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The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin

''The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin'' follows 15-year-old Teddy Ruxpin as he leaves his home on the island of Rillonia with his best friend Grubby to follow an ancient map which leads him to find a collection of crystals on the mainland of Grundo. With the help of his new friend Dr. Newton Gimmick, Teddy and Grubby discover the magical powers of what turns out to be an ancestral treasure as well as an organization with ambitions to use it for evil known as M.A.V.O. (short for Monsters and Villains Organization). Along the way, Teddy learns the long-lost history of his species and clues to the location of his missing father.


Rockin' in the Rockies

While his cousin Rusty Williams (Jay Kirby) is away at Agricultural College, prospector Shorty (Moe) fills in at Rusty's struggling Reno, Nevada spread as the ranch foreman. He spends his time looking for an angle at the Wagon Wheel Cafe Casino, and hooks up with two vagrants (Larry and Curly) after they accidentally win big at roulette. Along with two stranded New York singers (Mary Beth Hughes, Gladys Blake) and their money, the Stooges and the girls head for the ranch with prospecting plans. Rusty returns home with hope that investor Sam Clemens (Forrest Taylor) will save the ranch's cattle and mining operations, and finds Shorty and the gang's plans interfering. Complicating matters further, inept ranch hands (The Hoosier Hotshots) mistake Clemens for a cattle rustler, and Shorty, Curly and Larry cook up a scheme to get the girls an audition with a vacationing Broadway producer (Tim Ryan).


Dumbbell Indemnity

At Moe's Tavern, Homer notices that Moe is depressed because he cannot get a date. Homer decides to take Moe out to meet a woman. The trip to a disco proves to be unsuccessful, but on their way home, a flower vendor named Renee starts a conversation with Moe, and he ends up asking her out.

Moe and Renee seem to form a strong relationship, but Moe is insecure about his hold on her and he feels he must spend large amounts of money so she will stay with him. Upon maxing out his credit card and driving away his customers when he attempts to call in their bar tabs, Moe comes up with a scheme to commit insurance fraud by having Homer steal his car and park it on train tracks so it would be destroyed. The night the scheme is supposed to take place, Moe and Renee attend a police charity event aboard a yacht; the event's attendance by all the officers in town ensures Homer will not get caught perpetrating the scheme, and gives Moe an alibi so that no one will suspect he was behind the act. Homer botches the plan by stopping to watch a drive-in movie, while the train they were counting on to destroy Moe's car passes by. Deciding all is not lost, Homer drives the car over a cliff — but his attempt to exit the car before it sinks into the water below fails. The car ends up sinking just near the yacht where the police charity event is taking place, and when Homer swims to the surface, he is arrested.

Moe speaks to Homer through the bars of his jail cell window and promises to bail him out, but changes his mind when Renee talks about wanting to vacation in Hawaii. While packing for the trip, Moe is confronted by his own conscience, in the form of Homer, who makes him feel bad for his betrayal. Moe ends up telling Renee the truth about the insurance fraud scheme, and she is at first happy he was honest. However, when Moe starts scheming again for a way to get Homer out of jail without paying the bail, Renee is disgusted and leaves him.

Moe's idea involved setting his bar on fire, which he ends up doing by accident as he realizes Renee has left. Meanwhile, Homer escapes jail by attacking Hans Moleman, who was delivering books to the inmates. He enters the burning bar to confront Moe, and the two start fighting. They are both soon rendered unconscious from smoke inhalation, but Barney appears and rescues them (and several kegs of beer). The bar is completely destroyed, and during their reconciliation Homer promises to help Moe get back on his feet. In the final scene, Homer has allowed Moe to temporarily relocate his bar to the Simpsons' home.


Idiocracy

In 2005, U.S. Army librarian Corporal Joe Bauers is selected for a suspended animation experiment as the "most average" individual in the entire armed forces. Lacking a suitable female candidate, the military hires a prostitute named Rita by bribing her pimp Upgrayedd. When the officer in charge is arrested for running his own prostitution ring under Upgrayedd's tutelage, the experiment is forgotten. Over the next five centuries, societal expectations lead the most intelligent humans to choose not to have children while the least intelligent reproduce indiscriminately, creating increasingly dumber generations.

In 2505, Joe and Rita's suspension chambers are unearthed by the collapse of a mountain-sized garbage pile, with Joe's chamber crashing into the apartment of Frito Pendejo. Wandering around what was once Washington, D.C., Joe finds a population that has become profoundly anti-intellectual, speaking only low registers of English and wallowing in overconsumption and crass popular entertainment. Technology is still advanced but often malfunctioning, driven by garish commercialism or extreme simplicity, such as healthcare workers handling computer equipment akin to elementary education software. Believing that he is hallucinating after a year of hibernation, Joe enters a hospital and realizes the truth. Arrested for not having a bar code tattoo to pay for his doctor's appointment, he is sent to prison after being assigned the grossly incompetent Pendejo as his lawyer.

Rita also leaves her chamber, resuming work as a prostitute, but soon realizes that people have become so stupid that she can charge customers money without actual services. Joe is renamed "Not Sure" by a faulty speech-recognition tattooing machine and takes a rudimentary IQ test. The police take Joe to jail. While in line to be admitted, Joe tricks a guard by claiming that he is meant to be released and runs out the door, successfully escaping prison. He finds Frito, who reveals that a time machine exists to return him to 2005, and Joe bribes him with promises of riches through compound interest on a bank account he will open for Frito in the 21st century. Leading Joe and Rita to the time machine, Frito takes them into a gigantic Costco store, where Joe is identified by a tattoo scanner and apprehended.

Joe is taken to the White House and is appointed Secretary of the Interior, as the IQ test identified him as the most intelligent person alive. President Camacho introduces Joe to the cabinet and gives him the impossible job of fixing the nationwide food shortages, dust bowls, and crippled economy within a week. Joe discovers that the nation's crops are irrigated with Brawndo, a "thirst mutilator" whose parent corporation owns the FDA, FCC, and USDA. When Joe has the irrigation system replaced with water, Brawndo's stock plummets, causing massive layoffs and riots, without any visible agricultural improvement.

Joe is sentenced to die in a monster truck demolition derby featuring undefeated "rehabilitation officer" Beef Supreme. However, Beef's oversized vehicle is crushed trying to enter the arena, and Joe manages to defeat the other vehicles. Rita and Frito discover that Joe's reintroduction of water to the soil has allowed vegetation to grow. Showing the sprouting crops on the stadium's Jumbotron prompts Camacho's presidential pardon.

Joe and Rita decide to stay in the future, although later they discover that they had no choice as the "time masheen" Frito mentioned is merely a childishly inaccurate history-themed amusement ride. Following Camacho's term, Joe is elected president and marries Rita. They conceive the world's three smartest children, while new Vice President Frito takes eight wives and fathers thirty-two of the world's stupidest children. The film ends with Joe's inaugural speech, where he praises earlier civilizations for their technology and wonders and expresses hope this society will one day as well.


Three Men and a Little Lady

Peter, Michael, and Jack are living happily together with Mary, who is now five, and her mother, Sylvia. Peter and Michael continue as an architect and cartoonist, while Jack has little acting work. Sylvia has become a famous actress and is dating director Edward who wishes to marry her, but Sylvia is unsure how it will affect Mary.

Sylvia and Peter are clearly in love with each other, although he won't admit his true feelings. When visiting, Sylvia's mother warns her that he may never be able to express or admit his feelings. Sylvia, realizing she wants to get married and start a family, accepts Edward's proposal, announcing she and Mary will be moving to the UK after the wedding.

Inviting Edward to the apartment. Peter tells him he believes he won't be a good father for Mary. When he leaves, Sylvia confronts Peter, leading to a falling out when she calls him selfish and he reminds her she abandoned Mary once (the events of the first film).

Sylvia and Mary leave the next day for the UK. The men, depressed, try to cheer themselves up with one of their bachelor-style parties, but are still miserable without Mary and Sylvia. They go to the UK to visit Mary, who is unhappy without them. Peter and Michael arrive in time for the rehearsal dinner, happily reuniting with Mary and Sylvia. Miss Elspeth Lomax, headmistress of ''Pileforth Academy for Girls'', is introduced to Peter by Edward (who tells her Peter is secretly interested). Peter and Sylvia apologize to each other for the fight.

With the wedding imminent, Peter is concerned as Mary says Edward dislikes her. Peter and Michael realize Edward plans to send Mary to ''Pileforth'' boarding school. Edward denies it and Sylvia refuses to believe Peter, as he has always disliked him. Jack arrives mid-argument and Sylvia and Edward leave. Peter admits he loves Sylvia but stayed silent because of him. Jack insists that Sylvia only loves Peter and must follow his heart.

The night before the wedding, Peter goes to ''Pileforth'' to get proof of Edward's scheme. Elspeth believes Peter is admitting his "feelings," throwing herself at him. Very surprised and deflecting her advances, he gets away. His car breaks down, finally he calls Jack and Michael, confirming he has the proof, but he will be late. Michael, Jack and Mary try to stall the wedding. Michael kidnaps the vicar and Jack disguises himself as an elderly replacement. Peter, with help from Elspeth, heads to the wedding. During the ride, she says Edward told her he was interested, but Peter says Edward lied, apologizing for him.

After numerous delays they arrive at the church. Peter shows Sylvia the truth, Elspeth confirming, that Edward has been lying and he, trying to defend himself, prompts Mary to accuse him of lying again. He shows his true colors, swearing at Mary and Peter, who then punches him out. Sylvia insists she's going home, but Peter stops her, declaring his love. Then, Edward comes to, stating it is too late as they are already married. Jack then reveals himself – he has both finally proven his acting skills, and the marriage is not valid.

Peter and Sylvia wed with Mary as their bridesmaid, who afterwards throws the bouquet into the air and it is caught by a shocked Jack.


Ziegfeld Follies (film)

The movie opens with the camera panning over a Heaven somewhere beyond the sky. The residences of great showmen gone to their eternal reward are shown: Shakespeare, whose home looks like the Globe Theater; P.T.Barnum, whose residence in the afterlife resembles a circus Big Top; and Florenz Ziegfeld, whose home's entrance is reminiscent of the theater where he staged the Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway.

Talking to the audience, Ziegfeld guides the viewers along a wall with three-dimensional paintings or shadow boxes containing dolls that look like the stars he cast in his Follies over the years. The film dissolves into a stop-motion puppet sequence as Ziegfeld provides a voice-over of the opening of one of his shows.

Following this, he steps out onto a balcony, musing how he wishes he could stage just one more Follies, with current and past stars in the cast. A Higher Power causes a cigar-sized crayon and a sheet of parchment to appear, and Ziegfeld begins to write. As he does so, the skits and performance numbers appear on the screen.


Salome of the Tenements

As described in a film magazine review, Sonya Mendel (Goudal) works at a Jewish newspaper. She interviews John Manning (Tearle) on the erection of a new settlement. He invites her to dinner and she borrows clothes from Jakey Salomon (Ruben) so that she looks presentable. She also borrows money from Banker Ben (Tenenholz) and in return she gives a note promising to repay $150 when she marries Manning. After she is married, Ben threatens to show Manning the note unless she "calls him off" from prosecuting Ben. When he learns of the note, Manning forgives his wife.


How Stella Got Her Groove Back

Stella Payne is a very successful 40-year-old stockbroker raising her son, Quincy, and living in Marin County, California, who is persuaded by her best friend from college, Delilah Abraham, to take a well-deserved, first-class vacation to Montego Bay, Jamaica. As she soaks in the beauty of the island, she encounters a handsome young islander, Winston Shakespeare, who is twenty years her junior. His pursuit of her turns into a blossoming romance that forces Stella to take personal inventory of her life and try to find a balance between her desire for love and companionship, and her responsibilities as a mother and corporate executive.


Jarka Ruus

In the 20 years since the events chronicled in ''The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara'', Grianne Ohmsford has become High Druid, or Ard Rhys, of the new Druid Council, but not without misgivings by many over her former life as the evil Ilse Witch. In a bid for power, a group of Druids led by Shadea a'Ru use unorthodox magic called "liquid night" to send Grianne out of the Four Lands and into the Demon-infested world of the Forbidding. Tagwen, Grianne's loyal Dwarf aid, sets out to restore her, seeking the aid of her brother Bek Ohmsford. Finding Bek and his wife Rue Meridian otherwise disposed, Tagwen joins forces with their son Pen, who has a supernatural ability to commune with nature. Advised by the King of the Silver River, they set out in search of the legendary Tanequil tree, which they are told can provide a means to reach Grianne in the Forbidding. They are joined by the elf Ahren Elessedil, now a Druid, and his niece Khyber (heir to the magic Elfstones), as well as the mysteriously empathic Rover girl Cinnaminson, for whom Pen develops strong feelings. Along the way, they are stalked by traitorous Druid minions and their spider-like assassin accomplice, Aphasia Wye. They manage to defeat one of the pursuing Druid airships, but at the cost of Ahren's life and Cinamminson's capture.

Meanwhile, Grianne finds the Forbidding to be a dark mirror of the Four Lands. Exploring this horrific land known locally as Jarka Ruus, she encounters an enigmatic and somewhat annoying creature called Weka Dart. After defeating a dragon like creature and knocking Weka Dart out of a tree, she has a frightening encounter with the shade of Brona, the most legendary evil from the Four Lands, and Grianne is captured by a party of Demons.


Tanequil

Pen, Khyber, and company rescue Cinnaminson and continue their journey north, pursued continuously by traitorous Druids and the assassin Aphasia Wye. Meanwhile, the traitourous Druids find Pen's parents, Bek and Rue, and they agree to go back to Paranor to help to try to find their son Pen. The senior Ohmsfords recognize the deception and lies that the Druids have been telling them, so Bek attempts to locate Pen by using the magical scrye waters in the depths of Paranor. However, Bek and Rue are captured and unwillingly give Pen's position away.

Pen and his friends find allies among the Troll people, led by Kermadec and his semi-estranged brother Atalan, who aid them in locating the mystical Tanequil tree on a ravine-surrounded island. From the Tanequil, Pen receives the enchanted wooden "darkwand," a talisman that can aid him in saving his aunt. However, two of his fingers, as well as Cinnaminson, are taken in exchange. Pen and Aphasia meet in one last confrontation in which the assassin is killed by the Tanequil, but as Pen leaves the island, he finds the rest of his party taken hostage by the enemy Druid traitors.

Meanwhile, the corrupt Federation army has unleashed a devastating new airship-mounted weapon in their war against the Elven and Free-born armies. A shape-shifting Demon called the Moric, has crossed over into the Four Lands from the Forbidding in exchange for Grianne's banishment. This creature, who has taken the form of a Druid advisor to the Federation leader, is intent on using the weapon to destroy the Ellcrys tree in Arborlon, which would allow the Demon hordes from the Forbidding to flood into the Four Lands.

Finally, caged inside a Demon stronghold in the Forbidding, Grianne discovers the Straken Lord's master plan to have the Ellcrys destroyed, and how he manipulated Grianne's nemesis Shadea a'Ru to advance towards this goal. When Grianne is pitted in a contest against a horde of demonic Furies, she is forced to take a Demon-like form in a desperate attempt to survive. She then finds herself trapped in this form and unable to break free because she is unable to control the Wishsong's hold on her. However, the Straken Lord uses the enchanted conjure collar to subside her magic and she is again turned back to Grianne, but with the magic having taken an effect on her. Grianne's only hope for survival lies in the Straken Lord's former minion, Weka Dart.


Straken

After receiving the darkwand from the Tanequil tree, Pen Ohmsford finds his companions—the Dwarf Tagwen and a small troll force led by Kermadec and his brother Atalan—captured by Druid forces under the command of the illegitimate High Druid Shadea a'Ru. Pen agrees to be taken prisoner in exchange for their release. The elf-girl Khyber Elessedil, however, manages to stow away on the Druid airship before it leaves for Paranor.

Meanwhile, Trefen Morys and Bellizen, Druids still loyal to the banished Ard Rhys, help spring Bek and Rue from Paranor's dungeons. After barely escaping with their lives, Bek is directed in a dream by the King of the Silver River to seek Pen's abandoned friends in Taupo Rough. He is told that Pen has made it into the Forbidding in order to save Grianne Ohmsford (the banished High Druid) and Bek will have to work together with each of Pen's companions to ensure their safe return. In a daring airship rescue, Bek and company save the Trolls and Tagwen from a marauding flood of wraithlike Urdas and return to Paranor, picking up a new army of Kermadec's Trolls along the way.

Pen is imprisoned in Paranor and the darkwand is confiscated. Khyber soon springs him free, and together they make their way up to the High Druid's sleeping quarters, where the darkwand is secured. Pen grabs the darkwand and is transported to the realm of the Forbidding, while Khyber is taken prisoner and sentenced to death.

On the Prekkendoran Plains, Pied Sanderling, Captain of the Elven Home Guard, successfully rallies the remaining Elven army to repel the advancing Federation forces and take refuge in a besieged Free-born camp. He leads a daring raid on the Federation base and manages to destroy the ''Dechtera'', the airship that bears a devastating crystal-powered fire-launching weapon prototype. Unshaken, Prime Minister of the Federation Sen Dunsidan commissions the building of another such weapon, but continues to refuse the advice of his vizier Iridia, who wants him to attack Arborlon, the Elven capital. He finds out too late that Iridia is a Moric, a changeling Demon who escaped from the Forbidding when Grianne Ohmsford was banished, and is killed along with the weapon engineer Etan Orek. Taking the Prime Minister's form, the Moric takes the newly created weapon upon the airship ''Zolomach'' towards Arborlon, with the intent of destroying the Ellcrys tree-the only barrier keeping the armies of Demons from the Forbidding from flooding the Four Lands.

Grianne Ohmsford, meanwhile, escapes the stronghold of the Straken Lord with the help of the Straken Lord's turncoat minion Weka Dart, promising him that she will take him back to the Four Lands if at all possible. They are chased through the tunnels under the fortress by a huge worm-like Graumth, and in a final stand, Grianne unleashes a powerfully destructive Wishsong that reminds her of her former life as the evil Ilse Witch, although the Wishsong had never before been this powerful or irrepressible. She speculates that her recent forced psychological transformation into a Fury may have awoken this frightening power in her. Escaping the catacombs, Grianne and Weka Dart are found by Pen, who has been guided to her location by the darkwand. Pen, too, has discovered magic within him, magic more powerful than the simple animal communication skills that he had been previously blessed with. Having survived several encounters with a massive dragon, Pen found that the darkwand had awoken in him the magic of the Wishsong, the magic that both his father and his aunt possess, and that it has not fully revealed itself even yet. Together, Pen, Grianne, and Weka Dart travel back to the place where they can use the darkwand to return to the Four Lands. Unfortunately, Grianne is forced to tell Weka Dart that it is unlikely that the darkwand will be able bring Weka back as well, sending him into a frenzy. After being explained to about the world that Grianne is returning to, he decided not to go to the world after all. He leaves in the middle of the night, never to be seen again. Pen and Grianne prepare to transport back to Paranor.

Having returned to Paranor to help Pen and Grianne when they return, Bek, Rue, and Tagwen sneak in through a tunnel of Tagwen's finding, while Kermadec and his Troll army besiege the keep. Using a secret passage to the Ard Rhys' chambers, they discover Khyber, who escaped her executioners, hiding in the shadows. They find that Shadea a'Ru and her followers have set an inescapable magic trap, called a triagenel, in the chamber to incapacitate Grianne should she return from the Forbidding. Through the combined powers of Bek's Wishsong and Khyber's elfstones, the two manage to weaken the triagenel so that Grianne will be able to break free when it collapses upon her and Pen. Pen and Grianne return to Paranor and, after the triagenel is sprung, Grianne unleashes the power of her Wishsong upon it. This not only utterly destroys the triagenel, but also obliterates one of the walls of the room. Grianne sends Pen with his family and Khyber to find the Moric, while she confronts Shadea, Traunt, and Pyson herself. Reinforced at the last minute by Kermadec and his brother Atalan, Grianne defeats Shadea and her followers and retakes her rightful name as Ard Rhys.

Aboard the airship ''Swift Sure'', Khyber uses the Elfstones to discover that the Moric has taken the form of Sen Dunsidan and is headed for Arborlon. They catch up to him, and under the guise of a diplomatic meeting, trick him into taking the darkwand which transports both the Moric and the darkwand back into the Forbidding. The Moric is then presumably devoured by Pen's giant dragon.

Finally, Grianne, having negotiated an arms treaty calling for the elimination of all crystal-based weapons research, retires as Ard Rhys. She travels with Pen to try to save Pen's girlfriend Cinnaminson, who was transformed into an Aeriad spirit of the Tanequil tree. She is able to, but only by taking the Rover girl's place as an Aeriad. As a spirit, she lives unfettered by both her guilt over her history as the Ilse Witch and her fear of evil awakening in her, and thus finds freedom.


Metaltech: Earthsiege

On November 29, 2471, the race for true artificial intelligence ended when Sentinel Cybertronix activated Project: Prometheus. Prometheus was a prototype, the first cybernetic-hybrid machine, or Cybrid. The mass production of these Cybrids and their use for war, to the point of nuclear war devastated Earth's population. In the aftermath, the Cybrids turned against their human creators, forcing the humans into hiding. Twenty years later, the humans started their own resistance. Using hit-and-run tactics against the machines, the humans managed to survive and even capture Cybrid weapons and equipment.


Earthsiege 2

For twenty years, the remnants of the human race, fought against the Cybrid oppressors aided by pre-Cybrid Hercs. After the destruction of the Cybrid army, the humans maintained their control on Earth, but another Cybrid army came from space colonies for another attack. The humans were able to prevent initial landings, but were about to face the Cybrids as they built their strength on the moon.


Four Eyes and Six Guns

Earnest Allbright (Judge Reinhold) opens his eyeglass store in what he thinks is a thriving community, but soon discovers that his store is just a shabby shack in Tombstone, Arizona. The town's Doom Brothers are trouble for everybody including Wyatt Earp (Fred Ward), the sheriff. Earnest uses his own special brand of short-sighted shooting to help Wyatt rid the town of its worst citizens and live in peace.


A Stranger Came Home

Four friends go on a fishing trip but only three return. After an absence of four years, during which time he had been an amnesiac,the fourth man, Philip Vickers, returns home after regaining his memory. He tells of a "friend" who knocked him out, drugged him, and left him to die. Any one of the remaining men could be a suspect as Job Crandall, Bill Saul and Harry Bryce have all been interested in Philip's attractive 'widow', Angie. Unfortunately, Philip's return coincides with a murder and he becomes the main suspect. Angie joins forces with her husband to help solve the mystery and clear his name.


The Flame Trees of Thika

Robin Grant (David Robb), his wife Tilly (Hayley Mills) and daughter Elspeth (Holly Aird) move to British East Africa (now called Kenya) to set up a coffee plantation. They meet Piet Roos (Morgan Sheppard), a Boer big game hunter, and Njombo, a native who goes to work for them. The Grants face many travails in getting established, but these improve after they hire another native, Sammy, as the headman of the plantation.

Hereward (Nicholas Jones) and Lettice Palmer (Sharon Maughan) move to the area. There is a fight between Roos and Sammy. Then Njombo kills Kimon, who was the Palmers' headman. As a result, his chief strips him of his property and Sammy marries the girl Njombo wanted.

While her parents and the Palmers are on a trip to Nairobi, Elspeth has a very interesting New Year's Eve party with Mrs. Nimmo, who tends to the area's medical needs, and a newcomer to the area, Alec Wilson.

A horse trader and safari leader, Ian Crawford (Ben Cross), arrives in the area. He is infatuated with Lettice Palmer, who gives a pony to Elspeth. We learn Lettice left her first husband to elope with Hereward. Elspeth develops an intense dislike for Hereward Palmer after he shoots a baby antelope on a hunt.

Sammy arranges for a curse to be put on Njombo, and it literally takes an “Act of God” to get it lifted.

After the railroad reaches Thika, Lettice gets a piano, but during a party held to celebrate its arrival, a leopard kills one of her dogs. During the hunt to get it, Hereward kills the leopard but is almost killed by its mate; he is saved by Roos.

The Palmers, Tilly, and Crawford go on a safari, during which Lettice and Crawford have an affair. Hereward and Crawford are about to have a brawl when Crawford's servant stabs Hereward. As a result, Crawford leaves and Lettice stays with Hereward.

On 4 August 1914, the Grants learn war has been declared on Germany. Robin joins the army, while Tilly becomes a nurse and Elspeth goes to school, where she is bullied for being a know-it-all. She runs away back to Thika. Ian Crawford is killed in the war. Robin is transferred to France so all the Grants leave Africa and return to Europe for the duration.


Aleste

The story of ''Aleste'' concerns the manmade supercomputer DIA 51, which has been infected by a hybrid virus that is spreading like wildfire, eventually leading DIA 51 to eliminate the human race. When Yuri, Ray's girlfriend, gets injured in DIA's assault, Raymond Waizen has all the reason in the world to get rid of DIA 51 once and for all in his Aleste fighter.


New Earth (Doctor Who)

After saying their goodbyes to Jackie and Mickey, The Tenth Doctor takes Rose to the year 5,000,000,023 to a world humanity settled on after the destruction of the Earth called "New Earth". The Face of Boe summons the Doctor to Ward 26 in a hospital in New New York through the Doctor's psychic paper. In the ward, the Doctor notices humanoid feline nuns of the Sisters of Plenitude have been curing incurable diseases. Meanwhile, Rose is separated from the Doctor and is tricked by Lady Cassandra into having Cassandra's mind implanted in Rose's body, using a psychic graft.

The Doctor is suspicious of Cassandra's actions after she kisses him and displays knowledge of advanced computer systems. They discover that the hospital houses thousands of pods containing artificially grown humans in what is supposedly the intensive care unit. The artificial humans are forcibly infected with every disease in the galaxy so that the Sisters can discover the cures as a way of dealing with the influx of settlers and the diseases they brought with them. Cassandra reveals she is in Rose's body and knocks the Doctor out with a perfume gas, locking him in a pod. Cassandra then approaches Sister Jatt and demands payment in exchange for keeping the human test subjects secret. The Sisters refuse, and Cassandra releases the Doctor and some of the humans as a distraction. The infected humans release others from their pods and soon a zombie-like attack begins, with those infected trying to attack others in the hospital.

The Doctor and Cassandra reach Ward 26 and grab all the intravenous medical solutions, emptying them into a disinfectant shower installed in a lift. They apply the mixture to a group of infected humans, who within moments become cured of their diseases. The Doctor encourages them to go and spread the cure to the other infected people, and soon the attack is over. The police arrest the surviving Sisters, while the Face of Boe tells the Doctor that the message for him can wait until they meet for the third and final time.

The Doctor orders Cassandra out of Rose's body. Cassandra's servant Chip volunteers to accept her consciousness. Chip's cloned body begins to fail, and Cassandra finally accepts her death. The Doctor takes Cassandra back to see herself on the last night someone had called her beautiful. Cassandra, in Chip's body, approaches her younger self at a party and tells her that she is beautiful, before collapsing and dying in her arms. The Doctor and Rose leave the party in silence.


Tenko and the Guardians of the Magic

A young female magician, already an experienced performer, is chosen by an old man named Tenko to come to his school for magicians and learn real magic. At the school, the young magician befriends a number of other magicians already attending the school and learning magic from Tenko. The new magician begins her training and quickly becomes the best magician at the school.

Impressed by her abilities, the master names the young magician "Princess Tenko" in recognition as his successor as the next Tenko and the Master Guardian of the Tenko Box, a magical wardrobe that contains many magic gems known as the Starfire Gems. Two of the most senior students, the twins Jana and Jason watch on. Jana become jealous of the newcomer when she is chosen to become Tenko's successor and conspires for rebellion. Jason tries to talk some sense stating that unlike Jana who had slacked off during training, Mariko is more responsible and therefore Tenko could trust her. She convinces him to help her and succeed at stealing two of the Starfire Gems for their own use.

When Jana and Jason are discovered, Master Tenko is overcome by their magic. In the scuffle, the Tenko Box is damaged, and the remaining Starfire gems are scattered all over the world and some through time. The twins escape as the new Tenko arrives in an attempt to stop them. Pleased with the young magician's abilities, Master Tenko entrusts Princess Tenko and his remaining students with Starfire Gems he had hidden away and the duty of recovering and protecting the other Starfire Gems from the forces of evil.


The Galaxy Railways

The Galaxy Railways

The story takes place in an alternate future, where trains are capable of interplanetary travel. The fleet of the Galaxy Railways is protected by the Space Defence Force, or SDF, against intergalactic terrorists, meteor storms and malicious alien life.

In the series it seems that the Galaxy Railways serve as both an establishment and government presiding over a large sector of the galaxy.The Galaxy Railways Season 1: Episode 2 The railways are made up of a series of large rings that create energy shields to protect the trains that move between them, creating the tracks the trains follow. The railways are under the rule of the Supreme Commander, but seem to be more actively guided by a lower ranking official known as the Commander. The Galaxy Railways Headquarters preside over the SDF and the SPG (Space Panzer Grenadiers, an elite defense force) as well as all passenger operations.

In the beginning of the story, the main character, Manabu Yūki, has always had dreams of joining the SDF, following in the footsteps of his father and brother.The Galaxy Railways Season 1: Episode 1 Because both his brother and father died while serving in the SDF, his mother tries to stop Manabu from joining the SDF. Despite this, Manabu is determined to join, and boards the train to Destiny Station to join the force. Manabu trains hard and despite conflicts from Captain Bulge, Bruce and other characters, joins the Sirius Platoon that his father used to command.

The Sirius Platoon's train is headed up by a steam locomotive dubbed Big One. The locomotive itself is based on the Union Pacific Big Boy steam locomotives, built by the American Locomotive Co. of Schenectady, New York. The Sirius Platoon is the primary focus of the Galaxy Railways, though the Spica and Vega platoons also make appearances and become more involved towards the end of the series.

A Letter from the Abandoned Planet

A 4-part OVA series was produced that bridges both seasons of the show (production on the OVA actually began before the sequel TV series, even though it was released later).

The Galaxy Express 999 crashes on the off-limits planet of Herise (ヒーライズ) and it's up to the SDF Sirius Platoon to assist.

Crossroads to Eternity

In 2006 a sequel series, began broadcasting in Japan for a 26-episode run. Of those 26, only 24 episodes were broadcast on television, with the final two released only on DVD.

The series picks up after an unknown amount of time has passed after the 1st season. Manabu is on his home planet of Tabito, on vacation. Meanwhile, Sirius Platoon has an intern sitting in to observe and learn the ropes, Killian Black (the foster son of Mr. Conductor from Galaxy Express 999. As seen in "A Letter from the Abandoned Planet"). When Big One encounters trouble just outside Tabito's orbit, Manabu "borrows" a maintenance locomotive and flies up to rescue his shipmates. That ends his vacation and he returns to Planet Destiny. There is a new Platoon formed while Manabu was away, to replace Vega Platoon after they sacrificed themselves and their train, Iron Burger, during the Alfort invasion. They go by the name Cepheus Platoon, and it is led by Capitan Guy Lawrence, who served with Captain Bulge under Capitan Yuuki, Manabu's father and former captain of Big One. They seem uptight and serious, and is partially teaming up with Sirius Platoon just once.

After several filler episodes, some interesting developments take place. some examples: 1. Manabu takes Killian under his wing, much like Bruce did with him in Season One. He feels that he should carry on Bruce's harsh training methods and attitude towards newbies, and seems to be very good at it. (throughout the series) 2. A prototype SPG train, designed to be based on Big One is stolen by pirates who use it to ruin Sirius Platoon's name. After a heated showdown, they are obliterated by the Cosmo Matrix Cannon. (episodes 13-14)

Then the main part of the story starts out. During a rescue operation to pull a stranded train from a dimensional fault line, a small pod emerges from it. The pod is recovered by Big One. Inside is Frell, a little girl who says she is from another universe, and needs to return to her home planet. She hears Manabu's last name, and says she knew his father or at least heard his name discussed before. finding this out, Big One Charges through the fault line, making it to the other universe. Once there, they start planet hopping using Big One's Off-Track Mode (not being anywhere near the Galaxy Railways, it would normally be impossible for a train to even move).

After making peace on several planets and helping out in different ways the various inhabitants of them, Big One is sucked into "The Bottom of Gravity", a literal gravity pit. There they find SDF and Galaxy Railways Trains that have disappeared from their universe over the years. They also find various other craft that have been missing. For some reason, the Platoon is not able to get Big One to move. During this time, Frell starts spending periods of time in the engine room (inside the boiler, where all the glowing dials and switches are). One time, as she is turning to leave, she feels a presence and asks who is there. Suddenly, all the glowing dials and switches light up and a voice says that it is the Independent Train Control System, type G8001. This is basically the voice of Big One. Frell has a conversation with Big One, and she learns that Big One will not move because the other trains have started to persuade him to stay in the pit and sleep peacefully, or die. Big One also says that he is not moving because he does not have a destination. After Frell convinces the rest of the Platoon that Big One really does talk, they come into the engine room and give Big One some support, such as saying that after they take Frell to her planet, they will all go back to Destiny together. Big One realizes that Sirius Platoon never gives up, even in impossible situations. He also realizes that he too is a member of Sirius Platoon. He asks other engines that have been repaired and coupled up to lend him their power, and they do. Big One with all the other engines make it out of the pit. But just as they reach the top, the couplers break and the other engines fall back into the pit, while they are saying their farewells to Big One.

Finally, they make it to Frell's planet, Fatom. After speaking to the elders, they find out the horrible truth. After ramming Big One into an enemy ship when Manabu was a little boy, Wataru crash-landed in the destroyed Big One on Frell's planet. The people on Fatom do not remember Wataru himself, and they think that he is controlling the weapons that torment the planet. After fighting a ship and unmanned fighters on Fatom, Sirius Platoon goes back out into space to find what the locals call "The Demonic Machine". When they reach it, they find that it is the size of a planet. When they fight it, they see that it can repair itself. Suddenly, all the SDF trains emerge into view to help Big One fight the Demonic Machine. They realize that there is a thirty-second lag before the self recovery, and they use this to give time for Big One to charge inside. They do, and Frell goes with Manabu to find his father. They find the original Demonic Machine (it had gathered other machines to be the size of a planet) and see that it has a Galaxy Railways ID number. He finds his father's cap in front of a hologram generator, and his father's spirit in holographic form appears. Wataru says hello to Manabu, and tells him what had happened. After crashing on Fatom, he made peace with the locals and all was well. However, a few weeks after landing, the SDF's prototype top-secret Inter-universe Tunneler malfunctioned and crashed on the planet, wiping out a critical part of the land. Wataru armed himself and attacked the tunneler, which had an A.I. built into it. It absorbed Wataru's body, melding his spirit into the machine. It then used his image as a puppet to speak to humans. It uses its weapon system to torment planets all over the alternate universe. He then tells Manabu to shoot him through the head and end all the madness. If he does, then the A.I. will be destroyed also. Reluctantly, he does so, takes his hat, and makes it out to Big One and through the dimensional tunnel made by a new tunneling machine found by the SDF just in time.

The ending shows Manabu and Louise returning to Tabito together and presenting his father's cap to his mother.

Continuity with other works

This series begins one year before the film "Galaxy Express 999" which takes place in 2221 AD. The first episode concludes the one year after "Galaxy Express 999: Eternal Fantasy" takes place, which is 2225. The rest of the series occurs in the year 2230. ''Galaxy Express 999'' was noted for guest appearances by Captain Harlock, Queen Emeraldas and other connections such as Queen Millennia. The first ''Galaxy Railways'' season had no such crossovers and appearances by other Leijiverse characters were limited to subtle visual homages, although Manabu's brother, when accepted by the SDF, boards the Galaxy Express 999 to start his new assignment. Maetel and Tetsuro can both briefly be seen as silhouettes as well. For example, Captain Harlock appears as the Joker in a deck of cards. And Queen Millennia appears on the head of coin used for currency. Their status as actual existing characters in this continuity is not known. However, Maetel, Tetsuro, and The Conductor from ''Galaxy Express 999'' do appear in the later ''Galaxy Railways'' OVA.

Leiji Matsumoto states on an interview included in the first DVD of the American release, that Manabu Yuuki is actually the brother of female space pirate Kei Yūki, seen in the ''Captain Harlock'' TV series and ''Endless Odyssey'' OVA, though such a relationship has never been mentioned in the anime series and seems unlikely. In the latest volume of the ''Galaxy Express 999'' manga, however, they are brother and sister.


The Waterdance

Joel Garcia is a writer who, after a hiking accident at a mountain, must struggle with paralysis. At the same time, he carries a relationship with Anna, a married woman, with whom he was having an affair at the time of the accident. The lovers attempt to carry on their affair during his emotional and difficult rehabilitation as a paraplegic.


Emmanuelle in Space

The series starred Krista Allen as Emmanuelle, a hedonistic young woman who finds herself teaching the ways of sexuality to a group of aliens who land on Earth, and Paul Michael Robinson as an alien space captain. The story follows an extraterrestrial space crew that finds Emmanuelle on Earth and enlists her help to understand human love and sexuality.

As in the case with the other Emmanuelle films, ''Emmanuelle in Space'' contains much nudity and sexual content. Today, the various episodes of ''Emmanuelle in Space'' are generally available edited together into feature-length productions on DVD and occasionally show up on broadcasters such as Cinemax and cable networks outside the U.S.


The Battle of Life

Two sisters, Grace and Marion, live happily in an English village with their two servants, Clemency Newcome and Ben Britain, and their good-natured widower father Dr Jeddler. Dr Jeddler is a man whose philosophy is to treat life as a farce. Marion, the younger sister, is betrothed to Alfred Heathfield, Jeddler's ward who is leaving the village to complete his studies. He entrusts Marion to Grace's care and makes a promise to return to win Marion's hand.

Michael Warden, a libertine who is about to leave the country, is thought by the solicitors Snitchey and Craggs to be about to seduce the younger sister into an elopement. Clemency spies Marion one night in her clandestine rendezvous with Warden. On the day that Alfred is to return, however, it is discovered that Marion has run off. Her supposed elopement causes much grief to both her father and her sister.

Six years pass. Clemency is now married to Britain and the two have set up a tavern in the village. After nursing heartbreak, Alfred marries Grace instead of Marion and she bears him a daughter, also called Marion. On the birthday of Marion, Grace confides to Alfred that Marion has made a promise to explain her so-called "elopement" in person. Marion indeed appears that evening by sunset and explains her disappearance to the parties involved. It turns out that Marion has not "eloped" but has instead been living at her aunt Martha's place so as to allow Alfred to fall in love with Grace. Tears are shed and happiness and forgiveness reign as the missing sister is reunited with the rest. Warden also returns, and, forgiven by Dr Jeddler, marries Marion.


Something About Amelia

Shame and fear have kept Amelia Bennett silent about the sexual molestation she has been suffering at the hands of her father, Steven. But as Amelia starts to believe that Steven might harm her younger sibling in similar ways, she unburdens herself of her awful secret. Confronted with this horrifying piece of news, Steven's wife, Gail, refuses to believe it is true, and he professes his innocence. But as new details emerge, the family is shaken to its core.


Firebreather (comics)

Early life

Duncan Rosenblatt is the son of the human Margaret Rosenblatt and the 100 ft. dragon Belloc who rules over the monsters. This makes Duncan a hybrid of both species.

''Firebreather'' Volume 1: (''Firebreather'' #1-4)

Duncan begins his first day at yet another new school, trying to fit in despite his unusual physical appearance. However, there are great many obstacles to this goal, particularly his new principal and a bully named Troy. He does make a few friends amongst other outcasts. At his father Belloc's place, Duncan goes through rough training for the weekend. Belloc is training him not only to be powerful, but he wants Duncan to learn things the hard way. Duncan goes back to school where he has a principal that doesn't want him there and a jerk that won't get off his case. So for a little payback, Troy tries to set Duncan up by hiding a gun. It works, but the reaction is far more than what Troy wanted. This leads to Duncan seriously thinking about his control over his emotions and if he truly belongs in the world with humans.

When he returns home, it is demolished and Margaret is missing. He tracks down his mother and her kidnapper, a monster from Monster Island. He and the monster have a brutal fight which ends (at least as far as Duncan is concerned) with Duncan blasting the monster with flame, leaving the monster badly burned but alive. This changes when Belloc arrives on the scene and impales the monster with his tail. Duncan figures out that Belloc arranged the kidnapping to test him and threatens to kill him if he ever endangers his mother again. After Duncan flies away, Belloc smiles to himself, saying, "That's my boy".

''Firebreather: The Iron Saint''

Duncan's class is taken abroad by "Mr. M" the Spanish teacher, who shows them the sights of London, before making their way to Spain. While in London, the group hears the story of "The Iron Saint", a long forgotten being that was created to fight, and survive, the King of the Monsters. The suit of armor has been passed down for generations and generations, and now it's just a museum piece. Duncan learns of its history, and its connection to him, and can't help but be curious. When he and his friend investigate, they find that the suit has been brought back to life and it's out to get Duncan. The wearer of the armor turns out to be Mr. M, who is revealed to be not only an S.O.S. escort but a survivor of an attack on a Cuban village. He attempts to use the armor to kill Duncan as revenge. However, Duncan is saved due to his half-human heritage, since the armor cannot draw human blood or else it will be destroyed, and kill humanity, and all life on Earth.

''The Pact''

In the first issue, Shadowhawk, Invincible, Firebreather, and Zephyr Noble, come together to fight Belloc who was going to see his son on Father's Day.


American Pie Presents: Band Camp

Matt Stifler, the younger brother of Steve Stifler, is eager to enter a family business of making pornographic films to prove his “Stifmeister” behavior to his older brother, Steve. After Matt pulls a prank on the school band that goes too far, the school's guidance counselor Chuck "The Sherminator" Sherman, who attended high school with Steve, decides to punish Matt by sending him to band camp. Matt is initially dismissive of the idea, but is soon persuaded to agree, his interest piqued by the purportedly notorious sexual behavior of band camp girls.

Upon arrival, Matt is extremely disrespectful to the rules along with everyone at Tall Oaks and even gets his school's band in trouble. Jim's dad, Noah Levenstein, the camp's MACRO (Morale And Conflict Resolution Officer), recommends him to try to fit in for the band's trust. Matt conspires with his nerdy roommate, Ernie, to film the other band members in a bid called 'Bandeez Gone Wild' by using hidden cameras.

During a scuffle in lunch, Matt accepts a duel with the rival band leader Brandon, wherein the performers show off their music skills, with Brandon playing the snare drum, and Matt playing the triangle. When it seems Matt has lost, he leaves the stage and comes back playing the bagpipes, also wearing a kilt, to the tune of "Play That Funky Music" to win the duel. Matt befriends Elyse and are later attracted to each other and share a kiss while watching the clouds in the sky. A day before the finals, the cheerleading group of East Great Falls arrives and catches Matt in a band camp uniform. They teased him by taking a photo and sharing it on the internet. Matt later offers a deal of showing them his film 'Bandeez Gone Wild' in exchange for deleting his uniform photo. While showing the girls his video, an odd turn of events occur and Elyse is disappointed with Matt after seeing the video and leaves.

The various school bands compete for points throughout camp with East Great Falls leading on the last day, but an ill-fated prank Matt pulled for the rival team causes the band to lose and Elyse could lose her opportunity to grant a scholarship. Once the new term starts, Matt visits Chuck, who reveals that he and the rest of Steve's friends really could not stand him. Matt soon begins to fix his mistakes by deleting the naked videos he took of others at band camp, reconcile with his band camp buddies, and then persuades the school band to play Elyse's piece, Instrumental of Tal Bachman's Aeroplane, to the Conservatory head. Due to blatant plagiarism, Brandon has been disqualified and Elyse wins the scholarship, while Matt successfully wins her affection.


Legion Lost

Following the destruction of the Legion Outpost base by a tear in the fabric of space, Saturn Girl, Brainiac 5.1, Chameleon, Umbra, Kid Quantum, Live Wire, Apparition, and Monstress find themselves lost on the far side of the universe. They are discovered by Shikari, a half-bug/half-humanoid alien whose people are being hunted by an alien race known as "The Progeny". Later on, the group is also joined by their teammate "ERG-1" (who soon takes the name Wildfire after Shikari mistakenly calls him that), who had been sucked into the rift prior to the other Legionnaires; with Shikari and her tracking power acting as their guide, they start looking for ways home.''Legion Lost'' (vol. 1) #1 (May 2000)''Legion Lost'' (vol. 1) #3 (July 2000)

As they cross the galaxy, the Legion discover that the Progeny have been actively slaughtering entire species in genocide inspired by their radical belief that they are the "perfect" life form.''Legion Lost'' (vol. 1) #2 (June 2000) They also encounter a mysterious super-hero known as Singularity and a creature known as the Omniphagos, a world-destroying monster imprisoned in a "hard light" pyramid. The creature's prison possesses cosmic teleportation capabilities that the Legionnaires attempt to use to return home.''Legion Lost'' (vol. 1) #6 (October 2000)

Meanwhile, tensions flare up among the various Legionnaires: Umbra struggles from her previous possession at the hands of "The Blight",''Legion Lost'' (vol. 1) #4 (August 2000) Monstress struggles to abide by the Legion's "no killing" rule when faced with the Progeny's atrocities, and Ultra Boy rages over being stranded millions of light years away from his other friends and family. These problems come to a head when it is revealed that Saturn Girl has been repeatedly "manipulating" the team's minds with her psychic powers. While she claims she was trying to keep the team level headed and calm, the revelation that Apparition was merely a psychic illusion designed to pacify Ultra Boy turn the group against Saturn Girl. Saturn Girl's actions are discovered after she forces herself into Umbra's head and unknowingly creates two psychic entities: one representing the totality of Umbra's darkest fears and one that represents Saturn Girl's own psyche run amuck. Both entities are defeated and Saturn Girl is ultimately forgiven.

During the course of the series, two additional mysteries haunt the Legionnaires: the fate of Element Lad (who went through the rift along with his teammates but ultimately vanished after placing them in crystals designed to protect them while traveling through the rift and the identity of "The Progenitor", the supreme leader of the murderous "Progeny".''Legion Lost'' (vol. 1) #7 (November 2000)''Legion Lost'' (vol. 1) #10 (February 2001) In the end, the Legionnaires are captured and taken to the Progenitor, who is revealed to be an insane Element Lad. Element Lad explains that in trying to save the team as they came through the rift, he was cast back to the beginning of time, and that he has now lived for over a billion years. To (unsuccessfully) try and stay sane during those eons, Element Lad used his powers to create life forms, culminating in his believing himself "God", and his creation the Progeny his most perfect creation.''Legion Lost'' (vol. 1) #11 (March 2001)

Realizing that their friend is insane, they confront him, during which he murders Monstress after she acknowledges that she is not one of his creations. A battle erupts and the Legion eventually escape by way of a dimensional gateway Element Lad possesses—the hard light pyramid they had discovered earlier. As they escape, Element Lad merges with the Omniphagos and attack the Legion's ship. In order to stop the now-combined Element Lad/Omniphagos from killing his friends before they can escape back to their section of the universe, acting leader Live Wire abandons the ship and kills the monster by giving it a stroke. As he is consumed in the blast that kills his former friend and teammate, Live Wire watches his friends return home as the portal closes behind them.

Each issue of ''Legion Lost'' (vol. 1) was narrated by a particular Legionnaire: #1 Shikari, #2 Monstress, #3 Kid Quantum, #4 Apparition, #5 Brainiac 5, #6 Umbra, #7 Ultra Boy, #8 Chameleon, #9 Saturn Girl, #10 Wildfire, #11 Element Lad, #12 Live Wire. This was largely done to help new fans get to know the Legionnaires better. This gimmick would be repeated with the follow-up miniseries ''Legion Worlds''.


Colobot

Life on earth is threatened by a devastating cataclysm, forcing mankind to move out and search for a new home. A first expedition composed solely of robots was sent to find another habitable planet. However, for unknown reasons, the mission was a disaster and never returned.

With only a few robots for companions, the player must travel to new planets. Houston, Earth Mission Control as well as a spy satellite will transmit valuable information to the player. The player needs to build the infrastructure necessary to gather raw materials, energy supplies, and produce the weapons necessary to defend themselves. By programming robots, the player can delegate tasks to them, allowing the player to continue their mission while their robots upkeep the base, fight off enemies, harvest materials, and perform any other tasks assigned to them.

Missions

In the game, the player explores Earth, Moon and seven fictional planets.


The Human Bullet

During the last days of the war, a nameless young cadet is assigned to a suicide mission, ordered to blow himself up with an ammunition crate under the expected enemy tanks. While awaiting the enemy's invasion, he makes the acquaintance of a young orphaned woman, who runs a brothel formerly owned by her parents, and two kid brothers. He falls in love with the young woman, who is later killed in an air raid, as is the elder of the brothers. Vowing revenge for the dead, he receives new orders from the deteriorating commanding staff, ordering him to manually steer a torpedo into the awaited enemy battleships. Twenty years after the war has ended, his skeletal remains float in an oil drum off the beach, his offscreen voice shouting "rabbit", the nickname he had given the girl.


Ghost Sweeper Mikami

Overdevelopment and crowding in Japan has forced many of its indigenous spirits and ghosts to lose their homes. Due to problems caused by the homeless spirits, a new profession was created, the Ghost Sweepers (GS). Private exorcists for hire, they serve only the highest bidder to survive in the cutthroat corporate world. Among this, the Mikami GS Company, led by 25-year-old Reiko Mikami and her two assistants, the 17-year-old boy Tadao Yokoshima and the ghost girl Okinu, is said to be the best.

The manga setup is scenario-to-scenario, with many plots intertwining classic Japanese culture and modern day realities, with occasional references to Western influences. In between these plot points, there are longer story arcs where new characters are introduced and the existing characters are further developed. While the overarching storyline focuses on Reiko's contention with her arch-nemesis, Astaroth, the series is mostly character-driven and serves to gradually develop characters, especially the main protagonists.


Mr. Popper's Penguins

Mr. Popper is a house painter of modest means, living with his wife and two children (Bill and Janie) in the small town of Stillwater, Minnesota. He has a happy life, however, he is also a restless dreamer, spending his time reading of famous explorers in faraway places.

One day, the Popper family tunes in to a radio broadcast by an Admiral exploring polar regions. Mr. Popper had previously sent the Admiral fan mail, and the Admiral promises Mr. Popper a surprise. The surprise turns out to be a penguin, which comes in a large box. Mr. Popper names the penguin "Captain Cook" after the famous James Cook. Mr. Popper cleans out the icebox so that the penguin can sleep inside. As time goes by, the Poppers find that Captain Cook is growing larger, but his health is failing. Mr. Popper writes to the curator of a large aquarium, asking for help. The curator replies that the aquarium has a female penguin who unfortunately, is also experiencing the same symptoms, and he suggests that perhaps the penguins are simply lonely. Soon after, the Poppers receive their second penguin in the mail.

Mr. Popper names the second penguin Greta and the pair of penguins are revitalized by each other's presence. As both birds cannot fit into the icebox together, Mr. Popper opens the window to let in the cold winter air, creating a snow-covered habitat. As this solution will not work in springtime, Mr. Popper has the main things moved upstairs and a freezing plant installed in the basement for the birds. This makes for happy penguins, but strains the family budget.

As time passes, Greta lays eggs. She continues laying a new egg every three days until the total reaches ten. As penguins do not normally lay so many eggs, Mr. Popper attributes this to the change in climate the birds have experienced. When the eggs hatch, the Popper family now has twelve penguins to feed, and the contractor is looking for payment on the household changes.

Mr. Popper decides to raise money by training the twelve penguins and turning them into a circus act. The act debuts at the local theater, and soon the "Popper's Performing Penguins" are featured throughout the country. But in the theater in New York City, the penguins cause trouble; what's worse, they've accidentally shown up at the wrong theater. The manager of that theater is extremely angry and has Mr. Popper arrested, along with the penguins.

Admiral Drake, having arrived to see Popper's Performing Penguins for himself, posts bail for Mr. Popper. After speaking with the Admiral, Mr. Popper decides that show business is no life for a penguin. Drake lets all of the twelve penguins go with him on his expedition to the North Pole, where they will be released experimentally into the Arctic. The Poppers are sad to see the penguins go, especially Mr. Popper himself — that is, until Admiral Drake invites Mr. Popper to accompany him on the trip. The Poppers wave goodbye as Mr. Popper and his penguins sail away towards the North Pole and Mr. Popper promises to be back in a year or two.


