From Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ===== General Wellington orders Richard Sharpe to find out what happened to Claud Hardy, one of Major Michael Hogan's exploring officers, who was sent to locate Spanish gold thought to be in the (fictional) hamlet of Casatejada, and to retrieve the gold himself through any means necessary, as Wellington's army is in desperate need of funds. Sharpe sets off with his small company and links up with Major Kearsey, another of Hogan's exploring officers. Kearsey makes it clear that he believes that the gold belongs to the Spanish and the purpose of the mission is to return it to them. They meet the local partisan commander El Catolico, who delights in torturing French prisoners to death. When Kearsey is captured by the French, Sharpe decides to go into the town and rescue him, as the partisans trust the major. They succeed, at the cost of a few of their own men, and free not only Kearsey, but also Teresa Moreno and her brother Ramon. The Spanish guerrillas soon enter the town. El Catolico knows about the gold and is certain the British want to take it for themselves and abandon Portugal. Sharpe is strongly attracted to Teresa, who is betrothed to El Catolico. Her father, Cesare, is El Catolico's second-in-command. El Catolico claims that the French took the gold and captured Claud Hardy. El Catolico assigns partisans to escort Sharpe and his men partway back toward British lines, but when they leave, Sharpe doubles back late at night to search a fairly new grave. El Catolico is not fooled, and his men are waiting for Sharpe, but Patrick Harper learns that the gold is hidden under a large pile of manure nearby. Sharpe takes Teresa hostage in order to extricate himself and his men. They head for the fortress of Almeida and are harried by both the partisans and by French troops. Sharpe and Teresa fall in love. When questioned, she admits that El Catolico murdered Hardy (after the latter found out about the gold) and that her fiancé intends to use the gold for his own ends, rather than turn it over to the provisional Spanish government in Cadiz. Sharpe and his men are about to be overrun by French lancers, but are rescued by a unit of King's German Legion cavalry under Captain Lossow, who was sent by Hogan to search for them and take them to Almeida. The officers meet with the commander of the fortress, the English Brigadier Cox. Sharpe had an order personally written by Wellington, ordering that all officers give Sharpe whatever assistance he requires, but Kearsey had torn it up, so Cox is suspicious of his motives. El Catolico and his men arrive the same night and lodge a claim for the gold on behalf of the Spanish government. Unable to contact Wellington, as the telegraph is destroyed by French artillery before a message can be sent, Cox orders the gold to given to El Catolico and that Sharpe and his men join the besieged garrison. That night, there is a final showdown between Sharpe and El Catolico on the roof above Sharpe's bedroom window. Sharpe, knowing that El Catolico is the far superior swordsman, traps El Catolico's rapier after it impales his leg long enough for Sharpe to disarm and kill him. However, since Cox insists on giving the gold to the partisans, Sharpe decides to blow up the fortress's magazine. Before he can do so, however, a stray French shell ignites the gunpowder trail he had laid to the magazine. The ensuing massive explosion breaches the fortress walls and kills many of the garrison, including Kearsay. Cox is forced to surrender. Sharpe and Lossow depart with their men and the gold before the French forces enter. Teresa returns to the partisans. Sharpe learns that the gold was needed to pay for the construction of the enormous defensive Lines of Torres Vedras, which form an impregnable barrier between the British Army's base in Lisbon and Marshal Masséna's invading army. Hogan reassures Sharpe that the gold was more necessary to Wellington than Almeida. Sharpe is granted a month's leave by Wellington, so he takes the opportunity to renew his acquaintance with Josefina LaCosta, his love interest from Sharpe's Eagle, who has set herself up in Lisbon as an exclusive courtesan. When she complains after Sharpe chases away her latest client, a wealthy lieutenant, Sharpe laughs and drops gold coins, showing that he has enough of "Sharpe's gold" for her. ===== Vincent LaMarca (Robert De Niro) is a veteran New York City Police Department detective. When Vincent was only 8 years old, his father was executed for murder, because a child whom his father (also a cop but desperate for money) had kidnapped for ransom died when in his care. Vincent feels guilty for his father's deed, and has tried to redeem himself; he works hard and well as a cop despite the stigma of being the son of a murderer. Although he used to live in Long Beach, Vincent now lives in New York City. Vincent has a son called Joey La Marca (James Franco). Joey is still in Long Beach, but he is a homeless junkie. Vincent last saw Joey 14 years ago, when Vincent walked out on his son and his son's mother, and went to live by himself. He has told his current girlfriend, Michelle (Frances McDormand), that he has no children. Then Vincent's son, Joey, is implicated in a drug-related killing out in Long Beach. Vincent is unwilling to help his son, and Michelle cannot understand why. Joey's girlfriend, Gina (Eliza Dushku) is struggling to stay sober for the sake of her infant son, Angelo; Joey is the father of the child. Gina pleads with Vincent to try to save Joey. Gina later abandons the child, leaving the toddler with Vincent. Vincent's cop partner, Reg (George Dzundza) is sympathetic to Vincent's situation, and is trying to help Vincent clear Joey of the drug-related killing. On the basis of a tip-off, Reg and another policeman are in Long Beach searching an abandoned and ruined casino where Joey is thought to sleep, to try to take Joey in for questioning. During the search, Reg is brutally shot and killed. The second cop assumes that Joey killed Reg, and is unaware that Reg was killed by the ruthless local drug enforcer, Spyder (William Forsythe). Joey is now thought to be responsible for two murders, including killing a cop. A massive police search is launched to stop this "armed and dangerous cop-killer". It looks as if the police will probably shoot and kill Joey if they can locate him. Vincent decides he has to do whatever he can to save his estranged son, for the sake of his son, but also for the sake of his little grandson, so that his grandson can grow up with a mother and a father. Vincent decides he cannot stay "disappeared" from his son's and grandson's life, in the same way his own father disappeared from his life when he was a child. After a difficult search, Vincent finds his son, who does not trust him and thinks that his father only wants to arrest him—cop first, father second. Eventually Vincent is able to persuade his son that he cares for him. When other police home in on them, Vincent uses his own body to block his son's body so that police cannot shoot Joey without first shooting him. Joey is taken into custody without violence and father and son exchange a small smile before he is taken away. ===== Adrian Monk and Natalie Teeger stop by the local university to investigate an apparent open-and-shut self-defense case. Professor Jeremiah Cowan was giving a class when a gunman burst into the room and pointed a gun at him. Cowan shot the intruder before the intruder could shoot. The dead man was Ford Oldman, who had apparently made several threats against Cowan in the past. Monk explains to Captain Stottlemeyer and Lieutenant Disher how Cowan staged the scene, but before he can explain Cowan's motive, Natalie cuts him off, since the department hasn't paid Monk for his consulting. Later that day, Stottlemeyer calls Natalie to say that he has Monk's check at the station. Arriving at the station, they notice that the San Francisco Police Department is making large budget cuts. It starts when Disher asks if they can break a $20 so he can get a cup of coffee from the machine, which the OCD-ridden Monk isn't willing to do. Stottlemeyer asks Monk to accompany him to the Conference of Metropolitan Homicide Detectives, which this year is being held in San Francisco. At the conference, Stottlemeyer reveals several things, including Monk's case clearance rate. After, the captain thinks Paul Braddock, the moderator (and a detective from Banning, California), used to work for the SFPD until Stottlemeyer threatened to expose his abusive methods to Internal Affairs. While having coffee with Natalie, Stottlemeyer asks her and Monk to come with him to Mill Valley, where he is planning on checking in on a police informant he once worked with. The man's name is Bill Peschel. They travel out later that day to meet Peschel, who lives with his daughter Carol, her husband Phil, and their two children. It becomes clear that Peschel suffers from dementia because he keeps thinking that he is running his bar. Keeping the part, Stottlemeyer acts like Monk is his rookie partner and they are seeking information. Peschel first starts by saying that Hy Conrad was in here bragging about a smash-and-grab, but then gets to the point when he tells them that a fancy lady came in asking someone to kill her rich husband and make it look like an accident. After leaving, Natalie tells Monk that Peschel has Alzheimer's disease. Talking to Carol Atwater, Monk takes an obsession in the Diaper Genie diapers she uses. Carol mentions that most cops her father used to know now hang up on him when he calls in late at night with his tips. Peschel has also invested big in stock of InTouchSpace, a social networking site. ===== Jonathan Kingsley, travelling to a Himalayan spiritual hermitage, tries to save himself from suicidal thoughts after the death of his wife. This hermitage, known as an Ashram, was meant to provide him peace even as he sought to rehabilitate others through volunteer work. But he never expected the practices and rituals he would discover, or imagined himself trying to save one woman from her unwanted future. As the doctor searches for an excuse to keep on living, Seeta struggles to keep her own husband alive, not only out of love, but for her own safety. The townspeople of Baramedi, bowing to the wishes of a local landowner (nicknamed Satan), have decided that when her husband dies, Seeta should climb atop a burning pyre to burn with his body. This practice of suttee, out of use for many years, brings Jonathan to her town in an effort to save her, but when he arrives at the pyre, he realizes there is more to his journey and that—unbeknownst to him—the woman’s safety is intricately tied with his own spiritual salvation. A woman's emancipation from oppressive culture and fear of men; a man's overcoming of inability to cope with death and learning to love—again! ===== The story begins with Collin Fenwick losing his mother, and then his father, and moving into his aunts' (Dolly and Verena) house. Catherine, the servant, also lives in the house and gets along, for the most part, only with Dolly. Dolly is famous for her medicine, which she makes by going out into the woods with Catherine and Collin and randomly picking plants. They then go to an old treehouse, which is propped up in a Chinaberry tree. One day, after Dolly has an argument with Verena (Verena wants to mass-produce Dolly's medicine), Dolly, Collin, and Catherine leave their home and start walking. They go to the treehouse in the Chinaberry tree, and decide to camp out there. Verena, meanwhile, informs the sheriff of her sister's disappearance; the Sheriff organizes a search party, and eventually arrests Catherine. During the course of the novel, others come to live in the treehouse, such as Judge Cool and Riley Henderson. In a climactic event, a confrontation among the search party and the residents of the tree house leads to Riley getting shot in the shoulder. After Judge Cool discusses the situation, everyone agrees that it was a pointless struggle, and old relationships are invigorated once again. Many people leave as friends. The story ends with how a "grass harp, gathering, telling, a harp of voices remembering a story." ===== The first act of the novel introduces Calvin Dexter, the main character of the story. Dexter is described as a lawyer in his early fifties with a passion for running triathlons to keep in shape. The book digs into his past and reveals that he is a highly decorated Vietnam War veteran, and that his last tour of duty was as a tunnel rat, an extremely élite and secret task force that descended deep into the catacombs of Vietcong tunnels to hunt down the enemy in their own lairs. Dexter later married and had a daughter who at the age of 16 was lured away and forced into prostitution by Latino gang members and eventually murdered. Dexter hunts down his daughter's killers in Panama and executes them, then returns home only to discover that his beloved wife couldn't deal with the death of their only child and has committed suicide during his absence. He moves away and becomes only a small-town lawyer in his public face. But when the reason and price are right, he transforms himself into the "Avenger" and delivers justice not by killing criminals but by 'rendering' them to the United States, so that they will stand trial for their crimes against Americans. Intertwined into the backstory of Calvin Dexter is the narrative of a young American volunteer from a very privileged family who was killed while delivering aid in Bosnia during the Bosnian War. As the second act kicks into gear, the boy's grandfather, a Canadian billionaire named Stephen Edmonds, hires a tracker to discover the identity of his sole grandson's killer and eventually learns him to be Zoran Zilic, a sadistic hitman for Slobodan Milošević's government. The CIA had followed the movements of Zilic during the war, but let him slip off the radar after the fall of Milošević. Edmonds then learns of the services provided by the Avenger and hires him to pursue Zilic and bring him to trial. It is then revealed that a secret section in the CIA, headed by Paul Devereaux III, a dedicated patriot, has been working with Zilic in recent months with plans to use him as bait to eliminate another terrorist danger -- Osama bin Laden himself. From the CIA’s point of view, Zilic, despite his horrific crimes, had been marginalised as a result of the end of hostilities in Bosnia and could be used to neutralise a much larger threat to the American way of life. The third act details the actions of the "Avenger" as he tracks Zilic to his palatial and fully self-sufficient farm/compound in South America. Meanwhile, the CIA operatives work furiously to prevent the "Avenger" from nabbing Zilic. The Avenger is tipped off by the FBI that the CIA is onto him and outsmarts them at every turn. He successfully manages to transport Zilic to Key West and into police custody. Just as the story ends, the date is stated to be September 10, 2001. Category:2003 British novels Category:British novels adapted into films Category:Novels by Frederick Forsyth Category:Political thriller novels Category:British political novels Category:Novels set in Florida Category:Novels set in Panama Category:Novels set in Vietnam Category:Novels set in New York City Category:Novels set in New Jersey Category:Novels set in Ontario Category:Novels set in Virginia Category:Novels adapted into television shows Category:Cultural depictions of Slobodan Milošević ===== The film begins with Tigger wanting to ski, but Winnie the Pooh and Piglet point out that there's no snow. So they go ask Rabbit what day of the year it is. Rabbit's calendar pages blow away in the wind that blew inside the house, but Rabbit doesn't realize it and claims that it's February 2 - Groundhog Day. In an effort to find out if there are two more weeks of winter or if spring comes tomorrow, they ask Gopher if he sees his shadow. Gopher angrily points out that he's a gopher, not a groundhog, so they have Piglet pretend to be a groundhog. Piglet's hat fell over his eyes, so he didn't see anything. Everyone thinks that spring has come, so they all prepare for spring by airing out their houses, planting gardens and spring cleaning. But later that day, it snows. A very discouraged Rabbit confronts Piglet and tells him that it's all his fault, and goes home to see that his calendar pages are blowing away, and realizes that it's not Groundhog Day; it's only November 13. Feeling awful for what he said, Rabbit goes to apologize to Piglet, only to find a note from Piglet saying that he's gone to look for a real groundhog. Rabbit frantically goes looking for Piglet. Meanwhile, Piglet can't find a groundhog, so he decides to go home after a pile of snow falls on him, and he leaves his hat behind on the pile of snow. Rabbit follows Piglet's footprints and finds the pile of snow. Thinking that it's Piglet frozen solid, he rushes to Pooh's house, where he, Tigger and Pooh melt the ice. Thinking that Piglet has melted, Rabbit sobs and apologizes for everything, only to realize that the real Piglet is behind him. He realizes that the "frozen Piglet" was really just a pile of snow. Rabbit tells everyone that it's November 13. So, they decide to get ready for Thanksgiving. When Thanksgiving arrives, Pooh is at his house when Christopher Robin arrives, and they talk about the celebration at Rabbit's house later that day. Pooh then dances around the Hundred Acre Wood singing about Thanksgiving. Everyone except Christopher Robin arrives at Rabbit's house with food that they each brought. Rabbit tells everyone that what they brought is not a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. He assigns Tigger and Eeyore to pick cranberries, Gopher to make the pumpkin pie, Owl to wash the dishes, and most importantly, Pooh and Piglet are to get the turkey. Gopher literally blows up a pumpkin to make the pumpkin pie. Tigger and Eeyore gather up cranberries, while Tigger sings a silly song about berries. But on their way back to Rabbit's house, they realize that there's a hole in their sack and go to pick some more cranberries, only to accidentally fall into Pooh and Piglet's turkey trap. Thinking that they've captured a turkey, Pooh and Piglet take the sack to Rabbit. Gopher arrives with the pie and sits it on the table next to the sack that Tigger and Eeyore are in. Everyone is scared to open the sack, but Tigger and Eeyore break out. When Tigger and Eeyore try to escape, the pie is accidentally thrown off the table, but then Rabbit catches it, only to have Tigger scare him, and the pie hits Rabbit in the face. Owl stumbles backward carrying dishes, which break on top of Eeyore. Piglet is thrown into the air and grabs onto the hanging turkey decoration. Pooh tries to save Piglet, but the streamers break. Convinced that Thanksgiving is ruined, everybody disappointedly goes home. Pooh realizes that if they all share the food they originally brought, they can still have a great Thanksgiving. So he gathers up everyone, and they surprise Rabbit with the Thanksgiving dinner they've set up. They are joined by Christopher Robin, who proposes a toast, with lemonade, to the best Thanksgiving celebration ever. Everyone sings about what Thanksgiving is really about - friends, not food. A month later, on Christmas Eve, everyone except Christopher Robin and Gopher are at Rabbit's house decorating. Pooh and Piglet make a (rather short) popcorn string. Eeyore gets tangled in a string of lights. Roo is worried that Santa won't like his cookies, but Kanga assures him that Santa will love his cookies. Tigger arrives with a special delivery from Kessie, a bird that Rabbit took care of. Roo is curious and asks who Kessie is. So Rabbit tells him the whole story. Rabbit, Tigger, Piglet, and