From Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ===== Amitabha Roy (Soumitra Chatterjee) is a Calcutta-based scriptwriter who is driving around in the country to collect material for a film. His vehicle breaks down in a small town. A tea planter, Bimal Gupta (Haradhan Bandopadhyay), offers hospitality for the night. Amitabha is forced to accept the offer as he has no alternative. At Gupta's house, he is introduced to his wife Karuna (Madhabi Mukherjee). Amitabha is shocked to find her to be the girl he once loved and had let down. Unaware of their past relationship, Gupta entertains Amitabha. He comes across as a simple man with none of the physical or intellectual charms of Roy. Amitabha feels uneasy around Karuna and is unable to sleep. He asks for sleeping pills from Karuna, and manages to steal a few moments alone with Karuna. He conveys to her about his love and asks her to leave her husband. Karuna refuses to answer his inquiries as to whether she is happy in her marriage. Unable to regain the old intimacy with her, he remembers his betrayal. It was the last time he saw her. Forced by her uncle who did not approve of the relationship and wanted to send her away, she came to him. Even though he was a poor student, she had made up her mind to accept his situation and surrender her comfortable life, educational plans and family relationships all to marry him. He, however, proved to be a coward, unwilling to make such a commitment. Now that he is a successful man, Amitabha asks Karuna to leave her husband for him. Karuna, however, does or says little to encourage him. The next morning, Amitabha decides to take the train instead of waiting for his vehicle to be repaired. He writes a note to Karuna, requesting her to meet him at the railway station if she still cared for him. Amitabha waits for Karuna at the station. Karuna does come, but just to take back the sleeping pills Amitabha had borrowed. ===== One murky night in Lankhmar, Fissif and Slevyas, members of the Thieves' Guild, steal some valuable jewels from Jengao the gem merchant. While returning to Thieves' House, they are ambushed by both the Gray Mouser and Fafhrd simultaneously, who steal their gems. Recognising kindred spirits, they agree to share the loot. They return to Mouser's lodgings, where Fafhrd is introduced to Mouser's woman Ivrian, while Ivrian meets Fafhrd's love interest, Vlana. Somewhat drunk, Mouser persuades Fafhrd to join him in a quest to infiltrate the headquarters of the Thieves' Guild, in the guise of members of the Beggars' Guild. They are initially successful, but their disguise comes unstuck when their glib story is seen through by Krovas, Grandmaster of the Thieves, and the Beggarmaster. Fleeing, they return to Mouser's hovel, only to find to their horror that both girls have been killed and partially eaten by giant rats and by Slivikin, a fast-moving evil witch-beast conjured up by Krovas's warlock, Hristomilo. In grief and anger, they return to Thieves' House and charge in, causing panic and chaos. They kill Hristomilo, before fleeing from the city. ===== Detective Peter Gunn is asked by a mob boss to find the murderer of a friend's brother. Although he is working outside from the mob, Gunn is nonetheless pursued by mobsters, the cops and interested women. The story heats up when Gunn finds information that suggests the cops are being framed. ===== Dr. Harvey, a rural physician, breaks the fourth wall to relate an unusual occurrence that happened in his village. The bulk of the story is told in flashback. Bill and Robin are boyhood friends who compete for the affections of Lena, a beautiful girl about their own age. Lena's family moves away, and in adulthood the two men become scientists. They collaborate on the Reproducer, a machine that can exactly duplicate physical objects. Lena returns to the village, and Bill and Robin's forgotten childhood feelings return. In time, they abandon their work on the Reproducer, and Robin leaves the village to learn his family's business. Bill is disappointed to discover that Lena loves Robin and intends to marry him. Hopeless that he can win Lena's affections, Bill convinces her to allow him to use the Reproducer to create a duplicate of her. The experiment succeeds, and Bill names the duplicate "Helen". Because Helen is an exact copy, when she is introduced to Robin she also falls in love with him. Bill believes that electro-shock therapy can be used to erase Helen's knowledge of Robin. Not wishing to compete with Lena for Robin's affections, Helen agrees to the therapy. Bill convinces Lena to help him with the procedure. The process proceeds as planned, but the apparatus overheats, explodes and causes a terrific fire. Robin and Dr. Harvey arrive in time to rescue a woman from the fire. Bill and the other woman perish in the flames. Harvey, having been briefed on the situation by Robin, discovers that the woman has amnesia. The two men wonder whom they have saved. Dr. Harvey recalls that Bill had had to start Helen's heart with a device that he attached to the back of her neck, leaving two scars. Robin is relieved to find that there are no marks on the neck of the woman they rescued: It is Lena. ===== Benjamin Fiedler is the 13-year-old son of Jewish couple Adam and Joanne Fiedler. After attending the elaborate bar mitzvah party for the son of Arnie Stein - which was done on a cruise ship, with a Titanic theme - Benjamin's parents decide to go all out for his bar mitzvah. The plan is to rent Dodger Stadium for the bar mitzvah party, complete with movie stars and everything. Adam even books Neil Diamond to sing the National Anthem. However, Benjamin does not want to go through with it, as he does not even understand the words of the haftorah he has to read as part of his bar mitzvah rite. To try to stall the planning, he secretly invites his grandfather Irwin, who is now living on an Indian reservation with a New Age woman named Sacred Feather. When Benjamin's grandfather arrives, it puts a kink in the planning - as Irwin had a falling out with his son Adam, both for having left Adam when he was a teenager, and for Adam's own humiliating bar mitzvah. Irwin must then pull off somehow reconciling with his son while helping his grandson deal with the question of what it means to be a "man." Now appreciating his bar mitzvah not as an excuse to throw a party but rather as a rite of passage in his Jewish life, Benjamin gets up the courage to tell his parents to call off the over- the-top bash they had planned. After he does very well at the service the party is just a casual backyard affair with lunch, a klezmer band (with a guest-star singer and guitarist, as Adam "couldn't cancel Neil Diamond") and lots of family and friends. ===== Three brothers meet each other for the first time after their mother's death. Believing that they will inherit her fortune, they quickly spend their money. However, when the inheritance does not transpire, the brothers become closer as they try to work out what to do. ===== On an annual fishing trip, in isolated high country, Stewart (Gabriel Byrne), Carl (John Howard), Rocco (Stelios Yiakmis) and Billy (Simon Stone) find a girl's body in the river; she has been brutally murdered by Gregory (Chris Haywood), a local electrician. The girl (Tatea Reilly) turns out subsequently to be Aboriginal. The discovery shocks and confuses the men. Only the youngest of the men, Billy, understands this is a crime scene but he is ignored. Billy later leaves the town with his partner and child. The men initially suggest hiking back the following morning as it is too late in the day to safely navigate their way to their trucks. Stewart secures the girl's body by the ankle to the riverbank, so she will not drift downstream and get lost in the rapids. However, Stewart the next day goes fishing and, after catching an especially large fish, the men decide to spend the rest of the afternoon continuing their trip before informing the police in the morning. While the men are gone, some of the men's wives (Jude and Claire) and Rocco's girlfriend (Carmel), get together socially. During their conversation, Jude (Carl's wife) reveals that their daughter died nearly two years ago, leaving them to raise their granddaughter Caylin-Calandria, who has psychological issues and towards whom Jude shows resentment. When Stewart's wife, Claire (Laura Linney) remarks that she does not think Stewart would want more children, Jude reveals that Claire had a mental breakdown after her son Tom was born and left the family for 18 months. The men return home late Sunday night. After reporting the body to the police, they each go to their respective homes. Stewart goes home to Claire and finds her sleeping on her stomach, reminiscent of the posture of the dead body. He talks to her briefly and initiates intimacy. However, he does not disclose the find, which later causes problems when Claire finds out he left the girl's body to keep fishing. The next morning, the police show up at Claire and Stewart's house to ask Stewart to answer some more questions. The men gather in the police station, where the police officer expresses his disgust that they would "fish over a dead body" instead of reporting it as soon as they could. Claire is stunned that Stewart would do such a thing and keeps trying to understand his reasons. The men come up with a story that Carl strained his ankle thus they could not walk back as early as they would have otherwise. Because the girl was Aboriginal, some believe the men neglected the dead girl out of racism. All of the men's businesses are vandalised in retaliation by Aboriginals, with painted slurs branding them racists. It becomes clear from this point that the western culture of a town that had to be abandoned and rebuilt on higher ground because of a dam and which is peopled by immigrants, is at odds with the ancient belief system of the native Aboriginals. Claire and Elissa (Billy's partner) are the only ones of the group who express any remorse and condemnation for what happened. Jude repeatedly defends her husband Carl, while Carl argues that the girl was already dead and thus it made no difference to her whether they stayed or not. The more Claire pushes Stewart and the others to make amends, the more tensions increase in the town. Prior to the fishing trip, Claire had begun throwing up repeatedly from morning sickness, which she hid from everyone. With her marriage unravelling, and haunted by her post-post-partum breakdown and abandonment of her first child, she inquires of a medical professional about how to get an abortion. However, she has still not gone through with it - nor revealed her pregnancy to Stewart - by the end of the film. Despite encountering hostility from the rest of the group, Claire continues to try to reach out to the girl's family. She gathers donations to give to the girl's family for her funeral. Claire even goes to the family's home and is rebuked. She later returns to give them the money she has gathered. Increasingly troubled that Claire continues to probe for the truth of what happened, Stewart erupts in rage one evening when Claire asks him to talk about it. The two begin fighting physically, while slinging barbs at each other about their past mistakes. The next day, after Billy and his family have left town for the coast, Stewart tells Claire - who he suspects is planning to leave him - that he will never allow her to take his son from him. Carl similarly stands up for Caylin-Calandria after Jude once again shows anger towards her, saying she cannot take her pain of losing their daughter out on their blameless granddaughter. The next day, Claire goes to the memorial service. The rest of the men and their wives, as well as the children, show up to pay their respects, too. When Stewart apologises on behalf of the men, the girl's father throws dirt on him, spits on the ground and walks away, but there are no further objections to their presence. Stewart also asks Claire to come home. Throughout the movie, the murdering electrician continuously pops up around the characters, and even attends the memorial service. He is never caught. ===== Jonathan Breech (Cillian Murphy) is 19 when his father drinks himself to death. After a night with a gram of cocaine, another man's girlfriend and already stolen convertible, he goes to his older brother Mikey's (Paul Hickey) house at five in the morning to get his father's ashes. With the urn in the back seat he then goes on a suicidal drive. After waking up in a hospital he is given a choice: prison for the stolen car or a mental institution. He chooses the latter. His room there is small and very near barren. Wednesdays are visiting days, when his brother can come. The recreation room has a TV, cards and velcro-tipped throwing darts. Since he is an inpatient he is forced to only wear pajamas as per the health board rules. He has three group therapy sessions a week with Dr. Figure (Stephen Rea). There, he meets Rachel (Tricia Vessey), Toby (Jonathan Jackson), Nick (Tomás Ó Súilleabháin) and Leslie (Marcella Plunkett). He voices romantic interest in Rachel but leaves the first session early. Rachel follows him to slap him for treating her patronisingly. They begin play boxing, but stop when she accidentally hits his mouth hard and draws blood. Jonathan goes to the restroom to take care of his bloody lip, and Rachel follows him and shows an attraction to blood, smearing it on to her throat and chest. Jonathan is unsettled, but intrigued. He then befriends Toby, who seems to also have a crush on Rachel. One-on-one therapy sessions with Dr. Figure are sarcastic, but he does ask patients to take a pledge not to kill themselves before New Year's Eve. Jonathan's friendship with Toby starts to gel when they sneak out to a pub together at night. After returning to his room, Jonathan is surprised to discover Rachel there waiting for him. While he is lying on top of her, Rachel pulls out a razor hidden in a cigarette box and cuts her arm, which seems to intensify her sexual excitement. When the blood drips onto Jonathan's neck, he puts a stop to things. In the following days, Jonathan has therapy sessions with Dr. Figure, and continues to flirt with Rachel, showing a more sincere interest in her. One night out with Toby, after he hot-wired a car Jonathan learns that Toby caused the death of his brother in a car accident. On bowling night, Jonathan gets into conflict that nearly turns violent, and Dr. Figure helps him see that he was reckless with his well-being but that perhaps he is glad to have made it through alive. The romantic triangle comes into sharper focus as Toby reads a new poem he wrote to Rachel and flirts timidly. Later Jonathan and Rachel chat in her room and he learns of Rachel's mother's death, and a bond between them deepens. The friends sneak out of the hospital to host a big New Year's Eve party at Rachel's father's house. Toby watches Jonathan and Rachel's energy as they dance together, and realises that he doesn't have a chance with Rachel. Soon Jonathan and Rachel are seen going upstairs. In another part of the house Toby is opening up the garage. Jonathan tries to kiss Rachel but she won't kiss back. As the count down to the New Year begins Rachel starts to kiss back and Toby gets ready in the car to be done with his pledge. At the stroke of midnight Toby drives off a cliff, killing himself. The next day, Rachel's father pulls her out of the hospital, and Jonathan is miserable and worried about her. In a therapy session he asks Dr. Figure what will happen to Rachel. Dr. Figure responds that Jonathan needs to decide to value his own life. When Jonathan steals a bike to get out of the hospital, Dr. Figure tells the guard to allow him to leave. Jonathan goes to Rachel's dad's house, then to the cliffs. He finds her there, looking over the edge. Jonathan tells Rachel that he loves her that he thinks they could still be together in a year. They walk away together. ===== The story begins with a group of human hunters passing through a forest in search of game. After days of coming up empty-handed, they begin to believe they are passing through a Unicorn's forest, where animals are kept safe by a magical aura. They resign themselves to hunting somewhere else; but, before they leave, one of the hunters calls out a warning to the Unicorn that she may be the last of her kind. This revelation disturbs the Unicorn, and though she initially dismisses it, eventually doubt and worry drive her to leave her forest. She travels through the land and discovers that humans no longer even recognize her; instead they see a pretty white mare. She encounters a talking butterfly who speaks in riddles and songs and initially dodges her questions about the other unicorns. Eventually, the butterfly issues a warning that her kind have been herded to a far away land by a creature known as the Red Bull. She continues to search for other unicorns. During her journey, she is taken captive by a traveling carnival led by witch Mommy Fortuna, who uses magical spells to create the illusion that regular animals are in fact creatures of myth and legend. The Unicorn finds herself the only true legendary creature among the group, save for the harpy, Celaeno. Schmendrick, a magician traveling with the carnival, sees the Unicorn for what she is, and he frees her in the middle of the night. The Unicorn frees the other creatures including Celaeno, who kills Mommy Fortuna and Rukh, her hunchbacked assistant. The Unicorn and Schmendrick continue traveling in an attempt to reach the castle of King Haggard, where the Red Bull resides. When Schmendrick is captured by bandits, the Unicorn comes to his rescue and attracts the attention of Molly Grue, the bandit leader's wife. Together, the three continue their journey and arrive at Hagsgate, a town under Haggard's rule and the first one he had conquered when he claimed his kingdom. A resident of Hagsgate named Drinn informs them of a curse that stated that their town would continue to share in Haggard's fortune until such a time that someone from Hagsgate would bring Haggard's castle down. Drinn goes on to claim that he discovered a baby boy in the town's marketplace one night in winter. He knew that the child was the one the prophecy spoke of, but he left the baby where he found it, not wanting the prophecy to come true. King Haggard found the baby later that evening and adopted it. Molly, Schmendrick and the Unicorn leave Hagsgate and continue toward Haggard's castle, but on their way they are attacked by the Red Bull. The Unicorn runs, but is unable to escape the bull. In an effort to aid her, Schmendrick unwittingly turns the Unicorn into a human woman. Confused by the change, the Red Bull gives up the pursuit and disappears. The change has disastrous consequences on the Unicorn, who suffers tremendous shock at the sudden feeling of mortality in her human body. Schmendrick tells the unicorn that he is immortal and that he cannot make real magic unless he is mortal, and encourages her to continue her quest. The three continue to Haggard's castle, where Schmendrick introduces the Unicorn as "Lady Amalthea" to throw off Haggard's suspicions. They manage to convince Haggard to allow them to serve him in his court, with the hopes of gathering clues as to the location of the other unicorns. During their stay, Amalthea is romanced by Haggard's adopted son, Prince Lír. Haggard eventually reveals to Amalthea that the unicorns are trapped in the sea for his own benefit, because the unicorns are the only things that make him happy. He then openly accuses Amalthea of coming to his kingdom to save the unicorns and says that he knows who she really is, but Amalthea has seemingly forgotten about her true nature and her desire to save the other unicorns. Following clues given to them by a cat, Molly, Schmendrick, and Amalthea find the entrance to the Red Bull's lair. Haggard and his men-at-arms attempt to stop them, but they manage to enter the bull's lair and are joined by Lír. When the Red Bull attacks them, Schmendrick changes Amalthea back to her original form. At this moment, Schmendrick joyfully becomes mortal. In an effort to save the Unicorn, Lír jumps into the bull's path and is trampled. Fueled by anger and sorrow, the Unicorn drives the bull into the sea. The other unicorns are freed, and they run back to their homes, with Haggard's castle falling in their wake. As the castle falls, its wreckage dissolves into mist before it even hits the ground, and nothing remains to indicate that a castle had ever been there. The Unicorn revives Lír with the healing touch of her horn. Now king after Haggard's death, he attempts to follow the Unicorn despite Schmendrick advising against it. As they pass through the now-ruined town of Hagsgate, they learn that Drinn is actually Lír's father, and that he had abandoned him in the marketplace on purpose to fulfill the prophecy. Realizing that he has new responsibilities as king after seeing the state of Hagsgate, Lír returns to rebuild it after accompanying Schmendrick and Molly to the outskirts of his kingdom. The Unicorn returns to her forest. She tells Schmendrick that she is different from all the other unicorns now, because she knows what it's like to feel love and regret. Schmendrick and Molly later come across a princess in trouble and he tells her to go to Lír because he is the hero to save her. Schmendrick and Molly leave this story into another as they sing a love song together. ===== Romantic hookups continue to go astray in Barbados as Monica, Phoebe and Chandler overhear Ross kissing Charlie, while through the room's other wall they can eavesdrop on Joey and Rachel. Ross decides to stop anything else that could happen with Charlie, and decides to tell Joey about it. Meanwhile, Joey and Rachel keep kissing and Chandler, Monica and Phoebe keep listening through the wall that lead to Ross' bedroom. Ross enters the room seeing the three with their heads against the wall and asks what they are doing, and they all pretend to say goodbye to the hotel by hugging the wall. Ross tells them that he's looking for Joey to tell him about Charlie and leaves the room but not after he says goodbye to the wall as well. Joey and Rachel are still in the bedroom and Ross knocks on their door, Rachel tells Joey to hide and turns around looking for a good spot, as Chandler opens the back door and takes Joey out of the room. Rachel turns around again and looks for Joey, not aware that the others were listening. Ross comes into the room telling Rachel what happened with Charlie, at the same time she looks for Joey in the room, wondering where he is. At the same time Joey is listening with the rest what Ross says. Once Rachel is alone again everyone goes into the bedroom and convinces Joey to tell Ross about him and Rachel. The next day, Monica goes to the salon and gets a new hairstyle, cornrows with shellfish at the tips, Chandler affirms that he can see her scalp, but Monica is really excited about the new cut and won't take them off. On the plane, Joey is worried about sitting with Charlie after breaking up and Ross offers to sit next to her, Chandler is reluctant to sit next to Monica because of her new haircut, but he does it anyway. After some teasing, Mike tells Phoebe that he had in fact been dating another girl for three months, saying that he'll break up with her that night. Rachel and Ross decide to trade seats so Ross and Joey can talk. Ross tells Joey everything about him and Charlie and Joey stays cool with it since he couldn't be mad, because he kissed Rachel. When he is about to tell Ross what happened with him and Rachel, Ross interrupts Joey saying how much of a great friend he is, that he may even think of Joey as his best friend instead of Chandler, which makes Joey excited about taking Chandler out of the equation. Ross and Rachel cross paths once more and Rachel realizes Joey didn't tell Ross, because of Ross' insinuations of having "dirty dreams about this" referring to him and Charlie, and Rachel agrees with Joey that she'll tell Ross. When they land, Monica is still excited about the cornrows, and says that she'll show everyone at work the next day. Chandler uses this opportunity to tell her that he hates the cornrows, mentioning a few comments the other friends had about it, except Joey's because he never realized Monica changed her hairstyle. At Ross' place Rachel arrives with Emma with the intention of telling Ross. But when she's about to tell him, he complains and curses that there were a few bottles of shampoo that exploded inside his bag which ruins Rachel's attempt. At Mike's place, Phoebe meets with his girlfriend, Precious (a name that Phoebe says she can't say, calling her "Suzie" instead), and tells her about Mike's proposal, convincing Precious that Mike's not worth it. The moment Mike enters the apartment Precious slaps him hoping that "he rots in hell", and leaves at once. Rachel and Joey decide who's going to try to tell Ross, but they end up kissing at the same time Ross comes into the room. ===== After Ross sees Monica's tan, which Chandler reveals she got at a tanning salon, he decides to get a spray-on tan. After hearing seemingly straightforward instructions, he gets confused and accidentally gets a double dose on the front of his body and nothing on his back. Through a series of mishaps he gets more spray tan on his front until he is incredibly dark. A visit to another tanning salon does not help remedy the issue, as the experience is even more confusing and results in a octuple dose of spray tan only on the front, which Chandler takes a photo of after tricking him into opening the door. During their first date as a couple, Rachel and Joey attempt to take their relationship to the next level but Rachel keeps accidentally slapping Joey, while Joey cannot get Rachel out of her clothes, unable to unhook her bra. After talking to Monica, who reminds her of when she first started going out with Ross and started moving past the awkwardness, Rachel decides she and Joey should power through. However, when she tries to have rough sex with him on the barcalounger, she accidentally knees him in the crotch, preventing him from performing. After talking to Chandler about their difficulties, they ask if things felt wrong when he and Monica first had sex; he affirms that they felt right and he felt it was meant to be. After reflecting on their friendship, Joey and Rachel concur their friendship is too strong for them to take things any further, and ultimately decide to stay friends. Monica and Phoebe are annoyed when an obnoxious old friend from the building, Amanda Buffamonteezi (Jennifer Coolidge), visits from England. They decide to "cut her" out, by ignoring her calls and dodging her until she leaves them alone. They first start out by not picking up the phone, which backfires when Chandler picks up the phone, resulting in Monica arranging a meeting at Central Perk. Once Amanda arrives there, she brings up memories of the time when Phoebe tried to "cut out" Monica many years before. Monica is mad at Phoebe, who reveals that it happened after they lived together: Monica was driving her crazy because of her shrillness and compulsiveness. However, Phoebe came to realize what a kind and generous person Monica is and is glad that she did not follow through with cutting her out. The two make up and decide to give Amanda another chance, but quickly leave when they see her giving Chandler a strange dance. ===== In 1942, a Sunderland flying boat including in its crew Roger Hunter and Flight Sergeant Charles Norman Lewis, set out on a patrol, flying out of their Scottish air base. During the routine sea patrol, in which a convoy is spotted, the crew encounters and bombs a German U-boat. The Sunderland's crew returns to England, mission accomplished, but with a wounded crew member aboard, who is in stable condition. After a visit to the hospital, the Sunderland crew is informed they will be re-deployed to West Africa, to begin a new mission. ===== Dave Lister (Craig Charles) decides to wait out the journey to Earth in stasis with Cat (Danny John-Jules), much to the annoyance of Arnold Rimmer (Chris Barrie). As Lister prepares for it, the ship is jolted severely, to which the ship's computer Holly (Norman Lovett) explains that the ship's constant acceleration has caused it to break the light barrier. Shortly after being assured the ship will be alright, Lister notices odd things, including his mirror's reflection acting on its own, a second Rimmer having a conversation in the Drive Room that makes no sense, and a second Cat running out of his quarters after breaking a tooth. Conveying his observations to Rimmer and Holly, the computer reveals that breaking the light barrier has caused them to experience temporal anomalies known as "Future Echoes"; events that will occur in the future that can be seen in the present.Howarth & Lyons (1993) p. 46. The pair soon believe this when they find a photograph showing Lister holding two babies in his arms and question how it will happen. When an explosion rocks through the corridors, Rimmer explains to Lister that he just saw a "future echo" of him dying in the drive room when working on the navicomp. Lister suspects that this will happen when Cat breaks a tooth on one of the robotic goldfish in his quarters and attempts to prevent this. However, Lister inadvertently knocks the tooth out while trying to change the future, whereupon he opts to face his destiny and fix the drive room's navicomp when it starts malfunctioning. When he manages to repair it without incident, Rimmer question what he had actually seen.Howarth & Lyons (1993) p. 47. Returning to their quarters, they soon encounter another "future echo" consisting of an elderly Lister who explains that Rimmer had actually seen the death of one of his twin sons. Before he disappears, he tells the pair to head to the medical unit with a camera. As they do so, Lister questions Holly about the range of "future echoes", to which the computer replies that the faster they go beyond the light barrier, the further into the future they can see. However, as the ship is now slowing down, the "future echoes" will begin to be closer to the present until the ship resumes normal speed. Before the pair reach the medical unit, Rimmer questions how Lister would get twin sons with no women on board, to which Lister insists he doesn't know but believes it will be a laugh to find out. The pair soon see a future Lister of similar age walk out of the unit with two crying babies, and poses for the camera. ===== The film concerns the relationships between men, women, brothers, mothers, fathers and friends. The protagonist discovers on eBay a replica of a lounge chair that was used by his father long ago. The resulting road trip to pick up and deliver the chair as a birthday present for the father in Atlanta takes interesting twists. ===== An old inventor named Geppetto creates a robot, named Pinocchio, as his son. Meanwhile, an evil mayor named Scamboli is building a technological city called "Scamboville" to get rid of nature. He also hates all children, except for his beloved daughter, Marlene. When Marlene expresses concerns to Scamboli about there being no space for children to have fun, he sets out to make a kids-only theme park called "Scamboland". That night, Geppetto and Spencer the Penguin are preparing to make Pinocchio come to life. But Scamboli has seized control of the city mains to light up his theme park for the Grand Opening, so, Geppetto has no choice but to steal his electricity. Suddenly, Scamboland has a power outage and the children leave. After Pinocchio comes to life, much to his family's delight, Cyberina the fairy appears. She decides to grant Geppetto's wish to turn Pinocchio into a real boy if he learns about right and wrong. The next morning, Pinocchio is walking his way to school with Spencer when he meets up with Zach, Cynthia and Marlene. Marlene challenges Pinocchio to an Imagination game, hosted by Cyberina. Marlene wins the game, but Pinocchio, who believes he's done better than Marlene, snatches the medal from her. As he runs away, he comes across Scamboli's robotic henchmen, Cabby and Rodo, who take Pinocchio to see Scamboli. While they talk to each other, Pinocchio says, "Life would be great if kids were more like us", sparking an idea in Scamboli's diabolical brain. With the true opening of Scamboland, he makes Pinocchio into an attraction, but when Geppetto gets word of this, he tries to convince him to come home. While Pinocchio performs at a concert, Scamboli kidnaps Geppetto. Afterward, all the children board a roller coaster ride called "A Whale of a Change", which transforms all of them into "Scambobots". Meanwhile, Pinocchio gives Marlene her medal back and befriends her, and they spend the night together at Marlene's private garden. As they awaken the next morning, Marlene is crestfallen to find that Scambobots have destroyed her garden. Hearing Pinocchio laughing at her dismay, she gives the medal to him and revokes her vow of friendship. But Pinocchio, realizing that he had accidentally helped Scamboli, leaves to find his Dad. He returns home, but finds that his father isn't there, but Spencer is. He tells Pinocchio that he went off to get him, so they head off to find him, only to find Scamboli turned Geppetto into a robot to kill Pinocchio. After Spencer blinds Scamboli with his camera and steals the remote that controls Geppetto and the other Scanbobots, Pinocchio and Spencer hide out in the "Tunnel of Danger" ride, where Scamboli manages to trap them. Marlene arrives and helps Pinocchio to avoid the tunnel's many dangers. However, Scamboli incapacitates Marlene, so he can kill Pinocchio with a laser gun. Pinocchio uses the medal to shield himself from the laser, causing the beam to reflect back at Scamboli and destroy his weapon. Meanwhile, Cabby accidentally gave Geppetto the remote that controls all Scambobots, getting them fired. Geppetto then commands the robots to get Scamboli. Scamboli attempts to escape in Cabby's shuttle, but is caught by a Scambocop. It tosses Scamboli inside a shuttle and flies down to the Whale ride. Pinocchio, Geppetto, Marlene and Spencer go to turn the robots back into children. Soon it's Geppetto's turn, but Scamboli presses a button to stop the machines. Pinocchio goes inside the whale and tries to fix it. Pinocchio finds the out-of-reach button. But Scamboli starts to attack him. So he begins to tell lies about how great Scamboli's personality is. This causes Pinocchio's nose to reach long enough to hit the button, causing the carts to start moving again and Scamboli gets caught in the ride. Pinocchio then realizes that everything was his fault. Cyberina appears, Pinocchio tells her that he has learned about Right and Wrong and turns Pinocchio into a real boy and Geppetto back into a human. Suddenly, Scamboli, turned into a robot, appears and Marlene is shocked. Cyberina borrows Cynthia's "Funbrella" to make sunshine and bring back all the plants Scamboli has destroyed. It ends with Spencer taking a picture of Pinocchio, Geppetto and Marlene. ===== The Lion Has Wings is recounted in various 'chapters' with a linking story revolving around a senior Royal Air Force (RAF) officer, played by Ralph Richardson, his wife and his family. A RAF Vickers Wellington bomber sets off on an attack on the Kiel shipyards in Germany, a pivotal event in the film The film opens with a newsreel-style documentary comparing life in Britain to life in Nazi Germany, narrated by E.V.H. Emmett in the upbeat and patriotic narrative style common to such newsreels in Britain. This mainly uses existing newsreel footage with some additional footage shot especially for the film. It includes scenes from Fire Over England with Queen Elizabeth I giving her speech to the troops at Tilbury about repelling invaders. It also compares the relaxed lifestyles and openness of the British Royal Family and the British people with the militarism of Nazi Germany by including footage from the Nazi propaganda documentary Triumph of the Will (). The second chapter shows an early bombing raid on German warships in the Kiel Canal. Although it was mainly recreated in the studio, and with special effects, it also includes some footage of the real bombers and their crews returning from the raid.Johnston and Carter 2002, p. 141. The third chapter shows an attack by Luftwaffe bombers, and how it is repelled by the RAF, with assistance from the Observer Corps and barrage balloons. The epilogue has Mr. and Mrs. Richardson taking a break from their duties, enjoying an afternoon by the river. She gives a stirring speech about how the women of Britain have in the past given their sons and lovers to the land and to the sea, and must now give them to the air. They will do so willingly to defend all that is fair and kind about the British way of life. But Wing Commander Richardson is so tired he falls asleep part way through her speech. ===== Keaton plays a teller at a successful bank. Unbeknownst to him, the manager at the bank and his gang are planning on pulling off a robbery and hiding in an old house which they have rigged up with booby traps and effects to make it appear to be haunted. After a mishap that afternoon with Keaton getting glue all over the money and himself, he almost thwarts the gang's robbery but when the owner of the bank walks in and sees Keaton armed with a gun he assumes it was he who tried to rob it. Keaton flees and takes refuge in the old house; however, a troupe of actors from a theatre production are also in the house and are clad in their scary costumes (ghosts, skeletons etc) leading Keaton and the gang of robbers to believe the house actually is haunted. After Keaton has many encounters with the "ghosts" and the house's booby traps, he discovers the scam and the manager is revealed as being behind the robbery. As the manager is about to be taken away, he hits Keaton over the head and knocks him out before escaping. Next we see Keaton being awoken by two angels at the foot of a large stairway which he ascends all the way to Heaven. He asks Saint Peter to be let in but is denied and is sent all the way down to Hell. However, this is all revealed to be a dream sequence as Keaton regains consciousness in the house seconds later. ===== The Driver is a quiet, enigmatic man who steals cars to use as getaway vehicles in robberies around Los Angeles. He is known among fellow criminals for his high price, commensurate with his skill. He has also gained notoriety among police, particularly the volatile Detective, who has become obsessed with capturing The Driver, who he refers to as "Cowboy". The Driver pulls a job at a casino, but his co-conspirators are late to reach him, causing him to be seen by several bystanders, including The Player. She is brought in by The Detective to identify him, but is paid off to deny seeing him. The Driver meets The Player at her apartment to pay her, but they are interrupted by The Detective, who threatens her and alludes to her criminal history. Frustrated at failing to capture The Driver, The Detective sets up an illegal sting. He offers two captured criminals – Glasses and Teeth – a deal: pull a bank heist, hire The Driver, and deliver him to the police. In return, they will not be arrested for either crime. The two seek out The Driver via The Connection, his middleman and fence. The Driver initially refuses to work with the men due to his dislike of guns, but agrees to meet with them. When his driving prowess is questioned, he systematically wrecks the criminals' car, then fights with Teeth, defeating him. Unable to convince The Driver to pull the job, The Detective confronts The Driver at his rented room, taunting him and challenging him to a 'game' between them. The Driver agrees to take part in the job on the condition that his fee is doubled, and that Teeth does not take part. During the heist, Glasses kills his partner and successfully escapes with The Driver. However, Glasses does not bring him to The Detective – instead, he plans to kill The Driver and make off with the money. The Driver surprises him with a gun, killing him and taking the money. The Driver stashes the money in a locker at Union Station. He meets with The Connection, who agrees to launder the dirty money. He then meets with The Player, enlisting her to help with retrieving the clean money. Meanwhile, Teeth, who has discovered Glasses dead, interrogates The Connection at gunpoint, killing her once she reveals The Driver's plans. The Player heads to the train station, meeting with the Exchange Man. He stashes the clean money in an empty locker, then boards a train with the dirty money. Unbeknownst to them, the station is being watched by the police. The Exchange Man is followed on board by The Detective, who kills him in a shootout. Meanwhile, Teeth confronts The Player, stealing her purse containing the key to the locker containing the clean money. Teeth and his driver are chased by The Driver and The Player. The chase culminates in a warehouse, where The Driver drives directly at Teeth's car, causing them to swerve out of the way and flip the car. The Driver tells Teeth to surrender, killing him when he refuses. Teeth's driver returns the purse and is allowed to leave. The Driver returns to the train station with The Player and retrieves the bag from the locker. He is met by The Detective and several police officers waiting to arrest him, but reveals that the bag is empty, having been ripped off by the Exchange Man. Upon seeing the empty bag, The Player leaves. The Driver leaves The Detective literally 'holding the bag', and each man departs from the station. ===== The movie is about Velan (Prashanth), a responsible son of a village landlord (Vijayakumar). Adored by the villagers for his good deeds, Velan gets a shock when the landlord informs him that he is his foster son. A shocked Velan sets out on a mission to learn about his past. He reaches Chennai and comes to know that his family members were killed by a dreaded gangster Deva (Vijayan). He then vowed to kill him and his gang. In the name of Jambhavan, he starts to kill rowdies in society. Suffering a head injury, Velan loses his memory and is later adopted by the landlord. He comes to know that his job was just half-done. The remainder of the movie is how he puts an end to Deva and his men. ===== Worf gets an unexpected visit from his younger brother Kurn. Kurn confronts Worf about the dishonor Worf has brought upon the House of Mogh after rejecting the Klingon Empire's war with the Cardassian Empire. As a result of Worf's choices, his family has been stripped of its wealth, honor, and political power. Kurn has lost everything, and wants Worf to give him back his honor the only way he can, by having Worf ritually kill him. Worf begins the ceremony, but Jadzia Dax figures out what Worf is planning. She and Odo rush to interrupt the ceremony after Kurn is stabbed; and Dr. Bashir manages to save him. Captain Sisko is furious and forbids Worf from completing the ceremony. Kurn, without an honorable life or death, places himself in Worf's hands. At Dax's suggestion, Worf asks Odo for a favor and gets Kurn a position with Odo's security force. However Kurn loses his job when he allows himself to be shot without any attempt to defend himself. Meanwhile, mysterious explosions and cloaked Klingon vessels have been observed near Bajoran space. Eventually it is discovered that the Klingons are mining the space around Deep Space Nine in preparation for a future war. Worf and Kurn are sent on an undercover mission to discover the mines' locations and activation codes. They are able to access the data, though Kurn is forced to shoot a Klingon officer to defend Worf. Using this intelligence, Major Kira is able to detonate the mines and flush out the cloaked Klingon vessels. Having killed a man acting in defense of the Empire deepens Kurn's depression. Worf is distressed that he did not realize the Klingon officer intended to kill him—feeling that a real Klingon would have. He comes to the conclusion that he is not of the Klingon or human world, but he has his Federation rank, and Kurn has nothing at all. To allow Kurn to live an honorable life as a Klingon, Worf has Dr. Bashir erase Kurn's memory so he can be given a new identity. Kurn—now "Rodek"—is then entrusted to a family friend who agrees to take him in as a son. In the last scene he looks to Worf and asks him, "Are you part of my family?", to which Worf replies: "I have no family." ===== The film begins with Kathirvel (Prashanth), a do-gooder going all out to get water for his village. With monsoon repeatedly failing, his village reels under drought, and he runs from pillar to post to get a well dug in the village. He manages to bring Shanmugham (Mahadevan), a water- divining expert, to dig a well. Shanmugham, his wife, and daughter Marikozhundhu (Pooja) come to the village. Unfortunately, a freak mishap kills Shanmugham, and the villagers' search for water continues. To eke out their livelihood, all the villagers, led by Kadhirvel, decide to leave the village with a heavy heart to take up employment in a farmhouse in Rajasthan. Upon reaching the place, they come to know they have been taken as bonded laborers, and there is no way out but to work there tirelessly for the next three years. They undergo physical and mental torture from the greedy landlord Thakur Dass (Vincent Asokan). A silver lining in the cloud is Swapna (Namitha), Thakur's sister. She gets fascinated by Kadhirvel's heroics. The rest is how Kadhirvel fights for his men, helps them reach their village back without any danger and eventually marries Marikozhundhu. ===== Thymian Henning (Louise Brooks), the innocent, naive daughter of pharmacist Robert Henning (Josef Rovenský), is puzzled when their housekeeper, Elisabeth (Sybille Schmitz), leaves suddenly on the day of Thymian's confirmation. It turns out that her father has got Elisabeth pregnant. Elisabeth's body is brought to the pharmacy later that day, an apparent suicide by drowning, upsetting Thymian. Thymian's father's assistant Meinert (Fritz Rasp), promises to explain it all to her late that night, but instead takes advantage of her and she also becomes pregnant. Though Thymian refuses to name the illegitimate baby's father, the relatives find out from her diary, and decide that the best solution is for her to marry Meinert. When she refuses because she does not love him, they give the baby to a midwife and send her to a strict reformatory for wayward girls run by a tyrannical woman (Valeska Gert) and her tall, bald assistant (Andrews Engelmann). Meanwhile, Thymian's friend, Count Osdorff (André Roanne), is cast off and left penniless by his rich uncle, also Count Osdorff (Arnold Korff), after he proves unsuccessful at every school and trade. Thymian begs her friend to persuade her father to take her back, but Thymian's father has married his new housekeeper, Meta (Franziska Kinz), and Meta wants no rivals for Robert's affection. Rebelling against the reformatory's rigid discipline, Thymian and her friend Erika (Edith Meinhard) escape with Osdorff's help. When Thymian goes to see her baby, she is told the child has just died. After despondently wandering the streets, she re-unites with Erika, who is working in a small, upper-class brothel. With no skills, Thymian also becomes a prostitute. By chance, Thymian encounters her father, Meta, and Meinert in a nightclub. Her father is shocked when he realizes what she has become, and Meta and Meinhert prevent them from speaking by quickly ushering Robert out of the nightclub. Three years later, her father dies. With the expectation of inheriting a large amount of money, Thymian decides to start a new life. Her friends at the brothel suggest she obtain a new identity by marrying Osdorff. After thinking about it, he agrees. At the lawyer's office, Meinert buys Thymian's interest in the pharmacy, making her rich. However, when she learns that Meinert is throwing Meta and her two children out on the street, Thymian gives Meta the money so that her young half-sister will not suffer her fate. Osdorff, who had been counting on the money to rebuild a life for himself too, throws himself out the window to his death when she tells him what she has done. The uncle, grief-stricken, decides to make amends by taking care of Thymian. He introduces her to his cousin as his niece, Countess Osdorff. In a strange twist of fate, Thymian is invited to become a director of the same reformatory where she herself was once held. When Erika, her old friend, is brought before the directors as an "especially difficult case", Thymian denounces the school and its "blessings" and takes Erika out of the room. Count Osdorff follows the two women; but before leaving he pauses, turns back toward his startled cousin, and declares, "A little more love and no-one would be lost in this world!" ===== Sabrina Downs (Da Brat) narrates an experience that she had while serving time as a convict in the Whitehead Correctional Institute. Her story begins as she meets Frances Shephard (LisaRaye McCoy), a timid woman that is new to the prison system, during their bus ride to the correctional facility. The women arrive at the prison, where they meet Captain Alan Dease (Clifton Powell), who proceeds to line them up and exclaim the rules of the prison and consequences for not abiding by them. As Frances is escorted by an officer to the jail cell she will be living in, she enters to a scene of female convicts gambling, smoking, and talking amongst themselves. She attempts to move in with her cellmate Nikki Barnes (N'Bushe Wright), who is presumed to be the leader amongst the convicts, but is denied and instead lives with Lil’ Mama (Lark Voorhies), a 17-year-old pregnant convict who is deeply involved in Christianity and befriends Frances. Lil’ Mama introduces Frances to another inmate named Wet (Monica Calhoun), who informs her on the different crews in the prison. When asked what crime she committed, Frances confesses that she accidentally murdered her abusive husband in an effort to protect herself. The next day, Frances is familiarized with the inmates’ daily routine of hard labor in what the other convicts refer to as a “sweatshop.” Michael Meadows (Mos Def), a law student who is hired as the new correctional officer at Whitehead, enters Dease's office and introduces himself. They have a brief conversation before Dease is called to stop a fight that has occurred between Nikki and Aisha (Tichina Arnold), who the other inmates claim to be Dease's secret mistress and informer. After two officers take Aisha away for starting the fight, Dease has an intimidating conversation with Michael, informing him that he runs the prison, not Nelson (Reed R. McCants), the warden. Nelson approaches Dease and they collaborate about their plans to increase their profit off the prison. Aisha enters Dease's office to discuss her fight with Nikki and Dease slaps her in the face, telling her how unimportant she is. He presents Aisha with a gift, but refuses to give it to her until she provides him with any information about the other convicts. Dease then turns off the surveillance camera and forces Aisha to perform oral sex on him. After she leaves the office, Aisha finds Frances, punches her in the face for confessing that Aisha caused the fight, and steals her necklace. Aisha leaves around the corner and is surprised by Nikki, who stabs her and takes one of Frances’ necklace back. After the incident, Michael takes Frances to Dease's office where Nelson questions her, but Frances provides no information about what she saw and is let go. Later that night, Dease and the other officers enter Nikki's cell and beat her, claiming that they know she stabbed Aisha. According to Sabrina's narration, however, Dease secretly loves Nikki and abuses her because she does not return the feelings. Michael enters the break room where Dease and the other guards are. They begin to discuss the possible closing of the prison and John Banks (Robert Archer Lynn), a white officer, is concerned about finding a new job. Dease claims that the loss of jobs is associated with untrained students, such as Michael, stealing their jobs, which creates tension between the other officers and Michael. As Michael attempts to defend himself and the mistreated female inmates, Dease proceeds to yell at him that these women have no respect for society and therefore, deserved to be treated poorly. Later, Michael does his own research on the prison system and discovers that these female convicts are being exploited for cheap labor. At night, Lil’ Mama becomes very ill and the other convicts are concerned about her and her child's health. No officers come to help and Frances, who was a nurse, takes care of Lil’ Mama throughout the night. During that night, Frances has a connecting conversation with both Nikki and Wet about why they were in jail. Wet shot a track runner who was sleeping with her boyfriend/husband in broad daylight and in front of 12 witnesses. Frances is then asked why she is in there and she explains that her husband was beating her, so she had finally had enough and shot him, landing her in prison. As Wet argues Frances' innocence, Nikki comments on why she was locked up for protecting herself. The next day in the sweatshop, Nikki thanks Frances for helping Lil’ Mama and returns her necklace. The ladies receive bad news that Frances was denied an appeal, Nikki's children would not come to visit, and Wet gets a citation for creating a petition to end the prison's harsh working conditions. Also, Aisha returns after recovering from being stabbed. She and Nikki have an exchange of words when Aisha makes an insulting comment about Nikki's mother, tempting Nikki to fight her but is quickly broken up by close guards. Frances, Nikki, Lil’ Mama, and Wet, now friends, sneak off to the kitchen where they share food and wine. They witness Dease secretly place a small bomb in the kitchen which goes off and alarms the other officers. As a result, Dease blames the incident on the inmates and has the kitchen rebuilt. After placing the prison on lockdown, Nelson approaches Dease, angry about the explosion and Wet's petition. Nelson states that he was informed that Dease created the explosion and threatens to fire Dease if he attempts any secret plans again. During a cell search, Officer Banks enters Wet's room and begins to damage her belongings, causing an altercation between Wet and Banks and Wet being taken to solitary confinement. When she returns, Wet and the other inmates collaborate and create another petition in a few days to present to Miller (Chris Dodson), a man that Nelson hopes will invest in the prison's cheap labor. When Miller arrives to the workstation where the inmates are, Frances stands and reads the inmates’ demands for better working conditions and Nikki proceeds in giving the petition to Miller. Dease and Banks begin to hit Frances and Nikki and take them to solitary confinement where they stay for 6 days. During this period, they share stories and Frances helps Nikki overcome the temptation of snorting the cocaine that Dease takes to her room. They are let out and return to their routine. During a visit from her sister, Frances discovers that her daughter Maxine has been killed in a gang shooting. After returning from suicide watch, Frances and the other inmates devise a plan to get back at Dease with the help from Michael and Aisha, who is fed up with Dease for beating her. While Lil’ Mama cleans Dease's office, Aisha enters and seduces Dease, who kicks out Lil’ Mama and turns off the surveillance camera. After Lil’ Mama returns briefly and turns the camera back on, Aisha makes it appear as if Dease is raping her. Caught on video, the ladies plan on giving the evidence to the governor. When Lil’ Mama attempts to take the tape in Dease's office, Dease harasses and rapes her. When she returns to the jail cell, bleeding profusely and in terrible pain, the other inmates rush her to the infirmary where she suffers a miscarriage and dies. The inmates, who are violently upset, attack the doctor as he attempts to call Dease to have them escorted back to their jail cells. They hold the doctor at gunpoint and handcuff Michael to a chair. Wet shoots Dease as he enters and he in return fires a shot and hits the doctor. Nelson, informed