene can be found. Suddenly, the ghost of Señor Otero comes out of his grave and tells them to sell the hotel and the land or they will be in danger. At the same time, Fred just revealed the good luck charm Luis has is really a tracking device instead of an ancient medallion. The family cannot believe that Señor Otero would want them to sell. Scooby and Chiquita follows a beeping noise that is activated by pushing the button from the tracking device until they find a man in a skeleton suit controlling the ghost. The gang catches him, and he is revealed to be Mr. Smiley. They deduce that he started the Chupacabra scheme so he could force the locals to sell their land and allow him to build his theme park. Him kidnapping Daphne and framing the gang as vandals was his way of creating bad publicity for the pyramids, his sole competitor for the thousands of tourist dollars. As they are about to close the mystery, El Chupacabra appears and scares everyone. After chasing the gang, El Chupacabra is caught up in some wiring. As they all gather around El Chupacabra, the culprit is revealed to be the museum guide when she climbs out of the suit. She tells them she loves Mr. Smiley and that they were going to get all the land. Luis asks what happened to Charlene, and the guide tells him he will never see her again and he should forget about her. Suddenly, the Oteros reveal that the offerings they left for Señor Otero have disappeared, all except for the one from Charlene. Velma then guesses something is up and realizes the guide is wearing a wig and glasses to hide their identity, and pulls it off to reveal that Charlene was the guide and El Chupacabra. Her true identity is given away by the random tossing of coffee beans; a trait Charlene adopts from working in the hotel cafe all day. Fred says that the message written on the Mystery Machine ("Sal ahora o no veras el dia de manana!" - Leave today or you won't see tomorrow!) was not written in proper Spanish (as the word "manana" should have been "mañana"), so whoever made the threat had to have been someone who could not understand the language. Señor Fuente then comes in and says that even though he wanted to buy the Otero family's land, he eventually came to respect the fact that they did not want to sell it. Fuente explains that he learned of Mr. Smiley and Charlene's plans and wanted to warn the Oteros and Mystery Inc. of what was really going on. Luis admits that the real reason he did not come to Alejo's rescue because he was paralyzed with fear — after their father died the previous year, Luis was afraid of losing Alejo, so he lied by saying that El Chupacabra had knocked him unconscious. Alejo comforts Luis and assures him that there are worse things than being a coward, to which Shaggy adds how he has "made a career out of it." In the end, everybody enjoys the Day of the Dead festivities. ===== The game is loosely based on the events of the novel Neuromancer by William Gibson. Locations, characters, items and nuances of cyberspace from the novel appear. Taking place in the year 2058 in Chiba, Japan, the plot centered on the protagonist attempting to discover the truth behind the mysterious disappearances of his friends as well as other, less friendly cyberspace cowboys. Unfortunately, the player's character has fallen on hard times and has had to pawn his cyberspace deck. He awakes in a plate of Ratz' famous spaghetti, and the first order of business is to find some way to retrieve his old deck from the nearby pawnshop. After obtaining the deck and upgrading the software to enable cyberspace access, the character finds that users of the Matrix are being killed or flatlined by a group of AIs led by a renegade named Greystoke. After destroying Greystoke, the player meets Neuromancer who explains that he has manipulated the player into killing the other AIs, and traps him on a virtual island (as in the ending of the book). However, the player can use their skills to escape and destroy Neuromancer, making the Matrix safe again. Some other aspects of the book are included in the game as red herrings. For example, the character Armitage can contact the player at one point, but if the player accepts his mission, he and Armitage are immediately arrested. ===== Daria, best friend Jane, and their classmates Jodie, Mack, Brittney, and Kevin have begun considering the colleges they wish to attend after graduating Lawndale High. Daria applies to prestigious Bromwell University and the less famous Raft College for her second choice. Her boyfriend Tom Sloane also applies to Bromwell, where his family have legacy status. Tom's mother agrees to drive them to tour Bromwell and Raft in Boston. At Bromwell, Tom charms the admission officer with stories about his family's experiences there, while Daria, feeling self-conscious, only musters inarticulate and vapid responses. Daria and the Sloanes leave Bromwell later than planned after a boisterous professor holds them up. To Daria's dismay, they arrive at Raft after the admission office has closed. Daria is accepted by Raft, but wait listed by Bromwell. Tom reveals he got into Bromwell and doesn't congratulate Daria for getting into Raft, upsetting her. Daria admonishes Tom for the privilege his family's wealth and status affords and accuses him of looking down on her and Raft. She insinuates that being a Sloane was the sole reason he got accepted, while Tom blames Daria's personality as the reason she wasn't. After reconciling, Tom offers to have his parents write Daria a letter of recommendation to Bromwell, but she declines. Jane wants to attend Boston Fine Arts College/ BFAC, but is overwhelmed with creating a portfolio. Instead, she applies to less demanding colleges, but is rejected. She considers skipping college entirely and argues with Daria over the necessity of higher education. Jane agrees to submit a portfolio to BFAC if Daria lets Tom's parents recommend her to Bromwell, which she does. Jane's brother, Trent, accuses Jane of 'selling-out' as an artist, before admitting he's afraid of losing her. Despite the Sloanes' letter, Daria is rejected by Bromwell. However, she feels no disappointment and announces to her parents that she is going to Raft, which they are proud of. During a date with Tom, Daria dumps him, explaining that their lives are diverging and the relationship has run its course. While initially shocked, Tom is unable to argue otherwise, and they agree to stay in touch as friends. Daria is also thrilled to discover that Jane was accepted into BFAC, and will join her in Boston. Mack and Jodie worry about becoming a long-distance couple after high school. Jodie, exhausted from being the model minority student at Lawndale, wants to attend Turner College, a historically black university, while her parents expect her to attend the exclusive Crestmore University. Mack applies for Vance College, but needs a scholarship to afford it. Jodie is accepted by Crestmore and Turner, but is distraught because her parents pressure her to go to Crestmore. Mack contacts Jodie's father to explain her distress, leading to her parents changing their minds. Mack also receives his scholarship. While they will be geographically separated, Jodie is convinced this experience has brought them closer. Brittney is accepted to local Prairie State University, but boyfriend Kevin will need to repeat his senior year due to abysmal grades. Embarrassed, Kevin tries to hide this from Brittney before coming clean, and asks if she'll stay with him through college. Brittney promises she will, while secretly crossing her fingers. Daria's younger sister, Quinn, gets her first job as a restaurant hostess and befriends an older coworker named Lindy. Quinn's work causes her to miss several Fashion Club meetings, and the clique drifts apart. Quinn notices Lindy has a drinking problem, which culminates with Lindy arriving at work drunk and getting fired. Quinn implores her to seek help, but Lindy angrily denies Quinn's assertions. Lindy later apologizes, but still insists she's not an alcoholic. At an end of year party, the Fashion Club officially dissolves, but the members, including Quinn, plan to informally meet as friends, without the toxic politics of the club. At graduation, Daria unexpectedly wins an academic award and is forced to improvise a speech. She reiterates her contempt for high school, but ends with a summation of her life philosophy and expresses gratitude for Jane and her family, drawing applause from the crowd. Afterwards, Daria and Jane meet for pizza as usual, and muse on what they'll find once they arrive at college and begin a new era in their lives. During the end credits, various "alter ego" renderings (more detailed than at the end of the regular episodes) depict possible future careers and scenarios for nearly all of the series' characters. ===== Olivia Jules, a journalist for the British Sunday Times newspaper and Elan magazine is in Miami to cover the launch of a face cream when she meets Pierre Feramo, who she finds attractive, but also suspicious. While Olivia is in Miami, a cruise ship docks in the harbor. When Olivia is passing the cruise ship on the way to meet Feramo, a terrorist bomb blows the ship up. Olivia helps to rescue survivors but hundreds are killed. Soon afterwards, in Los Angeles, Olivia meets Feramo again, working on a movie. Olivia calls the FBI with her suspicions about Feramo, but is interrupted. She also has her room swept for bugs and finds one. Feramo invites Olivia to his house in LA. There she finds a secret room. Frame and Olivia take a helicopter to an island off the California coast. Feramo admits he is a muslim but tells Olivia he didn’t bug her. He invites her scuba diving in Honduras. Instead of going straight to Feramo’s resort, Olivia makes her own way to Honduras. She meets the local divers including one called Morton, who she is also attracted to. Olivia becomes more suspicious of Feramo because of the rumours about his resort. Feramo then tricks Olivia into coming to his resort. She bluffs her way out, and returns to London. In London, Olivia meets Morton again, who reveals himself as a CIA agent working with MI6. They’re investigating Feramo and recruit Olivia to go to Sudan to discover what his plan is. When she gets to Sudan, Olivia discovers she has been betrayed. Feramo's associates plan to kill her, but using MI6 gadgets, she escapes, photographing Feramo’s plans on the way. Feramo chases her, but Morton arrives, punches Feramo and rescues her. Feramo is then eaten by a shark. Olivia is worried that Feramo's movie was a cover for a terror attack on The Oscars. She realises the Oscar statues are bombs and races to save the ceremony. Morton collects the statues, and eventually Olivia manages to subdue the bomber. The statues then explode harmlessly. Olivia and Morton become lovers, and Olivia becomes a permanent MI6 agent. ===== Penny is a sophomore who starts a girls- only club whose mission is to help girls find love in gentlemen, rather than the school's jerks. At the club meeting, which are disguised as geology discussions, girls vote on which boys to decree "pyrites." The word becomes slang for a boy that seems good, but is ultimately cheap. If a boy is declared a pyrite, the girls throw darts into a doll, similar to voodoo. This is a vow to not date the boy. Girls also call to attention boys that are not jerks. The club completely changes the high school hierarchy. Girls begin to avoid jocks and date nerds. Penny finds herself as a sort of "queen bee" the other girls look up to. The new arrangements are shaken when Penny finds herself falling for a pyrite and Hannah shows a boy the club's flyer. ===== Felicity Robinson (Glory Annen) is a teen who studies at a remote Roman Catholic Church boarding school and who seeks indulgence in popular erotic novels Story of O, Emmanuelle and in a lesbian love affair with her friend Jenny (Jody Hanson). Her father arranges her holiday trip to Hong Kong where she will stay with a wealthy couple, Christine (Marilyn Rodgers) and Stephen (Gordon Charles). Christine organises a party to introduce Felicity to a friend of theirs, Andrew (David Bradshaw). After the party at the couple's mansion, Andrew takes Felicity for a ride in his car during which he pulls over and deflowers her. Christine also introduces her to libertine Me Ling (Joni Flynn). Me Ling initiates Felicity to new pleasures. However, Felicity eventually falls in love with Miles (Chris Milne) who saves her from a bunch of Chinese thugs. ===== Blair wants to consummate her relationship with Marcus, but he would rather wait for a more special moment. Nate keeps postponing his dates with Vanessa, leaving her worried about the status of their relationship. Dan and Serena are ready to go public with their rekindled relationship despite not having fixed their issues. Blair has been devising a scheme against Vanessa and Nate for Catherine. Chuck has been suffering from erectile dysfunction due to his repressed feelings for Blair. Three preteen girls spot Dan and Serena and admonish them for getting back together. Vanessa and Nate are hanging out when Blair invites them to a party, but Nate can see through her uncharacteristic kindness. Jenny is fired from Eleanor Waldorf's company for criticizing her design. During Blair's party, Vanessa catches Nate with Catherine right before a city-wide blackout (that traps Serena and Dan in an elevator). Blair is determined to have sex with Marcus as soon as possible but Chuck thwarts her plans by pretending to be him in the dark. Serena and Dan agree to disagree and break up again. When the power comes back on Marcus catches them. Vanessa breaks up with Nate as she leaves, due to Catherine threatening to extort Nate's family. Eleanor rehires Jenny. ===== Sally (Marilyn Miller) plays the part of an orphan who had been abandoned as a baby at the Bowling Green telephone exchange. While growing up in an orphanage, she discovered the joy of dancing. In an attempt to save money enough to become a dancer, Sally began working at odd jobs. While working as a waitress at a Childs Restaurant The Brooklyn Citizen (Brooklyn, New York) · 15 Mar 1930, Sat · Page 2, a man named Blair (Alexander Gray) begins coming to her work regularly to see her. They both soon fall for each other. Sally, however, does not know that Blair has been forced into an engagement by his family with a socialite named Marcia (Nora Lane). One day, a theatrical agent shows up at Sally's work (T. Roy Barnes) and gives her a chance to audition for a job. Sally, however, ends up losing her job and the opportunity when she drops a tray of food into Barnes' lap. Eventually, Sally gets another job at the Elm Tree Inn, managed by Ford Sterling. Blair drops in one day and immediately takes an interest in Sally. He convinces Sterling to have Sally dance for his customers. While she is performing one day, the theatrical agent (T. Roy Barnes) notices her and convinces Sally to impersonate a famous Russian dancer named Noskerova at a party being given by Mrs. Ten Brock. At that engagement, she is found to be an imposter and is asked to leave. Before Sally leaves, however, she hears the announcement of Blair's engagement to Marcia. Undaunted, she proceeds with her life and eventually becomes a star on Broadway. ===== The documentary has its roots in a question that co-director and co-executive producer Wayne Powers had while being asked for some money by a homeless person: What would happen if I gave him a million dollars (later dropped to 100,000) and the free will to do what he wanted with it? Would it turn his life around? With enough money to get a home, car, license, would he get a job? He took the idea to Showtime, where he had written-directed-executive produced the limited series Out of Order and they said yes immediately. The only limits would be that the person chosen would have to pass a psychiatric evaluation and have a clean drug test. The production company PB&J; Television produced the documentary. On her show, Oprah Winfrey called it "a fascinating social experiment". It begins with the introduction of Ted Rodrigue, a homeless man living under a bridge in California. He begins by describing an average day of "survival" for him, which consists of collecting cans and bottles for recycling in order to eat, buy cigarettes, and beer for the day. He informs the audience that an average day brings in about $25, while a good day might see as much as $35. Ted reflects on the better days of his life, when his mother (a former alcoholic) and sisters accepted him. He is shown placing a collect call to his mother, ultimately having the charges denied by his mother. Ted blames his homelessness and lack of family support on their prejudice against him for being homeless and an undesirable childhood. Ted describes his mother as a "bar whore" who often brought strange men home from the bar on the weekends and that at the age of 12, he was given his first beer by his mother at one of her many social gatherings. His ability to "do as he pleases" by not having to answer to any authority figures, keeps him on the streets. Ted informs the filmmakers that he takes a lot of pride in his bicycle and is shown washing it at a car wash, although it has been over three months since he had a "real" shower. Through his recycling, Ted has befriended an 18-year-old Latino male named Michael (Mike), who works at the recycling plant. The film shows Ted doing his daily dumpster-dive, collecting cans for the day's food, cigarettes and beer, when he finds a briefcase amongst the rubbish. Ted stops to brush it off and opens it up slowly and finds that it is stuffed with cash. A note atop the money reads "What would a homeless person do if he were given $100,000?" Shocked and in tears, Ted comes to the realization that he is the recipient of a significant amount of money. Ted almost immediately buys a new bicycle, rents a motel room and takes his buddy Mike to an amusement park. The word gets out among the homeless community and Ted, who once couldn't find a girlfriend due to his poor dental hygiene, now enjoys female companionship in his motel room. As soon as Ted notifies his mother and sisters of his attainment of wealth, they begin to take his calls and his mother invites him to stay with her until he finds his own residence. The family is shown discussing how they are concerned for Ted's welfare. A week after finding the money, and having spent over $2,000, Ted is still in the motel and is asked to speak with an advocate for the homeless. The counselor asks Ted what he thinks about having the money, to which Ted replies that he really hasn't thought about it much and that he has too much time on his hands now since he no longer has to recycle. Ted makes plans to leave for Sacramento to stay with his mother, but before leaving, he buys Mike a car and promises to fly his lady friend to Sacramento once he gets there and settled, exclaiming as he gets into the van to leave for the airport "bang 'em and leave 'em", referring to his recent activities with the woman. The following weeks find Ted frequenting at the local bar, his spending averaging $10,000 a week. He then purchases a $35,000 Dodge Ram and another truck for one of his recently acquired girlfriends, rents an apartment and buys furniture. The filmmakers then request that he meet with a financial planner. Ted meets with him, but firmly announces to him that he has no intentions of working and does not wish to plan ahead as he is only concerned with today. Ted states his belief that the financial planner is only after his money and rips up his card. His sisters repeatedly try to convince Ted to seek employment, although he still believes he is "set for life". By this time, Ted has become resentful to the film producers for giving him the money. The film then ends telling the viewer that, six months after finding the money, Ted refuses to disclose his latest bank balance; however, his sisters fear that it is less than $5,000. On a December 1, 2006 airing of The Oprah Winfrey Show entitled: "Are You Ready For a Windfall?", Ted and filmmaker Wayne Powers were on the program to promote the documentary and speak on their account of the experiment. When asked by Oprah how much of the $100,000 he still had, Ted replied "none." Ted also mentioned that he is homeless again, and content with his current circumstances. As of July 2007, Ted was back in Pasadena and working for the same recycling plant shown in the film.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAJcDBxYc_E&index;=1&list;=PLJ0HiJvVrq6q0NmEk2dcM8Dcy0mjRhFe2 ===== It is the 1950s. Ben Webber is a cocky but disillusioned young man who has spent the last few years of his life waiting for a neighborhood girl—in his eyes, the epitome of lost virtue and beauty—to reach the age of consent so that he can marry her. Ben comes frustrated with his life, though, and leaves his family home in New England to travel to New York in hopes of finding himself. Despite possessing a near-genius IQ, Ben feels no need to strive in academics, instead choosing to toil away in a number of dead-end, low-paying jobs, which he invariably quits or gets fired from after either telling off his boss or getting caught stealing. Down to his last few cigars and without a place to stay, Ben has a chance run-in with Don at a coffee shop; impeccably dressed and exquisitely mannered, Don is nonetheless just as destitute as Ben and facing eviction from his own apartment unless he can find someone to help with the rent. Ben and Don quickly become friends, and Ben moves into Don's apartment, which Ben discovers is actually owned by a trio of airline hostesses who rent the apartment out to Don at a low rate in exchange for providing them anonymous, strings-free sexual favors on their occasional stopovers in town. Ben, a virgin, is initiated into sex by one of the stewardess, and falls in love with her, only to discover shortly thereafter that she is engaged; after one last night, the stewardess relinquishes her third of the apartment and leaves New York, leaving Ben heartbroken and morose. Meanwhile, nineteen-year-old Ginnie Maitland, the daughter of a wealthy painter and an unfaithful socialite, runs away from home after her father commits suicide in the wake of her mother's running off with another man. Cutting herself off from her inheritance, Ginnie travels to New York in hopes of finding herself and becoming a dancer on Broadway. Alone in the big city, Ginnie falls in with a pair of middle aged men, one Jewish, one Japanese, who are attempting to open a restaurant which serves food based on traditional Kosher and Oriental dishes. Ginnie becomes a hostess for them, and manages to get a job with a dance troupe. At the same time, Ben has managed to become a mailroom clerk for a movie studio, and begins an arduous climb up the corporate ladder; shortly after getting a promotion into writing taglines, however, he's drafted into the U.S. Army. Shortly after Ben is drafted, Ginnie's apartment burns down; one of the members of the dance troupe informs her that one of his friends is currently seeking help to pay the rent, since his old roommate has been drafted. The "friend" turns out to be Don, and Ginnie takes up residence with him. Ben goes through boot camp and is assigned to a base run by Major Holdoffer, a young, boorish soldier who delights in exerting his authority over the men in his command. Ben documents his hellish experiences in letters home to Don, lamenting the lost loves in his life and yearning for purpose; after Don leaves the letters out one day, Ginnie begins reading them and starts writing Ben back. Her letters prove to be a shining ray of hope to Ben, and the two begin falling in love through their correspondence. While Ginnie remains chaste, though, in hopes of losing her virginity to Ben, Ben releases his sexual frustrations with an emotionally dead but sexually predatory middle aged woman named Maggie. In a bit of dramatic irony, the reader becomes aware that the woman is in fact Ginnie's runaway mother, having dumped her lover and moved on to one-night stands with soldiers. One day, Ben's unit is taken on a dangerous trek by Holdoffer through harsh terrain without proper equipment; in the middle of the night, Holdoffer intentionally gives negligent orders to an elderly soldier after learning that the man is gay, resulting in the soldier's death; the next morning, Holdoffer denies culpability demands that the hike go on. Later in the day, Holdoffer ignores Ben's warning that a machine gun is malfunctioning, and another soldier is fatally shot in the face. As Ben and another soldier prepare to attack Holdoffer, the gay lover of the elderly soldier who died of exposure fatally stabs Holdoffer in the kidney. In exchange for keeping his mouth shut about having warned Holdoffer of the faulty machine gun, the Army agrees to an honorable discharge Ben on a technicality. Ben sleeps with Maggie one last time and then heads back to New York, where he and Ginnie begin a passionate affair. With one another's support, Ginnie becomes a locally renowned dancer, and Ben manages to get one of his scripts read by a television executive, who buys it and turns it into a movie of the week. However, Ginnie's increasingly busy schedule, coupled with Ben's self-destructive nature, leads to the pair splitting after a disastrous night. While Ben makes a financially successful but debauched trip to Hollywood, Ginnie reaches national fame as a variety show fixture and through her engagement to a prominent socialite—neither being far from the other's mind. Category:American comedy novels Category:1978 American novels Category:Fiction set in the 1950s Category:Delacorte Press books ===== The story is set in the Qing dynasty during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor ( 1735–1796). The protagonist, Hu Fei, is a young martial artist who was raised by Ping A'si after the death of his father, Hu Yidao. While travelling around the land in search of adventure, Hu Fei encounters Feng Tiannan, a ruthless villain, and wants to kill him to deliver justice for the victims. He also meets a young maiden, Yuan Ziyi, who shows signs of affection towards him. She stops Hu Fei from killing Feng Tiannan each time when he is close to killing Feng. Based on what Ping A'si told him, Hu Fei believes that Miao Renfeng is responsible for his father's death. He refrains from killing Miao after finding him, because Miao has been tricked by an enemy and temporarily blinded by a deadly poison. He is so impressed with Miao's sense of chivalry that he starts wondering if Ping A'si was mistaken about Miao. He decides to help Miao and journeys to find a cure for his eyes. He meets Cheng Lingsu, an apprentice of a deceased medicine guru known as the "King of Venoms". Hu Fei witnesses Cheng Lingsu defeating her three wicked seniors with her calm and wit. She agrees to help him cure Miao Renfeng's eyes. When Miao Renfeng regains his sight, he confesses that he did kill Hu Yidao unintentionally several years ago. Hu Fei is filled with sorrow upon hearing the truth and he leaves with Cheng Lingsu. Cheng Lingsu and Hu Fei become sworn siblings. While travelling together, they chance upon an election for a new leader of the wulin (martial artists' community) hosted by the general Fuk'anggan. The election is part of Fuk'anggan's plan to instigate turmoil in the wulin and keep it under the Qing government's control. Hu Fei and Cheng Lingsu disguise themselves and participate in the event. With help from Yuan Ziyi, the trio combine efforts to expose Fuk'anggan's plot and disrupt the election. They are attacked by enemies and Hu Fei is poisoned while shielding Cheng Lingsu with his body. Cheng loses her life trying to save Hu and reveals to him before dying that she loves him. Hu is filled with anguish after hearing that. After Cheng's funeral, he meets Yuan Ziyi, who tells him that she had already taken an oath to be a Buddhist nun in her childhood, and hence cannot be together with him even though she loves him. She places her palms together and recites a silent prayer for him before leaving. ===== Adam Bonner was a young assistant DA while his wife, Amanda Bonner, was a junior partner in a law firm. Their jobs often put them in conflict within the courtroom and, by extension, at home due to Amanda's crusade for women's rights. Adam's Rib aired opposite The Brian Keith Show on NBC and the CBS Friday Night Movie. The trade publication Broadcasting described Adam's Rib as "a victim of feeble ratings". ===== The film takes place in a small, New England town in 1919 (the Broadway play 1914), where a group of con men plan to use a faith healer to collect money. In New York City's Chinatown, four crooks conspire to swindle a small New England town. The gang consists of Tom Burke (Thomas Meighan), the head of the group; Rose (Betty Compson), a con artist posing as a street walker; "The Dope" (J.M. Dumont), who pretends to pimp Rose; and The Frog (Lon Chaney), a contortionist. Betty Compson and Joseph J. Dowling in a scene with St. Bernard co-star. The plan is clear: in a small town outside of Boston there is a Patriarch (Joseph Dowling) who has been healing people. The group heads to the town and plans to use the Patriarch in a faith healing scheme. When the townspeople gather to see the Patriarch heal the sick, the Frog is there, posing as a cripple. As he crawls to the path of the man, his limbs become straightened and soon he walks to the Patriarch, supposedly healed. Unexpectedly, a crippled boy, his faith in the Patriarch overpowering him, loses his crutches and runs to the Patriarch. The story spreads across the country (mostly on account of Burke), and people flock in from all over to visit the Patriarch and be healed. When a millionaire, Richard King (W. Lawson Butt), brings his sister to be healed, he gives Burke $50,000 after the Patriarch cures her. During this visit, King meets Rose, and the two fall in love. Meanwhile, all is not well with Burke. One by one, he sees his gang disbanding because, unbeknownst to him, the healing power of the Patriarch is at work. The Dope gives up his drug addiction, The Frog gives up his life of crime and takes care of a widow left all alone, and Rose laments King's departure. Burke becomes jealous, but when King returns to propose marriage to Rose, she realizes that she loves Burke. The Patriarch dies, and the two lovers begin anew. ===== Duncan (Mark McClain Wilson), a philosophical nomad hitchhiking across America, grabs a ride to Ann Arbor, Michigan from Toad (Eric Vesbit) — a performance artist and purple leisure slacks enthusiast from the suburbs. Toad has recently left his home town to begin a new life in Ann Arbor where his co-dependent, folk-singing sister Jenny (Amy Raasch) lives with her verbally abusive fiancé, a law student named Calvin (Aaron Williams). Jenny currently sees a suicidal therapist (Peter Hawkins) four times a week and armed with her acoustic guitar, drives away patrons from a local coffee house where she slings cappuccinos with her best friend Squeeze (Melissa Zafarana). Squeeze is a closet genius whose easy-going outlook and unconditional support keep her live-in boyfriend Hank (David Wilcox) from the brink. Hank is a painter who cannot paint because he spends his time baking delicious pastries and practicing for The Oprah Winfrey Show. In Ann Arbor, the civilians listen to Julian (Julian Rad), a nihilistic dee-jay whose frustration and lingering optimism goad him to find the truth by cutting through blind idealism, pop culture, and politically correct bumper stickers. Once in Ann Arbor, Duncan encounters these and other eccentric characters, and through his simple outlook and curiosity, he changes their lives forever. *** Duncan's Letter to Julian in The Four Corners of Nowhere: Dear Julian, I think it all started with the Declaration of Independence — the idea that we had the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That pursuit is what took America from the revolution to the computer age in 200 years. But the progress has come at a price. The obvious being the people that were exploited to make it possible; the not so obvious being us, the first group of people that were given no obvious frontiers to conquer. We hear stories about the good old days that don't seem to apply anymore. It's a generation gap that leaves us without role models. But the bright side is that without role models, there are no roles. Thirty years ago that girl you talked to probably would have married her fiancé because it would have been expected, but she ended up leaving him. Maybe that's what the 60s were all about — getting rid of the roles. But what do we replace them with? Without any guidance, the choices become overwhelming. Sometimes it just makes everything feel hopeless. So we destroy our bodies in the search of an ideal. Try to salvage relationships that don't work. We feel we must do something, instead of doing something that we feel. It is the prison of self-imposed momentum, and the sad part is that we get used to it. It reminds me of a song I heard the other day. It's called "The Going Nowhere Fast." But the people I have met here have shown me another side of Nowhere. They've pointed out the beautiful irony that stagnation makes it easy to stop and smell the roses, if we just let it. What would we be if we had nothing to rebel against? Well we could finally be ourselves, the first group of people who stopped looking for the answers long enough to appreciate the questions. And all we have to do is to make our own Declaration of Independence. We can embrace the right to life and liberty by simply realizing that happiness exists — not to pursue, but to accept. After that the only challenge would be to make sure with the rest of our lives that we weren't just another fad. I don't know, Julian, it's an idea. ** ===== During mid-April 1941 in North Africa, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (James Mason) and his Afrika Korps have driven the British Army into headlong retreat toward Egypt and the vital Suez Canal. Standing in Rommel's way is Tobruk, a constant threat to his supply lines. The 9th Australian Division are charged with holding the port for two months, at which time they are to be relieved. The defending Allied general (Robert Douglas) chooses British Captain "Tammy" MacRoberts (Richard Burton), an experienced field officer, to take command of a company of newly arrived, untried Australian troops. The no-nonsense MacRoberts is disliked by the undisciplined Australians. He is surprised to see in their ranks his former schoolmaster, Tom Bartlett (Robert Newton). Bartlett, an alcoholic, later explains that after being dismissed from his job in Britain due to his drinking, he went to Australia and joined the army while intoxicated. MacRoberts offers to transfer him to a safer billet, but Bartlett turns him down. Meanwhile, the inexperienced troops are sent directly into the front lines, where they dig foxholes and prepare for Rommel's attack. The Allied general masses his artillery where he guesses the Germans will strike. His gamble pays off. Under cover of a sandstorm, they attack exactly where the general predicted and head directly at MacRoberts' men. but the Germans are beaten back. As a result, MacRoberts is elevated to battalion command and made a lieutenant colonel. It is decided to erode the Germans' confidence further by sending out small commando raids every night. MacRoberts' patrols do their part in exacting a toll on the enemy. But during a successful raid on a Nazi ammunition dump, MacRoberts is wounded and captured. While he is being treated by a German doctor, he meets Rommel, who has been shot by a strafing Spitfire. Although he is respectful to the field marshal, MacRoberts defiantly points out that Tobruk is a thorn in his side. Rommel is bemused by his brashness and orders that he be treated well. Later, MacRoberts escapes capture during an air raid on a German truck convoy, and he makes his way back to Allied lines. The siege of Tobruk carries on for months. As a result, MacRoberts fears his men are becoming weary and will need to be relieved from action. But an order comes down from the general, asking MacRoberts to take his best company and hold a key position for three days. Nine days later, after constant attacks and shelling by the Germans, MacRoberts believes his men can take no more and orders a retreat. Surprisingly, the self-admitted coward, Bartlett, begs him to hang on. To MacRoberts' surprise, the rest of his men refuse to abandon the hill. Bartlett takes over the forward observation post, where survival is measured in hours. Eventually, the Australians hear bagpipes announcing the arrival of a relief column. After a hard-fought 242 days, the Allies have relieved Tobruk. ===== In 1670, freeborn Englishman, Henry Morgan, is enslaved by the Spaniards in Panama and sold to Doña Inez, daughter of Governor Don José Guzmán. Morgan falls in love with his mistress, much to the dismay of her father, who punishes him by sentencing him to a life of hard labor aboard a Spanish galleon. Morgan leads his fellow slaves in mutiny, takes command of the ship, and becomes a pirate, without knowing that Doña Inez was on board, on her way to Spain. She becomes his prisoner, but spurns him when he declares his love in Tortuga. Not long after, Morgan's daring exploits on the Spanish Main pique the interest of King Charles II of England, and Morgan agrees to attack only Spanish vessels in return for English ships and men. Fearing for the security of Doña Inez, after the pirates discover her identity, he permits her to return to Panama. Once there, she warns Don José of Morgan's planned invasion, and the pirate ships are either easily sunk or routed by the alerted Spanish. Not giving up, Morgan leads his men overland and attacks the city from the rear. The maneuver succeeds, Panama falls to the pirates, and Doña Inez finally admits her love for Morgan. ===== The cruel Lord James Guillonk, faithful of Queen Victoria, is the governor of the territories of Borneo and Malaysia. His archenemy is the Indian pirate Sandokan, who along with his "tigers" delivers continuous attacks against British armies. This time, Sandokan collides again with the governor, because Guillonk is moving hunt against Tremal-Naik, a Hindu escaped by controls of English policy, who is in search of his lost love. Indeed, Tremal-Naik talks to Sandokan of a secret Hindù sect that worships the bloody goddess Kali. These fanatics are the thugs. This sect has in fact kidnapped his beloved, and so Sandokan is preparing for the new battle against Guillonk, who has just kidnapped the love with Tremal-Naik, mysteriously escaped from the dungeons of thugs. ===== Thought to be clinically dead, Alexander (Roy Dupuis) suddenly awakes from a long coma. He recognizes nobody and remembers nothing. As Alexander tries to piece together his life, the mystery deepens. Director Francis Leclerc holds together this precious tale with poetic imagery and strong visuals, all the while teasing the viewer to discover the truth. ===== Robert Newton and Linda Darnell in Blackbeard the Pirate The film follows British Navy Lieutenant Robert Maynard (Keith Andes), who sets out to earn a reward by proving that privateer Henry Morgan (Torin Thatcher) also engages in piracy. Maynard poses as a surgeon on board the ship of pirate Charles Bellamy, who he believes is in league with Morgan. Once Maynard and fellow spy Briggs come on board, they discover that the pirate Blackbeard (Robert Newton) has murdered Bellamy and taken over as captain. Also on board is Edwina Mansfield, a pirate's daughter, who was going to marry Bellamy. Blackbeard knows that Morgan loves Mansfield and will pursue her. Blackbeard orders Maynard to remove a bullet from his neck, and demands sailor Gilly watch him. Gilly slips Maynard a note begging him to slit the pirate's throat, but Maynard declines. Maynard slips into the Blackbeard's quarters and finds Bellamy's logbook, which he hopes will contain evidence that Bellamy gave Morgan stolen goods. Maynard then defends Edwina against the unwanted advances of a lecherous pirate, killing him with his dagger. She tells Maynard that she agreed to marry Bellamy to escape from Morgan, from whom she has stolen treasure, which is now hidden in a clothes chest. Blackbeard breaks open one of Edwina's chests but discovers only letters in which Edwina implicates Morgan as Bellamy's ally. Maynard tries to steal the letter, but Blackbeard stops him, noting that if Morgan were arrested, all of his loot would go to the King. Blackbeard finally identifies the treasure chest and claims it. ===== In an elementary school, a girl named Mika disappears mysteriously after following the sound of laughter into the bathroom. She was known to have 2 golden rings that "disappeared" from her tray. The rumors of the school being haunted, strange things happening around 4:44 AM and the disappearance of children soon emerge, but Mika's older sister and her friends decide to go after Mika despite this. They soon find out that all the rumors are true, and now they not only have to find the girl, but also save themselves from the malevolent ghosts that haunt the school building. ===== In the distant future, the advancement of science has exceeded humanity's ability to control it. During a subatomic experiment, an accident causes an uncontrollable fusion reaction, utterly destroying the surface of the planet Earth. One year later, Earth has been classified as "condemned" by the ruling imperial theocracy, meaning that it is now legal for anyone to salvage anything left on the planet. Mercenaries from all over come to raid the dead planet, forced to battle not only each other, but the robot sentinels that the government has left behind. ===== Indigo Prime is an extra-dimensional agency dedicated to the maintenance and repair of breaks and distortions across the multiverse. However, they're not above making a few 'alterations' for any rich clientele that approach them (although it appears that this is never at the expense of the harmony of the multiverse itself). Their base of operations exists outside the multiverse and time itself in a hypothetical 'nullzone', which every event in time and space throughout the multiverse transects. All Indigo Prime agents are chosen, upon their death, based on the presence of a certain gene (the "Rembrant Index") that occurs in one in twelve million people across the multiverse; given a new body, and then trained in a range of abilities to assist them in their job. Each agent also specializes in a role - known job descriptions are: Sceneshifters (who manipulate the physical world), Seamsters (who deal mainly with time) and Imagineers (who can influence minds and dreams). ===== A long epic, written in first-person, Cel mai iubit... is the life-story confession of a prisoner waiting for his trial. Victor Petrini, a promising intellectual in the 1950s and a lecturer in Philosophy, seduces his best friend's wife, Matilda, who eventually becomes his wife. Nonetheless, and despite the birth of their daughter, the sexual attraction between them is exhausted shortly after their wedding. Victor is arrested by the repressive secret police (the Securitate), wrongly accused of being connected to a terrorist organisation, and sentenced to prison and forced labor - the verdict constitutes a brutal end to all his projects and ideals. During his several-year-long confinement, at first in the Romanian version of the Gulag, then on a lead mine in the Northern Carpathians, he is divorced and forsaken by his wife, and hardens his character in order to survive. Eventually, he even manages to attack and kill one of the torturers engaged in his re-education (a crime which is successfully hidden from the authorities). Once released, Petrini has to start back from zero. He gets a job as pest controller (killing rats) and accommodates to a new, proletarian and suburban existence. A few years later, he manages to obtain employment as a bookkeeper in a state-owned company, where he meets Suzy, with whom he falls in love. Shortly after, in self-defence, he kills Suzy's ex-husband by throwing him out from a cable railway, and has to return to jail. ===== Set in metropolitan Tokyo over the course of one night, characters include Mari Asai, a 19-year-old student, who is spending the night reading in a Denny's. There she meets Takahashi Tetsuya, a trombone-playing student who loves Curtis Fuller's "Five Spot After Dark" song on Blues-ette; Takahashi knows Mari's sister Eri, who he was once interested in, and insists that the group of them have hung out before. Meanwhile, Eri is in a deep sleep next to a television and seems to be haunted by a menacing figure. Mari crosses paths with a retired female wrestler, Kaoru, now working as a manager in a love hotel called "Alphaville". Kaoru needs Mari to talk to a Chinese prostitute who had just been beaten in the love hotel by an office worker, Shirakawa. The group then tries to track down Shirakawa, and includes the Chinese Mafia group that 'owns' the prostitute. In the love hotel Mari also hears stories from some of the staff working there and takes a glance at the other world hidden below the one we are aware of. Parts of the story take place in a world between reality and dream, and each chapter begins with an image of a clock depicting the passage of time throughout the night. ===== Lt. Col. Hyde is forced into early retirement after 25 years of service as an officer in the British Army. To get his revenge Hyde recruits seven other officers for a special project. The officers are all equally dissatisfied and have skeletons in their closets. The job they are hired to do turns out to be a bank robbery. The seven former officers are all in bad standing with the army, and were all forced out of army for quite serious indiscretions. Hyde hires them for their respective specialities qualities that Hyde needs to succeed with the robbery. Before robbing the bank itself however, they stage a number of raids to get the weapons and trucks they need and all go off without a hitch. Hyde uses all his skills as a tactical military strategist and discipline to go ahead with the plan. The robbery is planned with military precision and everything really seems to go as planned - except for one simple error that gives them all away. ===== Anu (Priyanka Chopra), a London based NRI who is living in India after her boyfriend Danny (Dino Morea) ditched her at the altar. Now, she has come back to London to be a part of her sister Shirani's (Ameesha Patel) marriage, to the New York-based, Gujarati businessman Kunal Shah (Suniel Shetty), who is also Danny's best friend. In a plan to get back to Danny and to make him jealous, Anu convinces her colleague Aman (Akshaye Khanna), to accompany her to the wedding as her new beau. Incidentally, Shirani was also involved with Danny earlier, which resulted in heartbreak for her too, as everyone learns of Danny's womanizing ways. Arjun Khanna (Anupam Kher) is the father of Shirani. Betty (Lilette Dubey), Anu's mother, married Arjun after her first husband died when Anu was little. As time passes by, Aman finds Anu fascinating and later it develops into a fondness between the two. How Anu and Aman's relationship undergoes a change during the course of these incidents forms the crux of the story. It turns out that Danny had used Kunal to get to Shirani and he believes that they can still be together. Shirani keeps trying to tell Danny that she loves Kunal. Anu reacts with Aman in an unfriendly way but later they form a friendship that in time turns into love. When Anu finds out about Danny's relationship with Shirani, she breaks down knowing that everyone knew (even Aman) but didn't tell her. She tells Aman to go away but Kunal (who thinks of Aman as a friend) convinces him to stay for his sake (Aap ki khatir). The truth is revealed to everyone and then they believe that Anu loves Aman. Anu's parents convince her to go after Aman but she is too late as he has already left. When Shirani tells Kunal about Danny, he is heartbroken and chases Danny away. While chasing Danny, he finds Aman going away and he convinces Aman to ask Anu again for her love. He agrees and makes Kunal realize that he and Shirani are also meant to be together and to marry Shirani. Anu ends up marrying Aman and Kunal accepts Shirani happily after knowing the truth. ===== Deunan Knute, a young soldier and one of the Global War's last survivors, is rescued by Hitomi, a Second Generation Bioroid. Knute's escape attempt is stopped by her former lover Briareos Hecatonchires, now a cyborg. She realizes that the war had ended and she is in a Utopian city called Olympus. Its population is half-human and half-clone, a genetically-engineered species called Bioroids. Olympus is governed by three factions: Prime Minister Athena Areios; General Edward Uranus III, head of the Olympus Army; and a Council of Elders. Everything in the city is observed by an artificial intelligence named Gaia from a building called Tartaros. While there, Deunan joins the counter-terrorism organization ESWAT. The Bioroids were created from the DNA of Deunan's late father, Carl, making the Second Generation Bioroids her brothers and sisters. However, they have a much shorter lifespan than humans due to suppressed reproductive capabilities. The Bioroid's life extension facilities are destroyed by a secret faction of the Regular Army in a terrorist attack against the Bioroids. However, the Appleseed data, which contains information on restoring the Bioroids reproduction capabilities, still exists. Olympus is plagued by conflicting factions. Along with a strike force, Deunan and Briareos head to the building where the Bioroids were originally created. She activates a holographic recording showing the location of the Appleseed data. Dr. Gilliam Knute, who created the Bioroids and revealed to be Deunan's mother, entrusted Appleseed to Deunan, but was inadvertently killed by a soldier. After mourning her death, Leyton turns against his men. They then get cornered by the Regular Army. Deunan discovers from anti-Bioroid terrorist Colonel Hades that Briareos had intentionally allowed his Landmate, a large exoskeleton-like battlesuit, to escape. Kudoh then sacrifices himself to get Deunan and Briareos out of harm's way and escape to the rooftop. Uranus attempts to convince Deunan that Bioroids seek to control humanity, and he wants to destroy Appleseed and the D-Tank containing the Bioroid reproductive activation mechanism. Briareos tells Uranus that the Elders manipulated the Army into wanting to destroy the D-Tank, but Athena is trying to prevent them from doing so and protect humanity. Hades, who resents Carl, wounds Briareos. She and Briareos flee into the sea, killing Hades in the process. Despite Deunan's pleas not to leave Briareos behind, he persuades her to search for the Elders. Mechanic Yoshitsune Miyamoto arrives in his Landmate and begins repairing Briareos after receiving an SOS from him. Deunan flies back to Olympus in Yoshitsune's Landmate and uses the Appleseed data to fully restore Bioroid reproductive functions. As Deunan encounters the Council of Elders, they reveal their involvement in Gilliam's death and also plan to use the D-tank virus to sterilize humans, which will leave the Bioroids the new rulers of Earth. They needed the Appleseed data to keep the Bioroids alive, but Gilliam hid the data so they could not move forward with their plan. Athena, stepping in to stop them and announcing that Uranus has surrendered, tells Deunan that the Elders had been acting on their own and had shut Gaia down once they realized humanity had softened their stance against Bioroids. The Elders state that they will soon die since Gaia kept them alive, but that they were ready to sacrifice themselves. They then activate the city's mobile fortress defenses, which begin marching towards Tartaros. Athena states that D-tank's security system is nearly impenetrable, but a shot from the fortresses' main cannons might puncture the tank, releasing the virus. ESWAT begins mobilizing, but suffer heavy casualties due to the fortresses' heavy weaponry. Briareos arrives and asks Deunan to join the battle. Despite the Elders' objections, she goes with him to the seventh tower, and attempts to enter the password to shut the defenses down, but a malfunction makes it difficult. The final password letter appears by itself, and Deunan secures the D-Tank, shutting down the towers. She reveals that the sins of humanity will probably get worse, but that there is always the chance that future generations will learn from these mistakes; she vows to keep fighting for the children. ===== This cartoon series stars Bruce Willis as the voice of Bruno, an 11-year-old boy who becomes a top spy for a secret espionage organization. The organization, named GLOBE, contacts Bruno via his computer and a special gadget watch, and is completely unaware of its top spy's young age, as he hides behind a computer-simulated avatar of a full-grown man (in the image of Bruce Willis). The members of GLOBE that Bruno works with in person, such as Jarlsburg (voiced by Tony Jay), and Harris (voiced by Mark Hamill), are also unaware that GLOBE does not know Bruno's actual age, and assume that the organization must know what it is doing in sending the boy into dangerous situations. The episodes consist of Bruno managing to live a double life without his parents' or friends' knowledge (for example, in one episode he tells his parents that he is camping in the garden and he sets up a torch to project a fake silhouette of himself onto the side of the tent, so that it looks like he is inside it). Meanwhile, with an alibi set up, Bruno will be out saving the world, or foiling a major heist with the aid of his British spy partner Jarlsburg (in one episode, one of Bruno's classmates catches Bruno on camera in the process of carrying out a spy mission and tries to blackmail him; however, Bruno erases the videotape and his secret is safe; his classmate was unable to expose him). Later in the series, Jarlsburg quits being Bruno's partner, after hesitating to fire a weapon in fear that he will hit Bruno. Bruno objects to Jarley quitting the team. Jarley eventually comes to his senses and returns to being Bruno's partner. He apologizes to Bruno for quitting. In the course of each mission, they usually meet Harris (a spoof of the character "Q" in the James Bond books and films) who supplies Bruno with gadgets, which Bruno usually finds a use for later on in the episode. As well as voicing the title character, Willis was one of the executive producers and also co-wrote and sang the theme song for the show with backing singers. ===== In Key West, Florida in October 1962, Gene Loomis and his younger brother, Dennis, live on a military base with their mother while their father is away on a United States Navy submarine. At a local movie theater one afternoon, Gene and Dennis see a promo for an exclusive engagement of producer Lawrence Woolsey's sensational new horror film, entitled Mant! Woolsey is scheduled to make an in-person appearance at the cinema in Key West the following Saturday. After the boys return home to the base, the Loomis family watches as President Kennedy delivers a speech confirming the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba. Meanwhile, Woolsey arrives in Florida with his actress girlfriend, Ruth Corday. He finds the fearful atmosphere created by the ongoing missile crisis to be the perfect environment in which to host Mant!'s premiere. Woolsey has brought along two of his actors — Herb Denning, a former hired thug, and Bob, a victim of the Hollywood blacklist forced to find work in cheap, independent "B" movies — to impersonate outraged protestors who publicly object to Mant!'s exhibition. However, Jack and Rhonda, a local couple, make a strong argument for allowing the premiere based on First Amendment rights. Later, Gene reads an issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland and recognizes Denning from his appearance in an earlier Woolsey film. At school, Gene gradually befriends one of his classmates, Stan, and becomes infatuated with Jack and Rhonda's daughter, Sandra, after she gets a week of detention for protesting against uselessness of a "duck and cover" air raid drill, telling the other students that it would be preferable to die from the immediate effects of an atom bomb instead of acute radiation syndrome caused by fallout. Stan has a crush on another girl, Sherry, whose former boyfriend, Harvey Starkweather, is a violent juvenile delinquent and would-be poet. After Harvey threatens Stan for pursuing Sherry, Stan lies to her to call off their first date. Woolsey continues to devote himself to the promotion of Mant!, hiring Harvey to dress as the mutated half-man, half-ant creature from the film, and installing buzzers in theater seats as part of a gimmick he calls "Rumble-Rama," although the cinema's manager, Howard, is concerned about the effects "Rumble-Rama" could have on the fragile balcony area, which has a maximum capacity of just 100 people. At the Saturday matinee, Sherry encounters Stan, who is attending the screening with Gene and Dennis; she is upset that he deceived her, but later reconciles with him. Sandra attends the premiere with her parents, but leaves them to watch the movie with Gene. When Harvey (costumed as the Mant! monster) sees Sherry and Stan kissing during the film, he attacks Stan in a rage, then punches Woolsey after Woolsey tries to intervene, and a chase ensues. Stan takes a rifle from a nuclear fallout shelter located inside the movie theater and uses it to frighten Harvey away, but Sandra and Gene are locked inside the shelter after the door is accidentally closed. While trapped, the two comfort each other and eventually share their first kiss. Woolsey helps rescue Sandra and Gene from the shelter before their oxygen supply runs out; however, Harvey reappears and holds a switchblade to Ruth's throat, demanding money from Woolsey before fleeing with Sherry. Howard calls the police, and Harvey is arrested after crashing his car outside the movie theater as Sherry and Stan reunite. Woolsey also realizes that Harvey has turned the "Rumble-Rama" machinery up so high that the overcrowded balcony in the cinema is starting to collapse. Assisted by Gene, Woolsey projects trompe l'oeil footage of a mushroom cloud that appears to blast a hole through the screen and outside wall of the theater, thus evacuating the panicked audience. Once the Cuban Missile Crisis has ended, Ruth and Woolsey leave for another premiere in Cleveland, Ohio, bidding goodbye to Sandra and Gene. Woolsey has grown fond of them, telling Ruth he might like to have children of his own some day. The film ends as Sandra and Gene watch helicopters fly over the beaches in Key West, waiting for Gene's father to return. ===== Jorian, ex-king of Xylar, has had enough adventures to last a lifetime. But when his brother Kerin, youngest son of Evor the Clockmaker, commits an indiscretion with Adeliza, a neighbor's daughter, he is packed off on a hasty quest to uncover the secret of an advanced clock escapement for the family firm. A pragmatic, cautious sort, he preps for his journey with a crash course from his experienced brother in useful skills — swordsmanship and foreign tongues, of course, but also lying and burglary. He is hampered and sometimes aided by the sprite Belinka, commissioned by the calculating Adeliza to ensure Kerin's faithfulness. Kerin's goal takes him east across the Inner Sea, the Sea of Sikhon and the Eastern Ocean to the empire of Kuromon, where he is promised the secret in return for a magical fan lost centuries before. It has the property of making whatever it is waved at disappear without a trace. Along the way he must contend with a treacherous sea captain and his suspicious navigator, the duplicitous sorcerer Pwana, and the pirate crew of Malgo, who has a grudge against Kerin's family. A more pleasant complication is Nogiri, a princess of the island empire of Salimor, whom Kerin has liberated (much to the displeasure of Belinka) from the pirates. Kerin returns her to Salimor only to lose her to the nefarious designs of Pwana, and a dire fate from which she can only be preserved by a daring rescue on roller skates. Finally Kuromon is reached and negotiations are concluded satisfactorily, but only at the cost of an unexpected regime change. ===== The Kingdom of Xylar, one of the twelve city-states of Novaria, has a peculiar custom for choosing its kings, each of whom serves for a five-year term. At the end of that period he is beheaded in the public square before an assembly of foreigners, and his head cast into the crowd. The man who catches the head is drafted as the next king. The latest beneficiary/victim of this arrangement is Jorian of Kortoli, a powerful and intelligent man who has trained extensively for a life of adventure, but who is hampered by garrulousness and a weakness for drink and women. Having served out his term as king in a reign characterized by both great accomplishments and increasing despair, he ultimately appears resigned to his fate, though in fact he is determined to cheat it. He successfully escapes his beheading with the aid of a Mulvanian magician, the saintly Dr. Karadur, who provides a spell granting physical access to the plane of the Novarian afterlife. This turns out to be our own world, in which the souls of Novarians are reincarnated. Jorian's brief excursion there is a satirical romp in which he is frightened by a passing giant truck, has a mutually uncomprehending encounter with a police officer in a patrol car, and is very glad to get back to the familiar dangers of his own world. These include an encounter with a homicidal wizard and his giant squirrel familiar, along with the succor of a distressed damsel who proves more trouble than she is worth. Linking back up with Karadur, Jorian is confronted with the price of the sorcerer's aid; securing for him the Kist of Avlen, a legendary repository of ancient magical manuscripts. The novel follows his adventures as he attempts to both fulfill his service and avoid the agents of Xylar, duty-bound to abduct him back to Xylar for the beheading ceremony. Jorian's quest takes him through much of the known world, including the exotic lands of Mulvan, Komilakh and Shven, before ultimately returning to Novaria. Included in his adventures' bill of fare are the rescue a consignment of maidens destined for the block from a fortress full of homicidal retired executioners, romancing the centuries-old serpent princess Yargali guarding the Kist in order to steal it, matching wits with an unreliable and ineffectual god who appears to his worshipers in dreams, escaping sacrifice by a horde of angry beast men to their tiger god, enslavement and sale by treacherous nomads, and abetting a revolution in the priest-ruled city-state of Tarxia, during which a huge frog statue is brought to life. The ultimate challenge comes at a great symposium of Karadur's guild of magicians hosted by the city-state of Metouro - the depiction of which provides de Camp with the opportunity to poke some fun at academic conferences and symposiums before getting on with the plot. The meeting is held in the fabled Goblin Tower, constructed from actual goblins transformed to stone. There Jorian becomes enmeshed in sorcerous politics as his patron Karadur naively presents the Kist of Avlen to the heads of his own faction, hoping thereby to advance its cause. Unfortunately, its use by these unscrupulous leaders cancels the spell binding the building's fabric together, freeing the goblins and bringing the tower crashing down. The protagonists escape but are left without resource. The outcome is particularly frustrating to Jorian; he had counted on Karadur's assistance in achieving his ultimate objective, the rescue from Xylar of Estrildis, his favorite among the wives he had as king, with whom he had hoped to settle down in peaceful obscurity in his home state of Kortoli. The end of the novel finds him starting from scratch to recoup his fortunes by telling stories on a street corner. The Goblin Tower by L. Sprague de Camp, Del Rey Books, 1983 ===== The Star of the Sea of the title is a famine ship, making the journey from Ireland to New York. Aboard are hundreds of refugees, many from humble and desperate backgrounds. Key protagonists are David Merridith Lord Kingscourt, his wife Laura, their servant Mary Duane, the ship's captain Josias Lockwood, a friendless Irishman named Pius Mulvey, and American journalist Grantley Dixon. The narrative of the novel follows multiple threads interwoven by Grantley Dixon from documents such as diaries and letters, or from conversations/interviews with some of the principal characters or their relatives/descendants. The narrative partly follows the chronological course of the voyage, and for the intermediate or interposed parts consists of the meshed-in background lives of some of the emigrants and their relatives before they left Ireland (or England, or even after they arrived in the US). The novel departs from the usual formula of a murder mystery in that readers are vaguely informed of the identity of the murderer and the victim early in the novel, but the murder does not take place until the closing pages of the novel, and murder does not carry the full idea or sense of the killing. As the writer was clearly aware in choosing the name, the term "Star of the Sea" has deep roots in Catholic tradition. Our Lady, Star of the Sea - a translation of the Latin Stella Maris - is the Blessed Virgin Mary in her aspect as a guide and protector to those who work or travel on the sea and under which title she is venerated in many Catholic seaside communities. Indeed, in Dutch and other translations the book was given the title "Stella Maris". In 2008, London band Silvery released the song "Star of the Sea" on their debut album Thunderer & Excelsior on Blow Up Records, loosely following the narrative of the book. O'Connors 2007 book Redemption Falls is an effective sequel to the book, set in the aftermath of the American Civil War and featuring some character crossover ===== With only four days until the bar exam, an utterly unprepared law intern, Rick Robinson (Ben Gourley), is given a rare opportunity to score points with his boss, Maxwell McAllister (Rutger Hauer) and without thinking, commits to a favor he cannot afford. Rick soon finds himself stuck in a grueling cross country road trip driving a rundown U-Haul truck carrying all his boss's worldly possessions. To make matters worse, he is left in charge of Mr. McAllister's bratty Hollywood- bound niece Michelle (Mila Kunis) and her out-of-control pet pig. The trip from Miami to Los Angeles meets several snags. The truck breaks down on a backwoods road in the deep South, and Rick's clothes are burned by the hillbilly family providing them refuge for the night. Later, another breakdown results in Rick being knocked unconscious. He is rescued by a peculiar hitchhiker called Orlie (Jon Heder), who finds a motel room for him and Michelle. Orlie asks to accompany Rick and Michelle, and is accepted, as Rick believes he owes him a favor for his rescue. Michelle takes a shine to Orlie, and they proceed to have fun at Rick's expense. After Orlie forces Rick into an unusual encounter in a fast food restaurant lavatory, Rick decides to leave him behind. He and Michelle grow closer to one another, following a stop at a Texas beach. Rick permits Michelle to drive, despite the insurance liability, due to fatigue. He wakes to find Michelle has taken them to Wichita, Kansas and Rick's home. Consequently, Rick is forced into a painful confrontation with his mentally ill father, an experience for which Michelle apologizes. They grow even closer as Michelle relates her life growing up. The pair travel to Colorado, where the truck runs out of gas. A semi in which Orlie is traveling as a passenger comes to their aid. Following a stop in a small town, the truck (and Michelle's pig) is stolen by men working for local crime boss "The Lady" (Billy Drago). The Lady forces Rick and Orlie to fight in a cage match before he returns the truck, impressed by the show they put on. Crossing into Utah, Orlie spots a landscape that matches a drawing in his notebook. He believes that he has switched bodies as some past moment when he was near death, and believes that the person now occupying his body will arrive here. A switch can then take place. Orlie leaves Rick and Michelle, telling them to keep going. As the window for Rick to safely arrive back in Miami for the bar exam narrows, he rejects Michelle's assertions that there is something special between them. Rick drives straight to Los Angeles, arriving in Malibu where Mr. McAllister is waiting for them at his beachside property. He states that Rick has arrived late, but does not appear overtly concerned. Realizing he must hurry to fly back to Miami, Rick rushes to the taxi McAllister has arranged for him, leaving Michelle asleep in the truck. At the airport security checkpoint, Rick realizes he is making a terrible mistake as he observes the Polaroid photos Michelle has snapped throughout their trip. Knowing he is meant to be with Michelle, he scrambles out of the airport and returns to Malibu. Finding Mr. McAllister, Rick confesses his feelings for Michelle. McAllister, having heard similar sentiments from Michelle regarding Rick, thanks him for returning and asks him to take care of her. McAllister adds that his law firm will be opening a Los Angeles branch. The movie ends as Rick reunites with Michelle on the beach, and a man approaches Orlie back in Utah. ===== Lal Singh (Amitabh Bachchan) lives with his mother (Nirupa Roy) in a small basti in Bombay, and grew up with the poor and needy. He is called Lal Badshah by the people he lives among. Lal is a very helping person and dead-set against crime. In the same city lives Vikram Singh, alias Vicky Baadshah (Raghuvaran), who is the Don of the city always clashing with Lal Baadshah. Vicky is the son of Dayal Singh (Amrish Puri), who lives far away from Mumbai in a castle. Vicky and his brother Ajit Singh (Mukesh Rishi), a corrupt police officer want to rule the city. Meanwhile, Lal meets Kiran (Manisha Koirala), an L.I.C. agent who falls in love with him and is determined to become his wife. At the castle, Dayal Singh is still hunting for the treasures of the Maharaja, whom he murdered years ago along with his brother Sultan Singh (Prem Chopra). When the Maharaja was murdered, his son, Dewan Ranbir Singh (also Amitabh Bachchan) hid the treasure, for which Dayal Singh tried to murder him. ===== In 1995, Jake Ryan is a rookie police officer. Jake's father was a police officer, which prompted Jake to join the force. Jake's father was killed in the line of duty in 1984 and his case has not yet been solved. While playing the game, Jake uncovers clues to his father's murder. Jake graduates at the top of his class and joins the Jackson Beach PD, the same force his dad was on. He makes several arrests in connection with a National Guard armory break-in. Just as he is about to tie these crimes in with his father's murder, Jake is in a car accident while riding his police motorcycle. After spending weeks in rehab, his father's old partner offers him a job as his assistant in his private investigation firm, and Jake accepts. Eventually, the two discover a massive gun smuggling ring, tied to three main individuals: a man named Bradford Green, Stuart Cox, the Jackson Beach district attorney, and Nico Dillon, the person who murdered Jake's father. The game ends with Nico being sentenced to receive a lethal injection, Bradford Green being sentenced to 20 years in prison, and Stuart Cox being sentenced to 15 years in prison. ===== Married to Margaret Brandt, Gerard sets off to Rome from Holland to escape the persecution of a vicious burgomaster as well as to earn money for the support of his family. Margaret awaits his return in Holland and in the meantime gives birth to his son. As Gerard is the favourite with his parents, his two lazy and jealous brothers decide to divert him from Holland and receive a larger share of fortune after their parents' death. They compose and dispatch a letter to Gerard informing him falsely that Margaret has died. Gerard believes the news and, stricken by grief, gives himself to a dissolute life and even attempts a suicide. After being saved from death by chance, he takes vows and becomes a Dominican friar. Later Gerard preaches throughout Europe and, while in Holland, discovers that Margaret is alive. He is afraid of temptation and to shun Margaret becomes a hermit. Margaret discovers Gerard's hiding place and convinces him to come back to normal life in which he becomes a vicar of a small town. Gerard and Margaret no longer live as a man and wife, but nevertheless see each other several times a week. A few years pass, Gerard's son grows up and is sent to a private school. After a decade reunited, Margaret catches the plague and dies; Gerard re-enters the monastery and dies shortly after. He is buried with a lock of Margaret's hair on his chest. The author of The Cloister and the Hearth, at the end of this story, reveals that Margaret's and Gerard's son, also named Gerard, became the great Catholic scholar and Humanist, Erasmus of Rotterdam, a major historical figure. Indeed, little is actually known about Erasmus' actual parentage (apparently illegitimate), though his parents were in reality named Margaret Roger and Gerard. Reade was apparently using his imagination to fill in some historical gaps in Erasmus' background. The Cloister and the Hearth can easily be read as anti-Catholic, as it presents Catholic discipline regarding the celibate priesthood as an unsympathetic obstacle preventing Margaret's and Gerard's love from continuing to be consummated. ===== ===== A poor farmer named Chea returns home to his family after going to school for several years and befriends a Sou who later inherits his father's wealth and high-ranking status. Upon finishing school and returning home, Chea soon falls in love with his neighbour, Orn. His happiness is shattered when his ill father passes away and the landowner demands for their cow for an overdue rent. Chea pleas with the landowner to give him a few days while he goes to ask his old friend Sou for some financial help. Upon his arrival at Sou's residence, Chea quickly discovers that Sou's recently inherited status has caused him to ignore and pretend that he doesn't know Chea because of his peasant background. Chea is turned down and returns home with a predicament. Chea and his younger brother soon begin selling noodles in order to make enough cash for the family. His luck is cut short when he realizes his competition against another noodle seller, making for many light, comedic incidents. Once their debt is cleared Chea asks his mother to ask for Orn's hand in marriage. This is soon arranged and Chea and An become engaged. Both families then begin to raise money to have the wedding with Chea continuing to sell noodles and An selling silk cloths with her mother. One day An and her mother were stopped by Sou who instantly falls in love with An and decides to buy every piece of silk cloth they have. Sou also sends a henchmen with An and her mother to find out where they live just in case he may need to purchase more of their silk. The henchmen reports back that Chea is engaged to An and Sou arranges a plan to get rid of Chea, in order to have An for himself. Sou promptly visits Chea and apparently apologizes for what happened earlier. He tells Chea that he will help fund their wedding. Chea's mother requests that they would need a honeycomb for the wedding so both Chea and Sou set out to find one. They eventually locate one high up in the tree and eventually fasten a rope so they can climb up. Chea goes first and when he reaches the top of the tree, Sou betrays him by having his men cut the rope preventing Chea from getting down. Sou leaves Chea to die and returns to An saying that Chea has fallen to his death and wishes Sou would marry An. Chea remembers the lessons he learned from his mentor and tricks a bear into bringing him down the tree. He secretly enters Sou's and Orn's wedding ceremony under the disguise of a singer. Orn, still devastated from Chea's apparent death, decides to lock herself in a room and commit suicide. Her suicide is thwarted when Chea begins to sing and she recognizes his voice. She unlocks the door and embraces Chea. Sou disrupts their reunion by having Chea sent out to the forest to be executed and forces An to marry him. Chea's younger brother quickly gathers a force of villagers who promptly save Chea from execution. Chea along with the villagers storm the wedding ceremony and Sou is killed in the ensuing chaos. Sou's father, realizing what has happened, restores order and justice. Chea and An are finally reunited at last. ===== Martin Edelweiss grows up in pre- Revolutionary St. Petersburg. His grandfather Edelweiss had come to Russia from Switzerland, and was employed as a tutor, eventually marrying his youngest pupil. The watercolor image of a dense forest with a winding path hangs over Martin's crib and becomes a leading motif in his life. During Martin's upbringing, his parents get divorced. His father, whom he did not love very much, soon dies. With the revolution, his mother, Sofia, takes Martin first to the Crimea, then out of Russia. On the ship to Athens, Martin is enchanted by and has his first romance with the beautiful, older poet Alla, who is married. After Athens, Martin and his mother find refuge in Switzerland with his uncle Henry Edelweiss, who will eventually become Martin's stepfather. Martin goes to study at Cambridge and, on the way, stays with the Zilanov family in London; he is attracted to their 16-year-old daughter, Sonia. At Cambridge, he enjoys the wide academic offerings of the university and takes some time to choose a field. He is fascinated by Archibald Moon, who teaches Russian literature. He meets Darwin, a fellow student from England, who has a literary talent and history as a war hero. Darwin also becomes interested in Sonia, but she rejects his marriage proposal. Martin has a very brief affair with a waitress named Rose, who blackmails Martin by faking a pregnancy, until Darwin unveils her ruse and pays her off. Just before the end of their Cambridge days, Darwin and Martin engage in a boxing match. Martin does not settle down after Cambridge, to the dismay of his uncle and step- father, Henry. He follows the Zilanovs to Berlin and meets the writer Bubnov. During this period, Martin and Sonia imagine Zoorland, a northern country championing absolute equality. Sonia pushes Martin away, making him feel alienated among the group of friends he had in Berlin. He takes a train trip to the South of France. At some distance he sees some lights in the distance at night, mimicking an episode in his childhood. Martin gets off the train and finds the village of Molignac. He stays there and works a while, identifying himself alternately as Swiss, German, and English, but never Russian. Getting another negative letter from Sonia, he returns to Switzerland. Picking up an émigré publication, Martin realizes that Bubnov has published a story called Zoorland—a betrayal by Sonia, who has become Bubnov's lover. In the Swiss mountains, he challenges himself to conquer a cliff, ostensibly as a form of training for his future exploits. It becomes clear that Martin has been planning on slipping over the border into Soviet Russia. He meets Gruzinov, a renowned espionage specialist, who knows how to secretly enter the Soviet Union. Gruzinov gives him information, but Martin doubts that Gruzinov is taking him seriously and giving him reliable information. Preparing for this expedition, Martin says his farewells, first in Switzerland, then back in Berlin, where he meets Sonia, then Bubnov, and then Darwin, who now works as a journalist. He tells Darwin the basics of his plan and enlists his assistance, giving him a series of four postcards to send his mother in Switzerland so she does not get suspicious. Darwin does not believe he is serious. Martin takes the train to Riga, planning to cross from there into the Soviet Union. After two weeks, Darwin gets nervous and follows his friend to Riga. However, Martin is nowhere to be found: he seems to have disappeared. Darwin takes his concerns to the Zilanovs, and then travels to Switzerland to inform Martin's mother of her son's disappearance. The novel ends with Martin's whereabouts unknown and Darwin leaving the Edelweisses' house in Switzerland having delivered the troubling news. ===== In this story, a schooner at sea ("becalmed in the Northern Pacific") is approached in the middle of "a dark, starless night" by a small rowboat. The passenger aboard the boat, who refuses to bring his boat close alongside and requests that the sailors on the schooner put away their lanterns, tells everyone a disturbing tale. Begging food for his fiancée, he receives some rations, floated to him in a wooden box. Later that same evening, he returns to report that his fiancée is grateful for the food, but will soon die, and he tells the sailors his full story. He and his fiancée, aboard the ship Albatross, were abandoned by the ship's crew, who took the remaining lifeboats. After building a raft, they escaped from the sinking vessel and found an apparently abandoned ship in a nearby lagoon, covered with a fungus-like growth. They attempted to remove this growth from the living quarters but were unable to do so; it continued to spread, and so they returned to their raft. The nearby island was also covered with this growth, except for a narrow beach. Eventually, the man and his fiancee found the fungus growing on their skin and felt an uncontrollable urge to eat it. They discovered that other humans on the island have been entirely absorbed by the strange fungal growth. As the man in the rowboat rows away, just as the sky is lightening, the narrator can dimly see a grotesquely misshapen figure in the rowboat, scarcely recognisable as human. ===== In the fictional town of Willow Valley, Washington during the year 1955, teenager Susie Quinn prepares for her Winter Formal. She and her boyfriend, Johnny Angel, are oblivious to the fact that an inebriated motorist would soon force their car into a waterway where they subsequently drown. Forty years later, a teenager named Zach Sands moves into that very house with his widowed mother Penny who has a new job as a news reporter. Zach's father had died in a car accident on his way to Zach's basketball game — and Zach feels so guilty he abandons basketball. Now a student at the local high school, Zach befriends the drama group but also makes enemies of the envious Ray Kovich whose father, Roger, is a banker. While fishing with his younger sister Teri, Zach finds a bracelet that causes Susie's ghost to manifest before Zach. Eventually, Zach researches Susie and discovers that she died 40 years ago. That night, Susie visits Zach again, and proves to him that he is the only one who can see her. Later Susie arrives at Zach's school, where he's distracted by the other girls in school - until Susie rips off part of the winter formal dress she's wearing to get his attention. Susie begs Zach to help her find out what happened to her parents but, while doing so, causes a scene in Zach's class. She apologizes, but continues to cause trouble at school and home until Zach agrees to help. While visiting Susie's parents, Zach finds out they are facing homelessness at the hands of the local bank because of a missing title deed, and that the bank is demanding an unaffordable $25,000 balloon payment. However, this is only one part of a larger plan, led by Roger, that would eventually destroy the town. Heading back home, Susie confesses that before she died, her grandfather was looking for the deed for Willow Valley. She reveals to Zach that she is still earth- bound because of a mistake she had made in persuading her grandfather to rest, rather than help him find the deed that could have secured her family. Only then, Zach realizes how much Susie needs his help to find the deed and secure her family's legacy. Teri discovers that much of the town's land legally belongs to the Quinn family, and it becomes a fierce race to the finish as Zach locates the requisite title deed. It draws the attention of the police; meanwhile Roger is warned and makes his own plans. After the police arrest Zach and Teri, Susie manages to save them by scaring the officer into letting them go free. Finally, Zach and Teri make it to the local news station just in time to provide their mother with all of the information about the Quinn family's history, which is broadcast on live television. In the aftermath, the bankers give up and apologize to the Quinns, the Kovich family leave town in an attempt on Roger's part to avoid criminal prosecution and Zach returns to playing basketball in honor of his late father. With her mistake rectified, Susie returns to the bridge where she died. Zach follows her there and asks her what will happen to him now that she's leaving for heaven. Susie tells him that his life is just beginning and she is sure he can continue playing basketball for both her and his late father. Susie reunites with the spirits of her boyfriend, Johnny and her grandfather in Johnny's car. Before the ghostly trio depart for heaven, Susie gives Zach her bracelet and bidding him an emotional farewell, vice versa Zach admits he loves her. In the car, her grandfather briefly awakens and calls Susie by her mother's name, Betsy. She corrects him by telling him that her name is Susie and tells him to go back to sleep because they have a long trip ahead. In the closing scene, Zach meets a girl who looks identical to Susie and introduces herself as Maggie. ===== The following plot outline follows the revised and third editions of the novella. The original serialized version has a very different ending, while the characterizations of certain characters, like Old Man Ji, are drastically altered in subsequent versions. Li Wenxiu, a young Han Chinese girl, loses her parents in the Gobi Desert while escaping from a group of bandits who are after a map of the Gaochang labyrinth. Placed on a white steed, she flees to Kazakh territory and is taken into the care of Old Man Ji, an elderly Han Chinese man. While growing up, she meets Supu, a Kazakh boy, and starts a romance with him. However, Supu's father disapproves of the relationship between his son and a Han Chinese girl, so they are forced to separate. Several years later, Li Wenxiu meets Hua Hui, a hermit, in an oasis in the Gobi Desert, and helps him cure his wounds. Hua Hui feels grateful to her and accepts her as his apprentice and teaches her martial arts. She returns home in the midst of heavy snowfall and sees Supu, his father, and his new lover taking shelter in her house. Chen Dahai, the leader of the group of bandits who killed Li Wenxiu's parents, arrives at Li's home and suspects that the map he has been hunting for is inside the house. He ransacks the house for the map and eventually finds it. The secret of the map is revealed when blood is spilled onto the cloth. Chen wants to silence Supu and the others but is stopped and defeated by Li, who has disguised herself as an old man. Chen Dahai flees with the map and finds his way to the labyrinth, while Li Wenxiu and Supu gather five others to join them in pursuing Chen and the bandits. The seven of them make their way to the labyrinth, where they are surprised to find ordinary items associated with Han Chinese culture instead of treasure and riches as they expected. To their horror, they encounter a "ghost" who haunts them by killing their companions without leaving any traces. Just as they are about to flee, Supu learns that his lover has been kidnapped by the "ghost" and he tracks the "ghost" to its lair in the labyrinth, where he discovers that the "ghost" is actually a martial arts expert in disguise. The "ghost" tells his story and reveals that he was forced into exile because he was betrayed by his apprentice, who is actually Old Man Ji. The "ghost" is the hermit Hua Hui, whom Li Wenxiu saved earlier. To everyone's surprise, Old Man Ji is revealed to be actually a man in his 30s in disguise as an old man. Old Man Ji and Hua Hui start fighting with each other. Li is shocked to realise that the two, who are close to her, are actually enemies. Hua Hui eventually dies in his futile attempt to kill everyone in the labyrinth. After leaving the labyrinth, Li Wenxiu hears the true story behind the items hidden in the labyrinth and their origins. She decides to leave the land for central China as she feels miserable after the loss of two of her loved ones and the marriage of her lover to another woman. ===== The story is set in the Qing dynasty. A pair of precious blades known as the "Mandarin Duck Blades" are being transported to the Forbidden City by an escort agency commissioned by provincial officials. The blades are highly coveted by many martial artists in the jianghu because they are rumoured to hold a secret to invincibility. The officials have also detained the escort agency chief's family members under the pretext of offering them protection, so as to ensure that the escort agency chief does not keep the blades for himself. In the midst of various attempts by different parties to intercept the convoy and seize the blades, eventually, through serendipity, the weapons end up in the hands of two couples: Yuan Guannan and Xiao Zhonghui, and Lin Yulong and Ren Feiyan. They