Pooh are desperately trying to save a carrot during a blizzard. They hear a cry for help, and see a baby bluejay hanging onto a tree. Rabbit begins to panic, and rushes to his house to get a ladder. But because of the wind, Rabbit, Piglet, Tigger, and Pooh end up flying on Rabbit's front door. Rabbit catches the bluejay in Pooh's honey pot, and they crash into Rabbit's house. Rabbit decides to take care of the baby bluejay, who calls herself Kessie, himself. The next morning, Rabbit tries to take care of Kessie like a baby, but when Pooh and Piglet arrive, Rabbit leaves Kessie in their hands. After a mishap with a bath that Pooh and Piglet gave her, Kessie winds up in a bubble, and when it pops, Rabbit catches her, and tells her to never go up so high again. In the summer, Rabbit teaches Kessie how to weed carrots, and Rabbit finds a potted carrot in the garden. It was the very first carrot that Kessie planted. Tigger then comes and offers to take Kessie out to play. Kessie holds onto Tigger's back while he bounces over a large tree and then onto a tall snag, which falls, leaving Kessie and Tigger hanging on for dear life. Rabbit arrives to help, but Kessie slips from Rabbit's hand, and plummets off the cliff. Rabbit tries to go after her, but Tigger manages to get off the tree and stop him, telling Rabbit that Kessie is gone. Meanwhile, Kessie is still plummeting and Owl arrives and tells her to flap her wings. Back on top of the hill, Rabbit sadly says that he never told Kessie that he loved her. Kessie and Owl arrive, and Kessie and Rabbit hug. Kessie tells Rabbit that Owl is going to teach her how to fly. Rabbit refuses to let her fly, and with that, they go home. In the fall, Rabbit is reading Kessie a story about a princess and a knight. Kessie looks out the window to see other birds flying south for the winter. She announces that she's going to go outside. For days, she tries to fly, but is caught by Pooh, who promises not to tell Rabbit. Pooh, Tigger, and Piglet have an idea on how to get Kessie south for the winter - a giant slingshot. When Kessie is about to take off, Rabbit arrives, and stops her. He yells at Pooh, and tells Tigger to let go of the slingshot. Tigger lets go, and Rabbit is hit and falls off the same cliff that Kessie had fallen off that summer. Kessie quickly swoops down, grabs Rabbit, and brings him back to the top. Now that Kessie can fly, she plans on going south the next day. That night, Rabbit is sadly looking at Kessie's stuffed bunny. Kessie asks Rabbit to read her one last bedtime story, but Rabbit claims that Kessie doesn't need him for anything, and goes to bed. Kessie cries all night. The next morning, Owl, Pooh, Piglet, and Tigger say goodbye to Kessie as she prepares to fly South. Meanwhile, Rabbit is in his garden feeling sad, and bumps his head on the potted carrot that Kessie had planted. He rushes to say goodbye to Kessie, but finds he's too late and she is gone. However, he is happy when Kessie comes back to say goodbye. Later that day, Pooh and Piglet are relaxing by Christopher Robin's favorite tree talking about how Rabbit loved Kessie, and how they can't wait to see her again and Rabbit is sitting nearby, waiting for Kessie to return. Back in the present, Rabbit tells Roo that he hasn't seen Kessie since then, as Tigger sobs. Rabbit looks at his clock to see that it's getting late, and hurries everyone outside to decorate a tree. Christopher Robin arrives to help decorate. After the tree is done, Rabbit realizes he forgot the most important part, a star to go on top of the tree. Rabbit is really sad, but then sees a falling star. Everyone gathers to make a wish, only to realize that it's not a falling star; it's Kessie holding a star, which she puts on the tree. Rabbit and Kessie hug, and Kessie wishes Rabbit a Merry Christmas, ending the film. New York Times Review (1998) ===== Undisputed heavyweight boxing champion George "Iceman" Chambers (Rhames) is convicted of rape and sentenced to a new prison in the desert, called Sweetwater. The high- security facility is populated by hardened criminals. Unaware of the prison's ways and its unique hierarchy, the pompous and bratty Chambers tries to impress upon the inmates his status as a champion boxer. The prison camp, within its own walls, has a riveting competition on which a betting syndicate thrives. Criminals fight in boxing matches with very lax rules, thus making it a very addictive and lucrative venture for the syndicate. The most popular boxer behind bars is Sweetwater's undefeated Monroe Hutchens (Snipes), who ends up in solitary confinement after Chambers picks a fight with him in the mess hall. Sensing the brewing hatred for the heavyweight champion, an incarcerated mob boss named Ripstein (Falk) senses potential in a match between the modest Hutchens and the egomaniacal Chambers. Ripstein, a lifelong boxing fan, proposes a match and the warden (Arndt) is persuaded to look the other way. As all the arrangements are finally organized, an eagerly awaited fight night arrives. All hell breaks loose with the haughty professional champ going all out against the unputdownable prison warrior. Chambers knocks down Hutchens twice (and with the London Prize Ring Rules, each knockdown counts as the end of a round, as the boxer is given only 60 seconds to get up.) In the third round, Hutchens charges back and knocks Chambers down for the first time in his career, sending the crowd of prisoners into a frenzy. Finally, in the fourth round Hutchens officially KO's Chambers to become the undisputed champion. Ripstein's Mexican assistant reveals in a voice over that Ripstein died three weeks after the fight, but in his will, he left him $2,000,000. Chambers was released on parole, and Hutchens received the money for his sister, who was experiencing hardship on the outside. It is also revealed that Chambers and his manager denied that the fight with Hutchens ever occurred, and that it was all a rumor. Months later, Chambers wins back the Heavyweight Championship of the World. The whole cell block watches the televised fight, and laugh and cheer Monroe's name after hearing Chambers being crowned the 'undisputed' heavyweight champion of the world. ===== The story features three anthropomorphic wolves who build four houses using different types of materials: bricks, concrete, steel, and flowers. A big bad pig tries to destroy the houses made of bricks, concrete, and steel by huffing and puffing, but fails, so he finds a way to destroy those houses by using a sledgehammer for the bricks, a pneumatic drill for the concrete, and dynamite for the steel. However, when the pig tries to blow down the flower house, he smells the fragrant flowers, and the pig realizes what he has done. The pig then becomes a good pig, and he and the wolves live happily ever after as friends as the book ends. ===== In 1869, near Brantford, New Hampshire, two boys bury a chest. A century later, in 1969, Alan Parrish escapes a group of bullies and retreats to a shoe company owned by his father, Sam. He meets Carl Bentley, an employee, who reveals a new shoe prototype he made by himself. Alan misplaces the shoe and damages a machine, but Carl takes responsibility and loses his job. After being attacked by the bullies, who also steal his bicycle, Alan follows the sound of tribal drumbeats to a construction site. He finds the chest containing a board game called Jumanji and brings it home. At home, after an argument with his father about attending a boarding school, Alan plans to run away. Sarah Whittle, his friend, arrives to return his bicycle, and Alan shows her Jumanji and invites her to play. With each roll of the dice, the game piece moves by itself and a cryptic message describing the roll's outcome appears in the crystal ball at the center of the board. Sarah reads the first message on the board and hears an eerie sound. Alan then unintentionally rolls the dice after being startled by the chiming clock; a message tells him to wait in a jungle until someone rolls a five or eight, and he is sucked into the game. Afterwards, a swarm of bats appears and chases Sarah out of the mansion. Twenty-six years later, Judy and Peter Shepherd move into the vacant Parrish mansion with their aunt Nora, after their parents died in an accident on a ski trip in Canada the winter before. The next day, Judy and Peter find Jumanji in the attic and begin playing it. Their rolls summon big mosquitoes and a swarm of monkeys. The game rules state that everything will be restored when the game ends, so they continue playing. Peter's next roll, a five, releases a lion and an adult Alan. As Alan makes his way out, he meets Carl, who is now working as a police officer. Alan, Judy, and Peter go to the now- abandoned shoe factory where a homeless man tells Alan that Sam abandoned the business to search for Alan after his disappearance, until his 1991 death. Eventually, the factory closed which caused Brantford's economic decline. Realizing that they need Sarah to finish the game, the three locate Sarah, now haunted by both Jumanji and Alan's disappearance, and persuade her to join them. Sarah's first move releases fast-growing carnivorous vines, and Alan's next move releases a big-game hunter named Van Pelt, whom Alan first met in the jungle. The next roll summons a herd of various animals, causing a stampede, and a pelican steals the game. Peter retrieves it, but Alan is arrested by Carl. Back in town, the stampede wreaks havoc, and Van Pelt steals the game. Peter, Sarah, and Judy track Van Pelt to a department store, where they set booby traps to subdue him and retrieve the game, while Alan, after revealing his identity to Carl, is set free. When the four return to the mansion, it is now completely overrun by jungle wildlife. They release one calamity after another until Van Pelt arrives. When Alan drops the dice, he wins the game which causes everything that happened as a result of the game to be reversed. Alan and Sarah return to 1969 as children, but have memories of the events that took place. Alan reconciles with Sam, who tells him that he does not have to attend boarding school. Alan admits that he was responsible for the shoe that damaged the factory's machine. Alan and Sarah throw Jumanji into a river, then share a kiss. In 1995, Alan and Sarah are married and expecting their first child. Alan's parents are still alive and successfully running the family business. He and Sarah see Judy and Peter and meet their parents Jim and Martha for the first time during a Christmas party. Alan offers Jim a job and convinces them to cancel their upcoming ski trip, averting their deaths. On a beach, two young French-speaking girls hear drumbeats while walking, as Jumanji lies partially buried in the sand. ===== With his pregnant wife at death's door after a car crash, desperate husband John Barrett (Winstone) invades the home of Mark Driscoll (Dutton) and holds both Driscoll and his rich, neglected wife Sally (Fenn) hostage in order to understand the events that led to his wife ending up in a coma. ===== On the night of Christmas Eve, a boy becomes skeptical of the existence of Santa Claus. Struggling to fall asleep, he witnesses a steam locomotive arrive on the street, and goes outside to examine it. The conductor introduces the train as the Polar Express, bound for the North Pole. Initially reluctant, the boy jumps aboard as the train departs. In a passenger car, he meets a spirited girl and a know-it-all boy. The train picks up a boy named Billy, who also declines to board, but changes his mind, and the boy pulls the emergency brake to allow Billy to board, which is noticed by the conductor. As Billy sits alone in the train's observation car, hot chocolate is served in the passenger car, and the girl stows away a cup for Billy. As she and the conductor cross to the dining car, the boy notices that she left her unpunched ticket, but loses hold of the ticket between the cars when he attempts to return it. The ticket reenters the passenger car, but not before the conductor notices its absence and escorts the girl back to the rear car. When the know- it-all claims the conductor will throw the girl from the train, the boy recovers the ticket and dashes to the dining car in search of the conductor, climbing onto the roof. He meets a hobo camping on the roof, who offers him coffee and discusses the existence of Santa Claus and ghosts. The hobo skis with the boy along the tops of the cars toward the coal tender, where the hobo disappears right at Flat Top Tunnel. In the locomotive's cab, the boy discovers that the girl has been made to supervise driving the train while the engineers Steamer and Smokey replace the headlight. The boy applies the brakes and the train stops coming across a herd of caribou blocking the tracks. The conductor pulls Smokey's beard, causing him to let out animal-like noises, and the caribou herd clears the tracks. The train continues on at extreme speed, and the throttle's split pin (cotter pin) shears off, causing the train to accelerate uncontrollably down a 179-degree grade and onto a frozen lake. Smokey uses his hairpin to repair the throttle as the train drifts across the ice to realign with the tracks moments before the ice breaks. The boy returns the girl's ticket for the conductor to punch, and as the three return to the passenger car, the Hobo uses a Scrooge puppet, taunting the boy and calling him a doubter. The train arrives at the North Pole, where the conductor announces that one of the passengers will be chosen to receive the first gift of Christmas from Santa himself. Discovering Billy still alone in the observation car, the girl and boy persuade him to come along, but the boy accidentally uncouples the car, sending it back along the line to a railway turntable in Santa's workshop. The children make their way through an elf command center and a gift sorting office before being dumped into a giant sack of presents, where they discover that the know-it-all has stowed away, and the elves escort them out as Santa arrives. A bell flies loose from the galloping reindeer's reins; the boy initially cannot hear it ring, until he finds it within himself to believe. He shows the bell to Santa, who selects him to receive the first gift of Christmas. Santa agrees to let him keep the bell, and the boy places it in his robe pocket. The rear car is returned to the train as the children board to return home, but the boy discovers that he lost the bell through the hole in his pocket. He returns home and awakens Christmas morning to find a present containing the bell. He and his younger sister Sarah joyfully ring the bell, while their parents, not believing in Santa, don't hear the bell and say that the bell is broken. The boy reflects on his friends and sister growing deaf to the bell over the years as their belief faded. However, the bell still rings for him, as it will "for all who truly believe". ===== Dr. Andrew Manson (Robert Donat) is an idealistic newly qualified Scottish doctor dedicated to treating the Welsh miners suffering from tuberculosis in the Welsh mining village of Blaenely and is an apprentice to Dr. Page (Basil Gill). Initially, he has many lofty scientific goals, but meets local resistance in his research. After his laboratory and notes are destroyed by the miners, he moves to London, taking working class patients in impoverished conditions. There, his purpose erodes when a chance encounter with a medical school friend, Dr. Frederick Lawford (Rex Harrison) leads to his quiet seduction by an unethical medical establishment, treating rich hypochondriacs. Christine (Rosalind Russell), his wife tries to set him back on the original path. Dr. Philip Denny (Ralph Richardson), Manson's best friend and still working for improved working class health, dies at the hands of an incompetent, social-climbing surgeon. ===== A woman, Tome, (Sachiko Hidari) is born to a lower-class family in Japan in 1918. The film is a metaphor for life in Japan through the middle twentieth century, including World War II. The title refers to an insect, repeating its mistakes, as in an infinite circle. Imamura, with this metaphor, introduces the life of Tome, who keeps trying to change her poor life. ===== Ricky Hayman (Jeff Goldblum) and Kate Newell (Kelly Preston) work at the Good Buy Shopping Network, a home shopping channel run by John McBainbridge (Robert Loggia). Sales have been down over the last two years under Ricky's management, and Kate was brought in to come up with new ideas. Ricky views Kate as a threat and she expresses her dislike for him as well. However, John has given Ricky an ultimatum to increase sales, or lose his job. While out driving one day, Ricky and Kate come across a charismatic strange man who calls himself "G" (Eddie Murphy). G is unusual in that he wears white robes and is perpetually happy and smiling. He seems to sense how troubled Ricky is, and follows them back to the Good Buy studio. G wanders onto the set of an infomercial, and while he is on the air, the number of calls with customers wanting to buy something increases. Kate notices this and gets G his own spot on the network selling items. Meanwhile, the mutual dislike between Ricky and Kate fades and they begin to express romantic interest in each other. G's infomercials are mostly spontaneous anecdotes or thoughts about life, but customers connect with him and even the slowest moving items begin selling out. While staying at Ricky's house, he encounters a party of businessmen and displays his talents by making a Rolex watch "disappear" and curing a man of his fear of flying. Ricky begins marketing G's name on other items to increase sales. He wants to give G his own show, but the stressful work environment and throngs of fans who want to meet G begin to take its toll. G is no longer the happy, inspiring man he once was, and when Kate tries to convince John to let G leave the network, he refuses and she quits out of contempt. Ricky reaps the benefits of the increased sales, receiving a large promotion and a new office. However, the rewards seem hollow due to G's lethargy and Kate's rejection of him. On the night of the premiere of G's new show, Ricky searches himself and decides that letting G go is the right choice. He announces his decision live on air to the studio audience and to his boss. Kate hears of his decision and forgives Ricky, racing back to the studio to be with him. They have a romantic reunion on the air, and the show is ended. Afterwards, Ricky and Kate say their goodbyes to the fully recovered G, who wanders off into the distance to continue his pilgrimage. ===== In the mid-17th, the court of Cosmo Medici gather to watch a play. The town of Mâcon is plagued with a curse that has made every woman barren and brought famine to the land. A woman is in labour signifying the first birth in many years which the midwives initially believe is a false labour due to The Mother's advanced years and general ugliness. However she does give birth to a healthy baby boy. Her husband, The Father, immediately seeks to profit by selling potions to cure impotence. However the elder Daughter (Julia Ormond) of the couple is taken with the child and sees potential to use him to make herself rich. Years later The Daughter successfully passes the child off as her own claiming him as a virgin birth to protect her own virtue. Various precious gifts are given to The Baby of Mâcon and a cult develops around him. The Daughter sells The Child's blessings of fertility in exchange for livestock and riches. She keeps The Mother and The Father imprisoned, along with The Child's Wet Nurse and a young girl chosen by her to be her father's sexual slave. The Bishop, sensing a threat, considers The Daughter blasphemous and The Bishop's Son (Ralph Fiennes) believes that either she is a virgin