of the situation, refuses to call the governor for assistance and instead orders the officers to be ready at the scene. In the infirmary, the convicts release Michael, handcuff the wounded Dease, and call Nelson, telling him he has one hour to get the governor on the phone. Nelson demands to speak with Dease in order to ensure that he is alive. The inmates put Dease on the phone and force him to tell Nelson that he raped Lil’ Mama. When her back is turned, Dease attacks Frances and Nikki shoots Dease several times, killing him. Sergeant Cervantes (MC Lyte), the officer in charge, orders the inmates to surrender and Wet goes outside and kills an officer, after which Wet is shot and killed. After much thought, Frances and Nikki decide to exit the infirmary and are killed by the officers. Meanwhile, Aisha sneaks into Dease's office and retrieves the tape. During her final narration, Sabrina explains that after taking the evidence to a lawyer, the women file a lawsuit against the prison for their abuse and win the case. The prison is shut down and Nelson is indicted for making corrupt business deals and using the prison for his profit. Aisha is killed in a prison fight shortly after. Sabrina, now free, dedicates the inmates’ victory to Nikki, Frances, Lil’ Mama, and Wet for their courage. ===== Buster Keaton and Virginia Fox play young lovers who live in tenements, the rear of which face each other, with backyards separated by a wooden fence and with their families constantly feuding over the lovers' relationship. Each morning Buster and Virginia exchange love letters through the holes in the fence much to the disdain of their families who insist they stay away from one another. Buster sneaks into Virginia's bedroom window as the parents are arguing but he is caught by Virginia's father who ties him to the washing lines and slowly sends him back over to his family's house. After much arguing and fighting the two families eventually go to court to settle their differences. Buster demands the right to marry Virginia, and the judge insists that the two families not interfere in their plans. On the day of the wedding the two families are naturally hostile to one another. After the wedding is delayed due to Buster's belt repeatedly breaking resulting in his pants continuously falling down, Virginia's father discovers that the ring Buster intends to give to Virginia is a cheap 10-cent ring purchased from Woolworths, he angrily calls off the wedding and drags Virginia home. Determined to rescue his love and with the help of his two groomsmen, Buster uses trapeze skills to snag Virginia and the two run off together, eventually finding themselves in the coal shed of a blacksmith who has been ordained as a minister who pronounces them husband and wife. ===== Professor Davidson plans an expedition to find the Lost City of Zoloz. The location of the city is contained on seven pieces of ivory, three of which Davidson already possesses. Doctor Bremmer, however, intends to find the lost city and use it as a secret airbase for his unnamed country. To remove him as an obstacle, he kills The Phantom, only for his recently returned son, Geoffrey Prescott, to inherit the family identity and take over the mantle of The Phantom. Three of the remaining ivory pieces are owned by Singapore Smith, who initially steals Davidson's pieces. The seventh, and most important, piece is missing at first but turns up in the possession of Tartar (which The Phantom acquires by wrestling Tartar's pet gorilla). ===== The game loosely follows the story of the movie. Patience Phillips, a shy office worker in the Hedare corporate empire, accidentally discovers her employers' dark secret and is subsequently murdered. She is then revived by a supernatural Egyptian cat granting her cat-like abilities. Now reborn as "Catwoman," she then embarks on a tale of revenge against the people who nearly murdered her. ===== The story is told through episodes of memories by the woman (Mary, played by Ann Todd) while on holiday in Switzerland waiting for her banker husband Howard (Claude Rains) to join her from his business. It has been nine years since they have been on holiday, but also nine years since she last talked to the man she is in love with (Steven, played by Trevor Howard), who unknowing to her has been booked into the adjoining room. The narrative then goes into the past and tells of the love between Mary and Steven. While Mary loves Steven, she refuses to marry him, believing that a marriage of love would be too stifling, while Steven tells her that two people in love should want to 'belong to each other'. Mary insists that she wants only to 'belong to herself' and runs away as Steven tells her that her life would then be 'a failure'. She then marries Howard, who gives her affection, stability and security. When they meet again nine years later on New Year's Eve, Steven is with his-then girlfriend while Mary is with Howard. Howard dryly pretends not to recognise Steven 'So the enemy wouldn't know he was being observed'. Steven later pursues Mary again and almost persuades her to change her mind and leave Howard. While Howard accepts his wife's socialising with Steven, he notices they have forgotten their tickets for the theatre. They then lie to him when he inquires of their evening. In a dramatic scene Steven tells Howard Mary is in love with him and Howard should step aside, while Mary asks him to leave so she can talk things over with Howard. Mary sends Steven a letter, but Steven goes to their residence and demands to see Mary. He sees Howard first, who tells him he knows and understands Mary, while Steven, despite being in love, hardly knows Mary at all. Howard understands that their marriage is not one of love, but one of affection and mutual freedom. Howard is confident that a marriage of love, where partners 'belong' to each other, was not what Mary wants, and all that is needed is for Mary and Steven to stay away from each other. Mary later confirms what Howard said and runs away before Steven can dissuade her. The narrative returns to the holiday in the Swiss Alps as Mary and Steven innocently meet again. Howard is once more absent due to banking work, and with Steven having a half a day before he has to return to London, they go by boat and cable car to picnic on a mountain. They talk of their lives and Steven reveals that he has two children with his wife. Mary asks him if he is happy, and seems happier herself that he is, but mixed expressions tell of regrets, as if she wishes herself in his wife's place. When they return from the mountain, Howard has arrived early and happens to see them disembarking the boat together. As he goes to the couple's suite, he notices the porter taking Steven's suitcase from the adjoining room and is filled with suspicion. His pride is further hurt when Mary rushes by him to the terrace, not realising he is there, to wave goodbye enthusiastically to Steven. He storms out when Mary turns and sees him, her feelings revealed on her face, and soon files for divorce against her, alleging adultery. Mary tries to warn Steven about the divorce action, but he is served with process just as Steven's wife goes to see Steven off a train. Steven's family life is plunged into havoc. Mary decides she must save Steven and, meeting him for the last time, pretends that Howard has withdrawn the divorce, so that Steven can go back to his wife and happy life. She goes to Howard, asking him to stop the divorce by telling him nothing happened in the Swiss hotel and she was innocent of the adjoining room to Steven. Howard then tells her the divorce is not about that. He had not expected love from their marriage, but only affection and some loyalty. Instead he was given 'the love you'd give a dog, the kindness you'd show a beggar, and the loyalty of a bad servant'. Yelling for Mary to get out, he loses his temper and breaks a vase. He quickly calms down and retracts what he said in genuine remorse, revealing that he has developed the very type of romantic love for Mary that he has always disdained, but Mary has already left. Mary runs from the house and walks through a London Underground station in a trance. Standing on a platform with an incoming train heading West London, she dazedly contemplates the tracks. As the train approaches she draws dangerously close to the platform edge, but just as she is about to leap, someone catches her round the waist. It is Howard (her husband), who has come after her. He holds her as she shakes and the couple reconcile on the platform. ===== The film dramatises events leading up to the 1857 trial of an otherwise-respectable young woman, Madeleine Smith (Ann Todd) for the murder of her draper's-assistant lover, Emile L'Angelier (Ivan Desny). The trial produced the uniquely Scottish verdict of "not proven", which left Madeleine a free woman. The film begins with the purchase of a house in Glasgow by an upper middle-class Victorian family. Their eldest daughter Madeleine claims the basement bedroom so she will have easy access to the servants' entrance and be able to entertain her lover, Frenchman Emile L'Angelier, without her family's knowledge. The relationship continues and the couple becomes secretly engaged but L'Angelier begins to press Madeleine to reveal his existence to her father, so they can marry. Frightened of her authoritarian father, Madeleine is reluctant to do so; eventually she visits L'Angelier in his room and says she will elope with him, rather than face telling her father. L'Angelier says he could never marry her this way and Madeleine realises that he loves her not for her but as a means to recover his position in society. She says their relationship is over and demands her letters to be returned. During the time that Madeleine has been seeing L'Angelier, her father has been encouraging her to accept the attentions of a wealthy society gentleman, William Minnoch (Norman Wooland) and after breaking her engagement with L'Angelier, Madeleine tells Mr. Minnoch that she will accept his marriage proposal. Her family is happy but L'Angelier shows up threatening to show her father the compromising letters in his possession, unless she continues to see him. Saying nothing of her new engagement, Madeleine reluctantly agrees. Some weeks later, L'Angelier becomes very ill. He recovers but later he has a fatal relapse. When the cause of death is proven to be arsenic poisoning, a friend of L'Angelier points the finger of suspicion at Madeleine, who is found to have had arsenic in her possession at the time of L'Angelier's death. The remainder of the film covers the court case, finishing with the verdict of "not proven", a uniquely Scottish verdict which releases Madeleine from custody as neither guilty nor not guilty. ===== Willie Mossop (John Mills) is a gifted but unappreciated bootmaker employed by the tyrannical Henry Horatio Hobson (Charles Laughton) in his moderately upmarket shop in 1880 Salford in Lancashire. Hard-drinking widower Hobson has three daughters. Maggie (Brenda De Banzie) and her younger sisters Alice (Daphne Anderson) and Vicky (Prunella Scales) have worked in their father's establishment without wages and are eager to be married and free of the shop. Alice has been seeing Albert Prosser (Richard Wattis), a young up-and-coming solicitor, while Vicky prefers Freddy Beenstock (Derek Blomfield), the son of a respectable corn merchant. Hobson does not object to losing Alice and Vicky, but Maggie is far too useful to part with. To his friends, he mocks the plain, severe Maggie as a spinster "a bit on the ripe side" at 30 years of age. Her pride injured, Maggie bullies the browbeaten, unambitious Willie into an engagement. They go to Peel Park to arrange it, and Willie says he is already engaged to the daughter of his landlady. Maggie goes to his house to embarrassingly resolve the issue. She walks him out telling him never to return. She tells him to kiss her but he feels this is improper. She tells Mr Hobson of the plan and he strongly disapproves. He tells Willie that he will "beat the love" out of him with his belt. Willie declares he has no love but if he tries to belt him he will stick to Maggie like glue. He hits him and they leave to set up their own business. They go to Mrs Hepworth to borrow £100 giving Willie himself as security. With money in hand, they are married, and between Maggie's business sense and Willie's shoemaking genius, the enterprise is successful. Within a year, they have not only paid off their business loan, but have also taken away nearly all of Hobson's clientele. Under Maggie's tutelage, the formerly meek and illiterate Willie has become an educated, self-confident man of business, and he and Maggie have fallen deeply in love. Back in the Moonraker Inn Hobson drinks too much and starts insulting all his drinking buddies. He walks home staring at the reflection of the moon in the puddles and in the windows. He falls several times then falls into the basement of Beenstock & Co through their trapdoor. He is found sleeping there the next day. He is served with a notice for trespass and damage. He fails to attend the wedding of Willie and Maggie. It is attended by the sisters and their fiancees. They have a wedding meal in the basement of Willie's new shop. Hobson appears just after the meal. He is told that Prosser, the solicitor suing him is there as is young Beenstock, the suer. Maggie bargains the settlement down from £1000 to £500. Hobson then realises he has been tricked: the money is the wedding settlement for the two younger sisters. Willie dreads his wedding night but emerges a changed man. The next morning the shop makes its first sale: a pair of shoelaces for one penny. They are ecstatic. By New Years Eve Willie has paid off the £100 plus £20 interest to Mrs Hepworth. On New Year's Day Hobson is hallucinating of giant mice. The doctor is sent for. Dr. MacFarlane (John Laurie) examines Hobson and diagnoses "chronic alcoholism". He sends for Maggie. Maggie clears the house of alcohol. The bottles leave as the sisters arrive. They think there is shame in letting the neighbours see this but Maggie says that the whole street knows anyway. Will arrives and checks the stock. He treats the sisters as equals for the first time and they are shocked by his loss of subservience. Mossop is offered his old job back but insists on a partnership with Hobson. Moreover he insists it is called "Mossop & Hobson" rather than "Hobson & Mossop". Hobson becomes a silent partner. Willie offers to change Maggie's brass wedding ring for gold, but she wants to keep the ring she has. ===== The film follows a student's attempt to escape to freedom. This student (Randal Kleiser) tries to run across the Berlin border from East to West Germany, but ends up being shot in the chest and side gut and is mortally wounded. While he dies, he thinks about dying for freedom. ===== Lily Mars (Judy Garland) is a small-town girl with big-city ambitions. She contrives to audition for a Broadway producer whose father was the local physician who also happened to tune the Mars’ family piano. However, the producer wants nothing to do with her. She then heads to Broadway hoping to convince him to cast her, but after a series of disappointments, the best she can manage is an understudy job.Presenting Lily Mars (1943), AllMovie. ===== A soldier, Joe Allen (Robert Walker), on a 48-hour leave, meets Alice Mayberry (Judy Garland) in Pennsylvania Station when she trips over his foot and breaks the heel off one of her shoes. Although it is Sunday, Joe gets a shoe-repair shop owner to open his store and repair her shoe. Alice asks Joe where he is going, and he says he is on leave but has no definite destination while in New York. He asks to accompany her on her way home and she points out landmarks along the way, including Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. When he asks her whether she is busy that evening, she says that she is. However, when he persists, chasing the bus she is riding down the street, she relents, promising to meet him under the clock at the Astor Hotel. Although her roommate chastises Alice for "picking up" a soldier, Alice keeps her date with Joe, arriving late, and the two have dinner. Having missed the last bus home, they accept a ride with a milk man named Al Henry (James Gleason). When Al's truck has a flat tire, he and his passengers visit a lunch room to call for assistance. A drunk strikes Al, blackening his eye, and after the company's road repairman has changed the truck's tire, Alice and Joe spend the night delivering milk to their benefactor's customers. Later, they enjoy the hospitality with Al and his wife, who serves them an early-morning dinner. After they become separated in a subway crowd, they try frantically to find one another, not even knowing each other's last name. They finally reunite by returning to the place at which they met for the first time, the escalator at Penn Station. Having fallen in love, Joe asks Alice to marry him before his departure the next day, and she consents. However, they must run a maze of red tape which nearly prevents them from doing so. Through their perseverance, they win over bureaucrats upon whom their success or failure depends. However, Alice finds the hurried ceremony "ugly" and it is only after they repeat their vows alone in a church pew that she feels truly married. Shortly after the young couple weds, Joe's leave ends and he returns to war. ===== As described in a film magazine, Daniel Boone Brown (Douglas Fairbanks), a superstitious but ambitious young New Yorker, is the victim of demented psychiatrist Dr. Ulrich Metz (Herbert Grimwood) who, with the aid of numberless associates serving him in the interests of science, arranges circumstances intended to drive Daniel to suicide. In the midst of a series of bewildering misfortunes apparently emanating from broken mirrors, black cats, and similar sources, Daniel meets Greenwich Village artist Lucette Bancroft (Kathleen Clifford), and mutual love results. A Westerner who owns land in partnership with Lucette's uncle comes to the city and plot's with Daniel's uncle Curtis (Ralph Lewis) to defraud his partner. Daniel, after being driven to the verge of suicide by the scientist and his aides, is saved when it is discovered that Dr. Metz is insane. Daniel then follows the Westerner, who has convinced Lucette to return to the west with him, when a flood engulfs the train they are riding on. Daniel brings about a happy resolution. ===== As described in a film magazine, Richard Marshall (Fairbanks), nicknamed The Mollycoddle by his friends, is the descendant of hard-hitting, fearless western stock, and although born in Arizona he has been raised since a child in England and acquired English ways. Upon meeting some Americans who are about to go home in a private yacht, he joins them. Fearing that Richard is a secret service operative, the owner of the yacht, who is smuggling diamonds into the United States, withdraws the invitation. Friends, however, smuggle him aboard and, when the owner discovers him, he is put to work shoveling coal in the boiler room. Off the coast of Texas he jumps ship and swims ashore, is picked up by a fishing net and eventually makes his way to Arizona, where the party is exploring the diamond mines. Richard discovers the plot to blow up a mountain and hem the party in a little valley. The scheme nearly succeeds, but Richard captures the smuggler in a tall tree, falls through the tree limbs and brawls with him down an extremely steep embankment into a river and over a falls, then drags the half-drowned man to shore. In addition, he of course wins the girl, who turns out to be a detective in service to Uncle Sam. ===== In a run-down neighborhood in Dorchester, Boston, three-year-old Amanda McCready has been abducted along with her favorite doll, Mirabelle. P.I. Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and his partner and girlfriend Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan) witness a televised plea for Amanda's return by her mother, Helene (Amy Ryan), amid a media frenzy. The girl's aunt Bea (Amy Madigan) and uncle Lionel (Titus Welliver) hire them to find Amanda. Using his connections in the Boston crime underground, Patrick discovers that Helene and her boyfriend "Skinny Ray" were drug mules for a local Haitian drug lord named Cheese, and had recently stolen $130,000 from him. After discovering Ray has been murdered by Cheese's men, Patrick and Angie join detectives Remy Bressant (Ed Harris) and his partner Nick in investigating the case. They believe that Cheese may have taken Amanda. Patrick meets with Cheese and tries to negotiate the return of Cheese's stolen money in exchange for Amanda, but Cheese initially denies any involvement in the girl's disappearance. Police Captain Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman) later reads Patrick a telephone transcript of Cheese calling into the station to set up an exchange for Amanda. The exchange at a nearby quarry is botched after a gunfight breaks out, and Cheese is killed. It is believed that Amanda fell in the quarry's pond and drowned; her doll is retrieved from the water and returned to Helene. Doyle, whose own daughter was killed years before, goes into early retirement following public outcry over the mishap. Two months later, a seven-year-old boy is abducted in Everett, and Patrick receives information that he was taken by Corwin Earle, a known child molester, who is living with two married career criminals and cocaine addicts. After entering the addicts' house and finding evidence of the abducted boy, Patrick returns with Remy and Nick late at night to rescue him. Before they enter the house, the addicted woman shoots her husband dead and then fatally wounds Nick before chasing Patrick into Corwin's room, where he finds the dead child; enraged, he kills Corwin as Remy arrives and kills the woman with a shotgun. Trying to alleviate Patrick's guilt, Remy confides that he once planted evidence on an abusive husband to help the man's wife and son escape, with the help of "Skinny Ray". Patrick later remembers that Remy had first told him he didn't know Ray. Nick dies of his injuries. After his funeral, Patrick speaks to a police officer named Devin who tells him that Remy had known about Cheese's stolen money before Cheese even knew it was missing. Patrick questions Lionel in a bar and pieces together that Lionel and Remy had conspired to stage a fake kidnapping in order to take the drug money for themselves and to teach Helene a lesson. At that point, Remy (trying to cover for his earlier mistake) enters the bar wearing a mask, staging a robbery to interrupt their conversation. Patrick realizes that Remy plans to kill him and Lionel to keep them quiet. The bartender shoots Remy twice in the back and Remy flees, pursued by Patrick to the rooftop of a nearby building, where he eventually dies from his wounds. Patrick is questioned by the police about Remy's death and learns that the police never had a phone transcript like the one that Doyle had read to him prior to the botched exchange. Patrick and Angie then drive to Doyle's home, where they find Amanda alive and well. Doyle was part of the kidnapping all along and helped set up the fake exchange to frame Cheese and throw Patrick off the scent. Patrick threatens to call the authorities but Doyle tries to convince him that Amanda is better off living with him than with her neglectful mother. Patrick discusses the choice with Angie; she believes Amanda is happy and safe with Doyle, and says she will hate Patrick if he returns Amanda to her mother. Patrick decides to call the police to collect Amanda, as he believes she belongs with her mother regardless of Helene's parenting. Doyle and Lionel are arrested, and Patrick and Angie break up. Patrick later visits Amanda as Helene is about to leave for a date, not yet knowing who would babysit, and he volunteers to watch her. Patrick asks Amanda about Mirabelle, only to have Amanda inform him that her doll's name is Annabelle, implying that Helene did not even know the name of her daughter's favorite toy. ===== As summarized in a film publication, a prologue, which explains where the author got her idea for the story, shows Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. When the serpent tells Eve to bite the apple, Adam takes it away from her. The serpent then tells her to go into hysterics and Adam will give her the apple. Shifting to the modern story, Mrs. Orrin (Effie Shannon), Eve's (Constance Talmadge) mother, goes into hysterics at the thought of losing her daughter. Mrs. Orrin and Mrs. Merchant (Katharine Kaelred), who lives with them, have decided that Eve will marry Mrs. Merchant's son Henry (George LeGuere), an effeminate youngster with rimmed glasses. Fearing her mother's nerves, Eve is willing to marry Henry, so the four of them go to Mama Orrin's birthplace, where the wedding is scheduled to take place on her birthday. During the stay at the hotel Mama has one of her "attacks" and Dr. Harmon (Kenneth Harlan) is called in. He soon discovers the exact trouble and orders Mrs. Orrin to bed with instructions that she not even see her daughter. Mrs. Orrin disobeys these orders and then Eve's nerves give way, causing a second visit by the doctor. He takes Eve away from the mother, but after Henry accuses the doctor of being a fortune seeker, the doctor refuses to have anything to do with Eve. Finally, Eve's eyes are opened and she uses a "treat 'em rough" theory on her mother. Besides winning the love of her doctor, she cures her mother of her hysterics. ===== As described in a film magazine, Josephine Gerson (Talmadge) is selected by the woman's party as their candidate for mayor and her fiance accepts the "machine" nomination, and their engagement ends. In her conflict with the boss of the opposition party Jim Bradley (Harlan), mutual love develops with each determined to win. In an election speech as novel as it is effective, Josephine wins the male voters of the pivotal ninth ward. However, her campaign's neglect of the female vote results in her defeat at the polls by 27 votes. Natural gloom at the loss is dispelled when Bradley announces that he has been won over by her policies and appoints her constituents to vital offices, and a happy ending results. ===== As described in a film magazine, in the village of Pontiac, Madelinette (Ayres) has married Louis Racine (Kosloff). At the wedding announcement, since her father the former Seigneur of Pontiac died intestate and no will could be found, Madelinette is to receive $10,000 so she can continue her operatic studies. Tardiff (Campeau), a former servant of the Seigneur, mocks Louis' new title and hints that a will is hidden somewhere and is certain to be found. Tardiff's interruption of the festivities results in a fight in which Louis is flung against a tree and injured. The injuries are such that Louis eventually becomes a hunchback, and he fears in his heart that his young and beautiful wife will turn from him when she returns from her operatic success in Europe. When Madelinette does return from her tour, she is horrified by the deformity on her unhappy husband's back, but decides to give up her career to be with him and keep him happy. She later discovers the lost will and, while hiding it again, is seen by Tardiff, who steals it and carries it to the real heir of the estate. On her plea, the real heir, Englishman George Fournel (Hamilton), destroys the document. Tardiff hastens to Louis and whispers malicious statements about his wife Madelinette and the Englishman. A double tragedy ensues when Louis kills Tardiff and then, to escape pursuers, takes his own life. Later, a romance springs up between Madelinette and George and they are married. ===== Miles Vorkosigan, the main character in the series, and Ekaterin Vorsoisson are enjoying a delayed honeymoon off-world while their first two children are approaching birth in their uterine replicators back on Barrayar. They have just left Earth to begin the journey home when Miles is dispatched by Emperor Gregor Vorbarra to Graf Station in Quaddiespace to untangle a diplomatic incident in his capacity as the nearest Imperial Auditor. There, he is unexpectedly reunited with the Betan hermaphrodite Bel Thorne, a trusted former Dendarii Mercenaries subordinate and his good friend. Quaddies are the result of genetic manipulation centuries before, as described in the novel Falling Free. Intended to be used as laborers in zero-G before the invention of artificial gravity, they have extra arms instead of legs, along with many physiological alterations. At Graf Station the Quaddies occupy a zero-G section of the station while visitors use a section with artificial gravity. Quaddies tend to be suspicious of other humans based on a history of callous exploitation. A convoy of Komarran merchant ships are being prevented from leaving the station due to trouble caused by Barrayaran personnel from their military escort. Furthermore, a Barrayaran security officer is missing, possibly murdered or deserted. While investigating, Miles uncovers a plot by a high-ranking Cetagandan to steal a cargo of extreme importance to the Cetagandans and hide its tracks, if necessary, by putting the blame on Barrayar. By the time Miles figures out what is going on, he and Bel have been infected by a highly lethal bioweapon. Miles nearly dies and barely averts an interstellar war between Cetaganda and Barrayar. ===== As described in a film magazine, young American Rowland Stone (Sydney) receives $50 per week from the estate of his rich uncle until he reaches age 25, at which time, according to the will, he is to hear of further bequests. He is in love with Anna Mae (Collins), the daughter of an old Virginia family, the head of which, Colonel Cassius Byrd (Connelly), has been waiting 40 years for a diplomatic post. The young man pawns all of his furniture to get her presents. When the day of his big inheritance arrives, Rowland discovers that he is to receive $25 per week and must serve one year as an insurance agent to prove his worth before he can secure his fortune. His sweetheart has gone with her father to the nation of Bunkonia in South America, so the new insurance agent sees there some fertile fields and sets sail with his valet Thomas (Wilson). In Bunkonia he meets the villainous Jim Conwell (Atwell), the best families, King Caramba XIII (Lalor) and his cabinet, and he insures everyone in sight. Jim knows the terms of the will and plots a revolution, knowing that the insured king and cabinet will be the first to die and thus ruin the insurance agent. The Colonel, now a counsel, is imprisoned by the plotters and Jim kidnaps Anna Mae, compelling Rowland to save the king, cabinet, sweetheart, and counsel for the sake of insurance, love, and country. During the revolution Rowland is in the difficult position of being unable to kill any of the plotters since they carry policies with his insurance companies. In spite of this handicap, they are all saved with the arrival of the U.S. Marines. ===== Glenn Kilbourne (Richard Dix) returns from the war and travels to Arizona to regain his health. There he is nursed back to health by an Arizona girl, Flo Hutter (Marjorie Daw). Kilbourne's fiancée, Carley Burch (Lois Wilson), arrives in Arizona but soon becomes disillusioned with life in the West and returns to New York. Sometime later, Flo is seriously injured in an accident. Wanting to repay her for restoring him back to health, Glenn asks her to marry him. On their wedding day, Carley returns to Arizona from New York looking for Glenn. When Flo sees that Glenn and Carley are still in love, she calls off her wedding to Glenn and marries another admirer, Lee Stanton (Leonard Clapham). ===== A Solomon Islands plantation owner, David Sheldon (Tom Moore) becomes ill from blackwater fever following the death of many of his fieldhands from the disease. Joan Lackland (Pauline Starke), a female soldier of fortune, arrives by schooner in the islands. Enlisting the aid of her Kanaka crew, she defends Sheldon from an attack by the natives, led by Googomy (Noble Johnson). Joan becomes David's business partner after nursing him back to health and helps protect his mortgaged property from two greedy moneylenders. In attempting to gain revenge, the moneylenders incite the natives to revolt.Adventure at silentera.comThe American Film Institute Catalog Feature Films: 1921-30 by The American Film Institute, c.1971 ===== Ralph Prescott (Marmont) is a New York divorce lawyer tired of his clientele. Woodbury (Pallette), who runs a ladies hosiery business across the hall, suggests that they get away from the city and camp in Mantrap, Canada. Bachelor Joe Easter (Torrence) runs a dry-goods store in Mantrap. Joe, wanting female company, goes to Minneapolis. In a barbershop there, backwoods Joe meets flirtatious manicurist Alverna (Bow), who agrees to meet Joe for dinner. Prescott and Woodbury fight while camping. Joe separates them by taking Prescott back to Mantrap—where Prescott meets Alverna, now married to Joe and bored with backwoods life. Alverna throws a party and flirts, especially with Prescott, who's attracted to her but honorable enough to leave the next day. Alverna waits for Prescott's outbound canoe, stops him, and tells him that she's leaving with him. Alverna insults their Native American guide, who takes the canoe, leaving Prescott and Alverna on their own in the woods. They flag down a passing float plane, which lands in the lake. Alverna flirts with the pilot, angering Prescott. The pilot leaves them some food. Joe tracks them and, after a few days, catches them. Prescott tells Joe he'll marry Alverna if Joe grants a divorce; Joe counters by telling Prescott that Alverna will never stop flirting. Alverna, shut out by the men who are planning her future, takes the canoe and leaves them both. Prescott returns to his law practice, refreshed by his time in the woods. Joe, lonely in his Mantrap store, defends Alverna to his prudish neighbors—and Alverna returns to Joe, but keeps flirting. ===== Hula Calhoun (Clara Bow) is the daughter of a Hawaiian planter, Bill Calhoun (Albert Gran). She follows the advice of her uncle Edwin (Agostino Borgato), and follows a simple and natural life, far from social conventions of her family and is considered a "wild child" who wears pants and rides horses. Courted with adoration by Harry Dehan (Arnold Kent), Hula prefers a young British engineer, Anthony Haldane (Clive Brook), who came to the island to oversee the construction of a dam on her father's property. However, Haldane is already married. At a party, Haldane tries to keep his distance but Hula gets drunk and performs a seductive hula dance for him. She manages to provoke him so much that he promises that he will get a divorce. When his wife, Margaret (Patricia Dupont), appears, Hula makes a deal with one of the foreman to use dynamite to blow up a point on the dam. Thinking that her husband is now ruined, Mrs. Haldane agrees to the divorce, and the two lovers can finally get married. ===== In Alsace, which was under German occupation, shortly before the outbreak of the First World War. Marie Ducrot is a pretty young peasant woman who falls in love with Count Karl von Hagen, a German army officer. Marie is seen when she visits von Hagen in his quarters. The people suffering under the occupation see Marie as a traitor and assault her physically. Marie disappears and is believed dead. But she has fled to a monastery where she is accepted as a novice. The war breaks out. Von Hagen is wounded in fighting near the monastery. Marie nurses him back to health. Von Hagen wants her to go to Germany with him. The French lieutenant Le Bête helps the two to reach the German lines. The couple get to safety, but Le Bête is killed by a sniper's bullet. ===== Sam Lash (Gary Cooper) is a fur trapper with a randy reputation when it comes to women. But when Sam meets tempestuous Mexican damsel Lola Salazar (Velez), he falls deeply in love for the first time in his life. Lola's aristocratic father Don Solomon (Michael Vavitch) disapproves of the romance, forcing Sam to kidnap the girl and high-tail it to the mountains. After a brief period of marital contentment, Sam gets restless and leaves Lola, preferring the company of his trapper pals Gullion (Louis Wolheim) and Rube (Constantin Romanoff). But he relents and returns to his bride—making short work of his bitter enemy, Indian leader Black Wolf (George Rigas). ===== A man known only as the Virginian (Gary Cooper) is ranch foreman at Box H Ranch near Medicine Bow, Wyoming. At a saloon in Medicine Bow, he and the cattle rustler Trampas (Walter Huston) vie for the attentions of a barmaid; when Trampas insults him, the Virginian pulls a gun and tells him to smile. Soon afterwards, Molly Wood (Mary Brian), a new schoolteacher from Vermont, arrives in town. The Virginian and a drifter named Steve (Richard Arlen) vie for her attentions, but she ultimately chooses the latter. However, as Steve was his childhood friend, the Virginian gives him a job at the ranch. Unhappy with the Virginian's violent nature, Molly tries to change him but is unsuccessful. Meanwhile, Steve and the Virginian enjoy playing pranks together, switching babies during a baptism; they also make quail calls for secret communications. However, Steve falls in with Trampas' gang. Although warned by the Virginian that no good will come of it, Steve continues with the gang. When they (minus Trampas) steal cattle from Box H Ranch, the Virginian is forced to hang all involved, including Steve. The Virginian vows revenge on Trampas for forcing him to do so. Disgusted by The Virginian's callousness, Molly leaves him. However, after he is shot in the back by Trampas, she decides to treat him, and they fall deeper in love; they eventually decide to marry. On their wedding day, Trampas comes back to town for revenge and challenges the Virginian to a shoot-out. The Virginian quickly draws his six-shooter and kills the bandit in the streets. He then marries Molly, and the two prepare to open their own ranch. ===== ===== 1916, we meet the Chilcotes of Louisiana. In their elite circles, no one is surprised that the men are all drunk after an elegant dinner. Maggie May looks after her father, tying his shoes for him and retrieving him when he makes a spectacle of himself in public. “I'm just a low down cowardly drunkard,” he tells her. Chilcote goes on a drinking and gambling spree and loses most of the family's money. In the agonies of withdrawal, he kills himself. After the funeral, his friends toast him; Maggie smashes the whiskey decanter, raging: “I hope I live to see the day that every bit that was ever made was poured into the cesspool where it belongs.” Maggie's brother, Roger Jr., a writer, moves to New York City when his novel is accepted. His college friend, newspaper reporter Jerry Tyler, gets him a room in the modest hotel where he lives. Like Chilcote, Pow Tarleton wasted the family resources; now his wife, Bertha and their son, Kip, manage this place. Pow stumps for Woodrow Wilson's re-election campaign, for the free drinks as well as the politics. Wilson is re-elected; people chant “Four years more, we stay out of the War.” Cut to American troops marching, sailing, fighting. Jerry enlists. In the trenches, the men around him wonder if they'll even get a beer when they get home. The war ends, and in 1919, the 18th amendment becomes law, despite President Wilson's veto. Maggie May comes to the hotel to meet her brother, and a flirtatious Pow shows her to Roger's room, assuming she is a prostitute. Kip runs upstairs to throw her out and is shattered when he learns the truth. Roger staggers in, with Jerry. They have been celebrating Jerry's return. When Roger pours a toast, they discover that Pow has replaced all of Roger's liquor with water. Maggie May realizes that she and Kip have been fighting the same battle, and they warm to each other. She and Roger go to relatives on Long Island, supposedly far from temptation. June 29, 1919. People stock up on liquor and try to drink their fill before midnight. Cut to a lavish party thrown by the Chilcote's cousins, whose bar is stocked by a boat from Bermuda. Roger is smitten with actress Eileen Pinchon. Kip and Maggie dance, but Kip leaves after the snobbish cousins high-hat him. Bertha tries to take a bottle of bad liquor away from Pow. When it breaks, he beats her to death while she screams that it is Prohibition now.. Maggie comforts the devastated Kip. Pow is sentenced to life imprisonment.. Kip does not renew the lease on the hotel, leaving some guests wondering how to move the liquor stored in their rooms. Maggie May comforts Kip. “Bootleg booze, that's what killed my Mom,” he sobs. He is stunned when she confesses her love for him. They marry, and Kip joins the U.S. Treasury Department. His boss, the Major, doesn't believe in Prohibition but will enforce it, with only a fraction of the resources needed. He gives Kip a partner, Abe Schilling, a quirky, experienced agent. In a bar, they watch teenagers getting drunk. Their cover is blown, and they are beaten and thrown out. A crook warns Kip that bootleggers are forming an association. Maggie tells Kip she is pregnant. The gangsters do organize, all over the country, with systems of bribery and terror—and the financial backing of “honest” businessmen. Cut to Eileen Pinchon's speakeasy—a glamorous nightclub patronized by celebrities. Abe announces a raid, and the cops smash everything. Roger, a big investor in his mistress's club, is shaken. The bellboy promises some “real prewar kentucky bourbon.” Cut to a sequence showing the process of creating innumerable counterfeits—using denatured alcohol. Roger wakes up sick and blind, and Eileen runs away. The ophthalmologist says that they have had hundreds of cases like this since Prohibition. Some bootleggers don't remove the methyl put in the alcohol to make it undrinkable. There is no hope. Roger moves in with Kip and Maggie and learns Braille. Kip promises justice for Roger. The Major signs the warrant but says it is futile, expounding on the failures of Prohibition. Maggie goes into labor, and Kip is kidnapped from the hospital by gangsters who plan to make his horrible death a warning. Abe saves him but is shot; he dies in Kip's arms, telling him to quit the department. It isn't any use, and taking care of his family comes first. At the hospital, Kip looks at his tiny son, “born into an awful mess...Before they pull him into it, I guess they'll have it all figured out.” ===== Musical stage star Mona Leslie (Jean Harlow), jailed for reckless driving, is bailed out by her friend, sports promoter and gambler Ned Riley (William Powell), to headline a charity event. However, she finds that all the seats have been bought by wealthy Bob Harrison Jr. (Franchot Tone), president and only member of S.A.M.L. (the Society for the Admiration of Mona Leslie). Mona begins dating Bob, with Ned's approval. Mona's Granny (May Robson) tells Ned that her granddaughter would break it off if he asked her to. Ned is reluctant at first, but eventually buys a wedding ring. However, he is too late. One night, while they are very drunk, Mona and Bob get married. The next day, Mona is pleased, but Bob becomes depressed when he considers what his upper class friends and family will think, especially his father, Colonel Harrison (Henry Stephenson), and his fiancée and friend since childhood, Jo Mercer (Rosalind Russell). Though Jo welcomes Mona without resentment, the colonel and the rest of Bob's social circle are cold toward her. Bob wants to run back to New York, but Mona advises him to stay and stick it out. Bob's ambivalent feelings emerge when Jo gets married. He avoids the wedding and starts drinking, unable to endure the thought of Jo with another man. When he shows up and speaks to Jo privately, he tells her how he really feels. Mona overhears when he says he was trapped into marriage. With no place else to go, she asks Ned to take her to his hotel suite. Bob follows and tries to pick a fight, but is too drunk to do anything serious. Ned and Mona put him to bed, but when they leave the room, Bob kills himself. Both Ned and Mona are subjected to a coroner's inquest and suspected of murder, but Bob's death is ruled a suicide. However, in the eyes of the public, Mona is still guilty of driving Bob to his death. Mona gives birth to Bob's son. She offers to give up her inheritance of one million dollars if Colonel Harrison will agree not to seek custody of her child. He agrees. To support her son, Mona tries to go back to work, but outraged people organize a campaign against her and nobody will hire her other than a sleazy promoter who wants to take advantage of her notoriety. Ned secretly finances a show for her, but his lawyer, worried that Ned is risking bankruptcy, tells Mona. She offers to stop production, but Ned refuses to listen and the show goes on. On opening night, Jo and Colonel Harrison are in the audience. Mona starts off with a song, but hecklers make it impossible to continue. She quiets the crowd with a forceful justification of her actions and starts over. When she is finished, the audience gives her a standing ovation. During her next song, Ned proposes to her from the sideline. ===== Pete Sandidge (Spencer Tracy) is the reckless pilot of a North American B-25 Mitchell bomber flying out of England during World War II. He is in love with Women Airforce Service Pilot Dorinda Durston (Irene Dunne), a civilian pilot ferrying aircraft across the Atlantic. Pete's commanding officer, "Nails" Kilpatrick (James Gleason), first transfers Pete and his crew to a base in Scotland, then offers him a transfer back to the United States to be a flight instructor. Dorinda begs him to accept; Pete agrees, but goes out on one last mission with his best friend Al Yackey (Ward Bond) to check out a German aircraft carrier. Wounded after an attack by an enemy fighter, Pete has his crew bail out before going on to bomb the carrier and then crashing into the sea. Pete then finds himself walking in clouds, where he first recognizes an old friend, Dick Rumney (Barry Nelson). Pete suddenly becomes uneasy, remembering that Dick went down with his aircraft in a fiery crash. Pete tells Dick, "Either I'm dead or I'm crazy." Dick answers, "You're not crazy." Dick ushers Pete to a meeting with "The General" (Lionel Barrymore), who gives him an assignment. He is to be sent back to Earth, where a year has elapsed, to pass on his experience and knowledge to Ted Randall (Van Johnson) at flight school, then in the South Pacific, where Ted is a Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter pilot. Ted's commanding officer turns out to be Al Yackey. The situation becomes complicated when Ted meets the still-grieving Dorinda. Al encourages Dorinda to give the young pilot a chance. The pair gradually fall in love; Ted proposes to her and she accepts, much to Pete's jealous dismay. When Dorinda finds out from Al that Ted has been given an extremely dangerous assignment to destroy the largest Japanese ammunition dump in the Pacific, she steals his aircraft. Pete guides her in completing the mission and returning to the base to Ted's embrace. Pete accepts what must be and walks away, his job done. ===== When his ship is torpedoed by a Japanese submarine, Harry Patterson (Clark Gable), a World War II merchant marine boatswain, is cast adrift on a launch with a few of his shipmates. While Harry remains calm in the face of disaster, his friend Mudgin (Thomas Mitchell) prays desperately, promising to avoid women, liquor, and fighting and to donate money to the church if they are saved. Harry finds Mudgin's pleas ridiculous, but no sooner does Mudgin complete his pact with God than a rescue plane appears on the horizon and the men are saved. They are then deposited in San Francisco where they engage in "R&R;" care, grooming, dinners, and fun to celebrate their rescue. Mudgin quickly breaks all his promises to God soon after and becomes depressed, certain that he has "lost his immortal soul." Mudgin's shipmates laugh off his concerns, but Harry realizes that Mudgin is truly wracked with guilt and they take a walk, arriving at the city library, because Mudgin and Harry think there may be some helpful information on the subject of the human soul there. Here, Harry and Mudgin meet the attractive, strait-laced librarian Emily Sears (Greer Garson). Although intrigued by Emily, Harry repeatedly angers her with his wiseguy remarks and inappropriate behavior. However his attention turns swiftly to her outgoing roommate, Helen Melohn (Joan Blondell), who has stopped in to walk her home. Harry and Helen decide to go on a date and convince a reluctant Emily to join them. At the restaurant, Emily stuns Harry when she abandons her reserved demeanor and joins a bar fight. Astounded, Harry decides to pursue Emily's affections and arranges to meet the two women the following day to visit Emily's farm outside the city. Charmed by Emily and her family farmhouse which includes the big bed in which she was born, Harry and Emily soon fall completely in love and get married in Reno in a wild expression of love of life. However, upon their return to her farm, he tells Emily that he will be shipping out in a few days, which comes as a shock to Emily, who promptly asks for a divorce, insisting that she is just being a free spirit and giving Harry his freedom, as the best expression of love. Harry sails away, and Emily and pals go back to Reno for the quick divorce. But in Reno, with "the girls", Emily faints - the doctor called declares that she is pregnant with Harry's child. While docked in a South American port city, Mudgin falls off the ship and claims, before dying in Harry's arms, that his soul has been returned to him. A wise elderly gentleman, a friend (whose son died in the ship disaster at the film's start), gives Harry a good talking to when Harry complains about his relationship with Emily. Nine months after his departure, now ready to commit to love and marriage, Harry comes back to San Francisco and finds out from Helen that Emily has long since given up on him and went to her farm to give birth to his child - insisting the baby born in the same bed she was. Harry follows and arrives just as Emily goes into labor, so the meeting and reunion are brief - there is just time to give Emily reason to hope in improvements in Harry's character; he shares sad news of Mudgin's death, but it was peaceful and happy because Mudgin says his soul returned and he'd now go to heaven. Waiting, Harry paces outdoors with Emily upstairs in labor, until Helen calls him in saying that Emily is fine and that he has a little boy, but there is trouble. Harry races upstairs to the room across the bedroom set up to see to the baby. The child is stillborn, in spite of the efforts of Doctor, nurses and aide and Harry positions himself at the Doctor's side and won't be moved. The Doctor finally gives up trying to get the baby to breathe, sadly turning away, but then Harry moves in and crying, calls desperately to the baby to breathe, breathe - for him, for his Mother - whatever - but breathe. And we have the miracle as the little chest rises and the child's triumphant howl is astoundingly heard. In the hall, happy tearful Helen hugs Harry as he races back across to Emily's side, thrilled to hear their baby, but she says she is just as moved to have heard Harry and his passion to save the child - finally honest caring sentiment. They decide to call the baby Mudgin, after their lost friend, and the film closes as Harry and Emily share a tender kiss, with baby's joyful cries in the background. ===== The banns are called for the third time for the marriage of Italian Princess Angela Chiaromonte (Helen Hayes) and the husband chosen by her father (Lewis Stone), Ernesto Traversi. Driving home through streets filled with revelers celebrating a saint's feast day, their limousine is rear-ended by a car full of officers, driven by Giovanni Severi (Clark Gable), a handsome army lieutenant. Traversi, the son of a banker, is 31, rather stuffy, preoccupied with business. Angela is a warm-hearted, impulsive, romantic, innocent young woman, who dreams every night of a handsome man she has never met. Angela persuades her duenna, Mina, to go outside to the Carnival, where they admire the antics of a pantomime horse. The horse approaches Angela, and she asks its name. “Giovanni” it replies, in the voice of the handsome lieutenant, and the horse—or rather the front half—follows Angela through the crowd while Mina is swept away by the revelers. Giovanni seats Angela in a quiet restaurant where they have tea and talk for hours. He tells her he loves her and sees her home, filling her arms with flowers. Giovanni and his Colonel come to a ball given by Prince Chiaromonte. In the garden, Giovanni and Angela kiss for the first time; her father interrupts them. Giovanni declares that he wants to marry her and is forced to leave. Angela tells her father that the kiss revealed to her how much she loves Giovanni; now she knows, she cannot marry a man she does not love. Angela runs away to Giovanni. Her father pursues her and, in a freak accident, their cars collide and her father is killed. Angela disappears, but Father Saracinesca gives Giovanni her address. He comes to her but, wracked by grief and guilt, she sends him away. Italy joins the War, and Giovanni comes to say goodbye. She gives him the cross she wears around her neck, for luck. He gives her an ivory whistle. Giovanni is shot down and officially declared dead. In fact, he has been taken in by a German woman who is half Italian. Angela tells Father Saracinesca that she will never marry anyone, and that she believes God wants her to serve him as a nun. At the convent, Angela receives her postulant's habit and learns that she will be trained as a nurse. Her first lesson is never to use the word “mine.” Meanwhile, Giovanni leaves his refuge. When he is finally captured, he gives a false name. In the prison camp, there is no way to get word out. Two years later, Giovanni emerges from a long session in solitary confinement to find an epidemic of cholera in the camp. He takes the place of a corpse, steals a plane and flies off into the night. Angela takes her final vows as a bride of Christ. Home again and finding no trace of Angela, Giovanni goes looking for Father Saracinesca at the hospital. The nun who comes out to help him is Angela. She swoons and he catches her in his arms; they almost kiss, but she flees into the convent in horror. She prays for strength and eventually comes out to him. Their conversation is agonizing: She can't speak and says goodbye. Later Angela is sent out to a villa to help a patient, who turns out to be Giovanni. He implores her to give up the order, but she refuses. He tells her she can petition the Cardinal but she holds by her vows. He embraces her, but an air- raid breaks a window and shrouds the room in darkness. He finds Angela kneeling in prayer, repeating her vow. He takes her back to the convent. She says she will remember him and pray for him always. Later, at the hospital, Father Saracinesca brings her to Giovanni's bedside. His plane crashed. He tells her “I'll be waiting,” and dies, holding the little cross she gave him when he went off to war. ===== Alim is a young gay man. Born in Kenya and raised in Toronto, he moved to London to get away from his conservative upbringing. He faces the hardships of coming out to his widowed mother Nuru, as well as hardships in his relationship with his boyfriend Giles. Alim has an imaginary friend (or maybe a guardian angel or ghost friend, depending on how literally or symbolically one takes the film) who is supposedly Cary Grant, who gives Alim advice when he is in trouble. Unfortunately, the advice often seems to make more trouble. ===== ===== Despite the difficulties it has caused for his family, Gregor finds it hard to distance himself from the Underland. When he receives word that a plague has broken out and his bond Ares is one of the victims, he heads down to help with yet another of Bartholomew of Sandwich's prophecies. His mother, however, hates the Underland and only allows Boots and Gregor below on the condition that she comes with them. The humans' plague expert, Dr. Neveeve, explains that there is a plant