Alan Moore's The Courtyard

Aldo Sax is an FBI agent using "anomaly theory", a method that correlates seemingly unrelated data into a cohesive whole, to investigate three seemingly unrelated ritual murders around the United States. His investigation leads him to a nightclub in Red Hook, Brooklyn, where he hears of a psychoactive drug called Aklo, peddled by a mysterious veiled man named Johnny Carcosa. Sax sets up a meet with Carcosa at the dealer's apartment building, where he is given a hallucinogenic white powder as a prelude to the Aklo. Carcosa speaks an unknown language to Sax, who experiences visions of spectral planes and hideous primordial creatures, while understanding the truth that Aklo is not a drug, but the language Carcosa spoke to him. The visions, given to him by Aklo, drive Sax to murder his neighbor using the same ''modus operandi'' as the killers he was investigating.


Scooby Goes Hollywood

Scooby-Doo and the rest of the Mystery Inc. gang have solved so many mysteries and become so popular that they now have their own television show in Hollywood, California based on their adventures. One day, after Scooby and Shaggy fall into a catapult while running from "The Crabby Creature of Creepy Crag", they start getting tired of doing the same routine and decide to become real movie stars. They show the president of a network, C.J., a pilot film called ''How Scooby Won the West'', where Sheriff Scooby and Deputy Shaggy undergo the ornery Jesse Rotten. C.J. believes the film is a joke, and throws Shaggy and Scooby out, laughing. After the gang finds out Scooby is leaving the show, they are heartbroken and protest while Shaggy tells them how Scooby will become famous. However, they are still unconvinced.

At a roller-skating rink in town, Shaggy films another pilot (''Lavonne and Scooby'') while Lavonne skates with Scooby, turning out to be a disaster with several accidents such as when they accidentally crash into Shaggy while filming. While witnessing the filming, the rest of the gang believes that Scooby is making a fool out of himself and agree that they need to convince him to return to his old show. Not giving up, Shaggy and Scooby show C.J. another film called ''Scooby Days'' where "the Scoob" meets "the Groove", an obvious parody of the Fonz, in Harold's Drive-In. C.J. suggests that Scooby go back to his own show. Scooby refuses, later trying to mingle with celebrities, but it results in failure.

Back in the gang's dressing room, Fred reads the newspaper article featuring Scooby’s failures in shock, making all of them miss Scooby and Shaggy terribly and wish for their return to the show. Looking at a theater, Scooby imagines a premiere of his two new movies (''Super Scooby'' and ''The Sound of Scooby''). In ''Super Scooby'', he saves a Lois Lane clone from a rocket heading toward Big City, only to get blown up himself. In ''The Sound of Scooby'', Scooby wears a pink dress, twirls in the mountain, but as he begins to sing, he falls down a cliff into a stream.

Back at the Chinese theater, Shaggy finds out that the studio is holding dog auditions to replace Scooby's role on his show. He and Scooby go down to see the results of the auditions, and have a laugh upon witnessing the terrible performances. Without them knowing, it is actually a trick set up by C.J. and the rest of the gang to get Scooby back on the show once again. C.J. hires a dog with no talent to take Scooby's role, leaving Scooby and Shaggy in shock. Later, Shaggy shows C.J. a new film, ''Scooby and Cherie'' where Scooby is a magician and Cherie, his assistant. The next film is ''The Love Ship'' where Captain Scooby forgets to untie the rope from the piers, taking all the people on it with the cruise. To confirm his new career, Scooby is featured on ''The Jackie Carson Show'', where he declares that he’s leaving his cartoon series permanently in order to pursue his career as a movie star, upsetting his fans. This also proves to be the last straw for Scooby’s friends and fans.

The next (and last) pilot film shown is ''Scooby's Angels'' where the Angels look into criminal headquarters and Scooby lands from an aeroplane without a parachute. Scooby then yells, "Rop the rameras! Rop the rameras!" in which C.J. agrees. C.J. tells to Scooby and Shaggy how popular they really are by revealing a massive crowd of Scooby’s fans outside the studio chanting "Scooby-Doo, we need you!". Fred, Daphne, and Velma are among them. In fact, all across Los Angeles, Scooby’s fans are begging him to come back. Upon seeing this, Scooby realizes everyone truly loves him for who he is and agrees to go back to his original show. After things have quieted down in C.J.'s office, Shaggy (who doesn't want to go back so easily) knocks on the door, showing him the tape of his own pilots such as "Mork and Shaggy", "Welcome Back, Shaggy!", and "Shaggy and Hutch". Shaggy (tied up in the film reel) is then thrown out of the studio and he chases the Mystery Machine into the sunset, realizing that he, too, belongs on his old show.


The Truth About Love (film)

After Alice Holbrook (Jennifer Love Hewitt), a happily married English woman living in Bristol, receives an anonymous Valentine's Day card with radish seeds in it, she automatically assumes the card is from her supposedly loving lawyer husband, Sam (Jimi Mistry), and that he is trying to be romantic. In return, Alice decides to write an anonymous reply to her husband to keep the gimmick going, but only accidentally sends the card after a drunken night with her sister. What Alice does not realise, however, is that her husband did not, in fact, send her the original Valentine's Day card; her husband's best friend and lawyer partner, Archie (Dougray Scott), did.

When Alice's husband does not mention that he has received her card, Alice becomes suspicious that he is cheating on her with another woman. In an attempt to discover the truth, Alice calls Sam and pretends to be another woman with a deep, sultry voice who she calls "Anonymous." After her husband agrees to meet with "Anonymous," Alice becomes even more distraught, but continues to try and win Sam back. However, in the process, she discovers Sam is already having an affair with a woman named Katya and is now intentionally starting a second affair with "Anonymous." After breaking down over this fact, she goes to visit Archie in the sexy outfit she had planned to woo Sam back with, and while Archie and she kiss, he assumes she is cheating on Sam and refuses to be part of it.

Alice decides to forge ahead with her "affair" with Sam as "Anonymous," and while having supposedly extramarital sex with him, she removes his wedding ring from his finger with her lips. Afterwards, however, Sam declares "Alice is nothing compared to [Anonymous]" and that he has never truly loved Alice, so she becomes very upset and flees the hotel. When she is running away, however, she encounters Katya, who discovers that Sam is not only cheating on his wife but also on her.

While Sam does win his big court case next, he returns home to find his precious wine scattered throughout the neighborhood and his clothes thrown in the street (all done by Alice), as well as Katya waiting at his house to tell Alice of their affair as revenge. When Katya sees Alice, however, she calls her "Anonymous," and so Sam realizes that Alice has been "Anonymous" all the while. Alice even shows Sam how she removed the ring from his finger to prove it. While Sam attempt to plead with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Alice insists on a divorce and Katya walks out on Sam as well.

The film then fast forwards to a little time later. Katya took her story as well as that of "Anonymous" to the press and so Sam's reputation as an upstanding lawyer has been ruined. Furthermore, the press exposes that Alice was, in fact, not having an extramarital affair as Archie previously thought. This realisation prompts Archie to attempt to tell Alice about his feelings for her, but she cannot see past their friendship. Because of this, Archie decides he cannot get over Alice while still in Bristol, so he takes a job in Japan. Before he leaves, he sends Alice a goodbye letter in which he includes "P.S. I hope you liked the radishes," finally letting her know that the original Valentine's Day card was from him and not Sam.

Alice chases after Archie and finally catches him after a series of debacles at the train station, including him having to actually stop the train. They kiss and declare they love each other. The movie ends when Alice lovingly looks up at the man who really thinks she is "the perfect woman" and says, "Take me home and radish me."


Nothing to Lose (1997 film)

Advertising executive Nick Beam thinks his life is going very well, until he returns home from work and finds his wife Ann apparently having an affair with another man. He deduces that the man is his boss, Philip Barrow, after finding a pair of Philip's cufflinks in the kitchen. On the edge of a nervous breakdown, Nick drives around the city until carjacker T. Paul jumps into his car and attempts to rob him. Turning the tables on his mugger, Nick kidnaps T. Paul and later drives him to a diner in an Arizona desert. After T. Paul robs a gas station, Nick teams up with him and plans to rob Philip in revenge for the affair. Nick knows the combination to a safe in Philip's office containing a large amount of cash, as well as the best time to enter, and where not to venture in the building. T. Paul knows the weaknesses of the security system, how to avoid the cameras, and how to get through any electronic locks that they might encounter.

Another criminal duo, Davis "Rig" Lanlow and Charles "Charlie" Dunt, get blamed for the gas station robbery. When they find Nick and T. Paul, the duo ram Nick's truck off the road and hold the pair at gunpoint. After a brief confrontation, T. Paul manages to disarm them, but accidentally shoots Nick in the arm. They make their escape as Rig and Charlie follow them back to Los Angeles. Meanwhile, T. Paul takes Nick to his apartment so they can rest and his wife can bandage Nick's arm; while at the apartment, Nick sees T. Paul's electrical engineering certification and a stack of rejection letters from prospective employers. The next night, the pair execute their plan. During the robbery, Nick damages Philip's prize fertility statue and reveals himself to the security camera, taunting his boss about getting revenge. The pair then hide from a security guard, who lip-synches to music for over an hour. The guard soon leaves and they leave the office unseen and they settle at a hotel. It becomes bad when Rig and Charlie, who stole Nick's business card and followed them from the office to the hotel, show up at their room, take T. Paul hostage and steal the money. Meanwhile, Nick has gone to the bar to have a drink, where he meets Danielle, a flower shop woman he met earlier. When Danielle takes him up to her room to have sex with him, Nick is about to sleep with her until he refuses and leaves.

Nick calls Ann to confront her about the affair, but she explains that he was wrong. Nick actually caught Ann's sister and her fiancee in bed when they came into town earlier than expected; having never seen her sister before, Nick mistook her for Ann. He learns that Philip's cufflinks were left behind at a past Christmas party and Ann left them out for Nick to return them to Philip and Ann still loves him. Overcome with remorse, Nick remembers about T. Paul, returns to the room and saves T. Paul from a trap that Rig and Charlie placed him in. They catch up to Rig and Charlie and chase them into an alley. Nick shoots the gun out of Rig's hand and the pair get back the money as they leave Rig and Charlie tied up for the police to find them. As they are driving away, Nick insists on returning the money back to the office, but T. Paul, who had planned on using the money to move his family out of their troubled neighborhood, refuses to take it back and they get into a fight. After they stop fighting, Nick assures T. Paul that nobody will bother to look at the security tapes unless something is missing or damaged and that he can still make things right. T. Paul decides to give the money to Nick and ends their partnership. He walks back home to his family, while Nick drives back home and reunites with Ann.

Returning to his job, Nick is told that Philip is reviewing the security tapes to investigate a burglar who vandalized his statue. Nick races to his boss's office but is too late to stop them, only to discover that the tape was recorded over right before the "burglar" removed his mask, and that a man identifying himself as an electrician was allowed into the building earlier in the day. Knowing that T. Paul is the one who recorded over the tape, Nick goes to see T. Paul and thanks him for saving Nick from losing his job. In return, Nick offers T. Paul a job as an electrician and a security expert to work on a new security system for his company, which he happily accepts.

In the post-credit scene, a mailman shows up at the gas station in Arizona and returns the money that T. Paul stole.


Ratcatcher (film)

The film opens focused upon James's friend Ryan Quinn, who is being forced to put on his gum boots to go to visit his father, who is in prison. Ryan chose to play with James instead, and runs off while his mother is not looking. Ryan meets James at the canal and during some rough-house play he is drowned, clearly with James bearing much of the blame for not having raised the alarm. James believes his inaction has gone unnoticed.

Ryan's family is eventually re-housed and on the day of leaving, Ryan's mother gives James the pair of brown sandals that she'd bought for Ryan on the day of his death.

The film follows the sensitive James as he tries to come to terms with his guilt, and make sense of the insensitive aspects of his environment.

James's one escape comes when he takes a bus to the end of the line and ends up in the outskirts of the city, where a new housing estate is under construction. He explores the half-built houses, and wonders in awe at the view from the kitchen window: an expansive field of wheat, blowing in the wind and reaching to the horizon. In a scene central to the film, he climbs through the window and escapes into the blissful freedom of the field.

James befriends a girl, Margaret Anne, whom he tries to help after her glasses are thrown into the canal by the local gang. James and Margaret Anne become close friends. She is his only other relief from his home environment. Margaret Anne has problems of her own, being abused by the local gang. The duo find comfort in each other's company.

One of James' friends, Kenny, receives a pet mouse as a birthday present. After the gang throw the mouse around in the air to make him "fly", Kenny ties the mouse's tail to a balloon, and the film shows it floating to the moon. Then, Kenny's mouse joins a whole colony of other mice frolicking on the moon.

Kenny later falls in the canal and is rescued by James' father, making him briefly into a local hero.

Though the military eventually comes and cleans up all the rubbish in the neighbourhood, James realises that his situation will most likely never change. He plunges himself into the canal, and a brief scene is shown, in which James and his family are moving into a new neighbourhood.


Nero Wolfe (2001 TV series)

Archie Goodwin introduces Nero Wolfe as "a man who thinks he's the world's greatest detective. Truth being, he is." Grandly obese and famously eccentric, Wolfe is a genius who lives in—and rarely leaves—a large and comfortably furnished brownstone he owns on West 35th Street in Manhattan. Wolfe maintains an inflexible schedule of reading, tending his 10,000 orchids in the rooftop plant rooms, and dining on the fine cuisine of his master chef, Fritz Brenner. To support his opulent lifestyle and meet the payroll of his live-in staff, Wolfe charges high fees for solving crimes that are beyond the abilities of the police, most often the cigar-chewing Inspector Cramer of Manhattan Homicide. Wolfe sometimes calls upon freelance detectives Saul Panzer, Fred Durkin and Orrie Cather; but he depends upon his assistant Archie Goodwin, the street-smart legman whose wisecracking, irreverent voice narrates the stories.

The wardrobe, cars, furnishings and music place ''Nero Wolfe'' primarily in the 1940s–1950s. It is technically a whodunit series, but like the original Rex Stout stories ''Nero Wolfe'' is less concerned with plot than with the interplay between its characters.

"I think that's something that's appreciated by Nero Wolfe fans," said Maury Chaykin, who stars as Nero Wolfe. "If you become focused on the crime, I think you're kind of in the wrong place. It's more the enjoyment of the characters and their eccentricities, and the reality of those characters."


The Pink Panther (1963 film)

As a child in Lugash, Princess Dala receives a gift from her father, the Maharajah: the "Pink Panther", the largest diamond in the world. This huge pink gem has an unusual flaw: by looking deeply into the stone, one perceives a tiny discoloration resembling a leaping panther. Twenty years later, Dala (now played by Claudia Cardinale) has been forced into exile following her father's death and the subsequent military takeover of her country. The new government declares her precious diamond the property of the people and petitions the World Court to determine ownership. However, Dala refuses to relinquish it.

Dala goes on holiday at an exclusive ski resort in Cortina d'Ampezzo. Also staying there is English playboy Sir Charles Lytton (David Niven)—who leads a secret life as a gentleman jewel thief called "the Phantom"—and has his eyes on the Pink Panther. His brash American nephew George (Robert Wagner) arrives at the resort unexpectedly. George is really a playboy drowning in gambling debts, but poses as a recent college graduate about to enter the Peace Corps so his uncle continues to support his lavish lifestyle.

On the Phantom's trail is French police detective Inspector Jacques Clouseau (Peter Sellers), whose wife Simone (Capucine) is having an affair with Sir Charles. She has become rich by acting as a fence for the Phantom under the nose of her amorous but oblivious husband. She dodges him while trying to avoid her lover's playboy nephew, who has decided to make the seductive older woman his latest conquest. Sir Charles has grown enamored of Dala and is ambivalent about carrying out the heist. The night before their departure, George accidentally learns of his uncle's criminal activities.

During a costume party at Dala's villa in Rome, Sir Charles and his nephew separately attempt to steal the diamond, only to find it already missing from the safe. The Inspector discovers both men at the crime scene. They escape during the confusion of the evening's climactic fireworks display. A frantic car chase through the streets of Rome ensues. Sir Charles and George are both arrested after all the vehicles collide with one another in the town square.

Later, Simone informs Dala that Sir Charles wished to call off the theft and asks her to help in his defense. Dala then reveals that she stole the diamond herself, to avoid turning it over to the new government of her homeland. However, the Princess is also smitten with Sir Charles and has a plan to save him from prison. At the trial, the defense calls as their sole witness a surprised Inspector Clouseau. The barrister (John Le Mesurier) asks a series of questions that suggest Clouseau himself could be the Phantom. An unnerved Clouseau pulls out his handkerchief to wipe the perspiration from his brow, and the jewel drops from it.

As Clouseau is taken away to prison, he is mobbed by a throng of enamored women. Watching from a distance, Simone expresses regret, but Sir Charles reassures her that when the Phantom strikes again, Clouseau will be exonerated. Sir Charles invites George to join them on the Phantom's next heist in South America. Meanwhile, on the way to prison, the Roman police express their envy that Clouseau is now desired by so many women. They ask him with obvious admiration how he committed all of those crimes; Clouseau considers his newfound fame and replies, "Well, you know... it wasn't easy."

The film ends after the police car carrying Clouseau to prison runs over a traffic warden—the cartoon Pink Panther from the animated opening credits. He gets back up as we hear the crash that was coming out from the police car, holding a card that reads "THEND" and swipes the letters to read "THE END."


Aoi House

College roommates Alexis "Alex" Roberts and Sandy Grayson have been evicted from their dorm after a series of infractions, the latest involving showing lewd anime, and the antics of Sandy's pet hamster, Echiboo. After seeing a flyer for the anime clubhouse AOI House, the two men believed they found the perfect place. However, the two boys soon learn that the clubhouse consists of five crazed yaoi fangirls who have mistaken Alex and Sandy for a gay couple—the flyer having neglected to mention that only girls and gay guys were permitted and the clubhouse's original name was "Yaoi House", but the "Y" fell off of the clubhouse's sign. Once the truth is revealed that Sandy and Alex are two straight males, the two boys are allowed to stay because the housing committee has been on AOI House's case to get more members. The girls have some fun with Sandy and Alex in an attempt to turn them into yaoi-lovers, or at least make them the lodge's token gay couple.


Blade for Barter

Blade for Barter is the story of Ryusuke Washington, a private samurai for hire. He lives in New Edo, a hodgepodge city-state where New York City meets ancient Japan, where monolithic skyscrapers tower over ramshackle wooden huts, and salarymen and samurai walk side by side.

Along with his loyal dog Hachiko, Ryusuke must deal with the likes of the corrupt Samurai Union, the Mafuza (a cross between the Italian mafia and the Yakuza); a Ninja Union of clumsy ninja; a sinister Zen monk televangelist, and more - not to mention the temper-tantrum prone Lord Hoseki, who rules New Edo with bejeweled fingers and an iron fist.

The world in which Hachiko and Ryusuke find themselves is an eclectic mix of Eastern and Western cultures. Such blending of East and West also is found to typify, Ryusuke Washington himself, a warrior for hire.

The side effects of such a mixed culture come back to haunt Ryusuke as he has to face striking ronin who actively demonstrate, their very existence in real Japan would have violated traditional codes. He also has to face the control hungry Samurai union. Ryusuke is soon joined by the cute but over affectionate Hachiko the dog and Mac, a kunoichi who takes a certain obsessive pride in her fuzz boots. The first volume also contains omake content not seen online.


Last Hope (manga)

Do you believe in alternate dimensions? Ikuko, her friend Colleen, and Alvin at Hawaii's Maunaloa Institute for International Studies become believers when the class hunk, Hiro, confesses to them that he's really a prince from another world on the run from the evil Lord Kumagai! Now that they've been dragged into it, Hiro, Ikuko, and their friends must traverse countless alternate dimensions and survive the terrors they find there or die trying; whether at the hands of the ruthless Lord Kumagai or the alternate dimensions' hostile inhabitants.


Demolition (The Young Ones)

The four dissimilar students attending the fictional Scumbag College go about their day-to-day life in their shared house at the beginning of the series. Neil cooks a lentil casserole that no one wants to eat, then becomes so depressed that he attempts suicide twice. He first tries to suffocate himself in a gas-filled oven but stops upon seeing how filthy it is; next he tries to hang himself, only to find that he has left too much slack in the rope. Vyvyan brings home an amputated human leg from the college morgue, planning to mount it on the bonnet of his car instead of drafting an essay about it for anatomy class. Rick, who becomes extremely agitated whenever he perceives any slight against [Cliff Richard], begins smashing saucers and uses Neil's guitar to attack a pair of joke-telling rats. Jerzei Balowski, the group's landlord, visits to ask that they pay the rent they owe, but Mike distracts him until he agrees to settle accounts with them later.

Vyvyan announces that the four have received a letter from the council informing them that the house is to be demolished the next day, and each one devises his own plan to fight the decision. Vyvyan tries to destroy the house himself; Neil considers hiding inside a wall cavity, then places his head in the path of a workman's sledgehammer; and Mike tries to seduce a female council representative. Meanwhile, Rick ties himself to a large cross in front of the house and begins to read a protest poem he has written, but switches to singing a snippet from Richard's song "Living Doll" after he drops his notebook. None of their strategies is successful in deterring the council, but the demolition order becomes moot when an airplane suddenly crashes into the house and destroys it.


Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III

Leatherface kills a young woman, Gina, and cuts off her face to make it into a mask while Gina's sister Sara watches from a nearby window. Sometime later, a couple traveling through Texas, Michelle and Ryan, reach the Last Chance Gas Station, where they meet a hitchhiker named Tex and the station's owner Alfredo. A fight soon breaks out between Tex and Alfredo when Tex finds Alfredo spying on Michelle as she uses the station restroom. As Michelle and Ryan flee in their car, they witness Alfredo apparently killing Tex with a shotgun. When Ryan and Michelle become lost, the driver of a large truck throws a dead coyote at their windshield. As Ryan changes the car's flat tire, Leatherface ambushes them, but they manage to drive off unscathed.

Afterward, Michelle, Ryan, and another driver, a survivalist named Benny, crash when a bloodied Tex leaps in front of the car. Michelle, Ryan, and Benny decide to find Tex. On the way, Benny discovers a hook-handed man named Tinker, who offers his assistance in setting down road flares. Benny soon realizes Tinker's real intentions after he finds a damaged chainsaw in the back of his truck. He flees and encounters Leatherface, but is saved by Sara, who had earlier escaped Leatherface. Benny learns that Sara's entire family was killed, and that Leatherface and his family are watching the roads. Benny hears Michelle and Ryan calling for him and leaves Sara; Leatherface kills her with his chainsaw a short time later. Leatherface then attacks Michelle and Ryan, capturing the latter when he gets caught in a bear trap.

Escaping, Michelle locates a house and is captured by Tex, revealed to be one of the Sawyers, who brings her into the kitchen and introduces her to the already deceased and decomposed "Grandpa". Tinker then drags in the badly injured Ryan, whom he and Tex suspend upside-down with a pair of meat hooks. When Leatherface returns home, Tex equips him with a large golden chainsaw with the words "The saw is family" engraved on it. In the woods, Benny finds Alfredo and apparently kills him. As the family prepare for dinner in the kitchen, the Little Girl kills Ryan. Leatherface prepares to kill Michelle as well, but Benny opens fire on the house with an automatic rifle, killing Anna and presumably Tinker. Michelle escapes and flees to the woods, pursued by Leatherface, while Benny kills Tex. Benny rushes to Michelle's aid, but Leatherface apparently kills him. In revenge, Michelle apparently kills Leatherface.

As dawn breaks, Michelle reaches the main road, before Alfredo's pickup truck, driven by a surviving Benny, stops in front of her. As Benny helps her into the truck, Alfredo appears and attacks him. Benny avoids Alfredo's attacks, and Michelle kills Alfredo before the pair drive away, unaware that a surviving Leatherface is revving his chainsaw some distance away.


Wicked Little Things

In 1913, in Carlton, Pennsylvania, the cruel owner of the Carlton Mine exploits poor immigrant children as cheap workers. In order to excavate a new shaft quickly, he employs a dynamite charge, but the explosion causes the mine to collapse, burying a large group of the children alive. Following his later trial for willfully causing the death of his workers, Carlton is acquitted, and the mine closed down.

In present day, eighty years later, Karen Tunny has just lost her husband after a long period of terminal disease and has inherited his birthhome near the since-abandoned Carlton mine. She moves to the house with her daughters, Sarah and Emma. The three stop by the local market for supplies and are told by Walter, the shopkeeper, that he doesn't deliver to the area they live in. While driving, Karen has a near miss with a man crossing the road. She exits the car, looking for the man, but he's nowhere to be found. They arrive at the house and Sarah points out the blood on the door while Karen declares it's just "paint."

When Emma hears children giggling, she leaves the house, following the sound of it. Karen goes out looking for Emma and finds her in an old mine. As they try to find their way back to the house, it becomes nightfall, and they get lost. They find a house, which is occupied by Hanks, and enter. Karen is advised by Hanks to stay at home during the night, and he also tells her that there is no need to thank him for the blood smeared on his and the Tunny's door. William Carlton, the last surviving heir of the Carlton estate, which has owned the mine since 1913, is hungrily devouring property and kicking people off his new property.

Meanwhile, the children who died in the mines emerge as zombies and begin to kill, which is dismissed among the community as disappearances, though it is hinted that most of the community is aware of the presence of the children. As it turns out, the Tunny and Hanks families are relatives of the zombie children, who leave blood relatives alive while killing all others. Emma, who has had friendly contact with one of the zombies named Mary, informs her mother that the zombies won't eat her, and that Mary would not directly hurt her mother (who is not a direct Tunny blood relative), but passes on the warning that the other children might. Karen finds some old family photo albums in the basement that contain pictures of her late husband, as well as the Tunny and Hanks children, thus revealing that the family is related to some of the children who died in the mine.

Karen and Sarah leave the house to go look for Emma in the mine. As they exit the shafts after not finding her, they become surrounded by a dozen of the children. They escape, with the children pursuing them, and find Carlton passing through in his car. They enter, telling him to drive, but the tires are slashed before they can pull away. Karen and Sarah run to Hanks' house, unsure of what to do. Soon enough, Karen figures out that Hanks' blood has a supposed repellent effect on the zombie children. As both Hanks and Carlton attempt to shoot the children, they realize the bullets are ineffective, and run to the barn.

Hanks realizes that, as he and Emma are direct blood relatives, it turns out Mary has an older brother, and Karen is in some way protected by Emma's relationship with Mary. The children are really after Carlton, as they blame his family for the mining accident that killed them. The children finally corner Carlton and kill him, thus satisfying their lust for retribution. At the end, the Tunny family drives away after selling the house and leaving it for the children. The film ends with Mary sitting on a bed, clutching a teddy given to her by Emma, and her brother closing the door.


Destiny (1921 film)

In "Some Time and Some Place," a loving young couple is riding in a carriage on a country road, when they pick up a hitchhiker, offering him a ride into town. Little do they know, this stranger is Death himself.

In town, Death visits the mayor's office, where he purchases a small piece of land adjacent to the town cemetery. Surrounding this property, Death erects a giant, mysterious wall. At the local tavern, the young couple encounters Death again, and when the young woman is distracted, her lover disappears. Grief stricken, she sobs in front of the mysterious wall, when she sees a large group of ghosts walk past her, and through the wall. The last among these ghosts is her lover; and despite her protests, he also moves through the wall, entering the realm of Death.

Relentless, the young woman confronts Death, begging him to bring her to her lover. He leads her to a large, dark room, with numerous long candles, each one in different stages of burning. The young woman demands to know why Death took her lover away, to which Death explains that he was simply following God's will, and that it was her lover's time to die. She asks if there is anything that can be done to get her love back, arguing that love is stronger than Death. Death tells her that each candle in the room represents a human life, and that currently, three candles are flickering, representing three lives hanging in the balance. Death promises the young woman that, if she can save one of these lives with love, he will return her lover to the living.

The Story of the First Light

During the holy month of Ramadan in "The City of the Faithful," a muezzin calls those of the Islamic faith to prayer. Zobeide, a princess and the Caliph's sister, meets with her secret lover, the Frank, in the mosque. The Frank, however, is exposed as an infidel, and is chased to the roof, where he escapes by diving into a nearby body of water.

The Caliph visits Zobeide, attempting to find where her loyalties lie. Although she denies an affair with the Frank, the Caliph is unconvinced and tells her his guards are scouring the city for him. After he leaves, Zobeide orders her servant, Ayesha, to find the Frank and tell him to infiltrate the royal palace by nightfall. One of the Caliph's guards follows Ayesha to the Frank and reports back to his master. At nightfall, the Frank scales the palace wall and is reunited with Zobeide; this reunion is cut short by Ayesha warning them that the Caliph is aware of the Frank being in the palace and has sent his guards. After a short chase through the palace grounds, the guards capture the Frank, and the Caliph sentences him to death.

The Caliph orders his gardener, El Mott, to bury the Frank alive. When Zobeide sees what has become of her lover, Death appears to claim him. The first of three candles burns out.

The Story of the Second Light

During the Carnival festival in Venice, Monna Fiametta, a noblewoman, is visited by her lover, Gianfrancesco, a merchant of the middle class. He is forced away by the appearance of Monna's fiancé, Girolamo, a member of the Council of Fourteen. Jealous of Monna's affections for Gianfrancesco, and aware of her hatred towards him, Girolamo reveals to her his plot to have her lover executed by order of the Council.

Desperate and angry, Monna plots to kill her fiancé, sending two letters by messenger. The first letter, addressed to Girolamo, asks him for a private meeting. When Girolamo reads this note, he suspects the messenger has an additional letter. He has his men kill the messenger and reads the second letter, addressed to Gianfrancesco, alerting him of Girolamo's plot and telling him to flee, as well as her plan to kill Girolamo. Furious, Girolamo sends his own note, as well as his lavish Carnival costume, to Gianfrancesco, under the guise that it is from Monna. Entering her home in costume, Gianfrancesco is attacked by Monna, who is unaware of his identity. He is also stabbed from behind by the Moor, Monna's servant.

Gianfrancesco reveals his identity to Monna and dies. As Monna grieves over her dead lover, Death appears to claim his soul. The second of three candles burns out.

The Story of the Third Light

On a farm in the Chinese Empire, master magician A Hi receives a letter from the Emperor, requesting him to perform magic tricks at his birthday party. He warns, however, that should A Hi bore him, he will be beheaded.

Using his jade wand, A Hi flies a carpet to the Emperor's palace, with his two assistants, Tiao Tsien and Liang, in tow. Performing for the Emperor, A Hi creates a miniature army. The Emperor is impressed, but wants his female assistant, Tiao Tsien as his gift. A Hi offers him a magic horse instead. Again, the Emperor is impressed, but orders A Hi to hand over his assistant. Liang, Tiao Tsien's lover, attempts to escape with her, but is captured, while she is taken to the Emperor's private quarters. When the Emperor tries to sleep with her, she quickly rejects him.

Obsessed with having Tiao Tsien's affections, the Emperor turns to A Hi, and orders him to make her submit. When A Hi confronts his assistant, she takes his wand, accidentally cracking it. Using the wand, she turns A Hi into a cactus, and several guards into pigs. She notices that the more she uses the wand, the more it degrades. Spawning an elephant, Tiao Tsien breaks Liang out of his cell, and they escape the palace together. The Emperor calls upon his archer to kill them.

When the Emperor's archer confronts the assistants, he kills Liang, but spares Tiao Tsien. Death appears to claim Liang's soul, and the last of the three candles burns out.

Ending

Although Death has won their bet, he takes pity on the female lover, and offers her one last chance to reunite with her beloved. Death tells her that if she can find another soul to replace her lover in death, he will return to the living. He warns that she will only have an hour to do this.

Asking many of the older villagers to trade their lives, she is quickly rejected. When a fire starts in a large building, many people rush to escape, leaving behind a baby. The female lover runs into the burning building and holds the baby. Death appears, and is ready to accept the child in place of her lover. However, she looks through the window to see the grieving mother cry for her child. Unwilling to let another experience such a loss, she hands the baby over to the mother. She then turns to Death, and offers her soul to him, content to join her lover in death. Death takes her through his wall, and rejoices, as she reunites with her lover.


Amped 3

The game begins at Northstar at Tahoe, with the main character "Player 1" dressed in a pink bunny suit heading up the mountain with friends Wienerboy, Sebastian, J Dawg, and Hunter. Player 1 snowboards down the mountain and takes a big drop off of a cliff. Once there, Player 1 meets Dandelion, a snow goddess with a passion for scrap-booking. From here, you can choose Player 1's gender and appearance.

As the story progresses, it is revealed that Player 1 and his crew are saving up for a vacation to a ski resort in Chile. After completing several training challenges, Player 1 and his crew participate in an Easter Egg Roll to earn more money for their vacation fund. After saving Wienerboy from a trio of mysterious thugs, the player follows them to see what they are up to. During the chase J Dawg confronts Player 1 and accuses him of stealing the vacation money from Hunter's locker. The rest of the crew heads to Chile, while Player 1 tries to earn money to replace the stolen funds.

As the story moves to Snowbird, Player 1 accepts several jobs for a marketing company. These jobs require the player to perform several dangerous stunts. After the marketing company decides to relocate, Player 1 meets up with his friend Roman who suggests he try out for the ski patrol. After making some more money, Roman sets up Player 1 with a new job: taking pictures of celebrity Berlin Sheridan on her snowboard trip. Player 1 manages to avoid Sheridan's bodyguards and makes enough money to replace the stolen vacation fund.

The story cuts to a news report of a comet on a collision course with Earth. Another reporter cuts in to share Player 1's photos of Berlin Sheridan in embarrassing positions during her trip.

Player 1 makes it to Valle Nevado and sets out to investigate what happened to his friends. He finds out they were selected for sponsorship by a company called Colonotronic Arts Inc. Player 1 reunites with Wienerboy first and finds out he was rejected by C.A.I. Next, he meets up with Sebastian who was sent by H.R. to assist in Player 1's “re-orientation.” Player 1 destroys Sebastian's laptop (which has a red eye similar to HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey). This breaks C.A.I.’s influence over him. Sebastian directs Player 1 to Laax Resort where Hunter has been sent to recruit more minions for Colonotronic Arts. The cut-scenes reveal that a villain named Baron von Havoc is behind this, as he seeks to create a game called Emag Live.

Upon arriving at Laax, Player 1 confronts Hunter and beats her in two snowboarding challenges. The crew discovers that J Dawg has been made a part of a boy band whose music contains subliminal messages. Player 1 manages to stop J Dawg’s concert before it broadcasts its message around the world.

Once J Dawg has been rescued the crew meets up with Dandelion again. She informs them that she was the one who stole their vacation fund and framed Player 1 for it so the crew would be split up and wouldn’t fall under Baron von Havoc’s mind control. The crew makes their way to Baron von Havoc’s zeppelin and stops his plan.

The ending shows a musical number featuring the main characters in the story. At the song’s conclusion the comet hits the Earth, destroys everything and ending the game.


Best Student Council

The story follows Rino Rando, who has been on her own since the death of her mother, Chieri, as she transfers to Miyagami Private Academy with the recommendation of her mysterious pen pal, Mr. Poppit. Shortly after her arrival, Rino surprisingly becomes a member of elite group of girls called the Best Student Council. Rino learns that Kanade Jinguji founded Miyagami Private Academy as a place where students can live free from restrictions and that the Best Student Council was formed to ensure that freedom. Best Student Council Members receive free tuition, room and board.

The story takes place at Miyagami Private Academy, a mysterious all-girl high school, its student council, the Miyagami Academy Maximum Authority Wielding Best Student Council, also known as the Best Student Council (Gokujou Seitokai), having their own Assault, Covert, and vehicle divisions. This council has more authority power than any of the faculty and staff members. The Best Student Council is divided into the four main divisions: Executive, Assault and Covert plus the Vehicle Squad. Each member of the council has their own special ability, such as special fighting techniques, the gathering of information, or weaponry such as cards, a yo-yo, or, in Rino's case, her hand puppet, Pucchan. It is revealed in an early episode that no one really knows how many members are actually in the best Student Council except the President.


Once Upon a Forest

In the forest of Dapplewood, four "Furlings" – Abigail, a wood mouse; Edgar, a mole; Russell, a hedgehog, and Michelle, a badger – live alongside their teacher and Michelle's uncle, Cornelius. One day, the Furlings go on a trip through the forest with Cornelius, where they see a road for the first time. Russell is almost run over by a Range Rover and a man at the passenger’s seat carelessly throws away a glass bottle that shatters in the middle of the road. Afterward, they go back to the forest to find that it has been destroyed by poison gas from an overturned tanker truck that blew a tire from the broken glass bottle. Michelle panics and runs to her home to find her parents, breathing in the gas and becoming severely ill. Abigail risks her own life and saves a comatose Michelle, but can do nothing for Michelle's parents. The Furlings go to Cornelius' house nearby for shelter after they find their homes deserted, believing everyone else to have succumbed to the gas. Cornelius tells the Furlings of his past encounter with humans that claimed the lives of his parents, hence why he is fearful of all human beings. He says he needs two herbs to make a potion that will save Michelle's life: lungwort and eyebright. With limited time, the Furlings head off for their journey the next day.

After facing numerous dangers, such as escaping a hungry barn owl, aiding a flock of religious wrens led by preacher Phineas, and encountering intimidating construction vehicles that the wrens call "Yellow Dragons", the Furlings make it to the meadow, where the herbs they need are. There, they meet the bully squirrel Waggs, and Willy, a tough but sensible mouse who grows a liking for Abigail. After getting the eyebright, they discover that the lungwort is on a giant cliff making it inaccessible by foot. Russell suggests they use Cornelius' airship, the Flapper-Wing-a-Ma-Thing, to get to the lungwort.

The Furlings manage to get the lungwort after a dangerous flight up the cliff, then steer their airship back for Dapplewood. They crash-land back in the forest after a storm, and bring the herbs to Michelle and Cornelius. A group of humans appear and the animals, thinking the humans mean them harm, escape through the backdoor of Cornelius' house. Edgar gets separated from the group and gets caught in an old trap. When one of the workers finds him, the animals are surprised when he frees Edgar and destroys the trap, revealing that the men are cleaning up the gas. The group, especially Cornelius, realize that there are good humans in the world.

Michelle is given the herbs. The next day, she appears unresponsive, but a single tear from Cornelius awakens her from her coma. Cornelius sees the Flapper-Wing-a-Ma-Thing and becomes amazed by how the Furlings have grown up. The Furlings' families and many of the other inhabitants arrive as well, except for Michelle's parents; Cornelius promises to do his best on taking care of her. The Furlings happily reunite with their families, who are relieved to see that their children are alright. Michelle asks Cornelius if anything will ever be the same again. Cornelius looks at the dead trees in the forest and says to her that if everyone works as hard to save Dapplewood as the Furlings did to save Michelle, it will be.


The Time of the Ghost

The book begins with the words "There's been an accident! Something's wrong!" – and something is. There is a ghost. She does not know who she is, or how she died, or quite where she is. All she knows is that there has been a terrible accident.

The as-yet unnamed heroine finds herself attracted to a large building, a boys' boarding school, which she finds to be strangely familiar. After a little detective work, the disembodied spirit concludes that she is Sally Melford, one of a quartet of eccentric sisters (Imogen, Cart, Fenella and Sally) who live at the school and are neglected by their overworked parents, both of whom teach at the school. Their father, only known as Himself, is the headmaster, and his wife, Phyllis, is the school nurse. Both of them are constantly busy with school business, and leave their daughters to fend for themselves.

As the plot continues, evidence of time-travel begins to emerge. In the present day, the adult, university-age Sally is in a hospital, badly injured after her abusive boyfriend threw her from a speeding car. Some part of her has journeyed back seven years into the past, where, with the help of her sisters and their schoolboy friends, she must undo a rash bargain with the powerful and ancient goddess, Monigan.

The Worship of Monigan is a game that the sisters made up, in which an old rag doll supposedly represents the goddess Monigan. Throughout the story, the sisters vary from treat the Worship of Monigan as a game to believing in it quite seriously. Sally also seems to be romantically involved with a student at the school, the enigmatic fifth-former Julian Addiman, who mocks at how the sisters seem to take the Worship of Monigan very seriously.

After a deal of detective work, Sally (in her ghostly form) discovers the truth. The young Sally had dedicated herself to Monigan in a midnight ritual, with the help of Julian. Monigan had taken her up on the offer, and had agreed that Sally would be hers in seven years' time. The seven years are now up, and Monigan had attempted to call in the debt, in the form of the boyfriend (now revealed to be the same Julian Addiman) tossing her out of the car. However, Sally survived; with the help of her sisters and her childhood friends, she is determined to cheat Monigan, and take back her life.


A Tale of Time City

It is September 1939, the start of World War Two, and Vivian Smith is being evacuated. On arriving at the station, she is kidnapped by two boys, Jonathan and Sam, and taken to Time City, which exists outside of what we know as History. Most of the plot takes place in Time City, the purpose of which is to oversee the course of history and ensure that it stays on its "correct" path. To stop it straying from this path, the Time Police have Observers out in history, tweaking events to make sure that they go the right way.

Jonathan and Sam have kidnapped Vivian because they (incorrectly) believe that she is the "Time Lady," a legendary figure in Time City. The Time Lady is the consort of Faber John, another legendary figure. The legend states that at the end of history, Faber John and the Time Lady will return to Time City. Sam and Jonathan overheard the Chronologue, powerful authorities in Time City, talking about history going wrong and it being the fault of the Time Lady. They reasoned that, since she is Faber John's (in translation, John Smith's) wife, she must be calling herself Smith, and disguised as a young girl. Since Vivian fits these criteria, they had reasoned that she must be the Time Lady.

Vivian manages to convince them that she is not the Time Lady. However, the boys cannot return her to her own time, since the repeated use of the time-locks would be picked up on by the Time Police and they would be found out. Vivian ends up staying with Jonathan's family, disguised as his cousin Vivian Lee.

Jonathan and Sam are especially concerned about the disruptions in history because it may mean that Time City will also break apart. However, they learn from Vivian's tutor, Doctor Wilander, that there is another legend about Faber John. This one states that Faber John created four Caskets – Gold, Silver, Iron and Lead – which, after being placed out in history, provide the power needed to keep Time City running. They discover that the Caskets are hidden in what are known as the Unstable Eras – eras of history in which events are not fixed and which might change at any moment. However, there are only three large Unstable Eras, so the fourth Casket must be hidden somewhere else.

Undeterred, Jonathan, Vivian, Sam and the android Elio go in search of the Caskets, using an ancient time-travel device they find in a secret room beneath a museum. They discover that the Iron Casket, which was hidden in Vivian's time, had already been stolen, and it was this that was causing the disturbances in history. They see the so-called "Iron Guardian" as a ghost, in Time City, and talk to him. They realise that they will have to go back in time to stop the theft, and actually see the casket being stolen, but they are unable to catch the thief.

They fare no better with the Gold Casket; they find it, and its Guardian, but the Guardian refuses to hand it over, saying that at midday on the final day of Time City, he will come to the Gnomon Tower and return it. Although they try to convince him that they urgently need it, he refuses to hand it over, and promptly vanishes.

The Silver Casket is unfortunately hidden in the middle of the Mind Wars, but they still manage to find it, and the Silver Guardian, who, surprisingly, lets them have it. But, as it turns out, it is a fake, and the real Silver Casket had already been stolen, probably by the woman who posed as the Silver Guardian.

On returning to Time City, they see that things have gone terribly wrong. Since the Silver Casket had gone, history has gone into convulsions, and nothing is as it was supposed to be, with World War II starting in 1937 and involving napalm and atom bombs from the start, and World War I melding into the Boer War. In a final attempt to catch the thieves, Jonathan, Vivian and Sam return to the station where they had kidnapped Vivian, and where they are sure the thief must be. This goes badly wrong when they fail to catch the thief, cause an accidental explosion of a train carrying radioactive fuel, and return to Time City with two hundred evacuees in tow.

Because of this final disturbance of history, Time City has practically shut down. The Observers are being recalled from history, and this includes the real Vivian Lee and her family. But when they arrive, Vivian, Sam and Jonathan have a nasty surprise; the real Vivian Lee is the child thief that they saw stealing the Iron Casket, her mother is the false Silver Guardian, and her father is a man that they saw in the Age of Gold who tried to kill Jonathan. As Time City starts to fall to pieces around them, the Lees force Vivian, Sam and Jonathan to go to the Gnomon Tower with them as hostages. The trio realise the ancient time-travel device they found is in fact the Lead Casket, and Sam manages to escape from the clock tower to tell Elio, who returns with the city officials. When the clock struck twelve, the Gold Watcher appears at the steps of the Tower (with the Gold Casket, of course) and begins to climb the stairs.

Hiding in a bush to prevent Vivian or Jonathan from being shot, Elio uses the Lead Casket to stop the Gold Watcher from reaching the top. This drained the Silver and Iron Caskets of "force", all of which went back into the Lead one. Dr. Wilander banishes Inga Lee, the daughter of an Icelandic emperor, to the earliest settlements of Iceland; Viv Lee to the last days of the "Depopulation of Earth". Vivan (Lee) is sent to Ancient China, but not before Dr. Wilander lets Vivian (Smith) shove the butter-pie she (VL) had been eating into her own eye, then inside her collar.

The three Guardians, who Vivian notices are all exactly the same height as Dr. Wilander, bring the Caskets together with the Lead one, which Dr. Wilander is still holding, and they all blend together. Vivian realises he is in fact Faber John. The Time Lady, who as well as a horse she found in the Age of Gold, was the sleeping figure under Aeon Square Jonathan and Sam had showed Vivian, and also the woman who had cured Jonathan in the Age of Gold.

Vivian, Sam, and Jonathan are put on trial for breaking the law. Mr. Donegal (Sam's father and Chief of Time Patrol) explains that they had pinpointed the source of a massive amount of chronons (which cause chaos and could harm the city) to September 1939 as Vivian Smith. The plan was to extract her from history and to a Fixed Era where the load could be neutralised. Jonathan and Elio tell the rest of the story. Jonathan and Sam's trials are postponed until Chronologue gets back together again and until he's older, respectively. The Time Lady tells Vivian that she would disturb every bit of history she comes in contact with, with the amount of chronons and temporons (which anyone from history has)... and her solution is to send Vivian out to the stars. A very lonely Vivian realises she truly is lost – home was at war, and now had nowhere to go. The Walkers, Jonathan, and Elio all jump up and vouch for Vivian, saying they could all bear to live in the Stone Age as punishment for doing so. Faber John and the Time Lady relent; Time City has endured her so far and anyway, it could always be built back up again. They arrange for her parents to be brought to Time City as well.

"Very well, he said to Vivian, "we can't do anything until the time locks open, but I'll tell you if it's possible when you come for your next lesson."

This, Vivian had not expected. "You're going to go on teaching me?"

"I never give up on anything once I've started," said Faber John. "Once I persuade you to use your brain, you might even be a good pupil. Come to me with Jonathan in three days time, in SELDOM END as usual."


Captain Nemo (comics)

The year is 1893, in an alternative time-stream in which Napoleon Bonaparte defeated the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo and then founded an Imperial dynasty. Under the iron grip of Napoleon IV, France has extended its tyrannical rule throughout the world, forging a vast Empire that rivals that of Ancient Rome. Only one man stands in defiance against the Empire, roaming at will beneath the surface of the oceans: Young Captain Nemo and his ragtag crew aboard the ''Nautilus II''. France, however, will not just sit idle as Nemo and his crew roam the seas; they want him hunted down and made an example of so that no others will oppose the French Empire. As such, the Emperor sends his Vice Minister of Security, Monsieur Bertrand Pierpont, aboard Captain Gaucher's ship ''Invincible'' to help with the hunt. However, while Captain Gaucher is sure Nemo is behind this, Monsieur Pierpont makes it clear that the official French standpoint is that Nemo is ancient history and no longer exists as he was slain and his ''Nautilus'' sunk over twenty years ago.

Soon after making this point clear to Captain Gaucher, Monsieur Pierpoint learns that his daughter Camille has stowed away aboard the ship and shows all the signs of a woman that will not be left behind. Her father is less than thrilled with this development and locks his daughter away, seeming more concerned of becoming a laughing-stock than that his daughter is now aboard and quite possibly in danger. Meanwhile, Camille is showing she is rebellious and doesn't like to be kept captive, and even seems to hint at finding the idea of Nemo interesting and possibly romantic, as she sneaked on board to watch her father capture Nemo (whom she calls a "terrible pirate").

After her being trapped in her cabin for quite some time, Captain Gaucher (who seems to have a history with Camille) frees her with the idea of her sharing a drink with her but Camille has other ideas and works out a way to be free of her cabins, something that once again her father doesn't like and that reminds him of her mother - her "willful and stubborn" streak. As the hunt continues, Monsieur Pierpoint continues to make it clear he does not believe Nemo exists and agrees with the old stories of that it is merely a sea monster attacking ships and not a miracle ship that can travel under the water.

It is after these events and a long journey from the Atlantic to the Pacific that Captain Nemo is finally found, or in reality finds the ones hunting him. He provokes and challenges Captain Gaucher to a duel, killing him via his superior agility and speed. Seeing her father's attempt to cheat and attack Nemo without warning, Camille stops her father from attacking Nemo. During the attack, Sarah Wakely, Nemo's ship's doctor, tries to hit Monsieur Pierpoint with throwing knives for his attempted attack on Nemo and instead hits Camille, who got in the way. Camille falls overboard and Nemo jumps into save her. While this rather bold and daring action seems to get a smile from his first officer, Dan Rutherford, it doesn't seem to please Sarah Wakely.

Nemo does end up saving Camille from an untimely death, and to make sure she can have her wounds treated he takes her about the ''Nautilus'', where she wakes up as a "free prisoner". Meanwhile, back in France, Napoleon IV instructs Admiral Vincent La Rocque, his brutal leader of the Imperial navy, to hunt down and kill Nemo. La Rocque is accompanied on his ship ''The Horrific'' by Pierpoint, who has promised his daughter in marriage to La Rocque (should she still be alive).

Thus starts the tale of the new Captain Nemo and his crew aboard the ''Nautilus II'', along with Camille Pierpoint, who seems to show signs of liking Nemo (even if she doesn't entirely like the way he views her as a work of art).


Destiny's Hand

The story begins with a flashback to when Olivia is thirteen. Olivia is in arranged marriage that she is determined to escape. The ship she and her parents are traveling on is taken by the ''Destiny's Hand''. When Diego threatens her father, Olivia manages to defeat him with a knife and her wits. Captain Blaine gives her a favor, and Olivia asks to join the crew of the Destiny's Hand. Her father disowns her, and she joins the crew of Destiny's Hand.

Three years later, it is Owen who is telling Olivia's story to their captives. When they are about to depart, they are attacked by the 'Kraken', Mulgrew's ship. After a fierce battle, Blaine's only good lung had been pierced. With Captain Blaine dying, he appoints the only person he considers brave enough to lead a crew to find the Devil's Eye: Olivia Soldana. Blaine then tells of Destiny's Hand's Five Fingers that guide her, Olivia, Diego, Matthau, and Badru. He also tells them of the Fifth finger, a scholar who reads the ancient language of Priscus.

After, the crew heads to Vickensburg where they attempt to recruit Elias, the Governor's son and the Index finger who should point the way to the Devil's Eye. Blaine gives them a picture of the ship's Figurehead, Lady Kate and tells them that showing it to him should convince him to join them. Olivia and Badru sneak into the governor's mansion and ask Elias. Elias refuses to join them, so Olivia and Badru leave the picture and return to the ship.

Upon their return, it is revealed that Elias is Blaine's son. It also reveals some of Blaine's past and the story of Lady Kate. Lady Kate was actually based on a woman named Katherine who was going to be forced to marry the governor's son. She asked for passage of Blaine's ship. Katherine practiced some sort of magic, a form of future sight and used it to steer Blaine's ship in the right direction, and avoid storms. She also sees the future Mulgrew's attempt to capture the Devil's Eye, and when she was pregnant, she told Blaine she had to marry the governor's son so that their son would grow up to be a scholar. Katherine later died in childbirth.

Olivia then goes back to the governor's mansion and kidnaps Elias and brings him back to Destiny's Hand. She then tells him Blaine is his father. When Elias and Blaine meet face-to-face, Elias points a gun to Blaine's head, stating that his father is the Governor of Vickensburg.

Blaine tells the others to leave while he talks with Elias. After some time, Elias joins them in the search for the Devil's Eye and calls Blaine “father”. Inside the library in Valroux, Elias and Olivia learn that a new law has been passed: “Any pirate found on Valroux soil is to be detained, tried, and executed.” Even the pirates of Destiny's Hand are no exception. Olivia is forced to wound Michel so he isn't seen allied with the pirates.