and The Child is not hers, or The Child is hers in which case The Daughter is a whore. Frustrated, The Daughter uncages her parents to show The Bishop's Son she is still a virgin but he refuses to believe her mother is the mother of The Child. The Daughter then takes The Bishop's Son to the farm where she keeps her livestock and offers her virginity to him. The Child stumbles across them and prevents The Bishop's Son from taking The Daughter's virginity by using his power to urge a sacred bull to gore The Bishop's Son. He warns The Daughter not to kill the bull as even he will not be able to protect her from the consequences. The Daughter kills the bull and the townspeople discover her. Sensing opportunity The Bishop says she is unfit to be The Child's mother and takes custody of him. The Bishop auctions off The Child's fluid with many suspecting he is being tortured to produce holy tears and blood which sell at high prices. At night, The Daughter sneaks into The Child's room and suffocates him for abandoning her. The Bishop orders her executed, however the laws of the town expressly forbid the execution of a virgin. To circumvent this Medici makes a suggestion to The Bishop that The Daughter be raped. The Bishop dispenses holy pardons to members of The Militia allowing them to rape The Daughter. The scene is to take place in a curtained off canopy bed behind which the actress playing The Daughter acts out screams. However the actors in the scene actually rape her while Medici and the court, stationed outside, gleefully count off the rapists. After she is raped by 208 men she is sentenced to execution only for it to be discovered that she is already dead from the trauma. The townspeople gather to bury the body of The Child. Fearful to be without his powers they begin to gently strip his relics and eventually viciously dismember him hoping that his body will bring them good fortune. Famine falls once again onto the city of Mâcon. The cast members take a bow and the rest of the court turns around and bows to the camera, acknowledging that they too are performers. ===== The player characters explore a stepped pyramid deep in the heart of a tropical jungle-- the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan. The characters must penetrate this Mayan-style temple, which is full of tricks and traps. Some of the traps include cursed items, firebombs, and triggered statues. The shrine is an ancient Mayan/Aztec pyramid, and the module uses names, monsters, and characters based on that period. It also includes an illustrated booklet with fifteen pictures depicting various parts of the shrine to be shown to the players at the appropriate time. Also included are three pre-made characters for use if the scoring system is used. ===== The main character is Mervyn, a sorcerer's apprentice whose botched spell turns him into a frog just in time to save him from an invasion of evil magic-users who slay his mentors. Mervyn's arcane capabilities are intact, and the game's aim is to hunt down the attackers. ===== Hotshot businessman Bill Campbell (Broderick) has returned to his hometown of Buzzsaw at the request of his younger sister Marci (Peldon), who is convinced that their stepfather Mayor Van Der Haven (Jones) has been murdered and replaced by his twin brother Matt Skearns. On the way to Buzzsaw, Bill's car and clothes (including his wallet which contains an important contact number) are stolen by a woman named Sally (Kling) and he is forced to hitchhike home naked, where he is picked up by two drunken brothers—both named Jim (Monks and Reilly). Over the course of the day, Campbell must find Sally, retrieve his wallet, and avoid the diabolical Skearns, who is looking for financial compensation after spending 15 years in prison for a crime committed by his twin brother. The film ends with Skearns driving off a cliff and into a canyon, rather than risk capture by the police. Marci, who tells her classmates what happened, introduces them to her brother and his wife, Sally. Marci also tells her classmates that the Jim brothers were congratulated as heroes for trying to bring a criminal to justice. Both were given jobs as FBI informants. ===== High school senior Nick Powell plans to skip his graduation and fly to London for a writing program, despite the plan of his controlling mother, Diane. His mother pressures him to succeed and is emotionally distant. Nick's best friend, Pete Egan, confides in him that he is bullied by Annie Newton, a troubled teen. Nick attempts to step in on one such occasion, only for it to escalate into a physical confrontation. Annie's closest friends are violent thieves, and her boyfriend, Marcus, is on parole for similar violations. Nick tells Pete about his plans to leave for London and they say goodbye. Annie decides to rob a jewelry store across the street from where Marcus is stealing a car. Marcus reprimands her, and tries to take the jewels for himself, but Annie keeps them and pushes him to try to stop her. Believing Annie is out of control, Marcus tips off the cops. Annie is arrested and assumes that Pete is responsible because he saw her load the merchandise into her locker. She later attempts to beat a confession out of Pete. When Annie does not believe his innocence, Pete reluctantly gives up Nick's name, thinking that Nick is already on a plane to London. He is unaware that Nick gave his ticket to a girl at a party, having decided not to go. When Annie and her crew find Nick walking home from the party, they run him off the road and beat him mercilessly. When Annie believes she has killed Nick, they dump his body into a sewer. The next morning Nick goes to school to find that no one can see or hear him. He returns home to find his mother has filed a missing person's report, and the police are investigating his disappearance. After a while, Nick realizes that he is still alive, but unconscious. When Nick realizes that he is having an out-of-body experience, he reaches out to Annie and Pete to save his life. Corrupt police Detective Larson seems close to putting together the whole truth, and implies that once he finds Annie he will be able to pin the robberies and murder on Marcus. Since Marcus is still on parole, Detective Larson tells him that even being associated with the murder could send him back to prison. Marcus decides to get involved and kidnaps Pete, forcing him to lead him to Nick's body so they can move it to another location. He conspires to kill Annie and arranges to meet with her. Annie calls Pete to the meeting place as well, who is under surveillance by the police. Distraught, Pete pens a suicide note and takes an overdose of pills to commit suicide as Nick frantically watches, begging him not to do it. Before Pete can fully die and starts to leave his body, Nick confronts him since they can see one another. Pete desperately tries to apologize as police close in. As Annie flees from both Marcus and the police, Nick yells at her and she hears him for the first time. Although the two cannot have a conversation, she hears some of his voice in her head and can sense his presence. Annie feels her actions weighing on her conscience and stops to visit Nick's room to get a sense of who he is. The two realize that they were similar and, given different circumstances, the two could have been close. Diane catches Annie in his room, and she flees. She returns to the woods to find Nick's body, only to see that it has been moved. She confronts Pete and Marcus to learn the body's location. Marcus tells her, but shoots her in the stomach as she leaves. She shoots Marcus in return, and calls the police to tell them where to find Nick. Nick's body is found in a dam and is saved. After visiting him in the hospital, Annie dies from her wounds. After leaving the hospital, Nick meets Annie's younger brother, Victor, flying his model plane at the park. They both commemorate Annie by writing her a message on top of the plane and flying it across the river bank. ===== Midsummer night, 1894, in northern Sweden. The complex structures of class bind a man and a woman. Miss Julie, the inexperienced but imperious daughter of the manor, deigns to dance at the servants' party. She's also drawn to Jean, a footman who has traveled, speaks well, and doesn't kowtow. He is engaged to Christine, a servant, and while she sleeps, Jean and Miss Julie talk through the night in the kitchen. For part of the night it's a power struggle, for part it's the baring of souls, and by dawn, they want to break the chains of class and leave Sweden together. When Christine wakes and goes off to church, Jean and Miss Julie have their own decisions to make. ===== The game opens with the Maken's activation; Kay watches with her father as Fei prepares to wield the sword. They are attacked by Sangokai member Hakke Andrey, who kidnaps Sagami and mortally wounds Fei. Prompted by Fei before he dies, Kay takes up the Maken; brainjacking Kay, the Maken defeats Andrey, but fails to prevent Sagami from being kidnapped. Despite brainjacking Andrey to pursue the Sangokai under Lee's orders, Kay remains tied to the Maken and is in danger of permanently losing her PSI. During the Maken's journey across the world, it is revealed that the Sangokai—whose members include the current President of the United States—are being influenced by a god-like being of the PSI realm dubbed Geist. Geist, which also seeks to preserve humanity through more extreme means than the Blademasters, intends to use the Sangokai to reduce the human population. Over the course of the game, the Maken has the option of brainjacking numerous characters from both the Blademasters and the Sangokai. Depending on brainjacking and dialogue choices made by the Maken through the game, several different narrative paths and endings are unlocked. One ending has the Maken follow the Blademasters' orders, destroying the Sangokai and Geist while saving both Kay and Sagami; it is then sealed away as it has the potential of becoming a second Geist. Another ending sees the Maken allowing Kay to die, taking control of the American President following Geist's defeat. The third ending shows the Maken abandoning its mission in order to save Kay, which brings it into conflict with Geist—with the help of Kou, the Maken sacrifices itself and restores Kay to her body. Alternate versions of this route show the Maken being offered a deal by Geist if the Maken refuses to allow itself to die for Kay—accepting the truce restores Kay, while refusing it restores Sagami while the Maken permanently takes over Kay's body. Another route sees the Maken refuse to follow the Blademasters' orders and instead side with the Sangokai, killing Lee and joining Geist in creating a "utopia" by controlling human thoughts. If the Maken refuses to follow both the Blademasters and the Sangokai, it kills Geist while allowing Kay to die. The Maken is contacted by Lee's spirit, who says that the Maken is now the only being left capable of restoring the world. ===== After conquering hundreds of planets, the Star Clustere Gozma sets its sights on Earth. To defend it, the Japanese military forms an elite Earth Defense Force. Under Commander Ibuki, the force begins rigorous training. Meanwhile, as their first act, the Gozma decide to eliminate those who pose the greatest risk of interfering with their invasion: the military. After a brutal day of training, the Earth Defense Force recruits are fed up with Ibuki's cruel ways and leave the training session. Soon afterwards, they are attacked by Gozma troops. Five surviving officers gather together, beaten and exhausted but refusing to retreat from the threat. The Earth trembles, empowering them with the Earth Force, giving them the power of mythological beasts and becoming the Changeman. With the mystical power of the Earth Force and military technology, the Changeman begin their war against Gozma. ===== While Miss Marple (Margaret Rutherford) and Mr Stringer (Stringer Davis) are soliciting donations for a charity ("The Reformed Criminals Assistance League"), they visit Mr. Enderby (Finlay Currie), a rich and eccentric recluse. He tumbles down the long entrance staircase, apparently the victim of a fatal heart attack. Knowing that Enderby had a pathological fear of cats, Miss Marple becomes suspicious when she finds one in the house. She also finds a piece of mud bearing the print of a riding boot, but when she goes to Inspector Craddock (Bud Tingwell), he is sceptical, believing that Enderby died of natural causes. Undeterred, Miss Marple eavesdrops when Enderby's family gather for the reading of the Will. There are four beneficiaries: fourth cousin George Crossfield (Robert Urquhart), niece Rosamund Shane (Katya Douglas), nephew Hector Enderby (Robert Morley) and sister Cora Lansquenet. Each receives an equal share of the estate. Cora declares that she believes Enderby was murdered. The next day, when Miss Marple goes to see her, she finds Cora dead, stabbed in the back with a hatpin. Cora's companion of many years, timid Miss Milchrest (Flora Robson), can provide little information. Miss Marple decides to take a "holiday" at the Gallop Hotel/riding school, as it is run by Hector Enderby and the other two surviving heirs and Miss Milchrest are staying there. When Inspector Craddock questions them and Rosamund Shane's spendthrift husband Michael (James Villiers), none of them can produce a satisfactory alibi for the time of Cora Lansquenet's death. An attempt is made to do away with Miss Marple, but is foiled by the intended victim (without her even realising it). Miss Marple then discovers that the piece of mud found in Enderby's house came from shady art dealer George Crossfield's riding boot, but her case against him is dashed when she learns that each of the heirs visited Enderby on the day he died, to ask for money. Crossfield has meanwhile found out who the murderer is, but he is locked in a stall with an excitable horse and is trampled to death. By this point, Miss Marple knows the identity and motive of the killer, but has no definite proof. She therefore lays a trap, pretending to have a heart attack at a dance at the hotel while doing the twist with Stringer. The police doctor places her in a room by herself, declaring it to be too dangerous to move her until morning. During the night, the criminal makes one last attempt to silence her, but Miss Marple is ready. The killer's motive is revealed to be a seemingly worthless painting owned by Cora, which actually was very valuable. Hector Enderby later proposes marriage to Miss Marple but she turns him down, as she is opposed to blood sports and he is an enthusiastic fox-hunter. After she leaves, he mutters to himself "That was a narrow escape!" ===== ===== Roderick Frederick Ronald Arnold William MacArthur McBan to the Hundred and Fifty-First, Rod McBan for short, is the last male descendant of one of the oldest Norstrilian families and the heir to one of the best ranches, the Station of Doom. As such, he has been spared the culling three times, though he is generally considered unfit, as his ability to communicate telepathically with other Norstrilians is erratic and unreliable. After his last test—which he finally passes with the aid of a Lord of the Instrumentality and his own freak telepathic talents—he learns that an envious former friend, who suffers from an allergy to stroon and so is condemned to live a mere 150 years or so, seeks to kill him, using the pretext that the test was biased and administered unfairly. Rod survives one assassination attempt. To escape the danger, he amasses an immense fortune overnight by playing the futures market in stroon, following a plan formulated by his ancient computer (which has certain more-or-less illegal quasi-military capabilities) which was passed down to him by an eccentric ancestor. By the next day, he is the wealthiest person in history. Noticing this, the Instrumentality changes the rules so it cannot happen again, but in typical fashion, lets him keep his money to see what he will do with it. Wild rumors begin to circulate about him. He is believed to have "bought Old Earth" (the home planet of mankind), though the reality of his convoluted financial deals and investments is considerably more complex. For his safety, Rod is sent to Earth, where his unprecedented fortune quickly makes him a magnet for all manner of crooks and revolutionaries. After a series of adventures among the "underpeople" (animals genetically modified to resemble humans and possessing intellects that sometimes surpass their masters', used as slaves and generally despised) in the company of the bewitching Cat-woman C'mell, he meets their leader, E'Telekeli, an experimental creature of bird origin with enormous psychic powers. In exchange for most of Rod's immense fortune (to be used to campaign for the rights of the underpeople), E'Telekeli and Lord Jestocost, a Lord of the Instrumentality who is sympathetic to the underpeople's cause, send Rod safely back to Norstrilia, after fixing his telepathic disability and providing a psychological remedy for Rod's enemy. ===== The story alternates between two different narratives: Sam and Hailey, and Hailey and Sam, wild and wayward teenagers who never grow old. With an evolving stable of cars, the teenagers move through various places and moments in time as they try to outrace history. As the story proceeds, one can note that many events are perceptual and not certain. By reading both stories some sense can be made from this poetic styled puzzle. The words written are a vague mix of poetry and stream of consciousness prose. Both Hailey and Sam depict their feelings as well as ideas and thoughts towards one another. It is truly difficult to summarize the plot as most readers will understand the parts of story in different ways. ===== Strongly pressured by the crew of the Enterprise, Captain Picard reluctantly agrees to take a vacation on Risa, a pleasure planet. Shortly after he arrives, he is kissed by a woman he has never met, in her attempt to fend off a Ferengi named Sovak. Sovak accuses Picard of conspiring with the woman, Vash, who has in her possession a data disc that he wants. Picard has no interest in the quarrel and returns to his room to discover two "Vorgons" who identify themselves as time-traveling police agents from the 27th century, searching for a powerful weapon called the Tox Uthat capable of stopping the fusion reactions of a star. The 27th-century scientist who invented it traveled back in time to hide it. According to their historical records, Picard will locate this object on Risa. Picard confronts Vash about the Tox Uthat. She claims to be the former assistant of an archaeologist who discovered the location of the Uthat, gave her the disc for safekeeping, and died. Picard and Vash use the information on the disc to determine the Uthat's hiding place. When they arrive at the location where the Uthat is buried, the Vorgons appear to witness the discovery of the Uthat. Sovak then arrives with a phaser rifle and has Picard and Vash excavate the site at gunpoint for hours. However, the Uthat is not there. The Vorgons leave, confused because this doesn't line up with their historical record. Sovak, in his obsession, refuses to believe that the Uthat isn't there, throws away the rifle, and starts digging while Vash and Picard return to the resort. After their arrival, the Enterprise returns to pick up Picard. He catches Vash attempting to sneak away from the resort and surmises that she arrived days earlier, located the Uthat, and devised a ruse to fool Sovak into thinking the Uthat was lost. She reveals the hidden Uthat and the Vorgons reappear, demanding it. When Vash suggests that the Vorgons may have ulterior motives, Picard has the Enterprise use the transporter to destroy it. The disappointed Vorgons reveal that Picard