are defeated by Zhuo Tianxiong, a highly skilled imperial guard who disguises himself as a blind man and hides in the convoy to protect the blades. The couples are forced to seek refuge in a dilapidated temple while attempting to evade pursuit by Zhuo and his men. Out of desperation, Lin Yulong and Ren Feiyan teach the younger couple, Yuan Guannan and Xiao Zhonghui, a saber movement known as the "Couple's Sabers" (夫妻刀法). The saber movement covers the two partners' weaknesses while multiplying their combat lethality, making them virtually invincible. Yuan and Xiao defeat Zhuo with this new technique. Later, Yuan Guannan visits Xiao Zhonghui's manor during her father's 50th birthday party and receives a warm welcome. He meets Xiao Zhonghui's father, Xiao Banhe, and his wives, Madam Yang and Madam Yuan. At the dinner, Zhuo Tianxiong and his men show up to seize the blades. At the same time, a group of soldiers show up, but they are there for a different purpose: to arrest Xiao Banhe, who is revealed to be one of the government's most wanted renegades. While fighting their way out, the young couple's combined prowess is seriously compromised when Yuan Guannan is revealed to be Madam Yuan's long-lost son – which makes him Xiao Zhonghui's half-brother. The group takes refuge at a nearby cave, where Xiao Banhe tells his story. Xiao Banhe reveals his true identity as a former rebel who infiltrated the palace by disguising himself as a eunuch. In the palace prison, he encountered Yuan and Yang, two other rebels who were captured and imprisoned along with their families. After Yuan and Yang were executed, Xiao broke into the prison and saved their widows and children. Yuan's son (Yuan Guannan) was separated from the group while they were escaping. Xiao Banhe took care of the two widows and pretended to be their husband all this while. He also raised Yang's daughter (Xiao Zhonghui) as his own child. This means that Yuan Guannan and Xiao Zhonghui do not have any blood relations, so they can continue their romance. Zhuo Tianxiong is coincidentally captured by the "Four Heroes of Taiyue" – four lucky and not- so-highly skilled comical martial artists – and the soldiers retreat. Xiao Banhe reveals the blades' secret: an inscription which says "the merciful are invincible". ===== The plot follows the experiences of the protagonist, Di Yun, a simple young peasant from Xiangxi. He lives in the countryside for several years together with his martial arts master, Qi Zhangfa, and Qi's daughter, Qi Fang, who is his childhood sweetheart. One day, the three of them travel to the city to attend the birthday party of Wan Zhenshan, Qi Zhangfa's senior from the same martial arts sect. Di Yun is framed for larceny and attempted rape, which results in him being arrested and imprisoned. Qi Zhangfa disappears mysteriously when Di Yun needs his help. Wan Zhenshan's son, Wan Gui, bribes the magistrate to hand a heavy sentence to Di Yun to exaggerate the seriousness of Di's "crimes". At the same time, in order to win Qi Fang's affection, he hypocritically plays the role of a good man by pretending to help Di Yun. Qi Fang becomes disappointed with Di Yun after believing that he is indeed guilty and gives up on him. With no one else to turn to, she eventually marries Wan Gui. Di Yun suffers in prison and is continuously harassed by Ding Dian, a fellow raving inmate who accuses him of being a spy and subjects him to constant beatings. However, after Di Yun attempts suicide, Ding Dian is convinced that he is not a spy and befriends him. Ding Dian tells Di Yun how he obtained from Mei Niansheng the manual for the skill "Liancheng Swordplay", and how he became the target of several martial artists after getting the manual. Ding Dian also teaches Di Yun a powerful inner energy skill, which later proves to be a blessing for Di. Di Yun also learns from Ding Dian about the dirty secrets of Qi Zhangfa and his fellows – of how they murdered their master, Mei Niansheng, to seize control of the Liancheng Swordplay manual. Di Yun and Ding Dian manage to break out from the prison but Ding is fatally poisoned by Ling Tuisi, a heartless magistrate who is also the father of Ding's deceased lover. Di Yun returns to Qi Fang's house and sees that Qi has bore Wan Gui a daughter nicknamed "Kongxincai" – his childhood nickname. Feeling depressed and emotionally hurt, he leaves and arrives at a temple, where he encounters an evil cannibalistic monk, Baoxiang, whom he outwits and kills. He dons Baoxiang's robes and is mistaken by the Tibetan Blood Saber Sect's lascivious leader, Grandmaster Xuedao, as a grand-apprentice. Xuedao protects Di Yun from attacks by self- proclaimed orthodox martial arts sects, captures a maiden Shui Sheng, and holds her hostage while they flee from the attackers. They encounter an avalanche that causes them to be trapped a snowy valley in the Daxue Mountains. Xuedao manages to kill three of their pursuers, one of whom is Shui Sheng's father. Meanwhile, Xuedao becomes suspicious of Di Yun's identity and attempts to kill him when Di's cover is blown. Unexpectedly, Xuedao's strike helps Di Yun complete his inner energy cycle; Di Yun turns the tables on Xuedao and kills him. The last surviving pursuer, Hua Tiegan, reveals his true colours after Xuedao's death and feeds on the dead bodies of his three companions to survive. While Di Yun, Shui Sheng and Hua Tiegan remain in the valley to wait for spring, Shui sees Di's kindness beneath his seeming misanthropy. When the three of them are finally able to leave the valley and meet up with other martial artists, Hua Tiegan accuses Di Yun and Shui Sheng of sexual immorality in front of Shui's fiancé. Di Yun separates himself from Shui Sheng and continues on his lonely quest for vengeance. Di Yun tracks down the perpetrators responsible for his wrongful incarceration and learns that his respected master, Qi Zhangfa, is actually a scheming and ruthless villain – just like what Ding Dian had told him. Qi Fang is mercilessly killed by her husband, Wan Gui, when he suspects her of infidelity. As the story progresses, all the antagonists in the novel eventually locate the whereabouts of the Liancheng Swordplay manual in a temple, where they start fighting over the treasure. They become insane after coming into contact with the deadly venom smeared on the jewels. After witnessing these beastly acts, especially Qi Fang's death, Di Yun becomes totally disillusioned with the dark nature and greed of humanity. He brings Qi Fang's daughter, Kongxincai, with him to the snowy valley and intends to lead a reclusive life there. To his surprise, he meets Shui Sheng, who has been faithfully waiting alone for his return. ===== The story is set in the Spring and Autumn period against the backdrop of the conflict between the states of Wu and Yue in southern China. A team of swordsmen from Wu defeats the best swordsmen of Yue. Fan Li, a Yue royal adviser, discovers Aqing, a young shepherdess, who defeats the Wu swordsmen with ease. It is revealed that Aqing learnt her skills while playing mock sword duels with a white gibbon. Fan Li allows Aqing to train the soldiers of Yue in swordsmanship. Aqing gradually falls in love with Fan Li. Goujian of Yue finally defeats his rival, Fuchai of Wu, after enduring hardship and humiliation. Fan Li is reunited with his lover Xi Shi, who was sent as a concubine to Fuchai. Aqing intends to kill Xi Shi but is taken aback by Xishi's beauty. Aqing accidentally hurts Xi Shi with her inner energy while thrusting her sword towards Xishi, even though the blade did not touch Xi Shi at all. She clutches her bosom in pain and the expression on her face is described as "so beautiful that it will take away the soul of any man who looks upon her". This incident gave rise to the Chinese phrase "Xizi clutching her bosom" (), which refers to a woman's beauty being enhanced when she is in a state of distress or agony. Aqing is the ancestor of Han Xiaoying from The Legend of the Condor Heroes. ===== The seal which was used to imprison the 2 fallen angels, Kirin no Judas and Houou no Luca, is broken and the two decide to get their revenge on God by getting rid of Heaven that had once been their home and create the true paradise which is Hell. Soon, the guardian angels on Earth begin disappearing, and no one in Heaven can explain the happenings. But there is a sense of a vengeful animal spirit at work, and so the Four Saint Beasts are called upon to investigate. The 4 Gods of Beasts attempts to rescue the guardian angels, as well as to find out what this evil animal spirit is... ===== Mizuki conversing with Sorahito about where people go when they die with him responding "no they go to Eden". Eden becomes a referring place during the course of the Manga and finally introduces Eve the character whom Judas is attached to. Judas is The spirit of Death and apostle who betrayed Jesus. His curse is to kill 666 people so he may gain his humanity it is implied that they have been together for some time and have taken many lives. When Sorahito becomes obsessed with finding "Eden" he tries making Mizuki join him so they can go to "Eden" together. Eve who is really a boy and confused to be a girl all the time including Judas which is explained that when they first met Judas confused Eve for a girl so now he makes him wear girls' clothes, confronts Sorahito and tries changing his mind but Sorahito tries killing Eve. In response Judas is summoned and combine their powers and kill Sorahito. Later Mizuiki meets Dr. Hibuki who is a doctor and becomes desperate for Eden too. Hibuki is visited secretly by a bald man who gives him power. When Hibuki is killed a strange necklace is found where Judas says "Damn Peter! What the hell is he creating me? The hell!!". Later Mizuki meanwhile has been researching on what Eden actually is and the "Holy Council" when she asks Judas about it Judas only says "Do not interfere". Eve then tells Mizuki of a man whom Judas was attached to and who may hold the answers to everything. This man is in New York. The FBI arrive to arrest him but the man kills all of the agents including destroying the helicopters. The man, revealed to be Zero Maschaitto then talks about "opening the doors to Paradise". Zero meets with the bald man, Peter. Peter commands Zero to do battle with Judas and to take back what he took from Zero. Zero departs with Peter saying "what terror there will be". Mizuki, Eve and Judas and Kugiku Mizuki's friend get a visitor who is a friend of Mizukis. She is revealed to be Sorahito's sister and Mizuki decides to tell her want happened to him however they are drawn by a mysterious force. Judas is the only one not affected and it turns out Zero is the cause for their kidnapping. Zero says that he will take everything from him and take back what was taken from him by Judas. Zero reveals that Peter plans to resurrect the twelve apostles and together open the gates of Eden. The one who betrayed Christ is revealed to be Judas himself - the historical figure. Zero aims to kill Eve who without, Judas will turn to nothing but suddenly he is freed and Judas and Eve combine their powers and take on Zero. They have a fierce battle and it is revealed that Peter who is the apostle Peter plans to clone Judas but this is foiled. In the end Zero departs and Peter summons the first of the revelations of John, Rain and hail mingled with blood which falls onto the earth. At a cafe it is revealed that Saints John and Philip have been revived and soon after the waitresses speak to them they are killed by John And Philip uses his time powers to switch the clocks back making it possible for the second seal to be opened "A great mountain of Fire Erupting" Mt.Fuji is blown up and thousands upon thousands are killed as a result. As the Apostles are resurrecting and Peter laughs in delight, Judas and Eve have enough and declare that there going to "pity the fuck out of them". Concluding volume 2 Mizuki is tricked into going to a house from an email which said it was from Sorahito who says that he is alive and wishes to speak with her. In reality however St. Thomas tricked her and wishes to "try" her for her sins. Eve and Judas run to the house and find that Thomas has begun the trial. Thomas reveals to them that Mizuki when shes was a girl had "untolerable feelings" for sorahito when though taking vows of chastity, Mizuki would in the night go to his room and kiss him and finally betrayed him to Judas (who killed him in volume 1). It is also shown when Thomas tried to judge Eve that Eve has killed a great number of people, Judas then called Eve the "Other Angel of Death". ===== Holger Carlsen is an American-trained Danish engineer who joins the Danish resistance to the Nazis in World War II. At the shore near Elsinore, he is among the group of resistance fighters trying to cover the escape to Sweden of an important scientist (evidently the nuclear physicist Niels Bohr). With a German force closing in, Carlsen is shot – and suddenly finds himself transported to a parallel universe, a world where northern European legend concerning Charlemagne ("The Matter of France") is real. This world is divided between the forces of Chaos, inhabiting the "Middle World" (which includes Faerie), and the forces of Law based in the human world, which is in turn divided between the Holy Roman Empire and the Saracens. He finds the equipment and horse of a medieval knight waiting for him. The shield is emblazoned with three hearts and three lions. He finds the clothes and armor fit him perfectly, and he knows how to use the weapons and ride the horse as well as speak fluently the local language, a very archaic form of French. Seeking to return to his own world, Holger is joined by Alianora, a swan maiden, and Hugi, a dwarf. They are induced to follow the seemingly attractive elvish Duke Alfric of Faerie, who in fact plots to imprison Holger in Elf Hill, where time runs differently. Holger learns that Morgan Le Fay, his lover in a forgotten past life, is his ultimate adversary. They escape and, after encountering a dragon, a giant, and a werewolf, reach the town of Tarnberg, where they are joined by a mysterious Saracen called Carahue, who has been searching for Holger. Based on the advice of the wizard, Martinus Trismegistus, they set out to recover the sword Cortana. The sword is in a ruined church, guarded by a nixie, cannibal hillmen, and – most dangerous of all – a troll. While on this perilous quest, Holger and Alianora fall deeply in love with each other. However, Holger avoids physically consummating this love – though Alianora wants him to – as he intends to return to the 20th century world he came from. But with the perilous Wild Hunt on their tracks, Holger and Alianora pledge their love and he promises, if surviving the ordeal ahead, to remain always with her. However, the decision would be taken out of his hands. Once the sword is recovered, Holger discovers he is the legendary Ogier the Dane, a champion of Law. He vanquishes the forces of Chaos and is transported back to his own world, right back to the battle in Elsinore – and with a burst of superhuman strength, vanquishes the Nazi troops and enables Bohr to escape and play his part in the Manhattan Project; thus, in two worlds Holger/Ogier has fulfilled his destiny of fighting evil forces and preserving Denmark and France. The magical forces involved have no consideration for the hero's love life, leaving him stranded away from his beloved Alianora. Desperately wanting to return to the other world, he seeks clues in old books of magic. His enduring affinity with the medieval world in which he met her is expressed by a decision to convert to Catholicism. ===== Several Ways to Die Trying is about a young man who wants to kill himself when no one will publish his first novel, a choose-your-own-adventure book where the outcome is always death, but can't because he has writer's block on his suicide note. While hiking to try to clear his head he encounters Molly Usie, an outcast who is determined to befriend him. Eventually he falls for Molly, but has to decide if she's worth living for. ===== Maurice and Dave try but fail to sell steaks to people through a mail service. Tired of their incompetence, their boss gives them cards with the names and addresses of their highest buyers, warning that this is their last chance. Dave loses all but one of the cards. It leads to a woman named Loridonna. Loridonna is on the phone with her friend Suzanne, who has swallowed a fish and needs help. Loridonna tells Suzanne that Dave is a doctor and gives him the phone; while Dave is talking to Suzanne, Loridonna talks seductively about wanting Maurice's "meat". Turned on, Maurice tries to seal a deal, but Dave says Suzanne wants to kill herself. They drive Loridonna to Suzanne's house, where they discover that she is an alcoholic whose suicide was a false alarm. Loridonna and Maurice begin making out, and Suzanne's husband Tony comes home and catches them, but he casually changes clothes while telling Maurice that she was once a man. Suzanne confirms this and tries to explain, but Maurice is too disappointed (and disgusted) to care. Tony then attempts to kill Dave, thinking he tried to seduce Suzanne. After explaining, Dave and Tony become friendly. Tony begins to grill some steaks, then is ambushed, shot, and killed by two hitmen. Finding some of Tony's guns, Dave and Maurice fight back. The hitmen put them into the trunk of their car and leave them there while attending a party. Maurice manages to get out, then sees Goldbluth, a name from the cards they got from their boss. After freeing Dave, they start describing to party guests the tenderness of their steaks. The hitmen return looking for them. Dave is unable to leave because Goldbluth is rambling on. He signs a contract to buy meat, so they warn Goldbluth that two hitmen are here to kill him. Dave gives Goldbluth the gun Tony had when he was killed. Maurice and Dave drive off, looking back to see shots fired. Goldbluth comes out without a scratch. Maurice and Dave return to their boss with seven orders and $21,000 up front from Goldbluth. ===== Sixth grader Sho Takamatsu travels to school after a bitter argument with his mother Emiko. While in class, a tremor shakes the facility, and the school is transported to an otherworldly wasteland. Yu, a three year old boy who was caught in the tremor, shows Sho a memorial buried in the dust commemorating the disappearance of their school. It transpires that the school has traveled through time to a post-apocalyptic future ravaged by environmental disasters. As the hopelessness of their situation becomes clear, many of the adults descend into insanity. Lunchroom worker Sekiya hoards the school's food and immolates the teachers who attempt to stop him, while teacher Wakahara murders his colleagues and several students before being killed by Sho in self- defense. With the adults dead, Sho and his companions attempt to lead the children as a quasi-government. Nishi, a telepathic student who is able to communicate with individuals in the past, is able to contact Emiko, who prepares objects in her own time to assist the children in their future. The stranded children face many threats in their fight for survival, including hostile megafauna, a deadly plague, food and water shortages, delinquents who sow dissension, and creeping madness. Nishi ultimately falls into a coma, though the children are able to use her powers one final time to send Yu back into the past. Yu promises that he will try to avert the events that have led to their future, and delivers Sho's journal to Emiko. The children remaining in the future vow to rebuild the world from the ashes of the past. ===== Daisuke Suwa is a high school student living with his widowed mother in a small Japanese community. His ambitions are to leave the town, gain acceptance at a city university and to enjoy being a bachelor. In a discussion with a classmate about which of the girls in class he would choose to date, he declares he would pass on only one: Hinako Aikawa, a beautiful but shy girl. Daisuke is put off by her "sweet virgin" act and is annoyed by her extreme reactions to physical contact from men. Working after school one day, Daisuke takes refuge in an empty church building to avoid a pair of girls, hiding inside a confessional booth. Believing him to be a priest, Hinako asks him to hear her confession. As a junior high school student, Hinako was sexually abused by her stepfather and became pregnant. Her mother learned of the pregnancy when Hinako miscarried, but did nothing. The abuse continued and Hinako became pregnant again. She was told that the pregnancy may make her incapable of bearing children again, but since the doctors felt an abortion at that point would be dangerous, she carried the baby to term and her mother had it put up for adoption immediately after birth. Hinako ends by saying that although she never wanted the child and was relieved to have it adopted, she wonders whether it would be all right if she celebrated his birthday, which is today. Daisuke assures her that she has the support of God, which calms Hinako down, who she thanks him and leaves. The next day a baby carriage begins to roll down. Daisuke instinctively jumps to protect Hinako and manages to stop the carriage, both of them are knocked to the ground. In the process, Hinako's skirt gets hitched up, revealing a scar on her stomach which Daisuke recognizes as a Caesarean-section scar. Daisuke realizes that her ordeal was the cause of her aversion to men. He resolves to keep her secret and soon finds himself falling in love with her. ===== In London, a golden bullet with James Bond's codename '007' etched into its surface is received by MI6. It is believed that it was sent by the famed assassin Francisco Scaramanga, who uses a golden gun, to intimidate the agent. Due to the perceived threat to the agent's life, since Scaramanga has never been photographed and no one knows where he lives, M relieves Bond of a mission revolving around the work of the solar energy scientist named Gibson, thought to be in possession of information crucial to solving the energy crisis with solar power. At a hint from M, Bond sets out unofficially to locate Scaramanga. After retrieving a spent golden bullet from a belly dancer in Beirut and tracking its manufacturer to Macau, Bond forces the gun maker to show him how he delivers the bullets. Seeing Andrea Anders, Scaramanga's mistress, collecting the shipment of golden bullets at a casino, Bond follows her to Hong Kong and, in her Peninsula Hotel room, pressures Anders to expose information about Scaramanga, his appearance and his plans; she directs him to the Bottoms Up Club. The club proves to be the location of Scaramanga's next hit, Gibson, from whom Scaramanga's dwarf henchman Nick Nack steals the "Solex agitator", a key component of a solar power station. Before Bond can assert his innocence in Gibson's death, he is taken away by Lieutenant Hip and transported to meet M and Q in a hidden headquarters in the wreck of the in the harbour. M assigns Bond to retrieve the Solex. Bond then travels to Bangkok to meet Hai Fat, a wealthy Thai entrepreneur suspected of arranging Gibson's murder. Bond poses as Scaramanga, meets with Fat and is invited to dinner, but his plan backfires because unbeknown to him, Scaramanga himself is operating at Hai Fat's estate. Bond is captured by Nick Nack and a couple of henchmen when he returns for dinner and is placed in Fat's martial arts academy, where the students are instructed to kill him. After escaping with the aid of Hip and his nieces, Bond speeds away on a motorised sampan along the river and reunites with his assistant, Mary Goodnight. Scaramanga subsequently kills Hai Fat with his golden gun and assumes control of his empire, taking the Solex with him. Anders visits Bond, revealing that she sent the bullet to London and wants Bond to kill Scaramanga. In payment, she promises to hand the Solex over to him at a Muay Thai venue the next day. At the match, Bond discovers Anders sitting up straight in the audience, but dead from a bullet to the heart. Scaramanga himself then arrives at the match and introduces himself to Bond. Bond observes the Solex on the floor and is able to smuggle it away to Hip, who passes it to Goodnight. When Goodnight attempts to place a homing device on Scaramanga's car, Scaramanga traps her in the car's boot. Bond discovers Scaramanga driving off and steals an AMC Hornet from a showroom to give chase, coincidentally with the holidaying Sheriff J.W. Pepper (the lawman Bond encountered in Live and Let Die) sitting inside. Bond and Pepper follow Scaramanga in a car chase across Bangkok, which concludes when Scaramanga's AMC Matador transforms into a plane, which flies himself, Nick Nack and Goodnight away from Bond. Picking up Goodnight's tracking signal, Bond flies a seaplane into Red Chinese waters and lands at Scaramanga's island. Scaramanga welcomes and shows Bond the solar power plant operation that he has taken over, the technology for which he intends to sell to the highest bidder. While demonstrating the equipment, Scaramanga uses a powerful energy beam to destroy Bond's plane. After they dine together, Scaramanga proposes a pistol duel with Bond on the beach; Bond with his Walther and him with his single-shot golden gun. As he says, he only needs one shot. The two men stand back to back and are officiated by Nick Nack to take twenty paces, but when Bond turns and fires, Scaramanga has vanished. Nick Nack leads Bond into Scaramanga's funhouse where Bond stands in the place of the mannequin of himself; when Scaramanga walks by, Bond outwits and kills him. Goodnight kills Scaramanga's security chief Kra, accidentally sending his body into one of the temperature control vats. His body heat raises the temperature of the helium cooling the solar plant, which begins to spiral out of control. Bond retrieves the Solex unit just before the island is destroyed, and they escape unharmed in Scaramanga's Chinese junk. Bond then fends off a final attack by Nick Nack, who smuggled himself aboard, placing him in a wicker basket on the mainmast of the ship. Bond and Goodnight celebrate their mission by romancing each other. ===== The manga follows Red, a young boy competing with a rival, Green, to complete the Illustrated Pokémon Encyclopedia/Pokédex and become the master of Pokémon. In this manga, Pokémon are capable of human speech. It is thought that a Pippi/Clefairy is the main character, although it is just a follower of Red. It is obnoxious but lovable, whose big mouth sometimes gets it into trouble. Surprisingly enough, it comes up with clever ideas to help Red and Pikachu. In the first few manga books, Red's team consists of Pikachu and Pippi/Clefairy only. However, later on, Red gains a valuable companion in Tyrogue, as well. Pikachu himself is unable to talk. The story also goes to the Johto region, where Red gets introduced to trainers Gold and Silver, supposedly based on the video game characters. The story then goes to Hoenn in the last volume, where Red thinks of receiving a Achamo/Torchic and abandoning Pippi/Clefairy. It is after this that the story continues under the name of Pokémon Ruby-Sapphire, starting the volume number from 1."Pokémon Ruby-Sapphire ." Chuang Yi. Accessed November 4, 2008. ===== In this sequel to The Goblin Tower, ex-king Jorian of Xylar and Dr. Karadur renew their alliance, with the latter offering to help the former recover his favorite wife Estrildis in return for a new service. Jorian is commissioned to repair the clocks in the Tower of Kumashar, the great lighthouse of Iraz, capital city of the empire of Penembei to the south of Novaria. The timepieces had originally been installed by Jorian's father Evor the Clockmaker, a renowned practitioner of that trade. Complications consist of a pair of competing prophecies regarding the fate of the city, Iraz's cut-throat politics and xenophobic racing factions (clearly based on those of the Byzantine Empire), and a perfect storm of enemies approaching the city, including the pirates of Algarth, a mercenary company from Novaria, the desert hordes of Fedirun, and a revolutionary peasant army. Topping these is the Emperor Ishbahar himself, who seems to think Jorian might make a good heir to dump the whole mess on. Jorian hardly needs to hear a new prophecy relating to himself—"beware the second crown"—to tread cautiously. It will take luck as well as cunning just to get out alive, let alone save the city and seize the forlorn hope of regaining Estrildis with the aid of Karadur's flying bathtub. The riots which dominate the last chapters of the book are evidently modeled on the Nika riots, a major event in the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian. ===== The story takes place in old Mexico, where a masked rider (Talmadge) and an impoverished girl (Bedford) fall in love, against her father's wishes. When she leaves with him, her father sends his gang in a chase after the two lovers. ===== The novel's protagonist is Billy Gimp, a man with a club foot who runs "blades" for Doc (Doctor John Long) as part of an illegal black market for medical services. The setting is a society where free, comprehensive medical treatment is available for anyone so long as they qualify for treatment under the Eugenics Laws. Preconditions for medical care include sterilization, and no legitimate medical care is available for anyone who does not qualify or does not wish to undergo the sterilization procedure (including children over the age of five). These conditions have created illegal medical services in which bladerunners supply black market medical supplies for underground practitioners, who generally go out at night to see patients and perform surgery. As an epidemic breaks out among the underclass, Billy must save his city from the plague."The Bladerunner by Alan E. Nourse", Kirkus Review, October 1, 1974. Accessed October 10, 2017. ===== Seabert is about a boy named Tommy, an Inuit girl named Aura, and their "pet" whitecoat seal Seabert. After Seabert's parents are killed by hunters, the three band together. They go on adventures in which they encounter more hunters and poachers (including Tommy's Uncle Smokey, his bumbling henchmen Carbonne and Sulfuric, and a villain named Graphite) and save various animals from harm. ===== This is the first in the series of two novels based in this universe. The book deals with two warring gangs, named the Volsons and the Connors. Each controls a large portion of London, since the city was blockaded from the outside world. Val, head of the Volsons, wishes for peace between the two and offers his daughter Signy as Conor's wife in order to broker a treaty. His hopes are to unite London and destroy the half-men who occupy the outer rim of London. Once they have been destroyed, he wishes to rise up against the rest of the world and claim it all in the name of the Volson clan. Standing between these dreams are humans, half-men and even the almighty Gods themselves, who have recently begun to reappear throughout the world. The book is difficult to categorize, with much of it dealing with sci-fi, fantasy, philosophical and even religious elements. ===== John, an eccentric music teacher, takes in Sebastian, a younger writer, ostensibly in an effort to help him, but is really attracted to him. When Sebastian starts dating a woman and it becomes serious, John starts a fight that ultimately results in Sebastian's accidental death. John then finds the manuscript of Sebastian's surprising, unpublished book and decides to publish it as his own. ===== The Amory Wars is set in Heaven’s Fence, a collection of 78 planets and seven stars, held in place by interconnecting beams of energy known as the “Keywork”. Year of the Black Rainbow and Second Stage Turbine Blade narrate the struggle of Coheed Kilgannon and Cambria Kilgannon against Wilhelm Ryan, the Supreme Tri-Mage who launches a war campaign with the intended goal to rule over Heaven’s Fence. The story arcs In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3, Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV: Vol. 1 – From Fear Through The Eyes of Madness, and Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV: Vol. 2 – No World For Tomorrow focus on the heroic journey of Claudio Kilgannon, son of Coheed and Cambria, and his journey to assume the mantle of The Crowing, foretold savior of Heaven’s Fence. Set long before the events of the previous chapters, The Afterman: Ascension and The Afterman: Descension tell the story of Dr. Sirius Amory, a scientist who enters the Keywork in an attempt to understand its mysterious energy. Vaxis – Act I: The Unheavenly Creatures is the first of five story arcs that continue the original Amory Wars saga and follows the story of Creature and Sister Spider, who are incarcerated within the prison planet known as the Dark Sentencer. ===== Having discovered about Monica and Chandler by seeing them going at it from the window of his new apartment, Ross confronts them. He is initially furious at Chandler, mistakenly thinking the latter is taking advantage of his sister, but when he realizes that the two are in love, his anger at them vanishes on the spot. Since he is the last of the group to discover the relationship, Chandler and Monica do not have to hide anything anymore, and they quickly become a much-discussed subject of talks in the group. Chandler starts to freak out about the relationship when his friends start to make long-term- relationship jokes, such as he and Monica having kids and having Ross as brother-in-law. His concerns are amplified when Rachel asks him to consider the fact that Monica does want to get married someday and that she broke up with Richard when she found out that he did not want any more children. When Chandler talks to Monica about all the jokes the friends have kept making, he reacts immaturely by trying to pass off their relationship as "casual". Monica gets angry with him and storms out, avoiding him when the two get within talking range. When he insists to talk to her, she tells him to start figuring out how to solve relationship problems himself. Now in a desperate situation, Chandler tries to make up with her by taking Ross and Joey's advice of making a big gesture. What he manages to do, however, is screw up again – this time in a good but very unnatural sense – by proposing to Monica in front of everyone just to say sorry. Monica calms Chandler down by telling him that he does not have to worry about marriage with her and he is clearly not ready to solve relationship problems by himself. The friends also get to meet Joey's new girlfriend, Katie, who is very nice and energetic – so energetic, in fact, that she playfully punches Joey, who does not appreciate this because she is rather strong and keeps accidentally hurting his arm, but she thinks he is only joking when he tells her this. When he decides to break up with her, he wears six sweaters on top of each other to cushion the punches, but Rachel saves him the trouble of transforming into a punchbag when, after Katie playfully punches her a few times and accidentally hurts her also, she retaliates by angrily kicking Katie's ankle, hurting Katie, who is furious and demands that Joey stick up for her. He refuses, however, hoping that she will consequently break up with him – which she does, without touching him, much to his delight. At his new apartment, Ross receives a visit from Phoebe with an assortment of house-warming gifts. At the same time, the president of the tenants committee, Steve, greets Ross and tells him of Howard, the retiring handyman and a party they are throwing for him. When Ross reasonably refuses to contribute $100 for the handyman he has never even met, Steve thinks that Ross is a cheapskate. He vilifies Ross as this to everyone in the apartment block, causing everyone in the building to hate Ross. Annoyed by this, he tries to organize a party for everyone to explain the reason behind the refusal, but is interrupted by the party everyone is having for Howard next door. He is even more surprised to find Phoebe there, especially when he finds out that she paid the $100 and that everyone likes her. Things get even worse for him when he cuts and eats Howard's cake. Just as he is about to be kicked out of the party, Phoebe jumps in to defend Ross, but ends up criticizing and insulting her new friends, who kick her and Ross out of the party. In the epilogue, the group makes jokes about how Chandler apologized by proposing, and Monica says they will be doing that for a long time based on how insane his actions were. However, Ross then ruins it by doing it on Rachel with the "We were on a break" thing, resulting in the group walking out on him. ===== The Guarani is set back in 1604, a period when Portugal and its colonies submitted to Spanish dominion due to a lack of heirs to ascend to the throne. Alencar takes advantage of this dynastic complication to resurrect the historical figure of Dom Antônio de Mariz, one of the founders of the city of Rio de Janeiro and a pioneer settler. This historical (factual) background, which orients the novel throughout, is set in the first two chapters; then fantasy, both violent and erotic, starts to prevail. D. Antônio establishes himself in a deserted inland region, a few days’ travel from the seaside city of Rio. The land was granted to him through his services to the Portuguese crown, whose legitimacy the nobleman now distrusts. To be politically independent (if not economically) and keep to the Portuguese codes of honour, he builds a castle-like house to shelter his family in Brazilian soil where he lives like a feudal lord with his family and retainers. His family consists of his severe wife D. Lauriana, his angelic fair, blue-eyed daughter Cecília, his dandyish son D. Diogo and the "niece" Isabel, a cabocla who is in fact his illegitimate daughter by an Indian woman. Other people are also attached to his household, a few loyal servants, forty adventurers/mercenaries kept for protection, the young nobleman Álvaro de Sá, an appropriate suitor for his lawful daughter Cecília, and Peri, an Indian of the Guaraní people, who once saved Cecy’s life (as the romantic/romanticised Indian endearingly calls Cecília) and who has since deserted his tribe and family. Peri is the hero who gives title to the book, he is treated as a friend by D. Antônio and Ceci and as a nuisance by Mrs. Mariz and Isabel. The life of the characters is altered by the arrival of the adventurer Loredano (former friar Angelo di Lucca) who insinuates himself into the house and soon starts subverting the other vassals, planning to kidnap Cecília and scheming against the house of Mariz; along with the accidental murder of an Aimoré Indian woman by D. Diogo. ===== From OCLC Worldcat's summary, "As Ash March pursues her destiny with the legendary Sull people, Raif Sevrance seeks a place where he belongs, in a tale set in the wake of deadly clan battles and a darker force from an evil city that threatens their world." The prologue can be read online. ===== Lloyd is a serious young middle-class guy on the make, who wants to marry the boss’ daughter. The problem is getting in to see the boss so that he can ask for her hand in marriage; the office is guarded by a bunch of comic, clumsy flunkies who throw everyone out who tries to get in. When Lloyd gets into the boss’ office, the latter uses trap doors and conveyor belts to expel him; Lloyd then goes to the costume company next door, tries to get in wearing drag (no success), and then in medieval armor – that works, since he bangs everyone over the head with his club, but then he finds out that the daughter has eloped with another suitor. Lloyd decides to be sensible and he settles for the cute switchboard operator (Daniels) instead. The film includes a brief wall climbing sequence. Light-hearted, short, fast-paced. ===== The protagonist of The Third Eye is eighteen-year-old Karen Connors. While in high school, she began dating Tim, a popular classmate. For the first time, Karen begins to feel as though she is finally fitting in. Her mother is pleased that she is dating Tim, as she has always pushed Karen to fit in and be popular. Karen gets a job as a babysitter for the Zenner family, watching Stephanie and her older brother, Bobby. Bobby leaves to go and play with his friends, but doesn’t show up at lunchtime. Karen asks nearby families if they had seen him, and when they all reply they haven’t, she contacts the police. Officer Ronald Wilson arrived to question Karen, and the first thing she notices about him is that he has vivid blue eyes and seems much too young to be a police officer. Wilson does not seem too concerned about the disappearance, saying that Bobby was probably at a friend's house. Karen starts having visions of where Bobby is, seeing he is unconscious and stuck in a box. When Bobby's parents arrive home, Bobby is still missing. The policeman returns to the Zenner home. Karen realizes that the box she saw in her vision is the trunk of a car, and that the car is headed her way. She also realizes that the car she envisions belongs to her boyfriend, Tim. When he arrives to take her home, she confronts Tim, and they find Bobby in the trunk, unconscious, but alive. Afterward, Karen is asked by Officer Wilson if she would be willing to help locate a missing girl named Carla Sanchez. Going against her parents' wishes, Karen agrees to help. Officer Wilson drives Karen to Ms. Sanchez’s house that afternoon. Alone in Carla's bedroom, Karen picks up various items of clothing and toys in an attempt to receive a vision of Carla. After this approach fails, Karen and Officer Wilson leave the Sanchez residence. While in the car with Officer Wilson, Karen receives psychic messages, leading them to a riverbank. They find a pair of sandals and a bicycle that belong to Carla. Karen feels weak and nauseated. Karen then has a vision of the events that led up to Carla's death. Police later find her body in the river. Among the following events, Tim breaks up with Karen and graduates high school. That summer, Karen is hired at a daycare center. On her way to work one day, a lady pulls over and asks for directions to the daycare center. The woman offers Karen a ride, and Karen agrees. The lady driving the car says she is named Betty Smith. When Betty calls Karen by name, Karen becomes suspicious as she had not introduced herself. Believing Betty has other intentions, Karen tries to escape from the car. The doors are locked. Betty drives her to an apartment where a guy named Joe ties her down and hits her head on a stove, knocking her out. After Joe and Betty leave, Karen is visited by a vision of a little girl that she feels compelled to protect. She cannot save her while she is unconscious, so she forces herself out of her slumber to find that she is bound and gagged in the apartment with nobody to save her. She has almost lost all hope when she sees the little girl again, who points to the smoke alarm. (The little girl still has yet to speak or show her face. She keeps her back turned to Karen, so she can only see her blonde hair.) Karen then uses her feet to start a fire, which triggers the fire alarm, getting the attention of the apartment manager. She then learns that Betty and Joe stole most of the babies at the daycare center. One of these babies was Officer Ron Wilson's nephew. Karen's mother wants her to leave on a vacation to San Francisco, but Karen decides to help Ron locate the missing babies instead. Karen and Ron visit psychic Anne Summers, who had been shot because she was closing in on the kidnappings. Luckily, she held up a bag with a broken meat cleaver in it to slow down the shot, which would have hit her in the heart. Karen knows she is the only one who can help locate the children now. Karen then decides to help Ron, and envisions the children on the way to Colorado. Karen and Ron camp out at the state park, where she discovers she is falling in love with Ron. The next morning, they arrive at the house in which the babies are being held. They find out that Betty and Joe stole the babies to illegally sell them. Ron goes up to the house to try to get a look at the babies when Karen has a vision of a dog guarding the house. Ron was terrified of dogs, so Karen had to go warn him. As she gets to him, the dog attacks, Ron shoots him, and Karen screams. Jed then comes out and shoots Ron in the shoulder. They were taken inside, and Karen tries to keep Ron from losing much blood. Soon, the police come and rescue them both, returning all of the missing babies. Karen’s mother was the one who alerted the police, after receiving a vision. Karen's mother then tells her how she has always been psychic too, but does not want to be thought of as a freak, so she tried to hide it. She also reveals that she had never been popular