From the book Elias stole, he manages to figure out that the book was about Josiah Zevon's quest in search of the Devil's Eye. Apparently he had a map to Isle du Diablo. He tore it into quarters, gave three to his most trusted lieutenants, and kept the fourth to himself. Matthau was once a cabin boy aboard Zevon's ship. He knew that Zevon retired to a small island, northwest of Permonde. Later, the Kraken is following them. From a message inside a bottle, Mulgrew learns of Destiny's Hand's crew fallout and that they have a piece of the map and going to get another.

Sometime later, Blaine asks Owen to write the tales of Olivia's adventures after he finishes with Blaine's. When Owen leaves, Blaine tells Olivia that he wants the crew to accept her as captain before telling them of Blaine's sickness. Olivia, Matthau, Badru, and Owen journey to Zevon's island. They learn that Zevon burnt his piece of the map. When they leave, Zevon didn't burn it but hid it. Back on the ship, Elias touches Lady Kate figurehead and hears a voice in his head. She tells him that they are in danger. When Zevon tried to finally burn the map, Mulgrew stopped him.


Hope and Glory (TV series)

Ian George, the head of an exclusive school, is asked to take a look at Hope Park Comprehensive School, which is in special measures, and asked to confirm its closure. When he visits the school, he's greeted by disaffected students and teachers alike. The sixth form centre lies derelict after being torched a few years previously, while the music room is full of untouched expensive equipment, because the school could not attract a music teacher. The outgoing head (Peter Davison) breaks down during his farewell speech and delivers an emotional rant against the students, telling them how worthless they are.

After meeting staff and pupils, in particular pupil Keeley Porter and Deputy Head Debbie "Debs" Bryan (Redman), George believes there is some hope for the school. He is offered help by the chair of governors, Derek, whose son died young and would have been at the school. Ian turns down a government job to take over as the new Head.

With the help of "Debs", George is able to fix the school's issues. He identifies the talents of rebellious students, and the music equipment is finally used.

Romances developed between Ian and Debs, and Tony (Lee Warburton) and Sally (Sara Stephens).

Philip Whitchurch played the chair of governors, who was desperate to save the school. The refurbished and replenished library was subsequently dedicated to his deceased son. The Chief Education Officer was played by Richard Griffiths.


Gunman Chronicles

Five years later, the game places the player in direct control of Major Archer, preparing for a mission aboard the Gunman space station Aeronautica. After a training level, Archer and a small detachment of Gunmen are deployed to a dinosaur- inhabited jungle planet, under orders to investigate an outdated but extremely high ranking Gunman distress signal. The signal is revealed to be a trap, and the Gunmen come under heavy attack both from unidentified human forces and the indigenous fauna. The player is eventually forced to fight his way through a series of catacombs, where he encounters the General, still alive despite having been eaten alive on Banzure Prime. He reveals to Archer that the silicon-based Xenomes are incapable of digesting carbon-based humans, and that he, the scientists from the research colony, and the other Gunmen consumed by the Xenomes managed to fight their way out of the creature's gullets after Archer left them for dead. The vengeful scientists and Gunmen have now formed a rogue cell, with the General as its leader, and are engineering new Xenome breeds to use as weapons and to exact their vengeance upon Archer. The General allows Archer to leave, so as to watch him die at the hands of the planet's vicious reptiles, but he manages to infiltrate the General's cargo ship, bound for a falling moon that plays host to an outdated AI, called the Mainframe, that has been unstable for some time since the General left it. At the moon, the ship comes under fire from the now fully insane AI's drones. The General dumps the cargo module Archer is hiding in to gain speed and leaves the AI facility's science team behind to die.

As Archer progresses through the facility, he learns that the Mainframe's primary battle is with a major Xenome infestation that the humans brought onto the moon. Fighting both attack drones and Xenomes alike, Archer makes his way through the facility. Despite the Mainframe's best efforts, Archer manages to destroy most of the "kata-space anchors" that keep the moon from falling to the planet below. Archer survives the destruction of the anchors, but is stranded on the falling moon. Archer eventually finds the Mainframe and they form an uneasy alliance: the Mainframe will provide an aerial drone for Major Archer to escape in, but only if he takes the Mainframe's core with him. Major Archer agrees, and they battle through hordes of Xenome forces with the help of the Mainframe's attack drones. Major Archer and the AI successfully reach and board the aerial drone, but fail to navigate through an asteroid field on their way into kata-space and crash land on a desert planet called Icnus, encountering and fighting rogue Gunmen. Icnus turns out to be the location of the General's main Xenome facility. Archer battles his way through the facility with the help of the Mainframe, accidentally causing a captured Worm Xenome, one of the most dangerous Xenomes in existence, to break loose.

The Mainframe helps Archer to the General's location and they engage in a firefight, where the AI's newly constructed Super Drone defeats the General's Kata-Drone. The General bails out but is immediately attacked by the escaped Worm Xenome, which comes out of a crevice and consumes him once again. The Mainframe states its intention to make the Xenome facility its home as it calls for backup, and Gunman reinforcements arrive shortly after to contain the Xenome infestation and capture any remaining rogue Gunmen.


Paycheck (film)

In the near future, Michael Jennings is a reverse engineer; he analyzes his clients' competitors' technology and recreates it with improvements. To protect his clients' intellectual property and himself, Jennings undergoes memory wipes to remove knowledge of his engineering with aid of his friend Shorty.

Jennings is contacted by his college roommate James Rethrick, the CEO of technology company Allcom. Rethrick offers Jennings a lengthy three-year job, during which he will be required to stay on Allcom's campus, in exchange for company stock. Jennings is hesitant but agrees. After being injected with the memory marker, Jennings is given a tour of the campus, where he meets and flirts with biologist Dr. Rachel Porter. Rethrick then introduces Jennings to his work partner, physicist William Dekker.

Three years later, Jennings wakes from the memory wipe and is congratulated by Rethrick. Jennings finds that the Allcom stock he earned is valued at over , but when he goes to see his lawyer to get the funds, he discovers that he had given all the stock away just weeks ago. Further, he is given an envelope claiming to be his possessions on entering Allcom, but it contains a random assortment of items. Confused, Jennings soon finds himself detained by the FBI. Agent Dodge accuses Jennings of having access to classified government designs that had been taken by Dekker, who is now dead. Jennings cannot answer due to the memory wipe, but finds a means to escape using the items in the envelope. As he evades the FBI, Rethrick's right-hand-man John Wolfe sees Jennings walking away and warns Rethrick they have a problem.

Jennings meets with Shorty to try to figure out what happened, but then sees a lottery number result on a television, the numbers matching those on a fortune cookie message in the envelope. He realizes that he must have built a machine at Allcom to see into the future, planting items in that envelope to help fix things. At Allcom, Rethrick tries to use Jennings' machine, but instead finds that it was jury-rigged to go offline after Jennings had left. Rethrick studies Jennings' habits while at Allcom and discovers that he got romantically involved with Porter and left a secret message to meet her at a cafe later that day. Rethrick sends a body double to try to coerce Jennings to turn over the envelope, but the real Porter shows up and rescues Jennings. The two elude the FBI and Rethrick's men. While hiding, they find that the stamps on the envelopes contain microdot images taken from the device, showing newspaper headlines from the future that while Allcom became incredibly successful with the device, it led to international political strife and the United States launching a pre-emptive nuclear strike. They agree that the machine must be destroyed.

Using the last items in the envelope, Jennings and Porter gain access to Allcom and the machine, while separately the FBI have started to investigate Allcom. Jennings discovers the circuit he rigged and fixes it, while booby-trapping the machine to be destroyed in a few minutes. He uses the machine one last time to see himself being shot at by an FBI agent in the catwalks about the machine. Rethrick, Wolfe, and other men arrive, and Jennings and Porter escape to the catwalks. Wolfe tries to use the machine to help track Jennings, while Rethrick corners the pair on the catwalk. FBI agents storm the lab, and one appears on the catwalk, the same tableau that Jennings had seen. As the FBI fires, a watch from the envelope beeps, and Jennings dodges in time for the bullet to fatally hit Rethrick. Wolfe is killed as Jennings' booby-trap goes off and destroys the machine. After the chaos dies down and the FBI begin a full investigation, Agent Dodge finds the watch Jennings had used, but consequently hides it and declares him dead.

Elsewhere, Jennings, Porter, and Shorty have moved to the countryside. Shorty was able to use his influence to rescue the cage of a pair of lovebirds Porter had been raising at Allcom. Recalling the fortune cookie message from the envelope, Jennings looks in the cage and finds a lottery ticket for the winning jackpot of .


A Single Shard

Tree-ear is an orphan who lives under a bridge with Crane-man, a physically disabled man who took him in when Tree-ear was only a small child, about 2 years old. The potters of Ch'ulp'o, the local village, suddenly become famous for their celadon glaze, but Tree-ear has observed richer pickings in their rubbish dumps. He becomes very interested in watching the potters at work, especially an old potter called Min, famous for the beauty of his wares. Tree-ear enjoys watching Min at work more than any other potter because only Min possesses enough confidence to work openly. Tree-ear learns Min's daily habits and always sneaks up to the same paulownia tree to watch Min at work. One day, Tree-ear goes into Min's yard, but since neither the old potter nor his throwing wheel are in sight, he decides to investigate the work left drying in the sun. He sees a duck-shaped water dropper, a jug and a box that Tree-ear picks up. When Min comes out and startles Tree-ear, he drops and breaks the box by accident. As Tree-ear leaves, he hears Min muttering that the box he had dropped was made in three days. To pay for his mistake, Tree-ear offers to work for Min thrice the number of days to pay for the box. Min agrees.

Tree-ear arrives for his first day of work, excited to learn the potter's craft. However, Min wants Tree-ear to cut wood for the communal kiln. For nine days, Tree-ear cuts wood for Min. When the nine days are over, Tree-ear returns to Min and requests a continuing job. Min informs Tree-ear that the only pay would be a daily meal, but Tree-ear only wants to learn the trade and does not expect payment. Min agrees, sending Tree-ear to the river for clay.

Time passes, and one afternoon, word spreads throughout Ch'ulp'o that a royal emissary called Kim is coming to offer commissions to the best potters both in their village and another village down the coast. Every potter begin working at a fast pace to have their best work ready to display. During this time, Tree-ear notices some odd behavior in another potter, Kang, who is as experienced as Min but more impatient. He notes that Kang has been very secretive, carrying small bowls filled with semiliquid clay (slip) that seem to be colored, and carrying jars, wine cups, jugs, and vessels back and forth from the kiln early in the morning. One morning, Tree-ear spies on Kang, who trips while carrying two small bowls. The contents of both bowls slosh over on the ground. Tree-ear looks at the spill and sees two differently colored slips, red and white. One night, Tree-ear sneaks up to Kang's work shed and sees him carving out chrysanthemums on the side of a vase and then filling the holes with colored clay. Tree-ear wants to tell Min what he has seen, but he is concerned that by doing so he would be stealing from Kang, so he waits.

On the day that the royal emissary arrives, all the potters set up stalls filled with their work on the beach. Min's is the smallest display but it is one of a few that earns extra attention from the Emissary Kim as he admires the melon-shaped jug that is put on the display. The emissary leaves, but announces that he will return in a month to offer commissions. The potters who received extra attention before again begin working quickly to prepare new samples for the emissary. Tree-ear tells Min about Kang's inlay work. Min immediately begins creating inlays in his own pottery. However, after the pottery is fired in the kiln, it all comes out with brown stains that sometimes appear in the finish. Min breaks them all and prepares to start over. Unfortunately, the emissary arrives before he can create anything new. After a few days, news comes out: Kang has been chosen for a commission. When he visits Min's house and hears the story, the emissary offers to give Min a commission if he can bring a sample to the capital city, but Min confesses that he believes he is too old for such a trip.

Tree-ear overhears the conversation between Min and the emissary and offers to take a sample of Min's work to Songdo for him, as a gift to Min's wife who has befriended and cared for Tree-ear over the past year. Once again, Min works quickly to create two melon-shaped vases with intricate, inlaid flowers along the side. Crane-man is hired to create a basket that will carry the vases without breaking them. After taking care to be sure Crane-man will be cared for during his absence, Tree-ear sets off alone for the capital city. Tree-ear walks alone for days. When he reaches the city of Puyo, he goes up to a mountain cliff called the Rock of Falling Flowers. At the top of the cliff, Tree-ear is attacked by two robbers who steal all his coins and throw the vases over the edge of the cliff to the river below. After they have gone, Tree-ear rushes down to the river to check on the fate of the vases. Both vases are broken but one has broken in large pieces, allowing Tree-ear to take a single shard of the broken vase and continue his journey.

When Tree-ear arrives in Songdo, he sees the familiar chrysanthemums and colors on a stall selling pottery. When the stall owner sees Tree-ear's interest, he tells him that the work was already one of the King's favorites. Tree-ear talks his way into a meeting with the emissary when he arrives at the palace. Tree-ear reveals his attack by the robbers and then shows the single shard. Despite the incredulity of the emissary's assistant, Min is offered a commission and Tree-ear is given safe passage home on a ship. Once home, Tree-ear goes directly to the home of Min to tell him about the commission. Min has news for Tree-ear as well. Crane-man died a few days before when a farmer's cart broke the rotten bridge railing, causing him to fall into the cold water. Tree-ear is devastated by this news and afraid for his own future. However, Min's wife tells him that he is to move in with her and her husband. They give Tree-ear the name of their son, Hyung-pil. Later, Min reveals that he intends to teach Tree-ear/Hyung-pil the art of pottery. The ending of the story reveals that Tree-ear, or Hyung-pil, created the "Thousand Cranes Vase", which is the finest example of inlaid celadon pottery from in the seventeenth century.


Takeshis'

''Takeshis '' progresses through the nested storyline of the dual protagonists, Beat Takeshi and Mr. Kitano (both played by Kitano himself). Beat Takeshi, a prominent actor, meets a look-alike named Mr. Kitano, who is a struggling actor. After the meeting, Mr. Kitano's dreams take a violent, surreal turn.

The film opens with a nightmare vision. American soldiers with carbines move down the fallen base filled up with bodies of Japanese combatants. One of dying combatants appears to be (Beat or Kitano) Takeshi. This opening scene is followed by the gun battle of a yakuza film where one of the protagonists, 'Beat' Takeshi, plays the principal role. Flashbacks of this gun battle are frequently used throughout the film.

'Beat' Takeshi is a showbiz star. He lives through business in film studio and TV stations where main casts appear in one of their dual roles (Takeshi's Girlfriend (Kotomi Kyono), Takeshi's Manager (Ren Osugi), and Takeshi's former partner of stand-up comedy (Susumu Terajima)).

The first appearance sequence of 'Beat' Takeshi also introduces some repetitive motives of ''Takeshis ''. (The caterpillar in a bouquet, a female impersonator of taishū engeki (Taichi Saotome), tap dancers in a rehearsal set, Akihiro Miwa (a transvestite chanson singer), a pair of fat twins, and dialogs at a ramen restaurant repeated later in varied situations.)

Mr. Kitano, the other protagonist, appears in a clown costume among the guys in a wardrobe of TV station. Mr. Kitano is an everyman, obsessed with his appearance identical to 'Beat' Takeshi. When two Takeshis encounter for the first time, Mr. Kitano seeks his heartthrob charisma's autograph. 'Beat' Takeshi gives the autograph to him.

Kitano, earning a living as a convenience store clerk, never gets ahead as an actor. He begins to fantasize himself as 'Beat' Takeshi in daydreams. Fragments of surreal dream crosses over into his life. We see bizarre things accompanied by dead bodies on the road while he is moonlighting as a taxi driver.

Kitano then happens to pick up a gun at a yakuza quarrel. He shoots first his yakuza neighbor (Susumu Terajima), and begins to kill people around his world. The film implies it is some kind of a dream, showing deceased guys appear again in blood and yell alive normally. Kitano takes out his female neighbor (Kotomi Kyono) and commits a bank robbery. Accomplishing his fantasies of acting like a movie star 'Beat' Takeshi, Kitano takes a journey into the absolutely bizarre, surreal world (an underground nightclub, night gun battles, and the catastrophe at a ''Boiling Point''-, or ''Sonatine''-like tropical island).

Cut suddenly back to Kitano's real life where he is still confused himself and 'Beat' Takeshi. He finds the movie star's autograph greeting, "Hello Mr. Clown!". It triggers 'Beat' Takeshi's assassination by Mr. Kitano. Cut suddenly again back to a close-up of 'Beat' Takeshi, which implies all of the film might be a dream of 'Beat' Takeshi. The film ends with flashback images of an American Soldier and the gun battle of a yakuza film at the beginning.


Kavanagh QC

The series starred John Thaw as barrister James Kavanagh QC, who comes from a working-class upbringing in Bolton, Greater Manchester. Although having been alluded to in Series 1 Episode 1, this is only revealed in later episodes as his parents' health deteriorates and through an exchange with a colleague who presumed that Kavanagh was actually a Yorkshireman. Plus, on one occasion Kavanagh dashes off to catch Bolton Wanderers play in a televised football match. The series deals with his battles in the courtroom as well as his domestic dramas which include the death of his devoted and affectionate wife. Later he begins dating a fellow barrister.

In court, Kavanagh is usually seen to be defending a client who seems likely to be convicted until a twist in the case occurs, but occasionally Kavanagh is seen in a prosecuting role. The main plot often features Kavanagh confronting cases with a subtext of racism, sexism or other prejudice. In sub-plots comedy came from the pomposity and self-absorption of Jeremy, a posh barrister in chambers. Kavanagh will not stand for injustice and is never bullied by threats or bribes from those whom he is up against in the courtroom.


Bud, Not Buddy

The story opens with Bud being placed with a new foster family, the Amoses. Bud soon meets Todd Amos, their 12-year-old son, who teases him mercilessly and calls him Buddy. After a fight with Todd, Bud is forced to spend the night in the garden shed, where he mistakes a hornet nest for a vampire bat. He hits the nest with a rake, upsetting the hornets and getting himself stung. During his adrenaline rush, he breaks through the window of the shed.

After escaping, Bud takes revenge on Todd by making him wet his bed by pouring warm water on Todd, as the Amoses can’t stand bedwetting. He also hides the Amoses’ shotgun and takes leave. He then sleeps under a Christmas tree for the night. The next day, he wakes up to find that he had missed the breakfast line at the mission, but is saved by a couple who pretended he was their son. The next morning, his friend Bugs wakes him up so they can go to the West.

Bud runs away with Bugs to Hooverville where they eat and plan to get on the train leaving West the next day. The train, however, leaves early, and Bud, unlike Bugs, fails to hop on and is left behind. Bud starts walking to Grand Rapids, Michigan. On the way, he meets Lefty Lewis —- whom he thought was a Vampire as he had a box of blood in his car —- who gives Bud a ride in his car to Grand Rapids to find his father. He stays with Lefty for a short while and meets his daughter's family. He then leaves to find his father, whom he believes is Herman E. Calloway.

Bud meets Herman and his band and declares himself to be Herman's son, though his confidence is shaken when he sees that Herman is elderly. Bud becomes friends with the band members (who give him a saxophone by the end of the book), but Herman treats Bud with great animosity. Bud is soon forced to deliver the news that his mother, Angela Janet, is dead. This brings great grief to Herman, who is revealed to be Angela's estranged father.

The story ends with Herman apologizing to Bud for his animosity and allowing him to stay with him and the band. Despite all of his dilemmas and grief, Bud may finally have a happy ending.


Frank's Place

Set in New Orleans, ''Frank's Place'' chronicles the life of Frank Parrish (Tim Reid), a well-to-do African-American professor at Brown University, an Ivy League university in Providence, Rhode Island, who inherits a restaurant, Chez Louisiane. In the premiere, Frank travels to New Orleans intending to sell the restaurant. However, waitress Emerita (she waits only on customers with twenty years or more of patronage) of Chez Louisiane—Miss Marie (Frances E. Williams) has a voodoo spin (curse) put on Frank ensuring that he will come back to carry on his family's business. Consequently, when Frank returns to New England, the life he's known there suddenly goes inexplicably haywire. Feeling he has no choice, Frank returns to New Orleans and makes many discoveries about black culture in New Orleans, the differences between northern and southern lifestyles, and himself.

On its surface, ''Frank's Place'' was a fish-out-of-water story, like ''The Beverly Hillbillies'' or ''Green Acres''. However, the series' story lines featured weightier topics such as race and class issues.


The Great Yokai War

A young boy named Tadashi Ino moves to a small town after his parents' divorce. At a local festival, he is chosen to be that year's Kirin Rider, referring to the legendary Chinese chimera, the Qilin: a protector of all things good. He soon discovers that his new title is quite literal, as a nefarious spirit named Yasunori Katō appears. Katō - a demon whose mystical powers are born of his rage at the annihilation of Japan's local tribes - desires vengeance against the modern Japanese for their actions against the ''yōkai''. To carry out his revenge, Katō allies himself with a ''yōkai'' named Agi, summoning a fiery spirit called Yomotsumono: a creature composed of the resentment carried by the multitudinous things mankind has discarded. Katō feeds ''yokai'' into Yomotsumono's flames, fusing them with the numerous discarded tools and items to form ''kikai''. These ''kikai'' - under Katō's control - capture other ''yōkai'' to build their numbers while killing humans. One such ''yokai'', a ''sunekosuri'' escapes and befriends Tadashi who attempts to obtain the Daitenguken from the mountain as a right of passage for the role of Kirin Rider.

Scared by the tales told of the mountain, Tadashi falters upon his arrival at the mountain and tries to flee. However, tricked by the sea spirit Shōjō, who picked Tadashi out, he manages to overcome a test to prove his worth. Accompanied by Shōjō, Kawahime, and Kawatarō, Tadashi makes his way to the Daitengu who gives him the sword before being taken away by the ''kikai''. In spite of Tadashi's attempts, the sword is broken as Agi takes the ''sunekosuri'' as her captive before the boy is knocked unconscious.

When Tadashi comes to his senses, he finds himself among ''yōkai'' as they discuss how to fix the sword; they ultimately decide to request the aid of the blacksmith Ippondatara. Upon learning that Ippondatara was also captured, General Nurarihyon and his group leave. Kawataro restrains an ittan-momen, praising the bumbling Azukiarai, unaware that he only remained behind due to his foot getting numb.

When Katō's industrial fortress takes flight towards Tokyo, Tadashi and company pursue it. They arrive shortly after the fortress ingests Tokyo's Shinjuku Capital Building, finding Ippondatara who reforges the sword. Ippondatara refuses to talk about how he escaped, ashamed that the ''sunekosuri'' took his place in becoming a ''kikai''. Donning new attire, Tadashi and company go into battle. They are greatly outnumbered until they receive unlikely aid from thousands of ''yōkai'' who believe they are coming to a party; their festival brawl with the ''kikai'' allows Tadashi and Kawahime to enter the fortress safely, followed by a ''yōkai''-obsessed reporter named Sata whom Kawahime saved in the past.

Tadashi is forced to slay the ''kikai'' that the ''sunekosuri'' became, restoring it to its original form yet leaving it gravely injured. In a rage, Tadashi battles Agi before she is called back by Katō to begin the final phase by joining with Yomotsumono. Despite Tadashi's attempts, Katō outmatches him. Kawahime attempts to protect the boy, stating that while she hates humans due to them abandoning her, she has no desire for revenge as she considers it a human emotion. Unfazed, Katō takes the two out as Azukiarai awkwardly arrives.

Katō calls Agi to join him. However, her love for him is a hindrance to the process, so Katō kills her instead before entering the oven to become one with Yomotsumono. However, due to Sata's actions, one of Azukiarai's adzuki beans ends up in the mix with Katō, causing a chain reaction of positive emotion that destroys Yomotsumono.

After the ''yokai'' take their leave, Tadashi and Sata find themselves on the street and the boy tells his first white lie to the reporter about Kawahime's feelings towards him. Years later, Tadashi is a grown man who has lost the ability to see ''yokai'', even the ''sunekosuri''. The film ends with the ''sunekosuri'' being confronted by an Azuki-pupiled Katō.


Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

On September 6, 1915, police detective Jack Walters (Milton Lawrence) is summoned to the siege of a decrepit manor house in Boston. The manor is inhabited by a bizarre cult called the Fellowship of the Yith, led by one Victor Holt (Marc Biagi) who has asked specifically for Walters to come and talk to him. Taking cover from an ensuing firefight, Walters separates from the police and goes inside the mansion. He finds the cultists dead by mass suicide and turns on a strange-looking contraption, revealing itself to be a portal. Walters sees two inter-dimensional beings emerge from the portal and blacks out. When the rest of the police finally break in, they find Walters apparently insane and with a different personality. He is briefly committed to Arkham Asylum, but is released and spends six years travelling and studying the occult. Exactly six years since entering the manor in Boston, his secondary personality disappears and his old personality returns. However, he suffers from amnesia surrounding the events of the past six years.

Walters becomes a private detective, whilst attempting to trace his own actions during the period of mental disturbance that he cannot remember. On February 6, 1922, he takes up a missing person case at Innsmouth, a xenophobic coastal town, and the site of the recent disappearance of Brian Burnham, a clerk that had been sent there to establish a local store for the First National Grocery chain. Arriving in the isolated town, which appears to be depopulated and in a state of collapse, Jack unsuccessfully asks around for Burnham. He stays the night at a hotel, where he barely escapes an assassination attempt and flees from a chase by an armed mob. From that point forward, Jack is forced to sneak through the alleys, buildings, and sewers of Innsmouth, avoiding murderous patrols of the town's corrupt police and the cultists looking for him. He acquires weapons to defend himself and meets undercover agent Lucas Mackey (John Nutten), who tells him that the town is under federal investigation. Jack eventually finds Burnham and his girlfriend Ruth (Lani Minella), but the two are killed as they escape from Innsmouth. Jack is taken in by the FBI squad led by J. Edgar Hoover (Ryan Drummond). Following a brutal interrogation, Jack agrees to help Hoover and the FBI raid the Marsh Gold Refinery, where he is attacked by an ancient creature known as a Shoggoth and uncovers a Cthulhu shrine before the building is demolished.

After the refinery raid, the U.S. military begins a combined land-and-sea assault on Innsmouth. The only part of the town that proves resistant to the attack is the headquarters of the Esoteric Order of Dagon, a cult that holds the whole town under its grip, devoted to two undersea demigods, Dagon and Mother Hydra, as well as the Great Old One Cthulhu. The building proves unbreachable by the Coast Guard and the Marines, but Jack finds a way in through an old smuggling entrance that is guarded by a star-spawn of Cthulhu. Inside, Jack saves Mackey, who had been kidnapped for a ritual sacrifice, and brings down the magical shield protecting the building. After discovering a secret chamber, he falls through the floor of a tunnel which leads into the sea.

Jack is rescued by the USS ''Urania'', a Coast Guard vessel which is part of a group heading to Devil's Reef, following up on a lead provided by the FBI. On the way there, wizards on the reef summon powerful tidal waves to destroy the flotilla, but Jack kills them with the Urania's deck gun. The humanoid fish-men known as Deep Ones launch a mass attack on the ''Urania'' and eventually Dagon emerges, too. Despite almost the entirety of the ship's crew being wiped out by the attack, Jack manages to defeat the gigantic demigod, again with the deck gun, but the ''Urania'' sinks.

Jack finds himself on Devil's Reef, where he discovers old smuggling tunnels beneath the seabed, leading him to the underwater city of Y'ha-nthlei. The city is found to be located below Devil's Reef and is the home of the Deep Ones and members of the Order. U.S. Navy submarines attempt to torpedo Y'ha-nthlei, but are stopped by a magical barrier protecting the city. The Temple of Dagon is the source of the barrier, but the entrance is sealed off to prevent any interference. Jack finds another way in through ancient tunnels feared by the Deep Ones at the bottom of the city's foundations. Apparently, this passage, which leads to the temple, is an ancient prison for flying polyps, the enemy of the Great Race of Yith. Jack manages to defeat them with the help of a Yithian energy weapon. Jack enters the Temple of Dagon and kills Mother Hydra – whose song is generating the barrier – by deafening himself to her song, allowing him to take control of the Deep Ones. With the barrier down, the submarines attack the city, while Jack escapes through a portal leading back to the Order's headquarters and collapses in front of Hoover and Mackey.

Fragments of Jack's memory from his six years of amnesia return. A member of the Great Race of Yith explains that when he made contact with the Yith in the Boston manor, a Yithian swapped minds with him, leaving his body in control of a member of the Great Race of Yith, while his own mind was projected into the Yithian world. It is for this reason that Walters had a secondary personality when he was incarcerated in the Asylum and in the six years that followed – it was the mind of a Yithian in Jack's body. The same Yithian then explains that he swapped minds with Jack's father during the moment of Jack's conception, that Jack is only partially human as a result, and that he has two fathers: his human father and his Yithian father. In flesh, Jack is human, but he inherited Yithian psychic powers, which explains the cultists' interest in him, his ability to solve cases with clues retrieved from his dreams, his visions of coming danger and of the Yithian library-city of Pnakotus, and his ability to control Deep Ones in the Temple of Dagon. After six years living in Pnakotus in a Yithian body, a war with the Flying Polypous Creatures forces the Yith to send Jack's mind back to his own body. Simultaneously, they erase six years of his memory to protect his sanity, with the promise that "When the time is comes, you will remember... we will be waiting in the shadows of your dreams." His memories returned, Jack is confined in Arkham Asylum once more, where he attempts suicide by hanging himself, unable to handle the reality of himself and what he has witnessed.

Although the game's story diverges in several places and features a completely different protagonist, several levels mirror passages from Lovecraft's novella ''The Shadow over Innsmouth''. It also contains elements of the ''Call of Cthulhu'' tabletop role-playing game's campaign ''Escape from Innsmouth'', such as the Marsh Refinery raid. A major sub-plot of the game is inspired by Lovecraft's novella ''The Shadow Out of Time''. Within the in-game lore, its plot is supposed to be "based on the writings in Jack's journal, which were discovered in 1924."


Red Dust (1932 film)

On a rubber plantation in French Indochina during the monsoon season, the plantation's owner/manager Dennis Carson (Gable), a prostitute named Vantine (Harlow), and Barbara Willis (Astor), the wife of engineer Gary Willis (Gene Raymond) are involved in a love triangle. Carson abandons an informal relationship with Vantine to pursue Barbara, but has a change of heart and returns to Vantine.

Vantine arrives at the plantation first, on the lam from the authorities in Saigon. She shows an easy comfort in the plantation's harsh environment, wisecracks continually, and begins playfully teasing Carson as soon as she meets him. He resists her charm at first, but soon gives in, and they quickly develop a friendly, casual relationship where they tease each other and pretend to be too tough for affection. They call each other "Fred" and "Lily", as though neither can be bothered to remember the other's name.

However, Carson loses interest in Vantine when the Willises arrive. Gary Willis is a young, inexperienced engineer, and his wife Barbara a classy, ladylike beauty. Carson is immediately attracted to Barbara, and, after sending Gary on a lengthy surveying trip, he spends the next week seducing Barbara as Vantine watches jealously. He successfully persuades Barbara to leave Gary, but recants after visiting Gary in the swamp and learning how deeply he loves Barbara. Carson has also seen that Barbara is unsuited for the plantation's primitive conditions, as is Gary, and has a painful memory of his own mother's death on the plantation when he was a boy. He decides to send both of them back to more civilized surroundings.

At the story's climax, Carson turns Barbara's feelings against him by pretending he never loved her, at which point she shoots him. This provides a cover for Vantine and Carson to save Barbara's marriage and reputation by insisting to Gary that Barbara rejected Carson's advances. The film ends after Carson has sent the Willises away, with Vantine reading bedtime stories to him as he recuperates from the gunshot wound, as he playfully tries to fondle her.


Hitler's SS: Portrait in Evil

Helmut and Karl Hoffman are two brothers who grow up in the Great Depression of the Weimar Republic, witness the coming to power of the Nazi Party and the establishment of the Third Reich. Karl, an unemployed mechanic, is enthusiastic about the Nazis and joins the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA), the Nazi Party militia, after hearing its commander, Ernst Röhm, speak at a Nazi Party rally. Helmut is reluctant and thinks the Nazis are simply another political party.

Helmut, who is a university student in Munich, is eventually talked into joining the ''Schutzstaffel'', by Reinhard Heydrich in particular, after witnessing a meeting in the Ruhr between Hitler, Kurt Baron von Schröder, Emil Kirdorf, and other German industrialists. Helmut is commissioned an SS officer in the ''Sicherheitsdienst'' (SD), the intelligence agency of the SS, right before Hitler comes to power, whereas Karl has already been an SA member for a year. Karl is distressed due to tensions between the SA and the SS and claims that the SS is trying to make it look like the SA is the "party’s garbage collector".

The entire first half of the film leads up to the Night of the Long Knives. The liquidation of the SA leadership, old enemies and the shooting of Ernst Röhm then transpire. During this time, Karl is arrested and sent to Dachau Concentration Camp. Using his connections within the SS, Helmut gets Karl freed but Heydrich cautions that Karl had better behave himself or else Helmut would find himself "running short of friends."

The next five years preceding World War II are treated hurriedly. The film pays homage to Kristallnacht only in a brief scene, and then the film skips to Helmut personally being involved with the selection of prisoners to murder for the Gleiwitz incident. During the war itself, the film portrays Helmut becoming involved in the paperwork of the Holocaust. Karl meanwhile becomes an anti-Nazi, is drafted in the ''Wehrmacht'', and becomes an officer on the Eastern Front.

Helmut becomes an SS-''Oberführer'', but is extremely disillusioned with the SS and the Nazi Party by the end of the film. Karl deserts from the army around the time of the assassination attempt against Hitler on 20 July and wanders Germany, observing the war torn rubble of German cities. In late April 1945, Helmut deserts from the SS, but is killed by an SS patrol while trying to flee Berlin. The film ends with Karl and his lover Mitzie standing in the ruins of Stuttgart, after learning his parents and little brother Hans—who fought with the Hitler Youth during the battle of Berlin—are all dead.


Jurassic World

Brothers Zach and Gray Mitchell visit Jurassic World, a dinosaur theme park on Isla Nublar, of which their aunt Claire Dearing is the operations manager. Claire assigns her assistant Zara as the boys' guide, but they evade her and explore on their own. Elsewhere on the island, Navy veteran and ethologist Owen Grady has been training a ''Velociraptor'' squad composed of Blue, Charlie, Delta and Echo, and researching their intelligence. Based on the raptors' ability to follow commands, head of InGen security Vic Hoskins believes that the animals can be weaponized, an idea Owen and his assistant Barry vehemently oppose.

Prior to its opening, Claire and park owner Simon Masrani inspect the park's newest attraction, the ''Indominus rex'', a transgenic dinosaur created by geneticist Dr. Henry Wu. Masrani tasks Owen with evaluating the enclosure's security. Owen warns Claire that the ''Indominus'' lacks social skills, making it dangerous and unpredictable. When the ''Indominus'' seemingly escapes her compound, Owen and two park workers enter the enclosure. The ''Indominus'', which can camouflage itself and mask its heat signature, suddenly appears. Owen survives, but it devours the other two men before escaping into the island's interior. Realizing that it is highly vicious and intelligent, Owen advises Masrani to have the specimen destroyed, but to protect his company's investment, Masrani dispatches a specialized unit to subdue it with non-lethal weaponry so that it can safely be returned to its paddock. After most of the unit is slaughtered, Claire orders the evacuation of the island's northern sector, while Masrani ponders Owen's warning and accosts Wu.

While exploring the park in a tour vehicle, Zach and Gray enter a restricted area. The ''Indominus'' arrives and destroys the vehicle, but the boys narrowly escape. They find the ruins of the original Jurassic Park visitor center, repair an old Jeep Wrangler, and drive back to the park resort. As Claire and Owen search for the boys, they barely escape the ''Indominus'' as well. Masrani and two troopers hunt down the ''Indominus'' by helicopter, but it breaks into the park's aviary. The pterosaurs, startled by the ''Indominus'', flee the aviary and attack Masrani's helicopter, resulting it in crashing and killing its passengers, before converging onto the resort, and attacking everyone, including Zara who is then devoured by a ''Mosasaurus''. Zach and Gray find Owen and Claire at the resort as armed personnel shoot down the pterosaurs.

Assuming command, Hoskins orders the raptors to be used to track the ''Indominus'', whereupon Owen reluctantly complies and spearheads the assault with the raptors. Upon finding the ''Indominus'', the dinosaurs begin communicating among themselves. Owen realizes that the ''Indominus'' has ''Velociraptor'' DNA, and it usurps Owen's command of the raptors, becoming the pack's new alpha. Troops fire on the ''Indominus'', but it escapes. The raptors slaughter most of the soldiers, while Charlie is killed in the chaos. Hoskins evacuates Dr. Wu and the dinosaur embryos from the island to protect Dr. Wu's research. Owen, Claire, and the boys find Hoskins at the lab securing more embryos, but Delta breaks in and kills him. Owen re-establishes his bond with the three surviving raptors before the ''Indominus'' reappears. They attack the hybrid, but Delta and Echo are killed while Blue is knocked unconscious. Claire releases the Jurassic Park’s veteran ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' from its paddock and lures it into a battle with the ''Indominus''. The ''Indominus'' eventually gains the advantage over the ''Tyrannosaurus'' until Blue recovers and joins the battle. The duo overwhelms the ''Indominus'' until it gets cornered at the lagoon's edge, where it is dragged underwater by the resident ''Mosasaurus''.

The survivors are evacuated and the island is abandoned once again. Zach and Gray are reunited with their parents, while Owen and Claire decide to stay together.


Survival Kids

The background of the game's story is minimal. All that is truly known is that the player character, either a boy named Ken (Kou in Japan), or a girl named Mery (Nami in Japan) (the names are optional), has become stranded on a deserted island after a storm capsizes the player's boat, and must actively work to survive and possibly find a way to escape back to civilization. Interaction with other characters is scarce or entirely absent, depending on how the player chooses to progress throughout the game.


King Kong (2005 video game)

In 1933, film director Carl Denham (Jack Black), has acquired a mysterious map, which reveals the secret location of a large island known as Skull Island, located in the far reaches of the Pacific Ocean. Carl hires playwright Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody) to write his script and plucks a starving, out-of-work actress Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) to play the part of leading lady and a tramp steamer called the ''Venture'' to take them to the island. The ship, controlled by Captain Englehorn (Thomas Kretschmann) arrives at the island on October 12. Three lifeboats containing the cast, crew and sailors are dispatched to the island. Due to stormy seas and large rocks, the lifeboat containing Jack, Carl, Ann, Hayes (Evan Parke), and Briggs smashes into a chunk of rocks, killing Briggs.

Hayes shoots out a distress signal, causing Englehorn to come looking for them via the ship's plane and drop ammo supplies for them. The group, after fighting off giant crabs, head onto a rocky outcrop. Carl suggests shooting some test shots for his movie, asking Ann to scream. Her classic damsel-in-distress style wailing is answered by a loud roar. The party progresses forward, meeting up with the second lifeboat containing Preston (Colin Hanks), Jimmy (Jamie Bell) and Lumpy (Andy Serkis), although it cannot land because of the strong current of the sea. The team continue traversing the island, battling with many vicious creatures, and are eventually forced to split up. After a huge battle with Megapedes and Scorpiopedes through a seemingly abandoned village, Jack and Ann are captured by the island natives.

Jack is tied to a stake, and watches helplessly as Ann is taken by Kong, a gorilla during a native sacrifice. Carl unties Jack and the two give chase. During the dangerous journey through the jungle, they have an encounter with Venatosaurus who are feasting on a dead Ferrucutus. Jack and Carl reunite with Hayes after defeating a pack of Venatosaurus with a .45 caliber Thompson submachine gun. Soon after, they find Preston, Lumpy, Jimmy and Baxter, who are crossing a bridge, but they are attacked by a Vastatosaurus rex. Lumpy is torn apart, Jimmy and Baxter fall down into the ravine, but Preston gets to the other side. Jack is separated from Carl and Hayes, who tell him to continue looking for Ann. Jack eventually finds Ann, but she is kidnapped by a Terapusmordax. Kong comes to the rescue and saves Ann. Jack continues on into the canyon, where he sees a migrating herd of Brontosaurus, and also battles Megapedes and Scorpio-Pedes. A V. rex attacks the sauropods and Jack meets up with Carl and Hayes, and continue on their path. In the jungle, they save Jimmy, who is being attacked by the Venatosaurs. They eventually get on a raft, where Jimmy tells the group that everyone else is dead. After escaping the Skull Islanders, the team are pursued by two V. rexes. Kong battles and kills them. As the team continue their journey, they enter a swamp, and fight against Udusaurs. After leaving the swamp, Kong interrupts their log crossing and tips them into a gorge. Carl's camera is broken and he gives up, heading downstream towards the Venture. Jack, Jimmy and Hayes continue their pursuit of Ann.

Jack eventually saves Ann from a V. rex, and the party attempt to find a long stretch of water of which Englehorn's seaplane can land on. After fighting off some Venatosaurus and a juvenile V. rex in a cave, and leaving a swamp, they finally come across a long stretch of water. Englehorn lands on the water, but is forced to take flight as a V. rex arrives on the scene and chases the group. Ann signals for Kong to come. Eventually, Kong comes to the rescue while Jack shoots some Terapusmordax to distract the carnivore. As Hayes tries to stop the fight, opening fire on Kong, the V. rex charges at Kong and inadvertently steps on Hayes, injuring him. Jack and Jimmy stand over Hayes, who tells Jimmy before he dies to get back to the ship. Jack and Jimmy fight many raptors and head back to the stretch of water and find the seaplane. Jimmy leaves with Englehorn and Jack climbs up into the mountains to save Ann.

Jack discovers Kong's lair and kills two juvenile V. rexes and the Skin-Birds roosting above the entrance. He rescues Ann while Kong fights several cave serpents. After leaving the jungle, Ann is captured by the natives once again but Kong saves her. He then heads for the shore where he gets gassed by sailors. He eventually passes out and is taken to New York City, where he is put on display on Broadway. Kong escapes and rampages New York destroying many army trucks. He eventually finds Ann and takes her up the Empire State Building. He tries to destroy a swarm of biplanes but is eventually shot down. Carl stands beside Kong's body and says "It wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty that killed the Beast."

An alternate ending is possible. This ending can be unlocked by gamers when they replay through various maps and earn a total of 250,000 points. If the player defeats enough biplanes as Kong, the army will light up searchlights on the building so that the biplanes can get clearer shots at Kong, causing Jack and Englehorn to appear in the Venture's seaplane. The player will switch to Jack piloting the seaplane and destroying the searchlights, and shooting down the remaining biplanes to save Kong. Although emergency searchlights are set up, Kong climbs down the Empire State Building. Kong is taken back aboard the Venture and is safely returned to Skull Island. Ann and Jack (or Englehorn) on board the seaplane fly around Kong's lair to see Kong one last time to bid farewell to him, as Kong roars triumphantly. The seaplane returns to the departing Venture.


Pendennis

Arthur Pendennis ("Pen" to his friends) is the only child of a prosperous physician and former apothecary now deceased. He and his foster sister Laura are raised in the village of Fairoaks by his indulgent mother, Mrs. Pendennis. The family has risen to gentility in the past generation or two but is not wealthy: the late Mr. Pendennis left only a house and investments producing about 500 pounds a year. The Pendennises, however, claim descent from an ancient family, and Arthur's uncle Major Pendennis, though he has only his retired Army pay, associates with wealthy and titled people. As Pen and Laura grow up, Mrs. Pendennis tells them she hopes they will marry someday.

At age 18, however, Pen falls in love with an actress, Emily Fotheringay (a stage name), who is about ten years his senior. Emily's father, Captain Costigan, believes Pen is rich and wants Pen to marry his daughter, but Pen's mother is horrified. She summons Major Pendennis from London, and the Major derails the marriage simply by telling Costigan his nephew is not rich. Emily jilts Pen.

Pen, heartbroken, leaves home to study at St Boniface's college in Oxbridge. There he lives extravagantly, unwittingly causing his mother and Laura to live in near poverty. After two years, Pen fails his final examination and remorsefully returns home where, unfortunately, his mother and Laura easily forgive him and Laura sacrifices her small personal fortune to pay Pen's debts. He soon returns to Oxbridge, retakes the exam, and obtains a degree, but returns to Fairoaks as his mother thinks earning a living is both beneath her son and harmful to his health.

Soon a large house in the neighbourhood that has stood empty for years is reoccupied by its owners, the Clavering family, consisting of Sir Francis, a baronet and Member of Parliament addicted to gambling; his rich and kindly but low-born wife, whose father earned his fortune in India; their young son; and Lady Clavering's daughter from her first marriage, Blanche Amory. The Pendennises become friendly with the Claverings and Pen becomes infatuated with Blanche, but the flirtation doesn't last long. To please his mother, Pen at this point languidly proposes to Laura but she turns him down essentially because she thinks he's not mature enough.

Pen then sets out for London, where he meets George Warrington, a journalist, with whom Pen takes cheap lodgings and who helps Pen get started as a writer. Pen achieves some success and starts to support himself, swearing he'll take no more of his mother's or Laura's money.

The Clavering family also comes up to London, where they live very well, and Blanche continues to flirt with Pen and many other men. One of them, Pen's college friend Henry Foker, falls in love with Blanche but cannot propose to her as his father will disinherit him unless he marries his cousin Ann. Pen—by now rather cynical about love and life—toys with the idea of a marriage of convenience to Blanche, and his uncle encourages him in this, but—partly because he knows Harry Foker loves Blanche—Pen doesn't propose. Foker leaves England for a year or two, unable to marry Blanche but unwilling to marry his cousin.

A new character, Colonel Altamont, is introduced at this point: he knows a secret about the Clavering family and uses it to extort money from the baronet. Major Pendennis meets Colonel Altamont, recognises him from his Army service in India, and knows "Altamont" is Lady Clavering's supposedly dead first husband Mr. Amory. He is an escaped convict and a murderer as well. Major Pendennis, however, doesn't act on his knowledge. In addition to being blackmailed, Sir Francis Clavering loses a tremendous sum of money at the races and hides from his wife and creditors in an obscure part of London. '' (1862)—who attended him when suffering a life-threatening illness 1849.

Meanwhile, Pen meets Fanny Bolton, who is pretty and young, but ignorant and lower-class. They fall in love a little, but after a very short and innocent relationship, Pen decides not to see her any more for the good of both. Brooding and keeping to his comfortless room to avoid seeing Fanny, Pen falls very ill. When malicious gossip reaches Helen and Laura that Pen is "entangled" with a girl of low station, they rush to his side: they find Fanny in his room, where she has just arrived to nurse him, but Helen and Laura think the worst and treat Fanny very rudely. Pen, unconscious, is unable to defend Fanny and himself.

Recovering after several weeks of illness, Pen takes a journey with his mother, Laura, and Warrington, who falls in love with Laura but cannot marry her because of his own catastrophic early marriage. (He is separated from his venal wife and her children—of whom he is only legally, not biologically, the father. He supports them but does not see them, and has no ambition because if he earns more money, his wife will demand it.) Helen's health deteriorates because of her belief in Pen's immoral connection with Fanny. Pen finally discovers how Helen treated Fanny; he is very angry at his mother and tells her he and Fanny are innocent. She is overjoyed to hear it, and soon mother and son forgive each other. Helen's health is nevertheless too much shaken and she dies soon afterward.

Pen thus comes into possession of the family property of 500 pounds a year. He leases his house at Fairoaks to tenants and returns to London, while Laura goes to live as companion to a Lady Rockminster. Pen does send a small amount of money to Fanny Bolton with his thanks; she eventually marries a Mr. Huxter (who had started the gossip about her and Pen).

Major Pendennis, still hoping to arrange a profitable marriage between Pen and Blanche Amory, meets Sir Francis and threatens to divulge his secret—that he is not really married to Lady Clavering—if Sir Francis will not retire and turn over his seat in Parliament to Pen. Sir Francis consents. Major Pendennis' shrewd valet Morgan overhears the conversation and makes plans to extort everyone—the Major, Pen, Altamont, Sir Francis, and Lady Clavering. When Morgan tries this on Major Pendennis, however, the Major won't stand for it, as he has as much to threaten Morgan with (theft) as Morgan has to threaten others with.

At this point, Pen has finally become engaged to Blanche though they do not love each other. Then he learns, through Morgan, of the scandal concerning the Claverings. Pen does what he considers the honourable thing: he maintains his engagement with Blanche, but refuses her family money and the seat in Parliament.

Now Henry Foker comes back into the picture: his father has died and his fiancee-cousin Ann has eloped with another man, leaving Harry rich and free to marry as he likes. He returns to England and immediately proposes to Blanche. She accepts because he is richer than Pen. On learning that Blanche has broken their engagement, Pen proposes to Laura, whom he has come to love, and is accepted, because she has long loved him—even when she refused his first marriage proposal.

The secret of the Clavering family finally becomes known to everybody and Henry Foker breaks his engagement to Blanche—not because of her disreputable father, but because she deceived him and doesn't love him. There is one final surprise: Altamont/Amory, although he ''is'' Blanche's father, was bigamously married to several women before he "married" Blanche's mother, so the Clavering marriage is legal after all—but Blanche is illegitimate. Blanche leaves for Paris, where she apparently marries a con man. Foker remains unmarried. Pen and Laura marry; soon their income increases, and he enters Parliament through his own honest efforts.


The Fighting 69th

The plot centers on misfit Jerry Plunkett (James Cagney), a tough-talking New Yorker who displays a mixture of bravado and disrespect for officers. Caught up in patriotic fervor when the United States enters WWI, he joins the 69th with aim of winning medals by singlehandedly defeating the Germans.

However, Plunkett's inexperience and disrespect for command lead to him making errors in battle and eventually show him to be a coward. The chaplain, Father Francis P. Duffy (Pat O'Brien) believes there to be something more in the young man and begs the 69th's commanding officer Major "Wild Bill" Donovan (George Brent) to give Plunkett one more chance. Donovan reluctantly agrees and when the 69th is ordered to send a squad into no man's land to capture German soldiers for intel, Donovan orders Plunkett to join them.

Plunkett's inexperience and nervousness lead to him accidentally disclosing the squad's position and leads to the deaths of two well respected soldiers Lieutenant "Long John" Wynn (Dick Foran) and Private Timothy "Timmy" Wynn (William Lundigan). Donovan is outraged and ultimately orders Plunkett to be court-martialed. However, while he is awaiting execution, Fr Duffy approaches Plunkett in one last attempt to save him spiritually. Plunkett begs the priest to release him so he can desert the army and escape the war. Fr Duffy declines his request and when his jail cell is destroyed by a German shell and he is freed, Plunkett witnesses Father Duffy ministering to several wounded troops, urging them to keep their faith and have courage.

Shamed and inspired by Donovan's forbearance and courage, Plunkett decides to rejoin his unit at the front and support their advance. However, when he catches up with the 69th he spots that the battalion has been stopped by a fierce German bombardment. Coming across a mortar whose crew have almost all been killed, he finds Sgt. "Big Mike" Wynn and implores the older man to tell him how to operate the mortar. Sgt. Wynn initially refuses as he recalls how Plunkett had caused the death of his two brothers in an earlier encounter with the enemy.

Plunkett though perseveres and starts to use the mortar to counter the German bombardment and allow the 69th to push ahead with the advance. The Germans though counter and throw a grenade into the trench where Plunkett and Sgt. Wynn are. In one desperate act of heroism he sacrifices his life by diving on the grenade in a bid to protect "Big Mike". Plunkett is mortally wounded and succumbs to his wounds leaving Major Donovan and Sgt Wynn in shock at the young man's true bravery.

While Jerry Plunkett was a fictional character, Father Duffy, Major Donovan, Lt. Ames, and poet Joyce Kilmer were all real members of the 69th. Many of the events depicted (training at Camp Mills, the Mud March, dugout collapse at Rouge Bouquet, crossing the Ourcq River, Victory Parade, etc.) actually happened.


Bliss (Canadian TV series)

This Showcase Original Series explores erotic desires, passions and fantasies of women from a female perspective, with the episodes themselves directed and written by women.