has acted just as their records said by destroying the Uthat, admit defeat, and leave. Vash and Picard have a final intimate exchange before they say goodbye to each other. ===== The film is a biography of anarchist Sakae Ōsugi, who was assassinated by the Japanese military in 1923. The story tells of his relationship with three women: Hori Yasuko, his wife; Noe Itō, his third lover, who was to die with him; and his jealous, second lover, Masaoka Itsuko, a militant feminist who attempts to kill him in a tea house in 1916. Parallel to the telling of Ōsugi’s life, two students (Eiko and Wada) do research on the political theories and ideas of free love that he upheld. Some of the characters from the past and from the present meet and engage the themes of the film. The film begins with Eiko interviewing Noe Itō's daughter Mako in order to shed some light onto Noe's life. After that, we see a glimpse into Eiko and Wada's lives. Eiko believes in Ōsugi's principles of free love and the first time we meet her (after the cold opening), she's making love with a film director but gets interrupted by Wada, so later she finishes herself off by masturbating in the shower. She's also connected with an underground prostitution ring and is questioned by a police inspector. Meanwhile, Wada spends most of his time philosophizing with Eiko and playing with fire. The two sometimes engage in reenactments of lives of famous revolutionaries and martyrs. Their story is interwoven with the retelling of Ōsugi's later years and death. The scene where Itsuko tries to take Ōsugi's life is retold several times with differing results. The 1920s scenes in general follow a different pace than the 1960s scenes, both musically and stylistically. The story sometimes delves into surreal imagery, most notably the scene of two rugby teams playing a match with an urn containing Ōsugi's ashes as the ball, or the segment where Eiko gets to interview Noe herself. In the film's final scene, Eiko's lover/film director commits suicide by hanging himself with a length of film. Eiko and Wada gather all of the 1920s characters and take a group picture of them. The two then leave the building. ===== An elderly couple, John and Marie Holt visit a medical center specializing in a new technology: trading aged bodies in for younger models. The center representative, Mr. Vance, tells them that 98% of couples have been happy with the quality of the swap, but the company offers a guarantee that if they change their mind afterwards within one week, the swap procedure can be reversed. The swap costs $5,000 per body. John and Marie have only $5,000, and government regulations prohibit extension of credit for the procedure. Since John's health problems and constant physical pain make a body swap particularly imperative for him, Marie suggests that he alone do it, but John refuses to go through with the procedure unless they can do it together. John attempts to earn the rest of the money in a high-stakes poker game. He loses most of his $5,000 over several hands. In a final hand, he must put the remaining amount on the table in order to call against Faraday, the only other player who has not folded on that hand. By coincidence, the total pot for the hand is $5,000. Faraday inquires why John is taking such a risk. John explains his situation and reveals a hand of three kings. Moved by sympathy, Faraday lays his winning hand (three aces) face down on the table and says John is the hand's winner, thus allowing him to leave with the same amount he started with. John admits to Faraday that he cannot endure his physical pain any longer and is going to have the procedure, then use his youthful body to earn the money for Marie to follow. After John is transferred to a new body, and tells Marie how wonderful their new life will be. Marie breaks down in tears, unable to relate to a husband so much younger than her. John opts for the return clause, willing to cope with his pain in order for them to be together. His "old" body restored, Mr. and Mrs. Holt depart towards an uncertain future–but their love for each other is "younger" than ever. ===== Vicki Lynn (Jean Peters) is a waitress who is transformed into a fashion model by press agent Steve Christopher (Elliott Reid). When Vicki is murdered, detective Ed Cornell (Richard Boone) tries to blame the crime on Christopher. In fact, the cop knows who the real killer is, but he is so hopelessly in love with the dead girl Vicki, who herself despised him, that he intends to railroad an innocent man to the electric chair. With the help of Vicki's sister Jill (Jeanne Crain), Christopher tracks down the real killer, Harry Williams (Aaron Spelling) and exposes the crooked cop Cornell, who had manipulated Williams into murdering Vicki. ===== Theresa O'Brian is a 12-year-old orphan who desperately wants to attend a school for the performing arts and become a star. She is not receiving encouragement at the orphanage and is getting into trouble with the orphanage officials due to her infractions of the rules and regulations. In one of her unauthorized adventures away from the orphanage, she meets and befriends Sammy Cohen who was a Vaudeville performer who became an alcoholic and lost his career. He is interested in renewing his career and has faith in Theresa's ability, and together they develop an act called "Buddy and Babe" in order to raise money for Theresa's tuition. ===== While lost near the Spanish- Portuguese border, Sharpe and his company surprise a group of French soldiers in unusual grey uniforms, caught in the act of raping a teenage Spanish villager. They kill some Frenchmen and take two prisoner. During a parlay, their leader, Brigadier-General Guy Loup, offers to give Sharpe safe passage in exchange for the men, but Sharpe, appalled by the rape and massacre of the other villagers, including children, orders the prisoners shot. (Loup reveals that he counters the atrocities committed by Spanish guerrillas by having his men commit more heinous ones.) Loup swears to avenge them. Back at headquarters, Sharpe is informed by Major Michael Hogan that the Real Compania Irlandesa, the royal bodyguard of the captive King of Spain, have been sent to join Wellesley's forces. As the British wish for Wellesley to be appointed Generalissimo of the Spanish Armies, it is imperative that the unwanted soldiers be treated with honour, though they are composed of Irish exiles and their descendants (who have no love for the British due to their occupation of Ireland) and have no combat experience. Wellesley assigns Sharpe to encourage them to desert by taking them to a fort close to the French and drilling them mercilessly. There Sharpe also has to deal with former Wagon Master-General Colonel Claude Runciman, a grossly fat and indolent man. Pierre Ducos, a French intelligence officer answering to Napoleon himself, has planted an agent within the Compania Irlandesa, Dona Juanita de Elia, a Spanish noblewoman, the mistress both of the unit's commander, Lord Kiely, and of Loup. False rumours of British atrocities in Ireland, backed up by forged American newspapers, target not only the Compania, but also the many Irishmen in the British army. Despite knowing Wellesley's intentions, Sharpe decides to turn the demoralised exiles into real soldiers. He persuades Runciman to divert arms and ammunition to the Compania, and conspires with a local partisan, El Castrador, to kill and mutilate some deserters, making it look like the French are responsible, to deter further desertions. The Compania are joined at the fort by a Portuguese infantry battalion. Sharpe, concerned by the threat posed by Loup's personal vendetta against him, acknowledges his illegal execution of Loup's men to a few officers. That night, Loup attacks the fort, massacres the Portuguese, and is only driven off when Sharpe's friend, Tom Garrard, sacrifices himself to blow up the ammunition wagons. Sharpe's carelessly public admission and the imminent enquiry into the disaster endanger his career. Wellesley, though reluctant, is willing to make him a scapegoat to conciliate the Portuguese. To avoid this, Sharpe attacks Loup's hideout but finds it deserted, except for Dona Juanita, who is exposed as the enemy agent, and courier of the forged newspapers. Sharpe sleeps with Juanita, and lets her go the following morning, thus frustrating Hogan's hopes of uncovering her accomplice in the Compania. The disgraced Kiely commits suicide, and his funeral is presided over by the regiment's chaplain, Father Sarsfield. In a private conversation over the open grave, Hogan informs Sarsfield that he is aware of his treachery, but lacks proof. Sarsfield attempts to kill Hogan, but is shot by Sharpe, and buried with Kiely. The French, led by Marshal André Masséna, prepare to cut the British off from their only route of retreat and bring Wellesley to battle. Wellington concentrates his forces at the village of Fuentes de Onoro. Still in disgrace, Sharpe, Runciman and the Real Compania Irlandesa are assigned to guard the ammunition wagons. French assaults push the British out of the village and steadily back up a hill. Wellington releases his reserves, who drive the French back into the village. However, the British are in turn counter- attacked by the Loup Brigade. With Sharpe's encouragement, Runciman "offers" to throw the Compania into the fray. They turn the tide of battle; as the Loup Brigade falters, the French fall back, and Wellington sends his men forward, winning the battle. During the fighting, Loup and Sharpe duel in the ford over the river. Sharpe is shot and wounded by the Dona Juanita, who is in turn killed by Harper. Despite his wound, Sharpe disarms and drowns Loup. The Real Compania Irlandese are sent to the Spanish Junta in Cadiz with honour. The case against Sharpe and Runciman is dropped, in light of their bravery and the deaths of all eyewitnesses to Sharpe's admission other than Runciman, who lies on Sharpe's behalf. ===== The story takes place in a time when the Spanish adventurers known as Conquistadors colonised the New World of the Americas in search of the mythical gold treasures of the dethroned Native Americans. ===== Illustration by A. Wallis Mills for "The Man Who Married an Hotel", Strand Magazine, 1920 Archie Moffam is an Englishman in New York. Like Bertie Wooster he's kind hearted but mentally limited, if not negligible. Unlike Bertie he has no private income. He's a veteran of the First World War. During a stay in New York he bitterly criticises the service at the Cosmopolis Hotel, thus making an enemy of its owner, Daniel Brewster. On a subsequent trip to Miami he meets, falls in love with and marries Brewster's daughter Lucille. Brewster is not delighted. Archie's attempts to make amends by finding employment and by purchasing a valuable objet d’art for Brewster end in disaster. Further indiscretions follow for Archie: he upsets Lucille by apparently paying too much attention to an actress; he bets $1000 on the Giants (then a New York baseball team), but gets into a fight with their star pitcher and injures his arm. He advises Lucille's brother, Bill, who has a habit of getting into relationships with girls of whom his father disapproves, and lends a hand to an old comrade from the war, “The Sausage Chappie”, who's lost his memory and forgotten his own name. He upsets Mrs Cora Bates McCall, a vegetarian and healthy food campaigner, by persuading her son to take part in a pie-eating contest. Then there's an incident with a painting which further upsets Brewster. Eventually he pacifies the old curmudgeon by telling him he's about to become a grandfather. ===== A poor prince wants to marry the Emperor's daughter and sends her two beautiful gifts, a nightingale and a rose. The princess rejects the humble gifts because they're real and natural, rather than artificial. The prince then disguises himself and applies for the position of swineherd at the palace. Once on the job, he creates a musical pot. The princess slogs through the mud to the swineherd's hut and pays ten kisses for the pot. When the swineherd follows the pot with the creation of a musical rattle, she pays one hundred kisses for it. The Emperor, disgusted that his daughter would kiss a swineherd for a toy, casts her out. The prince, having found the princess unworthy of his love, washes his face, dons his royal attire, and spurns the princess as her father did. The princess is left outside the palace door singing dolefully. ===== Andre Stander is an officer with the South African Police, newly married with a reputation as the youngest captain on the force, he and his partner are assigned along with other officers to riot duty in the wake of the Soweto uprising. In the chaos of one of the riots in Tembisa, Stander shoots a young, unarmed protester, which deeply affects him and causes him to become disillusioned towards the apartheid system. One day on his lunch break Stander decides to spontaneously walk in and rob a bank. He thoroughly enjoys the rush and decides to embark on a spree of robberies, even responding to one in his official capacity as an officer. In the wake of these robberies, Cor Van Deventer, Stander's partner, leads a team assigned to take down the new bank robber. Eventually being able to see through Stander's disguises, Deventer's team finally makes the arrest. Stander is stripped of his position and sentenced to 32 years in prison. While in prison Stander meets two other men, Lee McCall and Allan Heyl, with whom he quickly fosters a friendship. The trio have grand plans of what they will do when they get out, even saying that when they do they will come back for each other. After a year or so in prison Stander and McCall go to play a rugby game with other prisoners. During the game they feign serious injury and are taken to the infirmary, where they knock the doctor unconscious and relieve the guards of their weapons. Shortly after their escape Stander and McCall return for Heyl, the three introduce themselves to each other as their new assumed names and proceed to rob a few banks, purchase a high-priced safehouse, and steal a yellow Porsche 911 Targa. As the robberies continue, the risks that come with it increase exponentially, as the so-called "Stander Gang" is being relentlessly pursued by the police task force under none other than Cor Van Deventer. After a gunshop hold-up that left a woman shot as well as able to identify the gang, McCall dropping money on the way out of a bank, and McCall's unexplained shooting spree at another bank that lead to a police chase, the gang soon sees that their luck is running out as they become increasingly more reckless. Deciding it would be best to cut their losses and settle down Stander comes up with a plan to rob the exchange office at the airport and leave South Africa, using a combination of flight schedules and disguises to come up with the best plan. Hours before the robbery is to take place Stander returns to Tembisa to make his final peace with the father of the protester he killed, and is instead beaten with a club by the boy's father. As McCall becomes infuriated with the fact Stander did not come to pull off the robbery, he and Heyl see on the news that if they were to have gone to the airport a large number of police would have arrested or killed them, leading Heyl to say "Even when he's wrong, he's right." In 1984, the gang begins to organise their exit strategy when Stander goes off to Cape Town to purchase a boat and Heyl plans to go to Greece. However, McCall's plans are cut short when a squad of police surround the safehouse. While driving to see McCall, Heyl tells Stander a story about his relationship with a black woman. She had become pregnant (not by Heyl) and the two were living together, when police saw this they beat her to the point of miscarriage. Heyl thanks Stander for all he has done to help him and McCall get their revenge on the system and how the last six months had been the time of him and his friend's lives. Meanwhile, back at the safehouse McCall scrambles for an escape, but realising there is no way out he decides to grab two pistols and begin shooting at police. Stander and Heyl pull up just in time to see McCall gunned down by police. As they drive from the scene Stander and Deventer lock eyes, a police chase ensues and the Porsche is severely damaged, leading Stander and Heyl to steal another vehicle and drive off into the distance. Heyl and Stander part ways to go off and escape South Africa. Stander, who is being followed by numerous policemen, rushes to the airport where he is forced to show identification. Deventer frantically rushes to see if it is Stander, but stops when he finds out that it was a false alarm (due to Stander's use of a fake passport) and Stander is allowed to leave. Finally arriving in Fort Lauderdale (Florida, USA), Stander is unable to remain inactive for long when he hotwires a Mercury Cougar and runs a red light in front of police. Leading them on a short chase, Stander exits his vehicle and begins to disobey the officer's orders, prompting the officer's partner to grab a shotgun and threaten Stander with it. Stander disarms the partner only to be shot by the officer multiple times. ===== The Jian family, father NJ, mother Min-Min, daughter Ting-Ting and son Yang-Yang, is a middle-class family residing in Taipei. The film begins with the wedding of Min-Min's brother A-Di. At the wedding reception at Grand Hotel, NJ runs into Sherry, his ex-girlfriend, she gives him her number before leaving. After the reception, Min-Min's mother, who lives with the family, suffers a stroke that leaves her comatose. She is put on life support and the doctor urges the Jians to talk to her on a daily basis. NJ is dissatisfied with his job and his company is struggling financially. The company is attempting to secure a Japanese client, Mr. Ota, and NJ's colleagues asks him to take Ota out for dinner, to which he reluctantly agrees. However, the two men would form a bond over dinner and NJ later takes Ota to a bar where he sings and plays the piano. That night, NJ phones and leaves a message for Sherry, apologizing for leaving her abruptly 30 years ago. Meanwhile, Min-Min becomes depressed upon seeing her mother's condition and feels that her life is "so little"; she eventually leaves for a remote Buddhist retreat. The newly married A-Di is experiencing financial troubles and creates a strain with his pregnant wife. After suffering losses from a failed investment, A-Di is kicked out of the house, and reaches out to his ex-girlfriend Yun-Yun for help. A-Di is allowed back upon the birth of his child, but a fight breaks out at the baby shower when Yun-Yun shows up uninvited. A-Di and his wife would reconcile after she discovers him passed out due to a gas leak at their house. Ting-Ting feels guilty as her grandma collapsed when she was taking out the trash Ting-Ting was supposed to take out. She befriends her new neighbor, Lili, whose mother frequently hosts different men at their place. After Lili breaks off with her boyfriend, Fatty, he begins to relay letters for Lili to Ting-Ting. However, Fatty soon becomes attracted to Ting-Ting and asks her out on a date. After their second date, the two checks into a hotel room but they both hesitate and Fatty leaves. Later, Ting-Ting sees Lili back together with Fatty and is later berated by Fatty himself. Ting-Ting becomes depressed and talks to her comatose grandma, asking her to wake up. She learns the next day that Fatty has been arrested for killing Lili's teacher, who was in a relationship with Lili. Upon returning home, Ting-Ting dreams of being comforted by her grandma. Yang-Yang is frequently picked on at school by his teacher and female classmates. To cope, he develops an interest in photography and starts to take pictures, mostly of other people's