and that her first date was with Karen’s father. She wants Karen to hide it as well and try to find someone to fall in love with her. She also explains that she had seen Karen in visions before she was born, and these visions saved her life twice. Karen then tells her mother that she will find someone who loves and accepts her just as she is, and that she intends to use this gift for the good. ===== Kansas (Hopper) is a stunt coordinator in charge of horses on a western being shot in a small Peruvian village. Following a tragic incident on the set where an actor is killed in a stunt, he decides to quit the movie business and stay in Peru with a local woman. He thinks he has found paradise, but is soon called in to help in a bizarre incident: the Peruvian natives are "filming" their own movie with "cameras" made of sticks, and acting out real western movie violence, as they don't understand movie fakery. ===== The Gigli Concert deals with seven days in the relationship between Dynamatologist JPW King, a quack self-help therapist living in Dublin but born and brought up in England, and the mysterious Irishman, a construction millionaire who asks King to teach him how to sing like the Italian opera singer Beniamino Gigli. As King finds himself reluctantly drawn into the Irishman's request it becomes clear that his subject is mentally unbalanced but, against all expectations, King finds himself able to heal the Irishman and, in the process, himself. Although he rises to the challenge and, indeed, becomes obsessed with it, the Irishman ends up ending the process, finding himself cured of his mental and emotional malady through King's kindness. Left alone, and discovering that his lover, Mona, is suffering from cancer, King tries to kill himself but, in a stunning coup de theatre, instead finds himself miraculously able to sing an aria of Gigli himself. The play ends with King waking up after his suicide attempt and realising that the world is somewhere he is willing to fight on in. ===== Wallace (Dennis Quaid) and Wilder Foudroyant (Arliss Howard) are brothers and pyrokinetics. Ever since a childhood tragedy where they accidentally killed a homeless person sleeping in a friend's "secret clubhouse," they have kept their firestarting abilities a secret. Now that they are grown up and estranged, Wallace (performing as Biff the Clown in a traveling carnival) wants to debut his talents on The David Letterman Show. Wilder has a monotonous job in a minuscule Kwik Foto booth at a dying mall and is a volunteer firefighter. When Wallace brings the carnival to Wilder's Florida hometown, the tension between the brothers over Wilder's oversexed wife, Vida (Debra Winger), explodes. Unable to convince Wilder to forgo his Bingo-calling on her first day of freedom after a year of house arrest for inadvertent arson, Vida goes off with Wally. They share a kiss at a miniature golf course, which bursts into the flames of their passion. Returning home after he and the other firefighters have extinguished the flames at the golf course, Wilder discovers Vida and Wally about to make love on the roof of the house trailer. Wally and Wilder fight it out, with Wally setting the trailer ablaze. All three are jailed, but Wally and Vida are bailed out by Wally's friend and carnival partner, Rex (Jim Varney). In a deep slump, Wilder goes back to the Kwik Foto (surrounded by the carnival) while Vida stays at the firehouse. Wally goads him into fighting for Vida, and their climactic fight sets half the carnival's rides ablaze. The denouement shows Vida and Wilder (the latter now wearing Vida's house arrest ankle monitor) watching Wallace on a successful Letterman reappearance as Dr. Napalm. ===== In 1942 Britain is desperately holding onto Malta. Invasion seems imminent; the Italians and Germans are regularly bombing the airfields and towns. Flight Lieutenant Peter Ross, an archaeologist in civilian life, is on his way to an RAF posting in Egypt, but is stranded when the Lockheed Hudson on which he was a passenger is bombed while attempting to refuel on Malta. Air Commodore Frank, having just lost a photo reconnaissance pilot, has Ross reassigned to him, as that is Ross's speciality. Peter meets Maria, a young Maltese woman working in the RAF operations room. The two fall in love and spend a few romantic hours at the Neolithic temples of Mnajdra and Ħaġar Qim. In the meantime, the situation at Malta becomes desperate. Famine looms, as relief convoys fall prey to Axis aircraft. A crucial convoy is severely mauled by day and night aerial attacks, but enough ships, including the vital oil tanker SS Ohio, reach Malta. Peter proposes marriage to Maria, although they realise that wartime is not favourable to lasting love affairs, as Maria's mother suggests; nevertheless, the young couple remain hopeful of the future. Maria's brother Giuseppe is caught returning to the island from Italy, where he had been studying before the war. He finally admits to being a spy, but tries to justify by saying it is his country and he wanted to end his people's suffering. The RAF holds on, and, along with Royal Navy submarines, is eventually able to take the offensive, targeting enemy shipping on its way to Rommel in Libya. Spitfires are flown in from aircraft carriers to defend the island, while attacks are carried out by aircraft such as Bristol Beaufighter fighter-bombers and Bristol Beaufort and Fairey Albacore torpedo bombers. Then a crucial enemy convoy sails for Libya under cover of poor visibility. Frank needs desperately to locate it; he orders Peter to find it at any cost and to radio in immediately if he does. Peter, flying in his Spitfire, finally spots it, but after he reports its position, he is attacked by six enemy fighters and killed, while Maria in the operations room listens helplessly to his final radio transmissions. When there are no more messages, she picks up Peter's marker from the operations table. Later, a newspaper article reports that Rommel has lost the Second Battle of El Alamein (in part due to supply shortages). ===== Like many of Sagan's novels, this is a story of lost love. A couple meet and move in together, but the woman cannot get used to his life, his working-class existence. She leaves her lover to return to her affair with a man of means. Ostensibly, she is rejecting her lover because she feels stifled by his position in society. But the class differences are metaphor for the quality of the love, with a woman deciding to be with a man who loves her for who she is rather than as an object of affection, merely the focus of a selfish love. She wants to be with the one who doesn't ask her to change. ===== Sam Roffe, President of Roffe & Sons Pharmaceuticals, dies in what appears to be a climbing accident, leaving his daughter Elizabeth (Audrey Hepburn) a billion-dollar empire. Roffe's board members see an opportunity to settle old scores, jockey for higher position, and reap lucrative profits. However, an investigation into Sam's death discloses that it was a murder and that a power struggle is going on within the company. Lead investigator Max Hornung (Gert Fröbe) informs Elizabeth of his list of suspects, which includes her closest advisers and financially strapped family members. During this time, she marries CEO Rhys Williams (Ben Gazzara), but he, too, is identified by Hornung as a suspect. As president, Elizabeth follows her father's wishes and refuses to let shares of Roffe & Sons sell on the world market. Her choice prevents the board members from selling their shares as the company's by-laws prohibit it until all board members agree; on the other hand, her death would allow for a unanimous decision. After several attempts on her life, an international chase across Europe ensues. Hornung is able to connect these murder attempts to a series of homicides of prostitutes, which have been recorded on snuff films using Roffe film stock with a witness in a black Gucci leather coat (several suspects are linked to this coat). Elizabeth returns to her father's villa in Sardinia during a scirocco for protection from the unseen murderer, who sets her house on fire after she begins destroying objects and shouting, "Now try to make it look like an accident!" Williams and one of the shareholders, Sir Alec Nichols (James Mason), both show up to save her, but Hornung figures out that Nichols is the killer and shoots him before he can murder Elizabeth in a symbolic snuff film. ===== Hank Mitchell and his pregnant wife Sarah live in rural Minnesota. One of the town's few college graduates, Hank works in a feed mill, while Sarah is a librarian. When Hank, his older, socially challenged brother Jacob and Jacob's friend Lou Chambers chase a fox into the woods, they stumble upon a crashed airplane. Hank decides to look inside the plane where he discovers a dead pilot and a bag containing $4.4 million in $100 bills. He suggests turning the money in, but Lou and Jacob persuade him not to. Hank then proposes that he keep the money safe at his house until the end of winter. Sheriff Carl Jenkins drives by the area and notices the three men after they hide the money in Jacob's pick-up truck. At Lou's suggestion, Jacob mentions hearing a plane in the area in an attempt to avoid suspicion. After Sheriff Carl leaves, the three men decide to keep the money a secret, but Hank breaks the pact when he immediately reveals the discovery to Sarah. Sarah suggests that Hank return a paltry sum of the money to the plane to avoid suspicion from local authorities. She insists that he should go alone, but Hank takes Jacob with him. Hank walks through the woods to the plane while Jacob waits at the car pretending to change the tire. An old farmer approaches Jacob and asks him if he came across a fox that ran off with a chicken—the same fox that led to the discovery of the plane. While Hank is on his way back from placing the money in the plane, Jacob, thinking that their cover is blown, bludgeons the old man. When the man regains consciousness, Hank suffocates him, then uses the snowmobile to drive his body off a bridge, making the murder look like an accidental death. Sarah finds out that the money was a ransom for a kidnapped girl taken by two brothers, one of which was presumably the dead pilot. The whereabouts of the second brother are unknown. The following night, Lou drunkenly demands his portion of the money from Hank, because he is broke and has spent recklessly since the discovery. When Hank refuses, Lou threatens to go to the authorities, having learned from Jacob about the murder of the farmer. Hank lies to Lou, telling him that the money is not inside his house. He gives him $40 to tide him over, and calms him down by telling him that they are in this together. After giving birth to their daughter Amanda, Sarah advises Hank to frame Lou for the farmer's murder, by getting Lou drunk and recording him making a false confession to the killing. The plan works, although Jacob is dismayed and reluctant to betray his friend. Lou grows enraged when he realizes that they have conspired against him, and he pulls a shotgun on Hank. Jacob grabs his hunting rifle from his truck and kills Lou to save his brother. Hank then tries to calm Lou's wife, who gets a gun and shoots at Hank, who then kills her with Lou's shotgun. Hank stages the scene to make it look like Lou shot his wife and was about to shoot him. He and Jacob tell the police this story, and are able to avoid arrest and suspicion. Because Jacob mentioned hearing a plane in the woods, Sheriff Carl asks the brothers to assist an FBI agent, Neil Baxter, in a search for the missing aircraft. Hank and Jacob meet with Baxter and Carl at the police station. Sarah is immediately skeptical of Baxter, whom she suspects is the brother of the dead pilot, posing as an FBI agent. When she discovers this to be true, she calls to warn Hank, who steals a revolver from Sheriff Carl's office. The four men head into the woods and split up. When he finds the plane, Baxter kills Sheriff Carl, and forces Hank to retrieve the money from the plane. Hank manages to distract Baxter with the small amount of money he had returned to the plane, and he then shoots and kills Baxter. He starts to concoct another story to tell the authorities, but Jacob tells him that he does not want to live with the memories of what they have done, and asks Hank to kill him and frame Baxter for it. When Hank refuses, he threatens to commit suicide, which would implicate them both in the whole conspiracy. After grappling with the decision, Hank kills Jacob with Baxter's pistol. At the police station, Hank tells his rehearsed story to real FBI agents. He is not suspected of any wrongdoing, and is told that the money was part of a ransom and that many of the bills' serial numbers were written down to track the cash. Hank cannot use the money without being caught. He returns home and burns it all, leaving Sarah distraught. In a closing narration, Hank reflects on his losses. Although he tries to move on with his life, the murders constantly haunt him. ===== The homecoming of the title is that of Michael to his home town in Ireland. Set entirely in a pub where he and his friends used to drink the play unfolds in real time, Murphy showing an extraordinary stage sense for the rhythms of drinking as an evening wears on. Michael is an actor who has returned to Ireland after emigrating to America to try to make a career. He has returned to see his old friends, Tom, a contemporary of his, and JJ, an inspirational figure from their youth who, in the time of Kennedy's period in the White House, came to the town and became a sort of subversive guru, challenging the Church and urging the young men of the town to aspire to bigger things. As the play unfolds it emerges that no-one has fulfilled his potential. Michael has failed as an actor and has tried to set himself on fire while in America, JJ is seriously ill and Tom's youthful idealism and intelligence has given way to the savage indignation of a man who feels he has been deserted by his mentor (JJ), his best friend (Michael) his dreams and his life. As everyone gets progressively drunker truths are told and souls are bared. Michael is shocked by Tom's negativity but when he challenges him to leave Tom makes an excuse for remaining in the town. It emerges that Michael's leaving was the thing which broke Tom's heart the most. At the end of the play Michael leaves the pub and the town, telling JJ's daughter, who seems to represent a kind of hope in the play, to pass on his love to JJ. ===== The series closely follows the plot of the novel, in which the Hogfather, the Discworld equivalent of Father Christmas, has gone missing and Death is forced to take his place while Death's granddaughter Susan attempts to find out what happened. ===== This episode is an homage to the traditional multi-camera sitcom, and, specifically, Cheers (which also aired on NBC). Unlike traditional sitcoms, Scrubs uses a single camera setup, no laugh track, and is not filmed before a live studio audience. During an extended dream sequence, J.D. imagines what his life would be like if it were a sitcom. This sequence was actually filmed in a multi-camera setup with a laugh track and studio audience; as well as featuring low-cut outfits for the female characters, a less realistic hospital set, brighter lighting, broader humor, a fairly contrived plot, and a guest star named Kenny (Clay Aiken). In addition, a featured patient in the episode is fictional Cheers writer Charles James, a combination of Cheers' three creators James Burrows, Glen Charles, and Les Charles. The episode makes repeated comments about these "traditional" sitcoms.(2006) Scrubs - My Own Personal 'Net Thing. Script from the episode (February 16, 2005)(2006) TV Guide. Rough Dispatches(March 10, 2005)(2006) Chicago Tribune. Cheers to "Scrubs" As the episode opens, Carla is trying to compete with the idea of Kylie and J.D.'s relationship, but Turk isn't reciprocating her attempts. A new E. coli scare on the news then results in a huge crowd of people coming to a hospital worried that they are infected. Kelso needs to do some budget cuts, and he figures out he has to fire someone. Dr. Cox bets that he can do it without firing anyone, but after many hours of working, he finds that it is inevitable. The next day at lunch, Janitor points out all the cafeteria workers Dr. Cox shouldn't fire. Finally he points out Kenny, who pours the coffee; he happens to be the newest cafeteria worker. When the show switches to "sitcom mode", a talent show happens at the hospital (with the prize being exactly the same amount that the hospital needs to save). Everyone tries their best, J.D. doing his famous "World's most giant Doctor" act, when finally Kenny sings and wins the money. However, it turns out the sitcom mode is fake and Dr. Cox does have to fire Kenny. Also, J.D. and Turk meet a famous writer for Cheers. It turns out he has lung cancer. In sitcom mode, he lives following the discovery that his chart was mixed up with that of another patient with a similar name ("This chart isn't for Charles James, it's for James Charles!"). While J.D. is saying aloud his thoughts and what he's learned, the sitcom writer faints, to which J.D. responds that this is wrong. The show returns to its normal setting, were the sitcom writer has died. ===== In late fall, three climbers who scaled Shiprock find a corpse, a skeleton in climber's gear, on a nearly inaccessible shelf just below the peak. Acting Lieutenant Jim Chee is trying his hand at administration of the special investigations unit. Captain Largo is pressing them to work on cattle thieving. Joe Leaphorn, retired five months earlier, cautiously approaches Chee with his memory of a missing person case from eleven years before, never solved. Hal Breedlove is a likely candidate, as he was mountain climber always seeking challenges, and Shiprock is a most challenging climb. It is Hal, which news Chee brings to Hal’s widow Elisa on their ranch near Mancos, Colorado. The couple and her brother Eldon Demott had been celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary and Hal’s birthday on a trip to the reservation, including Canyon de Chelly. She inherited the ranch once he was declared dead; Hal got full ownership of it on his thirtieth birthday, just before he disappeared. Chee is engaged to marry Janet Pete, but they have a dispute arising from John McDermott, her former boss and lover. Chee turns his focus to mastering the administrative duties of his job. Rookie officer Bernadette Manuelito is taking initiative on the cattle rustling problems; she asks Lucy Sam to watch and record events near her hogan. Lucy uses the format her late father used in his ledgers, which were started before 1985. Manuelito figures out that Dick Finch, the cattle brand inspector and a law man himself, is the most likely suspect. John McDermott calls Joe Leaphorn to work as a private investigator. McDermott comes out from Washington DC with George Shaw, cousin to Hal and part of the Edgar Breedlove family. Shaw pays for Leaphorn’s time, because the family wants to regain possession of the ranch. Leaphorn gathers information and keeps in touch with Chee. Chee returns to Lucy Sam and on second look, he finds that Hosteen Sam observed three climbers on Shiprock, September 18, 1985, two days before Hal’s crucial birthday. Chee proceeds directly to Hosteen Austin Maryboy, who collects fees from climbers wanting to begin their climb from his property. Maryboy is shot dead, just a few minutes before Chee arrives. Despite great care in his exit, Chee is shot twice through the car door just after he radios his location. Colleague Teddy Begayaye rescues Chee. Neither sees the attacker in the dark night. From his hospital bed, Chee tells Leaphorn that he went to see Maryboy to learn if he remembers the three climbers from that day in 1985. Leaphorn praises Chee for the new facts, which open up the investigation. Leaphorn thinks the Demotts are the most likely candidates for the past death, if it was murder, and for the present shootings of Nez and Maryboy. Both saw the group in 1985. Nez met them at Canyon de Chelly after September 20. Nez survives, so it is important to protect him. Leaphorn uses a helicopter and his friend Rosebrough to take pictures of the climbers’ log atop Shiprock, revealing a third date, September 30, when only Hal Breedlove signed the book, with the Latin aphorism, vita brevis. Chee shows the photograph of the signature to Elisa, who falls apart in tears. Chee goes home to meet Janet Pete, who says she is taking leave to go home and reconsider her life. Leaphorn shows photographs to Amos Nez at his hogan. Nez does not recognize Hal Breedlove. The man he knew as Breedlove is Eldon Demott. Leaphorn drives to a point above Nez’s hogan, where he expects Eldon will come to kill Nez. Eldon arrives and hears from Leaphorn how strong the evidence is to convict him for killing Maryboy and for shooting Chee. Those two would put him in prison for life, and rightly so. Eldon wants to keep his sister out of the trouble Hal and then Eldon have made, and to save the ranch from mining. The shooting of Nez, now of no FBI interest, would become interesting if Nez testifies in court. Eldon reveals that all three went climbing, but Elisa stopped short of the peak. Leaphorn tells Eldon how the situation plays out depends on him. Eldon writes a note to his sister that he did not kill Hal, it was an accident, but leaves the confusion of dates standing. Abruptly, he runs off the edge of the cliff into the Canyon del Muerto. Leaphorn heads home, leaving no evidence of his own presence, and tells Chee, off-duty, what went on. Chee in turn tells him how Officer Manuelito arrested Dick Finch today, caught in the act of stealing cattle in his vehicle. ===== Griffin Moss is an artist living in London who makes postcards for a living. He is unhappy and lonely, though he is unaware of these feelings. His life is changed forever when he receives a cryptic postcard from Sabine Strohem, a woman he has never met. Like Griffin, she is an artist (she illustrates postage stamps) and comes from a fictional group of small islands in the South Pacific known as the Sicmon Islands (Arbah, Katie, Katin, Ta Fin, Quepol and Typ).Bantock, Nick (1991). Griffin and Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. The two begin to correspond regularly. Griffin comes to realize that he is in love with Sabine, who reciprocates his feelings, and that they are soulmates. However, his growing uncertainty as to Sabine's true nature and the changes her presence has caused in his life develop into fear and he ends up rejecting her offer for him to come see her in person. He comes to the conclusion that Sabine is a figment of his imagination, created from his own loneliness. It appears to be true until another postcard arrives from Sabine with an ominous promise that if he will not come to her, she will go to him. In the second volume Sabine moves to Griffin's house in London while he wanders through Europe, North Africa, and Asia, backwards through layers of ancient civilizations — and of himself. In the final volume, the mystery of the two artists deepens and their questions grow more urgent. New obstacles (including a sinister intruder) test the tenacity of their passion, and in each letter or postcard, painting and prose are even more richly intertwined. ===== Doug Stauber is the assistant manager of a branch of Donaldson's, a supermarket chain in Chicago. He believes that he is a "shoo-in" for manager of a Donaldson's that is scheduled for construction just a few blocks away from his home. Everyday, Doug deals with the pressures of being the assistant manager. Among his ordeals are an unruly gang of teenagers loitering around the parking lot, the overwhelming amount of negative comments on the customer survey cards he collects (nearly all of which are caused by the gang's antics), a foreigner who constantly slaps him over a box of Teddy Grahams, and the rumors about him being a former Junior Olympics medalist in gymnastics. Then one day, Richard Wehlner and his family move in from Quebec, and he becomes assistant manager alongside Doug. Since Richard's arrival, it appears that he has replaced Doug as front-runner for the job. But it soon becomes clear that Richard has disadvantages of his own, such as a past substance abuse problem and a tendency to make inappropriate remarks. In one incident, both men are challenged by the board of directors over a sign posted on the deli section window, citing the deli clerk as Employee of the Month for "cutting the cheese". Richard admits being manager on duty when the sign was discovered, and explains that he had not realized that the phrase is derogatory to the American public (claiming that "cracking the cheese" is what Canadians say). The competition between Doug and Richard causes strain on their respective marriages. Doug is under financial pressure to get the job because he has begun to buy a house that he cannot afford if he is not promoted while his wife Jen ponders on going to night school. Meanwhile, Richard's wife Laurie and daughter leave him to temporarily move to her parents' home in Scotland when she sees he is losing control and reverting to his previous behavioral problems. One day, while helping a customer in the parking lot, Doug is hit on the back of the head by a bottle of Yoo-hoo thrown by one of the gang members. In retaliation, he confronts the gang and sprays one of them with mace. Further worsening the situation is an incident in the break room, where a furious Doug throws some frozen Tater Tots toward the trash can and accidentally hits Richard's hand with one; Richard fakes an injury by wearing a wrist brace at work. Days later, Doug gives an apology speech at a local community explaining his actions during the incident and wins the respect of the community, assuring them that a beautiful day should not be spoiled by a few "bad apples". After the meeting, the board of directors, the assistant managers and the community leaders have a brief meeting, wherein Richard inadvertently refers to the gang as "black apples", infuriating the head community leader. After several attempts to eliminate each other as competitors, both Doug and Richard, along with another prospect, are summoned by the board of directors for a final interview. Richard's hopes are shattered when it is revealed that a drug test is required, as he has recently smoked marijuana. Shortly after the interview, Doug is given a call by Mitch and notified that he has landed the job, as Richard failed his drug test and the other candidate is too junior-grade for the position. He celebrates by doing cartwheels and backflips while crossing the street – finally confirming the earlier rumor about himself. Meanwhile, after reuniting with his wife, Richard and his family return to Quebec to his old grocery store, where he is reported to have become the store manager after singlehandedly stopping an accidental fire (which is rumored to have been started by Richard himself). ===== The third part opens with the Nameless Hero and his friends sailing to a new continent overrun with orcs, arriving in Myrtana, the central region of the continent. The hero lost all his belongings from the previous game when his ship is stolen while he's onshore with Milten, Diego, Gorn, and Lester. Presumably this is the source of the orc invasion that was launched on Khorinis during the second chapter. These lands have no physical connection to Khorinis or the ruins of the penal colony. In these mountainous forests the orcs have enslaved the human kingdom with only a few free humans living in the nearly uninhabitable icy northlands of Nordmar and the southern desert of Varant. The hero must decide whether to join the rebellion and stay true to the deposed human king, serve the Orcish usurpers in their quest to topple the last remaining human stronghold, or choose a path that serves his own ends. Throughout the story, he is accompanied by a number of NPCs, some of whom are old friends. While this chapter brings forward friends from the previous title (Xardas, Diego, Milten, Gorn, Lester, Lee, and Vatras) it also introduces two new major characters; King Rhobar the Second (who ultimately was responsible for sending the Nameless Hero to the penal colony in the first game) and Zuben. While the king has a strong past as a bold leader, he now faces a near defeat; his fame is on the decline. Zuben leads the Hashishin that inhabit the southern region of Varant.Gothic 3 manual (all versions). ===== The game's protagonist is Ryu Hayabusa, master ninja, descendant of the Dragon Ninja lineage and current wielder of the Dragon Sword. One year after Ninja Gaiden Black, master blacksmith Muramasa is setting up shop in Tokyo, Japan. A CIA agent named Sonia enters the place and asks for Ryu's whereabouts, until members of the Black Spider Ninja Clan attack the shop and kidnap her. Enter the Dragon Ninja Ryu, who fails to stop Sonia's kidnapping and makes haste around the Tokyo skyscrapers and rescues the agent, who informs him of an attack on the Hayabusa Village by the Black Spider Ninjas, who wish to steal the Demon Statue they possess and protect. Ryu returns to his home and finds his father, Joe Hayabusa dueling with Genshin, leader of the Black Spider Ninja Clan. Unfortunately, the Demon Statue is taken away by Queen of the Greater Fiends and the Ruler of Blood, Elizébet, and Joe urges his son to retrieve the statue at all costs. Ryu travels around the world with Sonia, in pursuit of Elizébet and the Demon Statue, while encountering legions of Black Spider Ninjas, Fiends, and three other Greater Fiends: Alexei, the Graceful Ruler of Lightning; Volf, the Invincible Ruler of Storms; and Zedonius, the Malevolent Ruler of Flame. Ryu tracks Elizébet down to South America, where she offers the Demon Statue to Infernal High Priest Dagra Dai, in order to resurrect the ancient Archfiend, Vazdah. Elizébet duels with Ryu and he defeats her, but Elizébet proclaims her return. An overlooking Genshin explains that the fiends are looking to resurrect the Archfiend who is supposed to emerge from Mount Fuji back in Japan. The mountain is also the place which bound both the Black Spider Clan and The Dragon Lineage. Ryu returns home, cautioning Sonia not to follow him. As Ryu overlooks the fire- brimming Mount Fuji, Ayane enters with the Eye of the Dragon, a gift from Joe Hayabusa, and Ryu equips the relic onto his Dragon Sword, forming the True Dragon Sword again. Heading to the mountain's summit, Ryu finds Genshin waiting for him at the crater's entrance. As Mount Fuji erupts, Genshin reveals to Ryu that he never cared for "tantrums of the archfiend" and that their moment has finally arrived. The two ninjas fight to the death before Genshin falls dead and Ryu leaps into Mount Fuji. Elizébet appears over a deceased Genshin looking to revive him as a fiend as Ryu descends into Mount Fuji. Ryu fights past hordes of Fiends and singlehandedly defeats Zedonius, Volf, and Alexei, and rescues a captured Sonia. He instructs her to stay put and to not move. Ryu heads into another room and finds a resurrected Genshin, transformed into a Fiend, back for a fourth and final battle. The two ninja battle in another arduous battle ending with Ryu eventually cutting Genshin down, even splitting his face armor doing so. Genshin and Ryu, though mortal adversaries, share a final mutual respect as ninja in Genshin's dying moment. Genshin shares with Ryu that all of his actions were meant to strengthen the Black Spider Clan as a whole (his cause all along) and has no regrets of pursuing that. He acknowledges Ryu as a great warrior, and in support of Ryu's cause hands him the cursed blade of the archfiend for use before dying. A furious Elizébet appears, and chastises the Black Spider Ninja for losing, even with his power. Ryu attacks Elizébet, and angrily cuts her down to red dust with the combination of his own dragon sword and Genshin's blade of the archfiend. He states that the overlord had more to live for than she ever would. Traveling deeper into the Underworld, Ryu confronts Dagra Dai, who is nearly finished with the Archfiend's resurrection, and defeats him. As a last resort, the Infernal High Priest offers his life to Vazdah, and the Archfiend is reborn. Ryu takes down the monstrosity and heads to the surface with Sonia, but a drop of his blood from an open wound accidentally spills onto the fiend and revitalizes Vazdah, who ascends to the summit in its true form. Amidst an erupting Mount Fuji, Ryu squares off with the Archfiend in a climatic duel to decide humanity's fate and wins. Sonia and Ryu reunite and climb to the top of the mountain, sharing the sunrise together. In a post-credits scene, amongst a field with countless number of blades embedded into the ground, Ryu plants Genshin's Blade of the Archfiend into the ground and bows in respect for the Black Spider Overlord. Ryu, "The Dragon Ninja" takes one last look before taking off into the fog. The plot is continued in Ninja Gaiden 3 and its expansion Razor's Edge. ===== A businessman in India fails to catch his train—called "The Darjeeling Limited"—as it pulls out of a station; he is beaten to it by a younger man, Peter Whitman. Peter reunites with brothers Francis and Jack on board, the three having not seen each other since their father's funeral a year earlier. Francis has recently survived a near-fatal motorcycle accident (leaving his face and head covered in bandages), and thus wishes to reconcile with his brothers on a journey of spiritual self- discovery. He is also covertly searching for their mother, whom the brothers have not seen in many years. With the help of his assistant Brendan, Francis draws up a strict itinerary for the trip and confiscates his brothers' passports to prevent them from getting off the train too early. The three also continue to grieve over their father's death: carrying bags and suitcases marked with his initials, along with other personal items that belonged to him. The train takes the brothers through the countryside and to various Hindu temples, though tension builds as Jack and Peter become infuriated with Francis' manipulative behavior. Francis eventually reveals that they will be meeting with their mother, who has become a nun living at a Christian convent in the Himalayas. Peter and Jack are angry, knowing they wouldn't have come if they had been told this earlier. The atmosphere finally comes to a head, and the three have a physical altercation on the train, distressing the other passengers. The Chief Steward, whom the brothers have repeatedly wronged, has them thrown off with all their luggage. Brendan subsequently quits and returns to the train after giving the boys a letter from their mother; its contents imply that she doesn't want to see them. The brothers thus decide to leave India, go their separate ways, and never return. After hiking through the wilderness, the brothers see three young boys fall into a river while attempting to pull a raft across it. Jack and Francis rescue two of the boys, but Peter fails to save the third, who dies. They carry the body back to the boys' village, where they spend the night and are treated kindly. They attend the funeral the next day and experience a repressed flashback: the three brothers (accompanied by Alice, Peter's wife) are shown heading to their father's funeral, and then stopping to pick up his Porsche from the repair shop, even though the car is not ready. It is revealed that their father's death was a result of him being hit by a taxi, and that their mother did not attend the funeral. Back in the present, the brothers arrive at the airport, but they suddenly decide to rip up their tickets and go visit their mother. They reach the convent, where their mother is surprised but overjoyed to see them (and Francis coyly admits that his accident was actually a suicide attempt). That night, after the brothers confront their mother for abandoning them, the family gathers together in silence and reconnect in love. The brothers awake the next morning to find their mother gone, leaving them their breakfast. They decide not to wait for her to return. At the train station, the three brothers run for another train called "Bengal Lancer" and gleefully discard all their father's suitcases and bags to catch it. On board, Francis offers to return Peter and Jack their passports, but is told instead to hold onto them. ===== Described by Godard as "a fantasy for actor, camera and tape recorder", this film is made up several sketches in which certain actors play several real or fictional roles to a background of rock music. The film is divided into three sections which inter-cross throughout. In each, a group of people search for their proper place on earth. In the first, a group of musicians search for the right sound, the ideal harmony. In the second, a man searches for an ideal society and wonders if he is on the wrong planet. In the third, some travellers search for their destination, as Ulysses did in the bygone days. Each group has its own project, but the story is really about projection (as in film projection) as the essence of man's adventure on earth. A very beautiful voice presents the film, leads it along, prepares for what follows and gives us the illusion of taking part in the art of creation. ===== The fictional memoirs of Forrest "Little Tree" Carter begin in the late 1920s when, as the protagonist, his parents die and he is given over into the care of his part-Cherokee grandfather and his Cherokee grandmother at the age of five years. The book was originally to be called Me and Grandpa, according to the book's introduction. The story centers on a clever child's relationship with his Scottish-Cherokee grandfather, a man named Wales (an overlap with Carter's other fiction). The boy's Cherokee "Granpa" and Cherokee "Granma" call him "Little Tree" and teach him about nature, farming, whiskey making, mountain life, society, love, and spirit by a combination of gentle guidance and encouragement of independent experience. The story takes place during the fifth to tenth years of the boy's life, as he comes to know his new home in a remote mountain hollow. Granpa runs a small moonshine operation during Prohibition. The grandparents and visitors to the hollow expose Little Tree to supposed Cherokee ways and "mountain people" values. Encounters with outsiders, including "the law," "politicians," "guv'mint," city "slickers," and "Christians" of various types add to Little Tree's lessons, each phrased and repeated in catchy ways. (One of the devices the book uses frequently is to end paragraphs with short statements of opinion starting with the word 'which,' such as "Which is reasonable.") The state eventually forces Little Tree into a residential school, where he stays for a few months. At the school, Little Tree suffers from the prejudice and ignorance of the school's caretakers toward Indians and the natural world. Little Tree is rescued when his grandparents' Native American friend Willow John notices his unhappiness and demands Little Tree be withdrawn from the school. At the end, the book's pace speeds up dramatically and its detail decreases; A year or so later, Willow John takes sick, sings the passing song, and then dies. Two years after that, Granpa dies from complications of a fall, telling the boy "It was good, Little Tree. Next time, it will be better. I'll be seein' ye.", before slipping away. Early the following spring after performing her Death Chant, Granma dies a peaceful death in her rocking chair on the front porch while Little Tree is away. The note pinned to her blouse reads: "Little Tree, I must go. Like you feel the trees, feel for us when you are listening. We will wait for you. Next time will be better. All is well. Granma." Little Tree heads west with the two remaining hounds and works briefly on various farms in exchange for food and shelter. The book ends just before the Great Depression after first one and then the other of Little Tree's last companions, two of Granpa's finest hounds, die, signaling his coming of age (Little Red falls through creek ice and Blue Boy dies a while later of old age), after which he moves on with his life, always remembering “The Way” which his grandparents instilled into his soul. ===== The old woman curses the Beast for having a cold heart "Be Our Guest" The final bows. The stage show changed considerably from the original version to the currently running version, causing it to more closely resemble the 1991 film of the same name. However, because the show is condensed to approximately 25 minutes, many cuts and edits are made. The show opens like the Broadway musical: An old beggar woman asks a spoiled and selfish prince if he will allow her to stay in his castle for the night from the bitter cold, in exchange for a single rose; to which the prince turns her away. Because his heart is cold, the old beggar woman turns into a beautiful enchantress who punishes the prince by transforming him in to an ugly, scary, and hideous Beast. Everyone in the castle gets a punishing transformation as well. The prince can only break the spell by learning to love another, and earning their love in return, and failure to do so will cause him to "remain a beast for all time". Years later, Belle is walking in the quiet little French village where she lives. The other villagers agree that Belle is beautiful, but she is also no ordinary character. Gaston, the handsome young hunter of the town, boasts how he loves Belle and asks her to marry him.