The Constant Wife

Called one of Maugham’s “most clever and captivating creations”, Constance is the calm, intelligent, and self-possessed wife of John Middleton, a successful London doctor. Knowing full well of her husband's infidelity with her best friend Marie-Louise, Constance purposefully pretends that she has no idea of the affair. When Marie-Louise's jealous husband publicly confronts Constance about their spouses’ affair, Constance protects both her husband and Marie-Louise by cleverly lying to disprove his evidence. She later reveals to her family that she has known of the affair all along, and further confounds them by demonstrating a total lack of sentiment on the subject of matrimony. Resolving to establish her own economic independence ("which she considers the only real independence"), she goes into business as an interior decorator with her friend Barbara. After taking London by storm in her new role, she determines to pay her husband for her room and board, and then announces she is going off for an Italian vacation with a longtime admirer. Her husband is, in turn, shocked and outraged at this turn of events, but finally capitulates to her outrageous charm—and to their unusual arrangement—as the curtain falls.


The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists

Littlefoot notices a herd of Longnecks entering the Great Valley and informs his grandparents, who tell him that the Longnecks are their cousins and that they must go to greet them. Upon the herd's arrival, the Old One, the herd's leader, tells the Great Valley's residents that her herd has been migratory ever since a heavy period of rain turned their old home into a marshland called "The Land of Mists" and became the home of many dangerous creatures. Later, Littlefoot meets a female Longneck named Ali and invites her to play. He introduces her to his friends, but as she is not used to associating with diverse species, she is afraid of them. Meanwhile, Littlefoot’s Grandpa becomes ill. The Old One notes that she is familiar with the illness, having seen the illness many times in her life, which is lethal to any dinosaur unless they eat the petals of the "golden night flower," which only grows in the Land of Mists. When Littlefoot’s Grandma asks one of the other Longnecks who should take her to the night flower, the other Longnecks refuse to take Littlefoot’s Grandma there due to the risk.

Though Littlefoot has been warned by the Old One that the Land of Mists has gotten too dangerous, he becomes determined to save his grandfather and asks Ali to take him there. She agrees on the condition that Cera, Ducky, Petrie and Spike do not come along, claiming that they will only slow them down. As the two of them make their way, they pass through a cave and a sudden earthshake causes various stalagmites and stalactites to crash down, separating them. After Littlefoot’s Grandma tells Cera, Ducky, Petrie and Spike about Littlefoot's Grandpa's illness, Ali returns to the Valley and convinces Littlefoot's friends to help her free him. Meanwhile, Littlefoot tries to find a way out and meets an old male ''Archelon'' named Archie, who helps him dig through the rocks. As they work, Littlefoot and Archie are interrupted by a mostly-blind ''Deinosuchus'' named Dil and an ''Ichthyornis'' named Ichy, who intend to eat them. Dil and Ichy pursue Littlefoot and Archie, but are knocked out when Ali and Littlefoot's friends dig a hole in the rock wall and send rocks tumbling down on them. Archie (who helps Littlefoot and his friends escape Dil and Ichy for the first time) shows Littlefoot and his friends a way to the Land of Mists and reminds them to stay close together before departing. In the Land of Mists, Cera is separated from the group. The others meet a ''Megazostrodon'' that Ducky names Tickles because of his fur, which tickles her when she hugs him.

Immediately after, Tickles helps them find Cera. However, Cera falls into a river and is pursued by Dil and Ichy, who have now recovered from their prior knockout in the cave. Ali saves Cera and distracts the predators, after which Cera finally softens her earlier stance towards Ali. Later, Ali explains her prejudicial behavior, having never interacted with species outside of her own, but remarks that her attitude towards Littlefoot's friends has now changed. When the seven stop for the night, they realize they are in a field of night flowers after they bloom and quickly stock up on them. As they make their way home, Ichy and Dil return for one last attack. During a chase, Petrie is grabbed by Ichy but rescued thanks to Tickles, who tricks Ichy into biting Dil's tail rather than Petrie's stomach, giving him time to rejoin his friends. Dil becomes upset at Ichy, but they quickly resume the chase after Cera gives their alternate hiding spot away, during which Ducky falls into a river and becomes unconscious. Spike then speaks for the first time by calling out Ducky's name, which awakens her as she is about to be consumed by Dil. Ichy comes up to Littlefoot and says to him that he and the others are going to be his and Dil's next targets. Ducky escapes when Spike uses his tail to knock Ichy toward Dil's open jaws as she tries to consume Ducky. However, she instead gets Ichy after mistaking him for Ducky. Dil chomps Ichy by accident. Ichy barely escapes that and the two get into another argument. Finally, the two declare that they have had enough of each other and are going their separate ways forever. Immediately after she swats Ichy away with her tail, Dil bumped into a ''Hydrotherosaurus,'' who chased her away.

With the predators gone for good, Littlefoot and his friends say goodbye to Tickles and head home. They give Littlefoot’s Grandpa the flowers to eat and he fully recovers a few hours later. Ali then leaves with her herd, but not before trying to convince Spike to say goodbye, which he does not, as he is too interested in consuming leaves. The narrator concludes that Littlefoot and the others would indeed meet Ali again one day.


The Cowboys

When his ranch hands abandon him to join a gold rush, aging rancher Wil Andersen is forced to find replacement drovers for his upcoming cattle drive. He rides into deserted Bozeman, Montana, where his friend Anse Peterson suggests hiring local schoolboys. Andersen visits the school, but departs, skeptical that such immature boys could handle the job.

The next morning, the boys show up at Andersen's ranch to volunteer for the drive. Andersen reluctantly tests their ability to stay on a bucking horse, and, as they successfully take turns, Cimarron, a boy slightly older than the others, rides up. He subdues the test horse, but then gets into a fight with Slim, the next-oldest boy. With no other options, and somewhat impressed, Andersen hires all of the boys, though he sends Cimarron away after he pulls a knife on Slim during another fight.

Andersen locks all of the boys' guns in a box that will be kept on the chuck wagon during the drive, and they practice roping, branding, and herding cattle and horses. While they prepare, a group of mysterious men led by Asa "Long Hair" Watts shows up asking for work, but Andersen catches Watts in a lie about his past and refuses to hire them. The arrival of Jebediah Nightlinger, a black cook, completes Andersen's crew.

On the trail, Andersen notices Cimarron following the herd, which slightly nettles him. When Slim slips off his horse while crossing a river and Cimarron appears and saves him, however, Andersen decides to let Cimarron join the drive.

Slowly, the boys become good cowhands, impressing both Andersen and Nightlinger. One day, Dan, a boy who wears glasses, is chasing a stray horse when he stumbles upon Watts and his gang of cattle rustlers. Watts, who reveals he has been trailing the herd, releases Dan, but threatens to slit the boy's throat if he says anything to Andersen. Dan is reluctant to go on watch that night, but Andersen, who thinks the boy is just afraid of the dark, convinces him to do his duty. He drops his glasses off a cliff overlooking the cattle, and Charlie, another one of the boys, falls off his horse and is trampled to death when he goes to get them.

Soon after, the chuck wagon throws a wheel. While the others continue on, Nightlinger and a boy named Homer hang back to handle the repairs. Seeing this, Watts and his gang come out of hiding and begin to openly parallel the herd. Andersen sends a boy, Weedy, back to tell Nightlinger to rejoin the herd as soon as possible, and then gathers the remaining boys together. So they will not be harmed, he tells them to act like boys, rather than the men they are becoming, when the rustlers approach that evening. Dan tells Andersen he knew Watts had been following them, but was scared to tell, and Andersen comforts the boy.

After dark, Watts and his gang surround Andersen and the boys in their camp. They deliver a battered Weedy, and Watts forces Andersen to surrender his gun and begins to taunt Dan. Andersen finally intervenes when Watts crushes Dan's glasses, and a brutal fist fight ensues between Andersen and Watts, with Andersen coming out on top. He tells the boys to get ready to leave and starts to walk away, ignoring Watts' calls to stop. Watts wings Andersen in both arms and a leg before shooting him twice in the torso. The boys remain passive, as instructed, and the rustlers steal the herd.

In the morning, Nightlinger and Homer rejoin to the group and find the boys tending to Andersen, who is near death. Andersen instructs Nightlinger to take the boys home and, in his final moments, tells the boys how proud he is of them.

Following Andersen's burial, the boys overpower Nightlinger and seize the box of firearms stored in the chuck wagon, planning to avenge Andersen's death and finish the cattle drive. When they catch up to the rustlers, Nightlinger offers to help the boys make a plan. The boys silently kill three of the outlaws and then use Nightlinger to draw Watts and the rest of his gang into an ambush. Riding in among a stampede of horses, the boys kill all of the rustlers, except Watts, who they find pinned beneath his horse with a foot entangled in a rope. Rather than kill him outright, Dan cuts the reins so the horse can get up and Cimarron spooks it with a shot, sending Watts to be dragged to death.

Once the boys complete the drive to Belle Fourche, South Dakota, and sell the cattle, they have a stonemason carve a gravestone with Andersen's name and the inscription "Beloved Husband and Father", a reference to the paternal role Andersen came to hold in their lives. Unable to find exactly where they buried him, they place the marker in the approximate location of his grave and head for home, accompanied by Nightlinger.


The Dinner Game

Pierre Brochant, a Parisian publisher, attends a weekly "idiots' dinner", where guests, who are modish, prominent Parisian businessmen, must bring along an "idiot", whom the other guests can ridicule. At the end of the dinner, the evening's "champion idiot" is selected.

With the help of an "idiot scout", Brochant manages to find a "gem", François Pignon, a sprightly employee of the Finance Ministry (which Brochant, a tax cheat, loathes). Pignon has a passion for building matchstick replicas of famous landmarks. Shortly after inviting Pignon to his home, Brochant is suddenly stricken with back pain while playing golf at his exclusive country club. His wife, Christine, leaves him shortly before Pignon arrives at his apartment, as she realizes that he still wants to go to the "idiots' dinner". Brochant initially wants Pignon to leave, but instead becomes reliant on him, because of his back problem and his need to resolve his relationship problems.

He solicits Pignon's assistance in making a series of telephone calls to locate his wife, but Pignon blunders each time, including revealing the existence of Brochant's mistress, Marlene Sasseur (thinking that she is Brochant's sister, since her name sounds like "''sa soeur''"), to his wife Christine and inviting tax inspector Lucien Cheval to Brochant's house, where Brochant is forced quickly to hide most of his valuables in an attempt to disguise his tax evasion.

In the meantime, Brochant is able to make amends with an old friend, Juste Leblanc, from whom he stole Christine, and through the evening's events is forced to reassess his mistakes.


Gidget (TV series)

''Gidget'' centers on the father-daughter relationship between Frances "Gidget" Lawrence and her widowed father Russell Lawrence. Episodes follow Gidget's adventures in school, at home, and at nearby beaches. Russell Lawrence guides his fifteen-year-old daughter, while married sister Anne and husband John offer often unsolicited child-rearing tips. Gidget's friend Larue sometimes takes part in her escapades. More often than not, Gidget receives moral instruction from her father and gains wisdom from her experiences.

Each episode is narrated by Gidget; on occasion, she breaks the "fourth wall" and directly addresses her audience, usually reflecting on what she has learned from the evening's story, sometimes ending with "Toodles!" (an expression Field improvised during production). It was explained in the pilot that her boyfriend called her Gidget because of her demure, petite build and short stature: girl midget, gidget !


You'll Never Get Rich

Theater owner and womanizer Martin Cortland (Robert Benchley) asks for the help of his choreography manager Robert Curtis (Fred Astaire) to impress beautiful head-strong dancer Sheila (Rita Hayworth) in his classes. Robert is impressed by Sheila's attitude, which one of the dancers, Margo, finds remarkable as Robert is not usually impressed by his dancers so easily. Sheila goes on to visit Martin at his office, where he presents her with a diamond bracelet, which was originally for Martin's wife, for whom Martin bought a back-scratcher for instead. Sheila thanks Mr. Cortland, but leaves the bracelet in the bag. When Mrs. Cortland arrives, she finds the bracelet with a note for Sheila, and accuses her husband of cheating on her. Martin once again asks for Robert's help to pretend he and Sheila are dating and that the bracelet was a present from him to her.

Robert takes Sheila to a restaurant where the two dance together. While Robert is attracted by Sheila, Sheila believes that Robert is deeply in love with her and returns his affections. When the Cortlands arrive, Robert presents Sheila with the bracelet once again, for which she unexpectedly kisses him for it, shocking Martin and his wife. The next day, Robert finds out the newspapers are reporting on him and Sheila, accuses Martin of being behind this, and wants to join the army to get out of trouble.

At Sheila's home, Captain Tom Barton (John Hubbard) Sheila's potential boyfriend, invites Sheila and her Aunt Louise (Marjorie Gateson) to visit him and his mother (Ann Shoemaker) on his Army base. The same day when Cap. Tom arrives, Robert wants to talk to Sheila about the newspaper. Sheila wants to get revenge on Robert for lying to her and makes a plan involving Tom and Aunt Louise. While Sheila is "talking" to Robert, Tom pretends to shoot Sheila, in which Robert takes the opportunity to leave. Robert gets into the army after faking to weigh as much as necessary where he quickly befriends fellow draftees Swiv (Cliff Nazarro) and Big Boy(Guinn Williams) and clearly stands out from the rest of the army with his non-serious behaviour and tap-dancing.

Curtis finds himself imprisoned in the guardhouse after a series of confusions, but when he finds out that Sheila is around, pretends to be army captain and tricks Aunt Louise and begs Sheila to come visit him in the guardhouse, to which Sheila agrees.

Martin appears on the base to produce a show for the enlisted men and (at his request) is assigned Curtis as his assistant, who offers Martin the use of his apartment in town and insists that Sheila be included as his partner in the show. However, Martin is now in pursuit of another dancer, Sonya (Osa Massen), and has promised the lead to her. Robert refuses to do the show with anyone else but Sheila and tells Martin to try the both out in a rehearsal. Martin agrees and Robert and Sheila dance (So Near, And Yet So Far) where Sheila understands that her feelings for Robert are not completely gone. After the rehearsal, Tom tells Sheila that he is being transferred to Panama and asks Sheila to marry him. Sheila says she will think about it, and tells Aunt Louise that she thinks Robert will propose to her that night and that she still loves him.

Robert invites Sheila to Martin's apartment, where he tells Sonya to hide so Sheila doesn't think Robert is cheating on her. Robert gives her a diamond gift, which is addressed to Sonya by Martin, angering both Sheila and Robert. Sheila refuses to perform with Robert, which causes the soldiers to come up with a We Want Sheila rebellion. Finally, Sheila agrees, so Robert puts his plan to work: in the show, the leads get married, so why not get a real priest and the two will be really married? And the plan is put to work. In the end of the show, a real priest marries them off, unknown to Sheila. After the show ends, Robert kisses Sheila and announces that the priest wasn't an actor, but a real priest, to the audiences shock.

Martin confesses his machinations to Sheila, who embraces him in relief and calls on her new husband in the guardhouse. The jilted Captain Barton generously arranges for Robert's release for his honeymoon; the film ends with Swiv and Blain's inept attempt to break into the guardhouse to free Robert, not aware that he is already on his way to the honeymoon with Sheila.


Swing Girls

A class of schoolgirls are bored during their summer make-up class. When the school brass band leaves to perform at a baseball game without their bento lunches, Tomoko and the other girls persuade their math teacher, Mr. Ozawa, to let them deliver the lunches. On the train, the girls fall asleep after eating one of the lunches and miss their stop. They walk back to deliver the lunches to the band, but they have spoiled in the summer heat, and all but their cymbal player, Takuo Nakamura, who missed out on his meal, becomes sick.

Takuo holds an audition for band replacements to play at an upcoming baseball game. Only three girls audition: two former members of a punk band, and the shy Kaori Sekiguchi. Takuo confronts the other girls, threatening to turn them in for the food poisoning in if they do not join. The girls have no musical experience and clown around with their instruments, except for Kaori. As they are several members short of a brass band, Takuo decides to turn the group into a big band and perform swing jazz.

The girls train hard for the performance. Kaori's talent inspires the others, and they come to enjoy playing. However, on the day before the game, just as the girls have become confident, the brass band members recover and the girls are devastated.

As the new school year begins, Tomoko buys a saxophone and discovers Takuo playing his keyboard. The members of the swing band gather at school and decide to buy their own instruments. The girls get supermarket jobs to earn money, but Tomoko and several others lose their wages when a cooking demonstration gets out of hand, triggering the store's fire sprinkler system. The remaining girls spend a day picking matsutake mushrooms, but are attacked by a boar; they kill it and claim reward money, as the boar had been destroying crops. With the money, the girls buy cheap damaged instruments, and the two rockers convince their ex-boyfriends, who operate a wrecking yard, to repair them.

The group, now dubbed Swing Girls, play their first public show; the performance goes badly, but Kaori is given advice by an anonymous jazz fan. When the group approach him, he runs away. They chase him to his home and discover that he is Mr. Ozawa, who possesses an extensive collection of jazz records. Assuming he is an expert saxophonist player, they convince him to lead the band.

The band's skills improve and they record an audition tape for a music festival. They leave Tomoko in charge of the tape, but she sends it too late and the band is rejected. Tomoko is too embarrassed to tell the others. Nakamura discovers that Mr. Ozawa is not really a professional saxophonist, and he quits, embarrassed.

On the train to the music festival, Tomoko confesses that the band have no place at the festival, and the train is halted by snow. However, their teacher Ms. Itami informs them that another band has cancelled due to the snow and rushes them to the festival by bus. The Swing Girls rush onstage just in time and perform their set, impressing the crowd.


The Story of Peter Grey

Peter Grey is a clergyman appointed to a new parish. He is married to neurotic Brenda. He forms a friendship with his predecessor, Rev Henry Marner and the latter's daughter Jane.


Monster Business

The Mad Meanies, a group of mutated monsters, have invaded construction sites owned by Mr. Bob, stealing the worker's tools and preventing work from being done on the sites. Mr. Bob hires the Beastie Busters, led by Leroy, to clear the construction sites of monsters and retrieve the stolen tools.


Cruel Intentions 2

Troublemaker student Sebastian Valmont (Robin Dunne) is transferring to Manchester Prep following his father's new marriage to a wealthy divorcee. His current principal is insistent on having Sebastian's permanent record relayed to his new school, hampering his chance for a fresh start, but Sebastian retaliates by pulling a cruel stunt on his wife. This is similar in the first movie that got him in trouble.

Following his arrival in New York, Sebastian discovers the wealth of his new family and first meets his deceitful and determined step-sister Kathryn Merteuil (Amy Adams). He is quickly able to better her both at piano and vocabulary. This leads to a confrontation between Kathryn and Sebastian whereby she says he "better not interfere" with her comfortable lifestyle.

While waiting to meet his new headmaster, Sebastian encounters Danielle Sherman (Sarah Thompson), who turns out to be Headmaster Sherman's daughter. Predictably, Sebastian swapped his permanent record for an excelling one before it was sent to the headmaster's office, and he can now start with a clean slate.

At the school assembly, Kathryn delivers a speech to her classmates. She's persistently interrupted by uncontrollable hiccups from a student, who then begins to choke on the gum that she was chewing to stop her hiccups. She is saved by the quick action of Danielle who performs the Heimlich, allowing her to expel the gum, which flies into Kathryn's hair. A meeting of a secret society of student elites, presided by Kathryn, takes place, deciding upon the fate of the new students. This leads them to Cherie (Keri Lynn Pratt), the student with the hiccups, as well as the discovery that Cherie's family is wealthier than that of Kathryn; this, along with the events of the assembly, causes Kathryn to seek a vendetta against Cherie.

Sebastian and Danielle become fast friends and Sebastian has a crush on her. They swap stories about their lives. Sebastian's mother was a drug addict and his parents split up when he was a kid. His father was chartering boats in Miami, met Kathryn's mother and married her. Sebastian is living one day at a time with all that wealth. Sebastian and Kathryn are bickering step siblings. Sebastian already caught his father sleeping around in his yacht behind Kathryn's mother's back.

Sebastian, being from a more humble upbringing, wishes to befriend the house staff. Doing so angers Kathryn, as she couldn't contact her driver. This, combined with her jealousy of Sebastian, causes her to admit that she is unhappy with her life. Sebastian attempts to woo Danielle: first, asking her for coffee at her work; then later, calling. It eventually evolves into a relationship, but Kathryn, seeing this, uses it as a way to get back at Sebastian. She tries to lure him away from Danielle by tempting him with identical twins, who confide to Sebastian that Danielle is the only virgin at Manchester.

Kathryn's attempt to sabotage Cherie backfires, when Kathryn's mother tells her to befriend her, to encourage Cherie's mother to donate a large amount of money to the school. In the end, Sebastian stays with Danielle; professes his love for her, only to discover she does not reciprocate. In fact Danielle is alongside Kathryn in a secret plan to dupe Sebastian. Defeated, Sebastian states "if you can't beat them, join them", leading to a threesome with Danielle and Kathryn, followed by an alliance of the three to dominate and manipulate others. Danielle gave Sebastian a journal to write down everything. In the last scene, Cherie is seen riding her bike, which is run over by Sebastian's car. He offers to give her a ride, having sex with her. Kathryn and Danielle are seen, in the front of the car, pleased with the results.


The Tin Star

Bounty hunter Morgan Hickman (Henry Fonda) arrives in a small town with the body of an outlaw, seeking the bounty. While the general townsfolk openly abhor Hickman, young sheriff Ben Owens (Anthony Perkins), while angry with Morg for not bringing the wanted man in alive, also admires him for taking everything in his stride and knowing how to handle dangerous situations.

Owens has a steady girl called Millie. Her father, the previous sheriff, was killed and she refuses to marry Owens unless he quits the job. Owens enjoys the authority and wants to prove himself; he asks Morg to give him some lessons to gain confidence, particularly because he is going to have to face up to the town loudmouth, Bogardus (Neville Brand). Morg tells the young man that he was once a sheriff himself until a personal loss changed him. He advises Owens to quit and marry his girl but eventually agrees to provide some advice while awaiting the arrival of the bounty money.

Due to the community's open hostility toward Morg, he cannot find a place to stay. He befriends Nona Mayfield (Betsy Palmer), whose own relationship with most of the citizens has been tense due to her half-Indian son, Kip (Michel Ray). Morg moves into a room in her house on the edge of town.

Matters come to a head after local doctor McCord is murdered. After delivering a baby son to a remote homesteader, McCord is returning home during the night but is waylaid by Ed McGaffey (Lee Van Cleef). McGaffey demands that the doctor treat his brother's gunshot wound, received when the brothers attacked a stagecoach, killing the guard. After McCord treats the brother, McGaffey decides to kill him because it is apparent the doctor will put two and two together and know the two are responsible for the murder.

Dr. McCord's horse and trap re-enter the town on McCord Day: everyone has come out to celebrate the doctor's 75th birthday, offering up a resounding chorus of "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow". It is soon obvious that the doctor is dead. A posse is then assembled to catch the McGaffey brothers. However, the posse splits from Owens – they see him as too soft for insisting the men be brought in alive – and the dangerous Bogardus becomes their leader.

Young Kip, fascinated by the posse as they pass his house, rides out after them on the horse Morg has given him as a present. When Morg discovers this, he spurns Owens' pleas to join him in tracking the killers and sets off to find the boy. Owens eventually joins him.

When they find Kip they also stumble upon the brothers hiding in a mountain cave. After a gunfight in which Owens receives a bullet graze on the forehead, and a clever ploy by Morg, they successfully capture the brothers and lock them in the town jail. The posse, urged on by Bogardus, is baying for blood and want to lynch the pair. To build the courage to complete the deed, the men get drunk in the saloon.

Owens, demonstrating the newfound confidence and strength he has gleaned from Morg, stands against the crowd with a shotgun to defend the McGaffeys' right to a legal trial. Bogardus makes it clear he will face down the sheriff; Owens approaches the man alone after handing the shotgun to the newly-deputized Morg. The mob separates, anticipating a gunfight. Owens confronts Bogardus and slaps him. This seems to take the wind out of the troublemaker and he turns away, appearing to back down. But, after a few steps, he turns and draws. Owens guns him down. At this point, the lynch mob disperses.

Owens and Millie, who has decided she will subdue her fear as best she can and marry him and bid goodbye to Morg who is happily leaving town with Nona and Kip.


Daltry Calhoun

Within a small town in Tennessee, seed and sod entrepreneur Daltry Calhoun is a local celebrity who has made a name for himself by selling locally produced turf to many of the nation's most exclusive golf courses, and his television spots are well-liked by viewers across town.

Daltry's ex-girlfriend arrives unannounced with their teenage daughter, a 14-year-old musical prodigy. She confides that her terminal illness has forced her to seek him out in hopes that he can care for their daughter after she is gone. Despite the early success of Daltry's business and the popularity of his commercials, Daltry's career has become unstable and he's forced to liquidate his assets in hopes of salvaging what he can. Now, faced with much adversity, Daltry vows to make up for lost time by doing right in the eyes of his family and community, caring for his distant daughter, and all the while getting his business back on track.


Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

In a flashback to his childhood, Bruce Wayne runs from his parents' funeral. He falls into a cave, where a circling vortex of bats elevates him back to the surface. Back in the present, eighteen months after the battle between Superman and General Zod in Metropolis, Superman has become a controversial figure. Bruce is now a billionaire who has operated in Gotham City as the vigilante Batman for twenty years. Having witnessed the chaos of that battle in person, he sees Superman as an existential threat to humanity.

After learning of Batman's form of justice, Clark Kent (Superman's civilian identity) seeks to expose him via ''Daily Planet'' articles. Wayne learns that Russian weapon trafficker Anatoli Knyazev has been contacting LexCorp mogul Lex Luthor. Meanwhile, Luthor attempts to persuade Senator June Finch to allow him to import kryptonite discovered after Zod's terraforming attempt so that it can be used as a deterrent against future Kryptonian and metahuman threats. She declines, but Luthor makes alternative plans with Finch's subordinate, granting him access to Zod's body and the Kryptonian scout ship.

Bruce attends a gala at LexCorp to steal encrypted data from the company's mainframe, but antiquities dealer Diana Prince takes it from him; she returns it after failing to access the information. While decrypting the drive, Bruce dreams of a postapocalyptic world where he leads rebels against an evil Superman. He is awakened by an unidentified person, appearing through a portal, who tells him that Lois Lane "is the key" and urges him to find "the others" before vanishing. The decrypted drive reveals Luthor's files on several metahumans across the globe. One is Diana, who appears in a photo from World War I. Wayne tells Alfred Pennyworth that he plans to steal and weaponize the kryptonite to go to war with Superman.

A widely publicized congressional hearing, led by Finch, is held to question Superman's actions against Zod. A bomb smuggled in by Luthor detonates, killing everyone present except Superman. Superman blames himself for not detecting it in time and self-imposes exile. Elsewhere, Batman breaks into LexCorp and steals the kryptonite. He builds a powered exoskeleton, a kryptonite grenade launcher, and a kryptonite-tipped spear. Meanwhile, Luthor enters the Kryptonian ship and accesses its vast database of technology.

Luthor lures Superman out of exile by kidnapping Lois and Martha Kent, Clark's adoptive mother. He pushes Lois off the LexCorp building. Superman saves her and confronts Luthor, who reveals he manipulated him and Batman by fueling their distrust. Luthor demands he kill Batman in exchange for Martha's life. Superman tries to explain this to Batman, who instead attacks him and eventually subdues him using a kryptonite gas. As Batman prepares to move in for the kill using the spear, Superman pleads with him to "save Martha" – the same name as Batman's mother. Batman hesitates in confusion long enough for Lois to arrive and explain what Superman meant. Coming to his senses about how far he has fallen from grace, he promises to rescue Martha. Superman regains his strength and confronts Luthor on the scout ship.

Luthor executes his backup plan, unleashing a monster genetically engineered from DNA from both Zod's body and his own. Diana arrives, joining Batman and Superman in their fight against the creature. Superman realizes its vulnerability to kryptonite and retrieves the spear, fatally impaling the creature with it. In its dying moments, the creature stabs Superman, who was weakened by kryptonite exposure, killing him.

Following Luthor's arrest, Batman confronts him in prison, warning him that he will always be watching. Luthor gloats that Superman's death has made the world vulnerable to powerful alien threats. A memorial is held for Superman in Metropolis. Clark is also declared dead, and Wayne and Prince both attend his funeral in Smallville. Martha gives Lois an envelope containing an engagement ring from Clark. Bruce tells Diana that he regrets having failed Superman in life. He asks her help to form a team of metahumans, starting with those named in Luthor's files, to protect the world in Superman's absence. As they depart, the dirt atop Clark's coffin levitates.


The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo

In the initial episode, the gang are thrown off course on a trip to Honolulu in Daphne's plane, landing instead in Himalayas. While inside a temple, Scooby and Shaggy are tricked by two bumbling ghosts named Weerd and Bogel into opening the Chest of Demons, a magical artifact that houses the 13 most terrifying and powerful ghosts and demons ever to walk the face of the Earth. As the ghosts can only be returned to the chest by those who originally set them free, Scooby and Shaggy, accompanied by Daphne, Scrappy-Doo, and a young con artist named Flim Flam, embark on a worldwide quest to recapture them before they wreak irreversible havoc upon the world.

Assisting them is Flim Flam's friend, a warlock named Vincent Van Ghoul (based upon and voiced by Vincent Price), who contacts the gang using his crystal ball and often employs magic and witchcraft to assist them. The 13 escaped ghosts, meanwhile, each attempt to do away with the gang lest they are returned to the chest, often employing Weerd and Bogel as lackeys.


Carry On, Mr. Bowditch

In Revolutionary War–era Salem, Massachusetts, a young Nat Bowditch, a young member of a sea-faring family, astounds his schoolteacher with his talent for mathematics. He dreams of someday attending Harvard University but is forced by his family's financial hardships to quit school and work in his father's cooperage. Even that sacrifice is not enough, and his family contracts him into indentured servitude at a chandlery. Determined to continue his education, he uses his nine years as a clerk to teach himself subjects such as trigonometry, calculus, Latin, and French.

Upon the fulfillment of his servitude, he takes a job as a surveyor, which quickly evolves into a career as an officer and supercargo on various merchant ships. Numerous voyages take him to ports around the world and sometime into brushes with the wars being fought by the newly founded United States. In his duties as a navigator, he discovers that many of the references available contain dangerous errors, and he is compelled to compile a new book of navigational data. His experiences educating crew members serving under him allow Nat to supplement his numeric tables with information that allow sailors with limited educations to learn the trade of navigation. Eventually Nat becomes a captain and faces his greatest navigational challenge of all.


The Care Bears' Big Wish Movie

This movie starts when, atop the roof of an observatory at their cloud-filled home of Care-a-lot, the Care Bears hear Wish Bear's story of how she (as a cub) found her new friend, a wishing star named Twinkers. The Care Bears are touched by this tale, but are a bit worried when she uses Twinkers' inherent power to wish them all some popcorn. Cheer Bear raises concern that this may be a frivolous use of Twinkers' power. Wish Bear, however, assures everyone that she is a trained professional.

The next day, Wish Bear uses the wishing power to help her friends. She wishes for plenty of rainbow sap for Share Bear, and for Grumpy Bear's rocket to have "zoom", but the wishes backfire when the sap overflows and the rocket spins out of control.

A monthly meeting of Care-a-lot's steering committee (with Champ Bear presiding) reveals a problem with the Caring Meter. The machine, which measures how much caring there is in Care-a-lot, has moved towards the rain-cloud side. Wish Bear suggests using her wishes, but is rejected since not all of them work as intended; they didn't like their wishes ("I Wish"). Disappointed, she decides to wish for other bears who like wishing as much as she does. This causes three new bears to arrive in Care-a-lot: Too Loud Bear, Me Bear, and Messy Bear.

Everyone is pleased to welcome the new neighbors at first, but things soon get out of control. The new bears unwittingly make a huge mess of everything (especially when the huge mansion they asked for causes pollution). Then, after a confrontation with them at a picnic ("Get a Lot"), Wish Bear accidentally wishes Twinkers away to the new bears; they soon abuse the star's power with a huge noisy motorcycle for Too Loud Bear, an amusement park focusing on Me Bear, and making a mud pie for Messy Bear. Once the new bears finally realize their problem, they try to fix it with more wishes, but to no avail—Care-a-lot becomes a blank white space (wishing that all of this was gone), the bears begin to glow in color (wishing for everything to be back how it was, but with more color), Grumpy Bear turns black and white (wishing for less color), and Messy Bear turns himself into a cub (wishing for everything to be like it used to be). When they try to wish Twinkers back to Wish Bear, the star ultimately loses his power from exhaustion (because they had been pushing him much too hard). Wish Bear uses Grumpy Bear's rocket to bring him to the Big Wish, a grandmother star, in the sky. Big Wish restores his power, but not before Wish Bear assures her that she has learned her lesson, which is wishing is fun, but it is far more important to work hard to achieve your dreams.

Wish Bear tells them that wishes are not an effective solution any more, and everyone works together to make their home beautiful again ("It Takes You and Me"). At the end, Me Bear, Messy Bear, and Too Loud Bear, having seen the error of their ways, apologize and ask if they can still live in Care-a-lot. The rest of the bears agree and decide to go on a road trip.


No Longer at Ease

The novel begins with the trial of Obi Okonkwo on the charge of accepting a bribe. It then jumps back in time to a point before his departure for England and works its way forward to describe how Obi ended up on trial.

The members of the Umuofia Progressive Union (UPU), a group of Umuofia natives who have left their villages to live in major Nigerian cities, have taken up a collection to send Obi to England to study Law, in the hope that he will return to help his people by representing them in the colonial legal system, particularly with respect to land cases. However, Obi switches his major to English and meets Clara Okeke, a student nurse, for the first time during a dance.

Obi returns to Nigeria after four years of studies and lives in Lagos with his friend Joseph. He takes a job with the Scholarship Board and is almost immediately offered a bribe by a man who is trying to obtain a scholarship for his sister. When Obi indignantly rejects the offer, he is visited by the girl herself, who implies that she will bribe him with sexual favors for the scholarship, another offer Obi rejects.

At the same time, Obi is developing a romantic relationship with Clara who reveals that she is an ''osu'', an outcast by her descendants, meaning that Obi cannot marry her under the traditional ways of the Igbos. He remains intent on marrying Clara, but even his Christian father opposes, albeit reluctantly due to his desire to progress and eschew the "heathen" customs of pre-colonial Nigeria. His mother begs him on her deathbed not to marry Clara until after her death, threatening to kill herself if her son disobeys. When Obi informs Clara of these events, Clara breaks the engagement and intimates that she is pregnant. Obi arranges an abortion which Clara reluctantly undergoes, but she suffers complications and refuses to see Obi. Obi sinks deeper into financial trouble partly due to poor planning on his end, in part due to the need to repay his loan to the UPU and to pay for his siblings' education, and in part due to the cost of the illegal abortion.

After hearing of his mother's death, Obi sinks into a deep depression and doesn't go home for the funeral, this is because he thought that the money he would have used to go and come back would be better served in the funeral and to help out across the house. When he recovers, he begins to accept bribes in a reluctant acknowledgement that it is the way of his world.

The novel closes as Obi takes a bribe and tells himself that it is the last one he will take, only to discover that the bribe was part of a sting operation. He is arrested, bringing us up to the events that opened the story.


Hong Kong Express (TV series)

Han Jung-yeon is an interior designer living in Hong Kong who's engaged to rich tycoon Choi Kang-hyuk. But before she can marry her rich boyfriend, she comes across her old flame Kang Min-soo. Adding to Jung-yeon's confusion about her love life, is a murder in which both men may be involved.


Metro (1997 film)

SFPD Inspector Scott Roper is the best hostage negotiator in his department. He is called in to deal with a bank robber, Earl, demanding a getaway vehicle and police escort. He manages to defuse the situation, shooting Earl non-fatally in the shoulder and rescuing his 17 hostages.

That night, Scott accompanies his friend and former partner Sam Baffert to the apartment of Michael Korda, a jewel thief involved in Baffert's investigation. After Sam questions Korda about his involvement, Korda stabs him to death and leaves his corpse inside an elevator for Scott to find. Despite demanding to go after Korda, Captain Frank Solis refuses to let him take the case due to the probable conflict of interest. Scott resolves to bring Korda to justice, but in the meanwhile must adjust to his new partner, SWAT sharpshooter Kevin McCall.

Scott and Kevin are called to a hostage situation at a downtown jewelry store, with Korda as the hostage taker. When Scott and Korda see each other, the latter grabs a hostage and makes a getaway in a truck. Scott and Kevin use Solis' car to pursue him. Korda wrecks the truck, and boards a cable car, shooting the operator. Scott and Kevin manage to stop the cable car and chase Korda into a parking garage, where they apprehend him.

During visitation at the jail with his cousin Clarence Teal, Korda orders Teal to kill Ronnie, Scott's girlfriend, as a way to seek revenge on Scott. Teal attacks Ronnie at her apartment, but Scott intervenes and chases Teal down the fire escape, where, after a chase, Teal is struck and killed by a passing car. An angry Scott visits Korda in jail and warns him to stay away from Ronnie, showing him an autopsy picture of Teal, which enrages Korda.

The next morning, Korda escapes from the jail and kidnaps Ronnie, leading Scott and Kevin into a confrontation at an abandoned shipyard. Korda threatens to kill Ronnie by decapitating her on the cutting machine she is pinned to if Scott doesn't follow his instructions. Korda charges toward Scott in a sports car, but is shot from a vantage point by Kevin, causing him to swerve and crash through the warehouse entrance. Scott frees Ronnie, while Kevin engages Korda in a shootout where the former is shot in the upper leg. Korda tries to escape in Scott's truck, but Scott fights for control of it. Scott leaps out of the way while Korda, who is unable to escape due to Scott ramming a steal pipe into the door and on the gas pedal continues on, trapped in the truck. As Korda struggles to get the door open he screams, "Get the fuck open!" before crashing into a stack of explosive barrels and is killed in a massive explosion. The movie ends with Scott and Ronnie relaxing on vacation at a Tahitian beach resort.


Combat Shield and Mini-adventure

This adventure follows along relatively traditional paths. The group of player characters finds a message that indicates a long hidden treasure lies somewhere in a swampy region. An expedition led by an intrepid explorer attempted to find the treasure but came to an untimely end.

The group eventually fights their way through various enemies to secure the treasure and learn the fate of the original expedition. The module lists several possible treasures to choose as the final reward.

Despite the shortness of the adventure it requires a fairly advanced party because of the presence of Rosentos the Vampire.


Phoenix 2772

''Phoenix 2772'' is set in the distant future where the planet Earth is dying from a lack of energy resources and a subjugating political climate sees all human beings produced in test tubes and their roles in society selected by computers, from pilot to politician, etc. Godo is one such child brought up to be a cadet and nursed by a beautiful robot-maid Olga. After noticing his exceptional abilities, Rock, a dictatorial candidate for prime minister, selects Godo to fulfil his agenda and travel into deep space and capture the mystical Phoenix – its blood will manifestly heal the Earth, but Rock out of selfishness wants this to make him both prime minister and immortal by drinking its blood. The assignment troubles Godo partly because he has a love of all living creatures and he detests being trained to be a ruthless space hunter. He is told he will also have to leave his best friend Olga behind and that she will be destroyed. Most importantly he is romantically involved with Rena, daughter of Lord Eat (an "elite") and bride-to-be of Rock which is forbidden for his rank to be involved with such a woman.

Godo and Rena are caught together and for his crime, Godo loses his citizenship and is sent to a labour camp in Iceland where energy from the Earth's mantle is being harnessed in a bid to solve the world's energy shortage (but is causing instability between the mantle and Earth's crust and serious long term harm to the planet therefore). While interned and heart-broken over losing Rena, Godo meets Doctor Saruta, a prison professor who wishes to tutor the young pilot, only to secretly plot with him a plan to escape and search for the Phoenix themselves to save the Earth. After a serious earthquake causes chaos and destruction in the facility, Godo is saved by Olga and Pincho (a pet creature of Rena that had helped Olga and found out where Godo had been taken), and they set of into space by stealing a "Space Shark" ship that Godo would have been given in his mission to capture the Phoenix.

After stopping at a planet and meeting Saruta's hermit friend Ban, Godo and the crew of the ship track the Phoenix but find it impossibly powerful and it changes into many monstrous shapes and sizes, from dragons, tentacular leeches and even mimicking a small planet. After learning that Rena has married Rock, Godo had become stricken with misery and pushes away Olga's advances when she shows signs of love for Godo (and previously jealousy for Rena). With the crew all killed one-by-one by the Phoenix and the secret of its weakness lost in Saruta's last words, the Phoenix finally destroys Olga by burning her. Godo is broken and forgets the Phoenix as he cradles the blackened metal body of Olga, realizing how selfish he had been towards his life-long and devoted companion. The Phoenix tries to attack the ship but is repelled each time it gets close by the power of Godo's love and the giant vengeful form dissolves with the bird then appearing inside the ship in a more feminine, peacock-like form.

Admiring the power of Godo's love of living creatures, the Phoenix, speaking to Godo through telepathy "speaking to his heart" admits he is too strong for her and offers to grant his wish of reviving Olga on the condition he gives her something she wants of him (not revealing that this is his love and that the Phoenix inhabits the body of the restored Olga to obtain this). After being reunited with Olga and given a paradisaical planet to live on, Godo still has feelings towards the dying Earth and sets out to return with vegetables and resources, only to be met with Rock (and a now content Rena) and is arrested. But what follows is a series of catastrophic earthquakes that level the whole world and bring about final destruction, Rena dying in the advent by trying to escape on Godo's ship and Rock blinded by a lava emission. Godo gives Rock his last rites and he and Olga stand together on a beach contemplating the impending death of the planet.

Godo is so distraught that the Phoenix reveals itself to him through Olga and in an attempt to console him, says he can live forever if he drinks the Firebird's blood and wait the many centuries for the earth's eventual revival. Godo instead offers his life for the revival of the Earth. The Phoenix agrees, admiring Godo's selfless nature despite her own wish that he stay alive. After saying their fondest farewells, Godo collapses, dead into Olga's arms. Olga lays Godo's body on the shore and then lays down beside him, the Phoenix leaves her and the two lifeless forms then transform during the earth's revival - Godo becomes a newborn baby again and Olga becomes a beautiful human woman taking the baby in her arms as her son.


Willie Dynamite

Willie Dynamite appears as the film's opening credits begin, with Martha Reeves singing the title song, 'Willie Dynamite.' Willie is driving his 'pimped-out' purple Cadillac on the streets of midtown Manhattan. The front license plate reading the first part of his nickname - 'Willie,' and the back license plate reading the second part - 'Dynamite.' Willie's destination is a midtown hotel, to collect payment from his women - who work the midtown hotels, attracting the many businessmen, conventioneers, who are looking for sex.

Willie's 'stable' of seven women are of all ethnicities, dressed in vibrant outfits. Their entrance into the Business International Association convention - by entering as an ensemble through the hotel's main doors in-sync with the title song's description of them - has all the men in the room ogling them. Many conventioneers - including even a pair of police officers - take the women to their hotel rooms. Pashen is the newest hooker working for Willie, and she is last in line to hand in her payments. Willie gets mad at her for producing less than expected. Willie compares his business with those of a production line: "Seven girls out there. Every ten minutes, one comes off the production line, like that. This is a business, baby, a production line, and just like GM, Ford, Chrysler, Willie's comin' through." Willie tells of his dreams of being the number one, top-pimp in New York City.

Bell, currently the number one pimp, holds a 'pimp council,' and tells the gathered pimps of the police cracking down on prostitution activities across the city. Bell makes a business proposal, wherein each pimp will get his own area to run, instead of the pimps competing for territory. Everyone agrees, except Willie. He argues the idea would hurt his business. Willie says his women are akin to 'animals of the jungle,' having the need to 'roam free,' and 'conquer all that can be controlled.'

Soon after the meeting ends, Willie learns Pashen has been arrested. Cora is a social worker, who tries to get the prostitutes in jail, to get out of the business, and turn their lives around. Cora meets Pashen, and tries to educate her on the dangers of being a prostitute. Cora encourages Pashen to change her life, and, as she's so young and pretty, to become a model and get paid for it. Being naïve, Pashen dismisses the idea, believing she can make more money as a hooker for Willie. Willie comes to post bail and gets Pashen out of jail. While Willie is out of his apartment, Cora makes an unexpected visit, and tells the women they are being ripped off by Willie. They ponder what Cora said as she leaves the apartment. When Willie comes back, he learns Pashen has been arrested again and the other women are reluctant to work. Willie threatens them if they decide to not work.

Cora visits the jail and tries again to persuade Pashen to get out of prostitution. Pashen still insists prostitution - and being part of Willie's 'stable' - is okay, as she's making a lot of money, and she likes the men's attention while working, because she feels like someone 'important,' wanted & beautiful. Cora tells Pashen that she, too, was once a prostitute, on the streets. Cora sneaks into Willie's apartment to find records of Willie's bank accounts, which could provide evidence of his illegal activity, but, the materials she takes would not be able to stand up in court. After this second arrest, Pashen finally decides to take Cora's advice about pursuing modeling, and does a photo-shoot for which she gets paid. She tries to tell Willie she wants out, but, he tells her of his dreams and hopes for her (and for himself), which she's not able to refuse.

Willie goes to the hotel convention, and finds his territory has been invaded and his lead hooker, Honey, has been killed after a territorial battle. Willie's life is spiraling downward, as he finds all his bank accounts have been frozen, and he's under investigation by the Internal Revenue Service. Two detectives chase Willie through New York. Willie's seven hookers are arrested after the hotel fight, but Willie can't post bail, and the women are sent to the women's detention center for holding. While in the detention center, Pashen's face gets cut, and she's traumatized by her loss of beauty.

When Willie returns home, he is met by Bell and his men, who tells Willie to quit the business, and a fight ensues. Later, Willie is caught by the same two detectives, for possession of drugs. They have to free Willie, as the evidence obtained was done so without a warrant. In the end, Willie thinks back on past events, and after hearing news of his mother's dying, leaves his car - and by inference, pimping - for good. The film ends with Willie walking happily down the streets.


King of Comedy (film)

Wan Tin-sau is the head of his village's community centre, where he gives acting lessons and host community plays. On the side, he is an aspiring actor moonlighting as a movie extra, often taking his work too seriously for the roles he receives.

One day, a group of club girls come to ask Wan to help them act like innocent schoolgirls so they can make more money. One of the girls, Lau Piu-piu, although skeptical of advice from an unsuccessful actor, becomes a better actress through Wan's instruction and falls in love with him.

When both characters finally make love, Wan searches his home for enough money to pay Piu-piu for her "services", since he thinks she slept with him for money. After Piu-piu leaves him in anger, he goes back to the film studio and receives a part as leading actor next to a legendary actress, Sister Cuckoo. During this time, Wan reconciles with Piu-piu and he pledges to support her for the rest of his life.

Just as Wan is about to settle in the life of a movie star, his part is given back to a highly sought after male lead. Luckily, he regains his confidence with the help of the misanthropic lunchman at the studio, who is secretly a C.I.B. agent. Wan is used in an undercover operation, where he is disguised as a delivery boy and made to deliver a hidden gun and listening device inside take-out food. Although the ruse is discovered and the C.I.B. undercover agent is shot, Wan takes up the gun and saves the day. The lunchman is rushed to the hospital and survives his wounds.

After a somewhat successful sting, Wan finally becomes famous through a performance of the ''Thunder Storm''. The actors include Piu-piu, Sister Cuckoo, and his wanna-be Triad students. The end of the film involves a blatant marketing plug for Pringles brand potato chips. The entire cast of the play stands backstage rehearsing their lines while literally stuffing their mouths full of Pringles, with the logos of all five cans clearly facing towards the camera. At one point, Wan and one of his triad students argue over who should play the role of Bruce Lee's character, when another actor screams "don't fight, eat chips!" When the closing credits roll, a quick Pringles advertisement appears on the screen.


The Merchant of Death

The story starts with Bobby Pendragon, a normal fourteen-year-old boy, preparing to leave his home to play in the state basketball semi-finals, but before he leaves, Courtney Chetwynde, a popular girl at his school, comes to his house and admits her feelings toward him. While they are kissing Bobby's Uncle Press arrives and tells Bobby some people need their help and to come with him.

They drive on a motorcycle to a boarded-up subway station in the Bronx. Press leaves the motorcycle outside with the keys in ignition, this surprises Bobby but when he asks, Press says they do not need it anymore. They head into the abandoned subway, where they meet the main villain, Saint Dane, whose goal is to destroy the barriers between the ten territories of Halla; every territory, person, and living thing. Saint Dane controls a homeless man to jump in front of a subway train, and says this is to "Give the boy a taste of what he's in for,". He attacks Uncle Press and Bobby. Then Uncle Press tells Bobby to go to a door with a star on it and yell Denduron.

When Bobby and Press arrive in Denduron, they change their clothing to fit the local customs, and find a bobsled, along with two spears and a dog whistle, left by an acolyte (a person native to a territory who aides the Travelers by leaving items such as clothing and means for transportation). Bobby and Press start their descent from the mountain, and they are attacked by twelve quigs (animals Saint Dane uses to patrol the gates of the flumes; the appearance of quigs vary among the territories). They manage to live through the situation by using the dog whistle and the spears, but the sled crashes, and Press is kidnapped by Bedoowan knights. Bobby is rescued by a Traveler warrior named Osa, a wise woman whose daughter, Loor, is disgusted by him for most of the book. They are acquainted with Alder, a Bedoowen knight who is the Traveler from Denduron in disguise. Bobby, Alder and Loor try to rescue Press from the Bedoowan castle, armed with a backpack full of tools brought from Bobby's home, Second Earth, to make the job of rescuing Uncle Press easier, despite the warning Press gave Bobby that territories are not to be mixed (through items or otherwise). During this time, Bobby realizes that the Bedoowan live a luxurious and lazy life, as they listen to music, relax on pillows, and eat, attended by the pallid, taciturn Novans. Also, technologically speaking, the Bedoowan are years ahead of the Milago with inventions and devices including dumbwaiters, running water, and artificial light. After rescuing Press, Bobby learns that bringing items from Second Earth turns out to be a mistake. While Bobby was sleeping in a mine ventilation shaft before the rescue attempt, a homely merchant of the Milago by the name of Figgis had stolen a flashlight from Bobby's bag. When Bobby, Loor, Alder, and the newly rescued Press return to the Milago village, they discover that Figgis, the native merchant, had been selling tak, an unstable explosive that is to be used as a weapon to free themselves from Bedoowan rule. The final component to build a weapon that will destroy the Bedoowan (and probably all of the Milago village, though the Milago are willing to take that risk) is the battery and the switch from the flashlight, which Bobby accidentally supplied. Their plan was to present the tak bomb to the Bedoowan during the transfer ceremony (where the Bedoowan receive the glaze), disguised as a rather large mine cart of glaze, and destroy the remaining Bedoowan with smaller amounts of tak.

Bobby, Loor, Alder, and Press manage to stop the chief miner Rellin from setting the bomb off, and all the Bedoowan and the Novans evacuate to a field, where the battle between the Milago and the Bedoowan is to take place. Before this, though, Bobby and Loor are faced with the task of getting rid of the bomb. After waking up some of the quigs, which were in a pen off to the side of the stadium in which they were presenting the glaze ( and tak), and having Loor open the pen door, the quigs rush out and slaughter some of the men there. Right before Relin set the bomb Uncle Press nails a spear into his arm. Rellin lies there struggling. Uncle Press picks up the bomb to disarm it and then he realizes that the quigs were getting the upper hand. He took desperate measures and threw the switch with some tak into the quig's mouth. It left the quig in little bits. Afterwards, Bobby and Loor use water to liquidate it and spread it across the field. The bomb is gone except for one small ball, which Bobby slips into his pocket. At this point, Figgis the merchant lures Bobby and Loor into the mines, where they find an immense supply of tak. They soon realize that Figgis is really Saint Dane. The real Figgis died when one of his own traps backfired. Disguised as Figgis, Saint Dane sold the tak to the Milago, urging them to rebel against the Bedoowan. At the same time, Saint Dane has disguised himself as Mallos, Queen Kagan's chief adviser, and had turned Bedoowan minds further against their neighbors. The traps that the real Figgis set trap Bobby and Loor with Saint Dane in the mine. Seeing it is the only way out, Bobby throws his small ball of tak at the large supply, which ignites the tak and will cause all of it to explode underground. Saint Dane escapes the impending destruction by using the flume in the mine to go to the territory of Cloral. By sending a high speed wave of water and a giant shark back through the flume, Bobby can't follow. To make matters worse for Bobby, the water knocked Loor against the wall of the cavern knocking her unconscious. Bobby just manages to escape the explosion by pushing a mine cart that held the unconscious Loor into the ocean through a ventilation shaft. When Bobby swims back to the shore and surveys the damage, they find that although the explosion had effected much destruction, most of the people are still alive, including Uncle Press and Alder. The castle, symbolic of Bedoowan rule over the Milago, falls into the ocean because of the force of the explosion, most of the Milago huts are destroyed, and the glaze mines are forever closed. Thus, the two tribes can use their best strengths to rebuild and improve each other's lives (Milago-farming and building and Bedoowan-engineering and chemistry).