backs, as he wants to help them see it for themselves. Later, after seeing a girl whom he has a crush on swimming, Yang- Yang began to teach himself how to swim, eventually succeeding after jumping into the pool at his school. NJ is sent by his company to Tokyo to continue talks with Ota. He learns that Sherry will also be in Japan as well, and arrange for the two to meet up. The two reunite and recount their pasts; Sherry remains affected by NJ's abrupt departure and NJ attempts to clear the air. The two travel to another city and check into another hotel, but after NJ insists on separate rooms, Sherry berates NJ and breaks down; he comforts her response. The two returns to Tokyo and checks back into their respective rooms; before leaving, NJ tells Sherry that he "has never loved anyone else". The next day, NJ is informed by his colleague that they have secured a deal with another client and urges him to return to Taipei immediately. In response, NJ berates his colleague for wanting to abandon Ota abruptly and without dignity. Later, NJ goes to check on Sherry's room, but learns that she has already checked out. Upon her mother's death, Min-Min returns home and is reunited with her family. At the funeral, NJ's colleague urges him to come back to work but he refuses. Yang-Yang recites a poem he wrote for his grandma in front of her shrine. In the poem, Yang-Yang recounts about the time spent with his grandma, his hope of finding where she went, and a desire to "tell people what they don't know, show them stuff they haven't seen." He concludes his poem by saying how his newborn cousin reminds him of her always saying she's old, as he always wanted to say along with her that "I am old too." ===== Iron Claw is the leader of a global criminal empire known as "Crime". Crime has a network of wealthy, influential sympathizers and employs an army of faceless, leather-masked thugs and cyborg assassins. It seeks to become the most powerful mafia organization in the world. To combat the threat of Crime, ISSIS, the International Science Special Investigation Squad, is formed. The focus of the series is ISSIS's battles against Crime in Tokyo and Japan. Tokyo's ISSIS branch commander, Daisuke Kujirai, proposes a radical experiment. Taking the code name "Joker", he recruits four young test subjects to undergo his cyborg enhancement project: Goro Sakurai, a multi-talented athlete and Olympic Gold medalist; Ryu Higashi, a disgraced boxing champion; Karen Mizuki, a policewoman who has been critically injured; and Bunta Daichi, an oceanographer who is clinically dead and is being cryogenically sustained. All four are surgically altered and given various bionic enhancements as well as energy manipulation powers. They are given the code name J.A.K.Q. Dengekitai, or J.A.K.Q (pronounced "Jacker"), and the mission to destroy Crime. Later in the series Joker leaves to head ISSIS's advanced engineering branch, and Sokichi Banba, a master of disguise and a cyborg, becomes their new boss, known as Big One. ===== The premise of the home console game: A young man named Donald J. Boy (DJ Boy) is a roller fighter taking part of an ultimate fight-race known as "Rollergame", taking place in Cigaretch City, located on the outskirts of New York City. Many people were excited to see DJ Boy, but a roller fighter gang known as the Dark Knights want him out of the competition. Their leader, Heavy-Met Tony, calls his gang to kidnap his girlfriend Maria, who also comes into town and defeat DJ Boy. DJ Boy must rescue Maria, defeat the Dark Knights, and win the Rollergame competition in one adventure. The arcade plot tells a different story. Two rollerskaters named Bob & Tom (the two playable characters) were breakdancing to the beat of their boombox, until it got stolen from rollerskater thieves (possibly the Dark Knights), in which they must find and defeat them in order to retrieve what is rightfully theirs. DJ Boy skates across various stages and utilizes hand-to-hand combat moves in order to defeat opponents, culminating with a battle with a boss at the end of each level. Along the path, the player also encounters prizes, which then can be used later to purchase Power-ups from a store located at the end of each level (in the home version, the arcade simply tallied these as points). In the console versions of the game, as another game, River City Ransom, the "prizes" consist of coins that are dropped by defeated enemies, or food items like burgers that restore health. ===== The robot creator Doctor Light created two human-like robots with advanced artificial intelligence named Rock and Roll. Following this, he created eight more robots intended for industrial use: Cut Man, Guts Man, Ice Man, Bomb Man, Fire Man, Elec Man, Time Man, and Oil Man. He received a Nobel Prize for Physics, and his old colleague and rival Doctor Wily has grown bitter for not being acknowledged for his work on the project. Wily discovered a prototype robot made by Doctor Light before Rock and Roll called Proto Man, who is in danger of having his energy generator go critical. Wily gave him a nuclear energy supply to extend his life. He later steals and reprograms the eight industrial robots to attempt world domination. Rock volunteered to stop Wily and rescue his friends, and Dr. Light converted him into a fighting robot, giving him a new name: Mega Man. After defeating all eight Robot Masters and returning them to normal, Mega Man goes through Dr. Wily's fortress and challenges him. After beating Wily, the mad scientist surrenders and asks Mega Man to spare him. Mega Man then returns home, where he's greeted by Dr. Light, Roll, and his friends. ===== Henry's family moves to a new town to run away from the memories of their recently passed son, Eddie, who was hit by a car in which the driver instantly drove away, never to be seen. Henry's father is traumatized by Eddie's death and becomes very quiet and no longer works, while Henry's mother works long hours as a waitress in order to support their family. Another problem Henry faces is that there is no stone to mark Eddie's grave. Henry also contributes to his family by working at a grocery store for a man named Mr. Hairston, a deceptive old man who makes rude comments about the townsfolk that would walk by his store. Mr. Hairston is a perfectionist, which is why he insults many people, including his wife and beats his daughter, Doris, when she messes something up. He appears to have a special liking to Henry, occasionally giving him candy bars. Every day, Henry watches a curious old man leave the crazy house near his apartment and disappear down the street. Henry is very curious about what the old man does but cannot follow him because he was on crutches, and still does not know how to use them. The day after his leg is healed, Henry follows the crazy man one day to an art center, where he meets him in person and learns his name is Mr. Levine and he is a Holocaust survivor who lost his family to the SS. He goes to the art center every day to carve out a model of his old hometown town to bring back all the people he had lost, including his wife and kids. Henry and Mr. Levine become very close despite not speaking the same language. Henry finds out that Mr. Levine is in the "crazy house" because the Holocaust had affected him mentally. He still tips his hat randomly, something the Nazis had made him do, as a joke, while he was imprisoned. Mr. Levine also frightened very easily, even by Henry, thinking that he was going to beat him, even though he is only 11 because the Nazi guards had beaten him so often. One day, Henry tells Mr. Hairston about Mr. Levine's village, who becomes strangely interested. Later, Henry asks Mr. Hairston if he can somehow find him a good gravestone to put over Eddie's grave, which he surprisingly agrees to buy for him, and shows him a sketch of the gravestone, of a bat and baseball, because of Eddie's love for the game. Later on, Henry peeks at the drawing of the grave to find that Mr. Hairston had drawn a large black X on it. Mr. Hairston one day tells Henry that he will be fired at the end of the week for no reason and that he no longer receives the gravestone from him. Henry returns home and finds that his father is being sent to the hospital, to be treated for depression. Unable to deal with the stress of losing the gravestone, his job, and father in the same day, Henry goes to the art center. He finds that Mr. Levine's village had been given first prize from the city for being the best work of art and was going to be put on display at the town hall. Mr Levine invites Henry to the ceremony, practicing his English so he could ask Henry in person, instead of it being translated, like in every other conversation they had, and Henry accepts. Further, into the week, Mr. Hairston tells Henry that he will let him keep the job and the headstone at one condition he must destroy Mr. Levine's model village. He also says he had close relationships with Henry's principal and his mother's boss and threatens to have his mother fired and his school reputation collapse if he was not to do what Mr. Hairston wants. The reward, if Henry destroys the replica village, would be a raise of his mom's pay and get her a promotion, him keeping his job, and giving him the headstone. Henry tells no one of his situation, even his mother, to avoid stressing her out more and has to decide what to do on his own. Not knowing what he should do, he hides in the storage room at the art center and finds a mallet just in case he wants to destroy the village, as he is still unable to make up his mind. Henry falls asleep in the storage room and when he wakes up, he finds the art center deserted. Henry then finds the mallet and brings it above his head ready to smash the village when he decides not to do it. Just then a rat startles him and he drops the tool on the village, destroying part of it. On his way home, Mr. Hairston waits for him at a closed furniture store in the rain and explains why he wanted the village destroyed: "Because he is a Jew" and to give the old man something to do. Henry then says that he does not want the rewards Mr. Hairston offers. Mr. Hairston insists for Henry to take the rewards saying that they were as important to the deal as Henry smashing the village. This shows that Mr. Hairston had not wanted Henry to smash Mr. the village just because he was a Jew, but to make Henry lose his innocence. Mr. Hairston had been planning this since he hired Henry, which is proven in the quote, "you must obey all orders, even if you do not like them". Henry, now knowing why Mr. Hairston so desperately wants him to take the rewards, refuses and quits his job because of this, Henry keeps his innocence, even though he had destroyed the village. Henry later visits the art center, where Mr. Levine, unfazed by his village being destroyed, continues to work on the village. The ceremony date is changed. George, a man who works at the art center and translates for Henry and Mr. Levine, thinks it was just troublemakers who broke into the craft center to destroy everyone's art but had enough time to destroy only Mr. Levine's before they were scared off. Henry does not tell anyone that he was the one who really destroyed the village. Mr. Levine presents Henry with a carving of him, like the ones he made for all the people that had lived in his village. Henry later runs into Doris and tells her that she needs to stand up to him and not let him push her or her mother around anymore. A few weeks afterward, Henry and his family move back to Frenchtown their old town. Henry puts Eddie's old bat and ball on his grave as a replacement for the stone. ===== Roommates and pals John Roth (Josh Hamilton) and Moe Curley (Harold Perrineau) start an adult internet site named InterconX where Jordan Nash (Vanessa Ferlito) is one of their stars. John has recently gone through a disastrous break-up with his fiancé, and is now obsessed with a woman named Angel, who lives her life on 24-hour webcam. A handful of people whose lives revolve around internet relationships at an adult web site become entangled in person in this comedy/drama. ===== The story begins with Kepler reading about a skillful magician named Libussa. He falls asleep while reading about her. He recounts a strange dream he had from reading that book. The dream begins with Kepler reading a book about Duracotus, an Icelandic boy who is 14 years old. Duracotus' mother, Fiolxhilde, makes a living selling bags of herbs and cloth with strange markings on them. Duracotus is sold by Fiolxhilde to a skipper after cutting into one of these bags and ruining her sale. He travels with the skipper for a while until a letter is to be delivered to Tycho Brahe on the island of Hven (now Ven, Sweden). Since Duracotus is made seasick by the trip there, the skipper leaves Duracotus to deliver the letter and stay with Tycho. Tycho asks his students to teach Duracotus Danish so they can talk. Along with learning Danish, Duracotus learns of astronomy from Tycho and his students. Duracotus is fascinated with astronomy and enjoys the time they spend looking at the night sky. Duracotus spends several years with Tycho before returning home to Iceland. Upon his return to Iceland, Duracotus finds his mother still alive. She is overjoyed to learn that he is well studied in astronomy as she too possesses knowledge of astronomy. One day, Fiolxhilde reveals to Duracotus how she learned of the heavens. She tells him about the daemons she can summon. These daemons can move her anywhere on Earth in an instant. If the place is too far away for them to take her, they describe it in great detail. She then summons her favorite daemon to speak with them. The summoned daemon tells them, "Fifty thousand miles up in the Aether lies the island of Levania," which is Earth's moon. According to the daemon, there is a pathway between the island of Levania and Earth. When the pathway is open, daemons can take humans to the island in four hours. The journey is a shock to humans, so they are sedated for the trip. Extreme cold is also a concern on the trip, but the daemons use their powers to ward it off. Another concern is the air, so humans have to have damp sponges placed in their nostrils in order to breathe. The trip is made with the daemons pushing the humans toward Levania with great force. At the Lagrangian point between the Earth and the Moon, the daemons have to slow the humans down lest they hurtle with great force into the Moon. After describing the trip to Levania, the daemon notes that daemons are overpowered by the Sun. They dwell in the shadows of the Earth, called Volva by the inhabitants of Levania. The daemons can rush to Volva during a solar eclipse, otherwise they remain hidden in shadows on Levania. After the daemon describes other daemons' behavior, she goes on to describe Levania. Levania is divided into two hemispheres called Privolva and Subvolva. The two hemispheres are divided by the divisor. Privolva never sees Earth (Volva), Subvolva sees Volva as their moon. Volva goes throughout the same phases as the actual Moon. The daemon continues the descriptions of Subvolva and Privolva. Some of these details are scientific in nature such as: how eclipses would look from the Moon, the size of the planets varying in size due to the Moon's distance from the Earth, an idea about the size of the Moon and more. Some details of Levania are science fiction such as: descriptions of the creatures that inhabit Subvolva and Privolva, plant growth on each side, and the life and death cycle of Levania. The dream is cut short in the middle of the description of the creatures of Privolva. Kepler wakes up from the dream because of a storm outside. He then realizes that his head is covered and he is wrapped in blankets just like the characters in his story. ===== The novel tells of the harsh realities of life in Ancient Rome, not only for the nobilitas but also for the slave population, who revolt and kill Gaius's father during a siege of the Caesar estate. As the two boys begin their careers (Gaius as a senator and Brutus as a legionary), a political war is being played out in the senate between two powerful Generals: Cornelius Sulla and Gaius's uncle, Gaius Marius. ===== In the year 25XX, humans and Reploids now coexist peacefully, successfully restoring Earth's former nations thanks to the technological efforts of Slither Incorporated. However, the peace is interrupted when several incidents of Reploids mysteriously turning into Mavericks are reported. Trading between nations became obstructed, forcing the nations to separate into utopian cities. To repel the attacks, the humanoids in these areas developed an organization called "The Guardians" to defend their region. The Guardians worked to defend the Outlands (areas outside of the cities) and investigate the cause of the Maverick attacks. The group's original leader, Ciel, mysteriously disappeared after an investigation where she discovered a Biometal (a living artifact containing characteristics of someone who lived long ago) called "Model W", which turned her team into Mavericks. In response, Ciel created six new Biometals (based off Mega Man X, Zero, and the Four Guardians of Neo Arcadia) to counter the growing threat. A decade prior to the beginning of the story, Vent or Aile (depending on what gender the player chooses) loses his/her mother to a Maverick raid on an amusement park and becomes orphaned. He/she is taken in by Girouette (Giro for short in North America and Europe), the owner of Giro Express, a delivery service. Giro is contacted by an unknown person to deliver a package containing Biometal Model X to a rendezvous point in a forest. Vent/Aile and Giro are ambushed by Mavericks after meeting up. Vent/Alie escape the area while Giro covers their retreat. Here, he/she meets with Prairie, the leader of the Guardians, but their meeting is cut short when a Maverick attacks the group. Model X lends its strength to Vent/Aile, allowing him/her to "Megamerge" and transform into Mega Man Model X. With the help of Model X, the Maverick is destroyed. After finding Giro, in the form of Mega Man Model Z, they board an airship deemed the Guardian's headquarters. Later, a Maverick attack is spotted at the Slither Inc. main office. The duo meet the president of Slither Inc., Serpent, and his Reploid guardians, Prometheus and Pandora. Serpent reveals his knowledge of the Biometal and says that he's also a Mega Man, possessing Model W. He expresses his intent to find the Model W Core, and leaves, but not before possessing a weakened Giro with the power of Model W. A fight ensues, mortally wounding Giro. Giro hands Model Z over to Vent/Aile during his dying moments and transforms into a Cyber Elf. By "double mega-merging" with both Model X and Model Z, he/she uses the form Model ZX to escape. Now the Guardians, including Vent/Aile, must recover eight Biometal fragments and stop Serpent. After finding four of eight Biometal pieces, the Guardian HQ comes under attack from Mavericks, led by Prometheus, with Vent/Aile aiding in the defenses. He/she succeeds in defeating Promethus before recovering the rest of the pieces. Upon retrieving all eight Biometal pieces and their passwords, Vent/Aile is able to enter a secret location and find Model W. However, Vent/Aile is stalled by Pandora and the Biometal is moved elsewhere. Later, Vent/Aile receive a signal from Model W, located at the Slither Inc. Head Office. Vent/Aile set off to destroy Model W. After battling through Slither Inc., Vent/Aile face off against Serpent, who feeds the Model W core with several innocent Cyber Elves, and then fuses with it. Vent/Aile suddenly reverts to human due to the realization that the hatred of the Mavericks that he/she has kept inside his/her heart is the last thing needed to unleash Model W's full