called starshade growing deep in the Vineyard of Eyes which can be distilled into a cure. In the midst of the meeting, a dying bat infected with the plague inadvertently infects one of the delegates—Gregor's mother. Gregor immediately joins a group of creatures on a quest to find the starshade, as described in "The Prophecy of Blood". The current queen, Nerissa, has arranged Hamnet - the estranged, pacifistic son of Solovet and Vikus - as their guide. Hamnet, his Halflander son Hazard, and their hisser companion Frill lead the motley crew through the dangerous Jungle and numerous setbacks. During a near- death experience with a pool of quicksand, the group encounters Luxa, the heir apparent of Regalia who was assumed to be dead after the quest in Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane. She and her bond Aurora were trapped in the Jungle when Aurora dislocated her wing, and have been living there with a colony of nibblers (mice). After Hamnet fixes Aurora's wing, the bonds accompany the questers. They arrive at the Vineyard of Eyes, but an army of cutters (ants, who would like to see all warm-blooded creatures gone) destroys the starshade and kill both Hamnet and Frill. The group's hopes are crushed until they realize a new possibility: that the plague was developed by the humans as a biological agent to be used against the rats. The group hastens home, and find their theory proved correct by the humans' new medication, developed without the supposed "cradle cure". Luxa furiously exposes the covert military project. Dr. Neveeve is executed for her participation and Solovet, the project's head, is imprisoned in preparation for a trial. Following up on a promise to Ripred, Luxa sends doses of the cure to the gnawers while the Regalian hospital treats as many human and bat victims as possible. Though she is healing, Gregor's mother is too weak to go home, and so the book ends with Gregor confiding his problems to his neighbor Mrs. Cormaci. ===== The novel opens with Gregor's little sister Lizzie preparing to go to camp, while Gregor and Boots head down to the Underland. Ripred introduces Gregor to the now-teenaged Pearlpelt so Gregor can observe "the Bane's" violent instability, and choose to kill him before he ends up in a leadership position. Gregor is uncomfortable with the idea. The next day, he returns to dissuade Ripred, but is instead attacked by the Bane's friends. After several more weeks, Ripred is still missing, but Gregor remains relaxed until a messenger unexpectedly delivers Luxa her crown. Luxa and her friends know that this is a distress call from the nibbler colony in the Jungle. They investigate, but discover only a deceased mouse and an abandoned colony. Luxa is distraught, and decides to visit the nibblers' other colony at the Fount, under the pretense of going on a picnic date. This ruse leads to several others coming along as well. The group finds the colony mysteriously deserted, though they do discover a "mark of secret" which Hazard says warns of death and sorrow. The traveling party tracks the mice into the Swag, but are forced into Hades Hall by an earthquake. During their journey back to Regalia, they learn the Bane has been systematically executing nibblers, which leads Luxa to declare war against all gnawers. Gregor becomes annoyed with Luxa as the consequences of her actions become apparent. The team eventually locates the missing nibblers, trapped by rats in a natural gas chamber, and is shocked to discover an Underland children's song describes the scene perfectly (and is thus yet another of Bartholomew of Sandwich's dreadful prophecies). A volcano starts to erupt nearby, and all rush to escape. Though one of their number dies in the explosion, the group travels sadly on until they exit the Firelands. Once there, they part ways: Gregor, Ares, and Temp going to escort the young and injured back to Regalia and spread the news of the rats' plans; the rest returning to protect and mobilize any remaining nibblers. Gregor wants to join the latter group, but Ripred convinces him to go learn about the "Prophecy of Time" and finally claim Sandwich's sword. Ripred also helps Gregor realize his new romantic feelings for Luxa, which have kept him moody and confused during their entire journey. The novel ends with Gregor accepting his role as Sandwich's "warrior" by claiming the man's sword. ===== Semi-retired Mexican-American chef Martin Naranjo shares a suburban Los Angeles home with his three adult daughters. Although he has lost the senses of smell and taste since his wife's death, he still cooks elaborate, multi-course meals for his family and friends. The women humor their father's old-fashioned ways, but each is searching for fulfillment outside the family circle. Leticia, the oldest and most conservative of the three, is a repressed high school chemistry teacher who abandoned Catholicism to become a born-again Christian. Middle daughter Carmen shares her father's passion for food but has stifled her dream of owning a restaurant in favor of pursuing a more stable career as a business analyst. Maribel, the youngest, is hip and slightly rebellious. Frequently present in the Naranjo home are newly divorced family friend Yolanda, her young daughter April, and her visiting mother Hortensia, who has set her sights on Martin and is determined to make him her next husband, unaware his attention is focused on someone else. Maribel is drawn to handsome Brazilian student Andy after her co-worker rejects him and, after they briefly date, she invites him home for dinner, during which she blithely announces she is moving in with him, much to her father's consternation and Andy's shock, since they never had discussed elevating their somewhat casual relationship to this next level. Before long she is rearranging his small apartment and unintentionally making him increasingly uncomfortable as she imposes herself in his life. Meanwhile, Leticia finds herself attracted to Orlando Castillo, who coaches baseball at her school, when she begins to receive passionate love letters she believes are from him, unaware they actually were written by her students. Carmen is offered a high-profile job in Barcelona, and half-heartedly agrees to accept it, although soon after her father drives her to the airport she returns home, determined to follow in her father's footsteps and open a restaurant of her own. Leticia and Orlando elope, Maribel and Andy break up and reunite, Martin marries Yolanda, and everyone gathers for a family meal at Carmen's new restaurant. ===== In medieval Russia, the aging giant bogatyr Svyatogor gives his sword to some traveling pilgrims to be passed on to a new bogatyr. Svyatogor and his horse become a mountain as he dies. Meanwhile, Asiatic pagans known as the Tugars are ravaging and pillaging the land. They raid the village where the bearded and robust Ilya Muromets lives and capture his future wife Vassilisa. Ilya is unable to defend her because his legs haven't worked since childhood. A man called Mishatychka caught by the Tugars pleads to serve them if they spare him, and promises to be a double agent for them. The pilgrims with Svyatogor's sword come upon the house of Ilya Muromets and cure his ailment with a magical potion and a magical song. They also give him the sword. Later on, he decides to leave his family to go on an epic journey in order to defend Kiev from the Tugars. For this purpose he is given a foal by a neighbour (Mikula Selyaninovich) which magically grows into a steed in three days. He passes by some woods and is confronted by a forest- dwelling monster known as Nightingale the Robber who blows wind so hard it parts the forest backward; Ilya defeats him by throwing a cudgel at him. Meanwhile, in the capital Kiev, a peasant named Razumey stands trial before Knyaz Vladimir the Fair Sun, for cutting trees without permission. Upon hearing that Razumey's purpose was designing and building weapons to use against the enemy, Vladimir releases him and provides him with wood to continue the work. Ilya arrives in Kiev and presents the forest monster to Knyaz Vladimir, who is impressed with his deeds. Ilya becomes part of a bogatyr brotherhood with two other bogatyrs Dobrynya Nikitich and Alyosha Popovich. A Tugar envoy arrives in the city, Idolishche Poganoye, a huge zeppelin-like man on a massive moving platform, who warns the Knyaz to give a tribute for twelve years in advance and they will be spared. Ilya replies by insulting the ambassador, and, when he throws a sword at Ilya, throwing it back into the ambassador's stomach, cutting him down while the envoy runs off. Ilya leaves Kiev and finds Vassilisa captured by three Tugars and releases her. After a while Ilya departs from the pregnant Vassilisa to fight the Turgars. Upon leaving he expresses his wish for her to bear a son, to be called Sokolnichek (Little Falcon), who will become a heroic warrior. Unfortunately Vassilisa is abducted again by the Tugars. Mishatychka has become an important adviser to the knyaz and he tricks the knyaz into believing that Ilya is disloyal to him. Ilya is imprisoned in the castle's dungeons where he will eventually spend ten years deprived of food by Mishatychka. Disgusted, Nikitich and Popovich leave the knyaz's court. Mishatychka attempts to send the dungeon key to Kalin, but instead, it falls into Razumey's hands. Vassilisa has born a son, Sokolnichek, while in captivity of Tsar Kalin, the Tugar Khan. Kalin adopts Sokolnichek as his own son and has him trained as a mighty Tugar warrior. The huge Tugar army sets up camp outside the city of Kiev, demanding an enormous ransom (700 carts of gold) to be given to Kalin in order for the city to be spared. Ilya is released, having survived on food provided by a magic table cloth that Vassilisa had woven previously. Mishatychka the traitor is rooted out and ordered to be boiled in pitch, while Vladimir calls out for all the Rus' warriors to assemble for a battle the Tugar hordes. Nikitich and Popovich, hearing of Ilya's release, hurry back into Kiev. Due to the reinforcements being slow to arrive, Ilya hatches a plan to trick Kalin by using torn sacks and broken carts to create the impression that all of the gold being paid as tribute fell out during transport, and then make Kalin think the warriors tried to keep the treasure for themselves. After they warriors give Kalin the treasure (their own jewelry), the king demands to give him Ilya as well. Ilya sends people to Kiev, and they naturally come back empty handed. Kalin then promises to depart if Ilya is delivered. Ilya reveals himself to Kalin who feels insulted by this deception, captures Ilya and decides to attack Kiev anyway; Ilya escapes and goes back to Kiev. With all the aforementioned manipulations, enough time has passed for the Rus' armies to arrive. Sokolnichek is now a strong Tugar warrior who is sent to fight Ilya. While they duel, Ilya sees the ring on his son's finger and reveals his true heritage to him. Abashed, he joins his father's side and goes to free Vassilisa, together with all the Russians held captive by Kalin. Nikitich and Popovich each lead one army with Ilya leading the center army toward the Tugar hordes and Vladimir with his personal guard stands ready as reserve. The Khan orders a massive pyramid to be made out of human bodies so that he can survey the forthcoming battle. An arrow is shot from inside Kiev by a large ballista designed and operated by Razumey, causing Kalin to tumble down. Angry, Kalin orders to release the three-headed dragon, Zmey Gorynych, to help in the fight. Another arrow from the ballista hits the dragon in the wing, forcing it to fight on the ground. More of the Russian soldiers land from ships from a nearby river and fight the fire-breathing dragon, eventually slaying it. The Tugar hordes are routed and Kalin captured. The victorious Ilya is finally reunited with Vassilisa and offered a place at the court and a title by Vladimir, but declines in order to be with his wife and go on other journeys. He gives the title and his sword to his son, who continues the heroic lineage. ===== The Beast Master tells of Hosteen Storm, a Navajo and former soldier who has empathic and telepathic connections with a group of genetically altered animals. The team emigrates from Earth to the distant planet Arzor where it is hired to herd livestock. Storm still harbors anger at his former enemies the Xik, and has sworn revenge on a man named Quade for his father's murder. According to Kirkus he finds "life and hope" instead. In this novel and its sequels Norton explores aspects of Native American culture, specifically the Navajo, through metaphors in Storm's life and in the culture he adopts on his adopted planet. ===== The program features the exploits of Chuck Martin (Kenneth Tobey) and Pete "P. T." Moore (Craig Hill), owners of a fictitious helicopter chartering company, Whirlybirds, Inc., in the American West. Martin and Moore sell their services to various clients at the fictional airport Longwood Field. The Whirlybirds series was, like I Love Lucy, a product of Desilu Studios. One particular episode of I Love Lucy, Number 140, became pivotal to the Bell 47's public image as the definitive light helicopter of the 1950s. In No. 140, titled "Bon Voyage" and first aired on CBS on January 16, 1956, Lucy Ricardo misses the sailing of her trans- Atlantic ocean liner and commandeers a friendly pilot of a Bell 47G to fly her to the ship; Jack Albertson guest stars in this episode. Down she goes on the hoist, in a studio sequence carefully staged using a 47G cabin mockup. Desilu Studios, intrigued by the Bell 47 and its manufacturer, began discussions with Bell Aircraft about how the entertainment potential of the Bell 47 might be further developed for a television audience. The result of this collaboration became The Whirlybirds. Tobey and Hill did not fly the helicopters on the show. That task was handled by expert helicopter pilots Ed Fuderich, Bob Gilbreath, and Harry Hauss of National Helicopter Service, Inc. After production of the series ended, Kenneth Tobey reprised his role as Chuck Martin in episode #223 of the long-running television series, Lassie. Titled "The Rescue", the Lassie episode was broadcast on October 2, 1960. Chuck Martin uses a Bell 47G to rescue a trapped Timmy Martin (Jon Provost). ===== The introduction, with instructions that the Dungeon Master read it aloud to the players, outlines that there is a treasure in the Yatil Mountains south of the Greyhawk realm of Perrenland. The player characters must investigate rumors of a lost treasure that scores of adventurers have perished attempting to find. The treasure is a remnant of the wealth amassed by the archmage Iggwilv, former ruler of Perrenland, prior to her presumed death at the hands of the demon Graz'zt, whom she had "imprisoned and forced into servitude." The players must first traverse a wilderness area with 20 numbered encounters before arriving at the caverns. The encounters have names such as "Border Patrol" (encounter 1) and "Hill Giants" (encounter 10). After the wilderness are two lettered encounters: the "Gnome Vale", which includes a map for their lair, and "The Craggy Dells", where humans and orcs are capturing hippogriffs to sell. Next, the player characters reach the caverns. They consist of the "Lesser Caverns" with 22 encounters, and the "Greater Caverns" with 20 encounters, each with its own map. The lesser caverns include encounters such as "Stinking Cave" (encounter 5) which contains four trolls and "Underground Lake" (encounter 14). The greater caverns include encounters such as "Uneven- Floored Cavern" (encounter 5) where the player characters face an umber hulk and "Canyon of Centaurs" (encounter 9). The 20th and final encounter is titled "The Inner Sphere". Here, a "woman sleeps on an alabaster slab." She is "armored from toe to neck in gold chased plate mail." The woman is actually Drelnza, a fighter/vampire and the daughter of Iggwilv. After defeating Drelnza, the players are rewarded with treasure, and the adventure ends. ===== Dinah, an actress, refuses to be a part of seduction scene in front of a live audience. The director, Gregor, tries to convince her to complete the scene by telling her stories of sexual relations over the centuries. In the end, Dinah decides to complete the filming. Coppola inserted scenes to the original German plot, adding the bellboy, George, who tries to spend some time with a room full of women. ===== A reporter interviews Dr. Kornev about his work in space travel. While writing his story, the reporter daydreams about such a future. In the daydream, he and others board a rocket that takes them to an orbiting space station. There, he learns the large rocket, the Rodina, is docked at the station. A short while later, an American rocket, the Typhoon, arrives at the space station. The Soviet scientists hold a dinner for the visitors. At the dinner, Kornev announces that the Rodina will travel to the planet Mars in a few days, The Americans, Clark and Verst, are taken aback. The Typhoon was secretly prepared to make the first Mars mission. The reckless American authorities order Clark to take the Typhoon to Mars immediately. In their haste to blast off, they injure Somov, the Rodina's pilot. Gordiienko steps in as the new pilot. He and Kornev take off in the Rodina as planned. Not long after departure, things go wrong aboard Typhoon. Their course is off and they have too little fuel to correct it. Now they are headed for an asteroid belt and if they survive that, a collision course with the sun. Clark radios the bad news. Kornev decides they can help and flies the Rodina to the rescue. Doing so, however, uses too much fuel, so the Rodina must land on the asteroid Icarus where they all at least get a fine view of Mars. A pilotless refueling rocket is sent to Icarus, but crashes. The men on Icarus despair. Verst awakens to see a fifth man on Icarus. It is Somov. He flew another pilotless refueling rocket to Icarus, but since it was not built as a manned spacecraft, he suffered lethal cosmic radiation and dies. The four are able to blast off and return to a hero's greeting in the Soviet Union. ===== On the Sunset Strip, two unlikely men rendezvous: Samuel Hill, an unkempt desert miner, and Benjamin Jabowski, a John Birch Society dandy from the city. Intent on some sort of mayhem, they enter the Herald Club before the burlesque show starts, and they wire something to the electrical box, set to blow at midnight. They sit at the back of the club to get to know each other. As they drink and glance at the stage, Sam tells of a partner driven mad by visions of naked women in the sagebrush; Ben tells a tale of trying to rid his neighborhood of a pin-up studio. As they get drunker and the clock ticks toward midnight, they pull their chairs closer to the women on stage. ===== Natalie Ravenna (Shirley Knight) sets off on a drive in a family station wagon. She gives a ride to a strapping young man, Killer (James Caan), who had been a college football star but had sustained a serious head injury and was given one thousand dollars to go away. On their first night together, in Natalie’s motel room, she orders Killer around and makes him show her his muscular body. She tells him she is pregnant and had given him the ride to have a one-night affair with him, but then she sends him to his own room. Natalie drives Killer to the home of a one-time girlfriend of his whose father had once promised him a job, but that family wants nothing to do with him and Natalie takes him with her when she drives away. While they travel west she twice comes close to finding him work and a place to stay, only to decide that Killer would be taken advantage of. She also twice leaves him at the side of the road, only to change her mind. At their next stop Natalie makes a collect phone call and it is revealed that she left a husband at home when she took off. During a subsequent call days later her husband pleads with her to return home, saying he will do anything to make her happy. Things become complicated when Natalie gets involved with a handsome but lonely highway patrolman, Gordon (Robert Duvall), and after a night out he takes her back to his place. ===== In 1938, Dominic Matei (Tim Roth), a 70-year-old professor of linguistics, pining after the love of his youth, Laura (Alexandra Maria Lara), travels to Bucharest, the city where he and she met at university. Feeling that his fruitless search for the origin of human language has condemned him to a solitary, wasted life, Dominic is intent on committing suicide after this one last journey. However, while crossing the street, he is abruptly yet non-lethally struck by lightning. In hospital, Professor Stanciulescu (Bruno Ganz) informs Dominic that, much to both their surprises, the lightning appears to have regenerated him into a much younger man. Soon after, while residing at the Professor's home, Dominic also discovers that he possesses strange, psychic capacities. As Romania is invaded by Nazi Germany, Doktor Josef Rudolf (André Hennicke) begins to show an interest in Stanciulescu's miracle patient. Since Dominic's budding powers have blurred his perception of reality, he is bamboozled into mistaking a Nazi spy known only as the Woman in Room Six for an erotic fantasy, who discovers during their nights together that he has developed a talent for speaking in tongues. Meanwhile, an alternate persona, invisible to human eyes, presents itself to Dominic as his "Other" from outside space and time. When Dominic asks for proof, the "Other" obliges by bringing him two roses out of nowhere. Unbeknownst to Dominic, Stanciulescu has witnessed the event and overhears his friend ask himself, "Where do you want me to put the third rose?" Understanding the Nazis' designs, Stanciulescu persuades Dominic to escape from Romania. Living like a spy, Dominic eventually winds up in Switzerland towards the end of the war, where he is confronted by Doktor Rudolf at gunpoint in an alleyway. Rudolf argues that Dominic's existence supports the Nazis' ideal of the superman, and that the coming nuclear conflicts can only be survived by a superior species of man. In the background, the "Other" confirms this to be the case. However, in refusing to cooperate, Dominic manifests telekinetic powers which manipulate Rudolf into shooting himself. Subsequently, Dominic returns to a normal existence and resumes his linguistic research. Having realised that the lightning strike has partially lent him the capacities and knowledge of future humanity, he develops a secret language for his audio diary, to be deciphered long after the nuclear apocalypse. Many years later, Dominic encounters a woman named Veronica (Alexandra Maria Lara) while hiking in the Alps. The "Other" reveals her to be the reincarnation of Laura. When the mountains are hit by a violent thunderstorm, Dominic rushes to her rescue and finds her chanting in Sanskrit, which he greets her with to gain her trust. During her stay in hospital, Veronica now identifies herself as "Rupini", one of the first disciples of the Buddha. Suspecting she may now be afflicted with a condition similar to his own, Dominic calls the Roman College of Oriental Studies for aid, who inform him that Rupini's last act in life was to retire into a cave for meditation on Enlightenment. Since the cave's location is unknown, the scholars, led by Professor Giuseppe Tucci (Marcel Iureș), agree to fund an expedition to find it in India, hoping Veronica's past self will guide them. The venture proves a success when a local Boddhisatva recognises "Rupini" and directs her to the place of meditation. Following this discovery, Veronica becomes herself again and falls for Dominic. The couple elope to Malta, where for a time, they live happily together, until Dominic tells Veronica in her sleep that he has always loved her. This causes Veronica to writhe in bed as if possessed and begin chanting a language even he does not understand. The "Other" explains that she is speaking in ancient Egyptian, having travelled further back along the path of her past selves. For the next two weeks, Dominic learns how to control this state in Veronica, leading her to regress ever further in time and speak previously unknown tongues. However, Veronica's health begins to decline from exhaustion, and Dominic declares that he cannot continue these sessions, or even being close to Veronica, since his proximity to her is accelerating her age. Over the objections of both Veronica and the "Other", he leaves. Despairing, Dominic returns to the town where he taught as a professor. His alter ego appears to him in a mirror and reveals the future of mankind; nuclear warfare will unleash an electromagnetic pulse, giving birth to a new, powerful human species, of which Dominic is but the first member. Veronica symbolised the dawn of man, and he stood for the dusk. Outraged at the idea of sacrificing millions of lives in the name of evolution, Dominic shatters the mirror, causing the "Other" to vanish, yelling incoherently in an unfamiliar language. In the morning, townsfolk find Dominic's body, lying dead at the bottom of a staircase. As Veronica's voice is heard echoing "Where do you want me to put the third rose?", the rose appears in Dominic's lifeless grasp. ===== On Christmas day, penniless and withdrawing from opiates, Danny emerges from a 72-hour stay in a police holding cell. Hoping to make enough money to buy his next hit of heroin, he scours the streets looking for something to steal. After an unsuccessful attempt to break into a parked car, he discovers an unattended suitcase sitting in a doorway. He makes off with the case and takes it to an abandoned park to examine its contents. There he finds that the case contains two severed human legs. Disgusted, he discards the legs and tries to find a buyer for the suitcase. He finds a buyer who gives him three dollars but also informs him that the local heroin dealer has been arrested. Unable to find heroin anywhere Danny decides to visit a doctor with the hopes of obtaining some morphine. When he reaches the doctor’s house he pretends to be suffering from facial neuralgia. The doctor is suspicious but gives Danny a quarter of a grain of morphine free of charge. With his morphine tablet secreted away, Danny rents a room for two dollars. As he prepares to inject the morphine, he hears groaning coming from the next room. Distracted, he follows the sound of the groaning across the hall to find a young man suffering from kidney stones. Danny offers to call an ambulance, but soon realizes that the paramedics will not come as they believe the young man is faking illness to obtain opiates. Danny selflessly administers his morphine to the young man. The morphine immediately alleviates the young man’s pain. Danny returns to his room. All of a sudden he begins feeling the effects of heroin; it appears that his good deed has been rewarded with “the immaculate fix”. Danny nods off to sleep. ===== A hardened Korean and Vietnam War veteran, Sergeant First Class Clell Hazard (James Caan) would rather be an instructor at the U.S. Army Infantry School at Fort Benning to train soldiers for Vietnam but instead is assigned to the 1st Battalion 3d Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) at Fort Myer, Virginia. The Old Guard is U.S. Army's Honor Guard. It provides the ceremonial honor guard for the funerals of fallen soldiers and guards the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. Hazard calls them the "toy soldiers" and hates his job until Jackie Willow (D. B. Sweeney), the son of an old friend and fellow soldier, is assigned to his platoon and with whom he sees an opportunity to make sure at least one man comes home from Vietnam alive. Hazard tries to warn Willow about Vietnam but the young man sees it as his duty as a soldier to fight for his country, no matter what kind of war. Hazard hates how the war in Vietnam is being fought and feels that good soldiers are being wounded and killed in the "wrong" war in which the U.S. is not fighting to win. Among the others in Hazard's life are his longtime friend and superior, Sergeant Major "Goody" Nelson (James Earl Jones), and his girlfriend Samantha Davis (Anjelica Huston), a writer for The Washington Post who is against the Vietnam War for different reasons. Willow marries a colonel's daughter named Rachel Feld (Mary Stuart Masterson), who at first refuses to marry Jackie as long as he is a soldier. Rachel also hates the war in Vietnam and is afraid for her husband. Hazard is divorced and hasn't seen his son in years due to the bitter divorce. After Willow's father, who is a retired U.S. Army master sergeant and a former Korean War comrade in arms of Hazard's and Nelson's, dies of a heart attack, Hazard comes to look upon Willow as a "son." He tries to teach Willow all he can about soldiering and surviving in combat. Willow in turn tries to teach his platoon-mate Private Albert Wildman, a chronic screw-up, how to be a soldier. Wildman is later ordered to Vietnam, where he distinguishes himself as a heroic soldier and effective combat infantryman. He returns from Vietnam promoted to the rank of sergeant and is a recipient of the Medal of Honor for heroism in combat. Sergeant Flanagan (Larry Fishburne), a fellow member of Hazard's platoon, receives his orders for Vietnam at the same time. Willow excels, is promoted to sergeant and is recommended to attend Officer's Candidate School, which he completes and is commissioned as a second lieutenant. He is ordered to serve in a combat unit in Vietnam. Willow writes Hazard from Vietnam about all the good men in his platoon that are being lost in combat. Hazard then finds out that Willow has been killed in action when he sees the burial orders for Willow's remains. Hazard requests to be sent to Vietnam for his third tour of duty as a platoon sergeant in a combat infantry unit. He places his Combat Infantryman Badge on Willow's flag-draped coffin at the chapel at Arlington National Cemetery. Wildman and Flanagan, at that time both sergeants and just recently returned from Vietnam, are also present at Willow's funeral. The film ends with military honors being rendered at Willow's graveside at Arlington and Hazard speaking to the mourners prior to the firing of the rifle salute and the playing of "Taps". ===== Suave convict J. Chalmers "Pressure" Maxwell (Edward G. Robinson) decides to go straight. Just before he is released from Sing Sing prison along with his none-too-bright accomplice Jug Martin (Broderick Crawford), he rejects a proposal by fellow inmate Leo Dexter (Anthony Quinn) to rob a bank. Maxwell hopes to purchase a dog racing track in Florida and become a legitimate businessman with Denny Costello (Jane Wyman), his adopted daughter. However, he lacks the funds necessary. When his loan request is rejected by the bank (the same one Leo planned to rob), he decides to rob the place. Noticing a luggage shop next door, he buys the store from Homer Bigelow (Harry Davenport). He has Jug and their friend Weepy Davis (Edward Brophy) start digging a tunnel in the basement. Meanwhile, slick salesman Jeff Randolph (Jack Carson) convinces Weepy to order several dozen pieces of luggage to stock the store. Soon afterward, Jeff falls in love with Denny. When Denny discovers Pressure's scheme, she gets Jeff to create various advertising gimmicks that bring in a flood of customers, forcing a stop to the noisy digging and showing the crooks that legitimate sales can be profitable. The store flourishes, and the bank next door offers to purchase it from them to expand its space. Pressure is ready to accept the offer, but when Leo learns that Pressure has stolen his idea, he breaks out of jail to take over. Due to the success of the luggage business, Pressure has abandoned the robbery plan, but Leo forces them to go through with it. Leo plans on breaking into the vault with dynamite on Christmas Eve. Complicating matters, Homer Bigelow reappears, nostalgic for his store. He gets knocked out, but manages to press the burglar alarm. Leo panics and reaches for his gun, but Pressure intervenes, and then he is knocked unconscious. Leo tries to escape, only to be caught by the police. The store erupts in flames, but Pressure revives and manages to drag Homer Bigelow outside, becoming a hero. Denny accepts Jeff's marriage proposal. Pressure makes plans to build a new store, the first in a chain. ===== Dr. Anton Drager (Rock Hudson) travels to Java to study the effects of leprosy under an expert on the subject, Dr. Brits Jansen (Burl Ives). The two physicians have many of the same views scientifically, but are philosophically a mismatch because of Drager's atheism and Jansen's Christianity. After being married to his sweetheart Els (Gena Rowlands), Drager must trek into the jungle to track down Frolick (Philip Abbott), a drunken river master who is lost. Frolick has been driven mad by a shaman called Burubi (Reggie Nalder). Drager eventually comes across Frolick, but ends up killing him in self-defense. After rescuing another doctor, in the same region, Anton becomes lost in the wild. He nearly dies and has lapsed into a coma by the time he is rescued. Drager's ordeal comes to change his perceptions, turning him into a Christian. ===== In Heidelberg in post-World War II Allied-occupied Germany, French Army Captain Henri Rochard (Cary Grant) is given the task of recruiting a highly skilled lens maker, Schindler (Martin Miller). He is assigned American Lieutenant Catherine Gates (Ann Sheridan) as his chauffeur, much to their mutual discomfort (arising from several prior clashes). The only available transportation is a motorcycle which, due to Army regulations, only Catherine is allowed to drive; Henri has to ride in the sidecar. After several mishaps, the constantly quarreling couple arrive at their destination, Bad Nauheim. At the hotel, bothered by back pain, Catherine warily accepts Henri's offer of a back rub. When she falls asleep, he tries to leave her room, but the door handle falls off, trapping him inside. He spends an uncomfortable night in a chair. In the morning, she refuses to believe his story. Unknown to him, the innkeeper's wife has replaced the knob, so, when he tells Catherine to see for herself how the door will not open, it does. Eventually, his wife comes to the room (forcing Henri to hide on the ledge outside the window) and explains everything to Catherine, but not before Henri falls off the ledge. Later, Henri goes undercover to search for Schindler, now working in the black market. He refuses to let Catherine help him and tells her that if she sees him to pretend she does not know him. The black market is raided by the authorities, and he is rounded up with everyone else. When he asks her to vouch for his identity, she obeys his earlier order not to reveal that she knows him. While he is in jail, she finds Schindler, who is happy to leave Germany and ply his trade in France. Later, she apologizes to a furious Henri, and by the time they return to Heidelberg, they have fallen in love. Red tape forces Henri and Catherine to be married first in a civil ceremony before they can each have their choice of ceremony: Army chaplain (Catharine) and church (Henri). Before they can consummate their marriage, she is ordered to report immediately to headquarters in the morning; her unit has been alerted they are about to be shipped back to the United States. They subsequently learn that the only way Henri can get a visa to emigrate with her is under the War Brides Act as the spouse of an American soldier. After many misunderstandings, he is given permission to accompany her, but circumstances and Army regulations conspire to keep them from spending the night together. When they try to board the transport ship, Navy sailors do not believe that Henri is a war "bride". He is forced to dress as a female Army nurse to get aboard. The deception works, but once underway, his disguise is discovered and he is arrested. Catherine manages to straighten out the situation, and they finally have some privacy - in the ship's brig. ===== Following his expedition to the night side of Venus, the Smithsonian Institution appoints Hamilton "Ham" Hammond to head an expedition to Uranus. In Weinbaum's version of the Solar System, all of the gas giants generate significant amounts of infrared radiation, enough to produce Earthlike environments on the inner moons of Jupiter and Saturn and on the surface of Uranus itself. At the time "The Planet of Doubt" takes place at the turn of the 22nd century, the limited range of the spaceships ensures that Uranus can only be reached from the American base on Titan when Saturn reaches conjunction with Uranus, an event that occurs once every forty years.Weinbaum makes an astronomical error here; while there is indeed a conjunction of Uranus and Saturn in 2100, it is the wrong conjunction, placing Saturn and Uranus on the opposite sides of the Sun, instead of on the same side. The Young expedition explored the planet's south pole in 2060; now Hammond takes his ship, the Gaea, to the north pole. Finding an ocean at the north pole, Hammond sends the Gaea spiraling southeast until they reach land. They find the surface of Uranus largely barren with a few plants. The surface is shrouded in a thick fog which absorbs radio waves as well as visible light, and there is no planetary magnetic field to work a compass, so the members of the expedition, including Hammond's wife, the Venusian-born biologist Patricia Burlingame, must remain tethered to the ship to avoid getting lost. While Hammond and Burlingame explore, she starts seeing vague shapes in the fog; Hammond begins to see them too. When they receive a signal from the ship, they hurry back to find it under attack by an immensely long black creature made up of dozens of connected segments. They manage to fight it off and return to the ship. Burlingame decides that the creature is similar to the larval Thaumetopoeidae, which forms processions when it travels from its nest. She hypothesizes that the individual segments link nervous systems so that they all act in unison. As for the shapes in the fog, Burlingame thinks they are analogous to honeyguides, and that they lead the segment-creature to its prey. On their last foray from the ship, Burlingame sees a new type of flora beyond the reach of her tether. Against Hammond's orders, she frees herself from the tether to approach it. Hammond summons the ship's other two crew members, leaves a note for them at the end of the tether, then frees himself. He wanders lost for hours before accidentally coming across the tether again. He and the rest of the crew continue searching for forty hours before finally finding Burlingame resting within a segment-creature that has formed a closed loop. The other crew members boost Hammond over the segment-creature. He pulls a rope taut between him and them and Burlingame climbs across, then Hammond vaults over the moving segment-creature. Back on board the Gaea, Burlingame reveals that shortly after leaving her tether, she ran into a segment-creature which began chasing her. She had the idea of running up to the last creature in the line so that the leader would latch onto it, but inadvertently left herself inside the circle instead of outside. She also deduced that the shapes in the fog were the shadows of flying creatures, and that the segment- creatures were their larvae. ===== Master Sergeant Ernest G. Bilko is in charge of the motor pool at Fort Baxter, a small United States Army base that develops new military technology. Exploiting this position, he directs a number of scams, ranging from gambling to renting out military vehicles. His commanding officer, Colonel John Hall, overlooks Bilko's money-making schemes, as he is more concerned with problems in the hovertank that the base is designing. Major Colin Thorn, an officer from the U.S. Army Inspector General's office, arrives at the camp and begins to scrutinize Bilko's record. Officially, Thorn is at Fort Baxter to conduct a general inspection and determine if the base should remain open in light of recent defense cutbacks. He is also determined to get revenge on Bilko to settle an old score the two have from Fort Dix, where Thorn was nearly court- martialed after a fixed boxing match which resulted in Thorn being shipped off to Greenland in the belief that he tried to fix the fight. Bitter and unprincipled, Thorn is not above breaking the law to ruin Bilko. He attempts to steal Bilko's long-time fiancée Rita, whom Bilko has stood up at the altar more than a dozen times. Rita is tired of waiting and gives Bilko 30 days to win her back or lose her for good. Bilko, with the help of newly assigned Private First Class Wally Holbrook, devises a means of avoiding Thorn's attempt to transfer him to Greenland: He rigs a demonstration of the base's malfunctioning hovertank, staged before a four-star general and numerous dignitaries. Since Thorn had deliberately tried to sabotage the tank the previous night, he confronts Bilko, Hall, and the general, loudly insulting Bilko and Hall. While ranting, he confesses to sabotaging the hovertank. Thorn is sent off again to Greenland. The last day of Rita's ultimatum has come. Just as she sadly begins to write Bilko off forever, Rita hears men outside her house, serenading her with a favorite song of hers and Bilko's. Looking out, she sees Bilko and his platoon. Bilko asks Rita to marry him, and she accepts. The next day is their wedding day, but Rita shows up late, due to a mix-up over Daylight Saving Time. After they play another card game, they finally get married. Unknown to Bilko, Rita is holding four aces in her hand. ===== Marlowe has married Linda Loring, the rich daughter of local tycoon Harlan Potter. Linda and Marlowe first met in The Long Goodbye and their romance is resumed at the end of Playback. Marlowe resists financial dependence on his willing wife and, after the couple relocate to a grand mansion in Poodle Springs (a mocking reference to Palm Springs), opens a detective agency in the resort. Tension between them rises when, as a result, Marlowe absents himself from the cocktail parties and other social events organised by Linda’s set. Marlowe’s first case comes when he is forced by hoodlums to visit a local criminal named Lipschultz, who operates an illegal gambling house in Riverside, just outside the jurisdiction of Poodle Springs. He has taken an IOU for $100,000 from one of his customers, a Poodle Springs photographer called Les Valentine. Lipshultz's boss, an unrevealed local tycoon, has found out that the sum is missing from the books and has issued a 30-day ultimatum to retrieve the money. Asked to find Valentine, Marlowe accepts on condition that he does not have to shake Valentine down. When Marlowe questions Valentine's wife, Muffy Blackstone, a spoiled socialite and acquaintance of his own wife, she tells him that Valentine is out on a photo shoot. Instead he eventually discovers that Valentine is an alias for a sleazy individual living in Los Angeles with a second wife. When Marlowe calls on Lipshultz again, he finds him killed in his casino office and assists Valentine to escape after he is suspected, not just for this crime but for an earlier slaying in his own office. The melodramatic pay-off exposes the corruption of the Southern Californian rich and confirms Marlowe in his decision to return to Los Angeles. His marriage is wrecked, but he and Linda remain as lovers. ===== Ronald Wilby (Scott Jacoby) is a socially inept, awkward high school youth with budding artistic talent and a predilection for fantasy, who is often ridiculed for his behavior and mannerisms. His overprotective mother, Elaine (Kim Hunter), needs surgery and plans for Ronald to become a doctor and cure her illness. Ronald's father has not been heard from in years, having divorced his mother and agreeing to terminate his parental rights in exchange for not having to pay child support. One afternoon, while asking out Laurie Matthews (Shelley Spurlock), Ronald is rejected and then ridiculed by her friends. As he returns home, he accidentally knocks over her younger sister Carol (Angela Hoffman). Carol, like Laurie, taunts Ronald. He pushes her over, inadvertently killing her when she strikes her head on a concrete block. He buries the body and confesses to his mother. Fearing the police will not believe that it was accidental, Ronald and his mother wallpaper the door frame to the downstairs bathroom and convert the closed-off space to a living quarters for Ronald, with a concealed trapdoor in the pantry through which Ronald can escape in an emergency. The plan is for him to hide in the room until the incident blows over. Mrs. Wilby tells the police that Ronald ran away. Ronald's mother pays attention to what neighbors, particularly the nosy Mrs. Schumacher (Linda Watkins), and others are saying about the girl's disappearance and tells Ronald that when it's safe, he can return to a normal life. One afternoon, she is taken into a hospital for gallbladder surgery, from which she unexpectedly dies. In the meantime, Ronald has created a fantasy world in his head consisting of a prince and a princess that live happily until an evil duke appears and a struggle begins. Shortly after Mrs. Wilby's death, the house is sold to the Wood family, consisting of a mother (Pippa Scott), father (Dabney Coleman) and three teenage daughters: Babs (Cindy Fisher), Althea (Cindy Eilbacher) and Ellen (Lisa Eilbacher). As Ronald needs food and begins to crave human interaction, disappearances of food and odd noises are experienced by the new family. Babs, the youngest of the Wood daughters, becomes identified with Ronald's princess and he identifies himself as the prince. Duane Matthews (Ted Eccles) (who is well liked by the family), oldest daughter Ellen's boyfriend and brother of the Matthews girls, becomes identified with the evil duke that threatens their happiness. Ronald's goal is to "regain" his princess and remove anything, including the members of her family, that stops his dream from becoming reality. During this time, neighbor Mrs. Schumacher sees Ronald and dies of a heart attack from the shock; fearing the police will blame him, Ronald buries her too. Mr. and Mrs. Wood make plans to go out of town for a couple of days, leaving the girls on their own. Ronald confronts Babs when she is alone in the house and tells her she is his princess. She flees to Mrs. Schumacher's house next door (unaware of her demise), but Ronald locks her in the basement and forges a note for her sisters to find, claiming she has run away. Both Ellen and Althea are skeptical of the note, but the police refuse to do anything. Ronald later attacks Duane when he is alone in the house. He knocks him out, binds and gags him, and hides him in his hidden living space. The police now suspect something is wrong and advise Ellen and Althea to check into a hotel; they refuse. Shortly after the police leave, the girls hear noises downstairs as Duane tries to free himself and fights with Ronald. Althea notices one of the many peepholes Ronald has drilled. When she approaches it, she sees Ronald's eye staring back at her and screams in terror as Ronald breaks through the wall. The police, who have been watching the house, hear the screams and rush back. Ronald is captured as he tries to flee, crying out for his mother. Babs is found after escaping from Mrs. Schumacher's basement, and Duane is found in the living space, both shaken but not seriously harmed. ===== The Abyssinian tells the story of a young French physician who is sent as part of a diplomatic mission to Abyssinia in the early eighteenth century. Along the way he must face various perils while trying to win over his true love. ===== Venkat (Prabhas), an unemployed youngster, meets Shailaja (Trisha), a middle-class beauty, in a train journey, and they immediately get attracted to each other after dancing in a rain shower. At the same time, Shailaja catches the eye of Bhadranna (Gopichand), a dangerous, ruthless landlord who also fell in love with her. Venkat keeps bumping into Shailaja every time it rains, and they fall in love. Ranga Rao (Prakash Raj), Shailaja's dad, is a typical black sheep with all kinds of bad habits. Bhadranna approaches him with the marriage proposal, and Ranga Rao jumps on that and agrees. Later, a film producer Seenaiah (Jaya Prakash Reddy) approaches Ranga Rao with an offer for Shailaja to act in a movie. Ranga Rao thinks that acting in films would be more lucrative than marrying her off to Bhadranna. He first successfully creates clashes between lovers, convinces Shailaja to act in a movie, and leaves with her to the city. Venkat also leaves for Vizag to his uncle's (Chandra Mohan) place. In Vizag, Shailaja becomes a leading lady in the movies, and Venkat works with his uncle in a quarry as a demolition expert. Months later, Bhadranna is cheated some money by Ranga Rao, and he finds out where Shailaja now lives, kidnaps her, and tries to change her mind about marrying him. Seenaiah gets tensed as shooting was paused, and Ranga Rao advises him to approach Venkat, as he believes that Venkat still loves Shailaja. Venkat agrees and fights with Bhadranna for Shailaja. Gradually, Shailaja comes to know that she misunderstood Venkat and apologizes. They reconcile happily, and both start loving again. That night, Bhadranna kills his brother Kaasi (Shafi) for not bringing Shailaja. Bhadranna is coming back from Hyderabad to destroy Venkat and marry Shailaja. During the festival, Bhadranna stabs Venkat but is stopped by his uncle Sivaiah (Paruchuri Venkateswara Rao). After the fight, Venkat defeats Bhadranna and embraces Shailaja and Venkat's friends. Suddenly, Bhadranna regains conscious but dies when a statue covered in fire collapses on him. The movie ends with Venkat and Shailaja reuniting. ===== At the behest of the Kazakh Ministry of Information, reporter Borat Sagdiyev leaves Kazakhstan for the United States, the "Greatest Country in the World", to make a documentary. He leaves behind his wife, Oksana; his companions are his producer, Azamat Bagatov, and a pet hen. In New York City, Borat sees an episode of Baywatch on TV and immediately falls in love with Pamela Anderson's character, C. J. Parker. While interviewing and mocking a panel of feminists, he learns of the actress' name and her residence in California. Borat is then informed by telegram that Oksana has been killed by a bear. Delighted, he resolves to travel to California and make Anderson his new wife. Azamat is afraid of flying because of the 9/11 attacks, which he believes were the work of Jews. Borat takes driving lessons and buys a dilapidated ice-cream truck for the journey. During the trip, Borat acquires a Baywatch booklet and continues gathering footage for his documentary. He meets gay pride parade participants, politicians Alan Keyes and Bob Barr, and African American youths. Borat is also interviewed on a local television station and proceeds to disrupt the weather report. Visiting a rodeo, Borat excites the crowd with jingoistic remarks, but then sings a fictional Kazakhstani national anthem to the tune of "The Star-Spangled Banner", receiving a strong negative reaction. Staying at a bed-and-breakfast, Borat and Azamat are stunned to learn their hosts are Jewish. The two escape after throwing money at two woodlice, believing they are their hosts transformed. Borat attempts to buy a handgun to defend himself, but is turned away because he is not an American citizen, so he buys a bear instead. An etiquette coach suggests Borat attend a private dinner at an eating club in the South. During the dinner, he offends the other guests when he lets Luenell, an African- American prostitute, into the house and shows her to the table: they are both kicked out. Borat befriends Luenell, who invites him into a relationship with her, but he tells her that he is in love with someone else. Borat then visits an antique shop, in which he clumsily breaks various Confederate heritage items. At a hotel, Borat sees Azamat masturbating over a picture of Pamela Anderson. An angry Borat accidentally reveals his real motive for travelling to California. Azamat becomes livid at Borat's deception, and the situation escalates into a nude brawl which spills out into the hallway, a crowded elevator, and then into a packed convention ballroom. Azamat abandons Borat, taking his passport, all of their money, and their bear. Borat's truck runs out of fuel, and he begins to hitchhike to California. He is soon picked up by drunken fraternity brothers from the University of South Carolina. On learning the reason for his trip, they show him the Pam and Tommy sex tape which reveals that she is not a virgin. Despondent, Borat burns the Baywatch booklet and, by mistake, his return ticket to Kazakhstan. Borat attends a United Pentecostal camp meeting, at which Republican U.S. Representative Chip Pickering and Mississippi Supreme Court Chief Justice James W. Smith, Jr. are present. He regains his faith, and forgives Azamat and Pamela. He accompanies church members on a bus to Los Angeles and disembarks to find Azamat dressed as Oliver Hardy, although Borat mistakes him for Adolf Hitler. The two reconcile and Azamat tells Borat where to find Pamela Anderson. Borat finally comes face-to-face with Anderson at a book signing at a Virgin Megastore. After showing Anderson his "traditional marriage sack", Borat pursues her throughout the store in an attempt to abduct her, until security guards intervene. Borat visits Luenell and they return to Kazakhstan together. They bring several American customs and traditions back to his village, including the apparent conversion of the people to Christianity (the Kazakh version of which includes crucifixion and torturing of Jews) and the introduction of computer-based technology, such as iPods, laptop computers and a high- definition television. ===== Yukito Kunisaki (Hikaru Midorikawa), a traveling puppeteer with a goal to find the "girl in the sky" that been passed down his family for generations, arrives in a sea-side town of Kami in the hopes of earning money at the upcoming summer festival. At the same time, Misuzu Kamio (Tomoko Kawakami) is just leaving school after discussing her summer project. Choosing to do a project on the history of the town, Misuzu finds a book containing the story of Kannabi no Mikoto (Chinami Nishimura) in her town, the inspiration for the festival next week. After crashing her bike she encounters Yukito on the beach, Misuzu invites Yukito to stay at her home until the festival begins after learning that he has no place to stay. Meeting Misuzu's eccentric aunt Haruko Kamio (Aya Hisakawa), and getting a hangover the next morning from drinking with her, Yukito accompanies Misuzu throughout the town as she does research for her project. As the two become closer, the story of Kannabi no Mikoto, or Kanna for short begins to unfold, telling how Kanna, the last of the winged beings, fell in love with her guardian Ryūya (Nobutoshi Canna) while being sequestered in a palace under penalty of death if she attempted to leave. The two eventually become lovers, Kanna reveals her desire to see the ocean and use her wings to fly to her mother, whom she was separated from at birth. Apparently, Ryūya decides to help Kanna see her dream of the ocean and the two plot their escape. In the present day, Misuzu's mysterious illness from her childhood resurfaces, leading Haruko to arrange for Keisuke Tachibana, Misuzu's father, to take her to a hospital where she can be treated. In a flashback, Kanna is seen with similar symptoms and tells Ryūya that the reason for her illness is punishment because she has fallen in love with him, which goes against the laws of her kind. Yukito becomes conflicted by both his feelings for Misuzu and his wish to continue wandering and leaves during the night. However, soon after he arrives at the bus stop, the crow Sora, reminds him of his real reason for coming to the town: to earn money; Yukito heads back into town for the festival. Meanwhile, Haruko is preparing to take Misuzu to the festival when Keisuke arrives to take his daughter away. An emotional Haruko tells a shocked Misuzu that the reason she called her father is because Haruko cannot stand to see Misuzu becoming increasingly ill, but as Misuzu and Keisuke leave Haruko is seen