Bobby travels back to Second Earth with Uncle Press, hoping to find his family and carry on with his former life. Unfortunately, he soon learns that his house and family have disappeared, leaving not even a trace to show that Bobby had once lived there, so he decides to travel to Cloral and continue his mission to avert Saint Dane's evil mission. We, as the reader are privy to Saint Dane and Bobby's struggle against each other. These two people are fighting for Halla, the universe and whether or not it should be kept stable or be destroyed.

While all this is going on for Bobby, his friends Courtney Chetwynde and Mark Dimond are on the receiving end of his Traveler journals, through a Traveler ring that Osa gave Mark in the middle of one night. Following the advice of Osa, Bobby and Loor are using their spare time to write logs of their journeys, which are sent to their respective home territories via the Traveler rings. These rings are made of the same stone which lines the flume; when the desired territory is named, the ring becomes a minuscule version of the flume, through which the journals are dropped.

Although initially reluctant to believe the astonishing story, Mark and Courtney accept it in time. They soon have no choice; Bobby's family, his home, and all record of his existence have vanished without a trace. Only memory remains.

When Bobby returns, he too must face this difficult fact. As his Uncle Press sets off for the territory of Cloral, Bobby goes with him to fulfill his duties as a Traveler.


Super Princess Peach

Near the location of the Mushroom Kingdom, a fabled land known as Vibe Island is said to hide a treasure known as the Vibe Scepter, a magical weapon that can be used to control the emotions of other people. Hearing of the island's legendary powers, Bowser builds a summer getaway home on the island in hopes of using it to his advantage.

After his second-in-command, Army Hammer Bro finds the Scepter for him, Bowser hatches a plan to capture the Mario Brothers. Army Hammer Bro. entrusts the scepter to a Goomba and sends it into the castle.

With the residents of the castle under the influence of the Scepter, the Army Hammer Bro. and his troops successfully capture Mario, Luigi, and several Toads, imprisoning them all across the island. Goomba becomes influenced by the Vibe Scepter and begins swinging it around, causing Bowser and his minions to lose control of their emotions.

Meanwhile, Princess Peach and Toadsworth return to her castle after a short walk only to find the residents in emotional disarray and a note from Bowser saying that he has captured Mario and Luigi. Maddened with rage, Peach decides that she is the only one who can rescue the Mario Brothers and sets out to go to Vibe Island. Shortly before her departure, Toadsworth is reluctant to see Peach travel on her own, and gives her a sentient parasol named Perry to help her on her journey.

Peach and Perry travel through eight different areas across the island, rescuing various Toads and defeating enemies along the way. Because of the Goomba's earlier flaunting of the scepter, emotional energy had been dispersed all over the island causing the residents to experience various moods. Peach is affected but has better control, even gaining new abilities from each emotion. After defeating a boss and clearing the current area, Perry's backstory is revealed in flashbacks. Long ago, Perry was a young man with magical powers and adopted by an old man who he came to call "Grandpa". Perry transformed himself into an umbrella and was captured by a wizard and his henchman, but managed to escape by wiggling free from his captors and fell on the road. Sometime later, a traveling merchant found him and sold him to Toadsworth.

After defeating Giant Kamek and freeing Luigi, the duo arrive at Bowser's Villa where they meet Bowser and Army Hammer Bro. Bowser uses the Vibe Scepter to increase Army Hammer Bro's power with rage, Peach besting him nonetheless. She then defeats Bowser. The Koopa King uses the Vibe Scepter to turn into a giant, yet Peach and Perry defeat him again by throwing Bob-ombs at him, then whacking him out of the villa with the Scepter. After Bowser's final defeat, Peach frees Mario, they rejoice and return to the Mushroom Kingdom alongside Luigi and the Toads, with the fate of the Vibe Scepter left unknown.


Down and Dirty Duck

Willard Isenbaum, a lonely insurance man with wild sexual fantasies, decides to ask out to the new secretary, Susie, whom he has only known for a day and to whom he has never spoken. He spends the entire morning before work fantasizing about having sex with her, but his attempts to approach her fail. His female boss sends him to investigate a claim filed by Painless Martha, an aging tattoo artist, who works in the city. Martha believes in a Ouija board message saying that she will be "killed by a bomb delivered by a wizard on Tuesday" and guess what day it is...

When Willard tells her that the insurance company will not pay until her death, she dies of a heart attack [after an explosion noise]. Her will stipulates that her killer must take care of her duck. After the duo spend a night in jail, the duck takes Willard to a brothel. After a wild night of partying, they wind up in the desert, where the duck dresses Willard in women's clothing in an attempt to get a ride. After several encounters with an old prospector dying of thirst, a racist police officer, a lesbian couple, and a short Mexican "bandito" man, they are finally picked up by a trucker.

Back at his apartment, Willard creates a makeshift sex object, which the duck eats. Shortly after, Willard discovers that the duck is female, and has sex with her. The following morning, Willard and the duck go to Willard's job, where Willard has sex with his female boss and quits his job shortly after. Willard and the duck leave, and the movie ends with Willard saying that Duck was a good duck after all.


The Axis of Insanity

The TARDIS, along with its crew of the Doctor, Peri and Erimem, lands at the Axis, a mysterious realm where the Time Lords keep broken timelines, splitting them off from the rest of the universe, so as not to affect the rest of the space-time continuum. However, experiments in one of these timelines is causing the others to fracture, and the Axis's Overseer has just been replaced by The Jester in a coup. Soon, the whole of reality begins to disintegrate...


Straight, Place and Show

Al, Jimmy and Harry get into a jam at the racetrack and expose a gang of cheating Russian jockeys.


Jacob Have I Loved

Imaginative, emotionally sensitive, and hard working, Sara Louise Bradshaw, a young girl growing up on an isolated fishing island off the coast of Maryland during WWII, is made to feel second-best from the moment of her birth. Her impoverished family consists of her rough but gentle father, always absent due to his working-class job on his oyster boat; her ladylike and intelligent mother, who had arrived on the island as a school teacher and stayed after falling in love; her grandmother, a bitter and nasty woman with a religious bent; and Caroline, Sara Louise's younger twin sister who is the main impediment of Sara Louise's struggle to distinguish herself and obtain the affection she craves. Caroline is fragile, beautiful, and admired—everything Sara Louise is not.

Caroline is offered a scholarship to a mainland school for voice lessons, due to her rare singing skills, and the rest of the family, mainly Sara Louise, must sacrifice to make this happen. To raise money, Sara Louise catches crabs with her only friend, McCall "Call" Purnell, a dumpy, short-sighted boy.

One day, Hiram Wallace, the only islander to leave to go to college in fifty years, returns to the island. Hiram, whom they call "the Captain", bonds with Call over their shared sense of humor, becoming a father figure.

After Sara Louise finds a local spinster from Hiram's generation (Trudy) suffering from a stroke that necessitates sending her to the inland hospital, Call, Sara Louise, and Hiram work to clear Trudy's house for her return. Hiram tells the children how Trudy may have a fortune hidden in the building, which is filthy and overrun by a starving feral cat colony. Unable to keep the cats, Hiram determines the most humane thing would be to drown them. This horrifies Sara Louise, who protests vigorously, but her friends overrule her. Unable to go through with it, Sara Louise jumps from the rowboat on the way to perform the deed and swims to shore. Call and Hiram reveal they could not bring themselves to kill the cats after Sara Louise's display, and Caroline steps in to introduce herself. Going door to door and charming the locals into taking in the mangy cats, Caroline is lauded by Call and Hiram as the cats' savior, forgetting Sara Louise's role.

The island is struck by a ravaging hurricane. Sara Louise's father sends her into the storm to fetch the Captain and bring him to their home. This act saves Hiram's life; his entire home is demolished. Meanwhile, Caroline is allowed to sleep through the storm.

Hiram, now homeless, moves into Sara Louise's home. A 14-year-old Sara Louise realizes she is in love with Hiram, despite his being older than her grandmother and oblivious to her feelings. Caroline mocks Sara Louise for her crush, and her grandmother begins accusing her of being a harlot and quoting scriptures at her. Caroline suggests the homeless Hiram enter into a marriage of convenience with Trudy, exchanging a place to live with living assistance, and Hiram lauds Caroline for saving the day.

Eventually, the economic hardships after the hurricane result in Caroline being pulled from her voice lessons inland. As a thank you for the pleasure Trudy received from Caroline's singing, Hiram offers to pay for Caroline to attend a prestigious boarding school in Baltimore and have a private voice tutor. Sara Louise has always wanted to attend a better school, but Hiram does not offer, and there is no money to send her anywhere equivalent. She struggles with feeling of resentment and jealousy.

Call enlists in the navy and leaves to join the war. Sara Louise drops out of school and takes over Call's duties, finally allowed on her father's oyster boat.

Sara Louise is largely content. The hard work leaves no time for thought and, absent Caroline's shadow, Sara Louise enjoys the attention she finally receives from her family, earning her high school diploma with her mother's help.

Released from needing to provide for Caroline ever again after Caroline graduates and is awarded a full-ride scholarship to Juilliard, Sara Louise awaits the return of Call to take her place on her father's boat and finally free her from her obligations to her family.

Call's return at the end of the war is not what Sara Louise was expecting. Much-changed, Call announces he is not returning permanently but will attend university and marry Caroline.

Staying behind to watch her grandmother while her parents travel to Caroline and Call's wedding, Sara Louise gets a wake up call from the Captain when he is the first person to ask her what she'd like to do with her life. Sara Louise confesses she would like to see the mountains and become a doctor but can't leave her family.

Sara Louise eventually explodes and demands to be let go, finally expressing some of her resentment at Caroline's privilege. Her mother replies that Sara Louise was always free to go but never said she wanted to. Receiving assurance that she will be missed, Sara Louise applies to college as a pre-med student and leaves the island. She is also made to realize that her parents have always paid more attention to Caroline in part because they believed Caroline to be the weaker, not the better, of the two girls.

Denied entry to medical school due to her gender and the influx of GI Bill students, Sara Louise graduates as a nurse. She then goes to work in a small Appalachian Mountains town as a nurse and midwife. She thrives and marries a widowed father. Sara Louise has a baby boy, Caroline is debuting as an opera singer in New Haven, their father and grandmother die, and their mother leaves the island permanently.

On a snowy winter night, Sara Louise assists in delivering twins. The mother has the first one, a boy, safely. When the second one comes out, it is a small and cold girl. Since she doesn't have an incubator, Sara Louise rushes the baby to the fireside and much effort is made to revive her. She then realizes the boy has been forgotten and tells the mother to breastfeed him. Lactating from her own child, Sara Louise breastfeeds the younger twin.


Love on a Diet

Mini Mo (Sammi Cheng) is a Hong Kong resident living in Japan. She suffers from depression, low self-esteem and a binge eating disorder – the result which sees her suffers from extreme obesity. A suicide attempt causes her to meet Fatso (Andy Lau), a Hong Kong salesman working in Japan who is also obese.

Mini sticks with Fatso everywhere, and although initially vexed by Mini, Fatso discovers the reason behind her depression. Mini cannot forget her former boyfriend, Kurokawa, who is now a world-famous pianist. Ten years ago, the two had pledged to meet at the foot of Yokohama Marine Tower on the night of their break-up. Mini is fearful of meeting Kurokawa in her present size. Touched by her story and her sweet nature, Fatso promises to whip her back into shape.

After trying desperate means of losing weight (such as swallowing tapeworms and exercising to Dance Dance Revolution), Mini finally sheds pounds. But Fatso finds his funds running low. To earn enough to finance Mini's weight-loss programs, he opens a boxing gig on the streets allowing on-lookers to punch him to vent their pent-up frustrations. He next enrolls Mini on an expensive weight-loss program, which proves to be very successful. Mini regains her former slim and pretty look.

On the night of her reunion with Kurokawa, Fatso drops Mini off at Tokyo Tower and she meets up with former beau under the gazing eyes of the local media. The pair are interviewed by a local network, but Mini notices another broadcast featuring Fatso's street boxing gig. She finally realizes how much Fatso has sacrificed himself for her and is moved to tears. Turning to apologize to Kurokawa, she leaves hastily.

Months later, Mini publishes a bestseller on dieting, and finds a slimmed-down Fatso carrying her book in a park. The two kiss, promising never to leave each other again.


Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/exemplars

:This section details the plot of the graphic novel.


Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/exemplars

:If the work contains one or many storylines, then they should be noted here or spun off into their own page.


Iceman (1984 film)

Anthropologist Stanley Shephard is brought to an arctic base when explorers discover the body of a prehistoric man who has been frozen for 40,000 years. After thawing the body to perform an autopsy, scientists first attempt and succeed to resuscitate the "iceman".

The dazed caveman is alarmed by the surgical-masked figures; only Shephard has the presence of mind to remove his mask and reveal his humanity and somewhat familiar (bearded) face, permitting the iceman to settle into a peaceful recuperating sleep.

The scientists place the iceman in an artificial, simulated environment for study, though the caveman quickly deduces that he is far from home. Shephard believes that the caveman's culture may provide clues to learning about the human body's adaptability, citing ceremonies such as firewalking. Other scientists see the potential in studying the caveman's DNA and his survival in the ice, for possible "freezing" of the sick until treatment is possible.

Shephard defends the caveman's right to be considered a human being and not a scientific specimen. Despite opposition from the others, Shephard initiates an encounter with the caveman. Shephard names him "Charlie" after the iceman introduces himself as "Char-u". Shephard and Charlie bond, but it becomes obvious to the anthropologist that Charlie misses his world.

A linguist is brought to the Arctic base, and the scientists make progress communicating with Charlie. Shephard introduces Charlie to colleague Dr. Diane Brady. Assuming that the woman is Shephard's mate, Charlie makes chalk marks which indicate that he likely was a married man with children before he was frozen.

Shephard strives to understand what motivates Charlie and why he survived being frozen. At one point, Shephard begins to sing "Heart of Gold", inspiring Charlie to sing one of his own songs. Charlie's line drawings in the ground resemble a bird, matching body markings on his chest. When the base's helicopter strays over the roof of Charlie's area, he takes on an obsessive zeal as he climbs towards the roof. Shouting the word ''Beedha'', he lifts his arms towards the helicopter in a sign of worship. Even though the helicopter pulls away from the dome, Shephard knows that Charlie can now think of nothing else.

Shephard consults local Inuit who recognize the name that Charlie chanted and explain that it is a mythical bird, a messenger for the gods. Shephard understands that Charlie has a spiritual side and that he was on a ''dreamwalk'' pilgrimage, a mythical quest for redemption. His people were dying in the sudden ice age; he must have offered himself to the gods in the form of a self-sacrifice or appealing to the gods to redeem his tribe.

Charlie escapes after watching Shephard exit the biosphere. In a panic of seeing unfamiliar modern devices, and believing they are his enemies, he accidentally spears Maynard, one of the base's technicians, before being recaptured and Shephard's experiment is put to an end. However, Shephard helps Charlie to escape into the wild. Charlie races on ahead of Shephard as they pass by glaciers and ice-shelves, and a crevasse opens up in front of Shephard, cutting him off from Charlie.

When the helicopter emerges over an ice-shelf, Shephard looks on helplessly as Charlie grabs hold of one of its landing skis. In an attempt to evade Charlie's grasp, the helicopter pilot pulls up, but Charlie dangles beneath the aircraft while it continues to climb high into the sky. Charlie is ecstatic, believing the "messenger" is taking him to his god. He releases his grip, seeming to float through the sky while he plunges to his death.

Shephard's initial horror turns into joy, as he realizes that Charlie has reached his "dreamwalk" goal that he began 40,000 years earlier, even though it means his death.


Oscar (1991 film)

In the prologue, gangster Angelo "Snaps" Provolone promises his dying father that he will give up a life of crime, and instead "go straight".

A month later, Snaps awakes at his mansion and begins his important morning. He has a meeting with several prominent bankers, as he hopes to donate a large sum of cash and join the bank's board of trustees, thereby having an honest job and keeping his word to his father. Anthony Rossano, Snaps's young, good-natured accountant, arrives at the mansion, asks for a 250% raise, and tells his boss that he is in love with "Snaps' daughter". Snaps is furious, does not want his daughter marrying Anthony, and goes to talk to his daughter, Lisa.

The only child of Snaps and Sofia, Lisa is a spoiled daughter whose dreams of seeing the world's great sights run into a roadblock because of her overly protective father. Wishing to move out of the house, she lies to her parents at the suggestion of the maid, Nora, and claims to be pregnant. Snaps, believing the father to be Anthony (as he wants to marry "Snaps' daughter"), is shocked when Lisa says the father is Oscar, the former chauffeur who is now serving overseas in the military.

Things get even more complicated when Anthony learns that Theresa, the woman he fell in love with, is not actually Snaps' daughter as she had claimed to be. Before Anthony can catch on, Snaps tricks him into agreeing to marry his actual daughter, Lisa, who is supposedly pregnant but without a husband. Both Lisa and Anthony are unhappy at the hasty arrangement, and the pair luck out when Lisa falls in love with someone else: Dr. Thornton Poole, Snaps's dialectician, whose frequent world travels appeal to her adventurous nature.

Meanwhile, local police lieutenant Toomey is keeping an eye on the mansion, believing that Snaps is meeting with Chicago mobsters soon. Also watching Snaps is mob rival Vendetti, who also believes that Snaps is meeting Chicago mobsters. Vendetti plans a hit on Snaps in the early afternoon while Toomey plans a raid at the same time to catch Snaps red-handed.

While Anthony seeks out Theresa, Snaps meets his mansion's new maid, Roxie. As it turns out, Roxie is an old flame of Snaps, and the pair talk memories and the life that never was. Theresa comes to the mansion and is revealed to be Roxie's daughter — who was actually fathered by Snaps long ago — making Snaps her dad after all. The impromptu celebration of both his daughters' engagements is cut short by the arrival of the bankers. During the meeting, Snaps senses the bankers are giving him a raw deal — they do not intend to give him any actual influence in the bank's operations, despite the money he is willing to invest. The meeting is interrupted by police officers and Toomey, who is embarrassed to find no money or gangsters present on site. He leaves the mansion just in time for Vendetti's car full of armed men to crash right outside. Toomey smiles at reporters and arrests the men.

Despite his father's wishes, Snaps realizes that he would rather deal with gangsters and gunmen than "respectable" bankers, and decides to abandon his short-lived honest ways and return to a life of crime. The final scene of the movie shows a double wedding for both his daughters. Oscar himself finally appears and objects to Lisa's marriage, but he is carried off by Snaps' men and the weddings end happily.


The Little Lulu Show

Quick-witted Lulu can outsmart boys, bullies and even grownups! Whether she’s catching frogs for a local restaurant, searching for hidden treasure or tracking down a thief, Little Lulu’s always got an ace up her sleeve. Together with her best friend Tubby, pint-sized Alvin, buck-toothed Annie, smooth Willie and the rest of the neighborhood gang, Lulu always finds herself in the middle of an adventure.

The series focuses on the life and the adventures of Lulu Moppet (voiced by Tracey Ullman and later Jane Woods) and Tubby Tompkins. Between stories called ''LuluToon'', they featured stand-up comedy that Lulu hosted and a series of the musical shorts called ''Lulu-Bite'' is also shown. Each episode contains 3 sketches with the different stories, interspersed with a "stand up-comedy" presented by Lulu and 2 short 30-second introductions without speech, based on the last comic stories (with only 3 scenes).

Each storyline featured in the LuluToons are used from comic book releases (including John Stanley ones), with minor alterations.

The series is different from ''Little Lulu and Her Little Friends'', a Japanese anime featuring the same characters made in 1976 and aired internationally in 1978.


Panic in Year Zero!

Harry Baldwin (Ray Milland), his wife Ann (Jean Hagen), their son Rick (Frankie Avalon), and daughter Karen (Mary Mitchel) leave suburban Los Angeles on a camping trip to the Sierra Nevada wilderness just after sunrise. After they get underway, the Baldwins notice unusually bright light flashes behind them. Sporadic news reports broadcast on CONELRAD hint at the start of an atomic war, later confirmed when the Baldwins see a large mushroom cloud rising over Los Angeles. The family initially attempts to return home and rescue Ann's mother, but Harry realizes that the roads will be clogged by panicked people and what is left of the city will be saturated in fallout. Declaring that his family's survival must come first, Harry decides to continue to their vacation spot and weather the crisis there.

The Baldwins stop to buy supplies at a small town off the main road, which has not yet been inundated by refugees from Los Angeles. Harry attempts to purchase tools and guns from hardware store owner Ed Johnson (Richard Garland) with checks. However, Johnson believes only Los Angeles has been hit and the government remains intact, and he insists on following state law and withholding the guns for a day while the checks are verified. Harry absconds with the weapons with Rick's help, but he tells Johnson that he will eventually return to pay for them in full. Back on the road, the family comes across three threatening young hoodlums, Carl (Richard Bakalyan), Mickey (Rex Holman), and Andy (Neil Nephew), but manage to fend them off.

After a harrowing journey, the Baldwins reach their destination and find shelter in a cave, where they settle in and wait for civil order to be restored. On their portable radio, they listen to war news and learn that what remains of the United Nations has declared this to be "Year Zero". Harry and Rick soon discover that Ed Johnson and his wife have coincidentally set up camp nearby, but not for long: the three hoodlums arrive and murder the Johnsons.

While doing laundry, Ann drops a blouse in a stream, alerting the hoodlums to the Baldwins' presence. The hoodlums accost and rape Karen, but Ann scares them off with a rifle. Harry and Rick then search for the rapists and find two of them at a farm house, where Harry kills them. The Baldwins also discover a teenage girl, Marilyn (Joan Freeman), kept in a locked room as a sex slave. When questioned, she explains that she lived at the house with her parents before they were murdered by the hoodlums. Marilyn is freed and brought to the cave, where she is cared for by Ann and accepted into the family.

Sometime later, Marilyn accompanies Rick while he chops wood outside the camp. Carl, the third hoodlum, sneaks up behind Marilyn and forces her to drop her rifle. He questions her about what happened to his brothers. Rick throws a piece of wood at Carl, allowing Marilyn to slip out of his grasp, then grabs Marilyn's rifle and kills Carl. During the commotion, Carl manages to shoot Rick in the leg.

The Baldwins leave their camp to find a doctor named Strong (Willis Bouchey, billed as Willis Buchet) whom Marilyn knows in the nearby town of Paxton. On the drive there, the group hears that "the enemy" has requested a truce and "Year Zero" is ending. Doctor Strong stabilizes Rick, but he warns that the young man will die without a blood transfusion and the closest place that can handle the procedure is an Army hospital over 100 miles (160 km) away. En route to the hospital, the Baldwins are stopped by an Army patrol. After a tense conversation, they are allowed to continue. The soldiers watch the Baldwins depart and note that the family is among the "good ones" who escaped radiation sickness by being in the mountains when the atomic bombs exploded. As the Baldwins drive onward, a closing title card states: "There must be no end – only a new beginning".


Garfield's Babes and Bullets

Feeling bored, Garfield looks into a closet and finds a trenchcoat and fedora. Donning both, he begins to fantasize he is Sam Spayed, a second-rate private investigator in a film noir atmosphere. Sam receives a visit from Tanya O'Tabby, a beautiful woman who hires Sam to investigate the death of her husband, Professor O'Tabby, who apparently drove off a clifftop road. Tanya believes it was murder, as her husband was an excellent driver, but the death was ruled as a simple car accident. Despite initially suspecting foul play (that Tanya killed her husband either for his money or because he was unfaithful), Sam agrees to take the case.

No solid proof of murder comes to light when Sam visits the morgue, although he notes that O'Tabby's shirt, chest and stomach hairs have yellowish-brown stains on them and secretly pockets a mysterious, painted "stone" that the coroner overlooked. Next, Sam goes to the university where O'Tabby worked and meets the late man's colleague and former advisor Professor O'Felix. He tells Sam how O'Tabby was on his way to visit an elderly benefactress the night he died, but dismisses Sam's idea that the professor was having an affair, saying his one weakness was instead a coffee addiction.

Sam phones Tanya to tell her what he knows so far, only for his newly-hired secretary Kitty to spill coffee on him when he mentions talking to O'Felix about O'Tabby's "woman trouble". While cleaning himself up, Sam realizes that the "stone" is actually a ceramic fragment from a broken coffee mug and the stains on the late professor's clothing and body must have been coffee. He deduces that Kitty worked for O'Tabby before she came to Sam's office, and accuses Kitty of O'Tabby's murder, believing her motive was that she loved O'Tabby but the professor didn't love her. Kitty breaks down into tears, insisting that she did not kill the professor, having simply left the university out of being unable to bear not having him. She also explains that she did more than make coffee for O'Tabby, also filling his prescriptions for potent sleeping pills to counter his coffee-induced insomnia.

Deducing O'Felix is the murderer, Sam brings him to court. O'Felix was jealous of his former student's success and, having had his eyes on O'Tabby's position within the university for some time, murdered him by spiking his coffee with some sleeping pills, causing O'Tabby to fall asleep at the wheel and drive off the cliff to his death. Tanya visits Sam one last time, making it very clear that the romance he had hoped to have with her will never happen. Kitty starts to seduce Sam, only for reality to intrude via owner Jon Arbuckle asking Garfield what he's doing in the closet.


Garfield's Feline Fantasies

Garfield is dreaming about being a submarine captain with Pooky as his commanding officer. When Garfield's alarm clock wakes him up, Garfield continues the dream's storyline and fires a torpedo (smashes the alarm clock). Enjoying this, Garfield enters a cowboy fantasy when greeting Odie for the morning and a magician fantasy when waking up Jon to make them breakfast. Odie joins him in the latter fantasy.

Garfield tells Odie their fantasies are not dangerous as Jon is always there to bail them out. They test this theory by entering a fantasy where they are jet pilots of a plane with faulty engines. When Jon saves them from falling, they decide the theory is correct and climb into the refrigerator, entering another fantasy.

In the fantasy, Garfield is Lance Sterling, a James-Bond-meets-Indiana-Jones figure, and Odie is Slobberjob, his bodyguard. The two travel to Istanbul and meet a villain named Fat Guy and his bodyguard Rameet. It is revealed Lance Sterling and Slobberjob have been sent to find the Banana of Bombay, the first banana used in the banana-peel gag. However, it disappeared years ago, and the holy ankh which contained a map to find it was split in half. Fat Guy explains he wants to sell the Banana to whichever country pays the most for it. Lance Sterling insults Fat Guy before agreeing to unite his half of the holy ankh with Fat Guy's. However, Lane Sterling steals Fat Guy's half of the ankh before escaping with Slobberjob. When Fat Guy's henchmen pursue them, a woman named Nadia distracts the henchmen so the protagonists can escape. She claims Lance Sterling and Slobberjob's employers sent her to protect them, but Lance Sterling says they don't need the help and tells her to leave.

Lance Sterling and Slobberjob combine the holy ankh pieces with a supercomputer and discover the ankh's map does not point to the Banana of Bombay, but a clue to the Banana's true location. They travel to Paris, and meet Nadia again after a humorous misunderstanding with a French waiter. She tells them Fat Guy and Rameet are tracking them, and after Slobberjob attempts to take on Rameet, he is thrown at an awning and discovers a map to the Banana of Bombay.

Arriving in the Amazon rainforest, Lance Sterling and Slobberjob enter a temple holding the Banana of Bombay. They discover the Banana on a pillar in the middle of a pool of lava, but it is taken by Nadia. She explains she is from Moldavia, which is a poor country, so the Moldavian government has decided to invest in tourism and they need the Banana to open a fruit stand. Fat Guy and Rameet take the banana and trap Lance Sterling, Nadia, and Slobberjob on the pillar. Rameet falls in the lava, and Slobberjob manages to get everyone off the pillar. A group of monkeys steal the Banana of Bombay from Fat Guy, but Lance Sterling and Slobberjob obtain the Banana and flee the temple, pursued by Fat Guy, Nadia, and the monkeys. They are cornered at a cliff, but use the Banana to slip all their adversaries and make them fall into a river. Rameet, who survived falling into the lava, confronts them, and they are forced to jump off the cliff.

Ending the fantasy, Garfield and Odie fall out of the refrigerator. When Jon asks Garfield if he had another fantasy, Garfield states it was his last one, only to enter another fantasy that mirrors Casablanca.


Why Would I Lie?

Cletus Hayworth, a compulsive liar, is employed as a social worker. He tries to find a home for a young boy named Jorge and, in so doing, falls in love with a social worker, who unbeknownst to everyone is Jorge's mother.


The Coming of the Quantum Cats

The novel begins with Nicky DeSota as a timid mortgage broker in a fascist America, who draws the unwelcome attention of Nyla Christophe, an agent of the FBI (a brutal, full-fledged secret police in his world), who is investigating a break-in at a government lab by someone who proves to be a Dominic DeSota from an alternate universe. Used as a pawn by Christophe's con-man boyfriend Larry Douglas to entrap an left-wing activist and former actor (who turns out to be Ronald Reagan), he is later detained and brought to New Mexico to unravel a mystery.

The focus then shifts to another Dominic DeSota, a United States Senator having an affair with Nyla Christophe Bowquist, who in this world is a famous violinist. Contacted by the military, he travels to Sandia National Laboratories, where he meets an identical version of himself—a "Cat" from an alternate universe. As Senator DeSota interviews his alternate-universe counterpart, the man vanishes after offering a cryptic warning. As the senator leaves the building, the base commander and he are captured by a detachment of troops led by Major Dominic P. DeSota, the commander of a military force from yet another universe.

Major DeSota's mission is revealed to be to secure the parallel-world research facilities of Senator DeSota's universe, which is the first step in a larger military operation. In Major DeSota's universe (which is subsequently designated Paratime Gamma), a militaristic United States is engaged in a tense standoff with the Soviet Union, and wants to use Senator DeSota's universe (Paratime Epsilon) to launch sneak attacks against them. After being transported to Paratime Gamma, Senator DeSota manages to escape by distracting his guard, Sgt. Nyla Sambok (Gamma's version of Nyla Christophe) and escaping through a portal with a scientist to Paratime Tau—the home universe of Nicky DeSota.

After being discovered in the desert, Senator DeSota and the scientist—who is Larry Douglas from another universe—are captured and interrogated by Agent Christophe. In an interrogation session involving the senator, the scientist, and their counterparts from Paratime Tau, Douglas reveals that he is from Paratime Alpha, and that he was forced by the military in Paratime Gamma to give them the ability to travel between universes. As Agent Christophe begins to pressure Douglas to give her government similar assistance, the other FBI agent with her and she are rendered unconscious by knockout darts fired by Dominic DeSota—the same one who had escaped interrogation in Sandia.

DeSota brings the entire group back to his universe—Paratime Alpha—where he explains that since the senator's escape that Paratime Gamma has invaded the Epsilon's Washington DC in a failed bid to capture the president. He also reveals that travel between universes is creating a growing problem of "ballistic recoil", where the boundaries between the universes are growing weaker, causing matter and energy to cross unintentionally from one universe to the next (something depicted in interludes between the chapters). He brings the travelers to Washington DC, where they cross over to Paratime Epsilon in an effort to help stop the invasion.

Before they can help, however, every "Cat" located in a different universe disappears, along with any scientists involved in paratime research. There, they are informed that they have been transported by a group of more advanced alternate Earths to stop ballistic recoil before it escalates and the barriers between universes become irreparably permeable. The "Cats" are relocated to New York City on a new Earth, one being resettled after its inhabitants wiped themselves out. There, the paratime transplants gradually settle into new lives.

Six months after his arrival, Nicky DeSota returns to New York to propose to Agent Christophe. Now working on a collective farm in Palm Springs, he has embraced the opportunity for a new life and developed into a much more confident man. After considering his proposal, the Nyla of his world accepts. On their trip back to California, however, Nicky reveals to her his expectation that their transplantation has not solved the problem of paratime travel—that with an infinite number of Earths, the number of them that will develop the ability to cross into alternate worlds will only increase, so many that the problem of ballistic recoil may prove to be unavoidable.


The Golden Globe

''The Golden Globe'' takes place in Varley’s "Eight Worlds" universe. The Solar System has been colonized by human refugees fleeing aliens (known as "the Invaders"). Earth and Jupiter are off-limits to humanity, but Earth's Moon and the other planets and moons of the Solar System have all become populated. There are also minor colonies set in the Oort cloud beyond the Solar System. ''The Golden Globe'' story is told initially from a first person perspective, but a substantial portion of the book comes in the form of extended flashbacks.

The Golden Globe in question is Luna, Earth's Moon and the most heavily inhabited world in the Solar System since the Invaders obliterated human civilization on Earth.

The novel begins as a first person account of Valentine's adventures in the outer worlds of the Solar System as he attempts to make his way to Luna to play King Lear in an upcoming production. Valentine is a consummate actor and a skilled con man. It is by exercising the latter skill that he runs afoul of the Charonese Mafia, personified by the cold-blooded and unkillable assassin Isambard Comfort.

The story is punctuated by several extended flashback sequences in which we learn that Valentine's father, a supremely egotistical and domineering stage actor, has groomed his son almost from birth to follow in his footsteps. It is Valentine, Sr.'s egotism and obsession with the stage that sets the tone for much of the flashback material.

While his father is auditioning for a role and has left young Kenneth sitting in a waiting room, Valentine wanders a little and gets swept up to audition for a part in a new children's adventure show called ''Sparky and His Gang'' and is cast in the lead role. As the show becomes increasingly popular, Valentine, Sr. interferes more and more, and becomes more difficult for his son and the producers of the show to deal with.

We learn in these flashback segments that Valentine, Sr. subjects his son to monstrous and potentially fatal child abuse. This is framed quite realistically, and Valentine, Sr. is apparently aware of but unable to control his nearly homicidal rage.

At times, both in the main story and in flashback, Valentine meets with a mysterious character named Elwood. It is ambiguous in the narrative exactly what type of being Elwood is; however, as the novel progresses, both in the present and in flashback, the character is more fully identified as Elwood P. Dowd and said to look very much like actor James Stewart, who played a character of the same name in ''Harvey''.

Though the reader gradually comes to believe Elwood is a figment of Valentine's imagination, the climactic confrontation between Valentine and his father blurs this distinction considerably. However, Valentine narrates his own flashbacks for the reader, and as much as states that he may be an unreliable narrator.

It is revealed in both the main and flashback storylines that Valentine killed (or believed himself to have killed) his father. In the main storyline, he is, after 70 years on the run, eventually put on trial for this murder, and his case is weighed by the Central Computer of Luna. Genetic tests reveal that Valentine is actually a clone of his father (further evidence of the maniacal self-absorption of the father). The fact that cloning was illegal at the time of his father's murder causes the Central Computer to declare that no crime was committed, as the only legal remedy in place at the time was for one clone or the other to be destroyed.

At the end of the novel, Valentine says that he has reclaimed his fortune accrued from the revenue of his children's show (long inaccessible to him during his life on the run), now making him the single wealthiest person in the solar system. Using this newfound wealth, he throws in his lot with the Heinleiners, a reclusive group of libertarian idealists who are building a starship and planning a voyage to the stars.


The Lost World (TV series)

"At the dawn of the 20th century" a band of British adventurers, led by adventurer and scholar Professor George Challenger, embark on an expedition to prove the existence of an isolated lost world. The team, consisting of a mismatched group of enthusiasts with less than selfless reasons for making the journey, begin their trip under less than ideal conditions. The members are Challenger, Professor Arthur Summerlee, Marguerite Krux, Major Lord John Richard Roxton and Edward T. Malone.

Their hot air balloon crashes in the Amazon rainforest on an uncharted plateau where prehistoric creatures survive. The group is assisted by a young jungle-savvy woman named Veronica Layton, whose parents disappeared eleven years before. Her family was part of a research group known to have vanished under mysterious circumstances. Together, the group fights to survive against carnivorous dinosaurs, vicious Neanderthals, a race of lizard men, and other perils as they search for a way to escape. Each episode detailed two separate, simultaneous adventures.

The later series established that the party became stranded in 1919.


The Girl in the Fireplace

The Tenth Doctor, Rose, and Mickey explore a derelict spaceship in the 51st century. The Doctor looks through a time window, a doorway to another place in space and time, which is shaped like a French fireplace. He sees a young girl called Reinette on the other side of the fireplace who is in 18th-century Paris. The Doctor steps through the time window to find that months have passed. He discovers a clockwork service android disguised in 18th-century clothing hiding in Reinette's bedroom, and saves Reinette from it. Returning to Reinette's bedroom, the Doctor discovers that she is now a young woman. Reinette and the Doctor kiss before she leaves to join her mother. The Doctor realises Reinette is Madame de Pompadour, the mistress of King Louis XV. Back on the ship, the Doctor discovers a horse that stepped through a time window; he names it Arthur.

Several additional time windows are on the ship which lead to different moments in Reinette's life. The Doctor steps through one window to defend Reinette from an android. The android tells Reinette that the androids killed the ship's crew to use their organs for parts to repair the ship. The Doctor discovers that the androids plan to open a time window to Reinette's life at the age of 37, believing that her brain at that age will be compatible with the ship.

The clockwork androids appear at a costume ball in Versailles and take Reinette hostage. At one end of the room is an enormous mirror, which is actually a time window. The Doctor cannot enter the time window without being stranded in the 18th century. The androids threaten to decapitate Reinette, but the Doctor, on Arthur, crashes through the mirror to save her. With no way of returning to their ship, the androids give up and shut down. Reinette tells the Doctor that she had her fireplace moved to Versailles in the hope that he would return. The Doctor finds that the fireplace is operating and uses it to return to the spaceship. He tells Reinette to prepare to leave. The Doctor returns to Reinette, but finds that seven years have passed for her and she has died. King Louis gives the Doctor a letter in which Reinette hopes for the Doctor's quick return. The Doctor leaves in the TARDIS. As the episode ends, the lifeless ship drifts through space; its name is SS ''Madame de Pompadour''.


A Kiss Before Dying (novel)

Burton “Bud” Corliss is a young man with a ruthless drive to rise above his working-class origins to a life of wealth and importance. He serves in the Pacific in World War II, and upon his honorable discharge in 1947 he learns that his father was killed in an automobile accident while he was overseas.

The most pivotal moment in his life occurs during the war, when he first wounds, then kills, a Japanese sniper, who is so terrified that he wets his pants and begs for mercy. Corliss is elated by the total power he holds over the soldier; at the same time, he is disgusted by the man's display of abject terror.

Upon returning to the U.S., he enrolls in college and meets Dorothy Kingship, the daughter of a wealthy copper tycoon. Seeing an opportunity to attain the riches he has always craved, he becomes Dorothy's lover. When she tells him she is pregnant, however, he panics; he is sure that her stern, conservative father will disinherit her. Resolving to get rid of Dorothy, he tricks her into writing a letter that, to an unknowing observer, would look like a suicide note, and then throws her from the roof of a tall building. He runs no risk of getting caught, having urged Dorothy to keep their relationship a secret from her family and friends. He continues to live with his mother, who dotes on him and has no clue as to what he has done.

Corliss lies low for a few months until the press coverage of Dorothy's death has subsided. Then he pursues Dorothy's sister, Ellen. The romance is going according to plan until Ellen begins to probe into Dorothy's death, convinced her sister did not kill herself. Eventually, Ellen uncovers the truth about Corliss and confronts him. Corliss nonchalantly confesses to the crime and kills Ellen as well.

Unfazed by this setback, Corliss courts the last remaining Kingship daughter, Marion. This affair is the most successful; Corliss sweeps her off her feet and charms her father, and soon he and Marion are engaged.

Local college DJ Gordon Gant, who met Ellen during her investigation of Dorothy's death, begins investigating the case, and is immediately suspicious of Corliss. He breaks into Corliss' childhood home and steals a written plan for meeting and seducing Marion to get her family's money. Days before the wedding, he shows up at the Kingship family home and presents Marion and her father with the evidence of Corliss' deception.

On a trip to one of the Kingship family's copper manufacturing plants, Marion, her father and Gant all corner Corliss while he is standing over a vat of molten copper and threaten to expose him. Corliss frantically pleads his innocence, but his accusers are unmoved. Realizing his luck has finally run out, Corliss panics and wets his pants – just as the Japanese soldier, his symbol of pathetic cowardice, had done. Delirious with fear and shame, Bud Corliss stumbles and falls to his death into the vat below.


Despair (novel)

The narrator and protagonist of the story, Hermann Karlovich, a Russian of German descent and owner of a chocolate factory, meets a homeless man in the city of Prague, who he believes is his doppelgänger. Even though Felix, the supposed doppelgänger, is seemingly unaware of their resemblance, Hermann insists that their likeness is most striking. Hermann is married to Lydia, a sometimes silly and forgetful wife (according to Hermann) who has a cousin named Ardalion. It is heavily hinted that Lydia and Ardalion are, in fact, lovers, although Hermann continually stresses how much Lydia loves him. On one occasion Hermann actually walks in on the pair, naked, but Hermann appears to be completely oblivious of the situation, perhaps deliberately so. After some time, Hermann shares with Felix a plan for both of them to profit off their shared likeness by having Felix briefly pretend to be Hermann. But after Felix is disguised as Hermann, Hermann kills Felix in order to collect the insurance money on Hermann on March 9. Hermann considers the presumably perfect murder plot to be a work of art rather than a scheme to gain money. But as it turns out, there is no resemblance whatsoever between the two men, the murder is not 'perfect', and the murderer is about to be captured by the police in a small hotel in France, where he is hiding. Hermann, the narrator, switches to a diary mode at the very end just before his capture; the last entry is on April 1.


Spellcross

The story line pits the alliance against the forces of darkness, the game begins with Alexander(you) a colonel in the alliance forces who has become trapped behind enemy lines with a few squads of men, fighting your way through the forces of darkness you meet with the rest of the alliance and are brought to your first mission. The computer plays against you as the gate keepers or under lords who have unleashed a terrible onslaught on the earth torturing and killing many of the population they have conquered in sacrificial magic experiments. The story unfolds that they are attempting to awaken a sleeping titan within the earth's core.

The forces of darkness use portals and gates to different dimensions to bring hordes of demonic creatures into the world.


In the Name of the King

In the kingdom of Ehb, a man known only as Farmer is living a happy life with his wife, Solana, and their young son, Zeph, in the town of Stonebridge. One day, the town gets attacked by creatures known as the Krug. The Krug, who are known to be primitive and animal-like, surprise the people by taking up arms, donning armour and are fighting with courage, intelligence and ferocity. It's all because they're magically controlled by Gallian, a powerful Magus who has become sadistic and megalomaniacal, and seeks to conquer and rule Ehb. During the attack, Farmer, along with his friend, Norick and his brother-in-law, Bastian, fights off the Krug, but fails to save Zeph; who is killed by Gallian via a Krug avatar. Gallian questions Farmer through a Krug and claims to be unable to read him. Solana and other Stonebridge inhabitants are taken prisoner.

King Konreid, Commander Tarish and a company of Ehb's army arrives at Stonebridge to survey the damage and recruit others to join their army. Merick, another Magus who serves Konreid, tries to learn of Farmer's identity when he notices Norick, who he believes he has seen before. Farmer, Norick and Bastian set off on their own to find Solana. Meanwhile, Merick's daughter, Muriella, who fell in love with Gallian, ends her romance with him after seeing his dark nature and realizing that he only trained her power so he can take it away. She confesses to her father, who believes that her love for Gallian has created an imbalance of their powers in Gallian's favour. Meanwhile, Konreid's selfish and immature nephew, Duke Fallow is in league with Gallian and he seeks to take his uncle's place. He attempts to poison Konreid and takes a company of Ehb soldiers for his own. Soon after, Konreid heals and leads his army to go and fight Gallian's forces.

Going through Sedgwick Forest, Farmer and his companions encounter the reclusive nymphs led by Elora, who leads them out of the forest. When they attempt to rescue Solana from the Krug, Farmer gets knocked out, and Norick and Bastian get captured. While Farmer is being hanged by another one of Gallian's avatars, he kills the avatar, frees himself and is rescued by Merick. Farmer is taken to Konreid and his army's camp, where Merick reveals that Farmer is Konreid's long lost son and his real name is Camden Konreid. He explains that many years ago, a young Farmer was present during a battle at a place known as Oxley Pass, where he was found by Norick. Norick was considered to be the adoptive father, but Farmer was cared for by Stonebridge's inhabitants and was kept safe from all the chaos that ravaged Ehb. Konreid and Farmer both disapprove of Merick's claims.

Konreid catches Fallow, in his treachery, which leaves Fallow only his personal guard as the company turns from him and joins the rest of the army. Soon after, a battle erupts between Ehb's army and the Krug. Ehb's army, along with Farmer, eventually gain the upper hand and force the Krug to retreat, but Fallow succeeds in mortally wounding Konreid. After the battle, Konreid and Farmer learn that they both share similar knowledge as Konreid declares Farmer his son with his last breath and dies. Meanwhile, Tarish challenges Fallow to a duel. Tarish wins and Fallow is taken away. Farmer, who is now the new king,readies everybody for the next battle.

Meanwhile, Norick, Bastian and Solana are taken to Gallian's lair at Christwind Hold. Norick is killed while he and Bastian fight the Krug. Solana is taken to Gallian, who can sense Farmer within her, who reveals that Solana is pregnant with Farmer's second child. Going on a mission to infiltrate Gallian's lair, Farmer is joined by Merick, Muriella and Elora, who has sided with Ehb against Gallian, while Tarish and the remaining army hold off against the advancing Krug. Merick magically enters the lair and fights Gallian, who manages to kill Merick. Farmer and Muriella manage to go into the lair as well, but Elora stays behind.

Farmer finds Solana and fights Gallian in a sword battle. When Gallian resorts to using his magic to gain the upper hand, he prepares to kill him until Solana stabs him in the back. Muriella arrives and tries to save Farmer but Gallian defeats Muriella by weakening her magic. With him wounded, Farmer quickly defeats Gallian by slitting his throat and killing him. Gallian's magic influence goes away and the Krug go back to being primitive, saving Bastian and the prisoners, and Tarish and his battered forces. Having finally avenged his son, Farmer and Solana are happily reunited as the kingdom is saved.


Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection

As an update, the same story as ''Tekken 5'' is featured, with the addition of three new characters. Emilie de Rochefort seeks to destroy the Mishima Zaibatsu and end her father's financial problems. Sergei Dragunov is a member of Spetsnaz who has been ordered to capture Jin Kazama. Finally Armor King II, the brother of the original Armor King who seeks revenge on Craig Marduk for his brother's death.


16 Years of Alcohol

The opening scene shows Frankie being beaten by a small group of men, and the rest of the film is shown as a flashback leading up to that point. The film is split into three sections: Frankie's troubled childhood, his violent adolescence as a ska-loving skinhead who commands a small gang, and a period of change, in which Frankie tries to believe in hope and love.

Frankie starts a relationship with Helen (Laura Fraser), a young woman who studies art and works in a record store. When the differences between them became too obvious, Helen breaks up with Frankie, and he joins Alcoholics Anonymous (or a similar program) and a theatre group along with Mary (Susan Lynch), a good-hearted alcoholic. This allows Frankie to exorcise some of his demons, and he loses his desire to fight. An incident in a pub leads Frankie to believe that Mary is cheating on him with the theatre group's director. This reignites doubts created by his parents a long time ago. Feeling deceived, Frankie rejects Mary without a valid reason. When he's preparing to drink a glass of scotch, he begins to muse how the past has destroyed his life up to this point and he decides to stay sober and call Mary to apologise. The events merge with the beginning of the film, and Frankie's former comrades chase and beat him up. Whether Frankie dies or not is left open to the viewer.


-30- (film)

The movie is set between approximately 3 p.m. and just after midnight on a day in November 1959. Managing Editor Sam Gatlin and his staff put together the early edition of the Examiner, a morning newspaper in Los Angeles. During a particularly active news night, Gatlin and his second wife (of three years), Peggy, disagree about adopting a seven-year-old boy named Billy. Peggy can't have children and wants to adopt. Gatlin's young son from his first marriage had been killed several years before, presumably in some sort of accident. Gatlin tells Peggy he can't ever let himself love another child because losing that child, too, would destroy him. Longtime reporter Lady Wilson's grandson pilots a military bomber from Honolulu to New York, intending to set a speed record. A child is lost and feared drowned in the L.A. sewers during this night's torrential rainstorm; Gatlin composes a warning headline with a two-page-wide picture of a storm drain: "DANGER, KIDS! STAY OUT OF THESE! One little girl didn't!". Copy boy Earl Collins considers quitting after failing to place a $1 bet for city editor Jim Bathgate concerning how many babies a famous Italian actress would give birth to that day. It ends up being twins, at 50-1 odds. Bathgate demands and gets an IOU from the woefully underpaid Collins to cover the $50 Bathgate would have won, but Bathgate tears it up, smiling to himself, on his way out of the newsroom at the end of the film.


The Murder Man

Steve Grey (Spencer Tracy) is a hotshot New York newspaper reporter specializing in murder. When a crooked businessman named Halford is murdered, Steve pins the blame on the dead man's associate, Henry Mander (Harvey Stephens), theorizing that Halford was killed by a rifle from a shooting gallery across the street.

Mander is arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to death. Steve visits his father, who is depressed because his business has been ruined. The hard-working, hard-drinking Steve is urged by Mary (Virginia Bruce), a gossip columnist who loves him, to take some time off.

Another colleague, Shorty (James Stewart), arrives to tell Steve that their editor wants an exclusive interview with Mander in prison. He goes to Sing Sing to conduct the interview.

Driven by guilt, Steve shocks everyone by confessing to having committed the murder himself, as revenge for Halford and Mander having ruined his father. Steve's last act is to tell his editor that he's got his biggest story ever.


Inferno (Marvel Comics)

Two demons from Limbo, S'ym and N'astirh, plan a demonic invasion of Earth. Their plan revolves around Illyana Rasputin of the New Mutants, as her mutant power allows her to open passages between Limbo and Earth. During one of the New Mutants' routine stopovers in Limbo, N'astirh casts a spell blocking Illyana's teleportation power, thus trapping the New Mutants in Limbo with S'ym, who has taken control of Limbo's hordes and is eager to kill the New Mutants in order to solidify his claim to Limbo. Illyana assumes that the entrapment spell was cast by S'ym, and so sees no reason to distrust N'astirh when he advises her that she can return to Earth by embracing her demonic power. She does so and opens a gateway to Manhattan. N'astirh had kidnapped Wiz Kid of the X-Terminators and coerced him into building a spell-casting computer; once Illyana opened the gateway, he uses this computer to cast a spell holding it open.

The city of Manhattan falls under siege, and the Avengers, Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Power Pack, and Spider-Man fend off numerous demons, as well as Hobgoblin, now possessed by a demon, and the mutant-hating Bogeyman, transformed into a monster by N'astirh. Inanimate objects become demonically possessed and begin attacking and devouring people. As shown in ''Daredevil'' and ''X-Men'', most residents of Manhattan treat the demonic invasion as a part of normal life in the city. Buses still run, under an all-volunteer force since the drivers had either been eaten or transformed into demons themselves. Subways function, and people ride them willingly, even though some only go into Hell. Stores still sell products. Helicopter tours run. Originally, Spider-Man thinks that the events are illusions caused by Mysterio, however this is proven false when Mysterio is arrested and the strangeness continues

Meanwhile, N'astirh had made a bargain with Madelyne Pryor, agreeing to locate her son Nathan and manipulate the X-Men into killing the Marauders in exchange for her casting a spell that would make a permanent bridge between Earth and Limbo. To keep his end, N'astirh alters the X-Men's computer systems so that they can use them to locate the Marauders. Driven to bloodthirstiness by N'astirh's Inferno spell, the X-Men attack the Marauders' headquarters, gleefully killing most of them in the ensuing battle. Colossus remains unaffected by this spell, due to the protection of his organic steel armor. However, when he learns what happened to his sister Illyana, he concludes that he can only free his fellow X-Men from Inferno's influence by saving her. In fulfillment of his other half of the bargain, N'astirh liberates Nathan from Mister Sinister's laboratory, where Madelyne learns that she is in fact a clone of Jean Grey created by Sinister.