("Belle"/"Gaston"). Belle politely refuses. Soon though, "under a series of mysterious circumstances", Belle finds herself inside the Beast's enchanted castle. She is confronted by the magical castle inhabitants, Cogsworth the clock, Lumiere the candelabra, Mrs. Potts the teapot, and her son, Chip the teacup. Cogsworth thinks that they made a mistake by allowing Belle inside, but the others believe she could be the one to break the curse. So they throw her a feast and, simultaneously invite her to "Be Our Guest". The Beast abruptly ends the celebration and expresses his fear that Belle could never learn to love him. Belle, on a tour through the castle, enters the West Wing and discovers the rose. The Beast is furious at Belle, because he told her never to enter that part of the castle. All of this causes Belle and the Beast to argue. But the others advise Beast to be a gentleman, because Belle could be the one to break the curse. The castle's charming inhabitants discover that there is "Something There" that wasn't there before ("Something There"), and the two fall in love. Meanwhile, Gaston declares that Belle has rejected him for the last time. He convinces the villagers that the Beast is a monster, and the village is not safe until he is dead. So they decide to kill him ("The Mob Song"). The townspeople take over the castle, ruining everything in sight. Gaston fights the Beast, and Belle appears just to see Gaston make his final blow. Seeing the Beast nearly dead, Belle admits she loves him just as the rose's last petal falls. This breaks the curse, and the Beast is magically transformed back into the Prince. The entire cast returns for a final dance, and declare that the love of "Beauty and the Beast" will thrive forever. Instantly, Belle and the prince reappear in their traditional costumes. ("Beauty and the Beast") During the curtain call, Belle and the Prince give a lucky person in the audience a rose similar to the one in the movie. ===== ===== Kate is struggling in the advertising business in New York City: she cannot move forward despite her talent. Her boss, Mr. Mercer, passes her up for a promotion because she is "not stable enough". Her co-worker, Darcy, invents a story claiming Kate is engaged to Nick, a freelance videographer who lives in Massachusetts, with whom Kate had her picture taken during a friend's wedding. All seems to work out well for Kate and she gets her promotion. After Nick saves a little girl from a fire and winds up in the news, Kate is forced to bring her alleged fiancé to dinner with Mercer and his wife. She asks Nick to "break up" with her. Nick, who already likes Kate, complies to please Kate. Meanwhile, Sam, a colleague that Kate had always wanted, takes notice of her. They have sex twice. As Kate and Nick get to know each other, she starts to like him. The night of the dinner arrives and Kate and Nick are prepared for their "big fight". But, Nick tries to suppress the "fight" by complimenting her and expressing the desire for a future with Kate. However, Kate just wants the "fight" to happen. After unsuccessfully trying to drive Nick into a fight at the dinner table, she pays a restaurant employee to call her number and tries to make it seem like Nick is having an affair with an ex-girlfriend. At first Nick is a bit lost but figures it out and finally plays along. After a week, feeling guilty, Kate admits to Mercer (and several co-workers) her cover-up, stating that she was dressing for the job she wanted, repeating a line that Mercer had used on her earlier regarding her instability. When she tells him she is quitting, Mercer counters by admitting to her how he exaggerated his own past at one point in his life. While he lets Kate keep her job as an ad exec, he also suggests she take a few days off to go to Massachusetts and patch things up with Nick. Kate walks in while Nick is recording a wedding and he rebuffs her attempts to patch things up until she humiliates herself in front of the soon-to-be-married couple, as Nick did in front of her boss earlier. Satisfied that the playing field has been leveled, he makes up with Kate and invites her to the wedding reception as his guest. ===== The ghost of Sir Simon Canterville has been roaming his castle for centuries. After demonstrating cowardice in life, he must find a brave descendant to obtain rest. ===== The film relates the adventures of a young Japanese samurai named Yohei who visited Spain in the 17th century, in a story loosely taking its inspiration from the travels of historic samurai Hasekura. Yohei survived in hiding to the present day due to magical powers ("After centuries of lethargy, he awakes in a World he does not know"), and accomplishes many adventures in modern Spain as a superhero.Gisaku, the Movie ===== One of the characters is Camiel, a gay dentist who marries his lover and the other is Simon (Cees Geel), a heterosexual drugs dealer and lady magnet. They become close friends in the late 1980s, but Camiel does something that interrupts their friendship. After fourteen years Camiel and Simon meet again, but Simon is now terminally ill with cancer. Simon has a daughter, Joy (Nadja Hüpscher) and a son, Nelson (Stijn Koomen). They develop a friendship with Camiel and his husband and after Simon's death Camiel adopts them. ===== Seated in a park, Charlie gives his expert attention to the picture of a pretty girl on the cover of the Police Gazette. Since he doesn't have a girl of his own, Charlie becomes despondent and prepares to drown himself in the park's lake. He quickly changes his mind when an attractive girl approaches. However, she has a sailor boyfriend. Charlie and the sailor begin to fight. Shortly thereafter two policemen become involved in what has become a terrific brick fight between Charlie and the sailor. The brick war features strategic retreats and clever diversionary movements. Eventually Charlie settles matters by pushing the sailor and the policemen into the lake. Chaplin was the only player in Recreation to receive a screen credit. The film was only half a reel in length. A travel short, The Yosemite, made up the other half of the reel. ===== In the play, Avery goes under the name Arviragus, and has made himself a king in Madagascar. He captures the Indian princess Zaida and tries to force her to marry him, but she is in love with a young man named Aranes. There is an offstage fight and Aranes is reported killed; meanwhile, De Sale, who has confided to the audience that he plots to overthrow Arviragus and make himself king, ingratiates himself with Zaida. De Sale's fellow plotters are bumbling incompetents and their plans are easily thwarted, followed by a comic trial scene. It is revealed that Aranes is Arviragus' long lost son, whom he recognizes from a bracelet, and that he is still alive, his friend Alvarez having died in his place. The plotters are executed and Aranes and Zaida marry. ===== Svend is barbecuing and his fiancée, Tina, is bothering him about the food. Bjarne arrives and is introduced to one of Tina's co-workers, Beate. Bjarne does not take to Beate's flirtation and kicks her under the table until she leaves crying. The next day, as Holger tells a customer a story about sausages, Svend complains to Bjarne that they could open a better butcher shop. Holger insults them and tells Svend that his marinade is terrible. Soon thereafter, Svend meets with a realtor, "House Hans", and Bjarne at a closed butcher shop, and decides to purchase it and open his own shop. Bjarne visits the sanatorium where his brain dead brother Eigil is being kept alive on machines, and tells Nurse Juhl to take him off life support because he needs the money he inherited. Svend and Bjarne discuss hiring an electrician to fix the lights in the meat freezer, and business cards. Bjarne then visits the cemetery where his parents and wife are buried. Astrid introduces herself and Bjarne invites her to the opening of his shop. On opening day, no customers and Svend accidentally locks up an electrician in the meat freezer. The next morning Holger arrives and mocks Svend, and makes an order for a dinner party to spitefully be his first customer. Svend reveals that he prepared the electrician's leg and sold it to Holger. The next day, when Bjarne arrives, a line of patrons stretches outside the door of the shop. "Svend's chicky-wickies", as he calls the human flesh marinated in his special sauce, are extremely popular. Bjarne is reluctant at selling the rest of the body, but because of the great demand he gives in. Hans arrives, who has just lost his job, and Svend locks him in the freezer. Svend tells Bjarne that he found a dead body. A television news crew reports a story about the new butcher shop. Meanwhile, at the sanatorium, the doctors turn the life support machines off on Eigil, who wakes up. Eigil comes to the shop, but Bjarne hides and makes Svend send him away. Svend begins dating Beate and when Tina tries to win Svend back, he locks her in the meat freezer. Reverend Villumsen tells Holger that the chicky-wickies tasted like his wife. Bjarne grows tired of Eigil's visits to the butcher shop, and talks to Nurse Juhl, who recommends that he seek a psychiatrist. He tells her to stop by the butcher shop and speak with Svend. The next day Svend tells Bjarne that the nurse was his latest victim, and to throw out the rotten chicken meat. Eigil takes the dead chickens to the cemetery to bury them, where Astrid finds him and befriends him. Bjarne then visits Astrid at the church and leaves when he sees Eigil there. At the church, as Astrid and Eigil are tending to the chickens, Reverend Villumsen and Holger summon Astrid to the reverend's office. They tell Astrid that they believe the butchers are murdering people, and Holger reveals the details of the accident that claimed Bjarne's family. Astrid takes Eigil to the butcher shop with some dead chickens. When Bjarne does not find Astrid at the church, he stops by the butcher shop. He finds out that Svend locked Astrid and Eigil in the freezer. Astrid leaves upset, and Bjarne threatens Svend, who escapes. The next day Svend does not show up at the shop and Bjarne opens without any human meat to sell. Instead, he prepares "chicky- wickies" with regular chicken. Holger and the public health authorities arrive and shut the shop down. Svend arrives and nearly confesses to the murders. The health authorities do not find any evidence of foul play and leave. Out in the alley, Bjarne tells Svend that the chicky-wickies were popular because of the marinade, rather than the fact that it was human flesh. ===== Superman is sent to Earth by his parents just as the planet Krypton blows up and is later raised as Clark Kent by a farm couple. They discover that he has great powers so they send him off to use his powers to help those in need. After his foster parents die, the Man of Steel heads to Metropolis under the bespectacled guise of Kent and joins the staff of the Daily Planet in order to be close to the news. Soon after he is sent out to get the scoop on a new rock that a man has found that he calls Kryptonite, and Clark passes out; then and there Superman discovers that his weakness is Kryptonite. Whenever emergencies happen, he responds in his true identity as Superman. This first serial revolves around the nefarious plot of a villain who calls herself the Spider Lady. ===== The story is about a young elvish Princess Apricot (アプリコット ひめ) whose mission is to return to her home - Fountain land, occupied by evil forces of a monster called Scorpion (スコーピオン), before the total eclipse of the Sun. If she manages to sit on a throne before the eclipse, she'll release a great power of water that will destroy the occupators. To prevent that from happening, she's been kidnapped by mysterious cloaked man called Hoodman (フードマン), and his, rather clumsy, aides: Jack (ジャック) and Franz (フランツ). Their mission is to keep Princess Apricot away from her home land until the eclipse. In the first episode, she escapes from the villains by sending a message with her trusty mechanical bird, Speak (スピーク). The Princess's urgent call for help is accidentally heard by inhabitants of Bosco Forest: a brave and adventurous Frog (フローク), intelligent and ingenious inventor Tutty (タッティ), and cowardly, but kind and warm-hearted Otter (オッター). They save her from the villains, and the princess becomes a part of Bosco crew. Guys decide to help Apricot finding her way back home, before it's too late. On their way to Fountain land they get into myriad of adventures, where they prove their desire and ability to help and protect those who are in need, and where their own relationships between each other flourish and develop into strong friendship and love. ===== The story of Gunnerkrigg Court involves several different ongoing plot arcs. The main story is that of the protagonist, Antimony Carver, and her deepening involvement in the intrigues between Gunnerkrigg Court and the Gillitie Wood, the forest outside Gunnerkrigg Court; she is accompanied throughout the storyline by her friend and classmate Katerina Donlan and her companion Reynardine, a demon living within her stuffed animal. As the story progresses, Antimony and her companions also slowly learn more about their surroundings, the relationship between Gunnerkrigg Court and the Gillitie Wood, and the beings they encounter. The story begins when Antimony builds a robot to transport a mysterious shadow into Gillitie Wood, the forest outside Gunnerkrigg Court. Antimony: "As I was forbidden from setting foot off school grounds, I could not walk Shadow 2 to the Gillitie Wood myself. There was only one sensible resolution to this problem. I must construct a robotic walking device which will provide you with transit across the bridge!" Several chapters later in the comic, and apparently several months later in the story's timeline, the robot reappears on the bridge outside Gunnerkrigg Court; being controlled by a malevolent creature from Gillitie Wood, it pushes Antimony off the bridge when she goes out to it. Antimony spends a night at the banks of the river below the bridge, and encounters a ghost, before she is rescued by Kat and taken back to the school. Her brief time outside Gunnerkrigg Court, though, sets off a dispute between Gunnerkrigg Court and the Gillitie Wood. Not long after Antimony's return, the Court is visited by Coyote, a god from the Gillitie Wood, and General Ysengrin, the being who caused the robot to attack Antimony at the bridge. They express anger over the robot's visit to the forest, and over the damage Antimony caused when she left the Court. Ysengrin: "This was recently found on our side of the Annan Waters." Mrs. Donlan: "It's one of those birds!" Ysengrin: "It had been there several months. By the time I discovered it, it had already rooted itself into the shore and caused considerable damage to the cliff face." Headmaster: "Where do you wish to begin, General?" Ysengrin: "Perhaps with the death of one of our people. At the hands of Sir Eglamore, no less." During the time that the robot is gone, Antimony meets a creature called Reynardine, who tries to take over her body but, by accident, instead becomes trapped in the body of a stuffed animal she carries; and becomes subject to her command. Because of her relationship with Reynardine and the events with Coyote and Ysengrin, Antimony is nominated to begin training to become a medium, one of the individuals who moderate disputes between the Wood and the Court and communicates with etheric beings, a position last occupied by her mother, Jones: "Usually, individuals who can remain unbiased and objective are chosen as mediums. In the interests of diplomacy they undertake a negotiative role when the need arises." and she learns to use her innate etheric abilities, including fire manipulation and astral projection. From Coyote, Antimony she learns that in the past Coyote had granted some of his powers to Renard (called later Reynardine) and Ysengrin. Antimony: "Why were you looking for Renard in the first place? Why bring him here?" Coyote: "I sought to make him into a powerful being such as myself!" He had given Ysengrin "power over the trees" and given Reynardine the power to take bodies, but bodies that Reynardine took always died after he left them Coyote: "For some reason, when Renard had the ability [to take bodies], any body he took that was not his own would die when it was used up." and Ysengrin was hardly strong enough to stand without the help of Coyote's tree armor. Reynardine had been in love with Antimony's mother, Surma, Coyote: "I wouldn't be surprised if he cared very deeply about you, [Antimony]! You see, Renard fell desperately in love with Surma!" and had used his power to steal a young man's body and woo Surma; the man died, however, and Reynardine was imprisoned in Gunnerkrigg Court until the events surrounding his first meeting with Antimony. Coyote: "[Reynardine] soon runs away! He steals the body of a young man and disappears into the Court, looking to woo the fiery Surma. We heard he was captured, tricked! ... and I did not see him again until last summer." She also learns that her mother was a psychopomp and the descendant of a fire spirit. It is suggested that the powers Antimony has are passed from mother to daughter, at the cost of the mother's life. Antimony ends the medium training, but the position as medium from the court is offered to other of the trainees, Smitty. Instead, Coyote offers Antimony to replace Ysengrin as the medium from the forest to the court, and she starts regular training under the guidance of Ysengrin, who she learns is in a constant state of anger towards the court but is partially brainwashed and kept in check by Coyote. Gradually, Antimony and Kat discover the events that led to the creation of the ghost, which is the remnant of a woman named Jeanne, a formidable swordswoman who was amongst the founders of the court. After the original fallout between the court and the forest, she kept a romance with a forest elf, spurning the attentions of Diego, another of the founders of the court and a technological genius. Enraged, Diego plotted to include Jeanne in a system to protect the court, for which he created an arrow that killed her lover and trapped her soul into a ghost, tying it to the river separating the court and the forest. Jeanne's ghost has resisted attempts from the psychopomps to collect her soul, and kills all who attempt to cross the river without the bridge. Antimony's father Anthony suddenly returns to the court as a professor. He finds out that Antimony has been copying Kat's homework in most of her classes, and punishes her by making her repeat a school year. Antimony later finds out that the court is displeased by her closeness with the forest creatures and brought him back in an attempt to control her. Trying to control her rage at these events, she severs the link to her emotions and fire powers. After a long period regaining her powers and getting back in touch with her personality, Antimony enlists the help of several of her friends to recover Diego's arrow and free the souls of Jeanne and her lover. They manage to do it, but in the process Smitty is mortally wounded by Jeanne. Antimony strikes a deal with the psychopomps in which they spare Smitty's life in exchange for her commitment to become a psychopomp in the future. Coyote, aware that the river can now be crossed freely, cedes his strength to Ysengrin, who is suddenly overwhelmed by rage and devours Coyote, fusing with him to become a single creature that names itself Loup. Loup attacks the court using seeds dropped in Ysengrin's first visit to the court and destroys several of its protections before being eventually rejected. Antimony visits the forest to confer with him, and Loup tasks her with recovering two parts of Coyote's power that had been sent to the court previously in the disguise of presents. (There exists a third, but Loup is significantly unaware of its presence.) When Antimony returns to the court, she finds out that several months have passed by and a perfect copy of her is occupying her place. Both versions of Antimony are convinced to be the real one, until they confer with a supernatural entity that explains that Loup created a parallel timeline and extracted a copy of Antimony from there. However, when asked to point which one of them is the original, it states that neither of them is. Antimony and her friends manage to recover one of Coyote's parts. However, they need the help of the forest elves to recover the next, and in a fit of spite, Loup forces all the elves onto the court. When they recover the next part, court officials step in and confiscate it from them. In addition to this plotline, the story includes several additional plot arcs interspersed with the main story. One concerns two girls from the Court, Zimmy and Gamma, who communicate with one another telepathically. Zimmy sees hallucinations of monsters which her etheric abilities turn into reality, which she relies on Gamma to dispel. Zimmy: "Yer gonna have ta take Gamma's place.... Gettin' ridda these guys." In one chapter, Antimony and another student, Jack, also become trapped briefly in Zimmy's hallucinatory world, and escape after they "find" Gamma there, who has a calming effect on Zimmy. Another storyline revolves around Kat's attempts to repair Antimony's robot (which had been temporarily taken control of when it pushed her off the bridge), during which time they discover a set of highly complex robots created by Diego. Kat studies the robots and advances in her technological knowledge, eventually being able to replicate Diego's work and advancing it, culminating with the creation of organic bodies for robots that make them capable of sensation. A faction of robots starts a religion centered in Kat, convinced that she is an angel with the gift of giving robots life. It is hinted that this belief is actually altering Kat's nature through the ether, transforming her into a supernatural creature. ===== Having stolen some compromising documents from a powerful and successful entrepreneur/gangster at a party, a man known as Fred escapes from the police and takes refuge in the underground world of the Paris Métro stations and tunnels. There he joins the dwellers and befriends several colourful characters, including others who are living under the subway to avoid police arrest. While the gangster's henchmen try to find Fred, he develops a romance with the gangster's young trophy wife, Héléna. She had originally invited Fred to the party featured at the opening of the film, and is bored with her gilded-caged life. Fred forms a pop band with some of his friends, such as "The Drummer" and Enrico, who compose the songs. While Fred is working on this project, Héléna's powerful husband pressures the police to find the fugitive. One of Fred's sidekicks, The Rollerskater, who has been wanted by the police for a long time, is captured by Commissioner Gesberg. Fred and his friend The Florist rob a train carrying money; The Florist escapes, leaving Fred with the loot. Fred uses money from the robbery to pay off a chamber-music ensemble scheduled to perform in the subway station. His new band replaces them but, at their performance, Fred is searched for by both the police and a henchman of Héléna's husband. The henchman shoots Fred while Héléna is running towards him to warn him of the danger. The film ends with Héléna kneeling beside Fred, who is lying on his back, looking content and singing along with the band. They are playing and being applauded by the audience in the background. ===== The movie starts with sports agent and bookie Vaughn (Wayne Brady) riding through Detroit, Michigan setting up wagers for an upcoming basketball game that he is in charge of. One of the protagonist of the film, Tech (Anthony Mackie) is the frontman of his streetball team (Enemy of the State) and he is determined to take down Jewelz (Phillip "Hot Sauce" Champion) and his team "Platinum". Before the game starts, Tech calls his friend (and the other protagonist) Noah Cruise to participate in the game. Noah is very reluctant but ends up playing after Tech says "Look, you owe me man. You owe me". In the first game, we also see one of Tech's best friends, Up (Lil JJ) rooting for him on the sidelines. During the game, Vaughn explains the game of streetball to his girlfriend Nicki who has come from Los Angeles to visit him. Tech's team ends up losing the game. This is where we see that although they are best friends, Tech and Cruise live in completely different environments. Noah is a naturally talented basketball player who receives an athletic scholarship to UCLA. His mother has died and he has moved from a 7 Mile neighborhood in north Detroit to the prestigious Palmer Woods neighborhood to live with his grandmother. Although he is a skilled player, Cruise wishes to use his scholarship to become a medical doctor. Tech on the other hand, still lives in a run-down Detroit neighborhood where he has to help his mother pay for groceries and pay the bills. Nikki tells Vaughn that she is not fond of the lifestyle he has in Detroit (hosting illegal basketball games and running nightclubs), and tells him that she wants him to live in LA with her. While at work at Foot Locker, Cruise tells Tech that he has two tickets to his college's orientation in California so he invites Tech. A girl named Eboni walks in and invites Tech to a tattoo party. While talking to Ebony, Jewelz and the rest of his team walks in and brag about their victory over Tech's team. While on their lunch break, Vaughn approaches Tech and Cruise in an attempt to persuade Cruise to join the NBA. Cruise has a reputation as one of the best basketball players in the state, so Vaughn tries to recruit Cruise at every chance he gets. Cruise mentions that he has no interest in the NBA and wants to be a Doctor after finishing college. Because of NCAA collegiate rules, a sports player cannot earn money from playing any outside sports. If they do, their scholarship is revoked (which is why Cruise was so reluctant to play the first basketball game in the beginning of the film). Vaughn mentions that although Cruise didn't directly take any money, Vaughn paid Tech and Tech paid the other members on the team. Cruise leaves out of anger but Tech calms him down and invites him to the tattoo party that Eboni invited Tech to. At the party, Eboni introduces Tech and Cruise to her friend Vanessa (who turns out to be Jewelz's ex-girlfriend). Vanessa and Cruise are instantly attracted to each other and start dancing. While at the party, Tech tells Eboni his dreams about playing professional ball, and how he is focused on getting his GED. Turns out that Tech never went to the 12th grade, as he ended up going to jail for 4 months for assault. Meanwhile, Cruise tells Vanessa about how he is going to California for college to become a doctor, and then they share a kiss. Tech and Cruise then bring Eboni and Vanessa to Cruise's home where they all relax in the pool. Cruise goes behind Tech's back and gives his second ticket to the orientation trip to Vanessa instead. When he tells Tech about it, Tech is not upset because he also asked Eboni to go with him as well. Tech goes to Up's home to invite him to play basketball. In order for Tech to raise money for the California trip, they run a scheme against other players where they pretend they do not know each other and Up dresses up as a nerdy kid on the sidelines and Tech challenges other players by saying "I bet me and four- eyes over there can beat anybody". As the days go by, they continue doing this and it works in their favor as they travel to different basketball courts doing it. Cruise and Vanessa go out to dinner where she reveals she is pregnant, which excites Cruise. Vaughn suddenly appears and tries to convince Cruise some more to join the NBA, while Vanessa is hearing the entire conversation which causes her to want Cruise to join the NBA as well. Vaughn's attempt is unsuccessful and Cruise and Vanessa then leave. Meanwhile, Tech and Up's strategy gets compromised when a group of guys recognize them from a different court and catch on to their scheme. The guys try to beat up Tech and Up but they manage to escape. While in LA Tech is performing in a commercial that he was offered a few weeks back from a casting director. After the shoot is done, one of the workers tells Tech that he is not going to be in the commercial and that the work he did was simply stunt-double work for someone else. He goes back and ram-shacks his trailer and then storms back to the hotel with Eboni. Vanessa and Cruise have lunch where Cruise proposes to Vanessa and out of excitement, she asks him is he going to play in the NBA. Cruise tells Vanessa the deep reason why he doesn't really like basketball and would rather be a doctor - The night Cruise's mother is in the hospital dying, when he arrived to the hospital, there was a doctor that recognized him and said how he loved watching him playing basketball and that he remembers a 40-point game that Cruise had. Cruise mentions to Vanessa "my mother is laying there dying, and all he can talk about is me scoring 40 points. I don't know, I guess in the grand scheme things, basketball just isn't that important to me". Vanessa reminds Cruise that he should be scared that Vaughn will tell the media that Cruise played in one of his illegal basketball games. But Cruise reminds her that since he didn't play for money, Vaughn wouldn't gain anything from telling. Tech tells Eboni to "play her role" and that he thinks Eboni is only with him because he paid for her to come to LA and she doesn't truly like him. Eboni then slaps Tech when he says that her life wasn't anything special before she met him. Cruise and Vanessa arrive and Tech tells Cruise to mind his business when he asks what happened at the commercial. Vanessa defends Cruise and tells Tech that the only reason he is friends with him is because he is jealous of Cruise and wants his lifestyle. Tech tells Vanessa that Cruise wouldn't have his lifestyle if it wasn't for him. The big secret is finally revealed. Tech was sent to jail for 4 months because one night when he and Cruise were at a party, Cruise became very drunk and assaulted a rich guy. Because Tech did not want Cruise grandmother's heart to get broken, he took the blame for Cruise and went to jail instead. This is also why in the beginning of the film, Tech told Cruise "you owe me" when Cruise did not want to play in the streetball game in fear of losing his scholarship. Tech then leaves by himself to go back to Detroit. When Cruise returns to work at Foot Locker, his manager tells him that Tech was fired for taking time off work without permission. Eboni goes to Tech's house to talk to him, but Up answers the door and lies to Eboni and says that Tech isn't home. Tech then goes to a basketball court to clear his mind, at which point Cruise arrives to apologize. Tech mentions that what Vanessa said in the hotel was 100% true and that he is jealous of Cruise because he has "the gift" and Cruise doesn't want it but Tech does. Cruise then tells Tech that somebody reported to the media that Cruise played in an illegal basketball game for money, thus, he lost his scholarship. Tech asks him that since he lost his scholarship, is he going to accept Vaughn's offer and go to the NBA, but Cruise denies and says that he is going to community college and then transfer to university afterward as he still wants to be a doctor. Tech tells him that he is going to community college as well as he finally passed his GED test. Cruise agrees to play on Tech's team in the next basketball game, then leaves and goes to Vanessa's house. At Vanessa's home, Cruise tells her that he lost his scholarship and that they won't be moving to Los Angeles. Vanessa mentions that it's not that big of a deal because now he can join the NBA. She is stunned when Cruise tells her that he is not going to the NBA either and that he will stay in Detroit and go to community college. Vanessa instantly says she's not interested in the relationship anymore. She also tells him that she was wrong about being pregnant by him and that the baby belongs to Jewelz. Vanessa openly admits that she has been playing Cruise and that she knew all along that he wasn't the father. But since Cruise came into her life with a free- trip to Los Angeles and the opportunity to become a basketball star, she chose to be with him. Cruise drives home heartbroken and ends up getting into a motorcycle accident. In his hospital bed, Cruise softly whispers to Tech how Vanessa lied to him. The next day Tech storms in to the nail salon where Vanessa and Eboni both work and tells her how he knows that she was the one that told the media that Cruise played in the illegal basketball game vaughn held. Vanessa denies the accusation but Tech knows she is lying and leaves. Tech and Eboni then go to a wagering shop and Tech bets $10,000 that Enemy of the State will beat Platinum in the next game. Tech received the $10,000 in the mail from the commercial he did back in Los Angeles (revealing that even though he won't physically be in the commercial, he still got paid for the work he did). Tech is then having a meeting with his team at a basketball court. Vaughn arrives and tells Tech that he heard about the $10,000 bet, and he returns the money to Tech and tells him the bet is off. The bet was that if the Platinum team scores over 11 points, then Tech loses the bet. Even if Platinum loses the game, if they score over 11 points, then Vaughn wins the $10,000. Vaughn tells Tech that he can't beat Jewelz' team because they haven't lost a game in three years. Tech instantly changes the subject and brings up how Vaughn was the mastermind behind Cruise losing his scholarship. Vaughn states how he didn't say anything to the media, but Tech figures out that even though Vaughn didn't directly say anything, he was aware of Vanessa's gold-digging lifestyle and that's why he talked to Cruise about the NBA in front of Vanessa (because he knew that Vanessa would tell the media instead- which she did). Vaughn silently admits that Tech is right and he accepts the bet. At the basketball game, Up takes Cruise's spot on the team and Tech wears Cruise's jersey. The final possession comes down to Enemy of the State leading the game 19-11. Up makes the final 2-pointer and wins the game for Enemy of the State 21-11 (since Platinum didn't score more than 11 points, Tech wins the $10,000 bet as well). After the game, Vaughn offers Tech a spot as one of his players under his management and how they can make so much money together because "Great minds think alike". Tech corrects him and says that "Great minds think for themselves", and uses the analogy of how Cruise wanted to get an education and be a doctor, but everybody else wanted him to join the NBA. Tech declines Vaughn's offer and then walks out of the basketball arena. In a voice-over "Where Are They Now?" segment, Up reveals what happened to everyone afterwards: Vaughn - Vaughn was really bothered that Tech did not accept his offer. Therefore, he sold his nightclub, shut down the basketball arena, and moved to Los Angeles to be with Nikki Reed. Jewelz - Jewelz broke his ankle in a streetball game and ended up opening up a strip- club. Turns out Jewelz was not the father of Vanessa's child either. Vanessa - Vanessa had 2 more kids and still works part-time at the nail salon. Cruise - Cruise got out of the hospital with a clean bill of health. Graduated from community college, and then moved to Atlanta Georgia to attend Morehouse School of Medicine. Eboni - Eboni moved to New York and got a job as a make-up artist for commercials and television shows. Up also says that she is still seeing tech as well. Tech - Played basketball for the team at his community college and got the attention of some sports scouts. These scouts helped Tech get a spot on the El Madrid team in the Euroleague. Up - Went on to play for Osborne High School, where he earned honorable mention All-Metro League accolades in his sophomore year as well as academic all-city accolades. ===== The film begins at night with Sacha on a balcony on the south side of the River Thames in London, overlooking Parliament. Sacha smokes while his valet Trevor helps him dress. Sacha leaves the apartment block in his silver Mercedes SL480 (a reference to the Mercedes 450 SL Convertible Richard Gere drives in American Gigolo), crossing Westminster Bridge to a date. Sacha first meets Joy, an ageing assistant in a publishing company, then Lady James, a powerful government minister. Sacha dines and dates elderly clients (all over 50), sometimes providing something more. Meanwhile, Trevor goes about his business as both Sacha's valet and his pimp, sourcing the clients and booking hotel rooms. One night, Sacha injures himself "on the job" in a swimming pool, so trains Trevor as his temporary replacement. Trevor is a surprise hit as a gigolo, and the pair go into competition. ===== In this story, a ship at sea is attacked by a giant, eel-like sea monster. The story is told from the point of view of the sole survivor, a young apprentice. The creature is aboard the ship for several days and gradually kills and/or eats the remainder of the crew. A second apprentice eventually succeeds in killing the creature, but he is killed in the process. The end of the story is presented using a literary device in the form of a report from another ship, who has rescued the sole survivor. They validate his story, finding the ship damaged and the crew missing or dead. This story was adapted into a comic by Gary Gianni in The Dark Horse Book of Monsters by Dark Horse Comics. ===== Gabe Wallach is a graduate student in literature at the University of Iowa and an ardent admirer of Henry James. Fearing that the intellectual demands of a life in literature might leave him cloistered, Gabe seeks solace in what he thinks of as "the world of feeling". Following the death of his mother at the opening of the novel, Gabe befriends his fellow graduate student Paul Herz. The novel Letting Go is divided into seven (7) sections: 1\. "Debts and Sorrows" Having served in the Korean War after college, Gabe Wallach is finishing his military service in Oklahoma when he receives a letter his mother wrote to him from her death bed. After reading the letter Wallach places it in The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James. The narrative then skips forward to a year later when Wallach is working on a graduate degree in literature at the University of Iowa. Wallach lends his copy of The Portrait of a Lady to a fellow graduate student, Paul Herz. Later Wallach realizes that he left the letter from his mother in the pages of the book and in his attempt to retrieve the book he meets Paul's wife, Libby. Gabe learns from Libby that Paul is teaching classes at another school and realizes how poor the Herzs are. He drives Libby to where Paul's car has broken down on a trip from this second school and witnesses the first of many arguments between Paul and Libby. Libby also reveals to Gabe that she read the letter from his now-deceased mother. This is the beginning of the several instances where the characters begin to imagine the life of the other and believe that they understand it completely based on very little actual evidence. During this opening section, Gabe also communicates with his father. Gabe, as narrator, paints his father as a weak and needy man although he is a successful dentist in New York. During phone conversations Gabe's father nearly begs him to return home and questions his son about why he would go so far from New York to graduate school. Alone with a very sick Libby, Gabe kisses her once. Gabe also has a relationship with Marge Howells, an undergraduate from a well to do WASP family who is openly rebelling from her parents. While Gabe is in New York visiting his father, he breaks up with Marge over the telephone. He asks Paul to help move Marge out of his apartment. 2\. "Paul Loves Libby" In section two, Roth tells the story of Paul and Libby's courtship and the early years of their marriage. They meet while both of them are students at Cornell University. Paul is the only child of Jewish parents in Brooklyn, NY. Paul's father has failed at a number of businesses but Paul is recognized as a smart and gifted child. Libby is the child of Catholic parents. Neither Paul nor Libby is very serious about their religious backgrounds and have no problem courting each other because of it; however, both sets of parents are upset by this. Over Christmas break Paul tells his parents about the engagement. They react poorly and end up convincing Paul to speak with his two uncles. One of them, his Uncle Asher is a lifelong bachelor whom most of the family pities because they don't think he can find someone to marry. Paul, however, learns that Asher just does not want to be married. Asher has had a long series of sexual encounters while single and has no desire to be married. The blunt language of Asher is the first, and perhaps the most dominant, example in this novel of the frank sexual dialogue and discussion that Roth would later become renowned and notorious for. Faced with many conflicting opinions, none of which he really wants to listen to, Paul decides to go ahead and elope with Libby on Christmas Eve. Soon after their marriage, the couple learns that Libby's father will no longer support her. Eventually they end up in Michigan, both taking a break from school while they work to save up money. They live in a small room in a boarding house mostly occupied by seniors. Libby becomes pregnant and at work one day, Paul hurts himself in the factory. He tells the factory doctor that his mind was distracted by his pregnant wife. The doctor responds by giving him the name and number of a doctor who will perform abortions. After much discussion and a few arguments, Libby gets an abortion. 