crying at the loss. While driving through the crowds at the festival, Misuzu suddenly leaves Keisuke's car after seeing a float of Kannabi no Mikoto pass and prompts a panicked search by Keisuke and Haruko. During her search, Haruko finds Yukito performing, and while he is at first unwilling, after recalling how he failed Misuzu in his past life as Ryūya, he joins in the search and frantically runs to the temple of Kannabi no Mikoto. Misuzu herself recalls her past life as Kanna and her fateful escape from her confinement, remembering that both Ryūya and her mother died soon after she took flight; the former by a barrage of arrows in retaliation from the guards and the latter by leaving her prison to see her daughter after hearing her voice calling. Kanna herself was impaled by hundreds of arrows, but strangely never hit the ground and simply remained in the air. As the film concludes, Yukito arrives at the temple and confesses his love for Misuzu, and after reuniting with Haruko, the trio returns to the Kamio residence. A short time later, Haruko and Yukito decide to send Misuzu to a hospital to treat her, cutting her hair before she leaves and taking her to the ocean as per her request. At the ocean, a weakened Misuzu gets up and tries to reach Haruko and Yukito, the two most important people in her life. She finally reaches them only to collapse in Yukito's arms and die having finally reached her goal. Yukito is last seen leaving town in the autumn and promising to find Misuzu wherever she appears next in the hope that he will someday be able to break her curse and let her be free. ===== The Lionhearts focuses on the behind the scenes life of MGM's mascot, Leo Lionheart, and his family. The series shows The Lionhearts living in a normal house and living a normal life just like non- celebrity families. Most of the members of the family are named after famous MGM movie stars. The characters first appeared on a series of Sing-Along children's videos released by MGM in 1997. The original character designs (especially those of Spencer and Kate) were greatly modified for the TV series. Ashley Tisdale provided the voice of Kate in the Sing-Along videos, while Charles Rocket was the voice of Leo, Lana was voiced by Debra Jo Rupp and Chris Marquette did the voice of Spencer . ===== An engaged couple, Tish and David (Heuring and Schaech), take a short vacation to Budapest. David is counsel to Tish's father, an ambassador who does not approve of their relationship, although this does not affect the couple's relationship. While in Budapest, the two indulge in many sexual activities, eventually engaging in a threesome with a local model named Risa, in a hotel in Alhambra. The sexual tryst becomes a personal issue when they receive a letter containing pictures of the ménage à trois. Realizing this escapade could ruin their careers, as well as the career of Tish's father, they venture deep into Budapest to find Risa. On their journey, they encounter their blackmailer, the housekeeper of the hotel, who told them about Risa. He demands a sum of $200,000 for the pictures he took, and takes Tish hostage before running off, though he eventually lets her go. The blackmailer encounters David and the men begin firing at each other, but the blackmailer escapes. Going into his apartment, they find the man shot dead. A police officer, detective Kovač, later contacts them and seems to suspect them of murdering the man. Later on they find Risa dead in her apartment and presume the entire ordeal is over. Just as they begin to celebrate, another mysterious man calls them and demands $1 million in exchange for the pictures, which they agree to pay through Tish's contacts and with the help of Kovač. They arrange to meet at an old warehouse, but they do not see the man when they get there. David tells Tish to stay in the car while he goes looking for the man inside, handing her a gun. After he disappears into the warehouse, Kovač (who had been following them) appears at Tish's side of the car and knocks on the window. Tish informs him that the man said there should be no police, but Kovač tells her that if she wants to see David leave the building alive, she must let him go. After a while Tish hears gunfire and runs into the building, shooting at an SUV which is exiting the warehouse. She then finds Kovač dead inside. Later the mysterious man calls her again and says he has David, and demands a sum of $5 million for his safe return, otherwise he will kill him. She pays the ransom money. The man informs her that David is tied up and dying in the basement of a store in Budapest. When Tish arrives, she discovers David tied up in the basement, having limited oxygen being fed to him via a mask. She frees him. They thereafter continue their lives together, without any further interference from the man. On Christmas, Tish and her siblings go shopping in the city, and plan on going for a drink with David. However, David calls Tish and informs her he will be working late. Tish decides she will continue shopping and meet David at home. When she boards a subway train in the evening, she notices in the train-car on the rails next to hers: the porn- store owner, a Russian pimp she had tried to work for, Risa, Kovač, and the hotel's housekeeper. They are smiling as David enters the train-car to join them, and it is made clear to Tish that they plotted everything to get their hands on the $6 million she had given them throughout the events. As the train pulls away, David notices that Tish has seen him and the whole gang. ===== The film follows a beautiful but troubled young girl, Debbie Strand (Rose McGowan) placed in foster care with her estranged grandmother (Peg Shirley) in Los Angeles after her mother and her mother's boyfriend die in a suspicious house fire. Her grandmother is an extremely strict, fundamentalist Christian, who is convinced that her granddaughter is exactly like her mother. She forces Debbie to wear her clothes instead of buying her a new wardrobe, and abuses her by beating her with her walking cane. When she tells Debbie she's putting her in a reform school, Debbie yanks her cane out of her hands and beats her to death with it. Debbie soon becomes enthralled with Peter Rinaldi (Alex McArthur), an English teacher at her new high school. However, Peter has a fiancée named Marilyn and strong scruples, so he repeatedly rejects Debbie's advances. Before long, Peter finds that his life is ruined and the bodies are piling up. During the hectic climax, Debbie breaks into Marilyn's home with the intention of wiping her out. Peter soon realizes Debbie is there and is quickly on his way. Meanwhile, Debbie confronts Marilyn, and she runs through the kitchen, but Debbie tackles her to the ground. After a brief scuffle, Debbie is too strong as she knocks the helpless Marilyn unconscious. As she attempts to murder her, Peter rushes in and saves the day. ===== The leader of the colony is Roger London, Mark London's son. London seems to be nothing like his father, however. Mike Flynn, a Galactic wanderer, spots Isis, and plans to corrupt the inhabitants to obtain the precious firestones. He promises them a Forever Machine, which will supply them with a lifetime of ambrosia, which means they will never have to work for their food again. His daughter, Moira, however, knows that he is simply lying, and tries to stop Mike's evil plans with the help of David N'Kumo, great grandson of Jody N'Kumo. When David and Moira succeed, Jody N'Kumo becomes president, instead of Roger London. Moira decides to stay on Isis, and Guardian, goes with Mike Flynn. Things look much brighter for a future for Isis. ===== Jodi Lyn O'Keefe replaces Rose McGowan in this film. O'Keefe stars as Debbie Strand (changed to Strong in this film), who escapes from the mental institution she was sent off to in the first installment of the series. After a teenage girl dies in an unexpected accident, Debbie steals both the girl's identity and her car, and heads off to the college the victim was supposed to attend. There, Debbie quickly develops a psychotic crush on her dashing writing professor, Dr. Sam Deckner, killing anyone she perceives as a threat to their relationship. However, Debbie's scheme starts to fall apart when her roommate begins unraveling Debbie's lies and discovers the truth about her past. Knowing that she is in danger of being exposed, Debbie makes plans to get rid of her roommate and her friends by any means necessary. ===== Tony Manetta moved from the shabby area of the Bronx, New York to Miami, Florida with two friends, searching for wealth and success. One friend became prosperous over the next 20 years (owning luxury hotels) and is a promoter, while his younger friend drives a local taxi. Tony manages a small hotel called Garden Of Eden. He grew up poor but spoiled, spending money on expensive suits and a Cadillac, despite always being in debt and refusing to become more responsible. He is also a widowed father of an 11-year-old son named Alvin (nicknamed Ally). In debt, the rent five months in arrears, Tony is given 48 hours by his landlord, Abe Diamond, to raise $5,300 or else lose the hotel. Tony, in desperation calls his older brother Mario, who owns and operates a clothing store and has already loaned Tony money multiple times. Tony lies and says he needs a loan because Ally is ill. Mario and wife Sophie promptly fly from New York City to Miami and discover the truth. In Mario's eyes, Tony is a bum who wastes money on fanciful dreams rather than honest, hard work. He agrees to stake Tony the funds but only for a sensible small business, not dreams of fancy hotels or casinos. Mario also sets him up with Eloise Rogers, a widow and an acquaintance of Sophie, who is considered a more appropriate companion for Tony than his current girlfriend, Shirl. To his surprise, Tony is impressed with Eloise. Ally also takes an immediate liking to her. Mario offends her, however, with prying questions about her late husband's will and finances, causing Tony to confess why they were introduced. Eloise reveals to Tony that having lost both her husband and son, she appreciates the notion of being with someone who needs her. The old childhood pal, Jerry Marks, now a wealthy promoter, invites Tony to a party. Pretending to be prosperous, Tony explains his scheme to buy land in Florida and open a second Disneyland there. Jerry seems interested in being his partner again. He takes Tony to a greyhound racing track, where Tony uses the $500 he earned from selling his Cadillac to match Jerry's large bet. His dog wins, but he lets it ride in the next race on a dog called Lucky Ally. The obvious desperation in Tony's voice as he roots for the dog to win indicates to Jerry that he is not a man of means. Jerry chastises him afterwards and tries to brush him off by insultingly handing him some cash. When Tony throws the cash handout back in Jerry's face, Tony is punched by one of Jerry's bodyguards. Literally a beaten man, Tony decides it would be best if Ally lived in New York with Mario and Sophie, telling the unconvinced boy that he is unwanted. Tony goes off to the beach by himself, but Ally finds him, and soon Eloise happily joins them. Mario and Sophie decide to take a long, overdue vacation. ===== The film starts in the times of 1950s where a remote village in Andhra Pradesh suffers from a drought for a very long time. A woman (Veda Sastry) from a traditional family comes forward to dance in a Lord Shiva's temple to appease Shiva to bless their village with rains. She dances continuously for seven days and nights continuously before she dies in exhaustion. Finally, they have rains, and their longstanding drought ends. From then, they make it a tradition that a girl from that dancer's family should dance in Shiva's temple for every 12 years on that auspicious day. The story comes to the present day. Now, they are expecting Pournami (Trisha), the elder daughter of the family, to dance on the occasion. Unfortunately, just before few months from the festival, she goes missing. Everybody thinks that she eloped with someone. Then, everybody's attention turns to Pournami's younger sister Chandrakala (Charmy) to dance on the occasion, but their father (Chandra Mohan) disagrees. Later, it would be revealed that Pournami has not eloped, but her father sent her away to protect her from their village Zamindar (Rahul Dev) who wants to make Pournami his concubine. He fears that the same fate might befall on Chandrakala, so he would not agree to teach her dancing. Meanwhile, Chandrakala's stepmother (Manju Bhargavi) rents their penthouse to Siva Kesava (Prabhas), a western-style dance instructor. After some fights, Chandrakala develops feelings for Kesava, but he does not reciprocate. He reveals the flashback where he and Pournami married, and she dies in an attempt to save his life. She tells him her dying wish that her sister should dance in the temple to save the tradition. He promises her that he would make it happen. After knowing this, Chandrakala agrees to learn the dance with her father's blessings. Kesava promises them that he would protect her from the Zamindar, and he saves her when the Zamindar tries to abduct her. She tries hard and becomes a skilled dancer in a very short time. Finally, she performs ardently in the temple, and again, their village gets blessed with rains. After some drama involving the Zamindar and Kesava's fiancee, Chandrakala and Kesava become one. After a few years, their daughter does not want to learn the dance. The film ends with Kesava narrating the tradition to their daughter in the temple. ===== When middle-class wife Karyn Beatty is attacked and raped in her Los Angeles home, she suffers a miscarriage and a nervous breakdown. She and her husband, Roy, leave the city and go to stay in the secluded California mountain village of Drago while Karyn recuperates. Although the town offers Karyn a quiet lifestyle and the locals are friendly, Karyn is disturbed when she continues to hear a strange howling sound at night coming from the woods outside of their new home. This further disrupts her marriage, as Roy believes she is becoming more and more unstable, but Karyn is adamant that there is something in the woods. As tension between the couple increases, Roy begins an affair with one of the local women, a shopkeeper named Marcia Lura. However, on his way home, Roy is attacked in the woods by a large black wolf. Though the wolf only bites him, Roy becomes sick for several days. He was bitten by a werewolf, and has now become one himself. Karyn eventually discovers that the town's entire population are all actually werewolves and becomes trapped in Drago. She contacts her husband's best friend, Chris Halloran, who comes up from Los Angeles to rescue her. Chris arrives with some silver bullets which he had made at her insistence. That night, the two of them fend off a group of werewolves (one of which is Karyn's husband, Roy) and Karyn is forced to shoot the black werewolf (revealed to be Marcia Lura) in the head. In the commotion, a fire breaks out at Karyn's woodland house which sweeps through the woods and the entire town of Drago is engulfed in flames as Karyn and Chris escape from its cursed inhabitants. However, as they flee, they can still hear the howling in the distance. ===== Gene Hackman stars as Johnny Gallagher, a Special Forces Master Sergeant in the United States Army who is assigned to escort a prisoner, an Army deserter named Thomas Boyette (Tommy Lee Jones), from West Berlin back to the United States. When Boyette escapes, Gallagher pursues him and discovers that Boyette is actually a professional assassin hired to kill the leader of the Soviet Union (clearly resembling Mikhail Gorbachev) after a meeting in Chicago with the President of the United States. Gallagher is joined by his ex-wife Eileen (Joanna Cassidy), a lieutenant colonel in the Judge Advocate General Corps of the U.S. Army, and Chicago police Lt. Milan Delich (Dennis Franz) with whom Sgt. Gallagher served in Vietnam. Sergeant Gallagher is later confined to the base. Later, when one of his ex-wife's people is killed and fearing that she's in danger, the sergeant escapes and saves her just as some people are trying to kill her. The sergeant and his ex-wife learn that something is happening in Chicago. They travel to the city and Sergeant Gallagher asks a cop he knows to help him. Sergeant Gallagher finds out that disarmament talks are taking place in Chicago. ===== Daniels attends a meeting in Burrell's office to account for the actions of his men in starting a riot at the tower projects. When Daniels suggests that Prez be restricted to office work, Major Stanislaus Valchek, Prez's father-in-law, insists this would be an admission of guilt. Afterwards, Burrell again insists on a simple investigation focused on arrests and seizures rather than securing convictions against the Barksdales. McNulty is frustrated that the detail has no photo of Avon. However, Freamon takes an interest when Greggs mentions Avon's former career in boxing. The next day, he returns with a promotional poster bearing a picture of a young Avon. Daniels informs the detail that Prez is off the street and Herc will be on sick leave. McNulty and Greggs visit Fitz, looking to get some equipment to wire up Sydnor as he is sent undercover. When McNulty tells Fitz that Daniels is the commanding officer, Fitz appears to bite his tongue because Greggs is present. Meanwhile, Santangelo is revealed to be a mole in the detail, tasked with finding incriminating information on McNulty for Rawls. Sydnor is given advice from Bubbles on how to be more convincing as a street buyer. Together, Sydnor and Bubbles later visit the Pit. Sydnor notices with chagrin that neither drugs nor cash pass through the hands of any key players. Back at the detail, Daniels reports that his superiors have insisted on fast "buy bust" style investigation. McNulty is angry that the case is being pushed in the opposite direction he had hoped for. He arrives at Pearlman's home that night and asks how to clone a beeper. She suggests that he needs probable cause and to demonstrate exhaustion of other investigative techniques in order to get a signed affidavit from a judge. They end up in bed together. The following day, Daniels readies the detail to storm the towers in an effort to find a stash. McNulty refuses to participate because he believes the raid will sabotage their case. Daniels is enraged at his perceived insubordination. Later, McNulty meets again with Fitz, who reveals that the FBI investigated Daniels after discovering he had hundreds of thousands of dollars in unexplained liquid assets. Omar Little and his gang spend several days in a white van watching the Pit crew sell drugs. D'Angelo instructs Bodie, Poot, and Wallace in showing respect to their customers and shares his belief that if there were no violence involved in their trade, the police would not be interested in them. While waiting for more product to be delivered, D'Angelo spots his crew playing checkers with a chess set. He teaches them the game of chess using the Barksdales as an analogy. At Orlando's, Stringer is impressed by D'Angelo's earnings in the Pit and points out that if the Barksdales sell a low-quality product, addicts will buy more of it and the Barksdales end up with more money. On his way out, D'Angelo strikes up a conversation with Shardene. She doesn't remember him but is open to his advances. Back in the Pit, D'Angelo leaves to buy food just before Omar's crew steals their drugs. When one of the low-rise dealers, Sterling, refuses to reveal the location of the stash and insists that nothing is there, Omar shoots him in the knee. This prompts a younger dealer to reveal that the stash is hidden in the kitchen. Bubbles is on hand to watch the robbery and reports back to Greggs. The next day, Wee-Bey berates D'Angelo for being absent during the theft, but learns Omar's name from Bodie. Before they can discuss this further, the police raid the Pit. The detail finds little evidence, though Freamon notices a number written on a wall and writes it down. While searching the crew, Mahon is punched by Bodie. Carver, Greggs, and several officers respond with a beating. Carver reports that a camera crew has offered to show their seizures. Daniels is disgusted when Greggs points out they have nothing to show. ===== When a mission to retrieve a stolen suitcase bomb goes bad, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent Kevin Pope (Chris Rock) is killed. Pope was working undercover as an antiquities dealer under the name Michael Turner. The CIA, which is desperate to complete the mission, discovers that Agent Pope had a twin brother, Jake Hayes (also Rock), from whom he was separated at birth; their mother died giving birth and Hayes suffered from a severe lung infection that prompted the doctors to separate them because they felt that Hayes was unlikely to live for very long. Hayes hustles chess games, scalps tickets and works at small clubs in Jersey City, New Jersey to make ends meet. Meanwhile, Hayes's girlfriend, Julie (Kerry Washington) grows tired of waiting for him to grow up and decides to move to Seattle, Washington. After the CIA successfully persuades Hayes to participate and begins to train Hayes for a mission that is to take place in Prague, Czech Republic, they are initially dismayed by his lack of refinement. Agent Oakes (Anthony Hopkins) confronts Hayes, telling him he doesn't trust him. When Hayes begins paying attention, the CIA sets him up in his brother's old apartment in Manhattan to test him and try to bait the men who killed his brother. Hayes is attacked, but escapes unharmed. Looking for a way out, Hayes goes to his foster mother only to be found by Oakes, who persuades him to finish the mission. After arriving in Prague, Hayes - posing as his dead brother - meets with the men selling the suitcase bomb. The seller, Adrik Vas (Peter Stormare), is an ex-Russian Army Colonel with ties to the Russian Mafia. When they return to their hotel, Hayes is greeted by his brother's ex- girlfriend Nicole (Garcelle Beauvais). Believing Hayes is his brother, she dines with him and returns to his hotel, where the couple is ambushed by rival buyers. Nicole figures out that Hayes isn't his brother and returns to her assignment covering the Balkans for CNN. Moving forward with the plans, Hayes and Oakes meet up with Vas and are able to steal the arming codes. Just as they close the deal, Vas' men double cross them with the rival buyer. When the rival dealers, who are part of a multi-national terrorist organization, learn they can't detonate the bomb because of the missing codes, they kidnap Julie. Hayes gives himself up trying to save his girlfriend, and the terrorists get the codes back and arm the bomb. Now the race begins to find Hayes and the bomb. After interrogating one of the captured terrorists, they track the bomb to Grand Central Station. With the clock ticking, they locate the bomb and the terrorist leader Dragan Adjanic (Matthew Marsh), who has started the countdown. Oakes rescues Hayes by killing two terrorists. As Hayes starts to enter the codes to disarm the bomb, Adjanic holds Julie hostage. In order to distract Adjanic, Hayes pretends to shoot Oakes, and they kill Adjanic by shooting him repeatedly. Hayes is able to disarm the bomb just prior to detonation. At the ending of the film, Hayes visits the memorial for deceased secret agents to visit his brother's grave. Later on, Oakes comes up to Hayes at Hayes's wedding and warns him that a dangerous criminal has escaped from prison and is seeking revenge upon Kevin Pope, but since Kevin is dead and Hayes was impersonating him, the criminal thinks Hayes is Kevin. Hayes begins to panic and demand that Oakes has to protect him, but Oakes starts laughing as he reveals that it was just a joke and he really just came for the wedding and also giving him a honey moon trip as a wedding gift. ===== Rich and beautiful Helen King is about to marry Steve Carlyle, a wealthy young professional. Unknown to Helen and her family, Steve is a legal advisor to a megalomaniac gangster Goldie Gorio. Steve wishes to leave the rackets but Goldie reintroduces him to his future father-in-law, a rival gangster where both parties see the marriage as a symbol of peace and an end of violence in their transactions. Steve remains with Goldie and fills in for him to a visit to a rival gangster's boat where he is ambushed and nearly killed by their machine gun. Helen vows revenge on Goldie. ===== A dancer whose career was ruined in an accident has her mobility restored by a surgeon. Her boyfriend gives her a stolen diamond. ===== A group of soldiers pulls up to a modest white house and goes inside. Moments later, they exit, dragging a boy in a dress who is frantically resisting them. The soldiers throw the boy in a wagon with other boys, one of whom is also dressed as a woman to avoid conscription. At the Dixon home, the soldiers search for Drew (Barry Brown) despite his mother's protest. She explains that she has already lost one son to the war. When the soldiers leave, Drew emerges from his hiding place. His parents give him $100 and urge him to go West, giving him their picture and his brother's watch as mementos. In St. Joseph, Missouri, Drew is approached by Jake Rumsey (Jeff Bridges) who pistol-whips him and takes his money in an alley. Jake runs a gang of petty thieves who steal purses and rob children of their pocket change. While Drew is recovering at a minister's house, Jake arrives to return the purse that one of his gang stole from the minister's wife, hoping to collect a reward. Once inside, he purloins various household items until Drew sees him and attacks, demanding his money back. After a long struggle, Jake finally bests Drew and convinces him that he has no choice but to join his gang, as the Army will catch him if he tries to board a wagon train as is his plan. Jake introduces Drew to his gang of thieves: the brothers Jim Bob (Damon Cofer) and Loney Logan (John Savage), Arthur Simms (Jerry Houser), and the ten-year-old Boog Bookin (Joshua Hill Lewis). Loney demands that Drew demonstrate his worth by committing a robbery and bringing in some money. Drew agrees and claims to have robbed a hardware store, when in fact he simply took $12 from his boot where he is hiding his parent's money. The gang heads West, hoping to improve their fortunes. At night, Drew reads to everyone from Jane Eyre. When they spy a rabbit, all six of them shoot at it, barely managing to kill it. Jake orders Boog to clean the rabbit, but Boog declines. Jake is stunned to realize that no one in the gang knows how to clean the rabbit. He demonstrates how to do it, but his barely contained disgust reveals that he is skinning his first rabbit. The next day, a settler and his wife are returning from the West, where they went bust. The settler offers his wife to all six boys for $10. Drew declines, citing his morals. The following morning, Big Joe (David Huddleston) and his thugs, led by Hobbs (Geoffrey Lewis), come upon the boys while they are still asleep. During the robbery, Jake aims his gun at Big Joe, but doesn't have the nerve to fire. Flat broke, the gang tries unsuccessfully to mount a string of robberies, which results in Arthur running away with a stagecoach (which he was supposed to be robbing) and Boog being shot and killed while running with a pie stolen from a window sill. The gang finally disintegrates for good when the Logan brothers rob Jake and Drew, taking his brother's watch and the horses. Left with only a mule, Jake and Drew wander aimlessly. Eventually, they come across the Logan brothers' corpses hanging from a tree. Big Joe's gang has killed them, and as Jake and Drew bury their bodies, Hobbs leads the thugs to attack them, despite Big Joe's warning that they would bungle the job. Sure enough, Jake and Drew manage to kill all four thugs, and as Drew leans over Hobbs to retrieve his watch, he reveals a hole in his boot. Jake sees a $10 bill through the hole and realizes that Drew had lied about robbing the hardware store. He pistol-whips Drew again and takes the money. When Drew awakens, he wanders alone, swearing that he'll kill Jake if he ever sees him again. Seeing smoke on the horizon, he investigates, only to find that it was the result of a burning barn, set afire during a raid by Big Joe. Before he is hanged for taking part in the raid, one of Joe's men confirms to Drew that Jake has joined up with the gang. Drew joins the posse in order to get his revenge on Jake. The posse captures Big Joe's gang, and as Drew guards Jake, he realizes how guilty he is by lying about his money. Jake offers to split $1,000 that the gang has buried. Drew helps him escape during the night, but after a few days of riding, he realizes that there is no buried money. Jake assumes that Drew will kill him, but Drew swears instead to stick with Jake until he has repaid every cent that he owes Drew. In the final scene, as they approach a town, Jake asks Drew, "So how'd that Jane Eyre turn out in the end?" Drew replies, "Fine. Just fine." The two boys walk into the Wells Fargo and rob it. ===== Former CIA agent Nelson Crowe is hired by Vic Grimes for a position with his company nicknamed "The Toolshed." Grimes' firm employs people with intelligence service backgrounds to sell their talents with regard to extortion and corporate espionage to domestic and foreign corporations. Grimes' second in command, Margaret Wells, begins working with Crowe and seduces him, enticing him with a plot to murder Grimes so they can take over the firm. The Toolshed's top client, Curl Industries, is being sued in a class action lawsuit in a case currently on appeal at the Washington state Supreme Court. Curl Industries is accused of poisoning the water supply to a small town, resulting in the birth of disabled children. Grimes gives Crowe $1 million to bribe one of the justices, Justin Beach (David Ogden Stiers), into swinging the verdict in favor of Curl Industries. Crowe and Toolshed operative Todd Stapp (Michael Beach) buy Justice Beach's $25,000 gambling debt from bookmaker Bobby Birdsong (James Hong) and pay for information on Beach's personal life from his friend, Les Goodwin (Daniel Hugh Kelly). During a secret progress report meeting, Crowe is revealed to in fact be a mole for the CIA, albeit against his will. Crowe was dismissed from the agency on suspicion of stealing a $50,000 bribe meant for an Iraqi colonel. Crowe's former boss, William "Smitty" Smithfield (Michael Murphy), is threatening prison time for the disappearance of the bribe as leverage to get Crowe to infiltrate the Toolshed. The CIA intends to acquire the firm and use it as a black operations hub with Smitty in charge. During the meeting, as he turns over the $1 million bribe money for inspection, Crowe secretly records his conversation with Smitty, who also forces him to sign a receipt. Stapp later discovers Crowe's secret objective and extorts a payoff from Smitty to remain silent about it. Beach accepts the $1 million bribe delivered by Crowe. He and his mistress Julie Ames (Gia Carides) sign a receipt to ensure Beach's cooperation. Beach buys tickets for a flight to the Caribbean and sends Julie ahead with the money, telling her he intends to leave his wife and join her. However, after reneging on his agreement and voting against Curl Industries, Beach commits suicide. Despite the setback caused by Beach's death and his vote, Wells and Crowe continue with their plan to murder Grimes. Wells spends a romantic weekend with Grimes at his fishing cabin. Crowe sneaks in and shoots Grimes, then beats Wells to make it appear like the murder was a robbery gone wrong. Wells and Crowe then take over the Toolshed, though Wells now rebuffs Crowe's affections towards her, having used him to get what she wanted. Upon hearing of her lover's death, Julie travels to Europe, sending Goodwin postcards telling him how she's enjoying spending the $1 million. Goodwin sells this information to Crowe, who in turn takes it to Wells. Wells orders Crowe to find and kill Julie because of her knowledge of the bribe attempt. Smitty confronts Wells in her office at the Toolshed and informs her of the CIA's plan to take over and also of Crowe's involvement in the agency's infiltration. Julie buys a gun from Goodwin and goes to Crowe's apartment to kill him in revenge for Beach's death. She arrives shortly after Wells, who also came to kill Crowe. In a chaotic shootout, Julie blindly fires at both as Crowe and Wells shoot each other dead. Julie somehow remains unharmed. As she meticulously picks up her shell casings, she finds Crowe's briefcase containing incriminating evidence, including the tape of his conversations with Smitty and the receipt she and Beach signed. After burning the receipt, Julie mails the tape to the U.S. Attorney's office to expose the corrupt dealings of both the CIA and the Toolshed. She then leaves town for good, alone. ===== The story is set in Southern California in July 1993. Jack Powell is a businessman with a wife and kids who live in San Diego. He's on his way home, when he pulls over to the side of the road to check out a crime scene. The sheriff tells him a cut-up body has been found stuffed into the trunk of a Chrysler, and advises him not to stop, nor "make any new friends." A policeman slams the trunk, revealing a name has been etched across the top: "Hatchet Man". Further down the road, Jack comes upon a hitchhiker, but keeps on going. Jack stops at a diner, and runs into the same man, who introduces himself as Adrian. Jack apologizes for not stopping earlier, and offers to buy Adrian lunch. Adrian soon nicknames their waitress, Patsy, "Jingle Bells", because of the silver bracelets she wears on one wrist. Patsy talks excitedly about a briefcase full of $1.25 million in mob money which was stolen from a Las Vegas casino the previous day. Jack looks around nervously and slides his briefcase underneath the table. Adrian tells Jack he's very intuitive about people he meets, and can usually tell all he needs to know about someone within a couple of minutes of meeting them. For example, is the person a loser, or was he a football star, or, perhaps class president. Jack doesn't seem convinced before Adrian asks him what he's got in his briefcase. When Adrian gets up to make a move on Patsy in the kitchen, Jack ditches him and makes his escape. As Jack drives down the highway, he listens to a radio newscaster recount the story of the stolen briefcase and discusses a string of murders in which all the victims have been dismembered. Jack is forced to turn back because a roadblock has been set up to cordon off a chemical spill. Jack checks into a motel. In the middle of the night, Jack awakes, and walks outside his room to investigate another crime scene, this one located behind the diner where he and Adrian had lunch that day. He sees a severed arm with silver bracelets placed into a bag and Adrian hiding in the shadows. Adrian joins Jack in his motel room and shoots up in the bathroom. When it seems Adrian is unconscious, Jack tries to leave again, but his car won't start. Adrian stumbles out and reveals he's removed the plugs from Jack's car, and tells Jack not to leave again, or "I'll call the police". The next morning, Jack and Adrian take to the road together. At a gas station, they meet a young hippie couple named Gerald and Dahlia, who are traveling cross-country in a Dodge van. Adrian wants to hang out with the hippies, but Jack insists they keep going. They stop at a service station so Jack can have a busted water hose on his car replaced. As Jack deals with the attendant, Adrian browses a pet store called the Creepy Crawly Zoo. The owner, Harliss, shows Adrian a Gila monster, which uses its viselike bite to inject a neurotoxin into the bloodstream. Back in the car, with Jack behind the wheel, Adrian uses the Gila monster to reassert his power over Jack by throwing the monster onto Jack's lap while he drives. Jack struggles to maintain his composure, and appears frozen by fear and anxiety. To compound matters, Adrian then slams his foot onto the accelerator and the car almost loses control and eventually shudders to a grinding halt before Adrian lets the Gila monster go, and warns Jack on his previous disobedience, and tells Jack he is "one crazy motherfucker". Jack and Adrian spend that night at a campsite, where they once again run into Gerald and Dahlia. Adrian gets high with them while Jack broods outside the van. Adrian accuses Jack of trying to scare them off. Later, Jack finds Adrian having sex with Dahlia in the back of the van while Gerald watches. Jack gets drunk and retires. Adrian shows up later and goads him. After Jack and Adrian drive away in the morning, a shot of the van shows blood smeared down the license plate and the name "Hatchet Man" etched across the back doors. The following night, Jack and Adrian stay at a secluded cabin Jack inherited. For the first time, we see the money was stolen from the Vegas casino, as Jack and Adrian use it to play poker. Adrian prepares to shoot up again, as Jack lectures him about his drug "problem". Adrian slaps Jack around, and accuses him of being an alcoholic and a hypocrite. Adrian releases Jack from his grip and returns to his drugs whilst advising Jack to do the same with his drink. Jack reacts by beating Adrian from behind with his briefcase, taping him to a chair and injecting him with a deadly mixture of alcohol and drugs. Adrian convulses and appears to expire, and Jack buries him in a shallow grave. Sheriff Gordon and his deputy, Little David show up to check on Jack, and over their shoulders Jack can see Adrian rising from the grave. The policemen are called away on a domestic disturbance and leave without noticing Adrian. Jack attempts to gun him down. After he's unloaded his shotgun, Adrian emerges from the shadows. When Adrian pleads with Jack as to why he cuts up the bodies into tiny little pieces, Jack removes a hatchet from his briefcase, and now in a far more confident baritone than he has displayed at any point in the film announces, "For the fuck of it", and as the screen fades to black the spectator is left only with the sounds of a violent struggle and can only conclude Jack has killed Adrian once and for all. Jack returns home to San Diego and kisses his wife, Carol. The paperboy greets him and he replies cheerfully, "Say, hey, Billy." As the film fades to black, a quote from the Book of Jeremiah appears on the screen: "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?" This echoes an earlier statement made by Adrian, who said that human beings are essentially unknowable. ===== In Colorado near the end of the American Civil War, Union Colonel Owen Devereaux (Glenn Ford) orders his regiment to fire on a detachment of Confederate soldiers, even though he (and only he) has seen that they are signaling their surrender with a white flag. Afterward, his best friend and second-in-command, Captain Del Stewart (William Holden), finds the white flag, considers it and then buries it as a surviving Confederate officer secretly looks on. Immediately after the battle, the soldiers find out that the war has ended. As the soldiers celebrate, Sergeant Jericho Howard (James Millican) gets drunk while on duty and is insubordinate to Devereaux, who has him arrested. At a celebratory ball in the troops' hometown, the mayor announces Devereaux's appointment as the federal judge for the region. Stewart asks Caroline Emmett (Ellen Drew) to marry him, but she is undecided between the two friends and later marries Devereaux instead. When the Confederate survivor confronts Devereaux about the white flag, Devereaux disarms him and then shoots him several times with his own gun, even though the man has already been subdued. Stewart realizes that Devereaux must have seen the flag and concludes that the war has unhinged his mind. He agrees to serve as Devereaux's marshal after Devereaux promises not to carry a gun and participate in arrests. Many of Devereaux's volunteer troops owned mines before the war, but a wealthy businessman named Big Ed Carter (Ray Collins) has claimed the mines for his company. As federal judge, Devereaux upholds Carter's claim based on a legal technicality. Meanwhile, Jericho escapes and stages a series of gold robberies. Devereaux's uncle, Doc Merriam (Edgar Buchanan), hopes that the end of the war and marriage to Caroline will settle Devereaux down, but Devereaux hangs Jericho's partner after a hasty summary trial out in the country following a posse chase, prompting several other men to join Jericho. Devereaux also threatens to hang Jericho's younger brother Johnny (Jerome Courtland) based on circumstantial evidence after another robbery, even though Johnny is not part of his brother's gang. After warning Devereaux not to hang Johnny, Stewart finds Jericho and persuades him to turn himself in, but when Devereaux hangs Johnny, Stewart resigns in disgust and joins Jericho's gang. After Stewart helps to rescue some men from being hanged, Devereaux lures him into town by spreading a rumor that Caroline is in danger, arrests him and puts him in jail. When Caroline sees this, she breaks into Devereaux's desk and reads his diary, finally realizes that he is mentally unstable and persuades Doc Merriam to rescue Stewart. She begins to put Stewart and Doc Merriam on a carriage to alert the state government of Devereaux's instability, but Devereaux shoots Stewart, so she drives the carriage for Stewart and the doctor as they flee to a nearby mining town. Devereaux cannot get the miners to surrender Stewart, and he eventually sets fire to the town. When Carter accuses him of being crazy with jealousy over Caroline's loyalty to Stewart, he rides into town, confronts Stewart, Jericho and Caroline. Devereaux fights with Jericho and is killed when a wall from a burning building falls on them. Stewart boards a stage to travel to Washington, D.C. to plead on behalf of the dispossessed miners, but promises Caroline he will return. ===== Martin, who had previously tried to kill himself following the so-called "Eggroll Incident," has been released from the mental hospital. He goes back to work, where he designs corporate mascot costumes. He's not completely recovered yet, though, and is recommended to Dr. Orloff, who is possibly the worst doctor in the world. Martin's first appointment consists of a single question. They skip out on the rest of the appointment to go to a softball game, which Orloff drags Martin to. Screwball adventures ensue. ===== In 1972, disenchanted about the dreary conventions of English life, 25-year-old Julia (Winslet) heads for Morocco with her daughters, six-year-old Lucy and eight-year-old Bea. Living in a low-rent Marrakech hotel, the trio survive on the sale of hand-sewn dolls and money from the girls' father, a London poet who also has a child from another woman. After the girls match their mother with gentle Moroccan acrobat and conman Bilal, sexual gears are set in motion. He eventually moves in with them and serves as a surrogate father. Julia's friend Eva urges Julia to study in Algiers with a revered Sufi master at a school of "the annihilation of the ego". In another sequence, European dandy Santoni invites Julia and the girls to his villa. As finances dwindle, Bilal's philosophy is "God will provide", although usually it is Bilal himself who provides. Sometimes he also disappears. At one point Bea contracts a streptococcus infection while he is gone and nearly dies. Bilal returns only to disappear again, but he has a plan. They discover that three return tickets that suddenly appear have been bought by him with money he got from the sale of his uniform. In the end, Julia and the girls board a train back to London. ===== The plot of A Tuna Christmas centers on the town's annual Christmas Yard Display Contest, won 14 times in a row by Vera Carp. A mysterious "Christmas Phantom," known for vandalizing the yard displays, threatens to throw the contest into turmoil. Among the subplots are Stanley Bumiller's attempts to end his probation and leave Tuna, Bertha Bumiller's trying to hold her family together at Christmas time, and Joe Bob Lipsey's struggle to mount successfully his production of A Christmas Carol despite numerous vexations and obstacles. ===== The series was very similar in style to Saved by the Bell, but with an urban setting and more diverse cast. City Guys was mainly centered on its two main characters, Jamal Grant (Wesley Jonathan) and Chris Anderson (Scott Whyte), two teenagers from different backgrounds – Chris coming from a wealthy family, and Jamal coming from a working-class family – who had to stay on the ball while attending Manhattan High School (which was nicknamed in the series as "Manny High") and avoid trouble, while their principal Karen Noble (Marcella Lowery) attempted to keep them in line and out of trouble. Jamal and Chris's similar personalities caused friction between them in the beginning, but they became best friends as the series went on. The boys and their friends – overachiever Dawn Tartikoff (Caitlin Mowrey), slick guy Al Ramos (Dion Basco), aspiring actress Cassidy Giuliani (Marissa Dyan) and dimwitted bully- turned-friend (who was held back six grades) Lionel "L-Train" Johnson (Steven Daniel) – dealt with the typical teen issues, such as cheating on tests, peer pressure, racism, and dealing with school violence. ===== The Warden Diamond is a system of four planets, ruled by their own lords, collectively called "The Four Lords of the Diamond". Each planet of the Diamond has its own special "Warden Organism", a symbiotic microorganism that lives within the inhabitants of the planets. The organisms destroy their host when he or she leaves the Warden Diamond, making the planet system the ideal prison colony for the Confederacy, a massive space empire. An android clone that successfully infiltrated a government facility on a central world and downloaded vital defense information, transmits the information to a source and is destroyed in the process. The Confederacy discovers and tracks the clone towards the Warden Diamond, whose four lords are cooperating with an alien race to plan a mutiny against the Confederacy. The government sends its best agent to investigate. Through technological advances, the government duplicates the personality of the agent (who remains unnamed throughout the series) and implants "him" into four brain-dead host bodies. The four hosts are then sent to four different planets in the Warden system and have no choice but to fulfill their assignment of locating and defeating each of the Four Lords, delaying the expected alien invasion and finding out vital information on the infiltrators. ===== Victor "Vic" Kelly (Christopher Walken) is a struggling auto mechanic with a safe-cracking past and a lot of debt. When a supposed cousin from Ireland visits Vic, the alleged cousin sabotages one of Vic's auto repair jobs, to ensure Vic's desperation and participation in the robbery scheme introduced to Vic by neighborhood resident Pat (Donal Logue). Vic is too stubbornly proud to accept a loan from his bar-owner girlfriend Sally (Cyndi Lauper), who offers Vic money that she was otherwise planning to use to renovate and remodel her neighborhood bar. Vic agrees to the robbery scheme, and goes to the armored courier service posing as a potential customer. Given a view of the facility, including being shown the triple combination-lock vault, Vic then goes to work on practicing his safecracking skills for the big day. The auto mechanic takes one last shot at the lucrative robbery with his Irish cohort to pay off his debts. We find out the cousin is not really a cousin. Vic becomes locked in the vault, while the fake cousin takes a bag of cash and makes his escape from the scene. The Irish cohort has a change of heart and returns with a bag of cash taken from Vic at the scene at the crime. Vic can now afford to keep his elderly aunt in her retirement home. There's enough money for Vic to be a good guy and give a cut to the two guards, who were in on the robbery with Vic, and had gotten fired. And Vic buys a juke box as a gift for his girlfriend's remodeled bar. A second bag of cash is taken from the vault by the armoured-courrier service owner, who will report all the cash missing, and make false insurance and IRS claims. To protect his own scheme, the owner refuses to press charges against Vic. Vic finally experiences a bit of good luck for once in his life. The movie ends with Vic walking back to his girlfriend. ===== The movie begins in an old castle in Europe with a very old woman lying in a bed, most likely dying. A priest, a nun and a man are praying in front of her bed. As they are praying, another man enters. He is a Japanese actor who, in broken German, says that he must talk to the old woman. The priest tries to hush him, but the old woman tells him to come in. Category:1967 films Category:1967 comedy films Category:Films directed by Yoji Yamada Category:Japanese comedy films Category:Japanese-language films Category:Japanese films ===== "The Psychiatrist" begins in the foyer of the hotel with Basil and Sybil at the front desk engaged in separate conversations on the phone. When Mr Johnson, a swaggering young playboy-type with an open shirt and gold chains comes down, however, Sybil immediately launches into flirtatious banter with him, much to Basil's annoyance. He makes several snide remarks to the effect that Johnson resembles some kind of ape. Basil also mocks Johnson’s medallions. The Abbotts arrive, unfortunately for Basil, while he is beating his chest and scratching his armpits in further mockery of Johnson. Upon hearing the word doctor, Basil instantly assumes that the husband is Dr Abbott because he is a man, whereas in fact his wife is also a doctor, which Basil ascertains after much "hole- digging" and misunderstanding. Thrilled to have doctors staying at the hotel (Basil having aspired to be one himself), Basil fawns over the Abbotts and personally escorts them to their rooms. In the meantime, Mr Johnson inquires of Sybil about a room for his mother, who is arriving the following day, but the hotel is full, so he agrees to have her stay in his room. Soon afterwards, an attractive young Australian girl named Raylene Miles arrives at the hotel, which creates a similar situation for Basil to that which Johnson created for Sybil. Basil handles his attractive character quite differently, however. While Sybil openly flirts with Johnson, Basil tries too hard to ensure he appears uninterested, such as looking at her and then glancing away when she looks up. This makes him nervous and he begins to act as though he does fancy her, via Freudian slips or luckless accidents. One such accident occurs while repairing Raylene's bathroom light: he reaches around a corner for the switch and, as Raylene is stretching beside the door, instead accidentally tweaks her nipple rather than the switch. Of course, Sybil steps in and sees this, leading her to believe Basil is softly groping her. Sybil does not react by insulting Raylene as Basil had with Johnson, but rather to berate Basil, and to apologise to her afterwards. While the Abbotts are dining, Basil enquires as to the branches of medicine in which they work – Mrs Abbott is a paediatrician (which Basil initially believes means a foot doctor). Upon discovering that Mr Abbott is a psychiatrist, Basil becomes paranoid about being observed, and dismisses psychiatry as being obsessed with sexual behaviour. Thus when Basil, not privy to the entire context of a conversation between the Abbotts and Sybil about how often middle-aged hotel owners can get away on holiday, is asked by the Abbotts how often Basil and Sybil "manage it", he indignantly claims "... average... two or three times a week" and is stunned, both by the question and the Abbotts' subsequent wondering "how you could manage it at all", until Sybil tells him they were in fact referring to holidays, and the difficulty in taking them while running a hotel. Basil returns to the dining room and abominably attempts to explain the situation, resulting only in digging for himself another sizable "hole" via Freudian slips such as “I thought you were talking about sex... I mean walks”. Meanwhile, Johnson has smuggled an attractive young woman into his room against hotel rules. Basil realises her presence when he walks past Johnson's room after the incident with Raylene and hears a woman's voice laughing at Johnson's "Pretentious...moi?" joke. Basil becomes determined to catch her, as he cannot prove it to anyone else. After failing to see the girl while delivering a bottle of champagne to Johnson, he goes into the room next to Johnson's to listen, but is disturbed by the Abbotts who, he thought, were out on a walk. He weakly pretends to be "checking the walls". He then sneaks into the room on the other side, frightening a sleeping Raylene. He uses the same excuse for his presence. Basil then enlists Manuel to assist with a ladder outside the hotel so he can look through Johnson's window, but instead positions the ladder inaccurately and finds himself facing the Abbotts, who stare back bemused. After a lame attempt to act as though he is merely "checking" the windows, he falls backwards, frozen in shock, on the hastily placed and precarious ladder (in a possible tribute to a very similarly acted and shot ladder fall by John Belushi while trying to peep in National Lampoon's Animal House). Manuel unwisely fetches Sybil, and Manuel's poor grasp of English lands Basil in further trouble. Manuel says that "Mr. Fawlty – he crazy about the girl" (meaning that Mr Johnson's having an illicit companion has made Basil cross). Sybil, for once, takes Manuel seriously and believes that he is referring to Basil's supposed crush on Raylene. Her jealousy incited, she marches outside, slaps Basil, and locks him out of their room for the night. Furious, Basil takes his anger out on Manuel. In the morning, Basil explains to Sybil that he was looking in the window because he wanted to catch the extra guest in Johnson's room. She doesn't believe him, but, determined to prove himself right, Basil hides in a broom closet to catch the guest. He hears laughter coming from Johnson's room, and when he hears a door open, emerges with a broom in hand exclaiming, "The game's up!" Basil discovers that it is the Abbotts in the hall and tries to explain the broom as the means to clean up some game pie stuck on the ceiling. The Abbotts go downstairs with the husband making a professional remark on Basil's behaviour: "There's enough material there for an entire conference." Basil returns the broom to the closet and in the process he soils his hand on some cleaning product. Again, he hears a door open and jumps on someone he thinks is the woman, only to discover he has accosted Raylene and left large handprints on her top over her breasts. Of course, Sybil emerges at that very moment. Basil panics and puts his hand all over Raylene's chest in an attempt to hide the handprints. He then hopelessly tries to explain his mistake to Sybil, who remains unconvinced. Soon afterwards, Basil visits Raylene's room to tell her to leave, only to find her changing her top and, terrified at being caught again, he hides in the wardrobe. Sybil then arrives to apologise on Basil's behalf and, of course, finds him in the wardrobe, whereupon she lectures him on how Raylene could not possibly be interested in the attentions of an "... ageing, brilliantined stick insect like [Basil]". He is desperate to prove to her that his interest has been in exposing Johnson's extra guest, but she refuses to listen, still believing that he is besotted with Raylene. Finally, Basil loses his temper and snaps at Sybil, angrily calling her a "... rancorous, coiffured old sow" and telling her to "syringe the donuts out of [her] ears and get some sense into the 'dormant organ' [i.e. her brain] she keeps hidden in that 'rat's maze' [i.e. hairdo] of [hers]," and he physically drags a shocked Sybil outside Johnson's room. He challenges Johnson about an extra guest of the "... contradictory gender...". Johnson agrees that there is indeed another person in his room: Mrs Johnson, his mother. Basil mocks this disbelievingly, until Johnson's elderly mother appears and he greets her in a sudden burst of