With their plan fulfilled, N'astirh and S'ym begin fighting each other for leadership of Limbo's hordes (and by extension, rule of both Limbo and Earth). With S'ym gaining the upper hand, N'astirh makes a desperate bid for victory by letting himself be infected with the Transmode Virus. He then merges with Wiz Kid's spell-casting computer, increasing his magical powers exponentially and thus allowing him to make a permanent bridge between Limbo and Earth without Madelyne Pryor's help. However, Wiz Kid destroys the computer before N'astirh can make use of this power. The explosion reduces N'astirh to ashes, but he is immediately reconstituted by the Transmode Virus.

Finding Illyana, Colossus is horrified to see that she has so completely given in to her demonic side that she is totally covered by her eldritch armor and has demonic horns, legs, and a tail. Ashamed at her brother's reaction, she flees into Limbo and decides to end the demonic invasion by assuming rule of Limbo. However, her teammate Rahne Sinclair persuades her against this, and she instead gives up her demonic powers by creating a massive stepping disc that banishes most of the demons back to Limbo, including S'ym, then throwing her Soulsword in after them to seal the portal shut. Afterward, the New Mutants find a seven-year-old Illyana inside the husk of her eldritch armor.

However, while Illyana's actions banished all demons native to Limbo except for N'astirh, people and objects who had been demonically possessed remain uncured. N'astirh is destroyed by the combined efforts of the X-Men and X-Factor, but Madelyne Pryor maintains the Inferno spell and threatens to kill her son Nathan as a demonic sacrifice to open the gate between Earth and Limbo. She forcibly links herself to Jean Grey's mind and shows her Madelyne's entire life, including what she learned in Mister Sinister's laboratory. Meanwhile, the X-Men and X-Factor break through her defenses and rescue Nathan. In a fatal bid for revenge, Madelyne wills herself to die, attempting to take Jean with her. However, as Madelyne dies, the fragment of the Phoenix Force that first gave her life emerges and bids Jean to use its power to save herself. Jean does so, thus breaking Madelyne's mental hold on her. New York returns to normal.

However, due to their mind link, part of Madelyne's personality was transferred to Jean, and she becomes determined to get revenge on Mister Sinister, now seeing him as responsible for all her sufferings. The X-Men and X-Factor learn that he took over Professor Xavier's School while its headmaster, Magneto, was occupied with the demonic invasion. Aware of their coming, Mister Sinister waits until they are inside the school and then sets off explosives that demolish the building. However, none of the X-Men or X-Factor are killed or injured by the explosion, and some are not even rendered unconscious. Cyclops blasts Sinister to a smolder after Sinister reveals his plans on relocating his orphanage and arranged marriage to Madelyne.

Despite all of the destruction and death, many human ''Inferno'' survivors are convinced it was all a shared hallucination.


Beetle in the Anthill

''Beetle in the Anthill'' is the sequel to ''Prisoners of Power'', but its plot is almost independent.

The novel is set in 2178 AD (approximately 20 years after the events of ''Prisoners of Power'') and follows the story of the main character of the first novel, Maxim Kammerer. Kammerer, now an experienced investigator of COMCON-2, receives an order to track down a man named Lev Abalkin, who was not supposed to return to Earth but has returned nevertheless. The order was issued in secret by Rudolf Sikorski (called "Excellency" throughout the book), the chief of COMCON-2.

Studying the materials on Abalkin that Sikorski provided him with, Kammerer discovers that prior to his arrival on Earth, Abalkin was a progressor on Saraksh, working as an undercover agent in the power structures of the Island Empire. Among other materials, he finds a sheet of paper with a strange symbol resembling the Cyrillic letter '''Ж''' or Japanese character '''卅''' (''san juu'') which only adds to his confusion.

Kammerer's search leads him to several of Abalkin's friends and associates, including Maya Glumova who is a historian working in the ''Museum of Extraterrestrial Cultures'' (MEC) and Shokn the Golovan who worked closely with Abalkin in projects on Saraksh and Hope. Each of these has had recent contact with Abalkin, and report that he had been behaving strangely.

Kammerer also begins to perceive a connection between Abalkin and progressor Kornei Yashmaa. Both men were born on the same day from mysteriously deceased parents.

Late at night, Sikorski orders Kammerer to meet him at the MEC in order to ambush Abalkin. However, the one who comes to the Museum tonight is not Lev Abalkin but rather Isaac Bromberg, Sikorski's fiercest opponent in his policy about knowledge and its classification. Kammerer witnesses a long verbal argument, in which many of the details of the Abalkin case are revealed.

Apparently, Abalkin has called Bromberg via videophone and talked to him about the "detonators", an artifact stored in the closed section of the MEC where Sikorski and Kammerer had laid their trap. Reluctantly, Sikorski agreed to tell Maxim about the "foundlings": Abalkin (as well as Kornei Yashmaa) was a "foundling", one of thirteen humans born from embryos stored in the "sarcophagus" left by the Wanderers and discovered by Earthlings on an unnamed planet. The "detonators" were thirteen small discs each carrying a strange symbol identical to a birthmark that each of the "foundlings" had on his/her elbow. Abalkin's symbol was the one resembling the Cyrillic letter "Ж".

Upon returning to his COMCON-2 office with Maxim, Sikorski admits that he always believed that all "foundlings" carried a program deep in their subconsciousness that was potentially dangerous for Earth. It was because of this that all of them received an education that implied that they work as far from Earth as possible. Sikorski believes that Abalkin's surprise return to Earth indicates that the program has activated and he has become a dangerous agent of the Wanderers.

Kammerer does not believe that Abalkin poses a threat, but suggests that this is a psychological test engineered by the Wanderers. Kammerer likens the situation to when a human might put a "beetle in an anthill" simply to watch the alarmed reaction of the ants. Sikorski, however, is afraid that the situation may turn out to be "weasel in a henhouse" instead, so he cannot neglect the potential danger to Earth.

Eventually Abalkin comes to Sikorski and Kammerer voluntarily, and finds the truth about his origins. He demands to be left alone, but Sikorski orders Kammerer to follow him. Sikorski himself sets off for the MEC. Kammerer, guessing what is to come, tries to convince Abalkin to leave Earth for his own safety, but to no effect. Abalkin enters the Museum of Extraterrestrial Cultures, and is shot three times by Sikorski and dies on the floor millimeters from his "detonator".


A Case of Need

Dr. John Berry, the protagonist, is a pathologist working in Boston during the 1960s, a time when abortion was illegal in the United States. The story opens with an introduction of the various requirements and challenges of the medical profession during the era. Subsequently, Dr. Berry is notified that his friend, an obstetrician named Arthur Lee, has been arrested and accused of performing an illegal abortion that led to the death of Karen Randall, a member of a prominent Boston medical dynasty. Berry does not believe the allegations, but the situation is further complicated by the fact that Lee is already well-known within the medical community as an abortion provider and that Berry has in the past helped Lee disguise medical samples to hide the fact that Lee's dilation and curettage patients were pregnant.

After visiting his friend in jail, Berry sets out to prove Lee's innocence. He investigates the personal life of the dead woman, creating an accurate portrait of her past, psychology, and character. During his search, which lasts several days, vandals attack Lee's home. The protagonist's knowledge of medicine and law are helpful in overcoming various barriers in his search, including a hostile police captain and bribes from the scion of the Randall family itself: Karen's father, a well-established (though mediocre) doctor.

Eventually, with the aid of an unscrupulous lawyer named Wilson, Berry is able to obtain solid evidence showing Karen Randall's uncle (who had already performed three previous abortions for her) to be the culprit. Nonetheless, Berry is troubled by this conclusion and continues his investigation despite Wilson's displeasure. Eventually, he discovers that Karen's drug-dealing friends, Roman and Angela, performed the botched abortion, but Berry is attacked and sent to the hospital before he can reveal his discovery. Subsequently, Berry's attacker, who turns out to be Karen's African-American boyfriend, is also brought in an ambulance, dead after a fatal fall. The actual abortion care provider attempts to commit suicide. Berry forces her to confess in the hospital by threatening her with what she believes is an excruciatingly painful dose of Nalorphine (but is actually water).

Berry continues to be suspicious about Karen's boyfriend's death, and ultimately forces one of his old friends and colleagues (the uncle of the woman who did Karen's abortion) to admit to his involvement before turning him in to the police. However, despite being proven innocent, Lee's reputation has been ruined, and he decides to move to California. The novel ends with several appendices describing some lesser-known aspects of the medical profession and a postscript discussing current problems in medicine, including abortion.


I'm Not Rappaport

Inspired by two elderly men Gardner met in New York City's Central Park, the play focuses on Nat Moyer, a feisty Jew, and Midge Carter, a cantankerous African-American, who spend their days sitting on a bench. They both mask the realities of aging, sharing tall tales that Nat spins. The play touches on several issues, including society's treatment of the aging, the difficulties dealing with adult children who think they know what's best for their parents, and the dangers that lurk in urban areas.

Its title comes from an old vaudeville joke, a variation of which evolved into dialogue between the two protagonists:

*Nat: Hey, Rappaport! I haven't seen you in ages. How have you been? *Midge: I'm not Rappaport. *Nat: Rappaport, what happened to you? You used to be a short fat guy, and now you're a tall skinny guy. *Midge: I'm not Rappaport. *Nat: Rappaport, you used to be a young guy with a beard, and now you're an old guy with a mustache. *Midge: I'm not Rappaport. *Nat: Rappaport, how has this happened? You used to be a cowardly little white guy, and now you're a big imposing black guy. *Midge: I'm not Rappaport. *Nat: And you changed your name, too!

The Old Dark House (1932 film)

Philip Waverton, his wife Margaret and their friend Roger Penderel are lost while driving at night in a heavy storm. They come upon an old house in the Welsh countryside where they receive shelter by Horace Femm and his sister Rebecca. Horace fears that the storm will trap the guests inside. He also warns them that their mute butler Morgan is a dangerous, heavy drinker. As Rebecca escorts Margaret to a bedroom to change clothes, she tells her about the Femm family, which Rebecca says was sinful and godless. She accuses Margaret of being sinful as well. Rebecca reveals that her 102-year-old father, Sir Roderick Femm, still lives in the house.

During dinner, the group are joined by Sir William Porterhouse and a chorus girl with the stage name Gladys DuCane, who also seek refuge from the storm. As the group chats by the fireplace, Gladys reveals her real last name is Perkins. Roger and Gladys go to retrieve some whiskey from his car. The electric lights go out and Rebecca tells Horace to get a lamp from an upstairs landing. Horace is afraid to go upstairs, so Philip goes instead. As he fetches the lamp, he notices a locked room and hears a voice coming from another room. William goes to help Rebecca close a window, leaving Margaret alone. Morgan, now drunk, attacks her and chases her up the stairs to Philip, who is coming down with the lamp. Philip throws the lamp at Morgan, knocking him down the stairs.

Roger and Gladys begin flirting while they drink and smoke. Gladys says her relationship with William is platonic, and suggests she should live with Roger instead. They go back to the house, where they wake up William and tell him about their new romance. Meanwhile, Philip and Margaret go into the room where he heard the voice; they find Roderick Femm there. He warns them about his eldest son, Saul, a crazed pyromaniac kept in the locked room. Philip and Margaret discover that Morgan has let Saul out; they go downstairs to warn the other guests. Morgan comes downstairs and charges at Margaret. Philip and William drag Morgan into the kitchen while Rebecca flees to her bedroom. Roger tells Margaret and Gladys to hide in a closet. Saul comes downstairs and knocks Roger out. Saul steals a burning branch from the fireplace and sets fire to a curtain before Roger awakes. They fight and fall off a landing; Saul is killed and Roger injured. Morgan breaks out of the kitchen and returns to the main room. He frees Margaret and Gladys from the closet before taking Saul's body upstairs.

By morning, the storm has subsided. Saul's attempt at burning the house has caused little damage. Philip and Margaret leave to get an ambulance, while Gladys and William stay behind to tend to Roger's injuries. Upon awakening, Roger asks Gladys to marry him, and she happily kisses him in response.


The Dark Frigate

The book opens in 17th century London. Philip Marsham, a nineteen-year-old sailor, has just been orphaned when his father's ship was lost at sea. An accident with a gun causes him to flee London, leaving behind the small inheritance left by his father. He decides to journey across England on foot, heading towards Bideford. During his travels, he encounters Sir John Bristol, a local Lord who greatly impresses the young man. He also encounters two men, Tom Jordan and Martin Barwick, who claim to be fellow sailors. Tom, who is more commonly known as the Old One, soon parts company with them; however, Martin becomes Phil's traveling companion. When they reach Bideford, Martin leads the way to the house of Mother Taylor, an old woman who works as the go-between for numerous illegal activities. She informs them that the Old One has already gone ahead on a ship without them, but arranges positions for Martin and Phil on a frigate, known as the ''Rose of Devon''.

Once aboard the frigate, Phil quickly impresses the captain with his skills. When the boatswain is killed in an accident, Phil is promoted to replace him. After a violent storm, the crew of the ''Rose of Devon'' encounters a wrecked ship. While rescuing the survivors, Phil is surprised to see that they are coincidentally led by the Old One. Although the Old One and his followers initially put on a mask of friendliness, they soon reveal their true nature as pirates, killing the Rose's captain and seizing control of the ship. Tempted by the promise of vast riches, the majority of the Rose's former crew willingly join the Old One. Only Phil and Will Canty, a fellow sailor of the same age, show reluctance to become pirates. Having taken an immediate liking to Phil, the Old One allows him to keep his position as boatswain, hoping to convince him to join them willingly.

The newly formed band of pirates attempt several raids against other ships, but none of them go well, and they end up gaining very little. During an attempted attack against a small island town, Will Canty takes the opportunity to escape in attempt to find help. Unfortunately, he is soon recaptured by the pirates, who later torture and kill him. Seeing his friend murdered is the last straw for Phil, who shortly afterwards attempts his own escape. Fleeing to a nearby island, he sees another ship anchored nearby. When he swims out to it to investigate, he discovers that it is a British warship, but is captured by its crew. He manages to convince them of the nearby pirate ship, and thus forewarned, they are easily able to defeat the Old One and his crew, and capture the ''Rose of Devon''. Unfortunately, the British captain is unconvinced of Phil's innocence, believing instead that he was a pirate spy who, once captured, sold out his friends in an attempt to gain his freedom. Phil is arrested with the rest of the pirate crew and taken back to England for trial.

During the trial, it seems certain that the entire crew, including Phil, will be found guilty and hanged. When he is called to the stand to defend himself, Phil insists again that he was an unwilling participant in the pirates' activities. However, when he is asked to testify against the rest of the ''Rose'''s crew, he refuses on the grounds that even if it was forced upon him, they were still his companions. Impressed by Phil's courage and honor, the Old One testifies on his behalf, declaring to the court that Phil is indeed innocent of the charges against him. At the conclusion of the trial, Phil alone is acquitted. The pirate crew is executed shortly after, with only the Old One retaining his bold face until the end.

After regaining his freedom, Phil journeys back to the lands of Sir John Bristol, and asks the lord to be let into his service. Phil becomes one of Sir John's closest companions for several years, and serves under him during the English Civil War on the side of the Royalists. Although Phil rises through the ranks during the war, the forces of Oliver Cromwell eventually emerge victorious, and Sir John is killed in battle. Growing weary of England, Phil decides to leave the country, and once again travels to the docks at Bideford. He is shocked to find the ''Rose of Devon'' among the ships there, and, after speaking with her new captain, books passage to Barbados.


Hitty, Her First Hundred Years

The narrative unfolds through the eyes of a tiny wooden doll named Mehitabel (Hittie), who was carved early in the nineteenth century from the magical wood of the Mountain Ash tree by a peddler for a little girl, Phoebe Preble, who lives on Great Cranberry Island in Maine, during a winter when her father was away at sea. As the doll narrates her beginning:

The book details Hitty's adventures as she becomes separated from Phoebe and travels from owner to owner over the course of a century. She ends up living in locations as far-flung as Boston, New Orleans, India, and the South Pacific. At various times, she is lost at sea, hidden in a horsehair sofa, abandoned in a hayloft, part of a snake-charmer's act, and picked up by the famous writer Charles Dickens, before arriving at her new owner's summer home in Maine, which turns out to be the original Preble residence where she first lived. From there she is purchased at auction for a New York antique shop, where she sits among larger and grander dolls of porcelain and wax, and writes her memoirs.

The story was inspired by a doll purchased by Field. The doll currently resides at the Stockbridge Library Association in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.


Tom and Jerry: The Magic Ring

Inside a haunted and creepy mansion, Tom chases Jerry while breaking things in the process. Meanwhile in the basement, Tom's owner (a wizard named Chip) attempts to make a potion using his magic ring, but uses the wrong kind of milk for the concoction. Chip throws Tom into the basement and orders him to guard the ring while he travels to Calcutta to get the correct milk. If Tom does a good job, he'll be rewarded with a juicy salmon but if not he will be thrown out on the street. Unknown to Tom, Jerry finds the ring while climbing the table and puts it on his head, wearing it like a crown. Jerry runs out of the mansion and Tom follows, attempting to find him so he can get the ring back.

Jerry tries to get the ring removed by going to a jewelry store. However, the owner has left for lunch and Tom sneaks in and disguises himself as the owner and helps Jerry get the ring off, but to no avail. Afterwards, Jerry goes into a house and runs into Butch and Droopy (who is a psychic). Butch attempts to get the ring of Jerry's head, but also fails. Tom comes in and Jerry runs out with Butch chasing after him as well. They end up in an alley where an alley cat is taking a nap. He wakes up and tries to eat Jerry, but Tom rescues him by using the magic powers of the ring. Butch arrives and finally gets the ring off Jerry's head. Tom and the alley cat then chase Butch and the ring gets stuck back on Jerry again. When Tom is running away from Butch and the alley cat, he slips on a banana peel and ends up unconscious outside a pet store.

A kind old lady comes out and takes them both inside the store which is filled with animals from all over the world. She puts them in two cages, however Tom is paired with Spike and his son Tyke, while Jerry is left with two mice named Freddie and Joey, who bully a younger mouse named Nibbles. Jerry uses the ring to stop the mouse bullies from hurting Nibbles, by turning them into chunks of cheese. When the cheese mice escape the cage, Jerry uses the ring to make Nibbles grow into a giant mouse who breaks free and chases the cheese mice from the store. A boy comes and buys Jerry, but the ring produces magic, melting Tom and allowing him to escape his cage. Tom sneaks outside and snatches Jerry from the boy's hand, whose Mother tells a police officer. The alley cat and Butch, together with Spike and Tyke, also chase Tom, who escapes with Jerry by riding a bus driven by Droopy. Eventually the duo end up cornered in a garbage dump, where Jerry uses the magic ring to freeze the dogs, alley cat and police cars. Now safe, Tom and Jerry head back to the mansion where Tom once again tries to get the ring off. Jerry hides in a kitchen cupboard and uses furniture ring remover to get the ring off before throwing it down into the basement. Tom retrieves the ring, but to his horror it gets stuck on his finger.

Hearing Chip returning home, Tom tries to get the ring off. Thinking that Tom stole his ring, Chip kicks him out of the mansion, causing the ring to fall off Tom's finger. This unfreezes the various cats, dogs and police from earlier, who all chase Tom into the sunset.

At the conclusion, Jerry receives the salmon reward from Chip which he turns into cheese using the ring.


30 Days of Night

Vampires flock to Barrow, Alaska, where the sun sets for about 30 days, allowing them to feed without the burden of sleep to avoid lethal sunlight. When the vampire elder Vicente learns of this plan, he travels to Barrow to end the feeding, to preserve the secrecy of vampires. Because of the cold, the vampires' senses are weakened and a few of the town's residents are able to hide. One such resident is Sheriff Eben Olemaun, who saves the town by injecting vampire blood into his veins. He uses his enhanced strength to fight Vicente, saving the lives of the few remaining townspeople, including his wife Stella. Suffering the same weakness as all vampires, Eben allows himself to die and turns to ash when the sun rises.


Arabesque (1966 film)

In an undercover mission, Major Sloane (John Merivale) kills Professor Ragheeb (George Coulouris), an ancient hieroglyphics expert at Oxford University and steals a hieroglyph-encrypted message. Sloane then asks Professor David Pollock (Gregory Peck), who has taken over Ragheeb's class on Hieroglyphics, to meet with shipping magnate Nejim Beshraavi (Alan Badel) on a business matter. David declines but changes his mind after being forced to enter a Rolls-Royce Phantom IV, where he meets Middle Eastern Prime Minister Hassan Jena (Carl Duering) and his Ambassador to Great Britain, Mohammed Lufti (Harold Kasket). Jena asks David to accept Beshraavi's offer of employment.

David meets Beshraavi, who asks him to decode the inscription on the piece of paper Sloane stole. David is attracted to Beshraavi's girlfriend Yasmin Azir (Sophia Loren), who tells him that Beshraavi had Ragheeb killed and will do the same to him once he decodes the message. Their conversation is interrupted by Beshraavi. David keeps hidden until Sloane brings it to Beshraavi's attention that David and the cipher are missing. Overhearing the conversation, David wraps the cipher in a candy in his pocket, among others, a red one with the number "9". As Beshraavi's men search for David, Beshraavi demonstrates to one of Yasmin's employees, Hemsley (Jimmy Gardner), that he can buy people for their loyalty or else exact extreme revenge. Forced to show himself, David seemingly abducts Yasmin. They flee from one of Beshraavi's henchmen, Mustapha (Larry Taylor). In the course of the chase, Mustapha and David struggle at the zoological gardens, when another man intervenes and kills Mustapha. He identifies himself as Inspector Webster (Duncan Lamont) with CID. When a guard approaches, Webster kills him before revealing that he is working with Yasmin. Webster knocks David unconscious.

David awakes in a moving panel van in the presence of Webster, Yasmin and another of Yasmin's boyfriends, Yussef Kassim (Kieron Moore), who is looking for the cipher. David, seeing the bag of candies on a shelf in the van, tells Yussef that Beshraavi has the cipher. They use truth serum on David, after which he talks what they believe is gibberish about the number "9". Believing that he was telling the truth about Beshraavi, Yussef tells Yasmin to work on Beshraavi while they throw David out of the vehicle.

The next morning, Yasmin arrives home and tells Beshraavi that Yussef, for whom the cipher was originally intended, killed David and Mustapha but does not yet know the coded message. While Yasmin believes Beshraavi has the cipher, Beshraavi states that David must still have it. Later, Yasmin bursts into David's apartment as he finishes a phone conversation with Jena. She convinces him that she hates Yussef and pretends to help him because his boss, a General Ali orchestrating a military takeover, has her mother and sisters hostage. She tells him he needs to crack the cipher so she can report back to the embassy, which will ensure their safety.

David and Yasmin go to the construction site Yussef uses as his front. They spot the van but Webster takes the candies to eat. Following him, David and Yasmin watch him discover the cipher and telephone someone from a phone booth; they learn that person is Beshraavi, with whom Webster is entering into a double cross against Yussef. Beshraavi and Webster are to meet at the Ascot racetrack.

At Ascot on race day, Yasmin is with Beshraavi, while David searches for Webster. David and Yasmin make plans to meet at 9:00 p.m. that evening at Trafalgar Square, after David gets the cipher from Webster. At the track, David spots Webster rendezvousing with Sloane, who hands over an envelope of money. David knocks the cipher out of Webster's hand and the envelope floats into the track with the horses approaching. As David and Webster struggle, Sloane attempts to stab David but accidentally kills Webster. David runs onto the track and retrieves the cipher just before the horses gallop by.

David makes copies of the cipher, mailing the original to himself for safekeeping. At a news stand he then notices newspaper headlines which implicate him as Webster's killer. David believes that Mrs. Ragheeb (Malya Nappi) may know something important about the cipher. He visits her at home and shows it to her, also giving her the news that her husband has been killed (she was living secluded and had not heard). Mrs. Ragheeb examines the cipher and tears it up in frustration, implying that she knew that Ragheeb was working on something dangerous. David also tells her that he is working with Yasmin, whose mother and sisters are in danger at the hands of General Ali. Mrs. Ragheeb replies that Yasmin is lying, in that she has no mother or sisters, only a father who happens to be General Ali.

That night, David hops into Yasmin's car and they drive off. Angry at Yasmin's deceit, David lies, telling her that he does not have the cipher with him but has decoded the message and makes up a nonsense meaning to tell her. She relays that information to the embassy via telephone regardless. David and Yasmin arrange to meet later at the hotel where he is staying. After she drops him off, David flags down a taxi and follows her to Yussef's construction site. David sees Yussef operating a wrecking ball, swinging it repeatedly attempting to kill Yasmin. David rushes to save her and Yussef is electrocuted to death by a live wire.

David determines that the hieroglyphics are simply a version of the nursery rhyme "Goosey Goosey Gander". He then looks for secret writing on it, such as invisible ink and getting it wet the ink washes away, leaving a speck which he determines is a microdot. At a scientific store they examine the dot under a microscope and it reads "Beshraavi plans assassinate Jena twelve thirty June eighteenth" which is in 20 minutes. They don't know where to go, until Yasmin sees on a newscast that Jena has just landed at the airport. David and Yasmin make it to the airport a few minutes before 12:30, where David shoves past security guards to Jena, who is beginning a welcoming speech. David knocks Jena to the ground just as bullets from Sloane's machine gun land where Jena was just standing. Lufti then shoots Jena dead with a pistol. Yasmin whisks David off and convinces him that the man who was just shot is only an imposter of Jena.

They discover that the real Jena was abducted by Beshraavi and locked in a trunk in the back of a truck. David and Yasmin hide in the truck and free Jena just as the van arrives at Beshraavi's country estate. David, Yasmin and Jena quickly escape on horses from his stables, being pursued through crop fields by a farm combine with sharp blades. Beshraavi and Sloane also pursue them in a helicopter. As they cross the disused Crumlin steel-girder railway viaduct, David drops a wooden ladder down into the rotors of the helicopter as it passes underneath, causing it to crash and burn. David and Yasmin end up in romantic bliss, on a punt back at Oxford.


The Pearl of Death

Master criminal Giles Conover (Miles Mander) steals the famous "Borgia Pearl" from the Royal Regent Museum under the very nose of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, but when caught the pearl is not found on him and he is released.

Later, Holmes hears of an apparently motiveless murder. An elderly colonel is found with his back broken amid a pile of smashed china. Holmes takes an immediate interest in the case as the unusual method of killing is that of "The Hoxton Creeper" (Rondo Hatton), known to be Conover's right-hand man.

Another murder occurs, of a little old lady, also surrounded by smashed china. Conover makes two attempts to kill Holmes, who surmises that Conover is desperately trying to recover the stolen pearl.

After a third killing Holmes finds the common feature of each: a bust of Napoleon. Conover, when being pursued by the police, had fled through the workshop where they were being made, and hid the pearl inside one of six identical busts.

Holmes tracks down the vendor of the busts and finds out that one is still unaccounted for, as does Conover's accomplice Naomi. Conover and The Creeper arrive at the house of the owner of the final bust, only to find that Holmes has taken his place. Overpowered, Holmes convinces The Creeper that Conover will double-cross him, and the Creeper turns on Conover and kills him, after which Holmes kills the Creeper, before the police finally arrive. Holmes smashes the final bust and recovers the pearl "with the blood of five more victims on it".


The Scarlet Claw

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are in Canada attending a conference on the occult, when Lord Penrose receives a message that his wife Lady Penrose has been murdered in the small village of La Mort Rouge. Holmes and Watson are about to return home when Holmes receives a telegram from Lady Penrose, issued before her death, asking for help as she fears for her life. Holmes decides to investigate her death.

Holmes and Watson arrive at the village and discover that the inhabitants are all convinced that the murder is the work of the legendary monster of La Mort Rouge, which roams the marshes around the village. The "monster" is even later seen by Dr. Watson, who describes it as "the mostly ghastly apparition... like a roaring furnace spitting fire in all directions".

Holmes, however, is skeptical, and recognizes Lady Penrose as Lillian Gentry, a former actress, who was involved in a famous murder case several years before when actor Alistair Ramson killed another actor in a jealous rage over her. Ramson was believed to have been killed in a prison escape two years before, but now Holmes believes that Ramson - a master of disguise - is living in the village, having created a new identity, perhaps several, for himself.

Holmes then turns his attention to Judge Brisson, another inhabitant of the village with a connection to the case, as he passed sentence on Ramson. Despite Holmes' warnings, Brisson is murdered. Holmes tracks Ramson down to his hideout and discovers there is a third person that Ramson is preparing to kill. While Ramson is holding Holmes at gunpoint, Watson blunders in and Ramson escapes, albeit before Holmes can learn who Ramson's final target is.

Holmes learns that the third victim is to be Journet, the local inn-keeper, formerly a prison guard. However Journet has gone into hiding. Ramson then kills Marie, Journet's daughter, for not revealing her father's hideout. Holmes finds Journet and convinces him to spring a trap for the murderer.

Holmes and Watson announce that they are returning to Britain, and Journet comes out of hiding and lets it be known that he will be going to a church across the marsh to offer a prayer for Marie. Ramson attacks Journet out in the marsh, only to find that it is Holmes in disguise. The two men struggle, but Ramson escapes only to be killed by Journet with the murderer’s own weapon, a five-pronged garden weeder.


Caged Heat

Jacqueline Wilson (Erica Gavin) is convicted for illegal drug offenses and sentenced to a women's prison. She and several fellow convicts fight the repressive policies of the prison warden (Barbara Steele).


MediEvil: Resurrection

In the year 1286, an evil sorcerer named Zarok plotted to take over the kingdom of Gallowmere with his undead army. It is told in legend that the King of Gallowmere's champion, Sir Daniel Fortesque, led his army to victory and managed to kill Zarok before succumbing to his mortal wounds. In reality, Dan was in fact struck down by the first arrow fired in the battle, with the king choosing to cover it up and declare Dan the "Hero of Gallowmere". Zarok, meanwhile, was forced into hiding and was presumed dead. 100 years later, in 1386, Zarok reappears, casting a spell over Gallowmere to awake his undead army and steal the souls of the living. However, in the process, he unwittingly revives the corpse of Dan, who has over time become a skeletal corpse, missing his jaw and the eye he lost in the battle of Gallowmere. Shortly after waking up, Dan is accompanied by Al-Zalam, a genie whose powers were robbed by Zarok. Having been unable to ascend to the Hall of Heroes due to his failures in life, Dan uses this opportunity to defeat Zarok, save Gallowmere and earn his place as a true hero.

Dan journeys throughout the graveyard, mausoleum, harvest fields, forest, village, fair grounds, asylum, dockyards, marshland battlefields, Dragon Island and Peregrine Castle. Meeting Death himself, he advises Dan to find the four pieces of the Anubis Stone, a powerful necromancy artifact used by Zarok in his initial invasion, split into four pieces across the land. Dan retrieves the first piece from the tomb of an old chieftain, facing a Stained Glass Demon and the Graveyard Guardians (a pair of haunted wolf statues). Dan gets the second piece from the pumpkin witch after defeating her rogue magical pumpkin king. Looking for the second piece, Dan rescues the village mayor from an asylum's worth of monsters, as well as the particularly maddened "Mr. Axey"; the mayor tells him that the piece was hidden in the forest, where it is placed in the hold of the shadow demons; Dan retrieves the Demon Claw artifact before Zarok can find it and unleash the shadow demons within. In the forest, he collects mold for the forest witch for directions to the third piece, facing a pair of demonettes before locating the piece in the holding place of shadow demons, though Dan must defeat them when his retrieval of the Claw results in them being freed. In the marshlands of the battle against Zarok, Dan aids Death in repairing his robotic assistant and frees his boat as well. Death agrees to ferry him to Peregrine Castle, but the castle is blocked off by volcanic rivers. At Al-Zalam's suggestion, Dan disguises himself as a pirate to obtain a ship to journey to Dragon Island to retrieve a fireproof set of armor made of dragon scales. At the island, Dan defeats the Dragon guarding it, and Death ferrys him to Peregrine Castle. Dan recovers the final piece from the castle, where the ghost of the king tasks him with unleashing hidden floodgates connected to a dormant volcano beneath to destroy Zarok's forces. Dan makes his way onto the Ghost Ship, where he defeats the skeletal Ghost Pirate Captain before taking the ship to Zarok's lair.

Finally, after fighting his way through Zarok's hordes and confronting all manners of beasts, Dan soon arrives at Zarok's lair, fighting off Zarok's skeletal Fazgul warriors using the souls of his old allies retrieved by collecting the Chalices alongside the Anubis Stone. After also managing to defeat Zarok's champion and Dan's killer, Lord Kardok, Zarok turns into a powerful, monstrous serpent, but Dan manages to defeat him. As Zarok uses his magic to destroy his lair in an effort to kill Dan (getting himself killed in the process), Dan is rescued by Al-Zalam and the two escape, leaving Zarok's magical influence over the land thwarted. With the magic cast on him also wearing off as a result, Dan returns to his burial chamber where he once again enters eternal slumber and ascends to the Hall of Heroes, where he is hailed as the rightful Hero of Gallowmere and his hero statue is restored for redeeming himself.


OverBlood

''Overblood'' takes place at Lystra Laboratories' hidden research center where a team of scientists have been conducting controversial genetic experiments. The game begins when a system malfunction releases the player character, Raz Karcy (Lars in European releasesLoe, Casey sub nom. Takuhi. ''OverBlood''. GameFan. No.47 (Vol.4, Issue 11). Pp.140-141. November 1996.), from a cryogenic container. Cold and confused, he awakens with no memory. Concerns about his identity are soon replaced by an urgent need to escape, as he reveals the scientists' fateful plan and his role in it.


Chase the Express

In Eastern Europe, a terrorist group known as the "Knights of the Apocalypse," led by ex-KGB agent Boris Zugoski, successfully breach and board the NATO armored train, Blue Harvest, on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. Among those on board is the French Ambassador, Pierre Simon, his wife Catherine, and daughter, Jane. Zugoski demands 20 billion US dollars and safe passage into France in exchange for the lives of the Simon family. The presence of a nuclear bomb on board the train also presents a great risk. A NATO team is killed in the initial attack, leaving Lieutenant Jack Morton as the sole survivor, dangling for his life on the side of the train. After pulling himself back up, he makes contact with the UN International Counterterrorist Organization, who brief him on the situation, inform him they've dispatched a rescue team and order him to safeguard the Simon family until they arrive.

Soon after making his way back into the train, Jack finds the ambassador and his secretary, Philip Mason, in the VIP lounge of Car 10. Jack is then given the task of rescuing the French Ambassador's wife and daughter. Along the way he encounters Christina Wayborn, one of the ambassador's Special Police. After finding the ambassador's family and clearing Car 14, Jack calls in a rescue team who save the ambassador's wife and daughter. However, the ambassador has gone missing. Jack returns to the VIP lounge to find out that the French Ambassador has been taken away, and Mason was knocked out in the struggle.

Shortly after, the United Nations inform Jack that the terrorists intend to launch missiles against neighboring countries in retaliation for rescuing the ambassador's family. Jack blows up one of the missiles after meeting Sergeant Billy MacGuire, a grievously wounded soldier. Afterwards, he makes his way to the control room and stops the launch procedure. He then uses the AA gun on the train to shoot down enemy helicopters guarding it from another rescue crew.

After this, Boris contacts the UN and makes the same demand in exchange for the French Ambassador. The council abort the rescue mission and Jack reconvenes with Christina and Mason in Car 9.

The events of the game here change depending on the scenario the player is doing. If on Scenario S, Jack fights an enemy boss using a crossbow and takes the crossbow. If not Scenario S, a freight train pulls alongside the Blue Harvest and Jack jumps onto it to fight the boss. After defeating the boss, Morton is then given a limited time to return to the Blue Harvest to avoid death.

Jack makes his way to Car 5 and finds an IC Chip. If playing on Scenario S, Jack is gassed and taken to a church, leaving a player-controlled Christina to rescue him and return to the train.

Jack heads to Car 6 after hearing a gunshot over the radio, and after rescuing Christina he is given a message by Boris to meet at Car 12. Jack directs Christina to Car 4 to search for the ambassador while he heads to Car 12. When Jack reaches Car 12, Boris demands Jack hand over the IC Chip and the ambassador. Jack is confused and states that the terrorists are holding the ambassador hostage. Boris will then shoot Billy (if he has survived his blood transfusion) and fight Jack. After Boris is defeated, whether or not Billy has survived the gunshot depends on if the player gave him his bulletproof vest.

Jack returns to Car 4, only to learn that Mason was revealed to be a double agent sent to steal a data disk and the IC Chip from the Blue Harvest. After Jack hands Mason the IC Chip in exchange for a captured Christina, the ambassador reveals himself and leads Jack to the VIP lounge, where the data disc is kept. Jack takes the data disk. Morton heads to Car 15, where he can optionally give Mason the real data disk, or a fake data disk in return for Christina. Mason then reveals what is on the disk: a blueprint for a hydrogen engine that could provide the world with almost limitless power, the same technology which the Blue Harvest's engine is based on. After triggering a small bomb in Car 15, he escapes in a helicopter and leaves Jack and Christina to escape the car on their own, rejoining the ambassador and Billy.

Upon regrouping, it is revealed that there are 6 nuclear warheads wired into the Blue Harvest's engine. Morton is given the task of defusing these warheads before the train reaches a nearby tunnel, or the NATO council will remotely detonate the train to prevent it reaching Paris. After Jack successfully defuses the warheads, Christina warns him that the train itself will be used as a nuclear missile, with the detonation device at the front of the train.

Jack detaches the front car of the train from the rest and makes his way onto the front as the train enters a tunnel. After he defuses the bomb (if he gave Mason the fake information disc) Mason's helicopter will arrive and attempt to kill Jack.

The endings are affected by many different factor throughout the game. One of these factors is what data disk the player gave Mason in exchange for Christina. Another is whether or not Billy survives the events of the game.


C-12: Final Resistance

The game opens up at a ruined city as a Resistance dropship drops off Lieutenant Riley Vaughan to locate an attacked outpost and a missing recon team. He does this with relative ease, finding the outposts wounded soldiers and the recon team. The recon team gives him a detonator and the outpost soldiers give him some explosives. He uses the explosives to clear away a roadblock however the explosion set something off and he continues along his path. During his mission he is periodically updated by Colonel Grisham and Doctor Carter, before the mission Dr. Carter installed an alien optical implant connected to an imaging unit in Vaughan that has the ability to detect enemies and give information about them.

Riley discovers that the explosion set off an alien tank and has alerted several cyborgs in the area. He proceeds to fight the alien tank and destroys it but Col. Grisham tells him that the resistances hidden bunker has been discovered and that is under alien attack. A dropship comes and liftoffs Vaughan to the bunker. Riley discovers that the bunker is under heavy fire and that evacuation are under way. After fighting his way into the bunker Vaughan gets a radio message that the aliens are tracking down their escaping transports however the only ones that knew the GPS code are both dead: General Hammond and Major Carter. Vaughan activates a radar so that they can track the escaping transports to make sure that they are on the right path. Col. Grisham tells Vaughan that they are going to activate the bunkers self-destruct system but to do that they need General Hammond's nerve implant and tell Vaughan to go retrieve it in the medical bay. Riley discovers that the medical bay is full of droids and cyborgs and fights his way through to the cryo-tubes where the body of General Hammond is. He gets the implant and finds Col. Grisham and Dr. Carter where they scan the implant and activate the self-destruct for T-2 minutes. Vaughan escapes the exploding bunker and finds himself on the streets again. He gets a radio message from Dr. Carter to help any stranded transport or anybody who needs it. Riley battles an alien flier but bests it, he finds a downed transport and helps it reach the second bunker. A little later a flier attacks Vaughan and chases him inside a mall which used to be a resistance stronghold. Inside the auto-defenses activate and lock down the whole mall trapping Vaughan. Riley finds a Resistance technician who tells him how to bypass the malls security and gives him his master keycard. Vaughan bypasses the main computer and the auto defenses thus escapes the mall. He finds Dr. Carter in the basement of an improvised resistance outpost who gives him the key to the automatic crane, she also tells him that there is an alien base which has an alien power-source and that it can greatly help the Resistance. Riley enters the base and eliminates all threats and collects the alien power-source.

The team is ready to liftoff with the power source however the aliens (who appear for the first time) ambush them. The aliens are revealed to be giant creatures who look like critters, they use plasma weapons and personal shields to overcome the human race. One cyborg reveals himself to be Major Dan Carter, Dr. Carter's husband who kidnaps Dr. Carter. Riley kills the aliens but an alien flier escapes with Dr. Carter. Vaughan calls Col. Grisham to tell him that the aliens kidnapped Dr. Carter, Col. Grisham tells him that without Dr. Carter that alien power-source is useless and asks him where was the flier going which Vaughan replies south-west...to the conversion facilities (where captured humans are converted into cyborgs). Col. Grisham tells Riley that they need to get Dr. Carter back urgently in order to get the power-source to work. Vaughan reaches the conversion facilities through an old rail system, he sneaks and fights his way to the Dr. Carter and frees her but is trapped in a room with a not fully constructed alien war droid, Riley destroys it and escapes the facilities.

Back at the bunker, aliens have discovered it with a tracking device on Dr. Carter, and are launching a full assault. Vaughan helps any Resistance member who needs it and finally activates an alien force field so the aliens can't get in and thus stop the attack. Suddenly Vaughan spots a few resistance members trapped outside of the bunker and goes to save them. As he approaches them a group of aliens knocks him unconscious. Col. Grisham calls out a search and rescue party to save Vaughan, but is killed in the process. Riley comes out of his chamber stronger than ever but more a cyborg and less a human. Using Col. Grisham's radio he calls Dr. Carter who tells him that the aliens are planning to release a chemical weapon that will destroy everything on Earth, to stop this Riley must overload the generator in the control room. He does that and a good portion of the base explodes leaving only a small part. Further on he finds the alien leader who spots him and fights him, Vaughan is victorious and as the alien leader is dying he explodes, destroying the whole base. A dropship picks up Vaughan and takes him to safety.


Waterboys (film)

Suzuki is a high-school student who aspires to become a great swimmer; however, he is the only person in the school's swimming team. Soon, a beautiful new swimming teacher starts work at the high school. Dozens of boys decide to join the swimming team, but when they realize that she teaches synchronized swimming (which is generally a women's sport), all but Suzuki and four other boys drop out. The teacher soon takes maternity leave, and for some time the team is on hiatus. However, when Suzuki watches a dolphin show he decides to ask the dolphin trainer to be their coach.

The dolphin trainer exploits them as free labour and has no intention of training them, and in an attempt to ditch them, leaves all his cash with them to have to practice "rhythm" using ''Dance Dance Revolution''. When he runs out of gas, he returns to get some money and discovers that they are totally synchronized and doing well with the game. He takes them back and they continue to train. Later, while training in the sea, a tourist with a video camera films them, thinking that they are drowning, and the boys appear on TV. Seeing this, the boys who had quit rejoin, and are taught synchronized swimming by the five boys.

Before the festival, the pool is drained when the water is used to fight a fire that is caused by a fair attraction, but the neighboring girls' school allows them to use their pool. The performance turns out to be a great success.


Single White Female

New York City software designer Allison "Allie" Jones is engaged to Sam Rawson. Sam's ex-wife calls, and when it is revealed that he slept with her recently, Allie throws him out, breaking off their engagement, and her neighbor, aspiring actor Graham Knox, comforts her. The next morning, Allie attends a business lunch with Mitchell Myerson, a fashion house owner looking to buy Allie's revolutionary new program. He manipulates her into significantly reducing the price; as he is her first and only client, she accepts.

Allie advertises for a new roommate to share her apartment in the Ansonia. She settles on Hedra Carlson, whom she nicknames "Hedy", and they become friends. Hedy explains that her twin was stillborn, leaving her constantly lonely. Hedy becomes overly protective of Allie, erasing Sam's voice-mail asking Allie to reconcile with him. She buys a puppy named Buddy to bond with Allie, but becomes jealous when Sam wins Allie back and they seek a new apartment for themselves. Perceiving Allie as having rejected her, Hedy is upset and becomes further frustrated when Buddy does not come to her even when she coaxes him. Allie and Sam later find Buddy's corpse on the ground below her apartment's window. Returning to the apartment, Allie sees that the window was open with a gap wide enough for Buddy to get through. Hedy claims that Buddy's death was an accident because she had thought the bars outside the window had been fixed.

Mitchell tries to coerce Allie into performing fellatio on him upon completing their deal, threatening to warn off future clients and not pay her, but she fights back and escapes. To comfort Allie, Hedy takes her to get a haircut, but after Hedy appears dressed exactly like her, including her haircut, Allie is unnerved. That night, Allie follows Hedy to an underground nightclub and witnesses Hedy masquerading as Allie. Allie finds a shoebox containing letters addressed to Ellen Besch – Hedy's real name – along with a letter from Sam to Allie, and a newspaper clipping on the accidental drowning of Hedy's twin sister Judy when she was nine years old.

Allie tells Graham the truth about Hedy, both of them unaware Hedy is listening. Allie leaves, and Hedy attacks Graham. When Sam returns the following night, Hedy impersonates Allie and begins to perform oral sex on him, but when he realizes it isn't Allie, he asks her to stop. Hedy ignores Sam and sexually assaults him, after which he realizes that Allie was right about Hedy. Hedy begs him to leave Allie alone, but he refuses and insists on telling Allie the truth. Furious, Hedy kills him by gouging his eye with her stiletto heel.

Hedy tells Allie she is about to leave. Seeing a news report on Sam's death, Allie realizes what has happened and tries to leave herself, but Hedy takes her hostage at gunpoint, explaining that everyone will believe Allie killed Sam. To "protect" Allie, Hedy tries to convince her that they must run away. While booking a flight online to Los Angeles, Allie attempts to send a distress message, but Hedy catches her.

Mitchell notices his files being erased (a security program initiated by late payments), and rushes to find Allie. He finds her bound and gagged with duct tape, but while he attempts to free Allie, Hedy shoots and kills him. Hedy then tries to persuade Allie to commit suicide via drug overdose, but Allie resists. Hedy points the gun at Allie as she tries to run, begging Allie not to leave her. Allie coldly replies, "I'm not like your sister, Hedy. Not anymore. I'm like you now." Graham regains consciousness and assists Allie. Allie drags Hedy off him and flees, but Hedy shoots her in the shoulder. After seemingly strangling Allie to death, Hedy drags her towards the incinerator, but Allie recovers and escapes. Screaming for Allie to come out, Hedy lashes out at a mirror inside a closet. Allie stabs her in the back with a screwdriver, and they struggle before a horrified and saddened Allie watches as Hedy dies.

In an epilogue, Allie narrates that she has finally moved on. She forgives Hedy for killing Sam, and tries to forgive herself for Hedy's death, stating that Hedy's downfall is an example of how survivor's guilt can destroy a person. The film finishes with a photo of both Allie and Hedy's faces combined into one.


Mula sa Puso

Via (Claudine Barretto), the only daughter of Don Fernando (Juan Rodrigo), was raised as his darling princess. On her eighteenth birthday, she found out that her father has promised her hand in marriage to her childhood friend, Michael (Diether Ocampo), and before the birthday party was over, she got kidnapped. She was rescued by a good Samaritan named Gabriel (Rico Yan), whom she fell in love with. Michael, at the latter part of the story, became romantically involved with Via's best friend, Trina (Rica Peralejo). As the story unfolds, Via ended up having to decide between the two men in her life, while learning more about her mother Magda (Jaclyn Jose) and fighting off her evil aunt Selina (Princess Punzalan).

In the story, Selina was one of the most influential characters, due to her desire to acquire the power and wealth of Don Fernando, her brother. She possesses intelligence in illegal tactics that made her stronger and she used people in order to manipulate them when a bombing in the departure of Via and her family to start a new life began. Via lived a new identity but came back to her family, and they all faced Selina one last time in dignity and Via restored peace in her family.


The Steel Claw (film)

Capt. John Larsen, a Marine, stationed in the Philippines, loses a hand in an accident and is discharged from the Corps. An American general is held captive by Filipino guerrillas behind Japanese lines and Larsen is later re-enlisted to rescue him. He fastens a steel prosthetic hook, the “steel claw” of the title, and embarks on the mission to rescue the general which leads him and his team, (his pal Santana and a band of guerillas), deep into the Philippines where love and death await them.


Puzzle Bobble 4

On the planet Bubbleluna lives the twins Bub and Bob. One day, the sun fails to rise because the Fairy of the Night, Cleon, has stolen the light source known as the Rainbow for Full-Moon Madame Luna. She splits this rainbow into 7 light bubbles. Bub and Bob then set off to retrieve these bubbles and restore the light and peace to their planet.


Secret Honor

A disgraced Richard Nixon is restlessly pacing in the study of his New Jersey mansion in the late 1970s. Armed with a loaded revolver, a bottle of Scotch whisky and a running tape recorder, while surrounded by closed circuit television cameras, he spends the next ninety minutes recalling, with rage, suspicion, sadness and disappointment, his controversial life and career in a long monologue.

It often veers into tangents and concerns his family, the people who made him powerful or they took him out of power. Nixon recalls his mother fondly, Dwight Eisenhower with hatred, Henry Kissinger with condescension and John F. Kennedy with a mixture of appreciation and rage. When Nixon gets angry at someone he is thinking about, the monologue often becomes disjointed; the passion overwhelms Nixon's ability for words. If he veers too far off topic, he tells the person who is supposed to transcribe the tape (an unseen character named "Roberto") to edit out the whole screed back to an earlier, calmer point.

Throughout the monologue, Nixon's description of himself changes. Sometimes he calls himself a man of the people, saying that he could succeed because he had known failure, just like the average American; he broods on his humble beginnings and the hard work he put in to rise to the top, and all the setbacks that he endured and overcame. However, the times when he talks about his own ideas and accomplishments in flattering terms tend to be brief, and they often bleed into self-pitying rants about how he is an innocent martyr, destroyed by sinister and hypocritical forces. Similarly, he can be self-deprecating or otherwise reflect a low self-image, but he rarely focuses on his own faults for long, preferring instead to blame others. He denies the relevance of Watergate and claims that he never committed a crime. He emphasizes that he was never charged with it, therefore he did not need or deserve a pardon. He feels that the pardon he received from President Gerald Ford forever tainted him in the public's eyes, because to get a pardon he must have been guilty.

However, Nixon admits that he has been the willing tool of a political network he alternately calls "the Bohemian Grove" and "The Committee of 100". The alleged interest of the committee is the heroin trade with Asia, although he followed them rather out of a lust for power plus some belief in their willingness to bring democracy to Asia. However, after the 1972 vote he received new orders from them: they wanted Nixon to keep the Vietnam War going on at all costs, then go for a third term in office, so they can continue their business with the president as their strawman. Nixon further explains that at some point he decided that he did not want to go down in history as the president who sacrificed thousands of American soldiers for drug money, so he himself staged the Watergate scandal to get out of office against massive public support. Nixon puts the blame on others: on the public that supports him although - or even because - he is a scam artist and a petty thief, just like the majority of them, as he sees it.


The Kidnapping of Princess Arelina

The plot involves the kidnapping of a royal woman. To take advantage of the castle tile set the entire adventure takes place indoors as the group searches a tower to free the princess. Eventually the group rescues the woman and returns her to the king for their just rewards.


Brides of Christ

Diane Markham (Josephine Byrnes) joins a convent, 'Santu Spiritu School for Girls' after dropping her fiancé and becomes 'Sister Catherine', under the guidance of 'Sister Agnes' (Brenda Fricker). Catherine begins a friendship with another convent newcomer 'Sister Paul' (Lisa Hensley) and she begins to teach English and acts as the school newspaper adviser. Rosemary (Kym Wilson) is a naughty, rebellious student who gets herself into trouble, while another student Frances (Naomi Watts) is upset because her divorced mother is planning a wedding (Eventually, Sister Paul attends the civil ceremony, and dances the Twist at the celebration). Catherine and Paul help Frances overcome her depression. Another convent novice falls in love with an ultra-liberal priest (Simon Burke) while another priest struggles with the papal doctrine while the real-life of the Vietnam war, rock 'n' roll, free abortions and free love flood the news.


The Man and the Hour

It starts in present-day (1968) with local Walmington-on-Sea dignitary George Mainwaring announcing that he is backing Britain. A flash back shows on a TV screen showing scenes from the Second World War and the Army.

It then reverts to Swallows Bank (1940), Walmington-on-Sea. George Mainwaring and his clerks, Arthur Wilson and Frank Pike, are laying sandbags at the window. Mainwaring then receives a message saying that he can set up a LDV unit to protect Britain. He finds out more about this on the wireless, having been told by a clerk, Janet King, that Anthony Eden is about to make a Ministerial broadcast. Pike is told to go round to all the LDV volunteers and tell them to meet in the church hall.