power, thus resulting in his/her temporary defeat. However, after gaining courage from the Biometals, he/she merges into Mega Man ZX and challenges Serpent to a final battle. During the battle, the tower collapses, destroying Model W and killing Serpent. Vent/Aile reunite with Prairie and the Guardians, and vow to continue to work for peace and justice. ===== On his 600th birthday, Noah receives a message from God, warning him about the impending flood. He is directed to save two of each animal and to build an ark for them. Noah's wife and family have their doubts and even make fun of him as he plans to build the ark, but join in when the animals start to appear en masse. "The story dealt with Noah and the flood, and though written in 1954, covered such contemporary themes as the generation gap and ecology," Rodgers wrote. "There was even a parallel between the flood and the atom bomb."Rodgers, Richard. Musical Stages: An Autobiography. New York: Random House, 1975. ;The gitka The "gitka" is a magical Old Testament species of rodent, created by Clifford Odets, that sings in the presence of God.Two by Two on The Guide to Musical Theatre The arrival of one convinces the family of Noah's story. It has no mate so they are unable to bring her aboard. ===== Frank T. Wells, an ex-rodeo champion, is released from prison after serving a 10-year sentence that resulted from a bar fight. He meets with old acquaintances, collects his broken old '48 Ford pickup, gets a camper to live in and returns to earning a living as a rodeo cowboy, riding his new horse Angel. Scarlett Stuart is an amateur auto-repair mechanic who lives with her sexually-abusive brother Clem. The two of them are joined by Joe Palmieri in committing a bank robbery. During the robbery, eight policemen are killed. Trying to hide in a motel, the trio are found by the police, who kill Clem and Joe during a shootout, while Scarlett manages to escape. On his way to his camper, Frank's truck breaks down and he unloads Angel from his trailer, and rides until he stumbles upon a barn where he happens to meet Scarlett. She agrees to help him fix the old Ford and in return, he offers the emotionally disturbed woman the opportunity to escape her problems with him. Scarlett has a tattoo "F.T.W.", standing for "Fuck The World," and because these are the same initials of Frank's name, she believes that they are meant to be together, and they begin to have a relationship. Living together, they try to make ends meet while laying low from the authorities, but it is more easily said than done, as Scarlett tries to support herself by means of armed robbery. ===== The film centers on the trials and tribulations of the Spencers, a family living in the Grand Teton Mountains of Wyoming during the early 1960s. As the patriarch of a large and growing family, Clay Spencer is fiercely independent, yet dedicated to his family. While he resists the influence of religion, he struggles to remain faithful to his wife Olivia, to enable his son to attend college, and to build a new home for his family. ===== The story is about a golden-haired youth who wanders into the city of Teloth, telling tales of the great city of Aira, where he was prince. While Iranon enjoys singing and telling his tales of wonder, few appreciate it. A city solon even orders Iranon to cease his singing & music, and become apprenticed to the cobbler - or leave the city by sunset. When a disenfranchised boy named Romnod suggests leaving Teloth to go to the famed city of Oonai (which he thinks may be Aira, now under a different name), Iranon takes him up on his offer. Iranon and Romnod spend years on their journey to Oonai. Along the way, Romnod grows up while Iranon remains exactly the same. Eventually they reach Oonai, which Iranon is disappointed (although not surprised) to discover is not Aira. Iranon is loved by the people in Oonai, however, so he stays there even though he still desires to return to Aira. As the years pass, people appreciate him less and less, and he is eventually upstaged by dancers from the desert. By this point, Romnod has grown old and has become a drunkard. After Romnod's death, Iranon decides to leave Oonai and continue his search for Aira. Eventually Iranon comes across an old shepherd and asks him if he knows of Aira. The shepherd tells him that he has indeed heard of it, for in his youth there was a beggar's boy who had always talked about it. The boy, who thought he was a prince, was laughed at by everyone and ran away. With the truth revealed, that Aira was merely a figment of his imagination, Iranon loses his eternal youth. Now aged significantly, Iranon wanders into the quicksands to his death. ===== Jungle-dwelling natives find two long-haired bearded men dressed in frayed tuxedos asleep on the jungle floor and carry the men to their chief and his daughter who insists on protecting them. She mimes instructions that the men are to be dressed, shaven and given haircuts, all of which is done while they are still asleep. Upon waking up, the men — Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo — introduce themselves to the chief's daughter Nona and recount that they were on their way "to do a show for the boys on Guam", but opened the wrong door on the plane, fell out with their parachutes and have been living on wild berries and raw fish. Nona explains that her father is Chief Rakos and "this is the most southern fringe of the Zambuanga Group — the Island of Kola Kola". At that evening's luau, Duke establishes a closer relationship with Nona, while Sammy is introduced to Nona's overly- friendly plus-size "baby sister" Saloma, causing him to jump up, join the luau dancers and then perform a comedy routine, followed by Duke's rendition of "'Deed I Do". Afterwards, Nona tells Duke that she was educated in an American college to prepare her for ruling the island as its queen. When Duke inquires about leaving the island, Nona says, "perhaps Dr. Zabor can help you. He's the only white man on the island. He lives on the other side of the island. He's a scientist working on an experiment in evolution. He hired me as his assistant. Tomorrow I shall take you to him." In the meantime, Saloma continues to chase Sammy through the jungle and kisses him goodnight while Duke and Nona share a kiss. The following morning, upon arriving at Dr. Zabor's Dracula-like castle, Nona, Duke and Sammy are let in by the tall, heavily-built native servant Chula who goes to inform Dr. Zabor. When Dr. Zabor comes out to greet them, Duke thinks he knows him and Sammy reminds Duke, "Ain't this the fellow that goes around with the hand and the faces, biting people on the neck and wearing capes?" "You're crazy", replies Duke, "Watch out for bats", shouts Sammy. Dr. Zabor offers to help Duke and Sammy leave the island and offers them the hospitality of his castle and the use of his wardrobe. In the laboratory, Dr. Zabor insists to the reluctant Nona that "You shall love me" as Chula ushers in the re-dressed Duke and Sammy who become interested in Dr. Zabor's caged chimp Ramona. The castle is visited by the island's law representative, Pepe Bordo, who has the only "wireless outfit" and promises to communicate with a passing ship. As Dr. Zabor accompanies Pepe Bordo to the outside, Duke and Nona kiss while Ramona pulls Sammy into her cage and locks the door. In the evening, Duke walks Nona back to her village, Dr. Zabor drinks and broods over Nona's reluctance and Sammy goes to bed alone, but Ramona opens her cage door, leaves the laboratory, goes upstairs and climbs into bed with Sammy who winds up spending the night with Ramona in her cage, while Duke returns and goes to bed. On another evening Dr. Zabor and Chula arrive to share a meal with Chief Rakos, Nona, Saloma, Duke, Sammy and the witch doctor. As Nona and Duke go outside, Dr. Zabor sends Chula to spy on them, while Saloma encourages Sammy to go out so she can meet with him. As Chula listens, Duke proposes marriage to Nona and sings "Too Soon" to the melody of "La Paloma". Chula returns, Dr. Zabor puts on his black cape, leaves and listens to Chula describe Duke's and Nona's marriage plans. Back in the laboratory, Dr. Zabor injects Ramona, reversing evolution and turning her into a small monkey with a tail. The following morning, as Nona returns to the laboratory, Dr. Zabor realizes that the serum's effect was only temporary and Ramona has turned back into a chimp. Meanwhile, Duke is on his way to see Pepe Bordo, but is ambushed by Chula who carries him to the laboratory where Dr. Zabor tells Nona that the day's work is done and that she should take Sammy to the village and after they leave, injects Duke with the serum and watches him turn into a gorilla. As Nona and Sammy return to the laboratory in search of Duke, Dr. Zabor explains that the gorilla is actually Ramona advanced to a higher level of evolution. He and Nona start out for the village, leaving Sammy in the laboratory with the gorilla who uses charades in pantomiming to Sammy that he is really Duke. Sammy still cannot understand until the gorilla launches into a gravelly rendition of "'Deed I Do". Sammy unlocks the cage, the gorilla knocks out Chula who later awakens and goes to the village to warn Dr. Zabor. Zabor and Chula return to the castle to find Sammy and the gorilla running away, pursued by a lovesick female gorilla. Dr. Zabor takes a rifle and goes in pursuit. Upon reaching the village, Sammy explains to Nona that the gorilla is really Duke and she embraces the gorilla, but just then Chula arrives with Dr. Zabor who aims the rifle at the gorilla. Sammy shields the gorilla with his body and is mortally wounded. As the gorilla kneels over Sammy and pats his face, the scene shifts to Duke shaking Sammy awake and, in answer to his questions, explaining that they are in the dressing room of The Jungle Hut nightclub in Passaic, New Jersey and "we're on next... come on!" In the hallway, Sammy sees Nona returning at the finish of her gorilla trainer act, with Chief Rakos in a gorilla suit, removing the gorilla head and complaining. He then meets Pepe Bordo who is now a waiter and runs into the tall Chula, wearing a tuxedo, who brusquely tells him, "Hurry it up... you're on next". Dr. Zabor is the manager who advises him, "You'd better get some laughs this time or you'll be collecting unemployment insurance". Finally, Saloma, a dancer in a Polynesian act, embraces Sammy, gives him a big kiss and, this time, he likes it as he and Duke perform their act with another rendition of "'Deed I Do". ===== The president ends up dying from an assassin's bullet, but Willer's further quest for revenge is ultimately more successful. Spanish actress Maria Cuadra plays Lucreatia Garfield, the President's wife. In her role she portrays pretty much the role of Jackie Kennedy as a glamorous President's wife. Even in the assassination scene, Cuadra seems to emulate many of the same actions from Jackie Kennedy's last moments with John F. Kennedy in Dallas in 1963. ===== In May 1943, the crew of the Memphis Belle, a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress of the US Army Air Force, are grounded in England while their aircraft is repaired. The group is under the command of Col. Craig Harriman (David Strathairn), a no-nonsense, stoical leader who has been given the task of keeping the pressure on Nazi targets. An Army publicist, Lt. Col. Bruce Derringer (John Lithgow) is visiting the base, to interview the Belle crew in anticipation of their flying their 25th mission, a requirement to complete their tour of duty. Derringer is eager to use the crew on a war bonds tour stateside. He believes their success would help the war effort and confides to Harriman that many people back home are upset at the losses the Air Force has suffered. Some are beginning to think daylight bombing is ineffective, while Harriman openly favors it. Derringer informs him that it's his job to show this to the American public as a means of getting their support. The officers of the squadron are informed the target for the day will be Bremen, Germany. After a delay due to poor weather over the target, the Memphis Belle and her squadron are airborne. They are soon assembled in formation with bomb group and their escort of North American P-51 Mustang fighters. They face frequent harassment by defending German Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters along the way. Eventually, the escorting fighters, low on fuel, turn away, while the bombers continue alone. Back at the base, Harriman and Derringer have harsh words after the latter starts decorating the mess hall for a celebration upon the Belle's return. Derringer accuses Harriman of being cold-hearted, concerned only with advancing his military career, and not really knowing the men under his command. In response, Harriman brings Derringer into his office and angrily dumps a pile of letters on his desk, then forces Derringer to read one of them. They are replies Harriman received from the grieving families of lost airmen to the condolence letters which he had sent, and partway through the first, Derringer is struck by the realization that the colonel had in fact known even the enlisted men who had been killed. The words of other letters are voiced by those who had written them, over film footage of actual Luftwaffe attacks on B-17s. Meanwhile, the bombers have suffered significant losses. The German interceptors focus their attacks on the leading aircraft in the formation. The first lead bomber, Windy City, loses its engines and explodes in front of the Belle, piloted by Captain Dennis Dearborn (Matthew Modine) and co-pilot 1st Lt. Luke Sinclair (Tate Donovan). More attacks ensue, and the replacement lead bomber, C Cup, is forced to break formation when its nose is damaged by gunfire from an attacking Bf 109. The crew of the Belle watch in horror when they see an airman fall out of the stricken aircraft without a parachute. The Belle is then given the task of leading the formation to the target. Finding the target – an aircraft assembly plant – becomes difficult as bombardier 1st Lt. Val Kozlowski (Billy Zane) can't see the target because of a smokescreen the Germans have created. Dearborn aborts the initial bomb run and orders the formation to circle around for a second attempt, which frustrates the Belle crew who have had to endure the ongoing attacks from the Germans. On the second run, Kozlowski spots the assembly plant through a gap in the smokescreen and the bombers successfully hit their target. Once clear of the anti-aircraft fire, they are again attacked by fighters. Staff Sgt. Richard "Rascal" Moore's (Sean Astin) ball turret is destroyed, but he is saved by the safety strap. The attacks continue, blasting a hole in the fuselage, tearing off a large chunk of the tail, and setting the number four engine on fire. Radio operator Staff Sgt. (T/3) Danny "Danny Boy" Daly (Eric Stoltz), is wounded in the attacks, which puts Kozlowski in a difficult position when the crew enlists his self-exaggerated medical "expertise" to save the injured radioman. Meanwhile, Dearborn and Sinclair skillfully drop the aircraft into a steep dive and put the fire out, despite great risk of losing the aircraft. As the B-17 limps closer to base, the crew find that the wheels cannot be lowered due to electrical failure caused by battle damage, but they are able to manually crank their landing gear down just before landing. The ground crew and a humbled Lt. Colonel Derringer race to greet them with jubilant cheers. The crew exits the battered bomber and celebrate their victory with Daly on an ambulance. ===== Crane Stewart (Charles D. Brown), the editor of the New York Star, while playing poker with his friends, tells a story about a cop involved in a murder investigation. In flashback, the editor tells the tale of police lieutenant Tony Cochrane (William Gargan), a family man who cheats on his wife with socialite femme fatale Jill Merrill (Janis Carter). Cochrane and the woman, who is also cheating on her husband, witness a man bludgeoning his girlfriend to death with a tire iron while the couple is parked at "lovers lane" by the beach. The two can't report the crime without revealing their cheating, a dilemma which eventually leads to bigger troubles. Meanwhile, Cochrane must investigate the killing but is not able to tell anyone he witnessed the crime. ===== Notorious outlaw Wes McQueen (Joel McCrea) breaks out of jail and heads off to the Colorado Territory to meet the man who arranged the escape, his old friend Dave Rickard (Basil Ruysdael). Along the way, the stagecoach he is riding in is attacked by a gang of robbers. When the driver and guard are both killed, McQueen kills or drives off the remaining gunmen, earning the gratitude of the other passengers, dreamer Fred Winslow (Henry Hull) and his daughter Julie Ann (Dorothy Malone). Winslow has bought a ranch sight unseen and looks forward to making his fortune. McQueen arrives at the ghost town of Todos Santos, where Reno Blake (John Archer) and Duke Harris (James Mitchell) are waiting for him, along with Reno's part-Indian girlfriend, Colorado Carson (Virginia Mayo). After looking them over (and not liking what he sees), he heads off to a nearby town to meet an ailing Rickard, who asks McQueen to pull off one last big train robbery so they can both retire. With the exception of Rickard, McQueen distrusts everybody else in the gang, including ex-private detective Pluthner (Harry Woods), who recruited Reno and Duke, and Homer Wallace (Ian Wolfe), the railroad informant. McQueen wants to go straight, but agrees to do the job out of gratitude and friendship. While waiting for the robbery, McQueen decides to keep Colorado with him to avoid stirring up trouble between Duke and Reno. Although Colorado falls for him and tells him so, McQueen still dreams of marrying Julie Ann and settling down. When he visits the Winslow ranch, he finds it a poor, arid place. Winslow warns him that Julie Ann loves Randolph, a rich man back east. Winslow took her away because Randolph would never have married so far beneath him socially. McQueen, however, is undeterred. The day of the robbery, a suspicious McQueen talks to Wallace's wife and discovers he has betrayed the gang for the reward money. Forewarned, McQueen uncouples the passenger cars in which the sheriff and his men are waiting in ambush, leaving them behind. Duke and Reno, as prearranged with Pluthner, also try to double cross McQueen, but he is prepared for them too. He gets the drop on them, takes the money, and leaves the pair handcuffed together for the sheriff to capture and later hang. He and Colorado go to split the money with Rickard, only to find Pluthner over the old man's dead body. McQueen kills him, but is shot in the shoulder. A wounded McQueen heads to the Winslow ranch, where Winslow helps Colorado remove the bullet, even after he is told who McQueen really is and what he has done. McQueen overhears Julie Ann tell her father they should turn him in for the reward money. Winslow, though, lies to the sheriff and posse when they show up. McQueen realizes he loves Colorado and asks her to marry him. They plan a new life in Mexico, but are found hiding out in Todos Santos. He gives her the money, telling Colorado to bury it (she leaves it near the collection box for the mission). McQueen drives off her horse so she cannot follow him, then makes a desperate dash for the border. He is trapped in a long-deserted cliffside Indian settlement, but is too good a marksman for his pursuers to rush him. Colorado eventually arrives on foot. The sheriff comes up with a devious plan. After stationing an Indian sharpshooter, he and all but two of his men ride away to a (fictional) back entrance. As the lawman had hoped, Colorado grabs a gun from one of the men, orders them to walk