politeness. When everyone has left, he crouches, pulls his jacket up over his head in total frustration and embarrassment, and moans while making small, frog-like hops. The Abbotts, typically on the scene at the wrong time, encounter him, but Mr Abbott sighs, "I'm on holiday" and they ignore him. ===== Pod is a country boy who moves to Bangkok, despite his grandmother's warning that he'll grow a tail. He finds a small house to live in and takes a job in a sardine cannery, getting rides to work on the back of a motorcycle taxi, the rider of which has been made a zombie after one day it rained motorcycle helmets and he wasn't wearing one. One hot day the assembly line at the cannery malfunctions. In the confusion, Pod chops his index finger off and it ends up in a can that is trucked away to a local grocery store. He searches everyday, buying can after can of sardines. Eventually he sees a can jumping around and opens it to find a finger. He attaches it simply by pressing it into place. But something doesn't feel right. He must have someone else's finger. During a lunch break, he recognises his own finger on a co-worker who's getting ready to pick his nose. He wrests the finger away and gives the man the other finger in return. The nose-picker is named Yod, and the two become friends. Not wishing to lose any more fingers, Pod quits the factory and becomes a security guard. On the job in an office, he meets Jin, a maid who has her nose perpetually buried in a mysterious white book written in a foreign language that she dreams of someday understanding. The book literally landed at her feet one day while she was still living in the countryside, and since then she has been trying to decipher its meaning. She has obsessive-compulsive disorder, which makes her want to constantly clean and set things in order. Pod is smitten and wishes to be closer to Jin. Inspired by Yod and his Chinese empress girlfriend, who consummated their relationship on a crowded bus, Pod asks Jin if she would like to ride the bus. But Jin refuses, saying she breaks out in a rash whenever she takes crowded public transport. Pod quits his job as a guard and becomes a taxicab driver so he can drive her to work. Eventually, he expresses his true feelings for Jin, but she's become obsessed with a hippie farang, whom she's seen reading the same white book she has. She imagines the man is named Peter and believes he is an environmental activist who was killed in a protest in Washington, D.C.. Inspired, she starts collecting plastic bottles, gathering enough to create a mountain that towers over the city, and joins an environmental protest movement calling for a ban on plastic. Meanwhile, Pod has adventures in his taxicab, giving rides to a little girl with a foul mouth who smokes cigarettes and plays videogames. She has a teddy bear who also swears, smokes and drinks whiskey, and she eventually throws the teddy bear away. Another passenger is a man who incessantly licks things, and Pod must find a solution to make him stop. He also meets his grandmother, reincarnated as a gecko, who repeats her premonition that he'll grow a tail if he stays in the city. Jin discovers Peter at a rally, who reveals his name is actually Andre and that the white book is an Italian gay romance novel. Crestfallen, Jin throws away the book and her activist lifestyle and leaves Bangkok, telling Pod she needs to be away from him. Pod quits as a taxi driver and returns to the country, only to grow bored as country life has literally slowed down compared to his life in Bangkok. He returns to the city to find that everyone now can and has grown a tail, except for him. He becomes a celebrity, but continues to search for Jin in vain. Pod climbs the plastic mountain and finds her there, confesses his love again and kisses her, overwhelming her doubts about their future. Six months later, the mountain is a picnic for lovebirds, the girl and her teddy bear marry, and Jin, now running a plastic company into the ground as a successful business woman, is married to Pod and expecting a child. Through a long list of reincarnated animals, Pod believes that his child will actually be his grandmother. ===== The film focuses on Kay's relationships with her boyfriend Louis, her parents and her emotionally unhealthy sister, Sweetie. Kay is quiet and superstitious, loving Louis because of the words of a fortune teller and experiencing deep foreboding towards a tree he attempted to plant in their yard. Sweetie, from Kay's perspective, is selfish in her severe mental illness. Kay's father chooses to ignore most of the erratic, childish behavior (though she has been hospitalized before) because he loves her as a little girl. Throughout, there are flashbacks of Sweetie dancing, singing and performing small, circus-like tricks with his assistance; he wants the family to remain close and dislikes when Kay acts enraged with Sweetie. The mother admits he indulges her. Louis, however, has found some freedom from his increasingly disconnected relationship with Kay because Sweetie lives uninhibited, with vigor and emotion (though extreme). Throughout, Sweetie's physically destructive nature (ruining Kay's clothes, breaking furniture) reflects the inner disruption she has caused her family. After a series of circular fights (variable rage and delusions, her family's forgiveness, proceeded by her sweetness and fun persona), she finally overextends the limit, stripping off her clothes, painting her body black and bouncing in her childhood tree house. Though her family begs her to come down, she refuses, continuing teasing, tormenting and shaking the fort until it falls from the tree, injuring her mother and killing Sweetie. Lamentably, trees involve themselves with Sweetie even after death, as her private interment is briefly disrupted by tree roots discovered in her grave. The family appears resolved, no longer scattered. They no longer feel manipulated and agitated by her presence. However, the best of Sweetie's personality persists, as Kay and her parents maintain an image of her in her most accurate form, that of a little girl. ===== Mili (Jaya Bhaduri) is a story about a girl who suffers from pernicious anemia, a disease considered untreatable during the period the film was produced. Her lively, inquisitive and cheerful demeanour spreads happiness in everyone's life. She becomes an inspiration to her new neighbour Shekhar (Amitabh Bachchan) who is a drunkard and always depressed. With her cheerful ways she changes Shekhar and he falls in love with her, unaware of her ailment. When he comes to know about it, he thinks of going away as he cannot bear to see her die. A reproach from a neighbour makes him reconsider his decision. As he loves the girl, he offers to marry her and take her abroad for her treatment. The film begins and ends with a scene of a jet aircraft taking off, ostensibly carrying the couple to Switzerland where they hope to find a cure. ===== The brave sailor Sinbad and his loyal servant Habeeb find themselves aboard the ship of Captain Aziz, a trip for which Sinbad had spent all of his father's fortune. They crew spot an uncharted island, which Sinbad encourages the Captain to approach, hoping that it holds untold riches. Sinbad, Habeeb and two other sailors take a rowboat to the island, which has a strange appearance: it is flat and bare, with no grass, trees or sand. The island shakes violently, and the two sailors return to Captain Aziz's ship, leaving Sinbad and Habeeb behind. The island reveals itself to be the fin of a gigantic sea monster, which swims away. Captain Aziz's ship leaves as well, leaving Sinbad and Habeeb stranded in the middle of the ocean. In the morning, Sinbad and his servant find that they have been carried to a strange island. They find water, nourishment and horses, which means that there should be people on the island. Sinbad and Habeeb find two foreign-dressed men, who are the sons of King Jamaal of the island of Salabat. These men welcome Sinbad and Habeeb, and lead them to their father's palace. King Jamaal welcomes Sinbad and Habeeb to his palace and, enchanted by the tales of Sinbad's many adventures, asks Sinbad to marry his daughter Nefia. Sinbad accepts, but unwillingly. That night Sinbad reveals to Habeeb that he doesn't want to marry the King's daughter, and will leave the island in order to avoid fulfilling his promise. Captain Aziz's ship has come to the island, and Sinbad approaches the Captain, who is glad to see him and agrees to help him escape. Habeeb and Sinbad sneak out of the castle by hiding in crates that are to be delivered to Captain Aziz as supposed presents from King Jamal. Their ruse is successful, but after Captain Aziz leaves the island, they are attacked by King Jamal's ships. King Jamal captures Sinbad and Habeeb and leaves them on an island as their punishment. ===== Valentin and his squad of Mobilards are assigned to track down the infamous Bonnot Gang. ===== A young boy named Aladdin lives a poor life with his mother. A shifty man named Hassim approaches Aladdin claiming to be his long lost uncle and persuades him to come on a journey promising riches. Once in some ruins in the desert, Hassim performs an incantation to open a cave and Aladdin realises that Hassim is not his uncle. Hassim only brought him here because he is the only one who can enter the cave interior. Aladdin reluctantly enters the cave and finds what Hassim was looking for: an old lamp. Fearing that Hassim will kill him after he gets what he wants, Aladdin refuses to hand over the lamp and Hassim closes the cave trapping Aladdin. Unwittingly Aladdin rubs the lamp and releases a powerful genie who can grant any wish. Aladdin makes a wish to return to his home. After his safe return, Aladdin's mother disregards the lamp and Aladdin keeps it hidden and remains silent about it. Four years later, Aladdin is captivated by the Sultan's daughter Layla and sneaks into the bathing house to see her. Aladdin escapes the guards and returns home to tell his mother his wish to marry the princess. Next day, Aladdin's mother presents a sack of jewels he obtained from the cave before the sultan. The sultan's conniving vizier (who has plans to marry the princess himself) convinces the sultan that his daughter is worth more than the jewels and that Aladdin should bring bigger riches and many servants. With the aid of the lamp, Aladdin accomplishes this. The sultan allows Aladdin to marry Layla and Aladdin has the genie build a palace by the city for the married couple to live in peacefully. Hassim hears about Aladdin's success with the lamp from the medicine woman Fatima. Hassim travels to Aladdin's palace. With Aladdin out on a hunt, Hassim tricks Layla into swapping the genie's lamp for a new one and makes a wish for the palace and princess to be transported to Marrakesh. Hearing about his daughter's disappearance, the sultan has Aladdin arrested. Before Aladdin can be sentenced, Fatima (who did not get her end of the bargain with Hassim) approaches and reveals the whereabouts of Layla. With his mother in the sultan's custody and one month to put things right, Aladdin travels to Marrakesh, sneaks into his palace and swipes the lamp from a sleeping Hassim. With the lamp back in his possession, Aladdin wishes his wife and palace to be returned to his homeland. Hassim notices Aladdin's liberation and swears revenge. He kills Fatima and uses her clothes to disguise himself as her, then beckons the princess to have Aladdin wish for the egg of the fabled Roc to bring them good luck. The genie is not able to grant this wish as the Roc is superior to him and reveals that Fatima is actually Hassim. Aladdin feigns illness to bring Hassim right where he wants him. Aladdin and Hassim duel, ending up with Hassim tripping on his robe and accidentally killing himself. Aladdin and the princess then live happily ever after without the fear of anyone stealing the lamp again. ===== Rikky Menzies (Nina Landis) is an out-of-work geologist and aspiring singer (vocals by Wendy Matthews). Her brother Pete Menzies (Stephen Kearney) is a misfit inventor. To find peace of mind and escape the ire of Police Sergeant Whitstead (Bill Hunter), they travel the outback of Australia until they reach the desert mining town of Mount Isa and its own zany individualists. ===== Every episode of the series focuses on a different individual animal, who is unique in personality. The entire episode rhymes. ===== The story follows a girl named Jessica (Lara Flynn Boyle) and her attempt to get into Ramsey College, a small college in Pennsylvania, and Marlon (Corey Parker), a boy who tries to get into Ramsey to pursue Jessica, whom he is in love with. ===== Aathi (Silambarasan) and Meera (Trisha) fall in love after the usual playful tiffs. On a visit to a friend's village for his marriage, the two of them help the friend stand up against his father and wed his sweetheart instead of the girl his father had fixed up his marriage with. With all these things, Aathi's father (Raghuvaran) arranges a marriage for him. After a big confusion, Aathi and Meera are together. ===== While surveying a telegraph line in 1861, Western Union engineer Edward Creighton (Dean Jagger) is severely injured in an accident. He is discovered by Vance Shaw (Randolph Scott), an outlaw on the run from a posse. Forced to travel on foot after his horse was hurt, Shaw at first considers stealing Creighton's horse, but changes his mind and takes the man with him, saving his life. Sometime later, following his recovery, Creighton returns to Omaha, Nebraska and plans the construction of a telegraph line from Omaha to Salt Lake City, Utah. Facing considerable opposition to the line from Confederate soldiers, Indians, and outlaws, Creighton elicits the help of his sister Sue (Virginia Gilmore), foreman Pat Grogan (Minor Watson), and assistant Homer Kettle (Chill Wills). Looking to put his outlaw past behind him, Shaw arrives at Creighton's Western Union office looking for honest work and is hired as a scout by Grogan who is unaware of his past. Creighton recognizes him among the men and allows him to stay despite his suspicions. Creighton also hires tenderfoot Richard Blake (Robert Young), a Harvard-educated engineer as a favor to Blake's father. Shaw and Blake are both attracted to Sue and vie for her attention, but their romantic rivalry is cut short when construction of the telegraph line starts on July 4, 1861. After work commences on the line, one of the men is killed apparently by a mysterious band of cattle-rustling Indians. Unconvinced that Indians are to blame, Shaw rides out to investigate and follows the rustlers' trail to the camp of Jack Slade, a former friend and cohort, whose gang committed the killing disguised as Indians—the gang Shaw left following his last bank robbery. Slade reveals that they are working for the Confederacy to disrupt Western Union because they believe the telegraph service will help the Union. Shaw rides away and returns to the line. Not wanting to turn in his former friends, Shaw tells Creighton that a large band of Dakota Indians stole the cattle, and recommends that they simply replace the herd and not risk a fight with the Indians. Sometime later, a confrontation takes place between men working on the forward line and a band of drunken Indians. When one of the Indians tries to steal some equipment, a nervous Blake shoots him, ignoring Shaw's order to remain calm. After word arrives that the main camp is under attack by other Indians, the Western Union men rush back to help with the defense. At the main camp, Slade's men, who are again disguised as Indians, steal the Western Union horses. The company discover the ruse when one of the wounded Indians turns out to be a white man. Forced to buy back their stolen horses from Slade, Creighton becomes suspicious of Shaw's involvement, especially when he admits to knowing the gang. Soon the U.S. Army arrives and announces the Indians have now refused to allow the telegraph lines to go through their territory in response to Blake's shooting of the drunken Indian. Creighton, Shaw, and Blake ride out to convince Chief Spotted Horse to allow them to build the line through Indian territory, even though the man Blake wounded was Spotted Horse's son. Creighton is finally able to persuade the Indians to allow them passage, and work continues until the company approaches Salt Lake City. Sometime later, Shaw receives word that Jack Slade wants to meet with him. On the way to see Slade, Shaw is captured and bound by Slade's men. Slade says his group is going to burn down the Western Union camp and they don't want Shaw to interfere. After Slade and his men ride off, Shaw escapes from his ropes (using the smoldering embers of Slade's campfire),but returns too late to prevent the fire. He helps rescue some of the Western Union men from the flames and burns his hands in the process (or so he lets everyone believe as he burnt them in the campfire). After the fire, Creighton confronts Shaw for an explanation, but Shaw does not reveal what he knows and is fired by Creighton. As Shaw leaves the camp, he tells Blake that Slade is actually Shaw's brother and that he, Shaw, will find Slade's gang and stop them from interfering with the telegraph project. Shaw rides off and finds Slade and his men in a nearby town. At the barber shop, Shaw confronts his brother, whose gun is concealed under the barber's sheet. Slade shoots Shaw through the sheet. Shaw fights back in spite of his wound, killing some of the gang members, and then dies. Blake arrives and continues the fight with Slade who dies from his wounds. Soon after, the Western Union line is completed and the workers celebrate. When Sue laments the absence of Shaw, Creighton tells her that Shaw can hear them. ===== It's My Party chronicles a two-day party hosted by Nick Stark (Eric Roberts) a gay architect who, having been diagnosed with progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, will fall into a state of mental lapse lasting for months until his death. He decides to host a party for his family and friends, at the end of which he will commit suicide by taking Seconal. "You won't leave me, will you?" Nick asks his estranged lover, Brandon Theis (Gregory Harrison) a B movie director, shortly after revealing to him the results of his last blood test for HIV. "I don't want to die alone." In spite of Brandon's protestations, the two soon find the love they had shared for many years in ruins. One year after their breakup, Nick is confronted with a ravaged immune system and a CT Scan and lab values which, along with his worsening forgetfulness, clinches the diagnosis of Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) -- a condition he has seen claim his friends and one which he vows will not take him. Due to the aggressive nature of the disease, he has only a few days of conscious life remaining. His plan, he announces to family and "extended family," is to voluntarily end his life himself before the disease renders him unrecognizable to those he loves and he, in turn, is unable to recognize them. Uninvited to the farewell party, Brandon's presence is greeted with jeers from those who see him as having abandoned Nick in his time of greatest need. ===== The book centers on the comparatively normal Lenore Beadsman, a 24-year-old telephone switchboard operator who gets caught in the middle of a Cleveland-based character drama. In Wallace's typically offbeat style, Lenore navigates three separate crises: her great-grandmother's escape from a nursing home, a neurotic boyfriend, and a suddenly vocal pet cockatiel. The controlling idea surrounding all of these crises is the use of words and symbols to define a person. To illustrate this idea, Wallace uses different formats to build the story, including transcripts from television recordings and therapy sessions, as well as an accompanying fictional account written by one of the main characters, Rick Vigorous. The manager of the nursing home, David Bloemker, repeatedly expresses himself in an overly elaborate style, only to have to reduce his own locutions to a much simpler form. For example, he tells Lenore that if they find her great-grandmother (also named Lenore), they will likely also find the other missing residents of the facility. Why? Because, she "enjoyed a status here — with the facility administration, the staff, and, through the force of her personality and her evident gifts, especially with the other residents [such that] it would not be improper to posit the location and retrieval of Lenore as near assurance of retrieving the other misplaced parties." The younger Lenore says that she doesn't understand all of that. Bloemker tries again: "Your great-grandmother was more or less the ringleader around here." This contrast of baroque with simple speech is employed to comic effect, as well as to advance the more serious contemplation of language at the heart of the plot. ===== The story follows a man named Mr. Brown, who can make a wide variety of sounds, imitating the sounds of animals and inanimate objects. The narrator recites a list of items and animals that Mr. Brown can sound like, each one accompanied by illustrations of the object and an onomatopoeia, which replicates the sound he can make. Mr. Brown can make the "moo" of a cow, the "buzz" of a bee, the "pop" of a cork (on a bottle of grape wine), the "klopp klopp" of a horse's hooves, the "cock a doodle doo" of a rooster, the "hoo hoo" of an owl, the "dibble dibble dibble dopp" of rain, the "tick tock" of a clock, the "knock knock" of a hand against a door, the "boom" of thunder, the "grum grum" of a hippo chewing gum, the "slurp slurp" of a cat drinking, the "splatt" of lightning, the "choo choo" of a train, the "sizzle sizzle" of an egg in a frying pan, the "blurp blurp" of a horn, the "pip" of a goldfish kiss, the "eek eek" like a shoe, and the "whisper" of a butterfly. The narrator concludes the list by suggesting that the reader try to make these same sounds, and the last pages of text feature a list of all the onomatopoeias featured in the book. ===== The Sheriff of Nottingham (Peter Cushing) plans to confiscate the estate of the Lord of Bawtry, a nobleman who has died on Crusade. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Hubert Walter (Jack Gwillim), speaks against this plan and the Sheriff plots to eliminate him. Robin Hood is asked to undertake the assassination of the Archbishop for the plotters, led by the Earl of Newark (Richard Pasco) and Lord Melton (Oliver Reed), but on realising who the intended target is, resolves to help the Archbishop instead. Maid Marian (Sarah Branch) also wants to meet the Archbishop so she can grant freedom to the family of a man murdered by the Sheriff's men, and she is also keen to meet Robin again who she met when she thought he was a common outlaw, but now realises he is on the side of good. ===== The film opens with a passage, which states: This film is based on a recently discovered manuscript by one William Cobbler, which reveals that Henry VIII did in fact have two more wives. Although it was first thought that Cromwell originated the story, it is now known to be definitely all Cobbler's... from beginning to end. Henry VIII (Sid James) has his wife (Patsy Rowlands) beheaded and quickly marries Marie of Normandy (Joan Sims). This union was organised at the behest of bumbling Cardinal Wolsey (Terry Scott) as Marie is cousin of King Francis I of France. Henry's wedding night ardour dies when he finds she reeks of garlic, but she refuses to stop eating it. Marie gets frustrated so soon receives amorous advances from Sir Roger de Lodgerley (Charles Hawtrey who, while still in his camp persona, is playing against type as a ladies' man). Henry is keen to be rid of Marie, as he has met the lovely Bettina (Barbara Windsor, in her favourite Carry On role). Bettina is the daughter of the Earl of Bristol (Peter Butterworth, in a one scene cameo), a punning reference to Bristols. Thomas Cromwell (Kenneth Williams) assists in ousting Marie by organising Lord Hampton of Wick (Kenneth Connor) to kidnap the King in a staged plot. Cromwell and Lord Hampton also secretly plot to bring the king to harm as part of this escapade, but the false kidnapping fails. Henry seizes on Marie's infidelity with de Lodgerley to be free of her; all he needs is a confession from de Lodgerley. He orders Cromwell to extract a confession using any means necessary. This leads to a running joke in the torture chamber as Henry keeps changing his mind about the confession due to political necessities, requiring multiple changes and retractions of the original confession. Wolsey is baffled by all the intrigue, and Cromwell is driven to treason by all of Henry's unreasonable demands. ===== Bored with his life in China, shopworker Yu Ming (Diyu Daniel Wu) decides to visit a random country and picks Ireland by spinning a globe in a library. An atlas informs him that the official language of Ireland is "Gaelic". Consequently, he learns and becomes fluent in Irish before his trip. The film follows Yu Ming's adventures in trying to be understood in Dublin, where much of the population, whether foreign-born or native Irish, has little or no grasp of the language. For example, when he arrives at a Dublin hostel, Yu Ming says, "Ba mhaith liom leaba anseo" ("I would like a bed here"). The receptionist, who speaks with an Australian accent, assumes that Yu Ming is speaking Chinese and asks an Asian co-worker, Enke, to help translate. Enke says, "I am Mongolian." Yu Ming then heads to a bar in order to seek work and again his Irish lets him down. He asks the barman, "Tá mé ag lorg obair" ("I am looking for work") and the barman stares blankly at him, not understanding a word. An elderly Irish-speaker (Kelly) at the end of the bar listens in awe at the Asian man speaking his language fluently, invites him for a drink, and explains the misunderstanding. Yu Ming is later shown working as a bartender in the Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking) area of Connemara. A phrase that recurs throughout the film is "An bhfuil tusa ag labhairt liomsa?" ("Are you talking to me?"). ===== Howard Hallenbeck (David Dukes) travels to Ireland to research items of religious significance. He goes to a rural church to photograph some graves. Meanwhile, three farmers are attempting to remove an ominous stone column from a field. Two of the farmers head home. A thunderstorm appears out of nowhere, and smoke pours from the ground. Lightning strikes the column. The monster Rawhead Rex rises from the dirt. Howard meets Declan O'Brien (Ronan Wilmot), who directs him to Reverend Coot. The curious O'Brien approaches the altar and places his hand on it. Images flash before his eyes. This experience apparently destroys O'Brien's sanity. Afterwards, Howard inquires about the church's parish records. Coot says he can arrange to have Howard look at them. Later, a man arrives at the home of locals Dennis and Jenny. He discovers a clearly traumatized Jenny. Police arrive. Rawhead drags Dennis's dead body through the forest and comes upon a trailer park. A teenager named Andy Johnson is trying to make out with his girlfriend. The two teens head into the woods. Soon after, Howard sees Rawhead on top of a distant hill with Andy's head in his hand. Afterwards, Howard speaks again with Coot, who tells him the church's parish records have been stolen. Declan O'Brien destroys his camera. On the road again, Howard's daughter needs to go to the bathroom, so Howard pulls over and lets her go by a tree. Hearing her suddenly scream, Howard and his wife rush to her; Howard's son stays in the van, alone. Rawhead kills Howard's son and takes the body into the woods. Infuriated by the police's unsuccessful efforts to track down Rawhead, Howard returns to the church. He discovers that there is a weapon shown in the stained glass window that can be used to defeat the monster. After Howard leaves, Coot curiously touches the altar but resists the temptations and images it shows him. Rawhead arrives at the church to "baptize" O'Brien by urinating on him. A bewildered Coot goes outside to investigate the noise and sees Rawhead. Horrified, Coot flees inside the church and into the basement while Rawhead destroys everything inside. Coot finds the missing parish records, showing what appears to be some kind of blueprint of Rawhead himself. The insane O'Brien catches Coot and forces him upstairs to be sacrificed to Rawhead. The police arrive at the church and prepare to open fire on Rawhead, but they hesitate because he is carrying Coot. The brainwashed inspector dumps gasoline around the police cars and ignites it just as they begin to shoot at Rawhead, killing all the police, including himself. Howard leaves his wife and daughter and goes back to the church where a dying Coot tells him that Rawhead is afraid of something in the altar. Howard goes inside where O'Brian is burning books and is overpowered by Howard. Howard, by using a candle stick, opens the altar and gets to the weapon. O'Brian retreats to Rawhead to tell him, leaving Rawhead displeased. Howard tries to use the weapon, but has no effect. In anger, Rawhead kills O'Brian by tearing out his throat, with Howard's wife watching in terror. As Rawhead tries to kill Howard, his wife picks up the weapon, it activates, stopping Rawhead from killing Howard. A ray of light comes out of the weapon and hits Rawhead, hurting him. Howard realizes that it has to be a woman for it to work. Then the form of a woman appears from the stone and shoots electric rays through the stones and into Rawhead's body, knocking him to the ground. After a few more blasts, Rawhead is drained and weakened to the point where he has no hair, has aged, and is ill and dying. Finally he falls through the ground with Howard's wife dropping the weapon in with him. Rawhead is smashed under giant stones and finished. Both Howard and his wife cry in light of it being over. In the end, the boy from the trailer park places flowers on Andy Johnson's grave. As he walks away, Rawhead emerges from the ground and roars. ===== T.J. Burke tires of his auto assembly worker job in Detroit, quits, and convinces his friend Dexter Rutecki to move with him to Aspen. After succeeding in the new instructor tryouts for the Aspen Ski School, they both become ski instructors, although T.J. secretly intercedes on Dexter's behalf. While T.J. advances to become the most popular instructor of the school during the season, he has to constantly watch out for Dexter, whose social skills are less honed and whose future is less bright. Along the way, they meet the young local radio DJ (Robin) as well as a rich cougar-ish woman (Bryce) who selects the most desirable new instructor each year for her latest plaything. After watching the famous Aspen Powder 8 competition, T.J. and Dexter agree to team up to try to win the next season's award. While skiing out of bounds, T.J. falls into a large sinkhole in the snow, plunging many feet into a stream. Dexter rescues him, and because skiing out of bounds would get them fired, takes him to Robin's house so she can patch him up without notifying the ski school director. Somewhat later, after losing control of a school client (a poor skier who ends up sliding out of control into downtown Aspen), Dexter is suspended from the school and eventually links up with the wrong crowd, including Tina, a beautiful girl with a mysterious background. Hard up for cash, Dexter reluctantly accepts an offer to act as a drug courier. When he gets spooked and dumps the drugs, he is assaulted in retribution and left to freeze outdoors in the Aspen winter. Again, T.J. rescues him by paying off the drug guys, with money borrowed from Bryce. T.J. then moves out from the house he shared with Dexter, and in with Bryce, who purchased his companionship with the loan. After spending some interminable and unsatisfying time with Bryce, T.J. and Dexter awkwardly rekindle their friendship and reset their goal to win the Powder 8 competition. T.J. and Dexter decide to ski out of bounds in order to train for the upcoming event. While skiing outside the boundaries of Aspen, T.J. and Dexter set off an avalanche. Dexter suffers a tragic demise, while T.J. escapes with minor injuries. Later, in deep depression, T.J. comes to realize how his relationship with Bryce had no particular meaning, and writes of his and Dexter's friendship. The article is published in a major ski magazine, finally providing T.J. with some satisfaction for his writing efforts after many prior rejections. His friendship with Robin also reawakens, as they both mourn Dexter's loss. T.J. is sought out by a newly hired young ski instructor to be his partner in the Powder-8. They win the competition, beating T.J.'s nemesis throughout the movie. The victory is bittersweet, as he remembers the dream that he and Dexter had of winning the Powder-8, and in the end, he and Robin reconcile as he finally reveals that he loves her. ===== Hira Singh is the story of a regiment of Sikh cavalry who are captured in battle in Flanders in the early days of World War I, escape from captivity and experience many adventures as they make their way back to India. ===== The book opens at Amelia's favorite hotel, Shepheard's in Cairo, where her family reunites after a summer in various locations. The Emersons' son Ramses (now aged sixteen) and their adopted son David have been living in Egypt for six months, and their ward Nefret has been studying anatomy with Louisa Aldrich-Blake at the London School of Medicine for Women. The Emersons receive a dire warning about staying away from an undiscovered tomb, which of course inspires them to hunt all the harder for it. Meanwhile, a silly American debutante insists she needs protection from a stalker (selecting Ramses for the job), and a mummy swathed in modern clothing begins to lend verisimilitude to her otherwise unconvincing narrative. The characters of Donald and Enid Fraser from Lion in the Valley reappear in this novel. They are in Cairo, accompanied by a woman who claims to have communicated with an ancient Egyptian princess and unwittingly triggered Donald's obsession with finding the princess's tomb. The American Cyrus Vandergelt is another character who reappears from an earlier novel. This volume marks the death of the cat Bastet and the first whiskey Ramses is permitted to imbibe (although the two events are not directly related). The device of "Manuscript H" is used for the first time in this book to give a voice to Ramses, through whom the romantic and adventurous elements of the series are able to continue as his parents begin to age. In the course of the mystery, Amelia discovers that her old admirer and adversary, Sethos (the "master criminal") is not dead, as was thought to be the case earlier in the series. ===== A charcoal burner becomes a parson by means of various tricks. Unintentionally he detects some thieves in the king's castle, gains a prophetic reputation in the church, passes a test set by the king, and predicts the queen's having twins. ===== Agent Pearson is the newest member of the COI, and is somewhat dejected to find the job not as glamorous as he was initially told. After being given a case where a local munitions manufacturer was invited to join the Brotherhood of Thule, an American branch of the Thule society, Pearson is puzzled by the apparent connections with Nazi occultism. Along the way he encounters Agent Winslow, apparently a bumbling Federal agent who is more concerned with his press appearance than solving cases. After making a connection between the Brotherhood of Thule and the Cleveland torso murders, Pearson leads a local detective to the butchers lair after finding bizarre Gaelic documents left by his predecessor regarding a ritual involving Odin and a gemstone called the Black Dahlia, which is a key instrument that can render a ritual user the ability to control dreams. Years later, Pearson is a member of the OSI, and recovers the Dahlia from a Nazi bunker, but it is quickly snatched away and then sold on the black market by a corrupt quartermaster. Following the Dahlia, Pearson again encounters Winslow, a Nazi SS operative following the final orders of Hitler to perform the Dahlia ritual. Pearson pursues Winslow across the US, finally cornering him in a California home, where Winslow has just completed the final ritual murders regarding the Dahlia. After tearing out his own eye and performing the remainder of the ritual, the player has one choice with his pistol. If he shoots Winslow or hesitates, Winslow stabs himself, and possesses Pearson, becoming an American version of Hitler, and able to control large portions of the populace through their dreams. If Pearson destroys the Dahlia, Winslow dies and Pearson is blamed for the locals spree of killings, though he is overjoyed and content with having stopped the Nazi plot to take over the world. ===== In 1984, 33 years after the events depicted in The Last Picture Show, 50-year-old Duane Jackson (Bridges) is a wealthy tycoon of a near-bankrupt oil company. His relationship with his family is not prospering, either. His wife, Karla (Annie Potts), believes that Duane is cheating on her, and his son, Dickie (William McNamara), seems to be following in his father's libidinous footsteps. Ruth Popper (Cloris Leachman) works as Duane's secretary, and despondent Lester Marlow (Quaid), now a businessman, seems a prime candidate for a business crisis, a heart attack, or both. Sonny Crawford's (Bottoms) increasingly erratic behaviour causes Duane concern over Sonny's mental health. Jacy Farrow (Shepherd) has travelled the world and experienced its pleasures. A painful tragedy brings her back to her hometown and once again into Duane's life. ===== The story concerns a visit by an antique collector, Johnson Spangler, to the Samuel Claggert Museum in his attempt to buy the legendary Delver's Mirror. The museum curator, Mr. Carlin, ushers Spangler through the building, recounting the history of this rare Elizabethan mirror, which has been plagued by incidents of attempted destruction. The museum curator also explains the infamous history of the mirror, recounting all the people who have looked into the mirror had mysteriously disappeared. Carlin tells a skeptical Spangler that an image of the Grim Reaper is rumored to appear in the mirror, standing close to the viewer. Spangler scoffs, but feels unnatural horror when he looks into the mirror and claims to see some duct tape in the mirror's corner. He angrily confronts Carlin, who claimed the mirror was undamaged. Carlin claims however that there is no duct tape, and that Spangler is "seeing the reaper." When Spangler runs his hand over the "duct tape", he feels a smooth surface rather than the rough outside of the tape. When Spangler looks again, the duct tape is gone. As Carlin relates the history of a high school boy who saw the Reaper and disappeared without a trace, Spangler becomes ill and rushes out of the second floor. Mr. Carlin remains behind to wait... and wait. ===== The Parched Sea is another name for the desert Anauroch in which the novel takes place. The Zhentarim, determined to drive a trade route through Anauroch, send an army to enslave the nomads of the Great Desert. Ruha, an outcast witch, tries to gain the trust of the Sheikh as tribe after tribe fall to the Zhentarim. The Harpers send an agent to counter the Zhentarim, and Ruha helps this stranger win the Sheikh's trust, so that he can overcome the tribes' ancestral rivalries and drive the invaders from the desert. ===== Twenty-six-year-old Ethan lives with roommate Charlotte in a house owned by his ex-boyfriend Leo in West Hollywood. Ethan has been dating former pro baseball player-turned- autobiographer Kyle Underhill for several months, so when Leo announces he plans to sell the house, Ethan starts dropping hints to Kyle that they should live together. Inexplicably, when Kyle actually asks him to move in, Ethan breaks up with him. Ethan hooks up with a younger man, Punch, who works in a real estate office. Together they conspire to delay the sale of Leo's house by convincing him to sign with the world's worst realtor, the terminally depressed Sunny Deal. However, Charlotte ends up sleeping with Sunny which knocks her out of her depression and motivates her to make the sale. Meanwhile, after a nostalgic one-night stand, Ethan has decided he wants to get back together with Leo. Unfortunately, Leo has gotten engaged to a controlling and even emotionally abusive gay Republican Chester Baer and Ethan's event planner mother has agreed to plan their commitment ceremony. In an odd moment, Leo, Punch and Kyle end up in a torrid threesome in Ethan's bedroom. Punch decides that Ethan isn't mature enough for him and dumps him. Kyle, who'd been considering taking Ethan back, abruptly changes his mind. Chester forgives Leo and they go ahead with their plans. The house sells, Charlotte and Sunny move in together and Ethan signs a lease at a local retirement community. Ethan crashes the commitment ceremony but only to give Leo his silent blessing. However, at the altar, Leo has an anxiety attack and has to be taken away in an ambulance. A few days later Ethan settles in at the retirement community and the screen fades to black with the words THE END. The screen then fades back up on Leo talking with a lady retiree. As Ethan stands nearby, Leo tells her that he gave Chester his ring back and broke up with him. Leo has realized that he still loves Ethan. He and Ethan reconcile and the film ends as they kiss. ===== The story takes place at the time of Iran's occupation by the Allied Forces during World War II. Most of the plot occurs in the narrator's home, a huge early 20th-century- style Iranian mansion in which three wealthy families live under the tyranny of a paranoid patriarch Uncle. The Uncle—who in reality is a retired low-level officer from the Persian Cossack Brigade under Colonel Vladimir Liakhov's command—claims, and in latter stages of the story actually believes that he and his butler Mash Qasem were involved in wars against the British Empire and their "lackeys" such as Khodadad Khan, as well as battles supporting the Iranian Constitutional Revolution; and that with the occupation of Iran by the Allied Forces, the English are now on course to take revenge on him. The story's narrator (nameless in the novel but called Saeed in the TV series) is a high school student in love with his cousin Layli who is Dear Uncle's daughter. The story revolves around the narrator's struggles to stall Layli's pre-arranged marriage to her cousin Puri, while the narrator's father and Dear Uncle plot various mischiefs against each other to settle past family feuds. A multitude of supporting characters, including police investigators, government officials, housewives, a medical doctor, a butcher, a sycophantic preacher, servants, a shoeshine man, and an Indian or two provide various entertaining sequences throughout the development of the story. ===== In seventeenth century New England, the witch Mother Rigby builds a scarecrow to protect her garden. She is so taken with her own handiwork that she whimsically decides to bring the scarecrow to life and send it into town to woo Polly Gookin, the daughter of Judge Gookin, with whom Mother Rigby had unspecified prior dealings. Once the stuffed man does come alive, Mother Rigby gives him the appearance of a normal human being - and a pipe, on which the scarecrow must puff to keep himself alive. Judge Gookin meets the scarecrow, whom Mother Rigby has named Feathertop. Feathertop is introduced to Polly, and the two begin to fall in love. But when Polly and Feathertop gaze into a bewitched mirror, they see Feathertop reflected as a scarecrow, not as a man. Polly faints, and the now-terrified and anguished scarecrow rushes back to Mother Rigby, where, knowing himself for what he really is, he deliberately throws away his pipe and collapses in a lifeless heap. Mother Rigby reflects, "There are thousands upon thousands of coxcombs and charlatans in the world, made up of just such a jumble of wornout, forgotten, and good-for-nothing trash as he was! Yet they live in fair repute, and never see themselves for what they are," and decides that her "son" is better off as merely a scarecrow. ===== Stella Flanders, the oldest resident of Goat Island, has just celebrated her 95th birthday. She has never crossed the reach, the body of water that separates the Island from the mainland, in her entire life. She tells her great-grandchildren when they ask, "I never saw any reason to go." Stella comes to the realization that the cancer that she's known she has, and kept to herself, is in its final stages when she starts seeing the deceased residents of Goat Island. Her visions start with her dead husband inviting her to "come across to the mainland." As her impending death draws near, Stella encounters more apparitions of the dead of Goat Island, and she makes peace with the knowledge that it is her time to go. Dressed in her warmest clothes, plus her son's long johns and hat, Stella heads across the frozen reach toward the mainland. As she starts her trek, it starts to snow - the blowing wind, along with the snow, makes it difficult for her to find her way and she becomes afraid of being lost in the storm. Along her walk, she meets up with the woman who was her best friend, Annabelle, as well as several others. When the wind whips the hat off of her head, her late husband, Bill, appears and gives her his hat. She is surrounded by her friends and family and they sing to her as she crosses over from this life. Stella Flanders is found, dead, sitting up right on a rock on the mainland. Her son, Alden, recognizes his father's hat. He comes to believe that the dead sing and that they love those still living. ===== ===== The novel is about a West African boy named Agu who is forced to become a child soldier. When war came to his family's small village, Agu’s mother and sister are able to leave with the UN peacekeepers, but Agu is ordered to stay behind and fight with his father and the other men of the village. When soldiers attack the village the men realize that whether they hide or not they will eventually be killed. They mount an attack but Agu runs away at his father's wishes. Agu hides and is soon found by soldiers, who coerce him to join their rebel force. In a bloody initiation, the commander forces him to kill an unarmed man. As Agu is forced to leave his childhood behind, he reminisces about the past: his family, his love of reading and school, his dream of becoming an important doctor, and how he used to read the Bible every day. He thinks about how he and his friend used to play at war and how this war is not the same. He fears that God hates him for killing others, but he soon forces himself to believe that this is what God wants, because “he is soldier and this is what soldiers do in war.” He befriends a mute boy named Strika, and together they face the crimes and hardships of war: looting, rape, killing, and starvation. Agu loses track of time, understanding only that he was a child before that war but has become a man in a seemingly never-ending trial by fire. He wants to stop killing but fears that so doing will get him killed by the Commandant. During this time of war Agu and the army have very little to eat, so they eat what they can: rats, small game, goats, and sometimes other people. The food is not cooked enough for fear that others will see the fire, and the water is known to contain human feces. Agu and other children in the battalion are raped by the Commandant in return for small tokens. While Agu hates the rape, he does not resist as he fears he will be killed by the Commandant if he does so. The Commandant eventually takes the battalion to the village of his birth where they visit a brothel. Commandant's second in command, Luftenant, is shot by a prostitute. Out of jealousy, this hit was ordered by the Commandant because Luftenant was promoted to 'General' before him. Luftenant is then replaced by a soldier named Rambo, thus named because of his bloodthirst. His wish to escape the army finally comes true when Rambo leads a successful revolt against the Commandant in a period of agonising lack of basic necessities. Starved, exhausted and bereaved of his only friend, Strika, Agu joins the disbanded soldiers to try to make their way home. Agu ultimately leaves his fellow soldiers. In time, he comes under the care of a missionary shelter/hospital run by a preacher and a white woman, Amy. Agu gets new clothes and all the food and sleep he wants and regains his health and strength. However, after having lived through a bloody guerrilla war, the Bible no longer holds any meaning for him. Amy invites him to share his thoughts and feelings, and Agu tells her he would like to be a doctor and save lives so as to redeem his sins. He also tells her about all of the evils he has had to commit during the war. ===== Detroit process server Jack Ryan has a reputation for finding men who don't want to be found. A string of seemingly unrelated crimes leads Ryan to the search for a missing stockholder known only as "unknown man #89," but his missing man isn't "unknown" to everyone: a pretty blonde hates his guts, and a very nasty dude named Virgil Royal wants him dead in the worst way. This is very unfortunate for Jack, who is suddenly caught in the crossfire of a lethal triple-cross and becomes as much a target as his nameless prey. Along the way, Ryan butts heads with local police, including six-shooter-carrying Dick Speed. The book is perhaps best remembered for a sequence taken straight from The Godfather, where thug Virgil plants a shotgun in the meeting place of his victim, in this case, the fire escape of Bobby Lear's hotel room. Also of note is homosexual wannabe gangster Lonnie, whose "superfly" haircut was emulated by several of Elmore Leonard's other characters. ===== A month after the events in "Parasite Planet", Hamilton "Ham" Hammond and Patricia Burlingame are married, and thanks to Burlingame's connections, the two have been commissioned by the Royal Society and the Smithsonian Institution to explore the night side of Venus. There they find a species of warm-blooded mobile plants with a communal intelligence that Burlingame nicknames Oscar. Oscar is very intelligent, quickly picking up English from Hammond and Burlingame. The humans learn that the Oscar beings reproduce by releasing clear bubbles full of gaseous spores. When the bubbles burst, the spores come to rest on another Oscar being, eventually grow into another individual, and bud off. In "Parasite Planet", the vicious, night-dwelling Triops noctivivans used these bubbles to attack Hammond and Burlingame, since the spores have a soporific effect on humans. The humans are horrified to learn that, being plants, the Oscar beings have no survival instinct. Despite their greater-than-human intelligence, the Oscar beings react with indifference when the local trioptes attack and consume them. This prompts Burlingame to name their species Lotophagi veneris – the lotus eaters of Venus. Hammond and Burlingame barely escape the trioptes themselves after exposure to the spores leaves them almost catatonic. ===== Popular radio presenter Carroll Levis (playing himself), and Kay Sheldon (Carole Landis) find themselves entangled in a web of smuggling and murder. When a priceless "brass monkey" is stolen from a Japanese temple and smuggled into England, Levis encounters the eccentric Mr. Ryder-Harris (Ernest Thesiger), a Buddhist art connoisseur who's chasing the artefact, and will apparently stop at nothing to get it. The monkey is missing and there's a suspicion murders are being committed in the hunt for its retrieval. With the help of the Discoveries radio talent, Levis attempts to avoid murderous henchman Herbert Lom, and foil Mr. Ryder-Harris's plans. Amongst all the mayhem, an array of musical and comedy performers audition for and appear on The Levis Hour, the hero's weekly radio programme. ===== In Madrid, the family of Don Luis, his wife Dolores and their children, Manolita and Luisito, share the daily life of the Civil War with their maid and neighbours. Despite having failed his exams, Luisito wants his father to buy him a bicycle. However, the situation forces them to delay the purchase and the delay, like the war itself, is to last much longer than expected. The movie, and the play it was drawn from, show how daily life was conducted during the war. Unexpected things happen, but people find ways to survive. Above all, it is a story of survival and adaptation. ===== Thomas Roch, a brilliant French inventor, has designed the Fulgurator, a weapon so powerful that "the state which acquired it would become absolute master of earth and ocean." However, unable to sell his unproven idea to France or any other government, Roch begins to lose his sanity, becoming bitter, megalomaniacal and paranoid. The United States Government reacts by tucking him away at a luxurious asylum in New Bern, North Carolina, where he is visited by one "Count d'Artigas"—actually Ker Karraje, a notorious pirate of Malagasy origin. His heterogeneous crew is drawn from "escaped convicts, military and naval deserters, and the scum of Europe." Karraje and his crew lead double lives. Karraje goes around openly, under the alias of "Count d'Artigas", a pleasure- loving, slightly eccentric but eminently respectable member of nobility. He is a regular visitor to the ports of the East Coast aboard his schooner Ebba. To outward appearances, Ebba has no other means of propulsion than its sails, but in fact, it is pulled by an underwater tug. By this means, Karraje and his crew can pull up to becalmed sailing vessels without raising suspicion and board them without warning. They then rob and massacre the crews, scuttling the ships, adding to the statistics of "unexplained disappearances". Karraje hears of Roch and his invention takes them both seriously and decides to gain possession of them. Actually, his aim is rather modest. He has no intention to seize mastery over the world, but just to make his hide-out impregnable. He and his men successfully kidnap Roch from his American asylum, and then bring him to their hide-out—the desolate island of Back Cup in the Bermudas. Here a wide cavern, accessible only by submerged submarine, has been made into a well-equipped pirate base. It has its own electrical power plant and is completely unknown to the rest of the world. During the kidnapping, however, Karraje orders his men to also take along Gaydon, Roch's attendant for the past fifteen months. The reader knows (and, as is later shown, Karraje is also aware) that Gaydon is actually Simon Hart, a French engineer and explosives expert. Hart had decided "to perform the menial and exacting duties of an insane man's attendant" in the hope of learning Roch's secret and, thereby, saving it for France, actuated by "a spirit of the purest and noblest patriotism." Hart is kept imprisoned at the pirate base, though in quite comfortable conditions. He can only watch in dismay as the pirate chief easily manages what four governments in succession have failed to do: win Roch over. Roch is given "many rolls of dollar bills and banknotes, and handfuls of English, French, American and German gold coins" with which to fill his pockets. Further, Roch is formally informed that the entire secret cavern and all in it are henceforward his property, and egged on to "defend his property" against the world which has wronged him so badly. Soon, the inventor is busy constructing his fearsome weapon, happily unaware that he is nothing but a glorified prisoner in the pirate's hands. The paranoid Roch does, however, keep to himself the secret of the detonator or "Deflagrator", a liquid without which the explosive is merely an inert powder. By holding fast to that last secret, Roch unwittingly preserves the life of his ex-keeper Gaydon/Simon Hart. Karraje suspects, wrongly, that Hart knows much more of Roch's secrets than he is willing to let on. It serves the purposes of the pirate chief, a completely ruthless killer, to let Hart live. The pirate engineer Serko, Hart's "colleague," hopes to win him over in prolonged friendly conversations. Hart's reticence is misunderstood as proof that he has something to hide. The pirates underestimate Hart, giving