At the church hall, many people are waiting and Mainwaring (now the self-appointed commander) begins to enroll them. He makes Wilson his sergeant and Jones his lance-corporal. ARP warden Hodges bursts in and tells the commander to "shove off" because he needs the hall for an ARP lecture. Mainwaring is forced to let Hodges use it and instructs the platoon to meet in the hall later.

Later, Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson are inspecting the platoon, Godfrey has a gun and Mainwaring believes that he should have it because he is the officer, but Godfrey refuses. The platoon are told about tanks and how to defeat then. The men play at being tanks and how to destroy them. Frank's mother, Mavis, arrives to pick up Frank because it's his bedtime. The uniform (armbands) and weapons (pepper) arrive and are handed out. It is not what the platoon expected. Mainwaring gives a speech and the platoon cheer.


Museum Piece

It is not long after the platoon's first parade, and Mainwaring and Wilson discuss a recent exercise which involved crossing a 'demolished bridge' to cross a river. However, Pike fell in, flat on his face. Mainwaring confides in Wilson that he doesn't think he has the unthinking obedience required to make an efficient fighting unit, and is sure that one of his men told him to "get stuffed".

Wilson asks Mainwaring about the weapons situation, and Mainwaring reluctantly informs him that it will be a further six weeks before the weapons and uniforms arrive, so they must make do with one shotgun, seventeen carving knives, Jones' assegai, and Bracewell's number three iron. They receive a letter from the Peabody Museum of Historical Army Weapons, informing them that they'll have to close their account for the duration because the curator has joined the navy.

Mainwaring's ears prick up at the name of the museum, and deduces they might be able to use some equipment that could be used by his Local Defence Volunteers. Wilson isn't so sure, but Mainwaring organises "Operation Gun Grab", and tells Miss King to write a letter to give to the caretaker in charge.

On parade, Jones informs Mainwaring that he won't be able to get anything from the museum, because the caretaker in charge is Jones' 88-year-old father. True to form, the cantankerous old man refuses to let the platoon in, so they decide to try force, using scaling ladders and battering rams, but to no avail. When they try to scale the museum, George Jones puts a damper on their plans by soaking them in cold water.

Mainwaring decides to take a more tactical approach, and Jones says a bottle of whisky will do the trick. Walker gives Frazer, who will be disguised as an ARP Warden, the bottle to tempt him with, if he doesn't respond to Frazer's insistence that there's a light showing.

All goes well, and the platoon sneak into the museum. Jones finds a halberd and breastplate, Pike and Walker find an elephant-shooting musket, and Godfrey finds a case of .303 carbines, which are being used by ENSA. The platoon prepare to leave, defeated, until Jones and Walker find a Chinese rocket gun, and wheel it back to the church hall.

Their driver, a boy scout is asked by Jones and Walker to try to get it going. Mainwaring calls the duo over and says that he praises their initiative, but the weapon is too antiquated – even for them. As they prepare to make petrol bombs, the boy scout gets the weapon working, and it fires rockets everywhere.


Command Decision (Dad's Army)

The platoon are all feeling blue due to their lack of rifles. In a rather rash bid to raise spirits, Mainwaring promises them some before the week is out, but time is running short. He then is visited by a local nobleman called Colonel Square, who reveals that he has got rifles which he is willing to allow the platoon to use, however Mainwaring discovers that Square will only allow this if he himself is in charge of the platoon, as they are his own weapons.

Mainwaring is hesitant but as he runs out of options to keep his word to the men, he contacts Colonel Square and agrees to his terms, putting the platoon under the command of Colonel Square. The Platoon is then marched out to Colonel Square's estate, where he has them ride horses. Mainwaring then inquires about the horses to Square's butler, who reveals that the horses belong to Bailey's Circus, and that Square is only looking after the horses for the duration of the war. Square's attempts to have the platoon use swords on horseback goes badly wrong, and Frazer tells Mainwaring that they would be happier as they were than using 'four-legged dragons'. Mainwaring is flattered but reluctant, until he discovers that the rifles are elephant-shooting muskets, and so Mainwaring ends the deal and takes control again.

Back at the church hall, a dejected Mainwaring gets a phone call telling him that the Local Defence Volunteers are being re-organised and will now be referred to as the 'Home Guard', which worsens his negativity. Taking a few minutes alone in his office before facing the platoon, a corporal arrives with a late delivery of five hundred LDV armbands, and, to Mainwaring's shock, five rifles. With his head high that he has been able to keep his word, Mainwaring takes the rifles into the main hall as the platoon cheer.


The Enemy Within the Gates

Captain Winogrodzki of the Polish Forces informs the platoon that there will be a £10 reward for every live parachutist captured. Jones, Walker and Pike catch two, who escape and are caught by Winogrodzki, who announces his intention to claim the bounty for himself. But when the prisoners are collected by MPs to be taken to GHQ, Walker convinces the soldiers to take Winogrodzki too, on account of his accent. The platoon spend £5, of their £30 reward, on a celebration dinner.


Shooting Pains

Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson are in the bank manager's office. Mainwaring is carrying a pistol on a ridiculous improvised holster, which is supposed to allow a fast draw, but it doesn't work when he tries a demonstration and he is then subsequently forced to take the pistol out in order to sit down. They are discussing the upcoming shooting practice (the previous session was a disaster, the platoon having shot out all the tyres on the Major's car – including the spare) when Mainwaring opens a letter from General Headquarters (GHQ). He reads it excitedly, it says that the Walmington platoon will be escorting the Prime Minister in a tour of local coastal defences. Mainwaring is very excited, implying the honour is based on his reputation, but Wilson drolly points out that the letter says it's only because they were the first platoon formed in the area. Mainwaring dismisses Wilson, and whilst fooling around with his pistol, discharges it accidentally at the same time as the secretary is bringing in the coffee, and the tray and its contents ends up going everywhere.

At the shooting practice, Corporal Jones, Private Pike, Private Walker and Private Frazer are sent by Regan to man the target equipment. Jones tell Pike to take charge of the flag which is used to denote a miss, telling him to use it for every shot as no-one from the platoon will hit the target. Unbeknownst to Jones, Regan has decided to show them how it is done and is exasperated to get flagged a miss on every shot. Furious, he orders Mainwaring and Wilson down to the target and it is obvious he has hit near the centre of the target on every shot. Mainwaring is very annoyed and embarrassed by his men's behaviour.

After Private Godfrey has taken his shots and missed the target completely, Regan makes Mainwaring shoot using his pistol, but after nearly being knocked over by the recoil and spraying shots wildly, Regan says that not only did he not hit the target, he actually missed the firing range. Next he forces Wilson to use a Tommy gun. Wilson is clearly terrified, he closes his eyes to do the shooting and is still shaking rhythmically long after the clip is emptied.

After the practice, the platoon return to the church hall, where Mrs Pike has made tea, sandwiches and some rather firm rock cakes. Major Regan enters the hall, and says that following the shooting practice, he had decided that the platoon were unfit to escort the Prime Minister. However, the Area Commander has given them a second chance in that there should be a shooting contest to determine which platoon should form the escort. After Regan leaves, Mainwaring is at a low ebb, fearing the worst for his platoon's chances. To cheer everyone up, Walker invites everyone to come to the hippodrome that evening to see the variety performance by "The Cheerful Chump", Charlie Cheeseman, a variety entertainer, in order to raise their spirits. Reluctantly, Wilson and Mainwaring agree to attend, spurred on by Mrs Pike.

At the performance, Cheeseman is telling some inappropriate jokes of the time and performing some songs. Wilson and Mainwaring are not enjoying it at all. After Cheeseman, the next act – Laura La Paz – performs some amazing feats of trick shooting. Subsequently, Walker disappears making his apologies. At the church hall the next morning Mainwaring and Wilson have been summoned by Walker who has recruited a new platoon member. Frazer is also there and tries to discuss something with the Captain, but is interrupted when Walker and Jones appear with a new platoon member – one Laura La Paz. Walker has "recruited" her to take part in the shooting range competition. Jones and Walker dress her in an ill-fitting uniform, bottle glasses and fake moustache as a disguise. Mainwaring and Wilson are unconvinced, but when Regan enters unexpectedly, Mainwaring is forced to introduce the new recruit whom Wilson hastily names "Private Paderewski".

Having gone first, the Eastgate platoon have set a high mark. Pike is first and has made a reasonable start, and it's now down to Private Paderewski. Unfortunately, though she hits the bull on her first shot from an unorthodox standing position, the next two she attempts to take in full trick shot mode but is made by Mainwaring to assume the proper prone firing position. As a result, the next shots are only "outers", putting the platoon behind. Taken aside, she explains she only ever practises doing her normal routine. Meanwhile, Frazer, who is last to shoot, hits five consecutive bulls, much to everyone's surprise. It turns out Frazer wasn't able to take part in practice as there was no more ammunition when it was his turn and that he is a crack shot from his days in World War I when he used to shoot at mines from a minesweeper.

A few days later, the platoon are proudly and faultlessly seen being the honour guard for Winston Churchill.


Operation Kilt

Captain Mainwaring leads the platoon in required PT exercises, injuring himself in the process and being briefly interrupted by Mrs Pike, who brings a rifle bolt Private Pike left at home and that she cleaned in the sink. Captain Ogilvie of the Highland Unit then arrives to inform them that they are to participate in a training exercise where the Highlanders will attempt to capture the Platoon's headquarters, starting at 10pm tomorrow. A complicated system of paints will be used to mark the dead, wounded, captured and so on. Ogilvie is dismissive of the group's competency as soldiers and punches Pike in the stomach to test him – only to recoil in pain while Pike doesn't even flinch. After Ogilvie leaves, it turns out he punched Pike's rifle bolt (which he put down his vest earlier).

The platoon decide to sneak into the Highlanders' headquarters at a local farm to spy on them, so Private Walker and Private Frazer 'borrow' a pantomime cow costume. Mainwaring dismisses the idea, insisting it won't work, but Walker and Frazer decide to try anyway - only to return bruised and battered after running into a bull. Sergeant Wilson then suggests a Trojan Horse, with a haycart containing a platoon member being placed at the farm. After Pike turns out to have hayfever, Lance Corporal Jones acts as the spy and discovers that the Highlanders plan to start early and sneak through the woods to get to Walmington-on-Sea.

Early that night, Mainwaring leads the platoon in rigging all the paths through the woods with man traps inspired by a Tarzan film. Seven traps work, but when Jones goes to lead the last man in the eighth trap, he gets caught himself. As the platoon rescue him, they find themselves at the mercy of Captain Ogilvie, the last free member of the Highland Unit. Declaring that they are now all 'dead', Ogilvie goes to snatch their paint, only to blunder into the man trap. Mainwaring and Wilson are disgusted as they suddenly discover what Scotsmen REALLY wear under their kilts.


Blue Dragon (video game)

Setting

''Blue Dragon'' takes place in a fictional open-world environment where every year for the past ten years, purple clouds have mysteriously appeared in the sky, signaling misfortune and disaster for people across the world. For years, a terrifying beast dubbed the "Land Shark", and other lost technologies, such as the "sea cube" came with the purple clouds, killing thousands of people and destroying a number of villages. The world is split up into climate regions, each containing multiple kingdoms and villages, a few of which are not on the main path, but hold small stories, such as the giants, and the sheep, as well as hidden dungeons. Around the environment are multiple sources of treasure.

Story

On an unnamed world, the legendary purple clouds arrive in Talta Village which is the home of Shu, Kluke, and Jiro. While the other villagers seek shelter, Shu and Jiro slow down the Land Shark. After encountering troubles, Kluke saves them. Together, the three trap the Land Shark in a net, but the Land Shark breaks free and rushes away, with Shu, Jiro, and Kluke dangling from its back. The Land Shark stops in an ancient ruin that the three friends explore. They discover the Land Shark is really a machine—a "Mechat". Without warning, the mechat comes to life, only this time sailing into the sky, again carrying the three with it.

The party arrives at a giant Mechat base in the clouds and are tossed into the throne room of Nene, the apparent leader. Nene explains to them how he enjoys hearing the screams of the dying victims of the Land Shark. The party battles Nene, but are easily defeated. They are thrown out of the base and start to fall to their deaths, but a beam of light from the base catches them, and brings them back to the base. The party find three small floating spheres in the middle of the room; a mysterious voice commands them to swallow the spheres. The party refuses, and instead hold onto the spheres for safekeeping. As they try to reach another Mechat to escape the base, they are forced to fight a large army of Nene's robots. When the battle seems it will never end, and with the unseen voice promising them knowledge of how to pilot the Mechat, the party members eat the spheres. As they consume the spheres, a strange transformation occurs to each, changing the forms of their shadows into powerful beings that are able to destroy the robot army. The party escapes the base and crash in a desert.

After becoming familiar with their new shadows, the party travels to Talta village, befriending Marumaro on the way, who also possesses a magical shadow. Finding that the villagers from Talta have started to head towards the capital city of Jibral, the party takes off after them. Just outside Jibral, the party finds the villagers attacked by Steel-Eating Tigers. They are saved by the arrival of King Jibral and his forces, including Zola. Once the villagers are brought to Jibral, the King decides to implement a plan to destroy one of Nene's bases near Jibral using Shu and his friends along with Zola. Together, the party works with the warriors of Talta Village the Jibral Kingdom to besiege Nene's Mechat base. After the base is destroyed, the party heads north in search of Nene. Nene captures Kluke, and places a collar around her neck which Nene alleges will explode. After reaching Nene, Zola separates from the party to buy them time to attack Nene. When the party attempts to remove Kluke's collar, Nene absorbs the party's shadows by placing collars on all of them. After taking their powers and placing them in himself, he removes their collars and attempts to kill them before they recover. Shu, despite being drained of magical ability, unconsciously teleports the party to the distant Devour village.

In Devour Village, they find themselves unable to escape the village without their magic, because the community is surrounded by evil trees. Shu has an epiphany and finds himself able to summon his dragon shadow without his sphere. Shu destroys the Eat Yeet in Devour Village, and the party is finally able to leave. Eventually all the party are able to summon their shadows again.

At that point, the party reunites with Zola, who supplies a Mechat for them to pursue Nene. As the party goes after Nene in the Mechat, Nene initiates an ancient machine that splits the world into two hemispheres, with thousands of isolated cubes floating between the halves. The party follows Nene to the Primitive Cube at the core of the transformation. The party journeys through the cube eventually defeating General Szabo and ultimately engaging Nene. As the party weakens Nene, it is revealed that Zola was working for Nene all along, and she was the voice that told the others to swallow the spheres. When Zola was too weak to defend herself, Nene had given her a shadow and sent her to Jibral as a spy. Zola betrays and kills Nene choosing her friends over him.

Deathroy, the small creature that has been on Nene's shoulder removes himself from his master's body and absorbs Nene's remaining life force. Deathroy is revealed to be Destroy, the biomechanical weapon that destroyed the legendary ancients that once tried to bring peace to the world. The party defeats Destroy, melting him in lava. The party then quickly escapes from the melting cube to rejoin their families.


24: The Game

''24: The Game'' takes place between the events of the second and third seasons. In a similar way to the TV series, it can be split up into three sections or chapters. Section one revolves around an attack on Vice President Jim Prescott, while section two covers an attack on the Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU). Section three covers a major terrorist attack and attempt to gain access to nuclear weapons. A large number of characters from seasons two and three feature in ''24: The Game'', with each using the original actor's likeness and voice acting. Main characters returning include Jack Bauer, Kimberly "Kim" Bauer, Tony Almeida, Michelle Dessler, Chase Edmunds, David Palmer, Max, Kate Warner, Chloe O'Brian, and Ryan Chappelle, with Peter Madsen being voiced by Christian Kane.

The game begins with Jack Bauer waiting outside a ship in Los Angeles harbor where terrorists are going to release a ricin bomb in the water supply. A CTU team member triggers an alarm causing Jack and his team to storm the ship, discovering the whole ship's crew dead in a cargo hold. He later learns of an assassination attempt on Vice President Prescott through undercover agent Chase Edmunds. Foiling the attack, Jack discovers that the mastermind behind the attempt is an enemy from his past known as Peter Madsen.

A Sarin gas attack on an L.A. Metro station lures CTU agents away from their headquarters. While distracted, terrorists activate an EMP, attacking and taking over the CTU LA main building, holding the staff members hostage. The terrorists execute these hostages, including data analyst Sean Walker and eventually escape with a stolen hard drive. Jack runs into Peter Madsen, who has kidnapped Jack's daughter, Kim Bauer, forcing Jack to do "errands" for the terrorist cell. One of these errands is to sneak into a NSA building and retrieve confidential data for the terrorists. Jack manages to find and rescue Kim and recover the stolen hard drive with the help of undercover agent Chase Edmunds.

A major earthquake occurs in Los Angeles, caused by terrorists detonating explosives at focal points (places where fault lines intersect). Kate Warner is also kidnapped by the terrorist cell, along with Governor James Radford who is kidnapped for assassination but is then rescued by the CTU. A conspiracy involving Radford in the day's attacks is uncovered by the CTU and Radford is killed by the terrorist cell because he attempts to back out. Fort Lesker, U.S. Military base and the epicenter of the earthquakes, is attacked and taken over by terrorists, who then begin stealing weapons-grade plutonium before attempting to smuggle the weapons out of the U.S. to the Middle East. Kate Warner's father is forced to aid the terrorists by helping them smuggle the weapons with his customs passes. Jack finally kills Madsen when he tries to escape by shooting his speedboat with an M-80 assault rifle, causing it to explode. He also shoots and kills Max, the man behind the events of Season 2 and The Game, who was holding Kate Warner hostage, saving her life but in doing so Max manages to shoot Jack once in the stomach before dying. As a result, Chase Edmunds takes Jack to the hospital via helicopter.


Chromehounds

The single player story chronologically takes place before the events of the Neroimus War depicted in multiplayer. The player takes the role of an unnamed mercenary from Rafzekael who, over the course of six campaigns, becomes familiar with the various HOUND archetypes. The first mission of each campaign acts as a tutorial for each HOUND archetype, with the Mercenary being instructed by veteran Rafzekael mercenary Edguardo Gillardino.

Throughout the six campaigns, the Mercenary witnesses the deteriorating situation in Neroimus, with small skirmishes between the factions increasing hostilities between the nations. In addition, the Mercenary uncovers evidence of the conflict being intentionally escalated by an unknown third party. As the campaign continues, these skirmishes increase in severity from small guerrilla engagements to organized attacks against civilian populations. During some of these engagements, the Mercenary is attacked by other HOUNDs, further hinting at military involvement. During the Scout and Heavy Gunner campaigns, the Mercenary also engages two members of the Cerberus Squad, a legendary black ops HOUND unit known for their ruthless, but efficient tactics. At the conclusion of the campaigns, many factions believe the escalating attacks coupled with the reappearance of Cerberus are not coincidental, and that Neroimus is on the verge of war.

The final mission takes place some time after the six main campaigns. Following the constant skirmishing between nations, the Kingdom of Sal Kar begins to feel threatened. Claiming its borders are at stake, the Kingdom builds a forward base in the Tajin region, on the shared border of all three nations. The neighbouring nations of Morskoj and Tarakia denounce the action as aggressive and all 3 nations prepare for war. After the Sal Kari base is attacked, the Mercenary is dispatched to the region with a team of HOUNDs to investigate. Upon arrival, the Mercenary finds the base and the other HOUNDs destroyed by Cerberus, revealed to be led by Edguardo. The Mercenary engages the Cerberus Squad alone and destroys Edguardo’s HOUND. Before dying, Edguardo acknowledges the Mercenary’s skill but admits that the attack on the base has made war inevitable. With the base attack acting as the final straw, all 3 nations simultaneously declare war on each other, leading to the Neroimus War.


The Darkness (video game)

The player takes on the role of Jackie Estacado (Kirk Acevedo), with the story presented through narration by himself. On the evening of his 21st birthday, Jackie is targeted for assassination by his "Uncle" Paulie Franchetti (Dwight Schultz) out of sheer paranoia that Jackie is after his position as the Don. As night falls, the Darkness (Mike Patton) - an ancient demonic force which has inhabited Jackie's bloodline for generations - violently manifests and massacres his pursuers. With his new powers, Jackie gradually dismantles Paulie's drug and money laundering operations.

In retaliation, Franchetti bombs St. Mary's Orphanage where Jackie grew up and has his main enforcer, Police Captain Eddie Shrote (Jim Mathers), kidnap Jackie's childhood girlfriend, Jenny Romano (Lauren Ambrose), and take her to the orphanage to use for bait. Jackie hastily searches the building for her while the Darkness taunts him with his memories. When he finally reaches them, the Darkness restrains him and he's forced to watch as Paulie murders Jenny. While Paulie and Eddie flee, a grief-stricken Jackie commits suicide.

Jackie finds himself waking up in the Otherworld, a hellish landscape controlled by the Darkness resembling the trenches of World War I and inhabited by undead patchwork German and British soldiers at war as well as physical representations of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. There he meets his great-great-grandfather, Anthony "Tony" Estacado (Kirk Baltz), who explains that it was he who brought the Darkness into their family and that Jackie can be free of the curse by invading the Otherworld's innermost castle and facing the Darkness there.

Once he recovers, Jackie determines that he must dispose of Eddie before he can face Paulie. After failing to kill him at his apartment, Jackie steals a briefcase containing illicit goods in his ownership from a Turkish bath that is used as a front by his corrupt police officers, which he rigs with an explosive. Jackie sets up a meeting with him at Trinity Church, but ends up being captured by his men following a shootout. After overhearing about a shipment of drugs that a Chicago mob is entrusting to Paulie to handle from one of his officers, Jackie triggers the explosive, killing Eddie and his men along with himself. Jackie re-awakes in the Otherworld and lays siege to the Darkness's castle with Tony's help. Tony is mortally wounded in the attack, but before he can tell Jackie the last steps needed to free himself from the Darkness, the spirit pulls him away.

Jackie faces the Darkness and surprises it by willingly being taken by the Darkness's power, allowing him to fully control the spirit back in the real world. However, the Darkness tells him that while he has control now, each time Jackie takes a life, he will become more consumed by the Darkness. He lays an assault on the drug shipment, causing Paulie to flee to the safety of a lighthouse mansion for fear of retribution from the Chicago mob for his failure of protecting the drug shipment plus the fact that they see Paulie has become a liability due to his unstable nature and using his failure as pretext to get rid of him. Jackie takes advantage of a solar eclipse to raid the mansion and finally kill Paulie. The Darkness revels in Jackie's murderous spree, and fully envelops Jackie.

In the epilogue, Jackie finds himself in a dream, lying on a park bench in Jenny's arms. Jenny explains that they are only allowed a few minutes to be together before they say goodbye to each other for the last time. Jackie tries to ask how, but Jenny just quiets him, allowing them to enjoy the last moments together before Jackie wakes back up with the screen fading to black.


Treemonisha

''Treemonisha'' takes place in September 1884 on a former slave plantation in an isolated forest, between Texarkana, Texas (Joplin's childhood town) and the Red River in Arkansas. Treemonisha is a young freedwoman. After being taught to read by a white woman, she leads her community against the influence of conjurers, who are shown as preying on ignorance and superstition. Treemonisha is abducted and is about to be thrown into a wasps' nest when her friend Remus rescues her. The community realizes the value of education and the liability of their ignorance before choosing her as their teacher and leader.Crawford (2001), p. 545.

The opera opens with Zodzetrick, a conjurer, attempting to sell a bag of luck to Monisha ("The Bag of Luck"). However, her husband, Ned, wards him off. As Zodzetrick slinks away, Treemonisha and Remus hear the folks singing and excitedly prepare for the day ("The Corn Huskers"). Treemonisha then asks if they would like a ring play before they worked. They accept, and Andy leads the folks in a song and dance ("We're Goin' Around"). When the folks have finished dancing, Treemonisha notices that the women wear wreaths on their heads, and she herself tries to acquire one from a tree ("The Wreath"). However, Monisha stops her in her tracks, and tells her of how this certain tree is sacred. Monisha performs an aria, talking of Treemonisha's discovery under the tree ("The Sacred Tree"). Treemonisha is distraught to learn Monisha and Ned aren't her true parents and laments over it ("Surprised"). Monisha then tells of how Treemonisha was brought up and educated ("Treemonisha's Bringing Up"). Parson Alltalk then arrives in a wagon, talking to the neighborhood and confirming their belief in superstition. Whilst he distracts the folks, the conjurers kidnap Treemonisha ("Good Advice"). Once Alltalk leaves, the neighborhood realizes Treemonisha is gone ("Confusion"). Remus sets out to rescue Treemonisha.

Act 2 opens with Simon, another conjurer, singing of superstition ("Superstition"). Zodzetrick, Luddud and Cephus then debate on Treemonisha's punishment for foiling their plans earlier in the day ("Treemonisha in Peril"). Whilst Treemonisha is bound, strange creatures perform a dance number about her ("Frolic of the Bears"). Simon and Cephus then take Treemonisha to be thrown in a giant wasps' nest ("The Wasp Nest"), but Remus arrives just in time, masquerading as the devil, scaring the conjurers away ("The Rescue"). The next scene opens on another plantation, where four laborers perform a quartet about having a break ("We Will Rest Awhile / Song of the Cotton Pickers"). Treemonisha and Remus then arrive, and ask for directions to the John Smith plantation. Once they have left, the workers hear a horn, and celebrate that their work is finished for the day ("Aunt Dinah has Blowed de Horn").

The third act opens with a prelude ("Prelude to Act 3") in an abandoned plantation. Back in the neighborhood, Monisha and Ned mourn about Treemonisha's disappearance ("I Want to See My Child"). When Remus and Treemonisha return, the neighborhood celebrate, and show that they have captured two of the conjurers, Zodzetrick and Luddud ("Treemonisha's Return"). Remus then lectures about good and evil ("Wrong is Never Right (A Lecture)"). Andy still wants to punish the conjurers, and riles up the neighborhood to attack them ("Abuse"). Ned then lectures the conjurers about their own nature ("When Villains Ramble Far and Near (A Lecture)"). Treemonisha persuades Andy to forgive the conjurers ("Conjurers Forgiven"), and sets them both free. Luddud decides to abandon conjuring, but Zodzetrick insists that he will never change his ways. The neighborhood then elect Treemonisha as their new leader ("We Will Trust You As Our Leader"), and they celebrate with a closing dance ("A Real Slow Drag").

Characters

Andy, friend of Treemonisha – tenor Cephus, a conjurer – tenor Lucy, friend of Treemonisha – soprano Luddud, a conjurer – baritone Monisha, Treemonisha's adoptive mother – soprano Ned, Treemonisha's adoptive father – bass Parson Alltalk, a preacher – baritone Remus, friend of Treemonisha – tenor Simon, a conjurer – bass Treemonisha, a young, educated freed slave – soprano *Zodzetrick, a conjurer – baritone


The Collaborator (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)

The Bajorans are about to select a new Kai, the supreme religious leader of all Bajor, after the loss of the popular and respected previous Kai Opaka. Major Kira hopes to see Vedek Bareil become the new Kai, but he is running against a formidable opponent: Vedek Winn. Kira has recently started a romance with Bareil; she loathes Vedek Winn, both personally and politically, and has a strong suspicion that Winn is responsible for a recent assassination attempt on Bareil.

Meanwhile, security chief Odo has arrested a Bajoran man called Kubus Oak, who was exiled for collaborating with the Cardassians during their occupation of Bajor. Vedek Winn offers Kubus sanctuary in exchange for information about a massacre that the Cardassians committed during the occupation. The massacre claimed the lives of 43 Bajoran rebels (including Opaka's own son), and Kubus claims that it was Bareil who tipped off the Cardassians to the rebels' location. Winn is eager to find proof; she gloats to Kira that she is about to ruin Bareil's chances for becoming Kai, and manipulates her into volunteering to investigate the case.

The crew analyzes some records and finds evidence that does indicate that Bareil was responsible. In disbelief, Kira confronts him. He admits to having provided the Cardassians with the location of the rebels; he explains that if he had not, the Cardassians would have destroyed village after village until they were certain they had wiped out the rebels. Bareil gave them the information to save a thousand villagers, at the cost of the 43.

Kira is crushed. Soon after, she hears that Bareil has withdrawn his candidacy for Kai, clearing the way for Winn to take the post. With further investigation, Kira makes another confusing discovery: proof that Bareil was ''not'' the source of the information. He was covering up for someone else. When she asks him about it, he admits to her that it was the revered Kai Opaka who had been the "collaborator". She had sacrificed the rebels, including her son, to save the villagers. Bareil covered for her because the Bajorans need to believe in her during this painful time in their history.

While Kira is hardly convinced that those sentiments are worth the price of allowing Winn to become Kai, Bareil says that it will be up to them to influence her towards something positive.


The Battle of Godfrey's Cottage

While most of the platoon are on their way to the cinema to see a training film, the church bells ring, and Mainwaring, Jones and Frazer take up a defensive position at Godfrey's cottage. Wilson, Pike, Walker and Sponge are unable to find the others, and, leaving Sponge behind at the command post, head to Godfrey's cottage. There they see Jones, wearing one of Godfrey's old German helmets, and fire at him. Meanwhile, Godfrey's sisters shake a tablecloth out of the window, which is interpreted by Wilson as a surrender. In the end, Sponge starts firing on Mainwaring and Wilson.


The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker

When Walker is called up, he applies to the Military Service Hardship Committee, which rejects him on the grounds that he does not keep books for his business. After Jones's attempts to sabotage his medical test fail, Walker is invalided out because he is allergic to corned beef.


Sgt. Wilson's Little Secret

When Mrs Pike plans to take in an evacuee, Wilson misunderstands and thinks that she is pregnant. Mainwaring orders him to marry her, and just as the preparations are under way, Mrs Pike leads in a 10-year-old Cockney evacuee also named Arthur. The wedding doesn't take place.


Master Player Screen

The group starts in the village of Nareeb where they hear various rumors about the mysterious spindle. The group travels across the desert battling vicious creatures to reach the Spindle of Heaven.

The group climbs the great mountain and fights creatures sent by the ruler of the region every step of the way.

Eventually the group reaches in the inner sanctum of the main boss and a terrifically high level battle begins. Once the group subdues the Master of the Spindle they can gain information about immortality or any other quest current to the particular campaign.


Graffiti Kingdom

The player takes the role of Prince Pixel of the Canvas Kingdom. Long ago, the kingdom was besieged by an evil Devil. This Devil was sealed away by a few brave knights bestowed with the power of Graffiti (called Graffiticians). Pixel happens upon the Devil's seal whilst avoiding his studies and takes the graffiti wand, breaking the seal. After an attempt by the seal's guardian, Pastel, to teach Pixel to use the wand results in the Devil's release, Pastel has Pixel face the Devil and restore the kingdom. Along the way, he meets Tablet, the Devil's son, who helps Pixel and challenges him throughout his adventures. He makes his way through the first few worlds, beating their bosses and acquiring their keys. En route to Palette, Tablet's sister, Pastel is kidnapped by Palette's agent. Pixel proceeds to fight his way to Palette's palace, reaffirming the friendship Pixel has with Pastel. Pixel then faces off with Palette, defeating her. However, Tablet is seemingly killed when he takes an attack meant for Pixel. Determined to stop the Devil, Pixel fights through the Devil's palace and beats the Devil, leaving him near defeat. However, Tablet steals Pixel's wand and defeats his father instead before declaring himself the new Devil. Pastel gives Pixel a spare wand (many others of which she keeps inside her). Pixel defeats Tablet and creates a new body for him. Pixel then stops Pastel from re-sealing the Devil, which would also cause Pastel to be sealed in with him. The Devil escapes once more, albeit now weakened severely. Pixel agrees to let the Devil recuperate if he restores the kingdom as best he can. The ending cinematic shows Palette rampaging through the town before being battled offscreen by Pixel and Tablet.


The Revenge of Rusak

''The Revenge of Rusak'' is a direct sequel to the events depicted in the Kidnapping scenario from the previous set of Dragon Tiles.

The former warden of the land, Ernst Zieglar, killed the king, raised Rusak, and usurped the kingdom. The group runs across the fleeing former princess and thus comes into the adventure. They attempt to guide her to a meeting of loyalist in the hopes of taking back the kingdom.

Rusak interferes at every step and eventually the group chases the wizard back to his hideout in the hills where a final confrontation takes place.

Enemies


I'm Not Who You Think I Am

Thirteen-year-old Ginger becomes the target of a disturbed lady who believes that Ginger is her daughter. Ginger becomes distressed when the woman, named Joyce, starts stalking her insisting that Ginger is her daughter. Joyce uses the help of her brother-in-law while Ginger's parents are out of town to speak to Ginger and convince Ginger to go with Joyce.


The Untold Story

The story opens in 1978 with an argument in a small Hong Kong apartment. Wong Chi-hang (Anthony Wong) brutally beats a gambler named Keung (James Ha) to near-death for refusing to lend him money before burning him alive. He quickly flees the Hong Kong police by burning his identification documents and changing his name.

The film then flashes forward to Macau in 1986, where a family discovers a bag of rotten limbs washed up on the beach. Police officers Bull (Parkman Wong), Robert (Eric Kei), King Kong (Lam King Kong) and Bo (Emily Kwan) arrive on the scene before being joined by their supervisor Inspector Lee (Danny Lee). The cops examine the limbs and take them in for examination.

Wong Chi Hang is then shown to be working at the Eight Immortals Restaurant where he receives and tears up a letter meant for Cheng Lam, the former owner of the restaurant. It is then shown that the restaurant is still in Cheng Lam's ownership and Wong is unable to procure it officially without the former's signature, who is mysteriously absent.

King Kong and Bo take one of the arms to a forensics analyst who identifies the arm as that of Chan Lai Chun, Cheng Lam's mother in law. Robert also receives a letter from Cheng Lam's older brother addressed to the Macau police department, saying that Cheng Lam has mysteriously disappeared.

Wong is later caught cheating at Mahjong by a waiter who works in the restaurant. When confronted about it, Wong stabs him in the eye with a restaurant's reception check spindle and beats him to death with a large soup spoon before dismembering his corpse and turning it into pork buns. He then disposes of the bones by putting them in the dumpster.

Inspector Lee orders the other cops to investigate the restaurant after reading the letter. When interviewed, Wong tells Bull and Robert that Cheng Lam has gone away and sold the shop to him while Pearl (Julie Lee) tells Bo of the letters from the mainland the restaurant has received. Wong shoos the cops away after giving them free pork buns.

That night, Wong corners Pearl and brutally beats and tortures her before raping her and stabbing her pelvis with chopsticks, killing her. He then dismembers her corpse as well.

Inspector Lee and his team later visit the restaurant, whereupon Wong acts suspiciously when questioned by Lee who then places 24 hour surveillance on Wong.

Wong is caught trying to dispose of evidence linking him to Cheng Lam by Robert and Bo and is detained by the team while trying to cross the border to China.

Inspector Lee pieces the whole case together, summating that Wong murdered Cheng Lam and his family before stealing his restaurant. Wong denies this and Lee has Robert and Bull beat Wong to make him confess. Wong breaks free during his torture and shows his wounds to the press, claiming Police Brutality.

Not wanting to have a lawsuit on their hands, Lee throws Wong into prison, where he shares the same block as Cheng Poon (Shing Fui On), Cheng Lam's younger brother. He is then savagely beaten by Poon and his gang day and night to the point of internal bleeding. In order to escape, Wong attempts suicide by slashing his wrist and biting it, leading to him being rushed to the hospital.

Lee and Robert are approached by a pair of Hong Kong police detectives who reveal Wong's real name and origin as a Hong Kong gambler named Chan Chi Leung and that they have enough evidence to charge him for the murder of Keung whom he burned to death many years ago. The detectives offer Lee a Plan B, which is to extradite Wong to Hong Kong if they cannot find evidence to charge Wong. Lee refuses.

Wong briefly escapes from the hospital by taking a nurse hostage and overpowering King Kong. But he is stopped by Bull and is beaten up once again.

Lee then organizes endless torture for Wong until he confesses. Including injecting him with drugs, inducing insomnia, causing blisters on his skin and frequent beatings. After days of torture, Wong finally confesses.

It all started when Wong was just a cook in Cheng Lam's restaurant. After Wong cheated at Mahjong, Cheng owed him a debt of 183,300 dollars which he refused to pay. Wong then took Cheng's wife and 5 children hostage. He first cut the throat of Cheng's son before stabbing his wife and Cheng himself. He then butchered the remaining children alive. Later on, he lured Cheng Lam’s mother-in-law into the restaurant where he killed her as well. After the gruesome murders, Wong began to dispose of the bodies by dismembering them before disposing the other body parts in the ocean and in the dumpster. He then later confessed that he turned his victims into pork buns during the process.

After confessing, Wong is sent back to prison where after one final confrontation with Lee and Bull, commits suicide by slashing his wrists. The narration notes that while there was indeed enough evidence to charge Wong for the murders, it never happened due to Wong's death.


Dad (1989 film)

John Tremont is a busy executive. He learns during a meeting that his mother Bette has suffered a heart attack and been rushed to the hospital. Flying immediately to Los Angeles, he ends up becoming a caretaker of his father Jake while Bette is recovering. A retired aerospace industry worker, Jake has become somewhat feeble and totally reliant on his wife, so John attempts to get him more involved in day-to-day things like taking care of the house.

Father and son bond. John invites his dad to a business meeting and takes him out for a Bingo game. They play catch with a baseball in the yard. Late one night, college-aged grandson Billy turns up as well. John begins to appreciate while spending quality time with his dad that he has been neglecting his own son.

Bette returns home from the hospital. She is a strong, willful woman with little personal warmth. Jake is happy to have everyone around him again during family dinners with the kids, including daughter Annie and son-in-law Mario, but the glum Bette resents the intrusion. One day, Jake discovers blood in his urine and is taken to a doctor. John has a single request at the hospital — to avoid the word "cancer," which terrifies his dad. An arrogant doctor named Santana who feels he knows what is best decides that a patient has a right to know tells Jake. Jake immediately loses his bearings and ends up in a coma.

A fiercely protective John stays by his father's side constantly and a more sympathetic doctor named Chad volunteers his help. Jake unexpectedly wakes up one day and seems perfectly fine. Upon coming home, Jake acts reborn and reinvigorated. He confuses his wife by dressing in an odd manner, studying new languages, visiting the neighbors and even wanting sex at night. John feels his dad is just trying to enjoy life, something his bitter mother seems incapable of doing. Something more is definitely wrong with Jake, however. He is having delusions about being the head of a different family on a far-away farm.

A psychiatrist concludes that Jake sought joy in a fantasy world while being unable to experience a sufficient amount in his own. Jake has a relapse. In the hospital, he reminisces with his son about things that made him happiest, like work and baseball, before passing away. John, a better man for the experience, returns to his old life.


Disclosure (1994 film)

Bob Garvin, founder and CEO of DigiCom, a computer technology company, plans to retire when his company merges with a larger company. Production line manager Tom Sanders expects to be promoted to run the CD-ROM division. Instead, Meredith Johnson, a former girlfriend of Tom's who is responsible for the merger, is promoted to the post, as Garvin wanted to "break the glass ceiling" and promote a woman in place of his late daughter.

Meredith calls Tom into her office to discuss some operations regarding problems with the CD-ROM production line in Malaysia, but instead sexually forces herself onto him. He initially reciprocates her desire to engage him in oral sex but rebuffs her attempts to have full sexual intercourse. Meredith angrily screams a threat towards Tom for spurning her as he leaves. Later that night, Meredith calls Tom's home and tells his wife tomorrow's meeting starts an hour later than it does, tricking Tom into arriving late, allowing her to take his place in a meeting with the merger partners to discuss the problems with the CD-ROM drives, where Meredith pressured Tom into admitting that he is unaware of the cause of the problems.

Tom then discovers that Meredith has filed a sexual harassment complaint against Tom with legal counsel Philip Blackburn. To save the merger from a scandal, which will cause Garvin to lose $100 million if the deal is off, DigiCom officials demand that Tom accept reassignment to another location. Otherwise, he will lose his stock options in the new company, his career will be ruined, and he will be jobless if he takes the outplacement, as the other location is scheduled for sale after the merger. Tom receives an anonymous e-mail from "A Friend" that directs him to Seattle attorney Catherine Alvarez, who specializes in sexual harassment cases. Tom decides to sue DigiCom, alleging that it was Meredith who harassed him, at the expense of causing animosity with his wife and colleagues. The initial mediation goes badly for Tom as a tearful Meredith repeatedly lies and blames him.

After discovering a recording from Tom's phone records of the encounter proving that Meredith's accusation is false, Garvin, who believes the merger will be unsuccessful without Meredith, proposes that if Tom drops the lawsuit, he will not have to transfer, causing Tom to suspect that Meredith's accusations are vulnerable. Tom remembers mis-dialing a number on his cell phone during the encounter with Meredith but not hanging up. This inadvertently left the recording of the incident on a colleague's voicemail. Tom plays the recording at the next meeting and discredits Meredith. DigiCom agrees to a settlement calling for Meredith to quietly be eased out following the merger.

As Tom celebrates his apparent victory, he receives another e-mail from "A Friend" warning that all is not what it seems. Tom overhears Phillip telling Meredith that even though Tom won the sexual harassment suit, they will make Tom look incompetent at the next morning's merger conference, with Garvin's support. Since the problems with the CD-ROMs are shown as coming from the Malaysian production line, which is under Tom's responsibility, he can be fired as the cause of these problems. Tom attempts to look for clues in the company database, but his access privileges have been revoked. He remembers that the merging company's executives have a virtual reality demonstration machine in a nearby hotel that has access to the company database.

As he gets into DigiCom's files, he sees that Meredith is deleting them. Tom receives a call from a Malaysian colleague who is able to fax Tom copies of incriminating memos and videos. They show that Meredith and one of the head of operations in Malaysia agreed to change the production specifications that Tom had laid down, without his knowledge, to gain favor with the Malaysian government and to cut costs for the upcoming merger. Because of Meredith's complete lack of technical expertise and knowledge, the production changes ordered by her resulted in the problems afflicting the CD-ROMs that Tom is responsible for. In an attempt to save the merger that she had created and unwilling to take any responsibility, Meredith had set up the sexual encounter between her and Tom to falsely accuse him of sexual harassment to force him out of DigiCom so she could blame him for the changes, with Blackburn's support, while covering up and blaming the CD-ROM problems on him.

When Tom makes his presentation at the conference, Meredith brings up the production problems, but he is now able to publicly show the evidence exposing her direct involvement in causing defects with the hardware. After Meredith angrily accuses Tom of mounting a last-ditch effort of revenge while trying to justify her decisions involving the changes and continuing to blame him for poor decisions, Garvin realizes the full extent of her incompetence and has no other option but to fire her. Garvin subsequently announces that the merger has been completed and then names Stephanie Kaplan to head up the Seattle operation, a decision that Tom is pleased with, especially when she publicly highlights his contributions and says that she is relying on him to be her right-hand man going forward.

Tom subsequently asks Stephanie's son, Spencer, if he knows "A Friend". Spencer says he is the research assistant of Professor Arthur Friend at the University of Washington. Tom realizes that Spencer had access to Friend's office computer, enabling Stephanie (via her son) to have previously warned him as "A Friend" when he was in trouble, and that she knew exactly everything that was going on involving the CD-ROM Drives and Meredith. A gratified Tom is happy to resume his position as the Head of Manufacturing.


Sonic Riders

Jet, leader of the thieving Babylon Rogues, observes the Key to Babylon Garden, an artifact and family heirloom said to unlock the secrets of their Babylonian ancestors. Doctor Eggman arrives and claims he can use the Chaos Emeralds to make Babylon Garden rise, asking for the Rogues' help in retrieving them. The Rogues agree and steal an Emerald, but run into Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, who are also looking for the Emerald. Sonic gives chase, but Jet escapes with the Emerald. The next day, the three heroes see Eggman on a digital billboard advertising an Extreme Gear race known as the EX World Grand Prix, with the Chaos Emeralds offered as the grand prize. When they realize that the Rogues are participating, Sonic and his friends enter as well.

Team Sonic, joined by Amy Rose, compete with the Rogues in several races. During the final race, Wave sabotages Sonic's board, allowing Jet to defeat Sonic and win the Grand Prix. Jet uses the Chaos Emeralds to make Babylon Garden appear, hoping to discover the legendary treasure of the Babylonians. Eggman steals the Key from Jet, intent on taking the treasure for himself, and heads for the garden, with Amy grabbing Eggman's ship in an attempt to stop him. Sonic grabs a new board and pursues Eggman, but Jet challenges him to another race, seeking to defeat Eggman first. The two arrive at Babylon Garden and find Eggman, who is holding Amy hostage. Combining their powers, Jet and Sonic manage to retrieve Amy and the Key.

Jet uses the Key to open a secret door, leading the Rogues inside a Babylonian ruin. Team Sonic follow them inside, where they encounter the Babylon Guardian, a giant creature tasked with protecting the treasure. The two teams defeat the Guardian, causing a chest to appear. Eggman returns and demands they give him the treasure, but passes out in confusion upon discovering the treasure is only a carpet. Using the Key, Jet manages to make the carpet fly, revealing the magic carpet to be an early form of Extreme Gear. Team Sonic and the Babylon Rogues go their separate ways, with Jet promising to race Sonic again one day.


Dressed to Kill (1941 film)

Private investigator Michael Shayne and his singer fiancée Joanne La Marr hear a woman screaming from a room in their hotel. The hotel maid Emily has discovered two dead people: producer Louis Lathrop, owner of the hotel and the adjoining theater, and Desiree Vance, one of Lathrop's actresses. Both are dressed in medieval costumes, and Lathrop is wearing the head from a dog costume.

Police investigator Pierson arrives at the scene and learns from hotel manager Hal Brennon that the costumes are from Lathrop's only successful show, ''Sweethearts of Paris'', from many years earlier. Desiree had been the show's leading lady, and Carlo Ralph played Beppo the Dog. Shayne suspects Carlo because of the dog-costume head on Lathrop.

David Earle, also an actor in Lathrop's show, tells the police that Lathrop had hosted a private party for the entire cast to celebrate its anniversary. Shayne examines the list of those involved in the production and discovers that the musical director was Max Allaron, an alcoholic who also lives at the hotel.

As the investigation proceeds, Shayne learns that Lathrop kept another woman in addition to Desiree and that the apartment has many entrances and exits. From Earle's daughter he also learns that cast member Julian Davis stole money from Lathrop, so he visits Davis and finds him with Phyllis Lathrop, Louis' wife. They confess to embezzling money from Louis but claim to be innocent of his murder. They hire Shayne to help them prove their innocence.

Shayne continues his investigation and talks to Allaron. He learns that Carlo died in World War I in France but then discovers a letter from Carlo in Desiree's room that proves that Carlo is still alive.

Shayne brings Davis to the Lathrop apartment and they discover a hidden passage to the maid Emily's room downstairs. They find Emily's dead body and a note explaining that she had killed Lathrop because he had betrayed her years earlier for another woman. Emily was once known as actress Lynn Evans.

Shayne does not believe that Emily has killed herself, so he continues searching for the real killer. When Shayne is back in Lathrop's apartment, Pierson is knocked unconscious in the next room by Allaron. Otto Kahn, the theater doorman, arrives and confesses that killed Lathrop and Desiree. He is really Carlo, and was married to Desiree before she had left him for Lathrop. He also killed Emily because she had discovered too much about him. Allaron has been blackmailing Carlo, whom he witnessed leaving the apartment right after the killings. While they are talking, Pierson regains consciousness, and together with Shayne, he overpowers Otto and Allaron.

Shayne asks Pierson to be his best man at the wedding later in the day, but Shayne then learns that Joanne has eloped with her ex-boyfriend because she grew tired of waiting for Shayne.


The Drowning Pool (film)

Los Angeles-based private investigator Lew Harper flies to Louisiana to do a job for his former lover, Iris Devereaux. She believes the family's ex-chauffeur is the person who is blackmailing her with the knowledge that she has cheated on her husband. The husband does not care, but his mother, Olivia Devereaux, is the family matriarch and runs the family estate with an iron, unforgiving grip.

Even before his investigation begins, Harper is propositioned in his motel room by a teenaged girl. He sends her away, but later he discovers that the teenager is Iris Devereaux's daughter, Schuyler. Their meeting in the motel room brings Harper to the attention of police chief Broussard and the disagreeable Lieutenant Franks. Broussard accepts Harper's explanation, but tells him he will be following what Harper does, as he has a personal interest in the Devereaux family.

Harper is abducted by two hoods working for the oil magnate J.Hugh Kilbourne, who thinks Harper might be useful in his efforts to get ownership of some of Olivia Devereaux's oil-rich properties, which she is content to maintain as bird sanctuaries. Harper is noncommittal towards Kilbourne, and the hoods return him to his car. On Harper's return, he learns that the dead body of Olivia Devereaux has just been found and the police's prime suspect is the ex-chauffeur.

While searching for the chauffeur, Harper is abducted again, this time by hoods working for a mysterious woman. He does not have any useful information for her and is released; he later finds out she is Mavis Kilbourne, the wife of the oil magnate. She is working behind her husband's back trying to find an account book containing information of his illicit business dealings, which he is desperate to recover and would kill her over if he knew she had a hand in its disappearance.

Harper tracks down the chauffeur, Pat Reavis. He finds Reavis with $10,000 in his possession and believes that Reavis was paid to kill Olivia. He calls the police to say that he's bringing Reavis in and makes Reavis drive at gunpoint. En route, Reavis denies involvement in blackmailing Iris and murdering Olivia, claiming he was only at the scene of the murder because he had been having an affair with Schuyler. However, he admits to having information that he expects will yield a lot of money, and offers Harper a share of it if he will let him go. The car they are in is forced off the road by masked gunmen, who shoot Reavis dead but miss Harper, who wounds one of the gunmen. The next day he is informed by Broussard that, mysteriously, there was no report made to the police of any gunfight, but that Lt. Franks has been injured in a "hunting accident".

Despite Iris's pleading with him to give up on the case and go home, Harper continues investigating. He correctly deduces that Reavis came into possession of the missing account book and must have given it to a trusted girlfriend for safekeeping. Knowing that Franks was involved in the killing of Reavis, Harper ambushes Franks in his own home and forces him to admit that he does jobs for Kilbourne. When Harper later confronts Kilbourne with the information, the oil magnate admits to having hired Reavis, but insists it was only to spy on Olivia Devereaux, not to kill her. When Harper tells Kilbourne he knows about the missing account book, Kilbourne offers him a fortune for it, but Harper just walks away.

This leads to Kilbourne and his henchman kidnapping Harper and Mavis to find out where the notebook is, torturing them with a fire hose in an abandoned asylum. When Harper refuses to give up any information, Kilbourne leaves them overnight to suffer. During this time, Harper uses their clothes to plug the drain, and he and Mavis flood the room in an attempt to reach the skylight. When the water is finally high enough, they find that they can't break the window, and are near drowning when they are ironically saved by Kilbourne returning to torture them more. Harper gives Kilbourne's gun to Mavis, asking her to watch him while Harper finds a phone to call for help. As Kilbourne brags to Harper that he has too much influence and that he'll get away with it all, shots suddenly ring out. Harper returns to find Kilbourne dead, with Mavis admitting that "He's right, he would've gotten away with it".

Returning to the Devereaux estate, Harper finds that Iris has committed suicide in the night with a combination of sleeping pills and alcohol. Chief Broussard is also there, devastated. Broussard asks Harper, "Did she tell you about us?", to which Harper replies, "She didn't have to". Harper confronts Schuyler in the bird sanctuary, where she has released all of Olivia's birds into the wild. Harper lays out how Schuyler was behind the whole affair, and she insists that "they really did a job on" her father before admitting that she hated both her mother and her grandmother. Harper then reveals that Broussard has been listening the whole time. Broussard lets Schuyler go and lashes out at Harper, before breaking down in tears and confirming that he is Schuyler's real father. Harper tells Broussard, "That's YOUR kid out there. How are you gonna handle that?" before leaving.

Harper visits Reavis' girlfriend, Gretchen, giving her $9200 (the $10,000 he confiscated from Reavis, minus the $800 in expenses he racked up during the case). He asks Gretchen to send the account book to "the biggest newspaper in New Orleans". The film ends with Gretchen telling Harper, "you're not such a tough guy."