away, and takes the two remaining horses to McQueen. He emerges and is wounded by the sharpshooter. When the posse returns, Colorado shoots back, and the two lovers die in a hail of gunfire. ===== Lāčplēsis and Kangars are sent to study at Burtnieki. On the way they visit Aizkraukle Castle where Kangars is taken captive and tortured by devils, asking him to betray his people by drawing them into slavery and establishing Christianity. When he refuses, the torture is interrupted by the head devil Līkcepure who brainwashes him by saying that Kangars would win all fame if Lāčplēsis were not standing in his way. Meanwhile, Lāčplēsis is dropped into the Daugava by two witches, but is saved by Staburadze, who tells him that this is his first death. He is supposed to die and come back to life three times, and go through three periods of transition from oppression to freedom.This refers to the three periods of Latvian National Awakening. When he asks if he is dead, he is told that he is alive as long as he remembers Staburadze, sunken castles, flying lakes and who he is: he has been nursed by all Latvian mothers and his soul is made from the souls of all Latvians.Staburadze was an 18-metre high cliff with an associated legend of a mourning girl turned into rock. Sunken castles as well as flying lakes are the subject of many Latvian tales. Lake Burtnieks was believed to be one of the flying lakes, and the folktales usually mention it for that reason, but the epic and the rock opera tell of the sunken castle of Burtnieki within it. Then Koknesis appears, telling Lāčplēsis to build a homeland for Latvians, and promises to supply him with wood. Afterwards, at Burtnieki, Lāčplēsis flirts with Laimdota; together they listen to songs of Burtnieki castle and Laimdota sings a prayer to Saule, the sun deity. After listening to her, Lāčplēsis tells Laimdota that through this song he hears his motherland even louder than before and raises the sunken castle of Burtnieki. The devils try to stop him, saying that his nation has no history, only old wives' tales, but he succeeds and is engaged to Laimdota, who is the very soul of Latvia. Later Laimdota meets Kangars, who asks her to be with him. When she refuses Kangars threaten to rape her and share her with anyone who wants her. Then he kidnaps her and tells Lāčplēsis that she has fled together with "her lover" Koknesis and suggests that Lāčplēsis should leave. Broken-hearted, Lāčplēsis follows his advice. In his wanderings Lāčplēsis meets Ziemeļmeita (personification of the aurora borealis), who tells him that this is his second death: he is told that he is dead if he does not believe any more. Now Lāčplēsis wants to return to his people, but is faced with three multiheaded monsters, the jodi. When he has chopped off all but one of their heads, the last jods begs for mercy and tells him that the rocks around are actually bewitched people. Lāčplēsis awakens them and returns home. The devils are now frightened; they curse and cry that people were already under their rule, and the local songs and language were almost exterminated. Dīterihs announces that only Kangars can help them and orders the devils to search for Kangars among the Latvian people.The name "Kangars" has become synonymous with "traitor" in the Latvian language. The devils try to convince Koknesis to join them, but he refuses, saying that Lāčplēsis is his friend and Lāčplēsis can count on him. After that, Laimdota appears and Lāčplēsis asks her why she is crying. She answers that she is dishonoured and dirty. Lāčplēcis tells her that she will become clean in his tears and they are both reborn through each other's tears; then they are married. Meanwhile, Kangars has finally discovered the weakness of Lāčplēsis and reveals it to the enemy: Lāčplēsis' power is in his ears, because he hears his motherland and feels her every movement with his ears. If they make Lāčplēsis deaf, he will be unbelieving and unremembering and therefore easy to defeat. Only then does Kangars realise what he has done and cries that he loves Latvia. The crusaders arrange a tournament for Lāčplēsis and the Black Knight, a creature that has no eyes, no ears and no language: belief and memories are drawn out of anyone who comes near him. Lāčplēsis feels doomed but still asks his motherland to call him. The narrator says that his fight with the Black Knight has not ended yet but there will come a time when Lāčplēsis will kill him. ===== The series begins with Napoleon imprisoned on Saint Helena. The episode then goes back to show Napoleon’s first meeting the widow Josephine de Beauharnais. The story then follows his career breakthrough, the suppression of Royalist rioters on 13 Vendémiaire (1795). Later, Napoleon is shown at the Battle of Arcole (1796). It continues with the couple inspecting their future house, Chateau de Malmaison, and shows Napoleon allying with Talleyrand and Fouché. It moves to the French campaign in Egypt and Syria (1798–1801), the Coup of 18 Brumaire (1799), and ends with the Plot of the rue Saint-Nicaise (1800). The second episode begins in 1804 with the controversial arrest and execution of the duc d'Enghien, followed by the elevation of members of the House of Bonaparte, and Napoleon's imperial coronation. There is an extended sequence showing the Battle of Austerlitz (1805), followed by a brief scene of the Battle of Jena- Auerstedt (1806). Napoleon's affair with Maria Walewska is also shown, as are the troubles with his wife. It ends with the Battle of Eylau (1807), with Napoleon waiting desperately for the reinforcements led by Marshal Michel Ney. The third episode begins with the timely arrival of Ney at Eylau. Napoleon then concludes a short-lived peace treaty with Alexander at Tilsit as the costly Peninsular War starts and troubles with his family and imperial succession begin to dominate. Next is the defeat at the Battle of Aspern- Essling (1809) and his marriage to the Duchess of Parma in 1810 and the birth of a son in 1811. Napoleon, feeling provoked by the Russians, invades in 1812 and watches from the Kremlin as Moscow ignites. The final episode begins with the bitter retreat from Russia. Sensing France's weakness, the War of the Sixth Coalition erupts in 1813, and, outnumbered, Napoleon's forces are reduced and Paris is taken in 1814. After attempting suicide, and being forced to abdicate, he becomes the sovereign of Elba. Later, there is the Hundred Days, culminating with the Battle of Waterloo (1815) and the defeat of the imperial forces. It ends with Napoleon dying in exile on the island of Saint Helena in 1821. ===== In a college computer lab run by Professor Kaufman, two of his students, Eric Staufer and Bill McLemore, are working when a virtual creature – the Phantom Virus – emerges from a new game based on the Mystery Gang's past adventures and tries to attack. The next day, Mystery, Inc. themselves come to the college and learn from their friend Eric that the virus had assumed a lifelike form thanks to an experimental laser able to transmit objects into cyberspace, and is now running rampant across the campus. The gang goes on the hunt for the Phantom Virus, leading to it chasing Scooby and Shaggy throughout the campus. Unfortunately, the whole gang, including the virus, is banished to the game after an unknown person activates the laser. Left with no other choice, the gang fight their way through the ten levels of mystery and adventures to complete the game in order to escape it, with the goal of finding a box of Scooby Snax to complete each level. The Phantom Virus, meanwhile, attempts to impede their efforts on each level. After a while, they finally reach the game's tenth and final level, which is in a huge city, where they meet their virtual counterparts who resemble themselves from previous series, with the exception of Scooby. They team up to confront the Phantom Virus, who wreaks havoc across the final level and summons his henchmen – five villains from the gang's past: the Creeper, Jaguaro, Gator Ghoul, the Tar Monster, and Old Iron Face. To make matters worse, all the monsters are real. The climax takes the two gangs to an amusement park, where they fight off the creatures and attempt to retrieve the last box of Scooby Snax. During the fight, they use magnets to fight the virus, whom they discover is severely weakened by magnetic forces. Cyber-Scooby distracts the virus long enough for the real Scooby to retrieve the Scooby Snax, winning the game and deleting the monsters and the Phantom Virus once and for all. The real gang bids farewell to their virtual selves and head home. Back in the lab, the gang reveals that they figured out the culprit, who turns out to be Bill (due to the Phantom Virus making baseball references throughout their adventure, and Bill was a huge baseball fan). Bill is arrested by Officer Wembley and confesses that he created the virus to scare Eric away and take all the credit for inventing the laser. He was outraged when Kaufman chose Eric's video game design over his baseball-themed video game, despite being at the college two years longer than Eric, and he felt more deserving to win the prize money at the university's science fair. Fearing Mystery Inc. would expose him as the Virus' creator, he sent them into the game believing they would never get out. Kaufman protests that students are all equal as he is taken away. The gang and Eric play the new Scooby-Doo game, during which Scooby interacts with the gang's virtual counterparts once again by feeding Cyber-Scooby some Scooby Snax. The post- credits scene includes the gang telling the audience what their favorite parts of the movie were. ===== Natalie Teeger is overworked from working for Adrian Monk, and desperately seeks a vacation. So she is naturally delighted when her best friend Candace (no last name given) invites her on a comped trip to Kauai in Hawaii to be the maid of honor at her wedding to a guy named Brian Galloway. The only question is how to tell Monk about the upcoming trip. She decides to drop the bomb at the last second, when Monk is on his usual high after solving a murder case – a well- known heart surgeon who was poisoned by his own patient while she was on the operating table – and tells him she's leaving the next day. He is devastated, and she quickly pushes him off to his normal appointment with Dr. Kroger. The next day, Natalie drives to the airport and boards her flight to Lihue, Hawaii via Honolulu. Unfortunately for Natalie, her peace of mind lasts all of one hour when she wakes up shortly after takeoff and is shocked to see Monk sitting across the aisle from her. Only now, he is "The Monk" – the infinitely-better-adjusted, but insufferably obnoxious persona brought on by Doxinyl, an OCD-control drug that Dr. Kroger assumed Monk had thrown out after the embarrassment he caused the SFPD the previous time that he tried it."Mr. Monk Takes His Medicine Natalie calls Dr. Kroger during their layover in Honolulu. Ultimately, she determines that she has no choice but to suck it up and accept Monk along, though she has a sneaking suspicion that Dr. Kroger put Monk on the drug and told him to get on the flight with Natalie so that he himself could avoid being bothered over the week. Upon arrival in Lihue, Monk and Natalie meet Candace and her fiancé Brian Galloway. Candace naturally assumes at first that Monk is Natalie's steady boyfriend. Brian is full of adventure stories, many of which are repeated by his adoring betrothed. Nonetheless, Candace drives them to the Grand Kiahuna Poipu resort in Poipu. Natalie is a little unsettled to learn that the couple already have pet names for each other. When they get to the hotel, Monk and Natalie check in. Natalie carefully arranges their room placement, anticipating the next morning, when the drugs will wear off. While they explore the grounds afterwards, they stumble upon renowned TV psychic Dylan Swift doing a live taping of his show Whispers from the Other Side. Monk is still drugged, but he believes that Swift is a hack after watching him seemingly deliver a message from an audience member's late sibling. The next morning, the drugs wear off and Monk is horror-struck at how he's spent the last twenty-four hours. But Natalie is firm about him behaving himself while they are on vacation. At the wedding ceremony, Monk, to everyone's shock and embarrassment, speaks up and exposes Brian for several lies he has told – the whopper of which is, that he's already married to a woman in New Jersey, and has been planning to travel back and forth between his two families. Furious and mortified, Candace slaps Brian and storms out of the wedding. Natalie is somewhat mad at Monk for humiliating her friend, but she is also grateful that he saved her from a bigamist marriage. With the wedding canceled, Monk is eager to go home, but Natalie says their booking is for a week, and she plans to enjoy it. As Monk and Natalie are walking along the beach, they stumble upon an active police investigation at one of the resort's bungalows, which naturally piques Monk's interest. Peeking through the hedges, they see the dead body of an elderly woman floating in a hot tub. While they are spying, they are approached by a local Kauai police lieutenant, Ben Kealoha. After exchanging greetings with them, he tells them that the victim, a woman named Helen Gruber, was sitting in her hot tub underneath a palm tree when a coconut fell from the tree and struck her on the head, knocking her out, after which she drowned. But Monk immediately senses that something is wrong and declares it to be murder. Natalie is dismayed that Monk can't avoid death even away from home. Monk and Natalie examine the crime scene for themselves. Monk quickly notices that Gruber was married, as she was wearing a ring. He also observes several clues that suggest murder: for one, the death coconut did not come from the palm tree shading the hot tub, but from the ground adjacent to a tree in the side yard. Additionally, he notices that Gruber was actually killed in the bungalow itself, not in the hot tub: for one, she is not wearing any suntan lotion. Also, there's a large print edition book on a chaise longue adjacent to the hot tub that indicates Gruber needed reading glasses, but there are none near the body. Lastly, a slight bruise below the victim's collarbone shows that she was killed in the kitchen as the bruise matches up with the counters. While the crime scene is being secured, Kealoha takes Monk and Natalie out to a small roadside grill for lunch. Monk is disgusted by the presence of geckos all over the restaurant, and quickly deduces that Kealoha is suspecting him of being the killer. However, a call to Captain Stottlemeyer clears up any confusion they have left. Afterwards, the three go to question Lance Vaughan, Helen's husband who is thirty years her junior. He seems like the obvious suspect in his elderly wife's death, but he admits that he was on a snorkeling trip at the approximate time Helen was killed (pinpointed by the M.E. to be between 8:00 and 11:00 AM). When Monk and Natalie do manage to get back to their rooms, Monk gets into a small argument with one of the hotel service employees about how his minibar is stocked. In the midst of his argument, he learns something interesting: Helen had been complaining to the front desk a few days before the murder about hearing voices out at the bungalow. Natalie changes into her swimwear and goes out for a short swim. Afterwards, while getting a drink at the beachside bar, she is approached by Dylan Swift. Natalie is angered when Swift decides to use his standard medium pickup to bring up things about the murder, and then claims to have a message from Natalie's late husband Mitch. Swift gives a message from Helen Gruber to Natalie, who in turn agrees to relay the message to Monk, although after the conversation is over, she suspects that Swift is merely an attention-seeking fraud seeking to get publicity from the murder. When Monk and Natalie see Lance Vaughan again, they confront him about not telling them that Helen was hearing voices. He admits that he didn't want Helen to be remembered for slipping into dementia. They are then summoned by Kealoha down to his police station. While they are leaving, they find that someone has just vandalized Brian Galloway's car, apparently his comeuppance for lying about not being married. After picking up a rental car at the airport, they arrive at the station. Kealoha shows them video footage from the snorkeling trip Lance was on. They catch him ogling another woman on the boat, whom they suspect him of having an affair with. Monk also notices some files on a number of local burglaries, much to Natalie's chagrin, and notices that all of the burglaries happened at specific times of the day depending on the neighborhood, and asks Kealoha to join them for a game of golf at a local golf course the next morning. Natalie is upset that Monk has decided to offer to solve the burglary cases in addition to the murder. She confronts him about this over dinner, but Monk doesn't appear to mind. However, as they are getting up to leave, they see the mystery woman from the video. Natalie's curiosity is piqued, and under the pretense of taking an evening drive, she decides to see if Swift's messages are accurate. Monk and Natalie follow the mystery woman to another bungalow, where they find that indeed, this woman has been seeing Lance. A break comes the next morning when they identify her as a woman named Roxanne Shaw, who is from Ohio, just like Lance. When Monk and Natalie return to their hotel room, Natalie decides to tell Monk about her meeting with Swift. She admits that she figured out the connection between Lance and the mystery woman based on what Swift told her. Monk suggests that Swift didn't pull that information out of thin air, but learned it by spying on them. He proceeds to explain to Natalie how Swift carries out his shows: he uses cold reading, where he tricks a person into giving him the information he needs to make it seem like he's getting his information from the afterlife. He makes basic deductions in order to make guesses about people, and also uses unique phrasing to reduce the amount of necessary wiggle room. Monk explains that this is just what Swift was doing on Natalie at the bar, although the con works better with a lot of people. Case in point, Monk utilizes the show they witnessed the day of their arrival: Swift had said he was sensing the letter "G" and a man named Gary got up and asked if the message was for him, and in turn, Swift then said that the message he was receiving came from a recently deceased member of his family, and said that her name had an "M" or an "E", or both letters in the same name, and he said the message was from Gary's sister Margaret. As for Natalie, Monk explains that what Swift did to her was use claims that he had messages from Mitch in order to win her sympathy and make her easier to prey on. Natalie breaks down crying as she recalls what Swift told her - he recognized the bikini she was wearing at the bar as one Mitch bought her, despite the fact that he never met the man once, meaning there should be no way Swift could know that Mitch had purchased said bikini for Natalie during a vacation in Mexico. Monk determines that Swift, as the professional conman he is, did research to determine the approximate age of the bathing suit and made a lucky guess. The next morning, Monk, Natalie and Kealoha go to the local golf course to stake out the burglar. Monk immediately exposes a mailman making deliveries to a nearby residential neighborhood as one of the burglars. While they are on the course, Kealoha mentions that Helen Gruber is Lance's third elderly wife. He marries elderly women and inherits their money when they die, and the last two died of natural causes. Returning