him a practically free run of their hide- out since the only way out is via submarine. But after carefully studying the currents, Hart succeeds in secretly sending out a message in a metal keg, giving the full details of Karraje's operations and his impending acquisition of the Fulgurator. The message gets through to the British authorities at their nearby naval base in Bermuda, and the British Navy sends a submarine, , to find Hart. The submarine's crew makes contact with Hart, and take him and Roch on board, but the Sword is discovered, attacked and sunk by the pirates in a direct underwater submarine vs. submarine battle. The unconscious Hart and Roch are extracted from the sunken British sub by pirate divers, leaving the entire British crew to perish. Hart manages to convince the pirates that he had been kidnapped by the British sailors and had nothing to do with their "visit." He resumes his role as a tolerated prisoner with a free run of the pirate base. Meanwhile, Roch's weapon is completed and becomes operational. A hastily gathered international naval task force approaches the island, consisting of five warships dispatched by the world's five largest powers. The weapon, operated personally by Roch himself, works fully as advertised. Roch has no compunction in using it on British or American ships, and the first cruiser to approach the island is easily destroyed with only a handful of its crew surviving. Undaunted, the next ship approaches the shore, and the moment comes towards which the entire book was leading and from which its title was drawn: "A flag unfurls to the breeze. It is the Tricolour, whose blue, white and red sections stand out luminously against the sky. Ah! What is this? Thomas Roch is fascinated at the sight of his national emblem. Slowly he lowers his arm as the flag flutters up to the mast-head. Then he draws back and covers his eyes with his hand. Heavens above! All sentiment of patriotism is not then dead in his ulcerated heart, seeing that it beats at the sight of his country's flag!" Having at the moment of truth, rediscovered his patriotism, Roch refuses to fire on his country's ship. He struggles with the pirates who try to seize his phial and the Deflagrator. During the struggle, Roch resorts to blowing up himself, his weapon, and the pirates along with the entire island. The single survivor of the cataclysm is Simon Hart, whose unconscious body with the diary at his side is found by the landing French sailors. Hart is eventually revived, to be amply rewarded for his dedication to his country. He proudly bears witness to Thomas Roch's last-minute change of heart and self-sacrifice. French patriotism is the moral and material victor. ===== The story concerns a young American geologist, Stanton Laird, working in the Australian outback in the field of oil exploration. Although he is in a very remote location - beyond the black stump - in a region called "the Lunatic" in Western Australia, he is part of a crew that has a well-appointed mobile facility. He is befriended by a local farming family, the Regans, and develops a relationship with their daughter Mollie. The Regans run an enormously profitable station, but their domestic lifestyle is, to say the least, unconventional, with the two Regan brothers at one time having Mollie's mother move from one to the other without bothering to get a divorce. The family is large, and even larger when counting the half-caste children produced by both fathers, and the children are taught by the Judge, an English exile and alcoholic, who gives the children an excellent education and keeps the finances of the station properly accounted for. Over the course of the explorations (which prove unsuccessful), he notes the unique lifestyle on what amounts to the Australian frontier, and falls in love with Mollie. The two wish to wed, but Mollie's mother insists that Mollie first see how the Lairds live in their Oregon town, Hazel, which was once on the frontier, but is no longer, though its citizens take pride in feeling that it still is. The two travel to Hazel. At first, Mollie gets along well in the Laird family home. But then Stanton's one-time love, Ruth, the widow of Stanton's best friend, returns to Hazel with her son. The son bears a tremendous resemblance to Stanton, and Stanton is moved to confess to Mollie both that the son may be his, and that he killed a girl in a drunken accident as a teenager. Mollie is unconcerned about the boy—such things are common where she comes from—but is concerned and judgmental about the accident, and about Stanton's lack of concern for the dead girl. As Stanton expected Mollie to care very much about the boy, and did not expect her to be so concerned about the girl, the two begin to realize they have a very different outlook on life. Eventually, Mollie comes to realize that she will never fit in while in Hazel, and does not particularly want to. Her place is on the true frontier, in the Lunatic, not in Hazel. She returns to Australia, where she will likely marry a young neighbor, an emigrant from England, who has long loved her. Stanton is likely to marry Ruth, as Mollie suggests he should. Stanton has a wedding present for Mollie, though—his final report reveals that the neighbor's impoverished lands lie over great quantities of artesian water, which will allow the neighbor—and Mollie—to flourish. ===== Solus told a story which was integral to the Sigilverse. The main character, Solusandra, was the creator of the Sigil-Bearers. She was an Atlantean who had undergone transition. She was allowed to "play" in a part of the galaxy and she used her powers to create The First, demi-gods with great powers. The strongest of these demi-gods and her special friend was Altwaal. She gave Altwaal seven weapons, called Altwaal's Weapons, which seem to be the most powerful artifacts in the galaxy. Not long after she created the First, she left them (for reasons never explained) and so when she returned (in Solus #5) she was not recognized. More recently, Solusandra was convinced by Danik to work with him in creating Sigil-Bearers. These modified humans were given great power (the ability to control and use the universal cosmic power). The purpose of the Sigil-Bearers was (eventually) to free Solusandra and defeat the other fully ascended Atlanteans. There were some disagreements between Danik and Solusandra in creating the Sigil-bearers. For example, Danik did not approve of Mordath as a Sigil-bearer, but Solusandra overruled him. The other ascended Atlanteans figured out that Solusandra was doing something dangerous to them, so they attacked her. Unfortunately, their attack resulted in disaster. They all died, and Solusandra was nearly killed as well. She lost all of her memories and "died" on a dead planet, leaving Danik as the only "God". However, after some years Solusandra revived and found her world filled with life and many glowing, floating bubbles containing her sign, the sigil. With her memory gone, she touched a sigil-bubble and was transported to the location of one of the sigil-bearers, a computer game designer named Lindy Karsten. When Solusandra touches Lindy's sigil, suddenly Solusandra gains a portion of her memories back (and Lindy loses her Sigil and her powers). Lindy is very distressed to lose her sigil powers and so she follows Solusandra back through the portal onto Solusandra's world. The remaining episodes show Solusandra visiting other sigil-bearers (Brath Mac Garen, Mikos of Abyelos, Kellra Tuskin, and Giselle Villard). Each time, Solusandra gains more memories, except for Kellra Tuskin: she nearly drives Solusandra insane (#7). Solusandra also visits Elysia, home of The First to take back some of Atlwaal's weapons (the weapons also give Solusandra some memories back). Early on, Solusandra destroyed Lindy Karsten's mentor (a fragment of Danik) called Infoe. This death told Danik that something powerful was awake but nothing more. So Danik created a hound (looking like a huge skeleton of a dog made of flame - see the cover of Solus #2). This hound chased Solusandra through several worlds, finally Solusandra destroyed (?) the hound and directly notified Danik of her location. In the last episode (#8) Solusandra meets with Danik, her one-time ally, who restores all (?) her memories. Solusandra then sends Lindy Karsten away and swears that she will fight the Negation. ===== A group of Tinies return to their home planet after a voyage in space. They find out that their beautiful home has been turned into a horrid place by The Wicked One, a dark and cunning Tiny with a giant fang jutting from its mouth. The player controls a Tiny, who must defeat The Wicked One, who has captured the king and turned all the Tinies into mindless monsters by using a device simply referred to as "the machine". ===== 500 Years Later studies the African diaspora and the impact of slavery throughout history, identifying key issues facing the world's black communities, including poor education, poverty, crime, and the way that such issues dehumanize and degrade black peoples. The film also gives insight into the struggles faced by continental Africans today, for instance in terms of poverty, disease, and corrupt governments. While the continuing negative impact, influence, and effects of the trans- Atlantic slave trade are highlighted, scholars interviewed for the film express hope that "old scars can be healed" and Africans as a race will advance through education about their history. ===== In Buenos Aires, Mario Suárez, a middle-aged theatre director, is left holed up in his apartment, licking his wounds when his girlfriend (and principal dancer) Laura leaves him. Seeking distraction, he throws himself into his next project, a musical about the tango. One evening, while meeting with his backers, he is introduced to a beautiful young woman, Elena, the girlfriend of his chief investor Angelo, a shady businessman with underworld connections. Angelo asks Mario to audition Elena. He does so and is immediately captivated by her. Eventually, he takes her out of the chorus and gives her a leading role. An affair develops between them, but the possessive Angelo has her followed, and threatens her with dire consequences if she leaves him, mirroring Mario's own feelings and actions towards Laura before Elena entered his life. The investors are unhappy with some of Mario's dance sequences. They don't like a routine which criticises the violent military repression and torture of the past. Angelo has been given a small part, which he takes very seriously. The lines between fact and fiction begin to blur: during a scene in the musical showing immigrants newly arrived in Argentina, two men fight over the character played by Elena. She is stabbed. Only slowly do we realise that her death is not for real. ===== A group of high school seniors decide to create a secret society and have fun cruising around campus, pulling pranks and having poker parties in an abandoned boiler room. However, the circle decides to escalate things, by cheating on an exam. They all get "A"'s, but Mr. Spencer Runcie is convinced that they cheated, but just cannot prove it. The circle of friends and every other student who got an "A" are sent before an honor committee, where someone does name one name: Frazier, who is expelled. Although Runcie will not say who the rat is, the circle suspects that it is the nerdy Faulkner. His roommate and fellow circle member, Alex, who has been helping Faulkner impress a girl, Tess, with some love letters, assures his fellow circle members that Faulkner is not the rat. However, one of the circle members is convinced that Faulker is the rat, and when Faulkner is found in the river and dies soon afterwards, Alex is convinced that he was murdered by someone in the circle. His suspicions are rejected by the administration, until the police get involved, and one circle member, Jetson Harlow, is arrested, but later released. When the circle learns that Smitty was the rat, they decide to kidnap Smitty and force him to confess to the murder. Smitty does so, and confesses to having dressed up as a lady and having some type of sexual relationship with Runcie. Smitty killed Faulkner because he was convinced that Faulkner knew that he was the rat, and told Runcie about it after the fact. Runcie is wounded in a fight between him and Smitty, and the police arrive in time to arrest Smitty, and to take Runcie to the hospital. Having been able to avoid being expelled for cheating, the remaining circle of friends graduate. ===== Lifelong friends Deco and Naldinho share ownership of an old, rusting boat in Salvador, Brazil. A strong bond exists between the two men, transcending their racial differences. "No woman will come between us," Naldinho tells Deco, and Deco concurs: "All the women in the world couldn't come between us." That bond is tested after the men meet Karina, a dancer and prostitute. Karina needs a ride, and she offers the two men her "services" in exchange for transport on their boat and a little cash. The emotional entanglements that result from Karina's "deal" are stronger than the trio expected. Deco and Naldinho develop a desire to possess Karina. Karina's desires are more subtle, though it is clear that she feels both a sisterly affection and sexual attraction toward the two men. ===== Rich oil tycoon (Finlayson) awakens one morning after a night of carousing to be told that he was married the night before. Not only does he have a new wife but also a new golddigging stepdaughter and brother-in-law who want to kill him. His lawyer (Laurel) is called in to straighten things out when a blackmail attempt is made. He decides to hide out in a hotel with his butler (Hardy) and his lawyer (Laurel). He finally escapes by climbing on Stan's shoulders, wearing a long overcoat and pretending to be Ollie's wife. Wild chases through a dance hall and amusement park ensue. ===== Captain Allison Spencer is forcibly divorced from his wife, then is promoted to command a fleet of ships heading to the Daltgeld system. There, he encounters an unknown enemy that threatens the whole galaxy. The story is set sometime 5341 years after the founding of the interstellar Pact, or 9095 A.D. The title refers to the alien construct which was designed as a weapon capable of taking over any device and running it according to a central controller. ===== Stan and Ollie play two convicts who share a cell. They dig a tunnel to escape from prison. After making a detour to avoid a burst underground water pipe, they emerge through the floor of the warden's office and are quickly sent back to the cell block after a short chase. Not long afterward, Stan and Ollie cleverly disguise themselves as painters and casually walk out through the prison's front gate during a meal break carrying paint cans and brushes. They are watched by a suspicious policeman, however. To keep the ruse going, they indiscriminately paint everything they see—including a parked car and its engine. After they accidentally paint the backside of a female passerby, the policeman pursues them. They climb into a limousine, eject the two backseat passengers, and steal their evening clothes. By happenstance, the men were two visiting French prison officials who were on their way to meet with the governor to learn about American prisons. Their chauffeur is unaware of the switch and he continues to his destination. Stan and Ollie assume the role of the French visitors and are taken to a banquet at the governor's home. While dining, Stan hilariously tries to corral a wayward cherry that has fallen from the top of his appetizer. When the banquet concludes, the governor escorts Stan and Ollie on a tour of the nearby prison. Their cell block comrades quickly recognize them—as do the real French dignitaries who are occupying Stan and Ollie's former cell in their underwear. After a brief chase, Stan and Ollie are marched back to their home behind bars. ===== Henpecked Stan has been secretly saving money from his penny-pinching wife. When Ollie learns about Stan's stash, he suggests they use it to have a good time. However, before the twosome can leave, Stan's wife finds the wallet and replaces Stan's cash with cigar coupons—the trading stamps of the 1920s. Thus, when Stan and Ollie head out the door Stan has no idea he his wallet no longer contains cash. Stan and Ollie arrive outside an upscale cafe featuring live entertainment just in time to see the large head waiter roughly remove two male patrons who cannot pay their bill. They are followed out the door by their two dates who explain they have no money to pay the check. The girls then approach Stan and Ollie who offer to pay their outstanding restaurant bill, their accruing cab fare — and continue to treat them to a night on the town. A busybody sees Stan and Ollie enter the cafe with two strange women. She runs off to report this transgression to their wives. Stan enjoys the cafe's all-midget floor show so much that he buys them all gifts from a cigarette girl. It is then that Stan discovers his wallet contains only cigar coupons. To buy time, Stan quickly tells the cigar girl to put the cost on his tab. When the bill finally arrives, Stan and Ollie attempt to sneak out of the cafe while the lights are dimmed during another dance performance. This plan fails miserably and they have to flee from the angry headwaiter — and their angry wives who have arrived to confront them. Their evening on the town ends in a pie-throwing brawl in the restaurant's kitchen. ===== The duo are homeless vagrants, until Ollie receives word that he has inherited a fortune from a deceased uncle. He buys a sumptuous mansion and makes Stan his butler. After a night of indulging in too much champagne, Ollie returns home intent on playing a series of cruel practical jokes on Stan. Stan retaliates by breaking nearly everything in the house. ===== Professor Padilla is a mad scientist whose plans have drawn the interest of the police. His latest scheme is to perform a medical experiment on a corpse. Over the supper table, as Professor Padilla is contemplating a new theory that the human brain has a level surface, there's a knock on the door. Stan and Ollie, by chance, happen to arrive at the professor's home in search of a free meal. The professor offers the duo $500 if they will steal a body from a local graveyard. They think the professor is balmy, but they agree to his offer anyway. The conversation is overheard by the professor's butler, Ledoux, who happens to be a police informant. Ledoux calls police headquarters and is told to go to the graveyard to thwart any theft. Meanwhile, the police arrest the mad professor. At the cemetery, Stan and Ollie get into a series of comical misadventures trying to enter the grounds and while digging up a fresh grave. Ledoux manages to slip into the grave while covered in a white sack. Stan and Ollie take Ledoux from the grave. With Ledoux's "corpse" slung over Stan's back, Ledoux's legs rip through the bottom of the sack—and he walks step for step behind Stan. Stan and Ollie realize their stolen corpse is still alive and begin to run in panic. The chase ends with Ollie and Ledoux falling into a deep, water- filled hole. ===== Stan and Ollie are hired as waiters at an upper class dinner party, with Ollie taking charge before entering the property . The maid shows them inside, where Stan puts their personal card on table with a collection of others. Visible on their card is the slogan, “All we ask is a chance”. A small fight breaks out between Ollie and Stan as a result of Ollie trying to keep Stan from putting his hat on inside the house. After the wife of the household inspects them she gets shown a notice apologizing that the only available waiters were the duo, where it is revealed on the paper that their previous experience in waiting was at railroad eating houses. Ollie comments to the wife's husband that she is “some wiggler!” and naturally, the husband is not impressed. The pair get ready to start work in the kitchen where Stan tells the chef (who is busy cooking) not to wear his hat. Stan takes it off him several times but the chef proceeds to keep putting it back on. Stan soon loses his cool and throws the chef's hat away. The chef retaliates by grabbing the nearest plate and smashing it over Stan's head. Stan does the same back to the chef and they carry on using plates as weapons until Ollie calms things down by stopping Stan from destroying a large, expensive looking plate. However, as Ollie walks off, he trips on the kitchen floor and smashes the plate, causing him to be embarrassed by the onlooking maid. Meanwhile, the party goes on, oblivious to the impending disaster awaiting them. The wife of the household isn't having an easy time either, as she struggles to eat her fruit cocktail with the cutlery provided. Her predicament carries on throughout the film. Stan and Ollie come into the room as they are about to start serving food. Stan manages to pour, what looks like soup, onto Ollie's foot while he counts the guests. Ollie begins carrying a very large cake to the table but slips on a banana skin left by the family dog and lands head first into the cake. Ollie manages to do this more than once in the film, much to the bemusement of the guests, and of Stan, who accuses him of falling over on purpose at one point. The pair spend most of the film falling down while trying to serve the food, much to the anger of the husband of the household. This is one of the first films to show Stan getting cross for once, as he loses his temper with Ollie's incompetence and with the guests. The wife then asks Ollie to serve the salad “undressed”. Ollie tells Stan to do this who, confused, heads to the kitchen to tell the maid what he has to do. The maid says, “I always serve it that way...”. Stan can't believe this but goes ahead and dresses down to his underwear to serve the salad. The film ends with the husband and wife discovering Stan undressed, and after a futile attempt by Ollie to put a jacket on Stan and ask, “How's that - perfect?”, Ollie gets hit by the wife and falls into yet another cake. ===== Stan and Ollie are prison escapees running down the road with a police officer firing a shotgun at them. They meet up with two accomplices in a car and, in their haste to change into street clothes, they wind up wearing each other's pants. Tossing their prison uniforms out the window, they attract the attention of a motorcycle police officer, but get out of the car without him seeing. They go looking for places to swap pants: the alley where a cop is grabbing a smoke and a lady screams at the sight of them; behind some crates with another cop nearby; and behind a seafood shop, where a crab accidentally finds its way into Stan's trousers, causing him problems with nipping. Not paying attention to where they are going, Ollie topples a record player outside a music shop as records cover the sidewalk and the owner is not amused. A cop chases the boys to a construction site, where they evade him by riding an elevator to the top floor of an unfinished building. Atop the girders, 20 stories in the air, they finally switch trousers, contend with the crab, and nearly fall to their death a few dozen times. Finally, they manage to catch the next elevator, reach the ground safely, and make their getaway, failing to notice the cop who has been squashed into a midget by their elevator. ===== The book begins with an epigraph from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, in which William Blake imagines a conversation with the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel. Asked how he could dare to claim that God had spoken to him, Isaiah says he came to sense the infinite in everything and concluded that the voice of honest indignation was itself the voice of God. Ezekiel says that the work of a prophet is to raise other men into a perception of the infinite. ===== Laurel & Hardy try to sleep in a rented room. Hardy, suffering from a cold, coughs frequently, while Laurel snores. Both of them have trouble falling asleep because of this. They try to solve their problems, but this results in total chaos. The owner of the room (played by Charlie Hall) threatens to throw them out. When the duo are back in their room, their air mattress is filled up accidentally with gas and blown up so big that Stan and Ollie are pressed against the ceiling. After they have realized the trouble they are in, they start to panic, at which point the hotel owner and a police officer enter the room. Oliver sneezes and the mattress explodes. ===== Laurel and Hardy are employed as repossession men for the local sheriff's office. They are given the challenging task of repossessing a radio owned by Collis P. Kennedy, described as a tough customer, who has not paid any installments since 1921. Kennedy first chases Laurel and Hardy off his property with a toy bulldog. Then he barricades himself in his home, thwarting all efforts by the repo men to enter and recover the radio. When a wayward rifle shot by Kennedy knocks the top off a nearby fire hydrant and soaks a policeman, the cop investigates. Laurel and Hardy, with the officer's assistance, are finally permitted to enter Kennedy's house and take the radio. It is abandoned in the street, however, while Kennedy and the repo men exchange kicks. A steamroller from a construction site comes along and flattens the unattended radio. Moments later, Mrs. Kennedy arrives and happily tells her husband that she has paid the outstanding debt. The radio—now in pieces—is theirs. As Laurel and Hardy both laugh at Kennedy's misfortune, the steamroller returns and flattens their car too. ===== The story is set in 22nd-century Scotland, which has been warped by radioactive fallout where mutants are the underclass of future Britain. McNulty grew up in the Scottish mutant ghetto called Shytehill (a reference to Sighthill - the Scottish slang term for shit is 'shite'). Middenface gets his nickname from his signature mutation – his skull is covered in hard, knobby bumps which range in size, number and density depending on the artist. Although this mutation is usually portrayed in the comics as purely cosmetic, there have been instances where Middenface shows to have an unnaturally hard skull. Either dealing blows with it or sustaining blows to it that would kill a normal man. Like all the members of the Search/Destroy agency he is a seasoned guerrilla fighter. He has had experience in fighting for his life, leading attacks, and defending himself and others against fanatical hatred and violence since the age of ten. He first appeared in Portrait of a Mutant, the Scottish leader of the rebels in the mutant war and an ally of a young Johnny Alpha. After the war, he became a Search Destroy Agent and first appeared in the present day in Outlaw; he appeared infrequently after this, and after the death of Johnny's partner Wulf Sternhammer, McNulty would become Johnny's new partner in many strips. Initially, he had a running gag of his Scottish dialect being incomprehensible to the English characters but this would be dialed down – his hooligan ways would continue to be a source of humour though. In "The Life and Death of Johnny Alpha" in 2010, a retired Middenface was shown with a genuine drinking problem following Johnny Alpha's death. ===== A stray goat wanders away from a pet store and attaches itself to Laurel and Hardy after they kindly feed her doughnuts. The goat follows them everywhere. They are forced to bring it into their apartment and are not particularly effective at hiding it from their suspicious and outraged landlord. The comedy culminates with a hilarious water fight involving Stan and Ollie, the landlord, a fellow tenant, and a policeman. This was Laurel and Hardy's final silent film. It was released late in 1929 when most Hollywood studios had fully converted to sound productions. ===== After their presumed defeat, the evil alien forces launch a surprise attack against the Aero Fighters' base, effectively destroying their aircraft. Unable to counter the attack, they must use old World War II-era warplanes with strange modifications, in a desperate scramble for victory. ===== In this series, the mirror from the original Mirror, Mirror series has come into the hands of two other families: the McFarlanes and the de Lutrelles. They both live in the same house, but are separated from each other by 130 years. ===== In the space above Earth, the Deus Machina Aeon clashes with another unknown machine but due to its lack of a "master" it is defeated and crashes on the surface of the planet. Meanwhile, a starving Kurou Daijūji attempts to acquire food from a local church run by Sister Leica, a nun that he has known since he first moved to the city several years prior to the events of the story. The next day, Kurou is approached by Ruri Hadou, the current head of the Hadou Financial Group and her butler, Winfield. Ruri offers Kurou a job, citing his familiarity with the occult through his studies at the Miskatonic University: to procure a grimoire. Unable to refuse the generous pay she is offering, Kurou agrees and begins searching immediately. The search for an authentic grimoire is fruitless, until Kurou happens upon a previously unknown bookstore with several powerful books. Unfortunately he is turned away by the store's owner, Nya, who cryptically states that a far more powerful grimoire is meant for him. This prediction is later proven true when a mysterious girl falls out of the sky onto him, subsequently introduced as Al-Azif, the physical manifestation of the Necronomicon, one of the most powerful grimoires in existence. Kurou is then attacked by her pursuers, the Black Lodge, under the command of the mad scientist Doctor West and forced by circumstances to enter into a contract with the grimoire. Doctor West retreats, only to return in one of his giant Destroyer Robots. Kurou escapes with the aid of Metatron, a masked hero that wages a one-man war against the Black Lodge, and stumbles upon an underground hangar containing an imitation Deus Machina, Demonbane. After commandeering the mech amidst the protests of its owner, Ruri, Kurou and Al-Azif (or Al, for short) are able to defeat the Destroyer Robot. Although initially incensed at the prospect of someone outside the Hadou family piloting Demonbane, Ruri agrees to employ Kurou as the Deus Machina's pilot. Al wants to begin instructing him in the use of sorcery immediately, but before he has a chance to prepare, Kurou is attacked by the leader of the Black Lodge, Master Therion. Kurou is immediately overpowered but his use of Demonbane forces Therion to reveal his own grimoire: the Pnakotic Manuscripts, also known as Etheldreda. Therion spares Kurou's life, claiming that Kurou is the only individual who can alleviate his boredom, and vanishes. Kurou then begins training in sorcery while simultaneously searching for and recapturing pages that Al has lost. These pages eventually take on a life of their own and threaten the population, forcing him to subdue them physically before Al can reconstitute herself. Kurou's interference in the Black Lodge's operations causes Master Therion to send two of his elite Anticross sorcerers, Titus and Tiberius, to attack the Hadou headquarters directly. Doctor West also repeatedly attempts to make up for his failure to capture the Necronomicon, assisted by a self-aware gynoid of his own creation named Elsa. In one incident, West and Elsa are able to steal the pages relating to the Scimitar of Barzai and use them to create a copy of Demonbane that is subsequently defeated. The story then moves to the coastal town of Innsmouth where Ruri has brought Kurou, Al, the Demonbane support team, and Leica on a beach holiday. Sensing the presence of evil on an island off the coast, Kurou and Al begin investigating, accompanied by the rest of the group. On the way they are attacked by Deep Ones and separated but each of the group is able to make their way to the island individually where they discover the inhabitants of Innsmouth, all Deep Ones themselves, performing a ritual to revive their god, Dagon. Overseeing them is another of the Anticross, Vespasianus, along with another powerful grimoire, the R'lyeh Text. The ritual fails but Dagon is revived in an incomplete, bestial state. The monster is only defeated when Demonbane channels the raw power of the Great Old One Cthugha, which nearly kills Kurou. Kurou is later able to acquire Al's pages concerning another Great Old One, Ithaqua, and obtains a pair of handguns that serve as conduits for their power from a mysterious individual known to the Black Lodge as the Tyrant. In the meantime, it is revealed that both the Necronomicon and the Tyrant are essential to a major Black Lodge undertaking, the C Project, but Master Therion appears unconcerned by the fact that his underlings have had no success in capturing either of them. He placates the Anticross by explaining that he can use the Pnakotic Manuscripts in place of the Necronomicon and himself in place of the Tyrant but they remain unconvinced and plot rebellion behind his back. Finally, when the stars are right, the Black Lodge begins a ritual that raises their secret headquarters, the Illusionary Heart Mother, into the sky. They then reveal their full plan, using the R'lyeh Text to summon and bind another of the Great Old Ones: Cthulhu. Using an army of Destroyer Robots and the wave of insanity that accompanies the summoning, the Black Lodge lays waste to Arkham City. The Anticross betray Master Therion at the climax of the battle, seemingly destroying him along with Etheldreda, while Doctor West defects, disgusted by the perceived misuse of his technology. While Demonbane is able to drive off the Destroyer Robots, the Illusionary Heart Mother is able to teleport away, the Anticross having gained control over Cthulhu through a series of emergency measures. The Hadou Group is able to locate the missing fortress at 47°9′S 126°43′W and mobilises a multinational taskforce through its connections to begin an attack. While they engage Cthulhu's forces in the sea, Demonbane is able to penetrate the fortress' defences and defeat the remaining Anticross. Master Therion then reveals himself, reborn as a result of his unique parentage; his father is the Outer God Yog-Sothoth and the true purpose of the C Project was to sacrifice Cthulhu as the catalyst of a ritual to summon it. Yog-Sothoth, the Gate and the Key, would then act as a portal through which the Outer Gods could then invade the physical universe. Therion challenges Kurou to follow him through the gate and, after saying his goodbyes, Kurou accepts. Demonbane then battles Therion's Deus Machina, Liber Legis, throughout time and space leading to a clash between the most powerful weapon in each mech's possession: the Shining Trapezohedron. Liber Legis is defeated but Al is finally able to access the totality of her sealed knowledge and discovers the identity of the one who orchestrated all of the story's events: Nya, also known as the Outer God Nyarlathotep. Kurou and Al battle the god and defeat it, preventing the destruction of reality. Nyarlathotep acknowledges its defeat but points out that it can always return with another scheme, leaving Demonbane becalmed in time and space. ===== Lily Bridge, a young journalist, arrives at Arkham City, hoping to find a big scoop. However, with all the strange things occurring around the city, only the exceptional findings are news-worthy, such as the mysterious mecha known as Demonbane. However, upon finding a small piece of machinery that seemed to be connected with the Hadou Combine, Lily is determined to find the truth. Little does she know, she enters into a dark world, involving herself with Demonbane and the powerful forces that control the city. ===== Kuro Daijuuji is a poor detective living in Arkham City. One day, he is asked by Ruri Hado of Hado Financial Group, to search for a magic grimoire. As Kuro searches for the book, he unexpectedly runs into Al Azif, a pretty girl who turns out to be the grimoire Kuro is searching for. While being chased by the Black Lodge, Al forges a contract with Kuro, bestowing him with powerful magic. Soon afterwards, Al also activates Demonbane, a Deus Machina owned by the Hado Financial Group, to combat the mechanical menace from the Black Lodge. With this, the war between the Hado Financial Group and the Black Lodge begins ... ===== While playing seven minutes in heaven at a party in 1985, 10-year-old Charlie "Chuck" Logan (Connor Price) refuses to kiss a goth girl named Anisha (Sasha Pieterse) who attempts to have sex with him. In retaliation, Anisha places a curse on Chuck, so that every single woman he sleeps with will break up with him and marry the next man who asks her out. In the present, Chuck (Dane Cook) is a successful dentist in his thirties, and runs a dental practice in the same building as his best friend Stu's (Dan Fogler) plastic surgery business. Chuck finds himself unable to tell his girlfriend, Carol (Chelan Simmons), that he loves her, and she breaks up with him while having sex on the beach. Following the break up, Stu and Chuck decide to attend the wedding of one of Chuck's ex- girlfriends, Katie. At Katie's wedding, Chuck becomes enamored with Cam Wexler (Jessica Alba), a clumsy, yet attractive and friendly marine biologist. Their chemistry is apparent the moment they start talking. The wedding eventually ends, and they seemingly go their separate ways. While working at a penguin habitat, Cam accidentally slips and chips her tooth. When she visits Chuck to have it fixed, he asks her to go out with him instead of paying him. Though initially reluctant, Cam agrees. Meanwhile, Stu notices the pattern of girls getting married as soon as Chuck has sex with them. Stu eventually convinces Chuck to embrace the influx of women who have learned of his pattern and visit his practice, arguing that there's nothing better than having lots of guilt- free sex. However, after having this so-called "guilt-free sex" with numerous women, Chuck decides he wants a serious relationship with Cam. However, just before he has sex with her, Stu informs him that each of the women Chuck has slept with have gotten married, including Carol. Worried that the same thing will happen to Cam, Chuck begins to avoid her. Stu convinces Chuck to test the curse by having sex with an obese woman, and see if she marries afterward but is reluctantly volunteered to ask the obese women out after she has had sex with Chuck. Initially, Stu denies the rumor and Chuck beds Cam only to find out that Stu had lied and the obese woman is indeed engaged. Worried that Cam will now find her true love, he begins to smother her in numerous ways and becomes insecure, then accusing her of cheating but Cam breaks up with him. Chuck tracks Anisha down because of the so-called curse but Anisha dismisses the curse, explaining that it was not real and encouraging him to let Cam go if he truly loves her. He then puts Cam in touch with the attractive Howard Blaine (Steve Bacic), who authored a book about penguins. As he watches from afar, the two seem to connect perfectly. Stu and his new three-breasted fiancée visit Chuck to inform him of their impending nuptials and that Cam is heading to Antarctica with Howard. After Chuck finds her, Cam reveals that Howard is already married to someone else and that she'll be back the following Wednesday. Before leaving, Chuck hands Cam a ring box containing a pebble, a reference to the penguin mating ritual in which a male penguin finds a stone and brings it to the female penguin he wants to be with (therefore, proposing to her). Anisha is shown pulling a box out of a closet, opening it, removing a voodoo doll and removing a pin out of it which signifies her releasing Chuck from the curse. A year later, Chuck and Cam are in Antarctica together surrounded by penguins. Later, Stu is shown with his now wife house- sitting for Chuck and Cam who are married as well. Stu is searching for home- made sex tapes and finds one where Chuck is performing oral sex on a plush penguin while Cam is off-screen making sex sounds. Strangely aroused, they turn the tape off to have sex themselves. ===== Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy return to America after ten years of voluntary exile to find jobs. Ollie has worked as a mediocre cook and Stan has served as a butler for many years. Upon their return they find that there are plenty of positions to apply to, unlike when they left ten years earlier. Both men get hired by a wealthy woman named Elvira Hawkley, who is in desperate need of help to prepare for a big formal dinner she is hosting in the evening. The guest of honor at the dinner is none other than the young exiled King Christopher of Orlandia. Before the dinner, Christopher tells his guardian, Prince Saul, that he wants to know more about the life of the common man in America. His biggest dream is to play American football for Notre Dame. It is decided that the young king will disguise himself as an ordinary man and bring his assistant, Ronetz. Christopher is unaware that Saul is planning to murder him and take over the throne. As Christopher and Ronetz are out walking in a park, Ronetz excuses himself to make way for the two assassins he has hired to kill the king. Christopher happens to hear a football game nearby and when he goes there finds out that one of the players has been sent home by his mother. Christopher offers to take the missing player's place, but it turns out the game referee has also quit. Stan and Ollie happen to pass by the game with groceries they have bought for the evening dinner, and Christopher persuades them into being referees in the game. Christopher has never played football before, and his first contact with the ball is not so successful, as he fumbles and drops the ball. With the help of the incompetent referees Stan and Ollie, who are constantly running in the way of the players, Christopher picks up his game and actually manage to score a touchdown that wins the game. Christopher is overjoyed with his own performance and thankful again to the very helpful referees. Ollie and Stan discover that they have forgot to buy the dinner steak, although they have spent all the money they got from Elvira. They see a lion at the nearby zoo being fed a big steak, and decide to try and steal the steak for the dinner. Christopher is not aware of who Ollie and Stan are working for and offers to help out. While Stan and Ollie argue about who will actually take the steak from the lion, equally afraid of being eaten themselves, Christopher steps in and snatches the steak away from the lion. The three men soon arrive to Elvira's building, and Christopher persuades the two men to let him stay with them for the night since he has nowhere else to go. Christopher soon discovers the incompetence of the two servants and tries to teach Stan the proper etiquette at a formal dinner. He fails in his mission, and instead offers to help by hiding under the dinner table and giving commands to Stan from there during the dinner, by using his hand to tap on Stan's foot. But it turns out that the steak is made of rubber and however they try to cut it, they can't even with a saw! Saul explains that Christopher is missing at the dinner because of illness, but is soon made aware by Ronetz that he is in fact not dead, but missing. Saul excuses himself and leaves the practically inedible dinner. Elvira goes into the kitchen and fires Stan and Ollie on the spot because of their poor performance. She discovers Christopher in the kitchen, but doesn't identify him as the king. She throws all three men out, and they take their refuge at a mission. A dodgy woman recognizes Christopher from a picture in the papers, and alerts the police that he is being kidnapped by Ollie and Stan. The police arrive and arrest Stan and Ollie, but Christopher demands they be hired as his help, and the charges are dropped. Saul sees an opportunity to use the two dimwits as pawns in order to kill Christopher. Ronetz puts poison in the salad supposed to be delivered to Christopher at a banquet. But the incompetent Stan manages to mix up the plates so that there is no telling who got the poisoned salad. An argument ensues between Saul and Ronetz because of the mixup and Christopher overhears them, finding out about the attempt to kill him. When Christopher goes to tell Ollie and Stan, Saul intercepts him and pulls a gun, holding the three men at gunpoint. Saul forces them out on a ledge outside the skyscraper's window, trying to make them jump and take their own lives. Christopher discovers a hanging board below the window, left there by the painters, and jumps down from the ledge. Before Ollie and Stan dare jump after him, the board is moved away from the window, and they are left hanging, dangling high up above the street. Christopher manages to get down to the street and fetch the police, who arrive just in time to rescue Stan and Ollie. It turns out Saul was the person who got the poisoned salad after all, and he is carried out on a stretcher from the apartment. The story ends with Christopher, Oliver and Stan singing the Notre Dame victory march together with the policemen.http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/1587/Nothing-But-Trouble/ ===== Blades of the Tiger is set in Taladas shortly after the War of Souls, and is generally located in the Imperial League. ===== Stan and Ollie are musicians travelling across the country as "The Original Zoot Suit Band". En route to their next gig, their car runs out of gas and they are rescued by Chester Wright, an inventor who has perfected a pill which will turn water into gas (in reality he is a small-time con man who simply switches a water canister with a canister of gas when the duo aren't looking). The trio make a plan to travel to the next town "Midvale" and after using Stan and Ollie's music to attract a crowd Chester takes the opportunity to sell his "miracle pill" to the masses and make a fortune. As Stan and Ollie play, Chester makes the acquaintance of a young choir singer named Susan. The trio's sales pitch is initially a success but their scam is soon uncovered when a customer returns after having poured the "gasoline" into the fuel tank of his car and ended up in a nasty accident. Chester prevents the angry mob from attacking Stan and Ollie by posing as a police officer arriving on the scene to arrest Stan and Ollie. Susan jumps on the back of the trio's trailer after realizing Chester still has her purse that she asked him to hold. As Susan and Chester get to know each other, Susan tells Chester that her mother was recently conned out of a large amount of money by a gang who want to use the money to bet on a big horse race. Chester has a hunch that he may know the gang and with the aid of Stan and Ollie agrees to help Susan get her mother's money back. The group returns to the town and posing as out-of-town businessmen, check into the same hotel where Henry Corcoran, the leader of the con men, is staying. In plain view of Corcoran, Ollie (going under the name "Colonel Watterson Bixby") pretends to deposit $20,000 in the hotel safe to make the gang think that Ollie is incredibly wealthy. Corcoron instructs his girlfriend Dorcas to seduce "Colonel Watterson Bixby" in her hotel room, but she accidentally ends up inviting Stan instead. When Ollie enters the hotel room, a drunken Stan thinking that it is Corcoron hides under the couch and becomes increasingly more intoxicated while he is hiding. Corcoron finally enters the room and Ollie pretends to be an undercover police officer sent to arrest Corcoron for swindling Susan's mother out of her money. Thinking he is about to be sent to jail, Corcoran agrees to give the stolen money back but reveals he only has half of the $10,000 and his partner, a man named Bennett, has the other half. Corcoron attempts to shoot Ollie and Chester but is pulled to the ground by Stan and thrown in the closet by Ollie and Chester. The group then begin their next plan to get the other half of the money by having Susan get a job as a singer at the club on board a boat run by Bennett. They then have Stan dress as a woman and pose as Susan's rich aunt and convince Bennett to invest in a show at his club which they say will make him a fortune and will only require a combined $10,000 investment from him and Susan's aunt, which agrees to. The two agree to place $5000 apiece in an envelope and place it in a safe. Bennett goes to a colleague of his, Tony Queen in order to loan the $5000 to put into the show, as he plans on stealing the envelope and keeping the $10,000 for himself. Unbeknownst to Bennett, the group plan to switch the envelopes and escape with Bennett's $5000. Stan and Ollie successfully switch Bennett's $5000 and give it to Chester to put in the hotel safe. However, when the gang realize they have been conned, they capture Stan, Ollie and Susan. They search the hotel for Chester but he is nowhere to be found, giving Stan, Ollie and Susan the impression that he was only using them to get the money for himself. The trio are taken to Bennett's club where Susan is forced back into work as a singer and dancer, and Stan and Ollie are put to work in the engine room. They manage to escape after one of the guards takes one of Chester's gas pills thinking it is for indigestion and floats to the ceiling. Stan and Ollie rescue Susan but the guard accidentally lands on the controls of the ship which send it speeding out to sea, nearly hitting several other ships. The police arrive with Chester to arrest the gang. Susan scolds Chester for running off with the money but Chester clarifies that he left the hotel to wire the money to her mother immediately, showing her a receipt as proof. Stan and Ollie arrive on deck to see Susan and Chester kiss before leaving the ship. The duo plan to leave the ship as well but suddenly the remaining gangsters come around the corner and Stan and Ollie leap overboard in order to escape. ===== The 4-part series focuses on the superhero Star Fighter and his archenemy Underlord, as well as roommates Ethan and Vincent. They just happen to be the same people, though neither Ethan (Star Fighter) nor Vincent (Underlord) are aware of that fact. Ethan and Vincent are each horrible roommates, though they are unable to give up their apartment in order to escape the other. Ethan's a slob who likes throwing parties simply to annoy Vincent. Vincent is creepy. Vincent most likely hates Ethan more than he ever could hate Star Fighter. At the same time as they're fighting between each other (in both their identities), Vincent is attempting to become a member of The Masked Circle, a secret society of supervillains that both his father and brother already belong to. ===== In a land far away, the two princes—Richard (of the Custard Kingdom) and the game's main protagonist (prince of the Sablé Kingdom)—have shared a friendly rivalry since they were small children. They often compete, although it usually ends in a tie or close win. In Fencing however, Prince Richard is always the victor. One day a messenger arrives from a small neighboring kingdom, warning the princes that the evil King Delarin has invaded the Mille-Feuille Kingdom and captured the beautiful princess Tiramisu. In yet another boastful attempt to best the Sablé Prince, Richard grabs a boat and rushes towards the kingdom. The Sablé Prince is left trying to catch up. While on his journey, he and Richard (along with others) are transformed into frogs in an attempt to reveal the true happenings in this kingdom. ===== ===== It is about an eccentric, unsociable young man who is forced by his mother to make some friends before she'll return his stereo to him. He is joined on a trip through a desert by a pyramid scheme salesman, to assist in finding a location to bury a frozen cat. ===== Stan and Ollie are two sailors on leave who happen upon two attractive girls strolling through a park. The sailors invite the ladies for a soda, but soon realize that they only have enough money for three people. Ollie spends an eternity trying to explain this fact to Stan, who cannot grasp that either he or Ollie will have to forgo a soda. When they finally purchase three sodas, with the plan to share one between Stan and Ollie in which Stan swallows both shares, the price is twice that previously thought. Ollie gets Stan back for drinking his half of the soda by leaving him to pay the check. Realizing he does not have enough and that he has nothing to lose, Stan deposits a coin in a slot machine in the soda shop and ends up hitting the jackpot. With excess money in hand, the boys rent a rowing boat with the ladies, which results in an all-out battle-royal with other boaters on the lake, with various canoes getting overturned. Eventually all the people who have fallen into the water clamber into Stan and Ollie's boat, which causes it to sink. ===== At the advice of a doctor (Billy Gilbert), Stan and Ollie travel to the mountains in order for Ollie to recover from gout. They park their travel trailer (caravan) near a deserted cabin recently occupied by a gang of moonshiners who had been raided and arrested by Prohibition authorities. Before being captured, the moonshiners tried to get rid of their illegal liquor by pouring two full barrels of it into a nearby well. Stan and Ollie now use that same well as their source for drinking water. While making a pot of coffee with the alcohol-laced water, Stan notices it has “a funny color”, but Ollie tastes it and explains that all mountain water is like that. "It's the iron in it", he says, "it's good for your nerves." A motorist couple who have run out of petrol arrives and asks for help. While the irritable and overbearing husband (played by familiar nemesis Charlie Hall) walks back to his car with Stan's spare can of petrol, the man's wife (Mae Busch), appreciating the boys' affable and respectful manners as a refreshing relief from her husband's crabby belligerence, willingly joins the boys for supper and ladlefuls of the potent "mountain water". The husband returns with the car to find that the three are all roaring drunk, and his anger at Stan and Ollie triggers a "tit for tat" sequence at the end (which happens to also be the name of the "sequel" film). It culminates with the wrecking of the camper, Hall being tarred with molasses and feathered, and with a toilet-plunger stuck to his forehead. Ollie then jumps into the well because his trousers are on fire. The alcohol in the water detonates, causing Ollie's explosive ejection. He then falls to the ground head first and is left half-buried with only his legs exposed and flailing in the air as the film ends. ===== Phil Blackwood (Selleck) is an American mystery novelist who comes across a dazzling Romanian murder suspect named Nina (Porizkova) when she is arraigned in the courtroom he is visiting. Instantly falling for her, Blackwood poses as a Roman Catholic priest in order to meet her while Nina is held pending her continued arraignment. Finding her wearing a crucifix necklace (which would be forbidden in her communist homeland), he assumes she's innocent when she does not confess to the murder. With the help of his publisher and friend, Sam (Daniels), Blackwood invents an alibi ("We're having an affair.") for Nina to secure her release. Nina then takes up residence with Blackwood, serving as the inspiration for a novel that will decide the fate of his and Sam's careers in writing and publishing, all while evading operatives from Romania's Securitate, one of whom committed the murder to stop Nina and her family's defection to America. The climax of the film takes place during The Funeral of Grimaldi, a jovial memorial service in which many clowns gather to celebrate the life of Joseph Grimaldi. ===== Fanis Iakovides, professor of astronomy and astrophysics, recalls his childhood memories from growing up in Istanbul. When Fanis was 7 years old, his grandfather Vassilis was an owner of a general store with a specialty in spices. He was also a culinary philosopher and his mentor. Fanis grew very attached to his grandfather who would assist with his homework using imaginative techniques. For instance, Vassilis would teach his grandson the planets of the Solar System by showing an illustration of it and replacing the planets with spices. Cinnamon took the place of Venus since according to Vassilis, "like all women, cinnamon is both bitter and sweet". Fanis also fell in love for the first time in his grandfather store's upper floor with a young Turkish girl, Saime. However, beginning with the Istanbul Pogrom in 1955, through 1978, the ethnic Greek community of Istanbul was reduced from 135,000 to 7,000 by a series of government orchestrated riots, pogroms and deportations. Most of Fanis' family is deported in 1964 with the Ankara government decision to renege on the 1930 Greco-Turkish Ankara Convention, affirming the right of Greek etablis (Greeks who were born and lived in Istanbul but held Greek citizenship) to live and work in Turkey, and most Greek citizens who lived in Constantinople were deported to Greece,The European Union and Border Conflicts: The EU and Cultural Change in Greek- Turkish Relations despite most never having previously resided there. Since Vassilis was not a dual citizen, he was able to stay behind while his grandson Fanis and his parents were deported to Athens. Fanis had trouble initially adapting in Greece, constantly trying to spend his time in the kitchen cooking, as it was the only link between him and his homeland. However, this would upset his mother who was afraid that the boy was either severely depressed or a homosexual. Fanis grew from childhood to adulthood, preserving his culinary talents and often offering his secrets of the Politiki Cuisine to those that ask for his help. As the years passed by, and the tension between Turkey and Greece resolved, grandfather Vassilis made several promises to visit his grandson in Athens but failed to keep them. The reason for the final incompletion of this engagement was his rapidly declining health. Consequently, Fanis returns to Constantinople after three decades to visit his near-death grandfather and also runs into his old love, Saime, who is now married. Together, they reflect on their lives and the way politics managed to change everything. Fanis will eventually realize that contrary to what his grandfather had taught him, he forgot to put a little bit of spice in his own life. The main characters easily fit into a parallel metaphor - Saime, the old love of Fanis, a beautiful Turkish girl and multi-lingual tour guide, represents Istanbul (a cosmopolitan city called a "she" in Greek), Fanis is modern Greece, one that is still deeply in love with Constantinople and nostalgic for the past, while Saime's husband is a Turkish military doctor who represents a modern, pragmatic Turkey. ===== A group of students desperate for their thesis, including Nicole whose thesis was rejected, was summoned by a mysterious Mrs. Enkanta to solve a mysterious and horrible truth on myths. ===== The film shows ten years in the life of Anthony Fingleton, from when he was a young boy in the mid-1950s, to the day of the men's 100m backstroke final at the 1964 Summer Olympics. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia, Tony was the second of five children of working-class parents Harold and Dora Fingleton. It was a dysfunctional family, since Harold, the child of an alcoholic mother who had witnessed his mother's degradation as a prostitute when a child, was violent and unable to show equal love to all his children, and favored those showing sporting prowess. He was physically and emotionally abusive, especially toward Tony and Dora. She tried to protect Tony from that abuse which only angered Harold more. The abuse was exacerbated by Harold's alcoholism, which in turn led to frequent difficulties with money as Harold, who worked at the docks only when ships were in port, was often off work, sometimes due to divisive labour unrest on the wharf, and strikes. Tony was on good terms with most of his siblings, especially "number 3", John. But each of the five children did whatever they needed to do as self-preservation measures against Harold's abuse, sometimes at the expense of harmony with the others. As a refuge, the four youngest felt comfortable in the local pool. It was only when he found out that both Tony and John were good swimmers that Harold began to pay Tony any attention, and became their trainer. But nothing Tony did was ever good enough, Harold spurring on anyone else but Tony, and especially John. Initially the two swam different strokes, freestyle and backstroke, but Harold secretly shifted John to compete directly against his brother in state finals. After losing, Tony responded by training on his own, eventually placing second at the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games, without his father's support - who had by this time become withdrawn and continued to drink. John, meanwhile, abandoned competitive swimming after failing to qualify, and his relationship with Tony remained strained. Tony wanted to make his father proud, but also revealed to his mother that he saw swimming as a means to an end, a way to escape their life of poverty in Brisbane. This he did after his Commonwealth medal, when his application to Harvard University to enter with a sports scholarship was successful. He was offered a spot on the Australian Olympic team, but chose instead to attend Harvard. The film ends in the pool at Harvard, where he obtains an excellent backstroke time, as his life and family flash before him as he swims. The 1964 Olympics are being aired, with Dawn Fraser competing, and his coach asks him if he would rather have swum there. He replies no, he is "exactly where he wants to be". He has achieved his goal of escape from a dysfunctional childhood and is on track to a successful career, which is hinted in the closing credits. ===== A small group of fervent Roman Catholics believe Satan intends to become man just as God did in the person of Jesus. Writings from a seemingly-possessed psychiatric patient lead them to Peter Kelson. The group suspect it is Kelson's body Satan has chosen to occupy. The youngest of the group, Maya Larkin, meets Peter to investigate further and try to convince him of embodied evil. Other signs come to Kelson as he and Maya take a journey full of strange occurrences, self-discovery and an ultimate showdown. ===== Maerad and Cadvan continue the search for the Treesong, the key to Maerad's destiny, while fleeing from Enkir, the First Bard of Norloch, who had broken Milana, Maerad's mother, and sold them both into slavery. Maerad and Cadvan sail with a friend called Owan d'Aroki to the Mycenean Greece-like island of Thorold. Enkir sends a sea serpent in pursuit, which the two Bards kill. Having arrived on the island, they enter the Bardic School of Busk. Maerad continues her Bardic training that had been stopped abruptly in Innail, learning about imagery, illusions, and additional fighting skills, which improve readily. Cadvan studies records in Busk's extensive library, but finds nothing by which to explain the nature of the Treesong. Soon, Busk receives a messenger from Norloch who reveals that Enkir has claimed the authority of High King over all the Seven Kingdoms, and demands the Schools' undivided fealty. Busk, rather than submit to Norloch or be counted its enemies, pledge their "unwavering allegiance to the Light", rather than to Enkir; thus placing themselves beyond either possibility. Later, at a seasonal festival commemorating the Bards' New Year, Busk's First Bard Nerili succumbs to a 'darkness' within herself, which puts her into a trauma that prevents her creation of the ceremonial "Tree of Light". Cadvan intervenes, salvaging the ceremony; however, Nerili's experience suggests that the power of the evil Nameless One is increasing, and that it is more insidious than in his previous attacks upon humanity. Maerad and Cadvan decide to leave the School of Busk, as it is not safe for them to stay, and instead travel a long and arduous route into the island's mountainous interior, accompanied by the Bard Elenxi. Elenxi guides the two to his goatherd brother Ankil, who is Nerili's grandfather. Maerad and Cadvan adapt to an agrarian lifestyle, continuing Maerad's training in their spare time. In so doing, they learn that Maerad is capable of feats of transformation beyond the abilities of any other Bard, as demonstrated when she literally changes a boulder into a lion. Such abilities are attributed to her Elidhu (faerie) ancestry. At one point, Ankil reveals a story wherein one mortal king stole a song of the world's harmony from the Elidhu, splitting it in half, and by doing so brought misery. Cadvan assumes this man to be Sharma, who would later become the Nameless One, but is subsequently suggested to be wrong. When word reaches them that they are no longer safe, Maerad and Cadvan leave Ankil. Accompanied by Elenxi, they traverse an unfrenquented path to a port where they may sail with Owan to the mainland. En route, they are attacked by a Hull (a sorcerer corrupted by evil magic), who renders Elenxi insensate and holds Maerad's power under his control by use of an appropriately named "blackstone", which copies her magic's energetic signature and enables him to manipulate it. In spite of this, Maerad uses her Elidhu power to change him into a rabbit. Cadvan thence captures and kills the rabbit, leaving him to corrode. Maerad and Cadvan then awaken Elenxi. The two of them take leave of Elenxi at the coast of Thorold, from which they then embark for the mainland. While they are on the ocean, Cadvan, Maerad, and Owan are attacked by a monstrous "stormdog"; a huge, ferocious, wild manifestation of the storm's fury, shaped vaguely like an enormous hound. In attempting to use her magic against it in Cadvan's aid, Maerad suddenly understands the stormdog's true nature, and therefore calms it rather than frighten it away. Thereafter the three humans make the journey safely to land. On the mainland, Cadvan and Maerad stay for some days and nights (possibly less than a week) at the Bardic School of Gent. Here, Maerad's training is not pursued as it was on Thorold; but they are treated as honored guests. Maerad soon befriends their host Gahal's daughter Lyla, who while not a Bard has skill in the art of medicine. Because her now dead suitor Dernhil was born at Gent, Maerad is often reminded of him. Owan leaves for Thorold, which is his home; days later, Maerad and Cadvan go north on the backs of their faithful horses, Darsor and Imi. Believing such a course to be against Enkir's expectations, they ride through Annar, briefly passing within reach of Cadvan's former School, Lirigon. In Annar, they encounter economic degradation, often openly in the forms of abject poverty, misery, and child labour. Near Lirigon, they encounter two Bards who believe Enkir's statement that any who do not swear fealty to him, and especially Cadvan and Maerad, are traitors to the Light. In the confrontation, Maerad kills one of these two Bards, Ilar of Desor. This act deeply disturbs Cadvan, who takes it as indication that he has failed to correctly train Maerad. When he speaks of this, Maerad's own emotional insecurity etc. causes her to be harsher toward Cadvan than she has been accustomed to be. Fear, pride, and resentment on her part increase over the next many weeks, causing a rift between herself and Cadvan. The Bards and their horses proceed to the mountains called Osidh Elanor, intending to go beyond them to find the secret of the Treesong. When they are among the mountains, they are attacked by the frost giant-like "iriduguls", who serve the Elidhu called Arkan the Winterking. Maerad cannot join with Cadvan mentally to combat these iridugul, who break the mountainside and by doing so bury Cadvan and Darsor. Imi flees in the opposite direction, while Maerad, horrified at the sight of Cadvan's apparent death, lies down in shock. When she awakens, Maerad eats, drinks, and plays a lament for those whom she considers dead on a flute-like instrument given to her by her Elidhu ancestor Queen Ardina. The playing of the pipes summons Ardina, who at Maerad's request heals some of her more life-threatening injuries, then takes her to the home of a northern tribeswoman called Mirka à Hadaruk, who lives as a recluse in the mountains with no companion but her dog Inka. Mirka nurses Maerad to health over several days, during which she reveals that she is a Bard, though not one trained in the Annaren/Thoroldian fashion; that she (Mirka) belongs to the seminomadic people called Pilani, from whom Maerad is descended on her father's side; and that to the north exist a people called the Wise Kindred, who may explain the Treesong. Maerad, having recovered from her injuries and left Mirka, travels to Murask, a Pilani settlement on the nearby Zmarkan Plains. There, she is accepted as guest by her father Dorn's twin sister, Sirkana à Triberi. Maerad stays in Murask for some days, unremarked by most of the people whom she meets, and eventually leaves in the company of one Dharin, a cousin of hers born to Dorn's other sister. Dharin and Maerad ride on a dogsled to the home of the Wise Kindred, an Inuit-like ethnicity of people who live on the volcanic islands north of Zmarkan. These people, in turn, redirect Maerad to the home of the necromancer Inka-Reb, who lives with a pack of wolves. Inka-Reb receives Maerad and calls her a liar when she claims to need his help to define and find the Treesong. Angered, she demands that he speak with her. He agrees, adding that she may be unaware of having spoken a lie. Inka-Reb then reveals that half of the divided Treesong is actually written on a lyre that Maerad has inherited from her mother, and that if either the Light or the Dark unite the two halves, the world will be ruined. Having told her this, and refusing to say more, he sends her away. Maerad and Dharin ride their dogsled toward the south, but are attacked on the way to Murask by the Jussacks, a tribe of Cossack-like hunters sent by the Winterking to seize Maerad. Dharin is killed and Maerad taken prisoner. The Jussacks transport her in their own dogsleds to the northeastern stronghold where Arkan's life and power are situated, where they hand her to Arkan. En route Maerad develops a friendship with Nim, the Jussack warrior deputed to take care of her, and loses three fingers to frostbite, reducing her much-cherished ability to play music. In Arkan's fortress, Maerad is given a life of illusory luxury, her corporeal needs attended by a servant woman named Gima, who views Arkan as her beloved master. Arkan and Maerad gradually develop a Beauty and the Beast-like relationship, wherein she feels sexually drawn to him and he to her. During her captivity, Arkan reads the writing on Maerad's lyre, revealing that the symbols are an ogham-analogous script containing the power of the Speech. He additionally reveals that they were created by the Bard Nelsor, who attempted to capture the Song's power without realizing the disasters this could cause. Nelsor is later suggested to have been Arkan's homosexual partner. Maerad is contacted during her captivity by Ardina, who has changed herself into a wolf and does not initially reveal her own identity. She gives Maerad a saying: "Triple-tongued is triple-named". This implies that in addition to the girl's human name, Maerad, and her Bardic name Elednor, she has another, Elidhu name, which Arkan does not know and therefore cannot use to control her as he uses the others. Ultimately, Maerad walks out of Arkan's stronghold and joins Ardina, who guides her to assume wolf's form. As wolves, the two escape, pursued by Arkan's stormdogs. Ardina delivers Maerad to the wolf pack who serve Inka-Reb and leaves her with them. Subsequently, the wolf pack take Maerad to Annar, where she travels, still a wolf herself, to her birthplace of Pellinor. There, she encounters Cadvan, who has survived the battle in the mountains and come to Pellinor at Ardina's advice. She resumes her human form, hears Cadvan's account of his own travels through Zmarkan (which he had pursued shortly in her wake), and reveals her own story to him. Cadvan speculates regarding the meaning of what she has learned, suspecting that her destiny involves undoing Nelsor's captivity of the Speech, which neither Light nor Dark should have achieved. The two of them plan to seek out Maerad's brother Hem, who is significant to her destiny. Will she ever find her destiny? Category:2004 Australian novels Category:Fantasy novels ===== The young man, ready for traveling, ponders upon futuristic Philippines, where Aga Muhlach was the President, Eraserheads will have a concert on the Moon and PSL offering a discount to travel to the Moon. He wrote his experience before he arrives in Grand Liwayway Station. He experienced everything as he goes towards his dream: to go to "Tagaytay", his place of dreams. He ends the letter and looks at the hologram of his love, who is in Orbital Space Station and works as a personnel, which switches back from her OSS uniform to a Filipiniana clothes, and stands up to prepare himself to ride the arriving train. ===== A hard-boiled police procedural set in a highly imaginative megalopolis called the Montezuma Strip, which stretches along the old U.S.-Mexican border. When police inspector Angel Cardenas investigates the case of a male corpse found with most of its internal organs missing, the victim turns out to have had two identities - one as a local executive, the other as a Texas businessman. The plot thickens when the victim's booby-trapped house nearly kills Cardenas and his partner. The author makes use of a vast array of futuristic elements; notably, sapient apes led by gorillas and intelligent rogue computers that commit computer crimes. While the book does not state this, this is a continuation of a series of short stories featuring the same main character, written by Foster and initially published in genre magazines under the pen-name of James Lawson, and then collected under his own name in the Warner book Montezuma Strip (1995). Category:2002 American novels Category:American science fiction novels Category:Novels by Alan Dean Foster Category:Techno-thriller novels ===== Torchy, the Battery Boy, was created by Mr. Bumbledrop, a lonely old toymaker who spends the majority of his days tending to his garden, where the neighborhood children play. Torchy has a lamp on his head, and when he pushes a button on his jacket and utters a mysterious phrase, the light illuminates and gives Torchy magical insights. Mr. Bumbledrop also builds a cardboard rocket ship, which allows the boy to soar through the heavens. The brightest star in the night sky is Topsy Turvy Land, home of all of the abused and neglected toys that once belonged to naughty children. There, the toys spring to life and animals have the ability to speak. Everyone is at home in this mysterious world, with its lollipop fields, cream bun trees, and chocolate puddles. However, Torchy frequently goes to earth to visit Mr. Bumbledrop, get replacement batteries, and return with naughty children who need to learn a lesson. In Topsy Turvy Land, humans shrink to the size of toys, and various children are subjected to the same horrors that they unleashed upon their playthings. ===== ===== Corporate centers around the power games between two industrialists, The Sehgal Group of Industries (SGI) owned by Vinay Sehgal (Rajat Kapoor) and the Marwah Group of Industries (MGI) owned by Dharmesh Marwah (Raj Babbar). The two companies are traditional rivals in the food & beverages products business. Bipasha Basu plays Nishigandha Dasgupta aka Nishi, vice president of SGI, while Vinay Sehgal's brother-in-law Ritesh (Kay Kay Menon) joins in later as senior vice president. Ashwini, a politician backed by Sehgal, become the Union Finance Minister, which helps the Sehgal Group to enter a lucrative partnership with international food products giants Friscon. In a CII meeting, the state Finance Minister Gulabrao declares that a public sector unit (PSU) is for sale. Both the companies pounce into the competition using every tactic they have to outperform each other. But last-minute politicking by Marwah with Gulabrao leads to the PSU going to the Marwah Group, leaving Sehgal disappointed. However, Nishi charms Marwah Group's CEO Pervez, and is then able to steal critical information from his laptop computer: she finds out that Marwah had been misleading the media that they were planning to manufacture mineral water in the plant, whereas in reality they were planning to manufacture a mint-based soft drink. The Sehgal Group publicly announces that they will be launching their own mint-based soft drink, which they've named "Just Chill", pre-empting the Marwah Group's planned launch. Marwah traces the leak to Pervez and fires him. Ten days before the launch of the drink, Sehgal learns that the FDA has found the presence of a large amount of pesticides in the drink. But Sehgal, cold-heartedly, decides to launch the product by bribing the FDA agents. However, CEO Naveen resigns from the SGI. The drink is a great success. However, another of SGI's executive is unhappy that Ritesh is being made the CEO, and he gives Marwah the information that SGI's product contains pesticides. Marwah along with Gulabrao blow up the issue in the media, leading to a raid on the SGI plants and a case on the Sehgals. Sehgal decides that the only solution is for an employee of SGI who is not a member of the Sehgal family to take the blame for the blunder. Nishi is chosen for that role. Ritesh is called on by his sister Chayya Sehgal, where she asks him to convince Nishi to sacrifice for the company. Initially disagreeing, Ritesh agrees to convince Nishi on the insistence of Sehgal as he promises that Nishi would be released by the Enquiry Commission soon. A foreign investor holding major stake in Friscon, urges Ashwini to settle the dispute between the two as this would lead to capital flight and foreign investors will pull back their investments, causing serious havoc in the business market. Ashwini discusses the issue with Gulabrao and both the ministers mediates between Marwah and Sehgal to settle down the issue. Marwah agrees to withdraw all the allegations suited through NGO's and drawing their limitations in Friscon company. However, Gulabrao refuses to release Nishi as it would dent his chances of chief minister-ship as elections roars near. Meanwhile, Ritesh comes to know that Nishi is pregnant with his baby. Ritesh, angry about it, threatens to expose Sehgal in front of the media if Nishi is not released within 48 hours. The next day he is found dead, having fallen from the terrace of his apartment building. It is assumed to be suicide but some think otherwise. The movie ends the narrator of the story concluding that Marwah and Sehgal are living happily in their world, whereas there is no place of emotions in corporate world as Nishi is the victim of the corporate tactics. The movie shows Nishi still fighting the case after two years of the incident with her child. ===== Following the wedding of young Jenny Piper (Hayley Mills) to cinema projectionist Arthur Fitton (Hywel Bennett), a rowdy reception is held at a local pub in their Lancashire town. The couple return to the Fitton home to spend their first night together, prior to leaving for a honeymoon in Majorca – only to find Arthur's father Ezra (John Mills) leading the drunken singing with some party guests in the living room. Arthur clashes with Ezra, a lifelong gasworks employee who doesn't understand his son's enjoyment of reading and classical music. After a strained evening, the newlyweds finally retire, only for their marital bed to collapse as the result of a practical joke played by Arthur's boorish boss, Joe Thompson (Barry Foster). Jenny laughs at the situation, but Arthur imagines she is laughing at him and then is not able to consummate their marriage. Arthur assures Jenny that all will be well once they get to Majorca, but the next day the couple discover that the travel agent who sold them their tickets has absconded with the money, resulting in them missing their honeymoon. Unable to obtain a home of their own, Jenny and Arthur have to continue living in the crowded Fitton house with Arthur's parents and adult brother Geoffrey, where the thin walls and lack of privacy exacerbate Arthur's discomfort. As days pass into weeks, the marriage remains unconsummated, and the strain between the couple steadily worsens, not helped by Arthur's job keeping him away from the house at night, when Jenny is home from her day job. Jenny begins to go out socially with Geoffrey, who is attracted to her, although she puts off his advances. After a plea from Jenny, Arthur visits a marriage guidance counsellor, but his visit is overheard by a gossipy charwoman who spreads the story. Eventually, Jenny confides in her mother and Jenny's parents visit Arthur's parents to tell them. Lucy (Marjorie Rhodes) reminisces to the Pipers how Ezra took Billy, his close male friend since childhood, along on their honeymoon and spent more of his time with Billy than with her. Later, Lucy tells Mrs Piper of the evening she spent alone with Billy when Ezra was working late, which immediately preceded the abrupt disappearance of Billy from their lives, with no explanation. Jenny also confides in her Uncle Fred and he advises her that Arthur's problem would likely be resolved if she and Arthur lived in their own home instead of in Arthur's father's house. When Joe Thompson, aware of the gossip, makes fun of Arthur and scornfully volunteers to satisfy Jenny's marital needs, an enraged Arthur starts a fight in the cinema car park, and batters him, and then walks out on his job, returning home to berate Jenny for disclosing their private affairs. Arthur and Jenny have a quarrel that finally leads to sex – overheard by the many gossipy neighbours in the gardens under Arthur's open window. The opening bars of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, ("da, da, da, dah" or "dot dot dot dash", Morse Code for the letter V) signifying Victory, are heard. The couple then find out that the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) bond has returned their holiday money, and they get ready to rush off for a belated honeymoon in Blackpool. Before they go, Arthur, encouraged by his mother, asks his father for help with the down-payment on a cottage that has just become available. Ezra gladly agrees to provide the money, to build a better relationship with Arthur, whom he tearfully calls "son". After Arthur leaves, Ezra ingenuously remarks how much Arthur looks and acts like the long-gone Billy, and Lucy moves to comfort him. ===== The novel revolves around a teleportation technology which is being developed. It works by making the space at the destination "congruent" with the space at the departure point. Any object in the departure space automatically appears at the destination. The name "Posting" has been coined for the technique. It has worked well with inanimate objects. The novel makes frequent reference to the transfinite numbers of mathematician Georg Cantor, as well as catastrophe theory, popularised in the 1970s. ===== Aura Petrescu (Asia Argento), a young woman suffering from anorexia, escapes from a psychiatric hospital and meets a young man, David Parsons (Christopher Rydell), who offers to let her stay with him rather than go back to the hospital; however, Aura is soon caught, and her return to the hospital coincides with the start of a string of murders of hospital staff members, past and present. The killer decapitates them using a homemade garrote device on rainy days. When her father Stefan, is murdered along with her mother, Aura and David team up to find the killer. In the end, it is revealed that Aura's mother, Adriana, who faked her death after murdering her husband, is the killer. Years earlier, Dr. Lloyd (Brad Dourif) was given the task of delivering Aura's brother, Nicolas. However, his clumsiness combined with a power outage (caused by a thunderstorm) led to him slicing off the newborn infant's head as he was being delivered. The head nurse during the delivery convinces the doctor to forcibly subject Adriana to electroshock treatment against her will, hoping that it would erase all memory of the botched delivery/death of her son, allowing for the staff to cover up their causing her child's death. Holding the two hostage, Adriana is ultimately killed by a young child who had discovered the mother's crimes, and ultimately uses her own murder device against her to save her captives. ===== The family of twin sisters Maddie and Abby Parker are placed in the FBI's Witness Protection Program after they witness a robber at the local museum, in which the priceless Kneel Diamond is stolen. Unfortunately, Maddie and Abby have a problem of being blabbermouths; as a result, everywhere the Parkers are sent to live, the girls inadvertently end up revealing their witness status. The gang is led by a crime lord with the rather unfortunate surname of Hatchew ("Bless you!"), who will do anything to get his hands on the diamond, which the thieves slipped into Abby's shoulder-bag during their escape from the crime scene; the gem ultimately ends up being set into her necklace. The family travels everywhere in the United States, from Texas to a prairie town, and eventually has been moved to every geographic location around the world possible, with the single exception of Australia - thus the FBI (who by this time are getting absolutely fed up of having to constantly relocate the Parkers, and all because Maddie and Abby can't keep their mouths shut!) send them to live in Sydney. The girls at first have much trouble, especially fitting in with peers. Two assassins named Mac and Sidney are sent after them after having discovered their location by breaking into the FBI office. Maddie and Abby defeat Mac and Sidney by knocking them out, tying them to surf boards and putting clips in Sidney's hair, painting Mac's toenails and threatening to put bras on them. The twins manage to convince them to change sides; they leave after the girls lure Hatchew to Australia. He comes after them, manages to get the diamond and sets his thug on them. It looks like they are about to die, until Mac and Sidney return and defeat the thug, saving the girls. Hatchew nearly gets away on a seaplane, but Maddie and Abby stop him using a boomerang and he is arrested by Katie, an undercover FBI agent posing as a lifeguard. The Parkers are finally able to return home to the United States with half the reward money for capturing the bad guys. ===== The story begins with the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800 off Long Island, New York. A couple conducting an illicit affair on the beach witness the crash and flee the scene, having accidentally videotaped the crash and what appears to be a missile rising from the ocean towards the plane. Five years later, Anti- Terrorist Task Force (ATTF, a fictional FBI department based on the Joint Terrorism Task Force) detective John Corey is encouraged to reinvestigate the crash, officially blamed on mechanical failure, by his wife Kate Mayfield, who had worked on the original investigation. The story is a sequel to The Lion's Game and reintroduces a number of characters from that novel. A sequel to Night Fall, titled Wild Fire, was released on November 6, 2006. One of the returning characters from "The Lion's Game" and "Plum Island" is CIA operative Ted Nash, whom DeMille has developed into Corey's antagonist and nemesis in his career with the ATTF. Much of the action in the novel centers on the search for the couple who inadvertently videotaped the in-air explosion that brought down TWA Flight 800 off the coast of Long Island. At the center of Corey's investigation are witness statements claiming that the fatal explosion was caused by a missile and not by mechanical failure. Corey is warned by his superiors not to look into the TWA crash, and he and his wife are temporarily assigned to anti-terrorist activities in Yemen and Tanzania to keep them from pursuing the case. They return to the U.S., however, in early September 2001, and Corey makes crucial discoveries which are quickly overshadowed by the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001. Night Fall debuted as number one on the New York Times Best Seller List on December 12, 2004,The New York Times Best Seller List, December 12, 2004. Retrieved February 5, 2009. and remained on the list for 11 weeks.The New York Times Best Seller List, February 20, 2005. Retrieved February 5, 2009. ===== Priya Malhotra (Kareena Kapoor) is an orphan who hopes to have a family of her own and keeps a diary outlining her dreams and the type of man she wants to meet – someone who does not drink, smoke or tell lies. She is skeptical when her friend Honey's (Delnaaz Paul) aunt, a card reader, Sunita Rao (Kirron Kher), predicts that she will go to a foreign land and find the love of her life in seven days. She is pleasantly surprised when she is selected to go to a Youth Festival in Bangkok. That is where Amit (Shahid Kapoor) enters. Amit is a complete opposite to what Priya wants in a guy. He smokes, drinks, and lies. Due to his bad habits, Amit is being chased by security and runs into Priya's hostel room. Before he leaves, he sees Priya and falls in love with her. He takes her diary and escapes. He then pretends to be the total guy Priya wants to be with, and the two start a relationship. Soon enough, Priya spots her diary in his room, and realises he had stolen her diary and acted to be like her dream man. She breaks up with him, and leaves the country to go Delhi and forget about her past. After she reaches the airport, Amit also arrives, and explains to her that destiny wants them together. Priya does not believe him and therefore challenges him that if destiny did want them together, they would both find them again in future. In order to prove it, she asks Amit to write his name and phone number on a note and uses the same note to buy a Numerology book, in which she writes her own name and phone number and further she sells it in market at second hand rate. If she receives the same note again and if Immy finds that book with her name and number on it, then it will prove that they love each other and its destiny that wants them together. Three years later, Amit is engaged to Sofiya (Aarti Chhabria) and Priya is engaged to Jatin. However, a week before the marriage, both of them land up in Delhi again looking for each other. After several hit and misses Priya finds the note and Immy finds the book. The film ends with both of them reuniting and getting married. ===== Four years after the events in the other short story "Neutron Star", spaceship pilot Beowulf Shaeffer is on Jinx, a planet orbiting Sirius B, when he is again contacted by the Puppeteers, this time by the Regional President of General Products on Jinx, who offers him a chance to guide a cramped (but very fast) experimental ship to the center of the galaxy as a promotional stunt. Shaeffer is offered one hundred thousand stars to make the trip, plus fifty thousand stars to write about it; he is also given the rights to sell the story. Shaeffer, seeing the value of such a promotion (as well as the value of his pay) agrees to go, naming the ship Long Shot. The Long Shot is built into the hull of a Number 4 General Products hull, a transparent sphere a thousand-odd feet in diameter. However, the Quantum II hyperdrive took up all of the volume of the ship, leaving only a few cubic yards of space for crew, cargo, or passengers. The cost, according to the Regional President of General Products on Jinx, was 7 billion stars. As it stood, the ship was a failure, unless the promotional run to the core and subsequent publicity generated the necessary interest for research funds. The actual trip becomes more problematic. Shaeffer quickly realizes that he must maintain a constant watch over the mass pointer, the device that warns of a too-close approach to a star while in hyperdrive. At Quantum I hyperdrive speeds, Shaeffer only glanced at the pointer every six hours or so. At Quantum II speeds, however, he dared not take his eyes off the pointer. After three hours Shaeffer is exhausted and drops out of hyperspace, and attempts to abort the mission, but the Puppeteer reminds him that if he stops for other than mechanical failure, he forfeits twice his pay. As there are cameras watching him, he cannot sabotage the ship without the Puppeteer knowing he has done so. Shaeffer surmises that this is payback for the million stars he blackmailed out of the Puppeteers in Neutron Star. By the second day Shaeffer realizes he cannot make the trip in the four month time limit, and will be forced to pay two thousand stars for each day he exceeds that limit. He estimates it will take him six months to complete the trip, forfeiting about 120,000 stars and leaving him in about the same state of near insolvency he is in now. However, he suddenly realizes that if he can make some of the trip to the core between spiral arms of the galaxy where the stars are far apart, he will not have to dodge stars quite as frequently. He requests this information and one of the Puppeteer’s assistants provides him with a course to exit the spiral arm. In three weeks’ time he travels to the end of the gap and begins to enter the central portion of the galaxy. Within three days he breaks through the obscuring interstellar dust and gas and sees the Core. As he continues toward the Core he encounters more problems: brightness and radiation, both of which continue to climb as he approaches closer and closer to the Core itself. He attempts to talk to the puppeteer about this but the puppeteer is uninterested in abstract knowledge that does not directly contribute to Puppeteer profits or survival. Finally, Shaeffer halts, unwilling to go on. He contacts the Puppeteer via hyperphone and tells him that the galaxy is exploding: the Core stars have gone supernova and are causing other stars to do the same as the impinging radiation heats them up. The Puppeteer asks if Shaeffer wishes to be released from his contract without pay and Shaeffer declines, amused. The Puppeteer explains that if Shaeffer does not enter the Core, he forfeits on the contract. Shaeffer explains that he will show the radiation readings and brightness levels, and if questioned under truth drugs, any court in Known Space would know the Puppeteers tried to get Shaeffer to fly into the center of the holocaust, and it would rule against the Puppeteers. The Puppeteer concedes, and tells Shaeffer to return home. Returning to Farside End on Jinx, feeling persecuted since his hyperphone calls have gone unanswered during his return trip, Shaeffer discovers the following: First, General Products has paid 150,000 stars into his account at the Bank of Jinx, with a note that whether he wrote an article about his trip was solely up to him. Second, the General Products corporation has disappeared, paying off all penalty clauses on all known worlds two months before. Third, a stock market crash is imminent, resulting from the disappearance of General Products and the lack of starship hulls. Fourth, the secret of the General Products hull is up for sale; bids are being taken by human representatives for one year, the minimum bid, one trillion stars. Fifth and finally, no one knows why any of this is taking place. Shaeffer, however, knows. The Puppeteers are running, escaping the deadly radiation that will reach Known Space in 20,000 years. Puppeteers are considered cowards by other races, but Shaeffer wonders about the humans who are ignoring the threat simply because it's so far off. "Maybe," he thinks, "it's humans who are the cowards, at the core." ===== In 1532 a fleet of ships sails in secret to an island in the middle of an inland sea. There they hide a magnificent treasure more vast than that any Pharaoh would ever possess. Then they disappear, leaving only a great stone demon to guard their hoard. In 1578 the legendary Sir Francis Drake captures a Spanish galleon filled with Inca gold and silver and the key to the lost treasure, which includes a gigantic chain of gold, a masterpiece of ancient technology so huge that it requires two hundred men to lift it and a large pile of diamonds worth more than 200 billion dollars that belonged to the last Inca. As the galleon is sailed by Drake's crew back to England, an underwater earthquake causes a massive tidal wave that sweeps it into the jungle. Only one man survives to tell the tale... In 1998 a group of archaeologists is nearly drowned while diving into the depths of a sacrificial pool high in the Andes of Peru. They are saved by the timely arrival of the renowned scuba diving hero Dirk Pitt, who is in the area on a marine expedition. Pitt soon finds out that his life has been placed in jeopardy as well by smugglers intent on uncovering the lost ancient Incan treasure. Soon, he, his faithful companions, and Dr. Shannon Kelsey, a beautiful young archaeologist, are plunged into a vicious, no-holds-barred struggle to survive. From then on it becomes a battle of wits in a race against time and danger to find the golden chain, as Pitt finds himself caught up in a struggle with a sinister international family syndicate that deal in stolen works of art, the smuggling of ancient artifacts, and art forgery worth many millions of dollars. The clash between the art thieves, the FBI and the Customs Service, a tribe of local Indians, and Pitt, along with his friends from NUMA, two of whom are captured and threatened with execution, rushes toward a wild climax in a subterranean world of darkness and death – for the real key to the mystery, as it turns out, is a previously unknown, unexplored underground river that runs through the ancient treasure chamber. The fallen are told to come back and haunt those who took their treasure. ===== Dirk Pitt has to stop an evil CEO of an oil and natural gas company in the US from establishing absolute monopoly over oil resources and supplies. It is a typical Dirk Pitt novel dealing with a countdown, bribed officials, and ruthless evil leaders. Pitt also unravels the work of a brilliant, reclusive scientist who had made great advances in oil technology, traced the history and found the remains of a Viking settlement on the Hudson River; the scientist also discovered the remains of Captain Nemo's Nautilus and deciphered and improved its power system (a magnetohydrodynamic engine). The book climaxes with Dirk on the verge of proposing to his Lady when they are interrupted by the introduction of his children, Dirk and Summer Pitt, named after their father and mother respectively. ===== The game is set during Japan's Edo period, in about the year 1630, in a province called Ohkami in the western region, where the power has been seized by an evil tyrant named Gyokuro. The goal is to end his oppressive rule and restore peace. ===== A horror/comedy comic, the series begins with Michael Paris, an ordinary young man who has inherited a large plot of land upon his grandfather's death. The land is located in a town called "Raven's Hollow", and while Michael, or Paris as he prefers to be called, thinks he's just going to pick up the check for the land, he finds that the land is actually the town graveyard, called "The Boneyard". It's also not empty of active occupants, as a number of mythological creatures inhabit it. ===== Two families embark on a pleasant Sunday picnic in their Ford Model T, but manage to run into a variety of issues with the temperamental automobile. Each incident requires repeated exits and reboardings by Laurel, Hardy, their wives and grouchy, gout-ridden Uncle Edgar. A brick-throwing argument with a neighbor threatens to escalate into an all-out turf war until the local parson gets involved. The families manage to finally get their day underway, only to plunge neck-deep into a seemingly shallow, water-filled pothole. ===== The plot revolves around Mr. Furnace’s (the narrator) quest to marry his math professor’s daughter. Unfortunately, the math teacher does not approve of him, as he does not excel in mathematics. The professor sets him a challenge: to discover the principle of infinite speed. The narrator turns to his tutor, and is able to find the solution in the tachypomp. Eventually the professor agrees to allow Mr. Furnace to marry his daughter. The tutor tells Furnace about several scientific discoveries. These include: * an android capable of computing vulgar fractions and composing sonnets; * a hollow tube leading through the earth to the Kerguelen Islands (where a Dutch navigator Rhuyghens is said to have found an "abysmal pit"); * a solution to squaring the circle; * a perpetual motion machine; * the tachypomp. ===== On the mining vessel Red Dwarf, Dave Lister (Craig Charles) and Arnold Rimmer (Chris Barrie) go about their daily routine of maintenance. Rimmer takes his maintenance duties very seriously, despite lacking respect from other crew members, while Lister is more eager to be lazy and drink with others, and hopes to return to Earth to start a farm on Fiji with the true love of his life, Kristine Kochanski (Clare Grogan). The following day, Rimmer prepares for his latest attempt at the engineering exam, hoping to get promoted, but finds that the notes and equations he wrote on his arms and legs have been blurred due to him sweating nervously, prompting him to hand in a voided examination paper to the examiner before fainting.Howarth & Lyons (1993) p. 45. Meanwhile, Lister is brought before Captain Hollister (Mac McDonald) and accused of smuggling aboard a non-quarantined pet – a pregnant cat that Lister named Frankenstein and hopes to include in his future plans. Learning that Frankenstein would be "put down" for a biopsy, Lister refuses and is sentenced to 18 months of suspended animation in a stasis cell. When he is revived by Holly (Norman Lovett) – the ship's ever increasingly senile computer – he is informed that the crew are all dead, after a faulty drive plate caused them to be subjected to a lethal dose of cadmium II radiation. Lister is horrified to learn that he could not be released until three million years later, when the radiation had dispersed. Lister soon discovers that Rimmer was resurrected by Holly as a hologram, though with the inability to touch or feel anything, and learns that he was responsible for the accident. While they explore the ship, the pair come across a graceful-looking humanoid which Holly reveals to be an evolution of cats descended from Lister's pet. Holly reveals that Frankenstein managed to get into the ship's hold during the accident and was able to be safely sealed as a result. When the pair catch up with it, they manage to convince it that they are no threat, whereupon Lister names him Cat (Danny John-Jules) and learns that his ancestors created a religion around him. When Cat explains that his kind revered Lister as "Cloister the Stupid", who would lead them to the promised land "Fuchal", Lister points out what he means and promises to do so, prompting Holly to a course for Fiji. After Rimmer remarks that humankind will have evolved to the point that Lister will be like "the slime that first crawled out of the oceans", Lister declares "Look out, Earth – the slime's coming home!"Howarth & Lyons (1993) p. 46. ===== John Logue, a dedicated John Kerry campaigner in the 2004 election, makes a drunken campaign vow to move to Canada if George W. Bush is re-elected. When Bush indeed wins again, John finds his employer and his friends took his public vow seriously and he can not help but stay true to his word. He meets Chloe Hamon, a reader of his blog, who wants to accompany him to Canada. On his way, they visit John's parents who are upset about his liberal views because his father is an inveterate Republican supporter. Moreover, John's brother is a soldier who fought in the Iraq War. Later, close to the Canada–United States border, Chloe reveals to John that she is a deserter who was in Iraq as a soldier and is supposed to return there. John insists on taking Chloe to Canada although he then risks getting in trouble should she get arrested. In Canada, they are welcomed by a community of American expatriates but neither John nor Chloe really fit in there, despite the arrangement of a marriage to allow John to remain. Making a difficult decision to return, John and Chloe head for the border and an uncertain fate. When Chloe is arrested and has to go to prison, John waits for her, and upon returning to the United States, has made a determination that he can make a difference. As the film ends, "Logue for State Senate" can be seen on a bumper sticker on his car. ===== Kill the Poor begins with a fire in the apartment of tough guy Carlos DeJesus and his trouble-making son, Segundo. The screenplay then focuses on the other tenants of the rundown building in an attempt to determine who set the blaze. The other principals are: * Joe Peltz, a young man who ignored his uncle's warnings to bring his wife Annabelle and their young child into the neighborhood where his Jewish grandparents had their start in America; * Spike, an aspiring found-object sculptor; * Delilah, a flamboyant gay man; * Butch, a presumptuous graduate student; * Scarlet, the tenement's resident floozy; * Negrito, a fixture in the neighborhood. A shared distrust of Carlos and Segundo unites this eclectic group and prompts them to hold "co-op" meetings with one goal: eviction of Carlos and Segundo DeJesus. ===== The time is the 1890s. Captain Sam (Henry Travers), owner of the showboat River Queen, travels along the Mississippi River bringing honest entertainment to each town. At a stop in Ironville, he meets Crawford (Alan Curtis), Bonita (Rita Johnson), and Bailey (Joe Sawyer), who are wanted by the local sheriff. Against the advice of his daughter Caroline (Lois Collier), his lead actor Dexter Broadhurst (Bud Abbott), and his chief roustabout Sebastian Dinwiddle (Lou Costello), the Captain joins them for a card game at a local gambling house. The Captain is plied with alcohol until he is intoxicated and gets involved in a crooked card game where he loses controlling interest in the show boat to Bonita and Crawford. They turn the showboat into a floating gambling casino with every game rigged in their favor. Dexter and Sebastian help the captain regain ownership of his vessel and oust the unwanted criminals. ===== Traveling to Earth after his trip to the core of the Milky Way Galaxy, Beowulf "Bey" Shaeffer befriends Gregory Pelton, a fabulously wealthy and gregarious flatlander (Earth-born human) who calls himself Elephant. Irritated at always being labeled a flatlander despite having logged many hours in space, Elephant decides to visit the most unusual system in or near Known Space, and has his agents put in a call to meet with the nearest Outsider vessel. Elephant, as well as two women named Diana and Sharrol, show Shaeffer around Earth for a few days; Shaeffer and Sharrol quickly develop a romantic relationship. Four days after landing on Earth, Elephant and Shaeffer travel to the edge of Known Space in Elephant's ship, the Slower Than Infinity (written ST∞), to meet the Outsiders for information on the location of the most unusual system in Known Space. The Outsiders charge a million "stars" (the interstellar currency) for the whereabouts of the system and Elephant accepts; the Outsiders also offer to explain, for an additional two hundred thousand stars, what exactly makes the star system unusual. Elephant declines when they reveal that he will be able to find this out for himself. The Outsiders ferry the Slower Than Infinity to the system. The two make a list of particularities apparent about the planet orbiting what Shaeffer dubs the Fast Protosun: * Velocity of the system relative to Known Space, 0.8 c . * Possible extragalactic origin. * Only protostar in Known Space. * Extremely high radiation levels, which would result in their suit shielding breaking down in 3 days, the extension bubble in 20 hours. * Very smooth surface of the planet, as if polished. * The system is relatively clear of meteors * Protosun too thin for fusion, yet glowing. * The planet has no lithosphere, it appears to be worn down to the asthenosphere which has hardened in the interstellar cold. * An asteroid crater was nearly eroded away from interstellar dust, which should be too thin to work so fast. * There are helium II lifeforms present on the planet. * The lifeforms are all on the back side of the planet relative to its course through Known Space, as if they feared the interstellar dust. * The so-called "indestructible" General Products hull evaporates while within its vicinity. Endangered by the final peculiarity, they only have just enough time to get their helmets on. The remainder of the ship, along with the stowed extension bubble, is still intact. Elephant insists on attempting to land on the planet anyway but Shaeffer convinces him that, unless he can explain why the General Products hull disappeared, they should run for it. Elephant agrees, resentfully, but says that if he were alone he would go down. With some difficulty, they return to Jinx. Most of the trip is made in silence as Elephant is not happy about running. Shaeffer gets in contact with a General Products puppeteer, declaring that his GP hull failed. He gives the puppeteer details about their exploration of the fast protosun and the puppeteer agrees to pay the indemnity, noting that they were unaware that such quantities of antimatter were present anywhere in the galaxy. This, the puppeteer explains, is what caused the hull to evaporate. It is thus revealed to Shaeffer and Elephant that what made the system the most distinctive was its composition: antimatter, which General Products hulls are not resistant to. Elephant finally understands why he’s just a "flatlander": He does not instinctively recognize that the universe is a dangerous place to live. ===== The game takes place in America in the 1800s, in the area known as the Wild West. Gojiro Kiryu, a samurai, has arrived from Japan to find and kill his brother, Rando, who came to the United States some time before. Upon his arrival, he finds the region under the tyrannical rule of a local Tycoon named Goldberg, whose hired thugs have left the nearby settlements virtual ghost towns. Although initially uninterested in these happenings, Gojiro is nonetheless drawn into conflict with Goldberg's forces as his warrior's code demands that he do the right thing and help the people being hurt by the tycoon. After learning of a connection between Goldberg and his missing brother, a final confrontation lingers. ===== Lydia, the main character, has just arrived at Dragonvale Academy, a school of magic. Her best friend, Celeste, agreed to meet her outside the school at a nearby fountain, but when Lydia arrives, the school is deserted and Celeste is nowhere to be found. With the help of a wolf (who claims to be both a dragon and a familiar to a powerful mage) named Zak, Lydia sets out to find out what happened at Dragonvale Academy that caused the disappearance of hundreds of people and to reunite with her best friend. ===== John Parrish, a former Union Army officer, has been living out west to facilitate his recovery from an old war wound. Now that he has a clean bill of health, he plans to sell his land to Anchor Ranch and move east with his fiancée, Caroline Vail. However, he is troubled when he witnesses the town sheriff being gunned down by Wade Matlock, one of the henchmen working for the Anchor Ranch. Later, Anchor's crippled owner, Lew Wilkison, presents a low ball offer for John's ranch, telling him he has 24 hours to respond. After thinking about it, John decides to sell. Then, one of John's ranch hands is murdered by Wade. John's men ride into town for revenge, but he orders them back to his ranch and tells them that the new town sheriff, who works for Lew, is waiting to arrest them if they kill Wade. Alone, John confronts Wade in the town saloon, surrounded by Lew's men. John asks Wade to give himself up for the killing. Wade begins to laugh. Josh slaps his face, grabs his gun hand, while pulling his own gun and killing Wade. John quickly exits the saloon before Lew's men can react. The next day, John rides to the Anchor Ranch and tells Lew that his ranch is not for sale. Further, as he rides out, John tells Lew, "Don't force me to fight, because you won't like my way of fighting." This riles everyone at the Anchor Ranch, except Judith, the daughter of Lew and Martha. Not all is well at Anchor with Martha