3\. "The Power of Thanksgiving" 4\. "Three Women" 5\. "Children and Men" 6\. "The Mad Crusader" 7\. "Letting Go." ===== Emotionally devastated by the death of his uncle, Boston carpenter Jack O'Toole (McIntyre) writes a play inspired by the man's wake. When nobody will produce the play, Jack quits his job to produce it himself, imagining that this play will give a new start to the strained relationship Jack has with his father. But the only stage Jack can afford is in the back room of a neighborhood pub. In this humble environment, Jack pulls together a theater company of sorts and brings his story to the stage, and in the process he brings together his family and friends and helps them move beyond their loss. ===== A mysterious door and the sound of a bell ringing lead the Doctor and Evelyn from a spaceship in the year 2197 to a train in 1952. Why does Evelyn keep hearing the words "Time's End"? ===== A yakuza, in love with a TV reporter, comes to Barcelona, Spain, where she's making a reportage on what's the foreigners' idea of the Japanese people, and how Japanese people see themselves; during her speech, she makes a parallel between modern day Japan and the ancient Carthage, saying that the Carthaginians were wiped out by the Romans because of the same attitude Japanese people have nowadays, and because economic superiority brings war, and in the end loses to military strength. Suddenly there's an earthquake, and the ghosts of the Carthaginians bring the group (the two yakuza, the TV reporter and some university students) to the future, when the sea level has increased and all the islands which compose the Japanese archipelago have been submerged; the Japanese people have thus emigrated in the other countries, and they're now scattered around the world, and in particular in Europe, where after the cataclysm a dictatorship has been established, they've become slaves and bandits. Japan is long gone, and Japanese people are lost and oppressed; but among the newcomers, desperate of what they learn, the yakuza, who mostly wishes to protect the woman he dearly loves, has a dream: Japan can be refounded, if the Japanese people come together to fight for it. ===== Due to their paranormal abilities, two young brothers are cast out by their parents and given into the custody of a research center. They escape fifteen years later, and soon learn that they will play a pivotal role in the coming "Upheaval". ===== The play concentrates on the power struggle between Edward I and Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, also glancing at the reign and fall of John Balliol. The play's presentation of Llywelyn's life while in rebellion against Edward is based on the legend of Robin Hood. Although some sympathy is extended to the Welsh the playwright effectively endorses the aim of uniting Britain by force. Heavily influenced by ballads, the play is rambling and episodic. It has been argued that the text is corrupt and that Peele did not write certain scenes, particularly a (ballad-based) deathbed confession by Queen Eleanor that of all her children, only the last, Edward of Caernarfon, is her husband's. The first editor to break the play into scenes was Arthur Henry Bullen.Hook, 65. The following scene breaks are based on Frank S. Hook's 1961 Yale University Press edition (spelling of character names is based on the original): ===== Wendy, Billie, and Ann are seniors at an alternative private school; they spend all their time with fellow students Jonah, Price, and Robert. The six have been friends since elementary school and their friendship has become a six-person polyamorous relationship. They swap sex partners each week; their loyalty is to the group, not to one person. After school orientation, Wendy meets Sean, a new senior who moved from Chicago; he finds out about her "inner geek", and she quickly recognizes a kindred spirit. Soon their friendship becomes romantic, and Wendy is torn between her genuine affection and desire for Sean, and her commitment and belief in the group. Wendy starts to test the boundaries of her vow to her friends, and Billie realizes that she is going to have to fight to keep her best friend; which should not be a problem, since each of the teens has collected a box full of mementos from their sexual experience. If Wendy tries to leave, Billie can destroy her reputation and relationship in a heartbeat. While Wendy is trying to decide between Sean and her friends, Wendy's younger brother Nathan meets Sean's mother, Helen, who is waiting a long three weeks to start a new job. Nathan develops a huge crush on her, and he uses his considerable cooking skills to try and woo her. Then Wendy spends another Saturday night with the group, and she is unable to "cheat" on Sean; her hesitation is all that Billie needs to accuse her best friend. After the girls fight, Wendy takes out her frustration on a random couple who keep making out in front of her house. Ryan, hearing that Wendy is out of the group, tries to be friends, but Wendy is conflicted. Sean and Wendy try to be a "normal" couple, but the group quickly tests the relationship: Billie puts the box of memorabilia in Sean's locker. Wendy claims she is not scared; she knows that Sean loves her. Maybe so, but when he sees the photos that document a lifetime of sexual experimentation, he is fed up and offers an ultimatum: Wendy can burn the box, leave the group, and be a normal girl, or they can break up. Wendy has gone from one ultimatum to another. When Wendy sees Billie being hassled for being alone by other students, she wants to comfort her friend. Billie invites Wendy back to the group but she tests her—pushing Wendy to publicly ridicule Ryan, a girl who left the group last year along with her boyfriend, Aaron. Billie believes that seeing a really dark side of Wendy will keep Sean away for good, and somehow restore their group. Wendy takes it a step further though, outing everyone's secrets; not just in front of Sean but in front of the student body. Each of the six has some skeletons in their closet, and having them all exposed is going to leave everyone isolated from their pseudofamily of six, and also ostracised within the school. The future (which Billie was planning out 10 years at the beginning of the movie) is a lot less certain - and Wendy is going to be the first one out of the gate in finding something new. ===== In 1955, William Smith (Jeremy Irons), a widower, lives with his nine-year-old son, Danny (Samuel Irons), in a vardo behind the filling station and garage where he works in the English countryside. The land that the station and garage is built upon is coveted by businessman Victor Hazell (Robbie Coltrane), who owns the surrounding land and lives in a large mansion several miles away. He attempts to buy the Smiths' land, but William turns down his offers. Used to getting his own way, he begins a campaign of harassment, trying to force them off their land. Several inspectors from the local council come and assess William's property, and it becomes obvious that Hazell has sent them there by alerting them with false stories. William decides to poach Hazell's prized game pheasants in retribution, using raisins to lure them out, but comes home empty handed; Danny had detected his absence and was relieved to see him return. Afterwards, he reveals to his son that he was out poaching, and had been a regular poacher in younger years, but until now had resisted the urge to poach following Danny's mother's death. Days later, William informs Danny that he will be going out poaching again at night. Danny wakes up during the night, detects his absence (he had promised to be back three hours before), and decides to go and look for him. He heads for the forest at the wheel of a vintage Austin Seven that William had been repairing, but on the way there he passes a police car travelling in the opposite direction. The officers stop and turn around to pursue him after realising that the car was being driven by an underage driver. Danny continues to drive along the windy rural road and manages to shake of his pursuers by darting through a gap in the roadside hedges, and then leaves the car to head for the forest. He then spots two gamekeepers and hides from them, but then he hears them talking to someone in a deep hole in the ground; when they leave to tell Hazell, Danny goes over and finds that the man in the hole is William, who had fallen into there and has a suspected broken ankle. He manages to rescue him by tying a rope from the boot of the car to a tree, and pulling him up. Hazell and his armed game keepers return to find the pit empty, but hear the car starting and give chase, only for Danny and William to speed off into the distance before Hazell and the game keepers can foil them. They are, however, convinced that William was the man who had fallen into the pit. The local policeman, Sergeant Enoch Samways, later receives word from Hazell that William has been poaching on his land and goes over to question him. However, he deliberately falsifies the report in order to claim that William is innocent (his injury is due to "falling down the steps of his caravan"), owing to his dislike of Hazell and the fact that he himself is very much into poaching, despite his position of authority. Meanwhile, Danny has started a new term at school, with a new schoolmaster, Captain Lancaster (Ronald Pickup), a strict disciplinarian who practices corporal punishment and detests lateness and cheating. He has already given Danny 1,000 lines as punishment for being late for school twice. When the headmaster, Mr. Snoddy (Lionel Jeffries), who is secretly rather fond of gin even during school hours, catches him caning Danny after another student whispered to him during class, he gives Lancaster a severe reprimand and tells him he will personally see that he is "out on his ear" if there is ever a repetition of his action; as he had made it clear to him on his appointment that corporal punishment was not permitted in the school. Hazell announces a shooting event and invites several lords and other wealthy businessmen to come and hunt his pheasants, though several mistrust him. William and Danny decide to put a grand plan into action to poach all of his pheasants before the event, embarrassing him in front of the people he wanted to impress. Danny hits upon the idea of using sleeping pills, given to William by Doc Spencer (Cyril Cusack) for his broken ankle, to put the pheasants to sleep. They fill hundreds of raisins with ground-up pills in preparation. The next day, Captain Lancaster catches Danny sleeping in class and makes him run laps around the playground after school as a punishment. He escapes by climbing a wall; Lancaster attempts to pursue him, ripping his trousers in the process, and is caught in the act by Mr Snoddy. Lancaster resigns out of sheer frustration, much to Snoddy's delight. Danny's plan goes off without a hitch; soon, the garage is filled with sleeping pheasants, whilst the villagers look on in amazement. Suddenly, Hazell and his shooting party arrive there, just as most of the pheasants start to wake up, and Hazell threatens to have Danny and William arrested for poaching and trespassing. Sgt. Samways arrives and, after being rudely insulted by Hazell, informs him and the crowd that no crimes have been committed; the law states that game-birds belong to the owner of the land they are on, which in this case is William. Angry and frustrated, Hazell drives off, amid jests from the locals, and loses the respect of his shooting party due to the lack of pheasants to shoot. Afterwards, Tallon, Hazell's putative partner in the new town scheme, reveals to everyone why Hazell had really invited them: so he could unveil his grand plan of building a new town on the land he owns, which would wipe out the village. Without owning the Smiths' land, his plan can't go ahead. William, Danny, and the rest of the villagers celebrate this news and Danny, as an act of kindness, releases the pheasants and lets them fly away to pastures new. ===== Victor Hasselborg, a 22nd-century private eye, is hired by a Syrian businessman to track down his missing daughter Julnar Batruni, who it turns out has run off with adventurer Anthony Fallon. Immediate complications ensue when Hasselborg finds himself falling for Alexandra, Fallon's abandoned wife. Discovering that the fugitives have gone off-planet, he tracks them to the planet Krishna, an Earth-like world of the star Tau Ceti with humanoid inhabitants but a medieval culture. Disguising himself as a native Krishnan, Hasselborg goes after them, little- knowing he has entered a web of interplanetary intrigue, spying, and gun- running... Anthony Fallon, the antagonist in The Queen of Zamba, would reappear in two later Krishna novels; as the protagonist of The Tower of Zanid and as a minor character in The Swords of Zinjaban. ===== A corrupt and sniveling bank manager Mathur (Prem Chopra) has illegally borrowed 2.5 million rupees and loaned them to crime baron J.K. Verma (Amrish Puri). J.K orchestrates a bank robbery to bail him out. Inspector Anand Shrivastav (Kader Khan) gets wind of this plot. He is about to crack the case when J.K. enlists an exotic dancer, Julie (Aruna Irani), to use the robbery as a backdrop and frame the honest inspector for corruption. Inspector Shrivastav is arrested and is imprisoned for three months. Inspector Shrivastav, the honest and innocent inspector, is so depressed about the false charges that he hangs himself at home after being released on bail. This creates a lasting and powerful impression on his young eight-year-old son, Vijaykumar. Vijay retains the noose his father used to hang himself. He vows someday restore his father's honour. Vijay and his mother leave their house and live in the house of another honest police inspector named Aslam Khan. Years later, a young Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan) in the inspector uniform, grows up in the care of Inspector Aslam Khan (Pran), Inspector Shrivastav's friend and partner, who has allowed Vijay and his mother to live with him, and Vijay becomes a cop himself. Vijay is friends with Shaheena, the daughter of Aslam Khan. Aslam Khan is an honest cop much like Vijay's father. Vijay is an obsequious and cowardly inspector, prone to bribery and generally scared of powerful criminals. It doesn't take JK long to find Vijay, get him on the payroll, and run his underworld crime empire (drugs, guns, racketeering) past the cops. A new apparition bursts upon this scene who calls himself "Shahenshah", a costumed crime fighter (see movie poster). He has a left iron hand which is used to attack enemies and smash objects, and Shahenshah's other weapon is a noose. Oddly enough, it is the same noose Vijay's father used to hang himself with. This is because it is revealed later that Shahenshah is actually Vijay. When wearing Shahenshah's attire, Vijay describes himself as "one who doesn't hold a cop's job but does the same work; one who apprehends criminals himself, conducts the trials himself, and, pronounces and executes the sentences himself". So Vijay/Shahenshah's outward mission is to take out crime, but his real goal is to get to the guys who framed his father. Shahenshah quietly breaks up several of J.K.'s gambling dens and illicit liquor distilleries. He also halts the demolition of a slum. This catches the eye of small-time trickster Shalu (Meenakshi Seshadri) who lives there with her aging and ailing mother Julie. J.K. had ordered her assassination after she helped frame Vijay's father; she has been on the run from him ever since, which becomes Shalu's motivation for seeking out and eliminating J.K. Shalu decides to infiltrate J.K.'s coterie by becoming an exotic dancer. One night, she attempts to kill J.K. by shooting him but is shocked when J.K. reveals he had been wearing a bullet-proof vest the whole time. Vijay lies to J.K. that Shahenshah's weakness is not letting Shalu die. He also lies that if J.K. returns Shalu to Shahenshah, Shahenshah will return J. K.'s goods worth millions. But J.K. is ultimately fooled. Shahenshah later detonates a bomb planted in J.K.'s truck. J.K. murders an honest crime reporter Mohammed Salim (Vijayendra Ghatge), who was about to expose J.K.'s crime ring. Salim was married to Shaheena (Supriya Pathak), the daughter of Aslam Khan, and was also Vijay's brother-in-law. Vijay now decides to turn around his image as a cowardly cop. He openly defies J.K. Julie agrees to testify against J.K. Shalu provides ancillary evidence. And J.K. prepares for an all out war against Shahenshah/Vijay, Shalu and the lot of his enemies. At Salim's funeral, only one of the many witnesses of his death were present. He was about to reveal J.K.'s name, but a sharpshooter shoots him to death. There is a veritable bloodbath on the streets as Inspector Vijay tries to get Julie into the courthouse. And there is a final showdown where Shahenshah reveals his secret identity and becomes the nemesis for all the culprits. To give himself a chance to escape, J.K. abducts Shalu. The showdown leads Shahenshah chasing J.K. to the roof of the courthouse where J.K. is pleading his case, because his cover is blown. J.K. falls through a hole in the roof and is clinging on for dear life, with the whole court looking in astonishment. Shahenshah then reveals before the whole court that he is actually Vijay. Vijay throws the noose down to J.K., and he gratefully accepts it, but J.K., being the ruthless man that he is, attempts to attack Vijay. Vijay lets go of the noose, which slips around J.K.'s neck, and before the whole court, J.K. Verma is hanged, avenging Inspector Shrivastav and Salim the reporter, Shaheena's husband. ===== As much about the subculture surrounding handfishing, the film documents this practice of wading in murky water and sticking your hand into dark holes hoping a plus catfish will latch onto your hand and arm. Missing fingers and toes on some noodlers attest to the danger and excitement of the sport, a method hundreds of years old. The film emphasizes how noodling is believed to have originated with white settlers, with at least one reference known to have dated from 1775. Most evidence suggests that Native Americans typically only fished using tools such as spears and cages. ===== Yo Yo is the son of a 1920s billionaire who, although having everything he fancies and living in a cavernous old castle, is not happy, fancying the simple life of a beautiful circus actress. When the stock-exchange crashes, rendering him both poor and free, he joins the circus where his love interest is performing, and falls madly in love. They have a son who starts in the circus as a clown but later becomes a successful actor and uses his new wealth to buy back his father's castle. ===== Lorrea and Lorrinda Guinto (Lorna Tolentino) are twins. Lorrea accidentally takes the place of her twin sister in the world of the drug lords. After many trials and tribulations she finds her missing son, Andrei/Yuri (John Lloyd Cruz). ===== Suzanne Morton dies after a visit to a hospital emergency room during a hectic night shift. Her father (John Spencer), a former medic in Vietnam, accuses the hospital of negligence and demands a police investigation. Logan and Greevey question a doctor who made adjustments to her chart, but are soon led to the respected Dr. Edward Auster, whom they feel might have been drunk on duty. The other residents are reluctant to speak for fear of putting their jobs in jeopardy, and Stone is faced with the awkward job of prosecuting a revered physician. ===== Sirius, guardian luminary of the Dog Star, is convicted of murdering a fellow "luminary" and of losing the Zoi, an extremely powerful cosmic tool that he has allowed to fall to a minor planet, Earth. He is sentenced to spend one lifetime in the form of dog, a native animal; if he can recover the Zoi within that dog's lifetime, he will be allowed to return to his former status as Sirius. If he does not, he will simply die at the end of his dog's life. Sirius is born into a litter of puppies. Discovered as mongrels, the puppies are thrown into the river in a sack. Kathleen O'Brien, rescues a filthy, wet, dying Sirius, and names him Leo. Kathleen lives with the Duffields, a family of four, because her father is in prison. Mr. Duffield, who can be kind as long as it's no trouble to him; the mother Daphne ("Duffie"), who makes pottery and bullies Kathleen because she's Irish; Basil, who doesn't actively dislike Kathleen but often mimics his mothers behavior and is also obsessed with "meteorite"; and Robin, who is kind but afraid of the other family members. There are also three cats (Tibbles, and her twin sons Remus and Romulus), who grudgingly befriend Sirius. Sirius is aided by Sol to find the Zoi. He sets out to explore the town, finding people to feed him when he goes hungry on Kathleen's limited allowance, including Miss Smith, a kind retired teacher, other dogs, the cold dogs, and fleas, which spreads to the cats. Although he doesn't realize it, some of the dogs (Patchie, Rover, Redears, and Bruce) are his siblings. One day, he meets Yeff, a cold dog, who has strange, feathery legs, yellow eyes, and is the only one besides Patchie and Sirius to hear the calls of the Master. He runs off after telling Sirius that "only those who runs with [the cold dogs] and share [their] duties are allowed to know" about the Master. One day, Sirius unknowingly stumbles upon Mrs. Partridge, who tried to drown him, and Bess, his mother. He flees when his former Companion appears, a friend of Mrs. Partridge's. With the help of Earth while Sol distracts his Companion, he escapes. He notes that although his Companion is beautiful, she does not compare to the meadow of flowers. His former Companion and the chief witness in his trial, a luminary from Castor, who now inhabits his sphere, find and try to kill Sirius, but they're reckless and unable to properly handle the Zoi and almost kill Tibbles with it. He meets and is helped by Moon, who informs him that the cold dogs run when she is full. When Kathleen is informed that her father was shot and killed upon trying to flee the prison he was in, she comes home early from school and flies into a rage, gleefully destroying Duffie's pottery. Duffie threatens to have Sirius put to sleep and Kathleen pretends to agree to get them out of the house, and Sirius leads Kathleen to Miss Smith. He finds Bruce, who has picked the lock on his fence. Basil follows Robin to Miss Smith's. The three find Patchie and Rover and Redears, and run with the cold and the five warm dogs into nothingness. The eight meet the Master, and they are allowed to ask for one thing each. Robin gets a puppy, and Kathleen asks to be able to understand her dog, which does not work as Sirius is not technically a dog. Basil asks for the "meteorite". To Basil and Sirius's horror, he hands the Zoi to Kathleen, who gets rid of the Companion and New-Sirius when they appear to kill Sirius, then the Master. Sirius realizes that his Companion was the one who killed the luminary he was accused of murdering, but framed Sirius, using his anger against him. She had always hated him, but he had loved her so much he made excuses for her. He manages to get it from her, turns into his luminary self, and finds that Leo's dead, Sirius having been the life/soul. He reluctantly returns to his sphere, leaving Kathleen behind. Restored to his previous position as a luminary, Sirius and Sol guide Kathleen to Patchie's puppies, where she carefully picks out a female for Miss Smith. Sirius refuses to find a replacement Companion for the sphere that circles him. Many references are made to mythology, particularly Welsh mythology in the appearance and actions of the dogs (see Cŵn Annwn) and several later characters such as Arawn. The events of this book are set in what seem to be during the Irish War of Independence, although it is never specified. Kathleen's father is a war criminal, and she was sent to the Duffields for her protection without Duffy's permission, which is why Duffy hates her so much. Kathleen speaks with an accent, and she's bullied for being Irish. For example, a group of boys follow her home after school every day and make derogatory jokes, leading to Sirius scaring them. She also gets letters and sometimes money from her father in prison, and his very last one told her he'd see her soon. This worries Sirius, because he knew they'd have to move, but the Zoi was near them, until he is shot and killed trying to escape. ===== In the seventeenth century, Sir Simon de Canterville (Charles Laughton) is forced by the Code of Chivalry to engage in a duel on behalf of his brother, but flees to the family castle when his opponent engages a substitute—a giant, the Bold Sir Guy (played by an uncredited Tor Johnson). His proud father, Lord Canterville (Reginald Owen), refuses to acknowledge that his son has disgraced the family name, even when shown in front of witnesses where Simon is cowering. The father has the only entrance to his son's hiding place bricked over as proof that Simon is not there, ignoring Simon's pleas for mercy. Lord Canterville then curses his doomed cowardly son to find no rest until "a kinsman shall perform an act of bravery" in his name, wearing his signet ring. Next, during World War II, US Army Rangers are billeted in the castle, owned now by six-year-old Lady Jessica de Canterville (Margaret O'Brien). One of the men is Cuffy Williams (Robert Young). The Rangers encounter Sir Simon but rather than being terrorized, they humiliate the ghost with a mock haunting. With Cuffy's help, Jessica overcomes her own terror of the ghost. Jessica discovers that Cuffy is a Canterville by a distinctive birthmark on his neck. He is a descendant of Sir Simon’s brother. Together, the two meet Sir Simon and learn the fate of their ghostly ancestor. One night, Simon takes Cuffy on a tour of the family portrait gallery, recounting the cowardly act of each descendant. Cuffy scoffs at Simon's misgivings and boasts that he is different. However, when the moment of crisis comes, Cuffy seems to be a true Canterville and is paralyzed by fear in combat. On a mission in Europe, he and another soldier are stationed with a machine gun to ambush a large group of Nazi soldiers on motorcycles. Sir Simon appears with the signet ring, which Cuffy had left behind, and his attempts to encourage Cuffy make the young man even more apprehensive. The Nazi convoy appears on the road. His buddy fires and Cuffy feeds the ammunition belt. All seems well until his partner is shot by a sniper. Cuffy moves to take his place, with his friend’s blood on his hand and bullets pinging around him. He freezes, staring, unable to pull the trigger. Another soldier knocks him aside and takes over. Back in England, Cuffy reports himself. Disgraced and leaving the Rangers for his old outfit, Cuffy is left alone at the castle while the others go out on maneuvers on the huge estate. He is given another chance when Lady Jessica runs to tell him that she saw a parachute land in the woods. She shows him how to drive there. It is an unexploded parachute mine, a blockbuster threatening his platoon and everyone within half a mile with destruction. He springs into action, positioning the jeep to drag the mine to a nearby ravine, but as he hooks the chain to the mine, he is again overcome with fear. Lady Jessica tries to inspire him by kicking the mine frantically, calling “I’m not afraid.” She inadvertently activates the mine. Cuffy recovers, hitches the bomb to the jeep and, after a wild ride with Sir Simon aboard, steers it into the ravine, where it explodes. The courageous act finally frees Sir Simon from his centuries of bondage, and he can sleep at last in the garden. Lady Jessica and Cuffy lay flowers at Sir Simon’s tombstone (1603-1943). A long time to wait, Cuffy observes. Speaking of waiting, Lady Jessica asks Cuffy how old he is. He doesn’t answer but asks Why? “ I shall be 7 in May, “ Jessica replies, shyly. He picks her up and they both laugh. ===== A panel from Fun Home depicting Bruce (left) and Alison Bechdel (right). The narrative of Fun Home is non- linear and recursive. Incidents are told and re-told in the light of new information or themes. Bechdel describes the structure of Fun Home as a labyrinth, "going over the same material, but starting from the outside and spiraling in to the center of the story." In an essay on memoirs and truth in the academic journal PMLA, Nancy K. Miller explains that as Bechdel revisits scenes and themes "she re-creates memories in which the force of attachment generates the structure of the memoir itself." Additionally, the memoir derives its structure from allusions to various works of literature, Greek myth and visual arts; the events of Bechdel's family life during her childhood and adolescence are presented through this allusive lens. Miller notes that the narratives of the referenced literary texts "provide clues, both true and false, to the mysteries of family relations." The memoir focuses on Bechdel's family, and is centered on her relationship with her father, Bruce. Bruce was a funeral director and high school English teacher in Beech Creek, where Alison and her siblings grew up. The book's title comes from the family nickname for the funeral home, the family business in which Bruce grew up and later worked; the phrase also refers ironically to Bruce's tyrannical domestic rule. Bruce's two occupations are reflected in Fun Homes focus on death and literature. In the beginning of the book, the memoir exhibits Bruce's obsession with restoring the family's Victorian home. His obsessive need to restore the house is connected to his emotional distance from his family, which he expressed in coldness and occasional bouts of abusive rage.Bechdel, Fun Home, pp. 11, 18, 21, 68–69, 71. This emotional distance, in turn, is connected with his being a closeted homosexual. Bruce had homosexual relationships in the military and with his high school students; some of those students were also family friends and babysitters.Bechdel, Fun Home, pp. 58–59, 61, 71, 79, 94–95, 120. At the age of 44, two weeks after his wife requested a divorce, he stepped into the path of an oncoming Sunbeam Bread truck and was killed.Bechdel, Fun Home, pp. 27–30, 59, 85. Although the evidence is equivocal, Alison concludes that her father committed suicide.Bechdel, Fun Home, pp. 23, 27–29, 89, 116–117, 125, 232. The story also deals with Alison's own struggle with her sexual identity, reaching a catharsis in the realization that she is a lesbian and her coming out to her parents.Bechdel, Fun Home, pp. 58, 74–81, The memoir frankly examines her sexual development, including transcripts from her childhood diary, anecdotes about masturbation, and tales of her first sexual experiences with her girlfriend, Joan.Bechdel, Fun Home, pp. 76, 80–81, 140–143, 148–149, 153, 157–159, 162, 168–174, 180–181, 183–186, 207, 214–215, 224. In addition to their common homosexuality, Alison and Bruce share obsessive-compulsive tendencies and artistic leanings, albeit with opposing aesthetic senses: "I was Spartan to my father's Athenian. Modern to his Victorian. Butch to his nelly. Utilitarian to his aesthete."Bechdel, Fun Home, p. 15. This opposition was a source of tension in their relationship, as both tried to express their dissatisfaction with their given gender roles: "Not only were we inverts, we were inversions of each other. While I was trying to compensate for something unmanly in him, he was attempting to express something feminine through me. It was a war of cross-purposes, and so doomed to perpetual escalation."Bechdel, Fun Home, p. 98. However, shortly before Bruce's death, he and his daughter have a conversation in which Bruce confesses some of his sexual history; this is presented as a partial resolution to the conflict between father and daughter.Bechdel, Fun Home, pp. 220–221. At several points in the book, Bechdel questions whether her decision to come out as a lesbian was one of the triggers for her father's suicide.Bechdel, Fun Home, pp. 57–59, 86, 117, 230–232. This question is never answered definitively, but Bechdel closely examines the connection between her father's closeted sexuality and her own open lesbianism, revealing her debt to her father in both positive and negative lights. ===== Jack Casey (Kevin Bacon) is a young floor trader who loses all of his company's and family's savings on a risky business decision. Deflated and disenchanted with his profession, he quits his job and becomes a bicycle messenger. Casey has to deal with his parents and his girlfriend, who are disappointed with his new job. Along with the colorful characters that work with him, he saves a troubled young woman named Terri (Jami Gertz) from a gang. Although frustrated, Casey enjoys the freedom that comes with his lower responsibility. He also uses his education and business acumen to help his co-workers. When some of them are involved in dangerous or difficult matters, Casey must decide whether he should become involved. Those matters lead to a sinister web of murder and intrigue. Casey later makes a killing on the stock market, restoring his family's fortune and securing his friends' financial future. ===== Ernesto Cata is in training to play his role as Shulawitsi the Fire God in an upcoming Zuni religious ceremony. He sees a kachina that can be seen by the initiated, which he is not, or by those about to die. The next day, his friend George Bowlegs leaves school early, after learning Ernesto is not there. Lt. Joe Leaphorn works with the Zuni police chief Pasquaanti, who seeks Ernesto, while Leaphorn will seek George, a Navajo boy. A patch of blood-soaked soil is found at the meeting place where George was returning Ernesto's bicycle. That is the starting point in the search for the two boys. Near the home of the Bowlegs, Leaphorn is approached by George's younger brother Cecil, who tells him that George is running away from the kachina, the one that got Ernesto. Cecil says that Ernesto had stolen some flints from the dig site. Next, Leaphorn talks with Ted Isaacs, who is about a mile from where the blood was found, at an anthropological dig site under the aegis of Professor Reynolds. Reynolds is ambitious to prove that Folsom Man culture continued longer than the accepted notions of its duration. Isaacs tells Leaphorn of the success in the field work. Reynolds bars Isaacs from having his girlfriend Susanne with him, and barred Ernesto and George from the site a few days earlier. When questioned, Reynolds denies any thefts from the site. Checking out Jason's Fleece, Leaphorn sees a Zuni kachina, rather unexpected next to the abandoned Navajo death hogan now housing the commune. He meets Susanne, who confirms that George was afraid of something and asking questions about absolution in the Zuni religion. Leaphorn learns that Ernesto's body has been found. Pasquaanti and Ernesto's family dig up the boy's body, while Leaphorn examines the area to learn how the bike and the boy were brought there. After the funeral, Leaphorn visits the hogan of the Bowlegs, where he sees someone slipping away and then discovers the body of George and Cecil's father Shorty. Cecil returns by horse after getting the sheep in. Leaphorn gathers what Cecil needs, as their family home must now be abandoned as a death hogan. One item cannot be found, a note from George to Cecil. Leaphorn leaves Cecil at the Franciscan mission. Speaking again with Susanne, Leaphorn picks up the phrase ‘dance hall’ as where George means to go, which Father Ingles explains in terms of Zuni practices. Father Ingles tells Leaphorn how George was searching for a religion, a place to belong. Leaphorn shares with the priest how Ernesto died, by beheading. Leaphorn finds Susanne hitchhiking. She joins him in the search for George, at a lake in Arizona. They find his horse's tracks, and then a deer killed for a meal, but not George. At every site there are moccasin prints, but Leaphorn has not found the man who wears moccasins. Then he recalls the stolen note, and knows for certain that the killer of Ernesto is at this same place. Leaphorn gets caught in a trap designed to tranquilize a deer but meant for George. Before he is taken over by the drugs he tells Susanne how to use his pistol, and while he is incapacitated by the drugs, she uses it. It is dawn before the drugs have left Leaphorn's system and he can walk about. They leave the site without finding George. Leaphorn meets with two of the six law enforcement agencies now involved in this case, three local and three federal; the FBI has the lead and is certain that the murders are tied to illegal drug movements. Leaphorn knows who the killer is now and shares his information with Pasquaanti. He seeks George in the Shalako ceremonial at the Zuni village in the falling snow. Leaphorn sees George in the crowds but is one step behind the man who kills George. The killer is pulled into a doorway, having interfered with sacred Zuni ceremonies, and is never seen again. The next day, Leaphorn explains to Ted Isaacs that Reynolds had been “salting” the dig sites, so the field results would support his theory, and Reynolds is dead. Ernesto had taken some items from Reynolds' box and shared them with George; this meant the secret will come out. Reynolds' choice was to kill all in his way, the boys and Shorty Bowlegs. The FBI seeks sellers of illegal drugs and does not care about the dead boys or the old flints; the professor will soon be a missing-persons case, having been dealt his justice by Zuni law. It is left to Isaacs to decide how important his career is to him now, compared to his girl, last seen at the Zuni police station being questioned by the FBI. Leaphorn did find George, but not in time to save his life. Young Cecil will settle with relatives of his father. ===== The story involves four teenage friends who take a rowboat along a "river of time" that flows into a mysterious cave and emerges on the other side onto a strange, primeval landscape. The boy actors were Josef Lukáš (Petr, the main narrator), Petr Herrmann (Toník, who also narrates in part), Zdeněk Husták (Jenda), and Vladimír Bejval (Jirka). As they make their way upstream, they realise that they are travelling progressively farther back in time, and face various perils as they do so (but learn much about prehistoric life in the process). The animals depicted in Cesta do pravěku were never shown interacting with animals of other periods and it is assumed that different parts of the river represented distinct time periods. The plot is somewhat similar to that of the novel Plutonia (1915) by the Russian palaeontologist Vladimir Obruchev, in which a team of Russian explorers enter the Earth's crust via an Arctic portal (a huge depression in the Earth surface created many millions of years previously by the impact of a giant asteroid, into which prehistoric animals had entered), and follow a river that leads them through a sequence of past geological eras and associated animal life. Some scenes in Cesta do pravěku recall Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel The Lost World, with four male protagonists exploring a prehistoric world where they find evidence of native human habitation, are attacked by a group of enraged pterosaurs, witness a twilight fight between a carnivorous dinosaur and a herbivorous one, encounter a Stegosaurus up-close, and see one of their members, Petr, nearly chased down by a Phorusrhacos. ===== Chosen of the Gods is set in Istar during the reign of Symeon IV, Kurnos the Ursurper, and Beldinas Pilofiro. ===== The main character, Arthur, is asked to pick up a reserved turkey for Thanksgiving dinner, but the market has lost the reservation, and no store in the area has any turkeys or other birds available for purchase. So Arthur finds and brings home a 266-pound chicken named Henrietta. The family welcomes her with open arms, but the neighbors are not so sure. Everyone in town is horrified after Henrietta escapes. ===== Seth and Evan are two high school seniors who have been best friends since childhood. The two are about to go off to different colleges. After Seth is paired with Jules during home economics class, she invites him to a party at her house that night. Their friend Fogell reveals his plans to obtain a fake ID, so Seth promises to buy alcohol for Jules' party with money she gives him. Evan runs into his love interest Becca and he offers to get her an expensive bottle of vodka for the party. Despite Fogell's fake ID having only one name, "McLovin", Fogell successfully buys the liquor, but is knocked out at the last second by a robber. When police officers Slater and Michaels arrive, Seth and Evan believe that Fogell is being arrested. In reality, the officers agree to give Fogell a ride to the party. Outside, Seth is hit by a car. In exchange for Seth and Evan not telling the police, the driver promises to take them to another party where they can get alcohol. Meanwhile, Slater and Michaels take Fogell on a ride-along and then bond with him. Despite being on duty, they start drinking, using their sirens improperly, and shoot their firearms at a stop sign. At the party, Seth fills detergent bottles from the basement with alcohol he finds in the fridge and dances with a drunk woman, who stains his leg with menstrual blood, while Evan is made to sing by some men high on cocaine. About to leave, Seth is confronted by the host for dancing with his fiancée. A brawl ensues. The fiancée calls the police, while Seth and Evan escape. Evan and Seth argue, and Seth is once again hit by a car – the police cruiser driven by Slater and Michaels. They plan to arrest Seth and Evan, but when Fogell comes out of the car, Evan makes a run for it, while Seth and Fogell escape with the alcohol. Eventually all three make their way to Jules' party. At the party, Seth's stories of the night make him popular. Becca wants to have sex with Evan, but he respects her too much to go through with it while she is drunk. Meanwhile, Fogell impresses Nicola and goes upstairs to have sex with her. Seth drunkenly attempts to kiss Jules, but she turns him down because she neither drinks nor wants Seth while he is drunk. Seth believes he has ruined any chance of a relationship with Jules, and passes out, accidentally headbutting her, leaving her with a black eye. Slater and Michaels bust the party. Seth wakes up and escapes, carrying an intoxicated Evan. Slater interrupts Fogell and Nicola, who runs off. Slater is angry at Fogell for ditching them, but Michaels points out they have just "cock-blocked" him, and they apologize, reconcile, and reveal they knew all along that Fogell was not 25. They played along, wanting to show cops can have fun. To make it up to him, they pretend to arrest Fogell to make him look "bad-ass." They resume their bonding, eventually destroying their car with a Molotov cocktail while Fogell shoots it with Slater's firearm. The next morning, Seth and Evan go to the mall and run into Jules and Becca, and the men pair off with the women. Seth takes Jules to buy concealer for her bruise, while Evan and Becca leave to buy a new comforter to replace the one that Becca ruined by vomiting on it. ===== In Autumn of the year 1988, contact with Space Station Terra is lost while sightings of UFOs are being reported all over America. A follow-up investigation headed by UN scientist Professor Schmidt (William Ross) and his men is started to look into the strange reports. The space station crew manage to report to the Japanese branch of the UN Space Federation that a large “roman galleon” has appeared and all communication with Terra is cut. UN team member Miyoshi (Kensaku Morita) visits world-renowned Professor Takigawa (Ryō Ikebe) and tells him that the UN is ordering him to complete construction of the space defense unit he created, Gohten, so that they use it to fight back the invaders. But he refuses saying that the project was disbanded three years ago when there were fears of an alien invasion of Earth. Miyoshi asks him why the UN-ordered space defense unit was forcefully disbanded. He tells him that it became unimportant. Professor Takigawa then gets a call from the Japanese branch that Professor Schmidt was killed by something when he was in the mountains investigating the UFO landings. Takigawa still refuses and Miyoshi leaves. Additionally, Miyoshi is in love with Takigawa's daughter June Takigawa (Yuko Asano), who is engaged with fellow UN team member Muroi (Masaya Oki). While leaving, Miyoshi and Muroi along with Fuyuki (Hiroshi Miyauchi) see Professor Schmidt drive up to Takigawa's house, when he was reported dead. Takigawa lets him in and Schmidt tells him that his death was a rumor. He too tells Takigawa to complete the Gohten as soon as possible. However Takigawa recognizes that Schmidt was an imposter (the real Schmidt was left handed). Miyoshi and his friends chase after the alien Schmidt but he blows himself up before they could get him. They discover the alien was wearing a latex mask of the dead Schmidt. After hearing of the incident, the UN puts Commander Oshi (Akihiko Hirata) in charge of the defense forces. Takigawa is then ordered to complete construction of Gohten. It is also discovered that the aliens have set up a base on the planet Venus. Meanwhile, the UFOs launch a full-scale attack on earth's cites, including New York City, London, Paris, Moscow, and San Francisco. While the attack was happening, the Gohten team take a submarine and makes it to the island where the spaceship is housed. One of the Gohten's crew, NASA scientist Jimmy (David Palen) makes it to the island but not before getting shot down by one of the many UFOs attacking the island. The Gohten is completed, however aliens infiltrate that base and try to take Takigawa away with them. Murrei, Jimmy and Miyoshi kill the aliens before they can kidnap Takigawa. They launch the Gohten to do battle with the UFOs and the space warship takes them all out with little trouble. The Gohten then heads into space towards Venus where the alien HQ is located. During the journey, Muroi asks Miyoshi to take care of June if something should happen to him. They come across the wreckage of space station Terra and Muroi goes out to investigate it. There, he finds the body of one of Terra's crew, Mikasa, which is brought abroad the Gohten. However, it is discovered that Mikasa is an alien in disguise. The alien kidnaps June and escapes with her on a UFO. While the crew of the Gohten chase after the UFO they receive a message from Venus. The message is a warning from Commander Hell (Goro Mutsumi) the self-proclaimed Emperor of the Galaxy. He tells them that he and his race hail from the third planet of the Yomi system in the Messier 13 nebula, 22,000 light years from our solar system. Takigawa then asks him why they want to take over Earth. Commander Hell tells him that their planet has died and that they need a new planet to live on. He then warns them that if they attack they will all die. The Gohten makes it to Venus and Miyoshi, Muroi and Jimmy use a small lander to find the alien spaceship. They find the enemy spaceship (later named the Daimakan) in a large cave with a force field around it. They take pictures of it, but are nearly killed by the Daimakan's lasers. Back on the Gohten, it is discovered that there is an air duct in the alien base that they can sneak into. Miyoshi, Fuyuki and several crewmen go out in the lander to get on board the Daimakan, while Muroi, Jimmy and other pilots try to destroy the spaceship's force field with their space fighters while also fending off UFOs. Jimmy sacrifices himself by destroying the force field. Miyoshi and the others sneak inside the base and suffer heavy losses. Miyoshi is successful in rescuing June, but not before battling and defeating the Space Beastman (most likely an animal from the alien homeworld). They make it back to the Gohten, but Muroi does not. The Gohten and the Daimakan go head-to-head in a mid-air showdown. Just when it seems the Gohten has the superior firepower, the Daimakan fires a large energy beam it had hidden under its frontal cannons. The Gohten becomes crippled by the energy beam and crashes on the Venusian surface. While crew members repair the ship, Takigawa goes into the ship's drill-bow. When Miyoshi and June return to the control room they find a tape recording made by Takigawa. He tells them that while building the Gohten, he discovered how to make a bomb so powerful, that it could blow up a planet. That was why he didn't want to launch the Gohten and why the aliens wanted him. He detached the drill from the Gohten with him inside and launched it into the Daimakan, causing it to crash into an active volcano. That in turn causes a chain reaction all over Venus. The rest of the Gohten, piloted by Miyochi and June head back to Earth just before Venus is destroyed. ===== Mineral prospectors on another planet examine their environment more closely when crew members start to disappear. There seems to be no intelligent life on the planet, which is predominantly covered by shallow seas, teeming with marine life. But one of the scientists who is studying the marine species in aquariums begins to suspect that the decapods, a creature similar to a squid or nautilus with ten tentacles and eyes, may be smarter than an ordinary mollusc. He attempts to teach a semaphore-like code, using the decapods's tentacles like hands of a clock to represent letters than can spell out English. Meanwhile, the prospectors discover rich mineral deposits on the floor of the sea that can be easily mined, but at the cost of destroying the species. The biologist argues that intelligent life cannot be lightly wiped out, while the prospectors argue there is no intelligence and plot to kill the nautilus. At the climax, a prospector secretly poisons the decapod with acid, but the biologist rescues it just in time as the decapod signals "H-O-T-W-A-T-E-R" and then names the prospector. ===== Ellen believes there is a supernatural creature trying to kill her named the "Nightmare Man". However, her husband and doctors believe she is a paranoid schizophrenic. On the way to a psychiatric ward, the Morris' car breaks down. When her husband goes to get gas, Ellen stays behind and is attacked by the mysterious, horrifying enemy, the Nightmare Man. Escaping into the nearby woods, Ellen stumbles upon a country house where two young couples are spending the weekend. They do not know if the killer is real or just a figment of Ellen's tortured mind nor if the killer is outside or already inside the house. As people start dying, nobody knows whom they can trust. Near the end of the film, the killer is revealed to be a hitman hired by Ellen's husband to kill Ellen before she discovers his affairs. Ellen reveals she is possessed by the real Nightmare Man, a demon who enters a female body first by getting them to wear his mask, then he rapes them. As the Nightmare Man, she kills the hitman and her husband. She sets her sights on Mia, the survivor, who kills Ellen, but is stripped and raped by the Nightmare Man's spirit. She is left in an