Cow Days

A couple named Tom and Mary win a trip to South Park for the "Cow Days" festival from a game show, although they were expecting something more extravagant. Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and Cartman are at the festival, but find it less than satisfactory. They find something enjoyable in a ball-throwing game that allows them the chance to win a pair of (crudely made) Terrance and Phillip dolls, but the game is fixed and can’t be won. Kyle attempts to bring Officer Barbrady's attention to the rigged game, but his last throw is successful when the carny discreetly switches the balls. Once Barbrady is gone, the carny tells them they have to win seven times to get the dolls. They decide to enter Cartman (who earlier wasted their money on terrible rides) in the bull-riding contest to try to win $5,000, enough money to play until they get the dolls.

Meanwhile, all the cows in the town discover the festival's symbol, a Buddha-shaped clock with the head of a cow which moos every hour, and carry it off to start their own cult. Tom and Mary are accused of stealing the clock and are thrown in jail. The townspeople later find the cows and confront them, before witnessing them commit mass suicide. During practice for the bull-riding contest, Cartman hits his head and believes himself to be a Vietnamese prostitute named Ming Li. The boys enter him in the contest anyway and he wins the grand prize; Kenny is killed when a bull's horn stabs him through his head.

The carny decides to just let the boys buy the dolls with their $5,000 rather than having them play for them. The boys discover that the dolls aren’t authentic but cheap rip-offs. Kyle calls back Barbrady, making everyone else realize how lame the carnival is, leading to town rioting and the carnies being arrested. In the meantime, Tom and Mary are forgotten and starve to death in prison. A plan to cover up the deaths is arranged; everyone is instructed to claim that the couple never arrived in South Park, thus ending the Cow Days Festival.

Cartman's memory returns overnight. The next day he tells Stan and Kyle (who still have the dolls and are playing with them) about his "weird dream" involving being a Vietnamese prostitute, riding a bull, and being spanked by Leonardo DiCaprio. Upon seeing the dolls, he becomes upset that what happened was true, especially after DiCaprio's limo pulls up and he thanks him for last night; Stan and Kyle laugh as Cartman utters "Son of a bitch!"


Dying Young

Hilary O'Neil is a beautiful, outgoing yet cautious young woman who has had little luck in work or love. After recently parting ways with her boyfriend when she caught him cheating, Hilary finds herself living with her eccentric mother. One day, Hilary answers an ad in a newspaper for a nurse only to find herself being escorted out before the interview starts.

Victor Geddes is a well-educated, rich, and shy 28-year-old. As the film progresses, Victor's health worsens progressively, due to leukemia. Despite his father's protests, Victor hires Hilary to be his live-in caretaker while he undergoes a traumatic course of chemotherapy. Hilary becomes insecure of her ability to care for Victor after her first exposure to the side effects of his chemotherapy treatment. She researches leukemia and stocks healthier food in the kitchen.

Victor is "finished" with his chemotherapy and suggests they take a vacation to the coast. They rent a house and Hilary begins to feel that she is no longer needed to care for him. They fall in love and continue living at the coast. Victor hides his use of morphine to kill the pain. During dinner with one of the friends they made at the coast, Victor starts acting aggressively and irrationally. He collapses and is helped to bed. Hilary searches the garbage and discovers his used syringes. She confronts him and he admits he was not finished with his chemotherapy. Victor explains that he wants quality in his life and Hilary says that he has been lying to her. She calls his father, who comes to take him home, but Victor wants to stay for one last Christmas party. Hilary and Victor reconnect at the party and he tells her that he is leaving with his father to go back to the hospital in the morning.

After speaking with Victor's father, who says Victor wants to spend one night alone before leaving, Hilary goes back to the house they rented only to find Victor packing clothes, ready to run away and not go with his father to the hospital. Hilary confronts him about running away and Victor admits that he is afraid of hoping. At this confession, Hilary finally tells Victor she loves him and they then decide to go back to the hospital, where he will fight for his life with Hilary. The last scene of the film shows Victor and Hilary leaving the house, which has a small picture of Gustav Klimt's ''Adam and Eve'' (the first painting Victor shows Hilary) in the window.


Robot AL-76 Goes Astray

AL-76 (also known as Al) is a robot designed for mining work on the Moon, but as a result of an accident after leaving the factory of US Robots and Mechanical Men, it gets lost and finds itself in rural Virginia. It cannot comprehend the unfamiliar environment and the people it meets are scared of it. When it comes across a shed full of spare parts and junk, it is moved to reprogram itself and builds a powerful mining tool of the kind it was designed to use on the Moon - but since it does not have the proper parts, it improvises and produces a better model, requiring less power. He then proceeds to disintegrate half of a mountainside with it, in no time at all: much to the alarm of a country "antique dealer" who had hoped to use the lost robot in his business.

When angrily told to destroy the "Disinto" and forget all about it, AL-76 obeys, and the secret of the reprogramming and the improved tool is lost.


Tony Hawk's American Sk8land

The game focuses on a young up-and-coming skateboarder from the Midwest. After dominating a local competition, they are approached by Tony Hawk, who offers to take them to L.A. so they can immerse themselves in the 'West Coast style' of skateboarding. Upon arriving, they run into Mindy, a local skate enthusiast and aspiring comic artist who dreams of publishing her own comic called American Sk8teland, named after a famous skatepark Tony used to frequent. Upon seeing how dilapidated the place has become, the group decide to renovate the place and restore it to its former glory.

As the renovations progress and other pro skaters lend their support, Mindy informs the group that a publishing office in East L.A. wants to distribute her work, provided she supply them with a comic detailing American Sk8teland's return to prominence. However, Tony reveals that the park's owner has accepted an offer to sell the place, and they have two weeks to match the offer before it's torn down. After helping Rodney Mullen pull off a successful flatland demo, Mindy, upon noticing people were filming the demo, realizes they can make a similar video with the pros who helped make the park famous. Once the repairs are finished, the group films the pros doing various tricks and stunts around the park, culminating in Tony convincing the new skateboarder to pull off a Japan 900 to close out the demo. The video is a huge success when released, giving Tony the money needed to purchase American Sk8teland and Mindy the material needed to start her comic.


Big Business (1988 film)

In 1948, wealthy businessman Hunt Shelton and his pregnant wife are lost in rural West Virginia when Mrs. Shelton goes into labor near the town of Jupiter Hollow. At the local hospital, they are turned away, because it is exclusively for employees of Hollowmade, the local furniture maker. Mr. Shelton purchases the company on the spot, and Mrs. Shelton is then admitted. The Ratliffs, an impoverished couple, arrive moments later with Mrs. Ratliff also in labor. Both women give birth to twin girls, and the elderly nurse attending the doctor confuses and mixes up the sets of twins. Mr. Ratliff overhears the Sheltons deciding to name their daughters Rose and Sadie, and suggests the same names to his wife.

Forty years later, the Shelton sisters are now co-chairwomen of Moramax in New York City, a conglomerate that is the successor to their father's business interests. Sadie Shelton is focused on her career to the detriment of her family, while Rose Shelton wishes for a simpler life in the country. As part of her business plan, Sadie plans to sell Hollowmade, but must get stockholders' approval to proceed. In Jupiter Hollow, Rose Ratliff has risen to the position of forewoman at the Hollowmade Factory, and is also very career-driven. Meanwhile, Sadie Ratliff has always felt misplaced in rural life, and wishes for a more sophisticated life in a big city. Rose discovers Moramax's plans to sell Hollowmade, and makes plans to travel to New York City to stop the sale. Wanting to see the city, Sadie agrees to join her sister.

While Sadie Shelton makes plans for the shareholders' meeting, she learns from her employee Graham Sherbourne that "R. Ratliff" plans to come to New York with his sister to stop the sale. Sadie orders Sherbourne to locate "R. Ratliff" to prevent them from appearing at the meeting. A series of mixups at JFK Airport leaves the Shelton sisters stranded while the prospective buyer of Hollowmade, Mr. Fabio Alberici, takes their limousine back to the Plaza Hotel with the Ratliff sisters. The Ratliffs are checked into the Sheltons' suite, and the Sheltons take the suite next door, leading to a series of near-misses between the four sisters, and the men who are pursuing them romantically. In the meantime, Graham and his assistant/boyfriend assume that a visitor from Jupiter Hollow, Rose Ratliff's beau Roone Dimmick, is actually "R. Ratliff".

All sisters discover their mixup in the lobby bathroom. After Sadie Shelton acts like she will call off the Hollowmade sale, Rose Ratliff calls her out on the strip mining plans. Rose Shelton then realizes that Sadie has been lying to her, and helps the Ratliffs trap her in the broom closet. Rose Ratliff sits outside the broom closet to keep Sadie Shelton trapped, while Rose Shelton and Sadie Ratliff attend the shareholders' meeting and stop the sale of Hollowmade. Both sets of twins later leave the Plaza hotel with their newfound loves.


Emma (1996 theatrical film)

In early 19th-century England, Emma Woodhouse is a congenial yet naïve young woman. After her governess, Miss Taylor, marries Mr. Weston, Emma proudly takes credit for bringing the couple together and now considers herself a matchmaker within her small community. Her father and an old family friend, George Knightley, whose brother is married to Emma's sister, dispute her claim and discourage any further matchmaking attempts. Ignoring their warnings, she schemes to match Mr. Elton, the village minister, with her friend, Harriet Smith, a rather unsophisticated young woman on the verges of society.

Robert Martin, a respectable local farmer, proposes to Harriet, who is inclined to accept, though Emma, believing Harriet can have better prospects, urges her to refuse him. Meanwhile, Mr. Elton has shown a desire for Emma by excessively admiring a portrait she drew of Harriet and otherwise engaging with her to secure Emma's favor. Emma misinterprets his actions as an attraction to Harriet. However, when Mr. Elton and Emma are alone, he fervently declares his love for Emma, who strongly rejects his attention. Soon after, he marries another woman, a vain socialite who competes with Emma for status in the community.

Over the next few months, various gatherings show who loves whom among Emma's friends. Emma is briefly attracted to the charming and gallant Frank Churchill, Mr. Weston's son, who is visiting from London, though Emma soon decides to match him with Harriet. However, Frank is secretly engaged to Jane Fairfax. His aunt, who later dies, would have disapproved of the match and disinherited Frank. He feigned interest in Emma as a deflection. Harriet states she has no interest in Frank, preferring Mr. Knightley, who kindly danced with her at a ball after Mr. Elton snubbed her. Mr Knightley has started to fall in love with Emma.

During a picnic in the countryside, Emma ridicules Miss Bates, deeply hurting her. After, Mr. Knightley angrily scolds Emma for humiliating someone living in lesser social circumstances. Emma later works to make amends with Miss Bates. Mr. Knightley leaves town to visit his brother, and Emma finds herself frequently thinking about him during his absence. She does not realize she loves him until Harriet expresses her feelings for him. When Mr Knightley returns, he and Emma meet and have a conversation that begins awkwardly but ends with him proposing and her gladly accepting. Their engagement upsets Harriet, who avoids Emma, but returns a few weeks later, happily engaged to Mr. Martin, whom she always loved. The film ends with Emma and Mr Knightley's wedding.


Frankenstein Unbound

In 2031, Dr. Buchanan and his team work to develop the ultimate weapon, an energy beam that will completely remove whatever it is aimed at. Buchanan hopes he can create a weapon so powerful that it will end all war and have the added benefit of no impact on the environment. Unfortunately, the prototype has unpredictable side effects, creating erratic global weather patterns and rifts in space and time that have caused some people to vanish. As he drives home from the testing facility, Buchanan himself is caught in one such rift.

Buchanan and his futuristic computer-controlled car reappear in Switzerland in 1817. In a village, he meets Victor Frankenstein. The men discuss science over dinner and it is revealed that Frankenstein's young brother has been killed. A trial is to determine the guilt or innocence of the boy's nanny, who is suspected in the murder.

Several villagers claim to have seen a monster in the woods and suggest this is the killer. Buchanan observes the trial and becomes interested in a young woman taking notes. She turns out to be Mary Shelley, author of the Frankenstein novel. Shelley gives credence to the talk of monsters, but the judge does not. The nanny is found guilty and sentenced to die at the gallows. Buchanan knows the monster killed the child. He implores Frankenstein to come forward and reveal the truth, but Frankenstein refuses. Buchanan then asks Shelley for help, telling her that he is from the future. They are attracted to each other, but Mary, fearing to know too much about the future and her own destiny, chooses not to become involved. Buchanan is on his own. He drives his car to Frankenstein's workshop and finds the doctor in discussion with the monster.

The monster has killed Frankenstein's fiance, saying that if a mate was not made for him then he would deprive Frankenstein of his. Frankenstein asks Buchanan to use his knowledge of electricity to assist in resurrecting the dead woman. Buchanan instructs the monster to run cables to a weather vane on the roof. While the monster is distracted, Buchanan re-routes some of the electrical cables to begin powering up the prototype laser in his car.

As the lightning strikes the tower, again and again, the battery on the laser begins to charge and the corpse on the table begins to move. At the same moment, the woman is restored to life and Buchanan's energy beam is fully charged; he fires. The castle is destroyed.

But the laser opens another space-time rift, sending Buchanan, Frankenstein, and the two monsters far into the future. They land on a snowy mountain with no sign of civilization. Frankenstein and the monster both try to entice the woman to them, only to have her force Frankenstein to shoot and kill her. Enraged, the monster kills Frankenstein and trudges off into the snowstorm. Buchanan follows, hoping to kill the monster before he reaches a city and kills again.

Eventually, the monster is cornered in a cave filled with computers and machines. When Buchanan enters, the machines chirp to life and a voice says "Welcome back, Dr. Buchanan." The monster tells Buchanan that the cave is the central brain for the nearby city, the last one remaining after the world has been devastated by Buchanan's ultimate weapon. Buchanan engages security devices and the monster is burned to death by lasers. Buchanan makes his way to the nearby city through the snow.

As he walks, the monster's voice is heard saying that he cannot truly be killed, for now, he is "unbound."


Monkeybone

Stuart "Stu" Miley is a disillusioned cartoonist whose comic character, a rascal monkey named Monkeybone, is getting an animated series and numerous merchandise, at the constant pestering of his agent and friend, Herb. He plans on proposing to his girlfriend, Julie McElroy, a sleep institute worker who helped him deal with his nightmares by changing his drawing hand, but one night, Stu falls into a coma following a car crash before he can do so. His spirit is taken to Down Town, a surreal and carnival-themed limbo-like landscape populated by mythical beings and figments of its visitors' imaginations, even Monkeybone. Stu and Monkeybone are constantly at each other’s throats during his time in Down Town until discovering people can leave Down Town once they are given Exit Passes. Stu is then invited a party being hosted by the God of Sleep and ruler of Down Town Hypnos.

According to Hypnos, Stu has to steal an Exit Pass from his sister, Death, in order to return wake up from his coma in time before the plug is pulled due to Stu and his sister Kimmy making a pact as children after their father’s death. Stu and Monkeybone journey to Death's domain disguised as one of her employees and successfully manage to steal an Exit Pass, while narrowly escaping a nightmare Julie inflicts upon Stu in an attempt to wake him by using “Oneirix”, a chemical solution made by Julie that causes nightmare inducement to living creatures.

Back in Down Town, Monkeybone steals the Exit Pass for himself, where it is revealed that the theft was part of a plan orchestrated by Hypnos. Monkeybone enter Stu’s body while Stu is imprisoned with other disillusioned or criminal figures throughout history such as Stephen King, Attila the Hun, Jack the Ripper and Lizzie Borden. Hypnos reveals to Stu that he desires more nightmares to gain power and made a deal with Monkeybone to spread the Oneirix amongst the living in exchange for getting Monkeybone his body to have a life of his own, having been fed up with being a figment.

Monkeybone is ordered by Hypnos via a nightmare to stay his course, causing Monkeybone to steal the Oneirix from the sleep institute successfully, leaving a decoy in its place. Monkeybone puts the chemical in farting Monkeybone toys to be given out to the public at a charity banquet, Julie growing weary due to “Stu’s” new behavior. Stu manages to escape with the help of Miss Kitty, a catgirl waitress he befriends and confronts Death in order to convince her to send him to back to the living world to stop Monkeybone. Death complies, giving him an hour to do so by putting him in the body of an organ donor with a broken neck.

Stu makes it to the banquet while Monkeybone is about to propose to Julie after Herb is exposed to the Oneirix in the Monkeybone doll and sees his clothes coming to life in a mirror, causing him to strip naked and flees in panic. Stu finally confesses his love and regrets to Julie for never getting a chance to propose to her. Stu manages to use Monkeybone’s origin characteristics to cause him to panic which culminates in the two of them battling one another on a giant Monkeybone balloon, which is soon shot down by a police officer, causing the duo to fall from the sky and perish upon impact.

Back in Down Town, the citizens below cheer on Stu and Monkeybone's fight as they descend from the sky before being caught by a giant robot controlled by Death. Monkeybone is then placed back in Stu’s mind by Death, claiming it is where he belongs before she sends Stu back to his proper body. Once Stu is, he and Julie reunite and share a kiss as the still-infected Herb emerges from a nearby fountain and telling everyone to remove their clothes.


Sbirri

The protagonist is a journalist (Raoul Bova) who is always away from home. He is advised of the death of his son Marco from an Ecstasy overdose. Even though his pregnant wife is unstable because of Marco's death, he decides to join an anti-drug police team of the Widespread Criminality Operating Unit in Milan and films the cops' activities

Category:Italian documentary films


The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

In 1881, young starstruck Robert "Bob" Ford seeks out Jesse James when the James Gang is planning a train robbery in Blue Cut, Missouri, making unsuccessful attempts to join the gang with the help of his older brother Charley, already a member. The train turns out to be carrying only a fraction of the money originally thought, and a dispirited Frank James leaves the gang and his brother. Jesse returns home to Kansas City, Missouri, bringing the Fords, Dick Liddil and Jesse's cousin, Wood Hite. Jesse sends Charley, Wood, and Dick away, but insists that Bob stay for his help in moving furniture to a new home in St. Joseph, Missouri. Bob becomes more admiring of Jesse before being sent away. He stays at the farmhouse of his widowed sister, Martha Bolton, where he rejoins his brother Charley, Hite, and Liddil.

Liddil reveals to Bob that he is in collusion with another member of the James gang, Jim Cummins, to capture Jesse for a substantial bounty. Meanwhile, Jesse visits another gang member, Ed Miller, who gives away information on Cummins' plot. Jesse kills Miller, then departs with Liddil to hunt down Cummins. Unable to locate him, Jesse viciously beats Albert Ford, a young cousin of Bob and Charley who had hosted him. Later, Liddil stays with Hite at Hite's father's house, where he has sex with Hite's young stepmother. Upon learning of this, Hite tracks Liddil down to Bolton's and holds him at gunpoint, but Bob intervenes, fatally shooting Hite. They dump his body in the woods to conceal the murder from Jesse.

Jesse appears at the Boltons' for dinner, where the Fords deny having seen Liddil recently. At dinner, Jesse mocks Bob for his idolization of him, leading Bob to become less enchanted with and more resentful of Jesse, especially after hearing of what was done to his cousin. Jesse and Charley travel to St. Joseph where Jesse learns of Hite's disappearance, about which Charley denies knowing anything. Meanwhile, Bob goes to Kansas City Police Commissioner Henry Craig, saying he knows Jesse' whereabouts. To prove his allegiance with the James Gang, Bob urges Craig to arrest Dick Liddil. Following Liddil's arrest and confession to participation in numerous gang robberies, Bob brokers a deal with the Governor of Missouri, Thomas T. Crittenden. He is given ten days to capture or kill Jesse and is promised a substantial bounty and full pardon for murder.

Charley persuades Jesse to take Bob into the gang; the brothers return to St. Joseph. Introduced as cousins to Jesse's wife and two children, they stay with the family. Jesse wants to revive his gang by robberies with the Fords, beginning with the Platte City bank. During their stay, Jesse becomes increasingly suspicious of the brothers, not allowing them to be alone together. However, as the stay passes uneventfully, he later gives Bob a gun as a token of apology. On the morning of April 3, 1882, as Jesse and the Ford brothers prepare to depart for the robbery, Jesse reads in the newspaper about the arrest and confessions of Liddil. While the three men are in the living room, Jesse removes his gun belt and climbs a chair to clean a dusty picture. Bob shoots Jesse in the back of the head with the gun given to him. He flees with Charley. They send a telegram to the governor to announce Jesse's death, for which they were to receive $10,000. However, they never receive more than $500 each.

After the killing, the Fords hope to become celebrities, touring with a theatre show in Manhattan in which they re-enact the shooting, but people soon gradually become hostile towards the pair, hailing Jesse as a legend and calling Bob a "coward." Guilt-stricken, Charley writes numerous letters to Zee James asking for her forgiveness, but he does not send them. Suffering from terminal tuberculosis, he commits suicide in May 1884. Bob works around the West as a saloon owner, becoming increasingly regretful of his past actions. On June 8, 1892, Bob is murdered by Edward O'Kelley at his saloon in Creede, Colorado. O'Kelley is sentenced to life in prison, but he is pardoned after ten years in 1902.


Boudu Saved from Drowning

Bourgeois Parisian and Latin Quarter bookseller Edouard Lestingois rescues a tramp, Boudu, from a suicidal plunge into the River Seine, from the Pont des Arts. Boudu is brought into Lestingois's household. The family adopts the man and dedicates itself to reforming him into a proper middle class person. Boudu shows his gratitude by shaking the household to its foundations, challenging the hidebound manners of his hosts and seducing not only the housemaid but also raping Madame Lestingois herself. Gradually Boudu is tamed, shaved and given a haircut, and put in a suit. Then he wins a large sum of money on the lottery, and is guided into marrying the housemaid. Finally, however, at the wedding scene, Boudu capsizes a rowboat and floats away from the wedding party, and "back to his old vagrancy, a free spirit once more."


The Shiralee (1957 film)

An itinerant rural worker named Macauley —sometimes described as a "swagman" or "swaggie"—suddenly finds himself taking responsibility for his child. In their time together in the barren landscapes of the outback, father and daughter bond. The child is the "shiralee", an Irish or Aboriginal word meaning "swag", or metaphorically, a "burden."

Having returned to Sydney from "walkabout", he finds his wife living with another man. He beats up the man and takes his daughter, Buster, with him. Macauley tries to get a job with a previous employer, Parker, but he angrily tells Macauley to go away, saying he had left his daughter Lily pregnant. Macauley tries to leave Buster with some friends of his, but she runs after him and he relents. Macauley narrowly prevents his wife making off with Buster, but after Buster is hit by a car and badly injured, he finds out that his wife is divorcing him and trying to gain legal custody of Buster. He returns to Sydney to fight it, leading to a violent confrontation with his wife's new lover.


Zucchini (novel)

The story concerns a young New York boy, Billy, and his pet ferret, Zucchini. The book contains a number of incorrect basic facts about ferrets, such as claiming that they are herbivorous rodents.


Sins of the Father (2002 film)

Tom Cherry (Tom Sizemore), a middle-aged man, has difficult decisions to make when the police reopen the investigation into the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama in which his father, Bobby Frank Cherry (Richard Jenkins), was involved. Now, Tom has to decide whether to protect his father or to turn him in and let justice finally be done.


Vengeance Is Mine (1979 film)

In the opening scenes, serial killer Iwao Enokizu is taken to a police station, where he is greeted by an angry mob and a huge crowd of journalists. The police interrogate him, but he refuses to answer. The film then switches to a series of flashback sequences, starting with the initial murders. Enokizu tricks and then kills two men, steals their money and disappears. He travels to another city, where he asks a taxi driver to take him to an inn where he can get a prostitute. He tells the innkeeper, a woman called Haru, that he is a professor at Kyoto University. The police, searching for Enokizu, put out bulletins with his face on television. The prostitute thinks the professor is Enokizu, but she is told not to go to the police because of her job.

In a flashback going back to Enokizu's childhood, he is seen as a rebellious, violent child and son of a Catholic father Shizuo, whose fishing boats were forcibly conscripted by the Japanese Navy in the 1930s. As a young man after the war, Enokizu is convicted and imprisoned for fraud. His wife Kazuko, who is attracted to Shizuo, divorces Enokizu, but is persuaded by Shizuo to remarry him, due to his Catholic beliefs. After the remarriage, Kazuko and Shizuo engage in a sexual act while bathing, during which the latter coldly rebuffs her. Shizuo then encourages a railway worker to sleep with Kazuko to satiate her. Enokizu, discharged from prison and suspecting a dalliance, accuses her of sleeping with Shizuo while he served his sentence.

Enokizu, still wanted by the police, travels to Tokyo. He tricks the mother of a young defendant into giving him the bail money for her son. He then befriends a lawyer, kills him and uses his apartment, where he hides his victim's body. He sends some money to Haru, and travels back to her place, where Haru's mother, a convicted murderer, has recently been released from prison. Haru and her mother realise that the alleged professor is the wanted man, but keep it a secret. Enokizu and Haru enter into a tentative relationship. Haru is raped by a benefactor who uses her as his mistress, while her mother and Enokizu are forced to watch silently. Enokizu, sure that Haru is carrying their unborn child, kills both Haru and her mother and pawns their goods. The prostitute from before, upon seeing Enokizu again, reports him to the police.

Five years later, Enokizu has been executed and cremated. His father and wife go to the top of a mountain to scatter his ashes, but the thrown bones remain hanging in the air.


Born to Fight (2004 film)

Royal Thai Police undercover cops Deaw and Puntakarn participate in a sting operation to apprehend the drug lord General Yang and shut down his cartel in the Chonburi Province. After a destructive truck chase, they manage to capture General Yang, but Puntakarn is killed by a bomb set by the drug lord in one of his trucks.

Hoping to relieve the pain of his loss, Deaw accompanies his sister, taekwondo champion Nui, to a charity event sponsored by the country's Sports Authority to distribute relief goods to Pha-thong Village, located near the Thai/Burmese border. Deaw and Nui, along with other athletes representing their respective sports, arrive at the village and entertain the locals.

All is going well when suddenly, an armed militia invades the village, killing a number of people and holding the rest hostage. The militia demands the release of General Yang within 24 hours in exchange for the lives of the surviving villagers; failure to comply will result in the militia broadcasting the slaughter of all of the villagers to the World. The Prime Minister's attempt at liberating the village fails when the militia's surveillance cameras spot Special Forces troops within the premises, resulting in more villagers being executed and the deadline shortened to 8:00 a.m. the next day. While infiltrating the militia's camp, Deaw discovers that they will fire a nuclear missile toward Bangkok once General Yang is released and then blow up the village after they escape. Before he can act, he is captured and thrown in with the rest of the villagers.

The next morning, General Yang is released from prison and airlifted toward Pha-thong Village. As the army helicopters arrive and the militia escorts the drug lord, a radio broadcast of the Thai National Anthem inspires the athletes and villagers to rise up and battle their captives. Unarmed, they attack the heavily armed soldiers and get some revenge for those murdered by them. General Yang is once again apprehended after the militia leader is killed and his escorts are gunned down by Special Forces agents. Deaw storms through the militia camp, but the nuclear missile is launched by a man left behind. In desperation, he destroys the camp's three laptops, sending the missile off course and crashing into the waters of the Gulf of Thailand, south of Bangkok. He then discovers that the militia has rigged time bombs to destroy the village in less than five minutes. With the help of the Special Forces, Deaw gets the athletes and surviving villagers to evacuate before the entire village goes up in flames but then as the deadline approaches he goes back to try and rescue Tup.

Behind-the-scenes shots of some of the many dangerous stunts play during the credits.


Millennium (comics)

The story took place at a time when the Guardians of the Universe had left Earth's dimension along with their mates, the Zamarons. However, one Guardian, Herupa Hando Hu, and his Zamaron mate, Nadia Safir, traveled to Earth and announced to the world that they would select 10 persons who would become the new Guardians of the Universe, and give birth to a new race of immortals. They gathered Earth's superheroes and sent them to find the chosen persons, who came from various parts of the world. One of them turned out to be Hal Jordan's friend, Thomas Kalmaku, while another was the former villain known as the Floronic Man.

Manhunters

Unknown to everyone, the robotic cult known as the Manhunters (whom the Justice League believed had been destroyed years before) had found a sphere that Harbinger had used to store all the information she had gathered about the universe after the ''Crisis on Infinite Earths''. Because of it, they knew the secret identities of Earth's heroes, and had planted their agents (including androids, mind-controlled humans and willing human agents) close to them (in other words, many of the supporting characters featured in the heroes' own comic titles were revealed to be Manhunters). On finding out about the search for The Chosen, the Manhunters decided to prevent it, and had their agents reveal themselves and attack Earth’s heroes. The heroes, joined by Harbinger, defeated the Manhunter agents and then attacked their home planet, defeating the cult again.

New Guardians

The Heroes managed to gather most of the Chosen, but two were killed over the course of the series, one (Terra of the Teen Titans) was already dead before it started, and one was senile. Another Chosen, a white supremacist from South Africa named Janwillem Kroef, eventually left the group because it contained non-white members. The Guardian and the Zamaron then died activating the latent powers of the remaining Chosen. They became a new superhero group, The New Guardians, which had its own comic book series afterwards, also by Englehart and Staton. The new series only lasted 12 issues.

The True Chosen

The spirits of Haru and Safir later reappeared and explained that alternate plans had also been put in motion, and that a group of beings created by Kroef would be the true Chosen. The New Guardians later disbanded. The current status of the second Chosen is unknown. The Manhunters are apparently active again.

Tie-in issues

''Action Comics'' #596 ''Adventures of Superman'' #436-437 ''Batman'' #415 ''Blue Beetle'' vol. 6, #20-21 ''Booster Gold'' #24-25 ''Captain Atom'' vol. 2, #11 ''Detective Comics'' #582 ''Firestorm the Nuclear Man'' vol. 2 #67-68 ''Flash'' vol. 2 #8-9 ''Green Lantern Corps'' #220-221 ''Infinity, Inc.'' #46-47 ''Justice League International'' #9-10 ''Legion of Super-Heroes'' vol. 3 #42-43 ''The Outsiders'' #27-28 ''Secret Origins'' vol. 2 #22-23 ''The Spectre'' vol. 2 #10-11 ''Suicide Squad'' #9 ''Superman'' vol. 2 #13-14 ''Teen Titans Spotlight'' #18-19 ''Wonder Woman'' vol. 2 #12-13 ''Young All-Stars'' #8-9 ''Swamp Thing'' vol. 2 #65-66; an unofficial tie-in with the ''Millennium''-related story of the Floronic Man


Northwest Passage (novel)

Book 1

Langdon Towne is a young Congregationalist resident of Kittery, Maine, in love with Elizabeth Browne, the youngest daughter of Anglican minister Rev. Arthur Browne of nearby Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Towne wants to become an artist, a goal which he has kept secret from even Elizabeth. He is admitted to Harvard College, but an ill-timed visit from his friends Saved from Captivity ('Cap') Huff and Hunking ('Hunk') Marriner results in his expulsion in 1759, although it does allow him to meet the young artist John Singleton Copley. Upon his return to Portsmouth, he incautiously insults Benning Wentworth, the governor of the Province of New Hampshire, and he and Hunk flee arrest and head to Crown Point to join the volunteers fighting the French and Indian War.

On their way, they meet a sergeant named McNott, who is a member of Rogers' Rangers. Both Towne and Hunk decide to join Rogers' Rangers themselves. After arriving at Crown Point, Towne impresses Major Robert Rogers with a discussion about the Northwest Passage and is chosen as one of Rogers' aides. Setting out with a force of Rangers, Stockbridge Indians and Mohawk Indians, the troops are not told their destination. The Mohawks, who are closely allied with Sir William Johnson, are jealous of Rogers' preference for the Stockbridge Indians and decide to leave. Hunk and McNott, among others, are critically injured when the Mohawks detonate gunpowder after failing to steal it and have to be left behind. The rest of the Rangers are then informed that their destination is the Abenaki town of Saint Francis, a center for hostile native raiding parties into New England. In a predawn attack, the Rangers annihilate the town and kill about a quarter of the population. However, to prevent capture, the Rangers choose to return across Quebec and northern Vermont, through the forests along the eastern shore of Lake Memphremagog. The harrowing journey creates dissension, and some Rangers who choose to separate from the main body are massacred by pursuing French and Indian troops.

The starving troops eventually make it safely to the planned meeting point, Fort Wentworth on the Connecticut River, where reinforcements and supplies were supposed to be waiting for them. However, the reinforcements withdrew with the food shortly before their arrival, apparently afraid that Rogers' men were enemy troops. A group of four men, including Rogers and Towne, make the arduous raft trip down the Connecticut to the Fort at Number 4 to get food for the rest of the company. They barely make it, but they succeed in saving the company. As a result, Towne is promoted to ensign, and he returns to Portsmouth a hero, just in time to witness Hunk's death from his wounds. Towne now openly works at painting, and Copley helps get him a small commission and points him toward a trip to England to study art. Towne, however, wants to stay in Portsmouth, paint natives and the West, and marry Elizabeth. When Rogers comes to town in the summer of 1761, he greets Towne as a long-lost friend . . . and asks Towne to be his best man, as he has proposed to Elizabeth, whom he met through fellow Mason Rev. Browne, and she has accepted. Instead, a crushed Towne tells Rogers that he is going to England, as Copley had urged.

Book 2

In London, Towne learns that no one can achieve success except through "preferment", usually through a sponsor. His search for sponsorship leads him to Benjamin Franklin, who arranges for him to get a commission to limb a panel painting of Jeffery Amherst at Vauxhall Gardens. This commission, in turn, brings him other work, more than enough to prevent him from having to return home broke. In early 1765, Towne, now 26, finds out that Rogers (minus Elizabeth) has arrived in London. With Rogers' help, Towne gets a major commission from a wealthy nobleman to paint a series of pictures of the Saint Francis raid. Rogers has decided to mount an expedition to find the Northwest Passage and has come to England both to collect his back pay and to win appointment as the royal governor of Fort Michilimackinac, the farthest west of the British forts on the Great Lakes, and he offers to include Towne in the expedition.

Rogers has a personal secretary named Natty Potter, who helps him write two books and a play while in London. Potter recruits Towne to find his daughter Ann. Towne finds that Ann, now about 14, was left nine years ago with a family that trained children to act as crippled beggars, and he ends up paying £15 to take her away from there. To his surprise, Towne learns that Potter only wanted to blackmail Ann's mother, a member of a wealthy family with whom he'd had a Fleet Marriage, and is unwilling to provide for Ann (or even to reimburse Towne) after the blackmail is paid, so Ann ends up as Towne's responsibility. Ann proves to be a gifted mimic and quickly picks up "proper" behavior from the tutor Towne hires for her.

With the help of Charles Townshend, Rogers is appointed governor of Michilimackinac over the objections of General Thomas Gage and Sir William Johnson, who had monopolized trade with the natives. When Towne finishes his series of paintings, he and Ann return with Rogers and Potter to Portsmouth in 1766. Rogers has arranged for several of his former Rangers to join the journey, including McNott (who lost a leg from the gunpowder explosion), Jonathan Carver, and James Tute; Elizabeth, Potter and Ann also accompany the group to Michilimackinac. Rogers expects to receive orders that permit him to appoint a deputy governor so that he can lead the search for the Northwest Passage himself, but such orders are not included with the authorization for the expedition, so the group leaves without Rogers (or Elizabeth, Potter and Ann), with Tute and a trader named Stanley Goddard in command.

Because Towne has paid his own way to join the expedition, he is not under Tute's command, and he and McNott winter separately among the Yankton Dakota. In the spring, when they reunite with Tute, Goddard and Carver, they find that the rest of the group is out of supplies. Towne and McNott then learn that the other three have used their supplies to purchase a large parcel of land from the Dakota (which the Yankton Dakota inform McNott that the Dakota do not actually own, because it is contested by the Chippewa) and have abandoned their mission. McNott and Towne travel up the Missouri River on the route to the Northwest Passage without them, but a serious injury to McNott forces them to head back to Michilimackinac. When they arrive, in the spring of 1768, they learn that Charles Townshend has died, that Rogers has been arrested by Gage and Johnson for exceeding his authority, and that Ann has returned to England after Rogers tried to take improper liberties with her.

When the ice on the Great Lakes breaks, Towne, who realizes that he has fallen in love with Ann, returns to England himself, where he finds and marries Ann, who has just opened a one-woman play about life on the frontier. She has taken some of his sketches to a royal society that commissions him to paint a series of pictures based on native mythology. Rogers later returns to England after being acquitted at court-martial but is ill from his imprisonment and is soon placed in debtors' prison. At the end, Towne and Ann decide to return to America and side with the American Revolution, although they know Rogers has sided with the British.


Modern Problems

Max Fiedler (Chevy Chase) is an air traffic controller at New York's Kennedy International Airport whose life is slowly going down the drain. His girlfriend, Darcy, has just left him because of his jealousy and negativity. Now, everywhere he goes he seems to run into her with Barry, her narcissistic friend who wants her to be his girlfriend, which drives Max crazy. One night while driving home from a party that turned out to be held at a gay nightclub in Lower Manhattan, a tanker truck spills nuclear waste onto Max's car. Some of it splashes onto him through his open sunroof, temporarily making him glow green before absorbing into his skin. The next day, he notices he has developed telekinesis. Max decides to use his new power to ruin Barry's attempts to woo Darcy. With newfound optimism & confidence, he slowly begins to win back Darcy's love.

Things come to a head, however, when Max is asked to spend the weekend at the summer beach house of Brian (Brian Doyle-Murray), a paraplegic friend and publisher, who is now living with Max's ex-wife Lorraine. Brian has also invited self-confidence author and womanizer Mark Winslow (Dabney Coleman), who immediately has designs on Darcy. Winslow constantly demeans and derides Max, while trying to seduce Darcy (although his egomaniacal bragging and unabashed nudity alienates her). Between no one believing his claims that he can move objects and Winslow's onslaught of insults, Max grows increasingly depressed until he cracks, proving his telekinetic power to all present at dinner by humiliating Winslow. Finally, despairing that he is a monster, Max climbs onto the roof of Brian's house during an approaching thunderstorm. Max is fortuitously struck by lightning, causing the transference of his powers to Dorita (Nell Carter), the voodoo-practicing maid. Now understanding his odd behavior, Darcy forgives Max and he is finally convinced that she truly loves him.


The Getaway (1994 film)

Carter "Doc" McCoy and his wife Carol are taking target practice with pistols when Rudy arrives to propose they break a Mexican drug lord's nephew out of jail for a $300,000 payment. The job is successful, but it turns out the drug lord wanted his nephew free to kill him.

Rudy is waiting with a getaway plane, but he sees police cars and leaves Doc behind. After a year in a Mexican jail, Doc sends Carol to mob boss Jack Benyon, who is looking to put together a select team of experts to rob a dog track in Arizona. Benyon agrees to get Doc released from prison, in exchange for sexual favors from Carol first.

Doc gets out and meets the men Benyon has hired. One is Rudy, along with Hansen, who seems inexperienced. Rudy extends a hand and says "No hard feelings" but is punched by Doc and warned not to double-cross him again.

At the track, while Doc is breaking into the vault, a guard pulls a gun and is shot by Hansen in a panic. The thieves escape by creating a diversion with a bomb under a gas truck and leave with the cash, totaling over one million dollars. The plan was for Doc and Carol to meet Rudy and Hansen later to split the money. On the road, Rudy kills Hansen and pushes him out of the car.

Doc arrives at the rendezvous point, where Rudy again pulls a gun. Doc expected this and is ready with his own weapon, shooting Rudy and leaving him for dead. Doc and Carol drive off with all the money, unaware that Rudy was wearing a bullet-proof vest.

A wounded Rudy drives to a local clinic, where he holds veterinarian Harold and his wife Fran hostage, forces them to treat his wounds and drive him to El Paso. An attraction develops between Rudy and Fran and they taunt her meek husband. At a motel, Rudy has sex with Fran after tying Harold to a chair. Hearing his wife's moans and her laughter at him, a heart-broken Harold commits suicide by hanging himself. Fran barely looks back as she accompanies Rudy to El Paso.

Doc and Carol go to Benyon's house with the money. Benyon drops broad hints about what Carol did to get Doc out of jail. Carol approaches with a gun, unseen by Doc as he counts the money. Benyon clearly expects her to shoot Doc, but she kills him instead.

Doc is upset, but Carol says she did what she had to do to help Doc and assumes he'd do the same if their situations were reversed. There continues to be tension between the pair, particularly when Carol loses the money to a con man at a train station in Flagstaff. Doc has to board the train, find the man and subdue him to retrieve the money.

They proceed to the rustic Border Hotel in El Paso, owned by Doc's friend Gollie, to get new passports and identities so they can escape to Mexico. Rudy is already there waiting with Fran. Benyon's men, led by Jim Deer want the money and arrive in El Paso.

Rudy sets a trap and Doc is startled to see him alive. He knocks out Rudy but resists killing him in cold blood. A long and bloody gunfight ensues with Doc and Carol shooting it out with Benyon's men in the halls and stairwells of the hotel.

Rudy comes to his senses just as the last of Benyon's men die. He makes one more attempt to get the money, but after a hand-to-hand fight he is killed by Doc in an elevator when Doc shoots the cables, sending the elevator plummeting down to ground level, where his body is discovered by a screaming Fran. Doc and Carol make their way out of the hotel just as the police arrive, and hijack a pickup truck driven by "Slim", an old cowboy, forcing him to drive them to the border. After safely crossing into Mexico, they buy Slim's truck from him and drive southward, making their getaway.


Human Cargo

The miniseries explores the issue of immigration and refugees who flee to Canada after 9/11 and the people who sacrifice their lives to help or hinder them. The series features six intersecting stories focusing on the crises of refugees, set in different locations: four Honduran boys are found dead in a produce truck at the Canada-U.S. border crossing; a dedicated refugee lawyer Jerry Fischer is forced to choose between his family, work, and life when he becomes involved with an Afghani woman's refugee claim; and ambitious right-wing politician Nina Wade finds her career end disastrously after a federal by-election that moves her into a position at the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada.


The Villain (1979 film)

A beautiful woman, "Charming Jones" (Ann-Margret), is being escorted across the west by a naive, slow-witted cowboy, "Handsome Stranger" (Schwarzenegger), after claiming a large sum of money given to her by her father, "Parody Jones" (Martin). However, bad guy "Avery Simpson" (Elam), who delivered Charming the money, decides he wants it for himself. He hires an old outlaw, "Cactus Jack" Slade (Douglas), to rob them when they leave town.

Throughout the trip, Charming makes advances toward Handsome, all of which are met with indifference. Meanwhile, Cactus Jack proceeds to lay trap after trap for the two, all of which backfire. Jack's attempt to enlist the assistance of "Nervous Elk" (Paul Lynde), the chief of a local American Indian tribe, also fails.

Finally, Jack confronts the couple openly, at which point Charming gives up on romancing Handsome and instead kisses Jack, who proceeds to bounce around in red-hot elation.


Pâté de Foie Gras (short story)

A Department of Agriculture employee tells of the discovery on a farm in Texas of a goose that lays golden eggs, and how US government and academic researchers try to solve the mystery of the goose. While its eggs are valuable as pure gold, learning how the bird produces the metal is more important. After the scientists realize that the goose is unharmed despite the enzyme-catalyzed nuclear process that converts oxygen-18 to gold-197 producing gamma rays, they discover that it is immune to all radioactivity, converting any unstable isotope to a stable isotope. The goose is "the perfect defense against the atomic age", one researcher observes; large-scale industrial reproduction of its biological transmutation process would ease nuclear waste disposal and defend against radioactive fallout, and modifying the mechanism would produce any element as needed.

The bird poses a dilemma, however. A biopsy of the liver provides no useful results; to learn more, it will be necessary to dissect an intact liver and study developing embryos, but there is only one goose. Since its eggs contain a lot of gold, the bird cannot reproduce due to a heavy-metal poisoning. The narrator decides to contact Isaac Asimov—who is both an experienced writer and biochemist, and whose thiotimoline articles received much public attention—and have him write up the story, soliciting the readers of ''Astounding'' for ideas.


Time of Favor

Manachem, a handsome young soldier in the Israeli Defense Force, is offered his own unit, made up of fellow students from Rabbi Meltzer's West Bank Yeshiva. Menachem's close friend Pini is one of the star scholars at the Yeshiva, and Rabbi Meltzer, in an attempt to play matchmaker, promises Pini his daughter Michal's hand in marriage. But Michal, strong-willed and independent, has no interest in marrying Pini, who is weak and in poor health. Instead, she falls for Menachem, and his loyalty to the Rabbi and to his friend Pini are tested as he struggles to choose between Michal and the unit.

Michal confesses to Menachem that she cannot stand living in her father's settlement. “This land of Israel is bought with pain,” says Michal, as she looks out on the sandy mountains of the West Bank. She believes that her father, the Rabbi, is too caught up in the Israeli cause and neglects those closest to him, like Michal's late mother who died of cancer after the Rabbi refused to leave the settlement to take her to the city for proper medical care. She resolves to run away, and asks Menachem to come with her. But Menachem feels guilty on account of Pini and the Rabbi, and leaves the settlement to return to his military base.

Menachem's unit had been mobilized by the Rabbi with the purpose of returning Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock to the control of Israel—a holy shrine in the old city that Muslims use as a mosque (Al-Aqsa Mosque) and Jews call Temple Mount. Menachem agrees with Rabbi Meltzer's plan in principle, regarding the group's activities as more symbolic than anything else. Other military authorities are wary of his plan, believing the Rabbi's soldiers could easily turn into a fanatical terrorist group with the wrong twist of the political winds.

Michal leaves her father's settlement and goes to live in Jerusalem. This does not deter Pini, who continues to make advances and she rejects him over and over. Devastated by Michal's rejections, Pini becomes newly determined to make good within Rabbi Meltzer's military unit, while mapping out a terrorist plot with the help of fellow student Itamar (Micha Selektar) in which they'll finally destroy the Dome of the Rock by bombing it from below. To convince Itamar to go along with the plan, he convinces him that Manacham approves of the plan, when in reality Menacham knows nothing about it.

Pini and Itamar leave to undertake the mission, and the rest of Menacham's unit is taken in by the Israeli government for questioning. After undergoing hours of interrogation, Menacham realizes that Pini has betrayed him. Guarded heavily by Israeli Defense Soldiers, Menacham, Michal and another soldier, Mookie, follow Pini and Itamar into a secret network of tunnels underneath Jerusalem, where Pini is waiting to blow up the Dome of the Rock using a suicide bomber's vest. The movie comes to a sharp climax as the characters race through the tunnels, trying to reach Pini and convince him to stop before it is too late. They find Itamar's body in the tunnels - he had fallen, or was killed by Pini along the way. Finally they reach Pini, who is lying in a cave preparing to detonate the bomb. Menacham and Michal plead with him, but he refuses to change his mind. As Pini reaches for the button to detonate the bomb, Menacham leaps on top of him to try and prevent him from setting it off. But in the same instant, Mookie shoots and kills Pini. The movie ends with Menacham, Michal and the rest of the Israeli Defense Team exiting the tunnels together.

Cedar's Zionist upbringing is apparent in this highly religious film. ''Time of Favor'' handles the Holy Land with high regard and maintains a sense of solemnity throughout. The importance of prayer and tradition is stressed. Soldiers dressed in full uniform break from their training to open prayer books and raise their minds to God. The Rabbi's religious position marks him as a strong authority in his community. He is trusted and respected, and his students, with total faith in him, follow his every wish.


Kippur

It is October 6, 1973, and Egypt along with Syria have continued their undeclared war on Israel by launching attacks in the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights. Weinraub (Liron Levo) and his friend Ruso (Tomer Ruso) are Israeli reservists in the Egoz Reconnaissance Unit who are called to reserve duty to fight in the surprise conflict. The two make their way to the Golan Heights to locate their reserve unit. However, during the chaotic circumstances, they never find it, and end up sleeping by the side of the road.

The next morning, they are awakened by Dr. Klauzner (Uri Klauzner), who asks for a ride to Ramat David where he serves on the air force base there. After transporting Dr. Klauzner to the base, Weinraub and Ruso agree to volunteer with a first-aid rescue team. Their ongoing mission involves evacuating dead and wounded soldiers from the battlefield. Later on October 10, their helicopter crew is deployed to Syria for a covert operation. During their mission, the helicopter is struck by a missile, killing one of the co-pilots and injuring everyone on board. Weinraub and Ruso are among those who survive, and are picked by another rescue helicopter. They become patients at a field hospital, thus ending their role in the war.


Kadosh

''Kadosh'' is a bleak drama about the Haredi society. In the opening scene, Meir (Yoram Hattab), a young Talmudic scholar, thanks God in his morning prayers for not being born a woman. At first, the marriage of Meir and his wife, Rivka (Yael Abecassis), appears tender and idyllic, but as the movie progresses, it becomes clear that Meir is concerned with the fact that he is childless after ten years of marriage. Meir's father, the Rabbi of their community in Jerusalem, tells Meir he is required to divorce Rivka because a woman's only function is to have children. Eventually, Meir complies, which destroys Rivka emotionally, and she moves away so that Meir can marry a cousin.

Rivka's younger sister, Malka, marries Yosef in a match arranged by her parents, even though she loves Yaakov, a rock singer, who has abandoned the religious community. When Yosef is sexually cold to her, she leaves for a night with Yaakov; when she returns, Yosef calls her a "slut" and beats her with a belt. She runs out of their apartment.

Meir, having divorced Rivka and re-married, shows up at Rivka's apartment on the Purim holiday (when men traditionally get drunk), and wants to be with her (a Haredi man would normally never be alone with a woman who is not his wife). She retreats initially. We do not see what happens, but when Malka runs to Rivka's apartment after Yosef beats her, Rivka babbles about being pregnant.

In a scene which could be a dream or allegory, Rivka comes to Meir, who is sleeping, lies down with him, and drapes herself all over him, but he does not wake up (nor is his new wife present, suggesting this is not actually the storyline). Eventually, she falls asleep on top of him. He wakes up, and cannot rouse her. He shakes Rivka, and tries to wake her, as she has apparently died of a broken heart. The movie ends with Malka, alone after having left Yosef, looking over the city of Jerusalem.

One review of the movie is found in the New York Times.


The Tao of Steve

Dex (Logue) is an unlikely Lothario - an overweight, thirty-something part-time kindergarten teacher - who has developed an effective method for seducing women. "The Tao of Steve", Dex's own personal pseudophilosophy on seduction, combines a Taoist outlook with the qualities embodied by TV characters such as Steve Austin (''The Six Million Dollar Man'') and Steve McGarrett (''Hawaii Five-O'') and, above all, by the actor Steve McQueen. He meets up with Syd, an old college conquest whom he can't remember, but to whom he is instantly attracted. However, she never forgot him, and is hurt that he got over her so easily. Slowly, Dex subjects Syd to the "Tao of Steve", but Syd is immune to Dex's charms. Gradually, he develops genuine feelings for her.

During a camping trip with Syd, Dex suffers chest pains and has to be taken to the hospital. A doctor informs Dex that what he thought was a heart attack was merely heartburn, but cautions him that his lifestyle is endangering his health. Later, at school, the husband of one of his conquests punches him in the face in front of his students. Syd comes to Dex's house to console him, and they end up sleeping together. The next day, however, she finds out about his "philosophy", and leaves in disgust. Dex finally realizes that he needs to make changes in his life.

Sometime later, Syd is in New York City, working as a set designer. She leaves a message on Dex's answering machine asking him to call her and talk about their relationship - only to see Dex himself standing before her, ready to give her a chance.


Juiced: Eliminator

The game concentrates on the racing career of the player in Angel City. The player begins racing against a new crew leader called Nina, who does not respect the player and thinks that the player does not have what it takes to beat her in a race. She lets the player use one of her cars and strikes a wager with the player (the same goes with TK in the original ''Juiced''). After the player beats her in the race, she gives the player more respect and apologizes for being pushy before the race, and she also gives the player her mobile phone number. After the tutorial, the player is given a wider choice of race events that allow the player to collect cars and gain further recognition from Nina and other crew leaders.


Broken Wings (film)

The unexpected death of the family patriarch throws every member of the Ullmann clan off course. Widow Dafna takes to bed for three months and when she finally returns to her job at the maternity hospital, she has little time for her children. Eldest son, Yair drops out of school and adopts a fatalist attitude, shutting out his siblings and girlfriend. His twin sister Maya, a talented musician, feels the most guilt and is forced to act as a family caregiver at the expense of career opportunities. Bullied at school, younger son Ido responds by obsessively filming himself with a video camera and attempting dangerous feats. The baby sister, Bar, is woefully neglected. Preoccupied with their own misery, the family is barely a family anymore. When another tragedy strikes, will they be able to support one another?