carrying on with his brother, Cole, who also has a Mexican girl friend in town. Led by Cole, Lew's men burn down John's ranch. Unbeknownst to Cole, John and his men expected this. Using his military experience, they ambush Cole and Lew's men, killing several of them. Back at the Anchor ranch, Cole and Lew argue and Cole decides to leave, going into town to see his Mexican girl friend. Meanwhile, John and his men cause Lew's horses to stampede, forcing all of Lew's men to leave the ranch to deal with the horses. With the ranch unguarded, John's men set fire to the Anchor ranch. Still at the ranch, Lew and Martha are caught in the fire. Lew asks Martha for his crutches and she throws them into the fire before running from the burning house, leaving him to die. Martha finds Cole and tells him that Lew is dead and together, they can rebuild Anchor. Cole agrees to help Martha and assembles a small army of men, with help from the sheriff, who believes that Lew is dead. Back at the ranch, Judith finds Lew, who has crawled from the burning house and is hurt, but far from dead. Judith takes Lew to the hills where John and his men are hiding. Cole and Martha return to the ranch with the army of men but are confronted by John and Lew. The sheriff is shocked to see Lew, who orders the small army to leave his property. John, seeing Cole in the distance, rides toward him for a final showdown. Martha smiles, expecting Cole to kill John. They approach one another and start shooting. Cole is shot in the chest and falls to the ground, dead. Martha runs to him and as she kneels down, she sees Lew and Judith approaching her. In a panic, she runs from the ranch, only to be killed by Coles's Mexican girl friend. Later, in town, John and his men are loading supplies on their wagon, when Judith approaches and tells John that her father would like him to run Anchor. John tells Judith he has his own ranch to rebuild and rides off. Then he quickly returns and smiling, he tells her "your father once told me he'd get my ranch one way or another." John and Judith ride off together. ===== The Palais Garnier is in the midst of the world premiere of Don Juan Triumphant when the enormous chandelier adorning the domed ceiling of the auditorium plunges into the middle of the stalls and kills several members of the audience. The player takes the role of Raoul Montand, a detective from the Sûreté and patron of the Opera. The manager, Monsieur Brie, suspects the Phantom may be the cause and has Raoul investigate. Raoul encounters the leading actress of the show, Christine Florent, who has received a note from the Phantom which threatens her. Some time later, Christine is found strangled by the Phantom. Raoul goes to the catwalk where the Phantom appears and pushes him off the edge. Then, he awakens to find himself transported back in time to the year 1881 where he is mistaken for the Viscount Raoul de Chagny. During a production, Erik captures Christine Daae. After a great deal of work and exploring, Raoul enters the Phantom's lair and rescues Christine, but the Phantom appears once more and re-captures Christine. Raoul climbs to the chandelier and does battle with the Phantom, eventually causing the chandelier to fall and kill both men. Raoul awakens back in his own time, where none of the events related to the Phantom seem to have taken place, but before the credits begin the Phantom's shadow is seen behind him. ===== The story, taking place in a fantasy world, revolves around a magical sphere where the evil sorcerer, Sanwe, was trapped by the late King of Gran Callahach 20 years ago and he is about to break free. The newly crowned king, Callash, goes on a quest to stop the wizard before he regains his powers. However, when he faces Sanwe, he discovers that he is not the real king but a shapechanger named Pid Shuffle. It is revealed that the Queen Mother concocted the scheme to get rid of Callash and put his evil brother MacMorn on the throne, persuading the Court Wizard to aid her under the false pretense of saving Callash from mortal danger. It falls to Pid to rescue the rightful King and defeat MacMorn. ===== The novel is set in Moscow in the Yeltsin years, the early 1990s, a time of rampant chaos and corruption. Its protagonist, Babylen Tatarsky, graduate student and poet, has been tossed onto the streets after the fall of the Soviet Union where he soon learns his true calling: developing Russian versions of western advertisements. But the more he succeeds as a copywriter, the more he searches for meaning in a culture now defined by material possessions and self-indulgence. He attempts to discover the forces that determine individual desires and shape collective belief in this post-Soviet world. In this quest, Tatarsky sees coincidences that suggest patterns that in turn suggest a hidden meaning behind the chaos of life. He first senses this hidden purpose when reading about Mesopotamian religious practices. Tatarsky's quest is enhanced by the consumption of hallucinogenic mushrooms, cocaine, and vodka. His quest is further aided by another form of spirits: through a ouija board, Che Guevara writes a treatise on identity, consumerism, and television. Eventually, Tatarsky begins to learn some truths—for instance, that all of politics and the “real” events broadcast on television are digital creations. But he can never quite discover the ultimate force behind these fabrications. When at last he reaches the top of the corporate pyramid, Tatarsky learns that the members of his firm are servants of the goddess Ishtar, whose corporeal form consists of the totality of advertising images. The firm's chief duty is to make sure that Ishtar's enemy, the dog Phukkup, does not awaken, bringing with it chaos and destruction. After a ritual sacrifice, Tatarsky becomes the goddesses’ new regent and, in the form of a 3-D double, her bridegroom. In the novel's last chapter, Tatarsky's electronic double becomes a ubiquitous presence on Russian TV. Tatarsky, who had tried to look past the false images presented on TV to see a true unmediated reality, has himself been transformed into an illusion. It is explained in the epilogue that the "P" in Generation P stands for "Generation Pizdets," which translated roughly as "Generation Screwed." ===== The story begins in the "Land of Magic and Enchantment" where a young man named Zyll was unsuccessfully attempting to become a master of black magic. His ultimate goal was to become "Ruler of the Realm", an ambition for which he was eventually banished. After banishment, Zyll accidentally discovered the magical "Black Orb" upon throwing a failed potion to the ground. The ancient texts said that anyone possessing the Black Orb would become more powerful than all of the other sorcerers. Zyll used his newfound powers to take revenge against the Land of Magic and Enchantment by stealing the "Great Treasures" that had been hidden in secret vaults for many years. He eventually turned the once prosperous country into a dark and barren wasteland. Players are given the role of a daring adventurer who has decided to steal the Black Orb from Zyll in order to return the Land of Magic and Enchantment to its previous splendor. Upon obtaining the Black Orb, the player must collect at least four of the stolen Great Treasures in order to be instantly transported to the Land of Magic and Enchantment. Game-play begins with the player being transported to Zyll's home, the Castle Mitain. ===== Paul, a Welshman and former miner, has written a screenplay about his experience in the 1984 Miners' Strike. His friend arranges a meeting with the film executives of "Golden Pictures", which is known for pornographic films, but wants to branch out and become more reputable. The executives tell him that they like the script, but they want to make some changes, such as having Arthur Scargill dramatically rescue a woman, played by Meryl Streep, from a collapsing mine (to which Paul points out that the mine would not be operational, since the film is about a strike). Concerned with the direction the film is taking, and the studio's desire to cast Al Pacino as Arthur Scargill despite the two having little in common, Paul expresses dissatisfaction with his friend who set up the meeting, but is told to trust him. During a location scout, the representatives from Golden Pictures say that they think the modern mining town doesn't look like what they imagined, and decide to set the film in the 1930s and replace various locations such as a shoe store with archaic places like a blacksmith shop. Paul meets a friend who was also a miner and promises to get him a role in the film, but the executives think that he doesn't look like a miner. Al Pacino drives in a limo to a hotel for the shoot, but is not impressed with the accommodations. While driving, he expresses interest in a small house along the road, and purchases it, evicting the woman who lives there. Back in the film offices, the executive and Al Pacino say that they want to change the ending of the script from a tragic ending of the strike failing to a happy ending of the underdog winning. Paul and his friend say they are not happy with how the film's direction is going and want to cancel the film. The executive writes two cheques: one to get Paul's friend to leave the production, and the other to keep Paul on board. Al Pacino tells Paul that they need him, and, after seeing the amount of money on the cheque, he agrees to write whatever ending they want. On the film set, Golden Pictures tears up the modern mining town to create the image they want and turning down actual miners because they don't match the stereotype they have in mind. The footage of the beginning of the film shows Scargill in an anachronistic town as the only person who is literate. He reads a modern copy of Das Kapital in a tavern while the townspeople (including stereotypical miners who wear old-fashioned mining helmets in town) berate him for not having the courage to lead a strike. Meryl Streep is the invented wife of Arthur Scargill who believes his commitment to the miner's rights is straining their marriage and taking a toll on their daughter. Paul has a nightmare in which a disembodied voice tells him his film is misrepresenting the miners he wanted to help. Paul says it got out of control and he never meant for it to get that way, but the voice accuses him of being complicit by taking the money. He is woken up by a phone call from the executive, who is partying with Al Pacino and asks for a scandalous scene of Arthur Scargill and his drunken antics, which Paul attempts to write, but in the morning admits to Al Pacino that it doesn't fit with the story. Watching a film reel of more footage, Paul looks in anguish as he sees that the stereotypical miners have physically abused Scargill's wife to send a message to him. Scargill is distraught when he sees this, but they are interrupted when he learns of a mining accident. The miners working on site (despite the alleged strike) tell him that his daughter is down there. He narrowly escapes, but is told that while he was down there, disgruntled miners raided "the dynamite store" and are planning on blowing up a nuclear reactor in retaliation. The film is completed and the publicity tour commences, showing a promotional tour portraying *The Strike!* as an action romance film. Paul, horrified by this, begins drinking heavily. The remainder of the film is interspersed with an awards ceremony in which the film receives numerous accolades while Paul continues to drink. Arthur Scargill convinces the miners to hold off on blowing up the nuclear reactor until he speaks with Parliament at 3 o'clock. He borrows a motorcycle and races to London, arriving just as Big Ben strikes 3. Just as the miners are about to detonate, they hear over the radio that Scargill has burst into Parliament and hold off. He is allowed to speak, and gives an impassioned speech about patriotism and democratic values, while his wife (inexplicably present) looks on in the audience. Scargill ends saying that his daughter asked him if he would always be a coal miner, and says that the decision rests with Parliament. A vote is called and the vote is unanimously to agree to the strike's demands and allow coal miners to work! The doors to Parliament open to show Scargill's wife and daughter. His daughter is in leg braces and takes tenuous steps into parliament, while members shake her hand, telling her how brave her father is. When she makes it into Scargill's arms, Parliament erupts in cheers and won't quiet down, ending the film. The executive tells Paul that he should be proud of how successful his film is, and says they should do it again sometime. Paul returns on a bus to his hometown where he sees townspeople picketing the movie theatre with signs that say he is responsible for misrepresenting their plight. Paul throws his typewriter into the air, letting it smash onto the ground, as he walks out into the pasture. ===== The film takes place in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and follows the story of Art Frankel (played by Jay Baruchel) as he desperately tries to save his girlfriend Cody Wesson (Sarah Lind) who is in the hospital after an overdose on drugs. Art discovers a time machine and decides to use it to save Cody by attempting to rewrite her past. The film also features local drag queen Robert Kaiser as Sabrina. ===== The story begins in a city where every evening every person hooks up to the power grid via an armband and given energy, which helps them last until the next power up. The heroine, whose name isn't revealed, works as a pixel. Her job involves standing in a giant grid, while wearing a special suit. The suit's arms have flaps of several different colors, and via headphones she is given instructions on which colors to display. With several hundred pixels each displaying a color while standing on the grid, it forms a giant telescreen which displays advertisements for 20 minutes each day. The heroine's best friend is Eve, also a coworker. One day, after a power up, the heroine finds that due to a blunder on Eve's part during the 20 minute show, Eve has been denied her energy packet for the day. Since Eve didn't have a backup packet, she didn't get energy and is now rapidly losing the will to function and live. The heroine has no choice but to drag Eve to a black market dealer who illegally sells energy packets and can administer them through a portable power up machine. The heroine and Eve barely have enough money to cover the cost of the energy packet, but Eve's life is saved. Suddenly, a mysterious individual shows up and kills the black market dealers with advanced weaponry. After some deliberation, he spares the heroine and Eve. After the incident, Eve starts acting more and more strangely. Eventually she disappears and after some time her body is found in a sewage drain. The heroine is saddened by this event and decides to seek answers. She learns of the rumor of The Factory, a mysterious place where the energy is supposedly produced and then sent. She also hears rumors about people who live in abandoned skyscrapers and don't rely on any energy packets to survive. She travels up one of these skyscrapers. After riskily getting around a broken flight of stairs by climbing on the outside of the skyscraper, she encounters a man who derisively refers to her as a "synthetic". However, he is impressed by the risk she took getting up the skyscraper and invites her to an event in one of the skyscrapers where synthetics go to try to get over their dependence on the energy packets. After asking one of her friends whether he'd be willing to share even a small portion of his energy packet with everyone, she realizes the addictive properties of the energy and decides to go. The event turns out to be a rave supervised by the people who have learned to live on their own energy. The heroine sees many people and recognizes that the journey up to the event is a big risk since there isn't enough time to get back down in time for the power up. The heroine, due to her work as a pixel where she has to rely on the beat of the commands, feels the beat of the music and feels energy flowing through her. In a moment of euphoria she climbs onto the stage and her newly discovered self energy is powerful enough to make the old projector lights on the roof work at full power. After the event, she is adopted by the wild people. The wild people live in the tops of the abandoned skyscrapers, and live like birds. They rely on flying harnesses and the wind currents to get around. The heroine learns their way of life and lives there for a while. She finds out that the Controllers, the city's police, actively try to hunt down the wild people, therefore the wild people have to stay in the safety of the skyscrapers and only go down to scavenge supplies. One day, a kid crashes while trying out his flying harness and ends up with several broken bones. The heroine goes back down to the city to try and buy painkillers, but since she has been missing for a long time, her card has been flagged and she is captured by the Controllers. She is taken to the precinct. At the precinct, she is taken to the office of an agent called a Catcher who tells her that she has been misinformed, and that the Controllers only want to send the wild people to The Factory, where they belong. She is put in a cable car along with several other wild people who were captured, and sent to the factory. Since the cable car will take about a day to get to the factory, most of the wild people go to sleep for the night, except for the heroine. At midnight, she sees the cable car conductor (a synthetic) use a portable power up machine, similar to the one used by the black market dealers, to power up. However, he doesn't power up once but at least 6 times. The heroine realizes that using the illegal energy gets you addicted and that after some time all the energy in the world wouldn't be able to satisfy the addicts, which leads them to die. She realizes that this is what caused Eve to die. She gets into an argument with the cable car conductor. In his intoxication with the energy, he reveals The Factory takes "generators" aka wild people who rely on their own energy, and rips the energy out in order to feed it to the city. This is where the energy provided by The Factory comes from. Refusing this fate, the heroine jumps out of the cable car, and survives by using the skills she learned in Overground to navigate the wind currents. She lands in a forest. In the forest, she discovers more wild people, except they live a more indigenous lifestyle. They are led by the Queen Mother, who supposedly has mystical powers due to the fact that she has a lot of wild energy. The Queen Mother thinks that the heroine will lead her people to ruin and as such wishes to get rid of her. The Queen Mother decides to put the heroine in one on one combat against her apprentice. They are to fight to the death on a frozen over lake. Although the apprentice is a much better fighter, having grown up in the wild, the heroine manages to defeat her by predicting her movements and breaking the ice underneath her. As the apprentice is about to drown, the heroine decides to save her. While at first she thinks that her act would earn her sympathy, she quickly finds that by saving the apprentice in combat, she has greatly dishonored the apprentice and failed her own test. The apprentice is given the title Unnamed and the heroine is forced into another fight, this time with a towering female named The Huntress. The fight takes place on a tall cliff. The heroine realizes she is physically outmatched, and is soon left dangling on the side of the cliff with the Huntress towering above. She predicts the Huntress's strikes and crawls onto a tree sticking out of the side of the mountain. The Huntress follows her, but the tree falls under her weight, taking the Huntress with it. The heroine, using the skills she learned in Overground, glides to safety onto the cliff. The Queen Mother is angered and declares that she will fight the heroine personally. The fight takes place on top of a fire pit, which somehow doesn't seem to hurt the combatants. In fact, the fire seems to empower the heroine and she defeats the Queen Mother. In her last breaths, the Queen Mother calls the heroine Lana. After the fight, the heroine is dazed and confused until she realizes that Lana is her new name, and she is the new Queen Mother. Lana lives with the indigenous people for sometime, even falling in love with a man named Yariy, and although she doesn't feel like she has any of the mystical powers the Queen Mother was supposed to have, she quickly realizes that her own wild energy is her greatest strength. During her time, the village elder, takes Lana to see the Factory from a distance. Lana sees that the Factory isn't a happy place filled with energy like so many back in the city believed, but a scary large concrete building surrounded by persistent fog. As she sees the cable car regularly coming to and from the Factory she realizes that she has to stop the killing of wild people for energy. The village elder tells her that he thinks that at first, the Factory used to be powered by weather, hence the lightning rods on its roof, but eventually that was abandoned for a different power source. He believes that at the center of the Factory is a giant grey Heart that powers it and the only way to stop the Factory is to get inside and stab the Heart. She gathers a group of willing village people and decides to assault the Factory. Yariy destroys her drum and attempts to convince her that it was an omen to not go through with the plan, but this only angers Lana who declares him a coward and ends their relationship. The next day, Lana and her people attack the Factory, with the intent of attracting electrical currents to the lightning rods to cause lightning to destroy the security system. However, they encounter the Factory's greatest security system: the anti-rhythm, which causes deafening silence around the Factory, and slowly stops a person's living processes completely. The people are hindered in channeling the lightning and by the time Lana is able to destroy the security robots, all of the people who went with her died. The door to the Factory can't close, the body of the village elder blocking it, and Lana is able to enter. She travels through the foggy dark and damp corridors of the Factory in an attempt to find the heart but is knocked out by a mysterious man. Once she wakes up she realizes that the man is the same person who killed the black market dealers but spared her and Eve at the beginning of the story. He explains that the way the illegal energy packets are obtained is that the black market dealers find people addicted to the energy, like the cable car operator or Eve, and drain them of their energy before dumping their body. The energy drained is resold and is so addictive due to it being the energy of a synthetic. The man finds these people to be disgusting and thus kills anybody he can find dealing out the energy. When Lana questions his identity he simply declares that he is the Heart of the Factory. At first, Lana is imprisoned inside a room with a foldable TV screen with only 3 channels, one of which only works for 20 minutes a day and displays the same telescreen that she used to work in. Soon, the Heart begins to trust her more and lets her out and shows her around. He shows her the view from the top of the factory and shows her the wires running from the factory in the direction of the city. He explains that via these wires, each power up, everybody hooks themselves up to the factory which gives them energy. Lana is on the verge of committing suicide, but the Heart convinces her the life is worth living. He explains that he himself came to the Factory attempting to change something after his wife died due to lack of energy before giving birth to their daughter, but realized that the Factory must keep running in order to keep everybody living, but with less and less wild people, the Factory won't be able to last forever and give everyone energy. He shows Lana several other things. He shows her a computer that he can use to control what is being said on the 20 minute telescreen presentation all the way in the city. He also shows her a cart in the basement of the Factory which runs on the energy of mating slugs. Lana deduces that he uses this cart to get back to the city. The Heart also explains how the Dessicator works. He tells her that the Dessicator is the "oven" of the factory. It's a membrane that will detect the natural vibration of a person, and cause an anti vibration that fills the person, turning them to ashes and leaving the person's pure energy behind which is then absorbed by the factory. His description reminds Lana of the fire pit on which Lana fought with the Queen Mother, and the Heart explains that the fire pit actually transferred all of the Queen Mother's energy into Lana upon Lana's victory. Once every couple of days, a cable car arrives with new wild people. The Heart and Lana always sit together as they feel the Factory shudder as the Dessicator does its work. The Heart explains that he journeys to the city primarily to see the happy synthetics in order to demonstrate to himself that the work he's doing matters. Eventually, Lana hatches an escape plan. She takes the foldable TV screen the Heart gave her, runs into his room and types a message into his computer "Factory is real, devours human energy. Don't trust the Controllers/Catchers. Search for SYNT - Lana". She sends this message to the telescreen where it is displayed to the entire city. She then runs up to the top of the Factory, with the Heart in pursuit, and then jumps off, using the foldable screen to glide over the antirhythm and out of the Factory. Once outside, she is able to follow a water flow back into the Factory and into the tunnel with the cart used to get back to the city. She activates the cart, however the Heart was expecting this and didn't tell her that she needed to flip a lever in the tunnel, which causes the cart to return to the Factory. The Heart recaptures her, however after more planning Lana decides to escape again. This time she jumps onto a cable car as it's leaving. Suddenly, the cable car conductor is called and asked to look for stowaways. He sees Lana hanging off the side of the car, but chooses not to report her. He drops her off before the cart enters the precinct, and Lana ends up back in the city. Back in the city, Lana discovers that the Controllers are now patrolling the streets much more actively. She visits the abandoned skyscraper but finds that the wild people aren't there and that Overground has been ransacked. Back in the lower city, she visits a drum shop that was run by a contact who helped the wild people. This time, there is a woman at the counter. When Lana mentions her own name, a Controller immediately arrives and stuns her with a taser. However, instead of taking her to the precinct, he determines that she is indeed Lana and drops her off next to an entrance to the sewers and tells her to climb down. In the sewers, she finds her old friends from Overground who explain that the Controllers raided Overground and they were forced to live in the sewers, which is occupied by its own wild people, the moles. She tells them about her adventures during her absence and explains that SYNT is the name of the organization in charge of the Factory. Her friends explain that ever since she sent that message to the telescreen, the Controllers have been on high alert and searching for Lana, who has become a legend in the city. She goes to another one of the wild people raves where she discovers that she can use her own wild energy to help free synthetics from its dependence. Lana hatches a plan to take the cable car back to the village where she was Queen Mother and assault the Factory once more. However, most of her friends are captured in a raid. She realizes that she needs to break into SYNT in the next day in order to get on the same cable car that is carrying her friends. Her friend takes her back to the abandoned skyscraper where he gives her a drum. She beats it and people in the other skyscrapers beat back. Eventually, they are able to amass a lot of people who start a riot within the city which draws more and more people guided by the legend of Lana. This guarantees that SYNT will be empty as all of the police are busy handling the riot. As the riot progresses, Lana breaks into SYNT and gets on the cable car with her friends. She wakes them up and once they reach the village, they climb down using rope. Lana enters the village, and as she is still the Queen Mother, the villagers obey her despite many of them believing that Lana caused the deaths of their brothers and fathers. In the crowd, Lana sees Yariy together with a pregnant Unnamed. Despite many people doubting her, all of the grown up children who remember her as a benevolent Queen Mother decide to follow her into battle. As they approach the Factory, the antirhythm engulfs them, however they are able to disable it with their energy and enter the Factory. In the Factory, Lana approaches the Dessicator and sees the Heart standing next to it. He criticizes her for never settling down even when she had everything, however Lana retorts that she refuses to live in a world where people have to fight for the will to live. At this point the Heart says that she is just like her mother, implying that he is her father. Lana steps onto the Dessicator. Her goal is to overload the Dessicator with wild energy so that it breaks and the Factory doesn't have to kill people anymore to provide energy. Despite her best efforts to maintain her own rhythm despite the membrane filling her with antivibration, she starts weakening. At this point all of her companions jump onto the membrane and each of them starts doing their best to maintain their own rhythm by performing anything that fills them with wild energy such as dancing and playing on drums. The battle starts going much better as the Dessicator starts overloading, but Lana realizes that they won't be able to keep it up for long enough. Suddenly, the Heart jumps onto the center of the membrane and starts channeling his own wild energy. As the Dessicator absorbs him. it overloads, leaving the Heart a pile of ashes and the Dessicator broken. Afterwards Lana sees off her friends by putting them on the same cart that the Heart used to take to the city. In the epilogue it is revealed that Lana herself provides enough energy to feed the entire city, and that the more she gives, the stronger she becomes. She is the new Heart of the Factory, but she states that the final battle is yet to come, possibly meaning it is up to the population of synthetics to learn how to live again. ===== The film is a parody of Enid Blyton's Famous Five books, in which the Five – children Julian (Richardson), Dick (Adrian Edmondson), George (Dawn French), Anne (Jennifer Saunders), and their dog Timmy – arrive on holiday at their uncle Quentin (Ronald Allen) and aunt Fanny's home. With their uncle missing, the Five decide to spend several days on a cycling holiday in Dorset. After picnicking and reporting some criminals to the local police they visit the local village to buy cakes to celebrate at shopkeeper’s (Robbie Coltrane) shop. There they also encounter a horrible but rich boy, Toby (Daniel Peacock), whom the Five at first refuse to accept into their group due to his ugly behaviour and also their cliquish nature. Later, while camping, Toby becomes kidnapped by the same criminals as before. Coltrane later also appears again, this time as a lecherous gypsy. The film ends when the Five sneak into an abandoned castle and uncover what has really been going on all this time. The special mocks and satirises aspects of Blyton's books, most notably the dated sexism, racism and class snobbery of the books (the Five make racist remarks to a porter at the train station when they are picked up by Aunt Fanny, repeated remarks about Anne as a "proper little housewife") and the formula of the young adventurer genre (most notably kids overhearing criminals discuss their plans, which are portrayed as characters stating "blah blah blah" and key plot elements), as well as the running gag relating to the books' constant mention of the various feasts the Five indulge in while on picnics. The film's phrase "lashings of ginger beer" became so well known that it is now often mistakenly attributed to Blyton herself, although it never appears in any of the Famous Five books. The film also makes overt references to bestiality in George (implying a sexual relationship between her and Timmy) and overt references to the criminalisation of homosexuality in pre-1968 Britain: the film's climax reveals that the group's uncle Quentin is a "screaming homosexual" who faked his own kidnapping in order to abandon his "nymphomaniac" wife, Aunt Fanny. ===== Aimwell and Archer are two fashionable beaux, on the lookout for an heiress to marry so they can repair their fortunes. To help their scheme, Archer poses as Aimwell's servant when they arrive in the city of Lichfield. Aimwell insinuates himself into friendship with the beautiful Dorinda, daughter of Lady Bountiful. Meanwhile, Archer strikes up an extremely worldly friendship with Kate, Dorinda's sister-in-law. She's unhappily married to Sullen, a parody of a country squire, mad for hunting and eating and (especially) drinking. Obstacles to a happy ending include the fact that Kate's husband despises her; that the innkeeper's saucy daughter, Cherry, has fallen in love with Archer; that Lady Bountiful, who is extremely over- protective of Dorinda's virtue, mistakenly believes herself to be a great healer of the sick, while a band of brigands plans to rob Lady Bountiful that very night. ===== The story begins with Elena travelling to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to follow up a lead the Pack have come across on believe.com which purports to be able to prove the existence of werewolves. However, when she meets her contact, a young witch named Paige Winterbourne, she has information that Elena finds extremely disturbing. Not only does she claim to know about werewolves, but more specifically about her. It is clear that the posting on the website was a lure designed to bring Elena to Pittsburgh because of problems other supernaturals have been having with a group headed by Tyrone Winsloe. Elena is skeptical, having given no credence up to this point that other supernatural beings such as witches and vampires could exist. The claims of Paige and her mother, Ruth, sound like conspiracy theories that Elena finds hard to believe. Unable to sleep, she goes out that night for a run, but is followed by a stalker with military training. Elena evades him only to discover that he has colleagues and that they are trying to capture not only herself, but also the Winterbournes. In the fight, Elena kills one of the men, Mark, and the three women find themselves confronting a half-demon able to teleport whom Elena nicknames 'Houdini', who works for Tyrone Winsloe. Ruth casts a spell which traps him temporarily and the three women make their escape. Elena calls Jeremy and, the next morning, the two of them attend a meeting of the Inter- racial Council. There they are told about a shaman who had been kidnapped and taken away from his home in Virginia to a compound run by Tyrone Winsloe and Lawrence Matasumi. With his abilities of Astral projection, the shaman is able to not only determine that he is not the only captive, but also to contact the shaman on the Inter-racial Council, Kenneth. Following the discussion about how to handle matters, Jeremy declines to return to the meeting after dinner. His priority is first and foremost to the Pack and its safety. Whilst he is prepared to join forces with the Council if necessary, it is only a temporary measure as the Pack has always fought its own battles. That night Clay arrives. The three werewolves are attacked by men working for Winsloe, but they are all killed. The Pack are suspicious because the only people who knew they were in the area where the members of the Council. So, the following day, when they arrive at the meeting, they do so with the head of one of the men in a bag. They decline any offer to align themselves with the Council and leave. On the way back, Elena is kidnapped and taken to the compound. There she becomes involved with many of the other residents, being 'befriended' by Leah and Sondra, as well as helping Doctor Carmichael in the infirmary. She discovers Ruth has also been kidnapped. The witch is particularly interested in another prisoner, Savannah Levine. However, 'poltergeist activity', that many of those in the compound associate with Savannah, plays a role in the death of Ruth. Sondra Bauer becomes obsessed with turning herself into a werewolf and injects herself with some of Elena's saliva. Her body reacts as if she has been bitten, and she is taken to the infirmary. While there, Bauer kills Carmichael and Elena is forced to sedate her. Bauer is transferred to the cell beside Elena's. Tyrone Winsloe takes an interest in Elena, wanting her to wear skimpy clothing as well as watch, and participate in, his 'hunts'. Prisoners such as Patrick Lake and Armen Haig are killed during these and it becomes clear that Elena is next. Winsloe brings her photographs that he claims are of Clay and that Clay is now dead. An apparent system malfunction provides the opportunity for Elena, Sondra, Leah and Savannah to attempt escape. Bauer loses control and is killed by the guards. Leah and Savannah get left behind when an elevator door closes on Elena. She makes a run for it, Changing into a wolf, and is chased by dogs. Clay finds her and takes her back to Jeremy and the others who are in New Brunswick, Canada. After telling her story, the group devise a plan to free the others from the compound and to put a stop to Ty Winsloe and his associates. Clay, Paige, Adam and Elena enter the compound first. They kill the dogs and disable the vehicles before entering the building itself. Tucker and the guards are killed or disabled before they enter the cell block. There they find Savannah. Curtis Zaid is revealed to be Isaac Katzen when he attacks Paige and the others. Katzen is killed. Leah is shown to be the one really responsible for the poltergeist activity. She attempts to snatch Savannah, but is prevented and escapes. Clay and Elena track Winsloe and kill him. ===== The player chooses from a roster of characters who are forced to compete in The Club, a modern form of gladiatorial combat. There are 8 characters to choose from: Renwick, Dragov, Nemo, Seager, Adjo, Kuro, Finn, and Killen. ===== Set nine months after the events of Stolen, or as Paige observes at the beginning of the novel "nine months, three weeks and two days", Dime Store Magic begins with Paige receiving complaints from the Elders about Savannah, clearly not for the first time. The Elders hate trouble and object to anything that might draw attention to the Coven. The same day Paige receives a petition for custody of her ward from Leah O'Donnell, a half-demon involved in events at the compound the previous year. Paige meets Leah and her lawyers, Gabriel Sandford, at the Cary Law Offices in East Falls. There she recognises Gabriel as a sorcerer. It is revealed that the custody claim comes not from Leah, but Savannah's father, Kristof Nast. Nast is the head of the Nast Sorcerer Cabal in Los Angeles, California. After she gets home, Paige is confronted by Victoria and the other Elders who are concerned because Leah's intent to use Paige's status as a witch in the custody battle threatens to expose the Coven. Paige persuades them to give her three days to clear matters up. She then arranges a meeting with Grantham Cary Jr., the local lawyer. It is decided to request that Nast submit to DNA testing to prove his paternity claim. Sandford, as Paige expected, refuses on behalf of his client. In order to force her to submit, Leah and associates begin a dirty tricks campaign that includes placing a hand of glory on her property and setting up satanic altars in the fields behind. Paige comes under investigation by the town sheriff's department and also the social services. At this point, Lucas Cortez turns up on Paige's doorstep and offers his services. His offer is refused as witches do not trust sorcerers. The media set up camp outside Paige's house and, on a drive into town to pick up a takeaway, Paige's car is deliberately run into by Grantham Cary Jr because she refused his offer of paying his fees by sharing his bed. Furious, she confronts his wife at his house and then returns home. Cary leaves a message on her answering machine asking her to come to his office to talk. However, when she gets there it is to discover Leah is there too. The half- demon uses her powers to throw Cary out of a window, framing Paige for his murder. Paige is taken to the police station, from where she is released by Lucas Cortez, despite Paige's protests. They then go to a Coven meeting, but receive little support from the other members. Angry, Paige agrees to talk to Lucas and he provides her with background information on the Cabals. The next day Paige receives a call telling her to come to the funeral home to pick up her file from Cary's people. Thinking this is strange, as it is currently Cary's visitation, Paige nonetheless agrees and she and Savannah go to the home. However, whilst they are there Nast employees stage a scene that involves bodies raising from the dead and illusions. Paige and Savannah are rescued by Lucas. The police arrive but are forced to let them go. Events continue to escalate with other incidents occurring. The Coven get increasingly anxious, and Social Services turn up to check on Savannah. However, the interview does not go well as Savannah is upset - at least until she discovers that she has begun to menstruate. Cortez grows concerned because the menses ceremony associated with a witch's first period can be vital to ensuring her loyalty to her Cabal and he believes that this will increase the urgency of any action Leah and her colleagues take. Paige also grows curious about the differences between witch and sorcerer magic. She starts to realise that there were once several grades of spell: primary, secondary and tertiary. However, at some point the higher level spells were lost or deliberately destroyed, only a few surviving in old grimoires that the Coven Elders refuse to let the other witches use. These grimoires are kept by Savannah's aunt, Margaret. When they visit her to borrow her car, Paige takes the grimoires. She, Savannah and Lucas then drive to Salem, Massachusetts. There, the two witches argue. Savannah insists on the ceremony her mother wished to use, not the Coven approved one Paige underwent. Paige finally agrees to Savannah's wish, but the ceremony requires them to get certain ingredients which requires them to go to the cemetery. Afterwards, Paige shares the knowledge of the grimoires with Lucas and they become lovers. The next day Paige's house is fire-bombed, and she and Savannah are kidnapped by the Nast Cabal. Nast presents his claim to Savannah. Savannah agrees to it provided she can have Paige do the originally planned ceremony and also that Paige can stay. Kristof Nast accepts. They then meet Greta and Olivia Enwright. They are supposed to be teaching Savannah, however during this lessons they force her to sacrifice a boy and drink his blood. Savannah is deeply upset. Nast denies any knowledge. Sandford observes that the Cabal Witches had expected Greta's daughter to succeed her, not Savannah, and that the ritual might have been a form of revenge. Paige is secured and gagged so that she can't spellcast. Sandford brings her to the notice of Lucas' family and one visits her. He orders her death by sundown. Friesen takes her away to kill her, but Paige manages to escape. When she returns to Nast's house, it is to find all hell has broken loose in her absence. Savannah has called a demon as she attempts to raise her mother from the dead. Nast is killed trying to save his daughter. Lucas tells Paige a spell that will permit her to look like Eve Levine temporarily. They use this to get Savannah out of the house. ===== The story starts with the attack upon Dana MacArthur, daughter of a Cabal employee. Dismayed by her inability to persuade other witches to form a new coven because of their disapproval of her relationship with Lucas Cortez, Paige Winterbourne is not entirely happy to find his father - Benicio Cortez - on her doorstep with news of the new case. Lucas and Paige decide to travel to Miami to visit his father and introduce Paige to the family, as well as to hear further details about the attack. They discover that Dana's is only one of a series of similar attacks upon the children of Cabal employees. That night another child, the son of Benicio's bodyguard is killed. The father, Griffin, asks Paige and Lucas to investigate. Concerned about Savannah, they arrange for her to stay with the werewolf Pack. They then arrange to meet up with Jaime Vegas, a necromancer. Jaime manages to contact Dana, who is believed to be in a coma, getting what details she can from her about the attack. In the process she discovers the girl is dead. Investigation leads them to the home of Everett Weber. They are unable to find him, but do find a lot of encrypted computer files. Paige breaks the code to reveal a list of the children of Cabal employees. They track down Weber, but before they can persuade him to come with him peacefully, a Cabal SWAT team cause a hostage situation. Paige is injured and Everett taken into custody. The trial results in Weber's swift execution, but almost immediately another child is killed - the grandson of Thomas Nast. Jaime, Lucas and Paige go out to the swamp where Weber would be buried to contact him. They meet Esus. He gives them details about the man who hired Weber. When they continue to investigate, they start to be plagued by a ghost, but Jaime struggles to contact it. Eventually, they discover that the ghost is that of a vampire. Their search leads them to the home of Edward and Natasha, two immortality- quester vampires. Natasha has been killed, she is the ghost, and Edward is looking for revenge. They set a trap, but it backfires. Lucas is shot, and both he and Paige find themselves in the land of the dead. There Paige meets Savannah's mother, Eve, who guides her. The Fates offer them a choice, and their decision returns them to the land of the living, where they find the werewolves have begun to search for them. A trap is set for Edward at a charity ball, but it goes wrong. Jaime is kidnapped and Benicio ignores the plan in order to save his son. Jeremy, Savannah and Paige help to save everyone. Benicio executes Edward. ===== Half-demon Hope Adams loves her job. Granted, working for True News tabloid isn’t quite the career her high-society family had in mind for her. What they don’t know is that the tabloid job is just a cover, a way for her to investigate stories with a paranormal twist, and help protect the supernatural world from exposure. When Hope’s “handler” sends her and a date to a museum charity gala, Hope suspects there’s more to it than a free perk. He’s tested her before. This time, she’s ready for whatever he throws her way. Or so she thinks...until she meets her target: werewolf thief, Karl Marsten...From author's website ===== In this story the half-demon Xavier calls in a favour - steal Jack the Ripper's From Hell letter away from a Toronto collector who had himself stolen it from the British police files. It seems simple, but in the process Elena accidentally triggers a spell placed on the letter which opens a portal into the nether regions of Victorian London. With thieving vampires, killer rats and unstoppable zombies on the loose, Elena and the Pack must find a way to close the portal before it is too late. To add to the confusion, Elena herself is pregnant with Clay's child (actually twins). The story begins with Elena worrying about her current pregnancy. She has concerns about what effect her werewolf nature will have on the unborn child, something with no recorded precedent in Pack knowledge. Clay and Jeremy, also concerned, have imposed a number of restrictions on her actions too, which Elena accepts but is also frustrated by. She is, therefore, not entirely displeased to hear from Xavier Reese who offers her a deal: he will hand over information about a rogue mutt the Pack have been seeking in exchange for the Pack's help in stealing an artefact from a sorcerer - the From Hell letter. The deal is agreed to and, after the mutt has been dealt with, Jeremy steals the letter. As they leave, however, Clay squashes a mosquito and smears Elena's blood on the document. This activates an inter-dimensional portal, which releases individuals previously entrapped there during the Victorian era. Now zombies, these track Elena, putting her and her unborn offspring at risk. Attempting to rescue her, the Pack kill these zombies, but to their shock they keep returning. In addition, cholera has infected the Toronto water-supply and the city's rats have become diseased and aggressive. Modern individuals disappear through the portal by accident, whilst murders take place that lead them to suspect that they have released Jack the Ripper himself upon an unsuspecting public. ===== Such Is My Beloved takes place in a city experiencing the economic hardships of the Great Depression. The main character is Father Stephen Dowling, a young, exuberant priest searching for the meaning of God's love. Dowling decides to try to help two young prostitutes, Ronnie and Midge, turn their lives around. The priest goes to great lengths to try to help them, such as giving them money and clothes, while trying to find them jobs. As the story progresses, Dowling becomes increasingly involved in the girls’ lives. He exhibits agape for the prostitutes and does everything he can to help them redeem their lives. His relationship with the prostitutes is condemned by his rich, self-righteous parishioners and his bishop. In the end, the girls are arrested for prostitution and sent away. Dowling feels that he has failed the girls and becomes grief-stricken. His anguish over the girls’ fate causes him to lose his sanity and subsequently he is removed from the church and sent away to an insane asylum. In the end, Dowling has a beautiful moment of clarity in which he sacrifices his own sanity to God to spare the girls’ souls. The novel closes on his realization of the purely Christian love he bears for Ronnie, Midge and for all of humanity. ===== Nicky Rogan has written several plays and has achieved success. It's now opening night of his latest effort and everyone around him assure him that this one will be the best yet. But as opening hour approaches, Rogan falls prey to doubts and fears, egged on by another playwright whose last work was trashed by the local newspaper's new drama critic, Steven Schwimmer. He eventually lets those fears drive him to resolve to kill the critic (who he assumes will also trash his play) and he procures a handgun with which to perform the deed. Instead of attending the play's opening night, Rogan spends time in a bar, accompanied by a lady cab driver and her grandson; earlier in the evening she misidentified Rogan as a local, small-time hoodlum but he doesn't correct her misidentification. They watch the crucial Game 6 of the 1986 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Mets. The Sox have won 3 games and could clinch the title by winning Game 6 but Rogan, a lifelong Sox fan, knows how easily the team can lose when they should win. He spends the evening waiting for the inevitable, even though the Sox are leading most of the time. When the inevitable does occur (due to an unexpected pair of errors at the end of the final inning), he snaps and leaves to take out his rage on the newspaper critic. Rogan not only finds the critic but sees him in the early stages of deflowering the playwright's daughter. He begins firing wildly and is finally calmed when he learns the critic is equally devastated by the Sox's loss. They end up together, watching an interminable rerun of the final error by Bill Buckner on a small television set in the critic's apartment. ===== The game's setting in respect to the novels is ambiguous. Elayna Sedai, the protagonist and the player's alter ego, is reading a report from an expedition she sent out, when she is attacked by an unknown assassin in her office in the White Tower. She is knocked out, and he makes off with an odd, horn-shaped ter’angreal but not the cuendillar seals he was looking for. The Amyrlin subsequently sends Elayna to recover the ter’angreal. Elayna follows the assassin and his army of Trollocs to the crumbling city of Shadar Logoth, which is inhabited by unknown evil creatures. She tracks the assassin through the city, battling Trollocs and dark creatures along the way and finally corners the assassin, who admits that he was hired by the Forsaken Ishamael. Ishamael is seeking the seals held by the Amyrlin. The assassin agrees to return the ter’angreal in return for his life. Just as Elayna retrieves the ter’angreal, the assassin is assailed by Mashadar, the evil that consumed Shadar Logoth, manifested as a mist-like creature. Upon returning to Tar Valon, Elayna finds the White Tower besieged by Trollocs. After helping to secure the tower, Elayna is told that the Amyrlin wants to see her in the basement with the ter’angreal. On her way to the basement, Elayna overhears a group of Black Ajah Aes Sedai with the assassin from Shadar Logoth and another Aes Sedai named Sephraem, all of whom are working for Ishamael. When Elayna finds the Amyrlin, she tells her of the Black Ajah. The Amyrlin then tells Elayna of the importance of the odd ter’angreal: Elayna, a weak channeller, has the potential to be the most powerful being on earth. Since her childhood, the Amyrlin has shielded Elayna from the One Power for her own protection, and the odd ter’angreal is able to unlock that power. Just as the Amyrlin is about to use the ter’angreal on Elayna, the assassin and Sephraem break in, kill the Amyrlin, and take the ter’angreal as well as the Amyrlin's seal. Elayna takes a few moments to mourn the Amyrlin's passing, then pursues the assassin and his minions as the new acting Amyrlin. They lead her to an empty Aes Sedai expedition site outside a Whitecloak fortress. She is captured by the Whitecloaks and thrown in the dungeon, where a few of the Aes Sedai are located. Elayna learns that some Aes Sedai were able to escape through a portal stone outside the fortress. She manages to escape from her cell and makes her way to the portal stone. The portal takes her into the Mountains of Mist, near the fortress of Ishamael. She finds the escaped Aes Sedai in the dungeon of the fortress, rescues them, and defends them while they make their way back to the portal stone. Once they are all away, she begins to search the fortress for the Amyrlin's seal, which the assassin, now referred to as the Hound, brought to the fortress. While searching the fortress, she finds some notes on a long lost ritual to remove from the seals the power with the intent to release the Dark Lord from his prison. She eventually finds the seal, guarded by Sephraem. After defeating her and claiming the seal, Elayna is captured by Ishamael, who prepares to torture her. The Hound comes in and uses the odd ter’angreal to trap Ishamael in a Shield. He then explains that he has succumbed to the chaotic evil of Shadar Logoth, and how he purposefully pitted Ishamael, the Aes Sedai and the Whitecloaks against each other to sow chaos. Elayna and Ishamael are able to escape the Hound's grasp, and Elayna begins gathering seals to complete the aforementioned ritual. Once they are gathered, Elayna travels to Shayol Ghul, where the ritual must be performed. The Hound arrives, offering to trade the odd ter’angreal, which could bestow untold powers on Elayna, for the seals. To his surprise, Elayna refuses the offer, noting how she had spent her life without those powers. She sends the Hound falling to his death with the artifact and completes the ritual, ensuring that the Dark Lord cannot escape his prison until the Last Battle. =====