institution, where the doctor decides to take her off her medication, which are the only things that keep the demon asleep. ===== Twelve-year-old Anna Hart of Flemington, New Jersey, a student at a school for gifted children, is a genius and a kleptomaniac who insults her teachers, gets headaches when she stares at fires and flickering lights, and suffers from strange, prophetic dreams. Michaela Dupont, a piano teacher who has been watching Anna and has kept photos of her and a similar-looking girl taken in 1970, moves in next door. Then Anna sees her exact double on local TV news when a commuter plane makes a forced landing nearby, and she learns that her double, Anna Smithson, has the same family setting as hers — the child of a scientist and a musician. As Anna investigates, she learns about a woman named Anna Zimmerman, who has been dead 20 years, and that Anna herself was part of a cloning experiment by Zimmerman and that she will grow into a duplicate of Zimmerman herself. Anna further learns that her mother volunteered for the cloning project but her father wanted nothing to do with it. Anna dreams of Zimmerman's past — growing up during World War II as a Jew in Nazi-controlled Germany, where she, like the present Anna, was a pianist and child prodigy who would play a part in the Nazis' plans for the genetic engineering of humans. Anna begins behaving more like a normal little girl, and continues exploring her background with the help of her brother Rowan and secret assistance from Michaela. Anna's mother brings Anna to a facility at Albacore Island after the people involved in the cloning project want to re-evaluate Anna for a few days. While there, Anna becomes suspicious when the phone in her room is blocked. Exploring, she notices the experiments being performed. When Rowan has not heard from Anna, he sneaks into the facility to see his sister. Anna and Rowan confront Dr. Henry Jelliff, the person who continued Zimmerman's cloning experiments, who tells her that she is now a "normal" person and suggests she should change her name as a way to start a new life. After Anna and her brother go, Jelliff reveals to Michaela, whom he suspected was not following her assignments, that he is secretly grooming yet another Anna to grow up to become the future Zimmerman; they plan to kill the remaining five Annas, including Hart and her family, shortly. Jelliff's plans to eliminate the girls backfire when Michaela reveals herself to him as Anna Parkhurst, the original product of Zimmerman's cloning experiment; she was the girl that resembled Anna in the 1970 photo. Like her mother/creator, Parkhurst knows how to create the replicator. Because Jelliff had her parents killed and because she is enraged by the experiments, Parkhurst turns the table on him by offering him the plans for the replicator in return for the safety of all of the Annas (including the one Jelliff is grooming), as well as an undisclosed location for Parkhurst to continue her work without interference. Jeliff considers her offer. ===== When French con-man Felix Borel lands on the planet Krishna, he expects to take the native rubes for everything they've got. Targeting the Republic of Mikardand he establishes himself in the capital, Mishe. There he quickly ingratiates himself with the ruling class, the knightly Order of Qarar, and enmeshes the knights in a scheme to establish a lottery and peddle a perpetual motion machine that he pretends will enable the Krishnans to catch up to the technologically superior Terrans by supplying them with limitless power. All is going as planned until the knight Shurgez, former paramour of Zerdai, a female member of the order Borel has taken up with, returns from a quest and challenges him to a duel over her. Borel pretends to agree, but knowing himself no match for a trained warrior prepares for a quick getaway, which he effects on the very occasion of the duel itself. Fleeing through the Koloft Swamp on a swift aya with as much of his ill-gotten gains as he could stow, he is attacked by the tailed aborigines dwelling there and forced to abandon his treasure to save his life. To add insult to injury, Borel is arrested back at the Terran spaceport of Novorecife on the charge of divulging Terran technology to the Krishnans. He gets off by pointing out that his device was plainly fraudulent, perpetual motion being a physical impossibility. As Novorecife has no extradition treaty with Mikardand, the authorities are forced to let him go, and soon Borel is working a new con on a visiting Viagens Interplanetarias bigwig, who is interested in touring the native kingdoms and is looking for a guide... As Judge Keshavachandra ruefully noted after the conclusion of Borel's trial: "Talk of perpetual motion, he's it!" The fates of Borel's new scheme and of Borel himself are revealed in the later Krishna novel The Hostage of Zir. That novel also shows the beginning of the organized tourism on Krishna Borel envisioned, though without his involvement. ===== Greggs awakens in her hospital bed to find Bunk and Cole waiting to ask for her help identifying her shooters. Bunk shows her photo arrays and she is able to pick out Little Man, but not Wee-Bey. Herc reports that he has found all of the Barksdale dealers whom he had warrants for apart from Wee-Bey. Daniels worries that their case will be shut down unless they can provide new leads. McNulty suggests going behind their superiors' backs to take the case federal. The detail becomes aware of the rift between D'Angelo and his family and moves to interview him. Avon, Stringer, and Levy conclude from the high number of arrests that they must have been subjected to a wiretap. Stringer suggests bailing out many of their people to avoid making enemies, while Levy is in favor of a structured plea where they give up their own people to avoid sentencing. As Stringer and Avon relocate to their funeral home business, Stringer convinces Avon to take a step back while he handles the product and Brianna handles the money. Avon agrees, but insists that Roberto, the Barksdales' Dominican supplier in New York, up the quality of the product, while Brianna will talk D'Angelo around by passing on a message that he will make it all up to him. Under questioning by McNulty and Pearlman, D'Angelo admits his involvement in Brandon's murder and gives up Wee-Bey's location in Philadelphia. When confronted with the murder of Deirdre Kresson, contrary to the tale which he told to his subordinates, D'Angelo paints Wee- Bey as the shooter. D'Angelo laments about how suffocating "the game" can be and that he felt more liberated in jail than he ever was on the street. D'Angelo expresses a desire to start over and promises that if the court can relocate him somewhere where the game can't touch him, he'll give them everything on the Barksdale Organization. Daniels excitedly tells the news to Marla, who hopes that this will square things with Burrell. Daniels tells her of his plans to go around Burrell and reach out to the FBI. In Philadelphia, Bunk and Freamon track down Wee-Bey by tracing numbers that have called Levy's office from the city. Stringer receives a new package of narcotics, and instructs one of his few remaining lieutenants on how to prepare the drugs and spread the word that their business is again open. McNulty convinces Fitz to consider bringing in the FBI, but his supervisor, Amanda Reese, declines. Daniels decides to take the case to the U.S. Attorney because of the political corruption involved. Turf clashes break out in the pit, with Bodie holding the ground for the Barksdales. McNulty finally visits Greggs' bedside, who eases his guilt and asks him to take care of Bubbles. Cheryl storms out of the room when they talk about the case, as she doesn't believe any of it is worth Greggs' life or safety. McNulty delivers Greggs' money to Bubbles to help in his fresh start, but finds that he is using again. Bubbles tries to return some of the money, but cannot resist taking it all. He asks McNulty not to tell Greggs. Later, Herc is notified that he is no longer in line for a promotion to sergeant and that Carver has been moved up the list. McNulty, Daniels, and Freamon meet with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney, explaining that the Barksdales have been buying and exorbitantly reselling property in areas set for redevelopment with help from corrupt politicians. The FBI expresses a desire to use the drug dealers to target the politicians, which causes McNulty to accuse the FBI of ignoring the misery in West Baltimore. Daniels later confronts Carver, who is revealed as being Burrell's mole in the unit. Afterwards, Daniels returns Prez to street duty and arrests Wee-Bey in Philadelphia. Meanwhile, Brianna visits D'Angelo in prison and tries appealing to his sense of family. Rawls reveals to McNulty that the U.S. Attorney phoned Burrell to complain about McNulty's behavior, tipping Burrell to the fact that the detail had tried to take the case federal. Pearlman finds out that D'Angelo is now being represented by Levy, who tells them that the dealers will plead guilty in exchange for fixed sentences. At the court hearing, Pearlman presents Avon's guilty plea in exchange for a sentence of seven years. Stringer and Brianna are in the court as spectators, as is McNulty, who cannot bring himself to stay. Outside, Stringer congratulates McNulty, repeating the phrase that McNulty had muttered to Stringer after D'Angelo's exoneration in the first episode: "Nicely done". Phelan also congratulates McNulty, who is despondent and refuses to acknowledge him. McNulty returns to the court as D'Angelo is sentenced to twenty years, the maximum sentence. Daniels bumps into Cantrell, now a major, having received the promotion that Daniels had been in line for. Back at the Narcotics division, Herc holds an induction for two new detectives. Daniels is amused that his attitude has changed and that he now hopes to make big cases using intelligent investigative techniques. Rawls allows Freamon to return to Homicide. Bodie organizes trade in the towers while Poot oversees the pit. Meanwhile, Bunk confronts Wee-Bey about multiple murders; Wee-Bey refuses to give up Avon and Stringer, but admits to killing Little Man, Nakeesha Lyles, and William Gant; Bunk and McNulty agree that Wee-Bey's confession concerning Gant is false. The season ends with a montage showing: Bubbles and Johnny back on the hustle and Santangelo on patrol in the Western; Burrell promoting Carver; Prez clearing the detail's string board; Greggs gazing wistfully at a car chase from her hospital window; Freamon and Bunk delivering a bottle of whiskey to McNulty at his new post with the marine unit; Stringer overseeing the counting of his profits at the funeral parlor; and the prolific drug trade throughout the whole of Baltimore. Finally, Omar is seen in the South Bronx holding up another dealer and telling him that it is "all in the game". ===== Paleontologist Richard Leyster has reached the pinnacle of his profession: a position with the Smithsonian Museum plus a groundbreaking dinosaur fossil site he can research, publish on, and learn from for years to come. There is nothing that could lure him away – until a disturbingly secretive stranger named Harry Griffin enters Leyster's office with an ice cooler and a job offer. In the cooler is the head of a freshly killed stegosaurus. Griffin has been entrusted with an extraordinary gift; an impossible technology on loan to humanity for an undisclosed purpose from beings known to a select few as the Unchanging. The only stipulation is: not to alter recorded history. If the taboo is broken, the contract becomes null and void. Time travel has become a reality millions of years before it rationally could be. With it, Richard Leyster and his colleagues make their most cherished fantasies come true. They study dinosaurs up close, in their own time and environment. Also, individual lives have the freedom to turn back on themselves. People meet, shake hands, and converse with their younger or older versions at various crossroads in time. One wrong word, a single misguided act, could be disastrous to the project and to the world. Griffin's job is to make sure everything that is supposed to happen does happen, no matter who is destined to be hurt – or die. And then there is Dr. Gertrude Salley – passionate, fearless, and brutally ambitious – a genius rebel in the tight community of "bone men" and women. Alternately, both Leyster's and Griffin's chief rival, trusted colleague, despised nemesis, and inscrutable lover at various junctures throughout time, Salley is relentlessly driven to tamper with the working mechanisms of natural law, audaciously trespassing in forbidden areas, pushing paradox to the edge no matter what the consequences may be. And, when they concern the largest, most savage creatures that ever lived, the consequences become terrifying indeed, resulting in a team of "bone men" becoming stranded for two years in the Mesozoic Era. Apart from failed attempts to rescue the team from the past, slowly, something begins to happen. The temporal mechanics are altered in such a way that two time streams emerge. The first focuses on the struggling team in the Mesozoic's Maastrichtian Age, some 65 million years ago. In the far future, in what will be known as the Telezoic Era, a younger version of Gertrude Salley meets an older version of herself – the one who was responsible for the split in the timeline – now happily living in the center of the new supercontinent of Ultima Pangea. There, they also finally meet the mysterious benefactors who are actually an evolved avian species that inherited the Earth upon the extinction of the human race. Preparing to beg the evolved avians not to shut down the whole enterprise of time travel and the sciences based upon it, Gertrude also discovers their apparent fascination with humanity and that their gift of time travel was simply a means to study the human race in their own right. She also realizes the difficulty in the ability of the incomprehensible far-future species to forgive, for incomprehensible reasons, the creation of a deeply dangerous timeline anomaly back in the 21st century. However, the team trapped in the Maastrichtian Age makes a remarkable discovery. One of the team members arrives at a genuinely unique explanation for the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. They had already determined that predator dinosaurs farm and ranch their prey, singing infrasound commands that lead their ultimate prey to green pastures. One of the team speculated that dinosaur migration might be similarly controlled by the song of the Earth, the song of tectonic plates shifting in the crust of the planet. And the possibility of the Chicxulub meteor having been so great as to detune the song of the Earth for a decade or a century, deafening the dinosaurs so they could not migrate, causing them to starve. In the end, the evolved avians decide to retroactively remove the time travel science from human hands, thereby rendering all of the events up to that point irrelevant. But, out of the ashes of this paradox, its tangles and attenuations mercifully forgotten, a love of the world is retained – a deep unselfish love of learning the world and all its creatures. ===== As models, designers and journalists gather for Paris Fashion Week, Fashion Council head Olivier de la Fontaine chokes to death on a sandwich, leaving behind a wife, a mistress, and a mysterious Russian companion who has fled the scene. As the death is being investigated, three rival magazine editors vie for the exclusive services of a trendy photographer while two journalists begin a hotel room tryst. ===== Adrian Mole is an outsider who feels the reason he can't quite fit in with "regular" society is that he is an intellectual. Evidence from his diary entries include a precocious interest in literature, in left-wing politics, a desire to have his own poetry show on the BBC, his dislike of Margaret Thatcher and his frequent critiques of his less-refined schoolmates and family. Adrian's dysfunctional family, as in The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, is one of the focal points of the book. Although portrayed as somewhat vain and self-centred, Adrian is the only friend and frequent caretaker of the OAP Bert Baxter, and also shows a great deal of concern and compassion for the misfortunes of his parents and respect for the authority of his grandmother. This book builds on its predecessor by continuing the storyline of Adrian's growing frustration with his body. He constantly writes about the "spots" that mar his complexion, and he also has self-esteem issues about his height and physical maturity. As his frustrations mount, Adrian decides to run away to London but then decides that would be the first place his parents would look and so runs away instead to Grimsby. ===== Bay is a talented young rock drummer in Thailand in the 1970s. One day, he is practicing on his drum set in his apartment and is in a trance, but he suddenly notices that everything is covered in blood and that his drumsticks are actually knives. Apparently, he has killed his landlady, Mrs. Victoria. Panicked, he runs out his door, through the streets and alleys to his friend, Ton, who is also a drummer and is in a band called The PC with Meow and Ooh. Despite Bay's circuitous flight to Ton's apartment, she only lives next door to him. Ton is a long-time childhood friend of Bay, as the two were classmates at Buddhist temple where they were instructed by an old monk in the Drums of the Gods. Meanwhile, the police have arrived at Bay's apartment, led by Inspector Black Ears. The inspector has a habit of trying to kick in doors that open to the outside. Whenever the inspector yells "Damn!" (Batsop! in Thai), a man named Sombat appears and leans his head on the inspector's shoulder (sop means to lean on shoulder). The inspector also has a smart dog named Dumbass to sniff for clues. Through his drumming, Bay is able to convince Meow and Ooh that he is innocent. Had he actually killed Mrs. Victoria, Bay would have broken one of the Buddhist precepts and his Drums of the Gods skills would no longer be effective. So they all go on the run and hide out from the cops. Bay and The PC make their way to a village fair, where The PC has been booked to play. Meow and Ooh sit around and make Bay do all the work to set up the stage. When he's finished, they plan to call the cops on him anyway. Soon the cops do show up and a chase around the village fair ensues, with the inspector pursuing Bay on the various carnival rides. Just as it looks like Bay will escape, the inspector is given a rifle and proves that he is an expert marksman. Bay, however, manages to catch one of the bullets with his drumsticks, but another finds its mark in Bay's shoulder. Bay ends up getting away and finds himself on a dam overlooking a reservoir. On the dam, he meets a man who is going to commit suicide, but Bay talks him out of it. Bay is then picked up by a passing truck and makes his escape just as the inspector and his men have caught up. The inspector witnesses the drowning of his dog Dumbass and also meets a polite boy in a red shirt (meant to resemble tennis pro Paradorn Srichaphan). Bay has been picked up by a truck hauling films to the village fair, and so he joins the film company and works as a dubber on the film. His performance is a hit, causing the audience to laugh their heads off. Afterward, Bay gives the man, who looks like Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra an idea to start a new political party called Thais Love Thais. Bay is eventually caught and jailed. However, Ton and The PC are in jail, too. After Bay sings a sad song that makes everyone cry, Meow and Ooh decide to help Bay escape. They are able to rig up an explosion and Bay runs away with Ton. She sees that Bay is under stress and guesses it must be because of the upcoming battle of the Drums of the Gods vs the Devil's Drums. Bay's and Ton's teacher, Professor Tuengpo, faced the dark side drummer Ringo Starr in the last competition 10 years ago. He defeated Ringo but also died in the aftermath of the duel, before he could reveal to Bay and Don the secret of the crucial 10th level of the Drums of the Gods. In order to overcome the forces of evil, Bay or Ton must somehow achieve the elusive 10th level, and neither of them feel they are ready. Thinking perhaps that sex will help them achieve the level, they check into a shabby guesthouse and hole up in a room. While in the guesthouse, which is very dirty, Bay complains to the owner, Mr. Chuwit, and tells him that the rooms should all have bathtubs so guests can clean up. This apparently gives Chuwit the idea to start a chain of massage parlors, all with bathtubs in the massage rooms. The police again catch up with Bay who is knocked unconscious. When he comes to, the medical examiner tells him that the body of the person Bay is suspected of killing is not Mrs. Victoria, but the police won't consider the evidence. However, the ME lets Bay leave the room. Bay finds the drumming duel and sees that it is Ton who will face the new Devil's Drums master, who is named Mr. Davis. Bay then realizes that the secret to the 10th level of drumming was the double-sexed technique, which means his penis was cut off and attached to Ton, giving her the power. There is a climactic drumming duel in a boxing ring, in which all styles of drumming are explored, and the result is that the Drums of the Gods are victorious. ===== Heleen practises tongue kissing first on her arm, then on another girl who is her friend, then does it with boys. On holiday in France she likes a French boy Bernard (Hunter Bussemaker). However, when she tells him she loves him, she is uncomfortable with the bold way he starts touching her. Axel (Stijn Koomen) is a childhood friend who is in love with her. However, Heleen is more interested in Axel's English friend Steve (Damien Hope). Heleen is torn between her mother's statement that sex is like eating a sandwich, and Steve's that "sex should be like a voyage to the sublime, without true love no sublime". Steve rejects sex with Heleen. Encouraged by Steve and Axel, Heleen smokes some cannabis, but she does not really like it. Also her mother Quinta (Monic Hendrickx) encourages her to do it. She also encourages Heleen to give Axel a kiss; after all, they had a fake marriage as young children. Provocatively Heleen gives Axel an elaborate tongue kiss in Quinta's presence. Quinta asks Heleen not to walk around the house in only underpants: it makes her new lover uncomfortable. Indignantly Heleen shows her little brother her bare breasts and asks whether he is shocked. However, he does not care, he is indifferent to them. Axel threatens to commit suicide if Heleen refuses to have sex with him. She masturbates him (not fully shown). With the consent of her mother and after getting hormonal contraception drugs, Heleen has intercourse with Axel. She thinks it is okay, not very great, but anyway she is glad to have done it. ===== It is 1988 and two best friends from Ireland (Jimeoin [McKeown], Alan McKee) flee from Belfast after a violent confrontation with Colin (Robert Morgan) of the IRA and illegally enter Australia, finding seasonal work picking fruit at orchards to afford hostels, sustenance and booze costs (but so cash strapped, their whiskey and cokes are made by taking swigs of whiskey and coke, mixing the two on the fly in their mouth), the last often used to dim the two's fear of immigration officers. After some gentle persuasion, Fergus Montague (McKeown) goes on a TV dating game show and wins a trip to Queensland. This, however, occurs just as the pair's apartment is raided by immigration officer Derek Johnson (Nicolas Bell) and Wesley Murray (McKee) is forced to escape and eventually joins his friend in Queensland. Meanwhile, Colin is sent to Australia in a witness protection program after he gives up some of his former colleagues, and (much to the skepticism of his watchers, the S.A.S.) names Fergus and Wesley as terrorists. Irritated by their lack of progress he eventually takes off to find them himself. The two make their way up the coast and become acquainted with backpackers Alice (Jane Hall) and Erica (played by Catherine Arena, Jimeoin's real life wife) along the way. After their car overheats and explodes in the outback, the duo narrowly evade Colin, who has finally caught up with them. With the help of a local who calls himself Ron Barassi (Kyle Morrison) the duo make their way to a pub where immigration, the S.A.S. and a police force who discovered their burnt-out car and Colin have all arrived at. As the duo are being carted away, Colin shoots out the windows of the police car and the duo escape once more, running off into the sunset. ===== Marci Feld, a spoiled Jewish-American princess, is forced to take control of her father Ben's hardcore rap label Felony Assault when he suffers a stress- induced heart attack due to the controversy surrounding the label's release of "Shoot Ya' Teacha" by Dr. S. To rescue her father's plummeting stock, Marci attempts to tone down the rapper's bad-boy image. Over time, the unlikely pair falls in love just as conservative senator Mary Ellen Spinkle vows to banish Dr. S and his offensive lyrics from the airwaves forever. ===== The scene opens on a rural Thai coffee shop, run by an elderly man and his attractive teenage daughter. A gang of local thugs come in and start roughing up the customers and get abusive with the daughter. Suddenly, an elaborately coifed and tastefully dressed woman shows up and rescues the young woman and her father from further harm. This is Iron Pussy. She disappears into the bushes and re-emerges as a slight, shaven-headed man, who then gets on the back of a motorcycle taxi and heads into Bangkok. Along the way, the motorcycle driver, Pew, relates his memories of the day he and Iron Pussy met – Pew, crazed from a drug overdose, had taken a young woman hostage. Iron Pussy came on the scene and rescued not the young woman, but Pew, and the two have been a couple ever since. Iron Pussy arrives at her job. She is a clerk in a 7-Eleven in Bangkok. Unfailingly courteous and professional, she greets a man who she believes is just another customer, in the shop to pay his phone bill. When Iron Pussy scans the bill, a message comes up on the computer screen: "Hello Iron Pussy". It is a secret message from the prime minister. It seems there's a job for Iron Pussy. Once again in the guise of the superheroine secret agent, the demure Iron Pussy goes to the meeting place with the prime minister, a Buddhist temple, where she takes time to make merit by releasing some turtles and fish into the nearby river. She meets with Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his cabinet (all lookalike actors), who take time to sing a song, extolling the virtues of Iron Pussy. Iron Pussy is tasked with uncovering the nefarious activities of Mr. Henry, a foreigner who frequently visits Thailand and leaves with full bank accounts. Mr. Henry will be attending a lavish party at the luxurious mansion of Madame Pompadoy, so Iron Pussy must infiltrate the housekeeping staff as a maid. Her charms win over Madame Pompadoy's debonair son, Tang, who is nonetheless in another relationship, being engaged to marry Rungraree, globetrotting socialite. Iron Pussy feels herself falling for Tang's charms as well, but she has a nagging feeling that something is not right about that relationship. Donning an all- black Spandex outfit and mask one night, Iron Pussy uncovers Mr. Henry's plot – he's making a mind-control drug. And Tang is involved in the scheme, which breaks Iron Pussy's heart. Later, at the big party being thrown by Madame Pompadoy, Iron Pussy steps up when the main entertainment doesn't show up, and sings a song that really impresses everyone. The next day, the family is going into the jungle for its annual deer hunt. This is when everything comes out – that Iron Pussy is actually a secret agent, but it's also revealed that Madame Pompadoy is Iron Pussy's mother, who gave Iron Pussy up for adoption long ago, which means, of course, that Tang is Iron Pussy's brother. ===== On your birthday, you receive a Custom Robo called Ray. You quickly go off to find opponents to battle in order to collect as many parts as possible and become a Custom Robo Master. Winning battles rewards you with money and custom robo parts. ===== The manual of the North American release details the localized story. The game takes place in the year 2015, after the "economic wars" of 2011. The Deutschland Moldavia (DM) corporation rules most of the world and its resources, conducting mysterious genetic experiments. Four people affected by DM's research, Flynn, Echo, Al and Prokop, seek revenge on the corporation for its wrongdoings. ===== The Borkman family fortunes have been brought low by the imprisonment of John Gabriel who used his position as a bank manager to speculate with his investors' money. The action of the play takes place eight years after Borkman's release when John Gabriel Borkman, Mrs. Borkman, and her twin sister Ella Rentheim fight over young Erhart Borkman's future. Though John Gabriel Borkman continues the line of naturalism and social commentary that marks Ibsen's middle period, the final act suggests a new phase for the playwright, a phase brought to fruition in his final more symbolic work When We Dead Awaken. ===== At twenty-nine, Claire has everything she ever wanted: a boyfriend she adores, a great apartment, a good job. Then, on the day she gives birth to her first baby, James visits her in the recovery room to inform her that he's leaving her. Claire is left with a newborn daughter, a broken heart, and a body that she can hardly bear to look at in the mirror. In the absence of any better offers, Claire decides to go home to her family in Dublin and live with her sister Anna, her soap-watching mother, her bewildered father. Sheltered by the love of a family, she gets better. A lot better. When James comes back into her life, he's in for a bit of a surprise. But really, just read the book. ===== The story starts off with Yusuke's Mother slowly stripped her clothes one by one in front of a bespectacled middle aged gentleman who quietly observed, showing her naked body to the latter who remained stoic and silent. The scene change to their foreplay where the mysterious man started groping the rich, enormous and beautiful breasts of Yusuke's mother to arouse her which he relished as he licked and taste her nipples for some time before he started fingering her vagina, as she started to feel anxious, the man reminded her she is no longer a virgin, and told her to relax a little more and enjoyed the foreplay which she complied. The scene changed to a sleeping Yusuke having another memory of witnessing his mother's adultery where Yusuke's Mother is having extremely passionate sex with the mysterious man, Yusuke's Mother told her sex partner to hurry up and give her an orgasm as her husband is coming back, which the latter agreed but hesitated as Yusuke is in their house which Yusuke's Mother assured as she think her son is out collecting insects leading Yusuke to wake up in shock and sweat. After some time, where Yusuke's Mother is finally aroused, she gave the mysterious man a blowjob, with an unsatisfied expression told her to be more intense in her sucking and she must improved her sucking technique to prevent her husband from cheating on her. After licking his penis a few times, her teacher proceed to gave her a cunnilingus, as he savoured her vagina, he complimented on its tenderness stating that he would never imagined it belong to a woman who had gaven birth to children, which Yusuke's Mother replied it is embarrassing and not to say such things. As he licked further, Yusuke's Mother climaxed as she groped one of her own wonderful breasts. Slowly and gradually, in a missionary position, the mysterious man insert his penis into Yusuke's Mother's pussy, losing her chastity and having sex with a man for the first time after years. As the man questioned her how does it feel to have a receive a man inside her after a long time, she replied she don't know. As the coitus became more intense, Yusuke's Mother moaned in estactic pleasure first in a doggy style and then again in a missionary position. Finally to maximize her pleasure the mysterious man in reverse cowgirl position, tightly groped Yusuke's Mother voluptuous breasts as he masterly and intensely thrusted his penis into her vagina to ejaculated inside her womb, he asked is the sex comfortable, she replied yes, as he ejaculated inside her pussy as Yusuke's Mother moaned very loudly. After a brief toy and oral tryst with his cousin Mio, he contemplates his feelings for his new stepmother and women in general while remembering the time when he first witness his mother's adultery as he heard his mother moaning in the house, he quietly peeked inside the room which to his heartbreaking shock, despair and dismay, his mother is having extremely passionate sex with another man in a doggy style position as loud sounds of copulation produced from the man's penis thrusting her vagina as Yusuke's mother immensely enjoying the adulterous sex and shown to have absolutely no remorse about cheating on her husband as she and her lover constantly moaned while her enormous breasts were bouncing energetically in unison. As the sex escalate at its most intense; the adulterous lovers climaxed in a creampie in absolute pleasure as Yusuke's Mother and her lover loudly moan with immense ecstasy. ===== Fred Barber, an American staying as a guest in an English country home during World War II, consumes a bowl of milk left as an offering for the fairies, substituting liquor in its place. The rightful recipient of the offering, drunk and offended at the substitution, takes vengeance by kidnapping Barber off to the Land of Faerie as a changeling, a fate normally reserved for infants. He finds Faerie beset by a menace echoing the war in his own world. Trapped in a magical realm where rationality as he knows it is turned upside-down and failure to follow the rules can have dire consequences, Barber undertakes a quest in the service of Oberon, the fairy king, in order to be returned to his own world. The outcome, befitting a realm in which nothing is as expected, is one that neither he nor the reader anticipates, for Fred Barber is not quite the man he thinks he is... ===== The story, told from the alternating points of view of Regis Hastur and Lewis Alton, starts from the storyline of Regis Hastur. While riding from Nevarsin to Thendera, Regis Hastur's party encounters Kennard Alton and his sons, Lewis and Marius. Lew introduces Regis to Danilo Syrtis. They ride to Comyn Castle. When Kennard is injured by a fall, Lew takes over as captain of the guard. He objects to Dyan Ardais being named Cadet Master, because of rumors that Ardais is a pederast and sadist. Kennard overrules his son, saying that the rumors were unfounded. Members of the Comyn Council meet with the Terran Legate regarding rumors that forbidden weapons are being sold in the city of Caer Donn. The Comyn claim that this is a breach of both the Compact (Darkovan tradition concerning weapons) and of the Terran Empire's treaty with the council. The Terrans claim that Aldaran is essentially a separate country, so different laws apply. The matter is unresolved. Kennard suggests instead that Lew make a diplomatic journey to Aldaran. Danilo Syrtis is thrown out of the guard for drawing a sword on Cadet Master Ardais. Lew suspects that Ardais has been making sexual advances towards Danilo, but is unable to prove it. Broken, Danilo departs for the Syrtis estate, where Regis later confronts him. After an argument, Danilo reveals the details of Dyan Ardais’ attempt to rape him, both physically and telepathically. Regis persuades Danilo to bring charges against Ardais. Lew arrives at the city of Caer Donn and Aldaran Castle, where he meets Kermiac, Lord Aldaran, who explain's Lew's Aldaran family connections. Lew is introduced to his cousin, Beltran, and Lord Aldaran's foster children, Marjorie, Thyra and Rafe Scott, and the mysterious Robert Kadarin. He learns they have been experimenting with matrix technologies. Lew is drawn in, without realizing the dangers, and agrees to help train them. Lew later discovers that Kadarin has acquired Sharra, an ancient and dangerously powerful matrix. Kermiac Aldaran dies as a result of the Sharra Matrix experiments, largely due to a mistake made by the increasingly insane Thyra. Beltran kidnaps Danilo and tries to force him to join, but Danilo refuses. Regis arrives on horseback in search of Danilo, and depart on horseback after Kermiac Aldaran's funeral. Lew heads to Arillinn with Marjorie Scott, but Beltran's guard return them to Aldaran. Kadarin's experiments result in the destruction of Caer Donn, which Lew had foreseen. Lew attempts to control the Sharra matrix, and he, with the help of Arillinn, is saved. Marjorie Scott dies of her injuries. The Terrans agree to honor the Compact throughout Darkover, now understanding its true purpose. Dyan Ardais makes amends to Danilo Syrtis by naming Danilo the heir to the Ardais Domain. Regis pledges his life to the service of Darkover. Lew Alton leaves Darkover, taking the Sharra Matrix with him. ===== Sam Hummer was a local truck driver from Tucson, Arizona who worked for a Tucson-based produce- shipper called "Red River". His driving partners were Duane Haller and "Pops" Dinwiddie. Eventually Sam's son, Carrol Jo (hereafter known as "CJ"), is old enough to ride with his father and the two of them then become partners as well. Sam changes the lettering on the trailer of his rig to read "Sam Hummer and Son". CJ begins dating Jerri and the two want to be married, but Sam dies and the trucking partnership suddenly ends. As a result, CJ joins the Air Force and is soon sent to Vietnam. While in Vietnam, CJ has a successful career and is deemed a hero, but all he wants to do is return home to Jerri. Jerri spends these years waiting for his return and this is the subject of the film's theme song "Drifting and Dreaming" by Valerie Carter. The opening sequence shows CJ's plane arriving from overseas as Jerri and her brother give him a hero's welcome. We see the two get married and start their life together in humble settings. CJ obtains a loan from the bank to purchase a new truck. He and Jerri then visit a local used truck sales lot where he purchases a repossessed 1974 Ford WT9000 cabover rig with a 350 NTC Cummins turbo diesel engine. The salesman throws in a custom paint job to seal the deal and CJ picks a blue and white paint scheme, highlighted with the words "BLUE MULE". Later, the two are jubilant as they drive their new truck through the deserts around Tucson, imagining the new life that awaits them. CJ announces to the local listeners on the CB radio that he is in business for himself and is intent on getting as much as he can, so that he can get out of hock to the bank as quickly as possible. When CJ goes back to work at Red River he finds out that things are very different. He sees unfriendly and unfamiliar faces now working there. Duane Haller informs him that the company is now hauling un-taxed cigarettes, slot machines and other contraband. Duane further states that if he wants to stay out of trouble and keep working, he’ll have to keep his mouth shut. CJ gets angry and forces his rig to be unloaded, vowing never to haul illegal cargo. But, not after having an altercation with Clem, the ringleader of the corrupt goons working the docks. Later in the day, Carol Jo is pulled over on a lonely highway and discovers that Deputy "Bob", the local sheriff is in on the crooked dealing as well. He handcuffs CJ to his truck and then speeds off. Clem, along with two other goons from Red River then show up and break his ribs. After CJ recuperates enough from his injuries, he tries to find work at other trucking companies around Tucson. He discovers that Red River has blackballed him as a troublemaker, and he is unwelcome everywhere he goes. Livid, he returns to Red River with a shotgun and threatens Duane Haller. Duane informs him that he is just a pawn in the game and that the person he actually needs to talk to is Duane’s boss, Buck Wessler (L.Q. Jones). Buck is a sleazy, lower-level crook who now manages Red River. Buck agrees to let CJ take a load to Dallas, free of any contraband. Sam Hummer’s old friend “Pops” Dinwiddie decides to come along, to help keep CJ safe on his trip. En route, they are attacked by men from Red River, but manage to fight them off and continue on their way. Throughout the rest of the story, CJ tries to make a living by driving daily loads in and out of Tucson, mainly for Red River. He slowly discovers that Red River is actually owned by a large corporation based in Phoenix called the “Glass House”, a diversified energy and transportation company. Unbeknownst to him, though, Glass House is actually a front for organized crime. They use the trucking companies that they own as a transportation system for their syndicate and its illegal shipments. Over the course of several months, CJ tries to organize the other drivers at Red River and around Tucson to stand up to the Glass House and refuse to haul illegal cargo. In the process he is beaten, vandalized, cheated and then eventually framed for Duane Haller’s murder. After his acquittal, CJ discovers the murdered body of Pops Dinwiddie, who had been driving the Blue Mule while CJ was in jail, in his house. This leads to a climactic confrontation with all of the Red River drivers against Buck and his goons at the loading dock. CJ beats Buck senseless, until CJ’s brother-in-law stops Carnell (Pop's son), also wanting to attack Buck, avenging his father's death. A few days later, Carol Jo, Carnell and with all the other Red River Drivers are invited to the Glass House for a meeting with the senior management. They are propositioned job opportunities with similar business arrangements that the GH had with Buck and his associates. Not trusting the Glass House nor their shady business practices, Carol Jo declines their offers electing to continue operating on his own and encourages the other drivers to do likewise. That night, CJ and Jerri are viciously attacked by a masked thug during their sleep and their house is set on fire. CJ wakes up and gets both of them out of the house before it partially burns down. Later on at the hospital, the doctor informs him that Jerri has lost the baby she was carrying and will never be able to have children. CJ returns home in despair. Moments later, he emerges from the house with a shotgun and gets into the Blue Mule. He radios Deputy “Bob” that he is headed for the Glass House and to tell them that he is coming. Bob tries to intercept him on a two-lane road, but CJ runs the deputy off the road, destroying his patrol car. CJ shows up at the Glass House headquarters, faced by several heavily armed security guards who are waiting for him. He accelerates as fast as he can toward them, but his truck is riddled with bullets, blowing out several tires, the radiator and the windshield. CJ takes one bullet to the face. He manages to run through the security gauntlet, but he knows he won’t be able to get the crippled truck all the way to the corporate headquarters, so he aims for the giant sign that stands in front of the building, an enormous two-story glass structure with the letters “GH”. Carroll Joe runs up an embankment leading to the sign and crashes through it, completely destroying it and his truck at the same time. In the last scene, a TV news reporter is announcing that all truckers in Tucson are on strike. The strike is being held in protest of the corrupt system set up by the Glass House and in honor of one trucker who dared to stand up against them, Carroll Jo Hummer. CJ’s brother-in-law wheels him out of his hospital room to the parking lot, which is filled with semi-trucks and truckers. They all begin to clap. CJ then begins to smile. Jerri is in a window directly behind him (apparently still hospitalized herself), overlooking all of this. Her lack of a smile may indicate that she is still unsure about living her life as the wife of a whistle-blowing hero who is willing to die for his family and the truth. ===== The player character is an adventurer who has come to Waterdeep looking for employ from Khelben Blackstaff, high mage of the city. Blackstaff informs the player that people have disappearing mysteriously, and some return from Undermountain with frightening tales. Blackstaff assigns several quests to the player character so he can find out the cause behind the renewed activity from the dungeon. It soon emerges that the Flame Sword of Lolth is buried somewhere deep within the dungeon. Whomever should possess the artifact would gain control of an undead army from the Abyss. The followers of Lolth, the Drow, are seeking for the sword. The only way to subdue the power of the Sword is to reassemble the Spider Amulet, which was broken into eight pieces and scattered throughout Undermountain. Lolth is the final boss of the game. ===== As Grace Churchill is having her baby, disturbing visions flash in her mind that show two witches being burned at the stake. It is later learned that these two people are John and Elizabeth Stockwell, who were burned in the year 1687. The visions seem to stop once her baby, whom she names William, is born. Things get worse when she, her husband, and the baby temporarily move into her mother-in-law’s creepy old house. It’s here that the visions start returning, and all sorts of spooky events start happening around her, including a priest hanging himself in their backyard. Grace discovers that the two witches she saw burned at the stake are her husband and mother-in-law, and they claim William as theirs. As the two try to kill Grace in a Satanic ritual, they are killed by their mute butler, leaving Grace to save William. ===== ===== The play presents multiple plots centered on the marriage of Moll Yellowhammer, the titular maid, who is daughter to a wealthy Cheapside goldsmith, and, in particular, her intended husband, Sir Walter Whorehound. Moll loves Touchwood Junior, a poor gallant; her father, however, has betrothed her to Whorehound, a philandering knight eager for Moll's dowry. As a kind of side-bargain, Sir Walter has promised Moll's brother Tim a "landed niece" from Wales. Tim, a fatuous scholar, returns to London from Cambridge University with his Latin tutor. This "landed niece" is in reality one of Sir Walter's mistresses, who has no land in actuality. Sir Walter is also having an affair with the wife of Allwit, a knowing cuckold, his name an inversion of "wittol," who lives happily on the money Sir Walter gives his wife. Meanwhile, Touchwood Senior (the elder brother of Moll's true love) prepares to depart from his wife; prodigiously fertile, he impregnates any woman he sleeps with. He and his wife must separate to avoid another pregnancy, which they cannot afford. His salvation comes from the Kixes, an aging couple who have not been able to conceive. This is important because if they have a child, Sir Walter (a relation of theirs) will not inherit their fortune, on which he has confidently depended, going so far as to live beyond his means. A maid tells the Kixes that Touchwood makes a special fertility potion; Touchwood deceives his way into the bed of Lady Kix. After an abortive attempt to elope with Touchwood Junior, Moll is guarded at home. The day before the wedding, Moll flees her parents' home again. Caught while attempting to cross the Thames, she is drenched and seems to fall sick upon being brought home. Touchwood Junior and Sir Walter fight in the street, and both are wounded. Sir Walter believes that he is near death. At Allwit's house, he repents all of his sins, condemning the Allwits for indulging him. When news is brought that Lady Kix is pregnant (thus ruining Sir Walter's prospects), the Allwits kick him out and plan to sell all Sir Walter's gifts and move to a home in The Strand. Moll continues to be very sick; when Touchwood Senior brings word that his brother has died, she faints and appears to die while Susan, her servant, is let in on a secret plan. Saddened, the Yellowhammers agree to Touchwood Senior's request that the young lovers receive a joint burial. At the funeral, Moll and Touchwood Junior rise from their coffins and the mourning turns to celebration. The two are wed, as Tim and the Welsh "niece" had been earlier that day; Kix promises to support the family of Touchwood Senior, who announces that Sir Walter has been imprisoned for debt. All exit, headed for a celebratory dinner. ===== Marilyn (Brenda Vaccaro) is a woman unexpectedly plunged into grief when her otherwise healthy husband is killed by Anita Stern (Renée Taylor), who was talking on her cell phone while backing her car out of a driveway. Marilyn is introduced to the Boynton Beach Bereavement Club by Lois (Dyan Cannon), a talkative and flirtatious decorator who also serves as the club's unofficial social director. Meanwhile, Harry (Joseph Bologna) tutors the newly widowed Jack (Len Cariou) in the related skills of cooking and courtship, while Jack comes to terms with secret wishes he never knew his late wife had. Harry considers himself a ladies' man, but his confidence is temporarily shaken when an Internet "dream date" turns out to be a prostitute (Janice Hamilton). Jack eventually gives in to the interest from Sandy (Sally Kellerman), with whom he re-discovers his sexuality and capacity to love, but they have to overcome Sally's discomfort with being divorced and not widowed. Lois herself begins dating Donald (Michael Nouri), who fears his real profession as an exterminator may turn off Lois who thinks he's a real estate developer, while she fears letting him know her real age. After Marilyn faces Anita down over her loss, the other issues come to a head at the club's New Year's Eve party, modeled after the sock hops they all enjoyed in their youths. ===== Set in Sydney's western suburbs, Footy Legends tells the story of Luc Vu (Anh Do), a young Vietnamese Australian man with an obsession about rugby league football. Out of work and with welfare authorities threatening to take away his little sister (Lisa Saggers), because their parents are dead and Luc is deemed incapable of being a responsible guardian, Luc re-unites his old Yagoona High School "footy" team--whose members are now facing social problems such as long-term unemployment, drug addictions, the after-effects of teenage parenting--and wins a competition that offers a Holden Ute and a modelling job for Lowes Menswear as its prize. It is mostly comedy which is underpinned with serious social issues affecting western Sydney. The film features Vietnamese-language dialogue between Vu, Anne, and their aged grandfather. ===== Diyari, a Kurdish/American returns to his hometown of Halabja, to build an orphanage five years after the chemical bombing. There, he meets Jiyan and Sherko, orphan survivors of the attack. During his stay in the town, Diyari brings a short lived spark of hope and happiness to the children's lives, and as he leaves, the orphans go back to their lonely lives. Diyari leaves tearful Jiyan at the place where they met first: on a swing under a lonely tree on a small hill. ===== James Bond—agent 007—saves a woman on the beach from committing suicide by drowning, and later meets her again in a casino. The woman, Contessa Teresa "Tracy" di Vicenzo, invites Bond to her hotel room to thank him, but when Bond arrives he is attacked by an unidentified man. After subduing the man, Bond returns to his own room and finds Tracy there, who claims she did not know the attacker was there. The next morning, Bond is kidnapped by several men, including the one he fought, who take him to meet Marc-Ange Draco, the head of the European crime syndicate Unione Corse. Draco reveals that Tracy is his only daughter and tells Bond of her troubled past, offering Bond one million pounds if he will marry her. Bond refuses, but agrees to continue romancing Tracy if Draco reveals the whereabouts of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the head of SPECTRE. Bond returns to London, and after a brief argument with M at the British Secret Service headquarters, where Bond tries to resign, heads for Draco's birthday party in Portugal. There, Bond and Tracy begin a whirlwind romance, and Draco directs the agent to a law firm in Bern, Switzerland. Bond investigates the office of Swiss lawyer Gumbold, and learns that Blofeld is corresponding with London College of Arms genealogist Sir Hilary Bray, attempting to claim the title 'Count Balthazar de Bleuchamp'. Posing as Bray, Bond goes to meet Blofeld, who has established a clinical allergy-research institute atop Piz Gloria in the Swiss Alps. Bond meets twelve young women, the "Angels of Death", who are patients at the institute's clinic, apparently cured of their allergies. At night Bond goes to the room of one patient, Ruby, to seduce her. At midnight Bond sees that the 12 ladies go into a sleep-induced hypnotic state while Blofeld gives them audio instructions for when they return home. In fact, the women are being brainwashed to distribute bacteriological warfare agents throughout the world. Bond tries to trick Blofeld into leaving Switzerland so that MI6 can arrest him without violating Swiss sovereignty. Blofeld refuses and Bond is eventually caught by henchwoman Irma Bunt. Blofeld reveals that he identified Bond after his attempt to lure him out of Switzerland, and tells his henchmen to take the agent away. Bond eventually makes his escape by skiing down Piz Gloria while Blofeld and his men give chase. Arriving at the village of Lauterbrunnen, Bond finds Tracy and they escape Bunt and her men after a car chase. A blizzard forces them to a remote barn, where Bond professes his love to Tracy and proposes marriage to her, which she happily accepts. The next morning, as the chase continues, Blofeld sets off an avalanche; Tracy is captured, while Bond is buried but manages to escape. Back in London at M's office, Bond is informed that Blofeld intends to hold the world at ransom by threatening to destroy its agriculture using his brainwashed women, demanding amnesty for all past crimes, and that he be recognised as the current Count de Bleuchamp. M tells 007 that the ransom will be paid and forbids him to mount a rescue mission. Bond then enlists Draco and his forces to attack Blofeld's headquarters, while also rescuing Tracy from Blofeld's captivity. The facility is destroyed, and Blofeld escapes the destruction alone in a bobsleigh, with Bond pursuing him. The chase ends when Blofeld becomes snared in a tree branch and injures his neck. Bond and Tracy marry in Portugal, then drive away in Bond's Aston Martin. When Bond pulls over to the roadside to remove flowers from the car, Blofeld (wearing a neck brace) and Bunt commit a drive-by shooting of the couple's car. Bond survives, but Tracy is killed by a headshot in the attack. Bond cries while cradling her lifeless body. ===== An orphaned Kurdish child (Hejar) and a Turkish pensioner (Rıfat) are thrown together by circumstance. Rıfat, a widowed retired judge, refuses to get involved in politics. He is forced out of his solitude, when Hejar the only survivor of a police raid on his Kurdish neighbors, takes refuge at his home. Gradually, he warms up to the kid and decides to reunite her with her family. ===== Colonel Jonas is a fanatical and unrepentant Confederate who led a regiment called the Hellbenders in the recently ended Civil War. Similar to Edmond O'Brien's character in Rio Conchos, he is determined to reorganise the Southern Army and defeat the Union. With his sons Ben, greedy Nat, and rapist Jeff, he massacres Union soldiers transporting a consignment of banknotes and conceals the loot in a coffin supposedly belonging to a deceased Confederate officer, Captain Ambrose who was killed in the Battle of Nashville. A drunken prostitute, Kitty, pretends to be the officer's widow. When Kitty is killed attempting a double-cross, Ben persuades Claire, a combination saloon hostess and professional gambler, to take Kitty's place - they fall in love. They consummate their love during a gunfight between Jonas and a local bounty hunter. The cool Claire proves her worth when feigning grief to a sheriff's posse who stop the wagon and wish to search the coffin suspecting the party may have been responsible for the theft and massacre. The party has another close shave when they stop in a town where the local minister who knew the late Captain Ambrose forces the party to stay for a memorial service where the town can pay their respects. Later the party is attacked by Mexican bandidos but is rescued by the American Cavalry who capture several of the Bandidos. Heeding Claire's wishes, the soldiers escort the wagon to the fort where Captain Ambrose was a former commander. Claire, resentful of Jonas' fanaticism, arranges for the coffin to be buried in 'her' husband's fort. Jonas orders his sons to sneak back into the Union fort, dig up the coffin, and return the money to the buckboard; in the meantime, he whips Claire and makes her stay outside of the cave where the group takes shelter in the storm, leading Claire to become gravely ill from pneumonia. The group moves on - but their horses are killed what appears to be a mad beggar but is a thief who wishes to rob them. They later fall afoul of Indians who were thought to be 'friendly' and would be agreeable to selling horses to the Hellbenders. The chief demands that Jeff (who raped and murdered his daughter with a bayonet when he should have been buying horses) be handed over to him. Ben denounces his family's fanaticism and offers the Indians all the money in the coffin, only to be caught in the crossfire between his arguing brothers, who shoot each other over the money; satisfied, the Indians ride away. The mortally wounded Jonas discovers that his sons dug up the wrong coffin that contains the remains, instead bringing that of the Chief Bandido who promised Jonas they would meet again. As Ben and Claire watch on, Jones crawls away and dies by the edge of the river, as the flag of the Hellbenders regiment sinks to the bottom of the river. ===== Guy Maddin (played by Erik Steffen Maahs as an adult, and Sullivan Brown as a child), returns to Black Notch, a deserted island on which stands a lighthouse that was his family home, an orphanage run by his parents, to slap a fresh coat of paint on the lighthouse. The film is divided into twelve chapters, each of which is a flashback that Guy's ancestral house-painting has brought to the fore of his memory. Guy, twelve years old in his memory, attends a secret meeting of orphans run by Savage Tom, a believer in pagan rituals. Tom says he will cut out the heart of Guy's friend Neddie but Guy's domineering mother interrupts through the use of her "aerophone," a radio/loudspeaker that she uses to communicate across the entirety of the island and so keep control of her children, whom she also spies on with the help of a telescope mounted with the lighthouse's revolving light. In the orphanage/lighthouse, mother delights in repressing the orphans' desires as fully as possible, especially the sexual yearnings of Sis. Mother relates that she herself was an orphan because Maddin's grandmother was bald and scalped her sister for her hair, while her sister was so jealous of the pregnancy that Maddin's mother was literally cut out of her own mother's stomach. Maddin's father, little-seen, spends his time in a basement laboratory while Mother oversees all else. In the woods one day Guy meets a young girl, Wendy Hale, a famous teen detective investigating why orphans adopted from the island all have holes bored in the backs of their heads. Guy falls for Wendy and the two join Sis and Neddie for a game of spin the bottle. Wendy falls in love with Sis and impersonates her twin brother Chance in order to pursue her. Guy develops a "Boy crush" on the disguised Wendy/Chance, who moves into the orphanage to further her/his investigation. Guy helps Wendy/Chance investigate and they discover that Father is using a sharp signet ring to drill into the skulls and draw nectar from their brains of the orphans (and his own children). The nectar is harvested and shipped to the mainland, and also used to extend Mother's youth. She becomes twenty years younger, and hopes to eventually return to infancy, but the effects are daily reversed by the age-ifying efforts of keeping Sis and the other children in line and properly repressed. Sis being the biggest problem, Mother sends her for additional nectar-harvesting, but the over- harvesting causes Sis to murder Father in self-defense. Father is buried near the water and the orphans have to jump on the coffin so that it will sink into the flooded grave. Mother attempts suicide by dramatically taking poison and calling the orphans to her bedside to witness the lengths to which they've driven her. Sis has discovered that Chance is Wendy but nevertheless plans to marry the girl. Mother is enraged by the marriage and threatens to tell Father. To accomplish this, she exhumes the corpse and "boosts" it back to life using jumper cables connected to her own racing, nectar-infused heart. The zombie Father resumes his normal activities. Mother curses Sis further and becomes frenzied with hunger for more nectar. Guy stumbles upon Mother in the woods, eating through Neddie's skull. The crime compels Sis to force Mother, Father, and Savage Tom from the island in a rowboat. Guy, left on the island, and his Mother exchange calls of love over the water. Guy is soon sent off the island himself and into foster care. Present-day Guy finishes painting the lighthouse, and encounters the ghost of Wendy, who tells him that Sis took over his Mother's place, to become just as tyrannical. She continued to harvest nectar from the orphans, and finally Wendy/Chance abandoned her and fled the island. This drove Sis to madness and to combusting in the lighthouse's lamp. Mother returns to the island, now blind, with the undead Father in tow. She attempts to restore her past regime, with Guy (her lone remaining child) her sole focus. Guy resists but life is less dramatic than before, until Father is murdered by sailors who were formerly orphans he victimized (they stuff him in a trash can and set him on fire). Mother soon readies to die, and Guy readies to catch her dying breath in a glass bottle. However, the ghost of Wendy/Chance distracts him and Mother dies furious with him for his inattention. Guy is left alone on the island, torn between the past and the future, contemplating suicide. ===== Carol (Beckinsale)—a talented painter and independent woman—falls in love with Steven (McConaughey) without knowing much about him other than he is the perfect man. But when Carol finds herself pregnant it forces Steven to expose his darkest secret—his family. Steven happens to be the only average-sized person in a family of dwarfs, including his twin brother Rolfe (Oldman). Carol and Steven are then forced to come to terms with the fact that the baby she carries may be born a dwarf. This terrifies Steven, who does not want his child to suffer the same way Rolfe did. As Carol decides to carry the child, she and Steven grow further apart, and she begins to rely on Rolfe to teach her about life as a dwarf. ===== Air Traffic Controller Nick Culver (George Peppard) has been suffering recurring nightmares where a military pilot is intentionally switching off his transponder signal. He subsequently intrudes into the airspace of civilian flights Nick is controlling, causing an air collision. He wakes up terrified and his wife Betsy (Karen Grassle) advises him to see a doctor, and to find a less stressful job. Nick, in his late 50s, working as an LAX Air Traffic Controller, feels trapped in his job. The stress is affecting his mental and physical health. He is driven to prove himself despite his years. His nightmare turns real as he experiences an accident similar to his dream. After the incident, the civilian flight passengers are all dead, and the military pilot has bailed out and survived. During the inquiry, the pilot lies about his actions. As a final hearing approaches, Nick's career is in danger. He smokes and drinks coffee incessantly, and begins to take pills to calm his nerves. There follows a confrontation with Brian Haley (Greg Morris), the employee the authorities have used to try to frame Nick by blaming the accident on his mistake. Nick replies that the employee is a bitter "washed- out" pilot who seeks revenge on the aviation industry. Nick's stress continues at work. After working in Chicago, Tim Donovan (Desi Arnaz, Jr.), a young controller, is posted to LAX with Nick becoming his instructor. The two generations strongly clash with each other. The young controller is more relaxed and not conscious of the particular difficulties he may face while the older and experienced instructor knows that any moment can produce a situation that pushes adrenaline to its highest. When Maggie Johnson (Margie Impert), a young trainee panics, she realizes that she cannot handle the stress. The climax of Nick's stress comes with the arrival of the psychologist Dr. Eric Denvers (Martin Milner). Frank Piovano (Michael Constantine) as the head of the Civil Aviation Authority in Los Angeles had sent for the psychologist. Brad Mullins (Dana Elcar), as the head of the controllers, wants to closely watch the controllers as some of them are reported to have problems and there is fear for consequences in air safety. The presence of Dr. Denvers increases the stress as everyone knows that if detected to be mentally unstable, the controller will lose his job. Nick explains all the tricks of the trade to the psychologist including why even rules have to bend to allow traffic to keep on going instead of queuing for long periods on the ground. He also informs Dr. Denvers that controllers' personal life should not be under review. In Donovan's training, his actions nearly cause a collision that is averted at the last minute by Nick taking control. Even in this stressful situation, he corrects automatically while his face reflects his tremendous anxiety. At Nick's hearing, his accumulated anxiety results in a family breakup with Betsy leaving him. At LAX, Piovano not only has his controllers to worry about but a series of murders of taxicab drivers that work out of LAX, is extremely troubling. Billy Coleman (Fabian), an airport worker at LAX, who has lost his mind after a cab driver killed his child, is the killer. While trying to escape from the police, he rams a bus into the radar installations, destroying the airport's radar. Using only their memory and information on paper strips alone, the controllers in the operations room will have to continue without radar. At this crucial moment, Nick works together with Donovan to successfully handle incoming flights. Nick is then informed that Betsy is on a flight already in the air, but that an engine failure has crippled the airliner forcing an immediate landing. In the chaos, Nick trusts Donovan to take charge while he rushes to the airfield to provide help. The bus with the crazed airport worker blocks the runway but Nick joins Piovano to get on the bus to disarm Coleman, and with the disabled airliner in landing approach, he drives the bus away, clearing the runway, as Flight 802 misses it by inches. After escaping the danger, Betsy returns to Nick's arms and at this moment Haley comes and tells Nick that after a witness came forward who saw the military jet doing aerobatics, Nick is "off the hook". Turning to Betsy, Nick promises to quit his post and return to a normal life. ===== Roderick Usher summons his friend to his crumbling old mansion in the remote countryside. Usher has been obsessed with painting a portrait of his dying wife Madeline. When she passes away, Usher has her buried in the family crypt, but the audience soon discovers that Madeline wasn't really dead, that she was buried alive in the tomb. Madeline revives from her catalepsy, exits her coffin and returns to her shocked husband. ===== New York Police and Security Department detective Lieutenant Eve Dallas's main suspect in the death of a high-profile prostitute is the enigmatic Irish businessman, Roarke, in 2058.Official Nora Roberts Companion ===== 1992\. Tokyo Metropolitan Police Detective Shunsuke Honma, on leave due to an incident on the job, is hired by his nephew, banker Jun Kurisaka, to track down his fiancée, whom he knows by the name of Shoko Sekine and who disappeared from his life after he discovered her credit history was tainted by bankruptcy. As Honma investigates her circumstances, he finds that the name "Shoko Sekine" actually belongs to someone else other than Jun's fiancée - and that the latter may have murdered the former to achieve this... As Honma navigates the country for clues, he finds that the credit-based economy in Japan, coupled with the country's own system for family identification, have undesirable side effects on ordinary people's lives. ===== In occupied France during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, a beautiful young laundress, Elizabeth Rousset, shares a stage coach ride from Rouen with a group of condescending nobles and businessmen and their wives, a political firebrand named Jean Cornudet and a young priest on his way to his new assignment. When they stop for the night at a village controlled by Prussian Lieutenant von Eyrick, known to his fellow officers as "Mademoiselle Fifi", their coach is held up until the laundress agrees to "dine" with the lieutenant. Unlike her social betters, who have all fraternized with the enemy, and had them as guests in their homes, Elizabeth is a simple patriot, and will not eat or consort with the invaders of her country, so the coach cannot go on. The group finally convinces her that it would be best for France for them to get on with their business, and she concedes. While she is closeted with the arrogant Prussian, whose aim is to humiliate and degrade her (essentially he forces her to agree to be raped) the rest of the travellers celebrate their deliverance by getting drunk on champagne, and following the progress of the evening's encounter through the sounds coming from upstairs. The next morning, when the coach departs - with Lt. von Eyrick travelling with them - all the travellers except Cornudet and the priest ostentatiously snub Elizabeth, while chatting and gossiping with the Prussian. At Cleresville, after Elizabeth, the priest and von Eyrick leave the coach, Cornudet is overcome by guilt at his previous actions, tells the group off and leaves to seek Elizabeth out. He tries to apologize to her, but she rejects him - even so, she has stirred his patriotism again. The young priest has taken over from the previous curé who defied the Prussians by refusing to ring the church bell, and he has decided to continue that defiance - the bell will remain silent until the first blow is struck for the freedom of France. The Prussian Captain in charge of the village wants the French to submit to them, and ring the bell themselves ("We do not win," explains Lt. von Eyrick, "unless our opponents ring the bell"), but one of his subordinates has vowed that on his next patrol, he will ring the bell himself. Cornudet hears this, and prepares to protect the bell. That night, when the Prussians approach the church to ring the bell, he shoots and kills a lancer charging toward him on horseback. Meanwhile, the bored Prussian officers have thrown themselves a party, and have rounded up women from the village to attend. Elizabeth feels she must go, as the Prussians threaten to withhold their business from her aunt's laundry unless she does and unless she encourages the other young women to attend. The girls are given beautiful gowns to wear and are promised champagne, but the biggest attraction is the food. Elizabeth is assured that "Mademoiselle Fifi" will not be at the party; but, of course, he is. The lieutenant, drunk, forces Elizabeth to sit on his lap and kisses her forcibly, biting her lip until it bleeds. But the last straw comes when he insults France and the French and slaps her; she picks up a knife and stabs and kills him. Both now trying to escape from Prussians who are hunting them, Elizabeth and Cornudet are taken in by the priest, who hides them. When the Prussians make arrangements with the priest for the funeral of Lt. von Eyrick, they ask that the bell be rung, as is customary. The priest agrees, and the Prussians feel that they have won their battle. However, the priest explains later to Elizabeth and Cornudet that the bell can be rung now that the first blow for French freedom has been struck - by a woman. ===== The film's plot surrounds the romantic involvement of two contrasting characters: Petre (Mihai Călin), a Mafioso, and Andreea (Alexandra Dinu), a young violin player. The pair meet and fall in love. Petre becomes obsessed with Andreea and threatens her with violence after she denies his sexual advances. ===== The mining town of Cedar City, Utah, is ruled by Mr. Walthrope, a polygamous Mormon prophet (Victor Rebengiuc), his son the marshall (Gheorghe Visu) and their band of ruffians. John Brad (Ovidiu Iuliu Moldovan) is falsely accused of shooting a gunfighter sent against him by the prophet in the back and has to flee. Meanwhile, a train brings Jeff Groghan (Ferenc Bács), a gunfighter called by Walthrope, and two Transylvanian immigrants, Traian (Ilarion Ciobanu) and Romulus Brad (Mircea Diaconu), who come to meet their brother John. Traian speaks only Romanian and Romulus tries to get by with his dictionary. On the station, Grogham is received with a gunfight and Traian has occasion to fire his Turkish gun, booty from the siege of Plevna. Upon arrival to the saloon, Traian is invited to play poker with Groghan, a former Confederate officer still in grey uniform and another man. Traian manages to win many dollars and Bob (Ahmed Gabbany), the slave of the Confederate officer. The fun is interrupted by the arrival of the prophet. With very limited command of English, the Brads tell him that they are looking for John, whose face they see on Wanted posters. They are judged by the inicuous drunkard Dolittle (Vasile Nitulescu) who sentences them to hanging but the prophet takes them to his farm, where they toil as farm hands. The Brads and Bob escape and live in a hut under the Romanian flag where they fish and find gold nuggets. John tries to organize the miners against the prophet who sets the prices and takes their gold away to Salt Lake City, but the miners prefer to let things stay as they are. Later, Walthrope's men assault one man and his daughter that is rescued by John Brad. John and the girl finally reach the Brads' hut. They team together to stop the party that carries the miners' gold stolen by the Mormons. In the ensuing gunfight, the Brads win and successfully defend the miners' camp against the whole Walthrope band. Walthrope is captured and the Brads, Bob and the girl ride into the sunset. ===== ===== After England and Spain make peace, notorious pirate Henry Morgan (Laird Cregar) decides to reform. As a reward, he is made Governor of Jamaica, with a mandate to rid the Caribbean of his former comrades, by persuasion or force if necessary. He replaces the former governor, Lord Denby (George Zucco), but is not trusted by either the lawful residents or the pirates. Captain Jamie Waring (Tyrone Power) and his lieutenant, Tom Blue (Thomas Mitchell), reluctantly give up their "trade" out of friendship for Morgan, but others of the Pirate Brotherhood, such as Captain Billy Leech (George Sanders) and Wogan (Anthony Quinn), refuse to change. Meanwhile, Waring takes a liking to Denby's daughter, Lady Margaret (Maureen O'Hara), who happens to be inconveniently engaged to an English gentleman, Roger Ingram (Edward Ashley). As it turns out, her fiancé is secretly providing information about ship sailings to the unrepentant pirates. The Jamaican assembly is in an uproar about the rogue pirates, so Morgan sends Jamie to track down Leech, but he fails due to Ingram's help. The Jamaican assembly votes to impeach Morgan, and Ingram announces he and Margaret will sail to England to inform the King. Morgan orders Jamie to capture Leech in order to get the head of the Jamaican assembly vote against him. Jamie prepares to follow Morgan's orders, but as he doesn't want Margaret to marry Ingram he goes by her house and takes her and sails off. The pirate fleet with the Black Swan shows up sailing hard behind him, and Jamie's ship is captured by Leech. Jamie pretends that he has run away to join Leech and marry Margaret. Margaret reluctantly goes along with the ruse. Morgan hears of Jamie's "betrayal" and heads off to catch them. Leech discovers the marriage between Margaret and Jamie is a sham and captures Jamie. Leach takes Jamie's ship to where the other ships are waiting and showers them with cannon fire. However, during the fight, Jamie escapes and manages to kill Leech in a duel, as Morgan storms aboard. Morgan is inclined to hang Jamie because he abducted Margaret, but she declares that she accompanied him of her own free will. By now, they have genuinely fallen in love and they kiss. Power and O'Hara in the trailer for The Black Swan (1942) ===== Derek "Van" Vandeveer is a young, well respected, computer scientist. He is rich with stock options and heady with his own success when his whole world is suddenly and forever changed as the planes begin crashing into the World Trade Center. Within months his fortune is gone to an Enron-like scandal, and his wife and son have moved west to work on a new telescope being developed by a billionaire entrepreneur. Van is recruited into a nascent wing of the government working on the outside of the main bureaucracy to vastly improve the security of government systems. His ingenious design gains him even more respect from his peers, but as the project continues Van goes through personality changes, becoming more paranoid and simultaneously more patriotic. Without the psychological aid of the money and nice house of his former company, he even begins to question whether he really is a computer scientist or just an over-glorified technician. The novel comes to head as Van is asked to look into the reason a multibillion-dollar pork project spy satellite is failing in space. The bureaucracy, thinking that he will fail in this endeavor, hopes to use it to discredit his boss and him and put an end to their power climb in Washington. Van discovers the problem and through a covert military-like attack on the source, puts an end to it. ===== The Wonder Circus comes to a town in the Midwest with its featured attraction, Jumbo the elephant. Pop Wonder owns the circus, but his continued gambling losses in crap games leaves him (and the circus) with an ever-growing number of IOUs. His daughter, Kitty Wonder, hires a newcomer, Sam Rawlins, as both a performer and tent hand. She is unaware that Sam is the son of circus mogul John Noble, whose ambition is to buy the Wonder Circus for himself. Noble has been quietly buying up the IOUs with Sam's help and abruptly takes control of the family's business, leaving the Wonders without a show. Kitty, Pop and his longtime fiancée Lulu go off on their own, forming a traveling carnival, but it isn't quite the same. Sam, however, has fallen in love with Kitty and has a guilty conscience about what he has done. Sam splits from his father and rejoins the Wonders, bringing with him an old friend of theirs, Jumbo. ===== In the late 21st century, an interstellar war between humans (associated as the Bilateral Terran Alliance, or BTA) and Dracs (bipedal reptilian humanoids) is fought. Battles are periodically fought between fighter spacecraft, and no human hates the Dracs more than Willis E. Davidge (Dennis Quaid). During one such battle, Davidge and Drac pilot Jeriba Shigan (Louis Gossett, Jr.) engage in a dogfight which results in their both crash-landing on FyrineIV. After initial hostilities where they viciously hunt one another, the two learn to cooperate to survive. Over the next three years they become friends, each saving the other's life several times. Davidge, haunted by dreams of spaceships landing on the planet, leaves in search of help. He finds evidence of humans, but learns that the planet has only periodically been visited by human miners known as Scavengers who use Dracs as slave labor. He returns to warn Jeriba (nicknamed "Jerry") only to discover that Jerry is now with child; Dracs are hermaphroditic and reproduce asexually. To pass the time, Davidge and Jerry memorize each other's ancestry, agreeing that Davidge's lineage is "very thin". Jerry later dies in childbirth, but not before making Davidge swear to take the child, Zammis (Bumper Robinson), back to the Drac homeworld and recite his lineage and join Drac society. Davidge raises Zammis, who calls him "Uncle". One day a ship flies overhead and Davidge goes to investigate. Zammis is curious and follows. He is discovered by a pair of Scavengers. Davidge attacks the men, but Zammis inadvertently stands between Davidge and one miner, and Davidge is gunned down. Later, a BTA patrol ship finds Davidge apparently dead, and returns him to his base space station. During an impersonal funeral ceremony, Davidge suddenly awakens. He is later reinstated to duty but not as a pilot, as his superiors want to make sure he has not been brainwashed. Unable to get help in rescuing Zammis, Davidge steals a ship to find the child by himself. He manages to find the Scavenger ship and sneak aboard. Davidge speaks to the Drac slaves in their own language; they know about Zammis and realize he is Uncle. Davidge enters the facility, fighting one miner after another, and the slaves revolt. Towards the end of the battle, they are assisted by the BTA crew who pursued the stolen ship. In the epilogue, Davidge and Zammis are on the Drac homeworld: "...and when, in the fullness of time, Zammis brought its own child before the Holy Council, the name of 'Willis Davidge' was added to the line of Jeriba." ===== Police officer Frank Taylor had the perfect job and perfect family. After his son's unsolved abduction, his life, marriage and career disintegrate. He leaves the force to become a private investigator specializing in missing and abducted children cases. His ex-wife has come to terms with the loss of their child, but Frank is obsessed with one day finding their son. One day Frank's life is forever changed while trying to apprehend Simon, a man linked to several child abductions who eludes the police. A fatal clash leaves Simon dead and Frank in critical condition. As the doctors try to save his life, Frank has a near-death experience in which he sees his missing son. When Frank regains consciousness, he finds that the dead can communicate with him, and that their confusing and frightening manifestations are usually intended to help him in his work. Some of the dead however—including Simon—abuse his new abilities to intentionally mislead or harm him. ===== The series revolved around a secret agency within the government, staffed by government agents, tech-savvy geeks, and former criminal hackers, which is tasked with solving or preventing cyber crimes. ===== The story follows the adventures of two Scottish youths from the Wester Hailes district of Edinburgh, played by Vincent Friell and Joe Mullaney, who, in rebellion to their drab lives in urban Scotland in the mid-1980s, become modern highwaymen. Donning masks of a clown and a wolf- man and riding a Suzuki GP 125 motorbike, for a joke they waylay and hold up with a toy gun tourist coaches in the Highlands, in the process becoming a tourist attraction themselves. Having inadvertently acquired substantial amounts of money, they proceed to become modern Robin Hoods, doling it out to the poor of their city by scattering it on bike rides through its streets, attracting national media attention and pursuit by the police.'Our Top 10 Most Scottish Films, #7 Restless Natives,' 'The Scots Magazine', 4 March 2015. https://www.scotsmagazine.com/articles//top-10-scottish-films- number-7/'Comical strivings in Restless Natives', 'The New York Times;, 12 September 1986. https://www.nytimes.com/1986/09/12/movies/film-comical- strivings-in-restless-natives.html ===== Following the end of the highly successful Desmond's, life in Peckham continues. In the first episode, after the reading of the will of his late friend Desmond Ambrose (Norman Beaton), Augustus "Porkpie" Grant, a former employee at the Ford Motor Company is now a lollipop man. He borrows a pound from Michael (Desmond's son) and buys a lottery ticket. The ticket turns out to be a winner and Porkpie (as he is always called by friends) suddenly finds himself with a fortune of ten million pounds. However, before he announces that he has won he gives Michael a pound back, so he cannot have any claims to the money. He moves out of his flat into a house and also hires a chauffeur to drive him around in his new car, a Ford Escort (Porkpie explains that he bought one because "I always wanted one of these, I could never afford one, not even with the staff discount"). As time (and the series move on) Porkpie goes through various situations and learns whom he can and cannot trust now he is a millionaire. ===== A struggle between light and dark, from three centuries back, is about to ensue. The parties involved are Michel and Albert, the two vampire hunters representing light, and the vampires representing dark. The story takes place in an alternate version of the year 2006 in France, when progress looks stuck in the late 19th century. Michel and Albert rescue a 12-year-old girl named Caroline who witnessed a couple of villagers held hostage by the vampire sarcoma. After rescuing the villagers and Caroline, the vampire hunters proceed into the castle to destroy the remaining forces of dark. Although the forces of evil reveal that they created Michel and Albert to kill themselves, they became afraid of death and tried to stop them. It is important to note the Hunters are in fact Dhampyrs (half- vampires), foreshadowed by their glowing eyes. The outcome is a pyrrhic victory for the forces of good; as the forces of evil are stopped, the vampire hunters decide to let the rising sun end their own lives as well. Six months later, Caroline pays her respects to the vampire hunters at their graves, glad that she is alive, by putting one of their guns in front of one of their graves, stating that "her heart shall remember all.... That day, that moment, and what happened", before her summer hat flies away to the camera to end the game. ===== The novel follows Brian Oswald, a typical high school outcast, through his sophomore and junior year of Catholic high school. Brian and his friends, Gretchen and Kim, were geeky misfits in middle school but the explosion of the punk music scene allowed them to craft new, tough attitudes to protect themselves against the world. Brian is hopelessly in love with his best friend Gretchen, a foul-mouthed fat girl with a penchant for getting into fights. Unfortunately for him, Gretchen is in love with a handsome Neo-Nazi named Tony Degan. Brian attempts to get advice on how to woo Gretchen from his friends Bobby B., a handsome stoner who cheats on Kim regularly; and Rod, a quiet African-American nerd with a huge music collection. Brian makes a mixtape for Gretchen to express his love but she rebuffs his advances. Embarrassed, the two drift apart as Brian becomes friends with Mike Madden, a pot head skater, when they pair up for a class project. Meanwhile, his parents go through a divorce and Brian feels disconnected from his father, whom he previously had a close relationship with. Through Mike, Brian meets Dorie Spitzer, who eventually becomes his new girlfriend. Brain falls in love with her but Dorie reveals she was cheating on her boyfriend with Brian . Brian attempts to convince her to break up with her boyfriend, but Dorie refuses and leaves him. Heartbroken, Brian shaves his head as an act of mourning and becomes friends with Gretchen again, who was also dumped by Tony Degan. He rejoins the punk scene as well. An introspective person, Brian becomes increasingly aware of the class differences and racism in his town when the junior prom becomes segregated as the black and white students can't agree on the theme song. Gretchen and Kim make fun of the black students for pitching a fit but Brian defends them, saying that as outsiders, they are just doing what punks are doing—creating their own space where they can be happy. Brian becomes friends with another skater named Nick and the two spend their free time breaking into cars and scamming people to make money. Brian's feelings for Gretchen returns but she turns him down again. After a disastrous date at prom, Brian picks Gretchen up with his rented limo and the two grab breakfast, as friends. In the last few months of school, a fight breaks out between rival schools and Bobby B. is expelled for hitting another student with a weapon, much to the disappointment of his friends. The final part of the book takes place at a Halloween party where Brian looks at the party goers and realizes that regardless of the categories they are put into (black, white, jock, punk, etc.), they are all trying to figure out their identity in the world. Brian kisses a girl at the party but later ditches her in favor leaving the party with Gretchen when the cops come. Even though he still loves Gretchen, he is happy to sit with her as her friend. =====