to the hotel after a late lunch, Monk notices Brian Galloway's vandalized rental car has been returned, repaired, and now in someone else's possession. But he's curious why the body shop replaced the seats in the car as well. Before he can dwell on that, they are approached by hotel manager Martin Kamakele, who seeks to resolve a conflict caused by Monk asking the cleaning ladies to fold bath towels on his floor instead of roll them, making them fall behind schedule. He resolves the situation by moving Monk and Natalie to Helen Gruber's bungalow. In questioning Kamakele, Monk learns more about Helen's complaints about hearing voices, and also learns that Dylan Swift has been taping some of his shows at the resort for the past few years after Kamakele purchased the resort and oversaw a renovation that included the addition of a production facility. Monk and Natalie move into the bungalow that afternoon. No sooner have they moved in that Dylan Swift shows up to try playing more mind games on them. Knowing that Swift is just a con artist who exploits peoples' vulnerabilities for money, Monk is naturally hostile to him. He is also very suspicious about the fact that Swift has taken an interest in Helen's murder and the fact that he seems to know about details the police haven't released to the public. Things boil over though when Swift's attempts to manipulate Monk fail and he turns to trying to manipulate Natalie's emotions by bringing up details about Mitch again, details that, like before, he could not have easily had access to. Monk is angered to see Swift trying to use Natalie as a tool, and swiftly ejects him from the bungalow. In spite of the ordeal, over a game of sorting peanut shells, Natalie asks Monk about Trudy's death to see if Swift's advice might give him closure. Monk dismisses it, given he knows Swift's con game. A later conversation that evening with Lance Vaughan and Roxanne Shaw seems to convince Monk that they may have been behind Helen's death. Things get worse for Monk and Natalie when, the night they move into the bungalow, their car is stolen from outside in the lot. They file a police report and get a new rental car from a different agency. After a brief sightseeing excursion, they take lunch at a saimin joint. Monk convinces Natalie to purchase a distinctive type of pie as they depart, and he suddenly realizes something else: some of the shelves in the bungalow's fridge had been put in upside down, and one of Swift's "messages" included a mention about pie. He comes to the conclusion that the killer may have stuffed Helen's body in the fridge and kept it stored overnight before dumping the body in the pool. This is enough damning evidence for the police to arrest Lance for the murder. With the murder investigation apparently solved, Natalie prepares to enjoy some more sightseeing, but Monk still has his eyes fixed on nailing Swift and sending him to prison. Natalie pleads for Monk to leave Swift alone, and Monk reluctantly agrees. The next day, the duo heads up to Waimea Canyon for pictures. Their trip is cut short though by Monk's fear of heights, which forces them to drive back downhill to Waimea. They pay a visit to a small gift shop for souvenirs, where Natalie picks up a pair of Red Dirt shirts for Julie. While they are shopping, Natalie gets a cell phone call from Captain Stottlemeyer. He tells her the news of Swift's involvement in the case has reached the national newspapers. Stottlemeyer agrees over the phone about Monk's suspicion that Swift is an attention seeker who will do anything to get publicity. Natalie is furious upon realizing Swift was using her and Monk as unwitting pawns in a publicity stunt, and as they prepare to drive back to Poipu Beach, she retracts her earlier suggestion about leaving Swift alone and tells Monk to do anything he can to ruin Swift. Moments later, Monk and Natalie are about to pass through a green light when their car is t-boned by a pickup truck which then flees the scene. They are able to provide Kealoha a description of both the truck and the driver, who apparently ran a red light when he hit them. Monk is suspicious about the fact that the truck driver never once slowed down or tried to stop, like he didn't notice that there was a red signal for him. While at the scene, Kealoha informs them that Lance Vaughan has lawyered up, but he's been forced to release Roxanne Shaw due to a lack of evidence to link her to the murder. Upon being dropped off at the Grand Kiahuna Poipu, Monk and Natalie find a newspaper with an article about Swift's involvement in getting Lance arrested. The article even mentions Monk by name. Natalie takes this as an opportunity to tell Monk about Swift leaving a message for him about seeing a hand with six fingers. Monk is incensed, knowing that that is a detail about the bomber who killed Trudy, a detail only he, Natalie, Stottlemeyer and Lieutenant Disher are aware of, indicating Swift somehow found out about this, too. Monk and Natalie immediately march over to Swift's bungalow to confront him. When they see him, he has a blister on one hand, which he claims he got when he burned his hand making breakfast that morning. They accuse him of using Helen Gruber's murder to boost publicity for himself. Monk brings himself to ask questions about Trudy's death, to the point that Natalie is uncertain whether or not Monk is being honest or he's just trying to draw Swift out. That night, Monk and Natalie decide to participate in the hotel's luau. The event will include men digging up a roasted pig that has been placed in a six foot deep pit covered in banana leaves. Things begin rather badly (thanks to Monk, of course, complaining about how unsanitary their practices are), but things take a startling turn for the worst when the men assigned to dig up the pig instead dig up a cooked human body. To Monk and Natalie's surprise, the dead man is Martin Kamakele, identified from a wallet in his pants pocket. The medical examiner concludes that someone viciously beat him to death with a shovel. Monk insists that Kamakele's death has to be connected to Helen Gruber's death somehow, given the MOs are similar, but he also finds some clues that suggest one distinct difference between the two murders: Helen's death was very well planned, but Kamakele's murder was not premeditated and was committed either in the heat of a fight or in a fit of rage. For one thing, the roasted pig that the body was buried above had been buried for nine hours, and the body was buried just over it, suggesting that Kamakele was killed sometime that afternoon in broad daylight. This indicates that the killer only tried to delay the body's discovery as opposed to dispose of it. Natalie considers it eerie that both murders were committed in broad daylight and both victims were killed with objects that the killer happened to find lying nearby. Upon returning to the bungalow for the night, Monk tells Natalie a very moving Trudy story about her security blanket. He describes it as a yellow blanket that she became so attached to as a kid that she couldn't sleep without it. She called it her night-night, and she carried it all the way to her death, and Monk claims he even buried it with her. Natalie is moved by the story, which Monk insists is one he hasn't told anyone up until now. The next morning, Natalie finds Monk preparing to send a letter to Stottlemeyer. Monk has the letter notarized and mailed. While he's doing that, Natalie notices Swift getting into his limo to go to the airport. Later that day, Natalie finds Monk straightening some of the artwork out, despite the maids just having cleaned the place. They are interrupted when Kealoha calls them to mention that their first rental car has been found abandoned in a shopping mall parking lot. Monk and Natalie are driven to meet Kealoha by the stolen car. Monk quickly notices that the car seats now have stains on them, which they didn't have before the theft. He recognizes the seats as coming from Brian Galloway's car. He develops a theory and gets Natalie to rent another newly arrived car, then take it to the police station. Once there, he borrows a knife and cuts open the seat fabric despite Natalie's protests, revealing that they are packed with cocaine - Monk remembers Kealoha talking about how most goods have to be imported, and reasons that that fact of life also applies to drugs. Every fresh rental car is being used to smuggle in drugs, and the dealers are using inside men at the rental agencies to tip them off to which cars have the drugs. They then send out men to wreck, vandalize, or steal the rental vehicles, knowing that seemingly random thefts and accidents involving rental vehicles are not likely to be something the police or rental agencies will be suspicious of. Once in the shop, they switch out the drug loaded seats for emptied seats from the last drug-transporting vehicle. Kealoha acknowledges that there is one body shop in the town of Kapaa that gets most of the body shop work for rental cars, and concludes that said body shop is probably a front for an illegal drug operation. The next day, Monk takes his Doxiynl for their flight back to San Francisco. Natalie returns home and gets her affairs in order with her mother, who has been babysitting Julie, before going to sleep. She oversleeps and is hastily woken up in the morning by a wake-up call from Monk, who is ready to expose Swift when he tapes his show later that day at a hotel downtown. Monk and Natalie head to the hotel, and find two front row seats in the audience, as well as Stottlemeyer and Disher, both of whom Monk has summoned to the show. Randy mentions before the show begins that he is eager to use Swift to communicate with a late uncle of his that died ten years ago. When the show begins, Swift senses a name beginning with an "M". Randy recognizes Swift's descriptions as the late uncle he described. Monk, Natalie and Stottlemeyer watch as Swift talks about the late uncle's secret fishing hole. The conversation is enough to get Randy to act like he believes Swift's claims. Swift moves on to Monk, and invites him up to the stage, claiming to be receiving a message from Trudy on the other side. He senses something yellow, and with some coaxing from Monk, identifies it as Trudy's security blanket. This is a shocker to Natalie, who wonders how Swift knows about the security blanket story when she's the only person Monk has ever told it to. As soon as Swift is finished describing the story, Monk immediately announces that he's solved the case. ===== ===== In Washington during World War II, word is received that an elite member of the Nazi High Command is willing to defect and divulge information that will shorten the war. But his defection entails the release of the ultra-top-secret file on the Scarlatti Inheritance – a file whose contents will destroy many of the Western world's greatest and most illustrious reputations if they are made known. From there, the book takes itself back a few decades, and tells the story of a corrupt American soldier, his billionaire mother, and an agent working for one of the smallest secret service departments in the world. ===== Kriosian ambassador Briam (Tim O'Connor) comes on board the Enterprise with some cargo, ready for a peace ceremony with the Valtian. As the ship heads to the rendezvous, they save two Ferengi from a failing ship. Despite security being assigned, the Ferengi enter the cargo bay and deactivate the stasis field on Briam's cargo, revealing a young Kriosian woman named Kamala (Famke Janssen). With the Ferengi secured, it is revealed that she is an empathic metamorph who can sense what males around her desire and react appropriately. She was being brought for an arranged marriage to the Valtian representative. Kamala generates pheromones that can affect males around her, which was why she was kept in stasis until the ceremony. Briam tells Kamala to stay in her quarters, but Captain Picard allows her to travel throughout the ship, with the unaffected Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) as her escort. This results in a fight nearly breaking out in Ten Forward, when Kamala begins to interact with several miners. The Ferengi seek to bribe Briam to turn Kamala over to them, but he rejects their offer. As he leaves, they attack him, causing him to fall, hit his head, and lose consciousness. The Enterprise turns the Ferengi over to the nearest starbase to stand trial, but Briam is unable to participate in the ceremony. Kamala helps Picard to take on Briam's role, and the two become close. He seeks to resist her abilities and tells her to be herself, and she explains that the woman he wants her to be is who she actually is. They meet with the Valtian ambassador, Chancellor Alrik (Mickey Cottrell), who is uninterested in the marriage and wants to pursue trade agreements. With the arrangements made, Picard visits Kamala to say goodbye; she tells him that she has permanently bonded with him instead of Alrik. Kamala explains that he has changed her for the better, and she will continue in her duty for her people to marry Alrik. At the wedding ceremony, Picard escorts Kamala down the aisle and watches as she marries Alrik. After the newlyweds have returned to the planet, Picard says goodbye to Briam in the transporter room. When asked how he resisted Kamala, the expression on Picard's face reveals how much of a struggle it has been and how much he feels he has lost. ===== The film begins with a shot of the United States Capitol being destroyed. It is actually a scale model being used in the demonstration of a heliobeamHeliobeaming weapon in the headquarters of the Bureau of International Government and Order ("BIG O"). BIG O is a secret organization with the goal of world domination that previously appeared in The Silencers. With the aid of a mole, BIG O conducts a worldwide assassination campaign against various secret agents working for ICE (Intelligence Counter Espionage). Matt Helm fakes his own death in preparation for investigating the scheme undetected. Helm meets his boss, Mac, for a mission briefing. They watch a film showing Solaris enjoying himself with young women on the beaches of Cannes. Helm is to track down the now missing Dr. Solaris, who has developed the powerful "heliobeam" weapon, a device that uses the concentrated power of sunlight for mass destruction. Helm is told if he can not rescue Solaris he is to kill him, and if captured to kill himself, lest BIG O brainwash him. He is to work under the name of James A. Peters. Posing as a Chicago gangster named Jim Peters, an alias of "Lash" Petroni, Helm travels to the French Riviera, fling into Nice Airport. A large customised Ford Thunderbird awaits him and he drives along the coast. He takes a package from the glove compartment containing a gun and a bottle of Ballantine's Irish whiskey. Trying to drink as he drives he find the bottle holds a small tape recorder with a message from mac instead of whiskey. He goes to a discotheque where he meets Suzie (Ann-Margret), an attractive girl who dances with him, but is arrested by the police: being framed for a murder. At the police line up he is not picked out and he is freed. He then goes to the harbour at Marseille where he is picked up by a mechanical grabber for a high-level discussion with Julian Wall (Karl Malden). They leave in a hovercraft to reach Wall's island hideout. He is imprisoned but after escaping he beats Wall's henchman, Ironhead, and takes the hovercraft back to the mainland. He drives the hovercraft up the street to the disco where Suzie is wearing a booby-trapped brooch which is just about to explode. Helm rips it off her and throws it at the wall where it hits a poster of Frank Sinatra and explodes. Helm says "Sorry Frank". Suzie and Helm are then pursued on the road in a car chase with Ironhead shooting at them. Ironhead's car goes over a cliff but Ironhead survives. They then take a speedboat back to Wall's island where another henchman, Dr Rogas, is torturing Solaris. However Suzie and Helm are both captured. Wall tortures Suzie until Solaris gives in, and tells the secret of getting his weapon to work. Meanwhile Helm is put in a giant shaker machine to shake him to death. They escape and end in dockyard where Helm fights Ironhead until Suzie brings a giant dockyard over his head and picks him up. The final scenes shows the two rivals on two separate hovercraft and a duel between them. Wall picks up Helm's trick gun which has a ten second delay and theby shoots himself in his confusion. They save Washington, D.C., from being destroyed. ===== After several bad dates and a trip to the hospital, Susan manages to finally score a doctor who she is interested in. However, because of their age gap she hesitates to ask him out. Susan concocts a plan by faking an illness in order to see the doctor again. The doctor shows signs of sympathy and remorse when he cannot find out what is wrong with her. Susan finally tells him that she faked the symptoms in order to get the opportunity to talk to him. The doctor becomes very angry since he stayed up all night trying to find out which illness Susan was suffering from. Susan apologizes and invites him to dinner while Ron is still angry. Ron suggests they go to eat sushi at the end of the week when he will be less angry. He also tells her that she has a wandering spleen. Tom calls Lynette and tells her to come home when the children are sent home due to chicken pox. Tom asks Lynette to stay home from work for a few days since he does not want to catch the highly contagious rash. When Lynette asks why Tom will not come into the house he tells her that he has never had it and it can cause sterility. Lynette wonders why Tom is thinking about more children when they already have four. Tom tells her that just in case they divorce or Lynette dies he would like the chance to marry and start another family. Lynette becomes angry at this and asks Tom to have a vasectomy. The following evening, Tom arrives back home and announces that he decided not to go through with the procedure. He tells Lynette that he will no longer feel like a man if he does it and that if she cannot understand this there will be problems in the marriage. Gabrielle learns from her gardener Ralph that her ex-boyfriend Scott has posted her nude pictures on a "classy" porn site. Gabrielle asks Carlos to go over and manipulate him into giving the photos back, even if it involves force. Carlos explains to Gabrielle that he is no longer that person. They go anyway and things go well until Scott makes a remark about how Gabrielle is not "internet hot". This causes Carlos to throw him through a window and take the pictures back. Gabrielle looks on in awe. On a quest to find out some information on the mysterious Applewhites, Bree reunites with Detective Barton, who previously accused her of poisoning Rex. The detective believes the lunch to be a date but Bree has an ulterior motive. When she tells him about the Applewhites he says that he cannot dig into someone's private life just because they seem eccentric. After they finish eating, Barton offers to drive Bree home. Bree takes this the wrong way and believes that he is making a pass on her. Barton has observed that she has been drinking, which could cause her driving to become impaired. Bree scoffs at this and decides to drive home anyway. She is pulled over by Barton himself, who puts her in handcuffs and takes her down to the police station. She is freed on bail hours later and is forced to walk home. While walking, Betty pulls up next to her in a car and offers to give her a ride. Bree tells her that she was arrested for DUI and her car was impounded. Betty has empathy for her because the neighborhood is talking about Andrew and her dealing with her husband's death. This causes Bree to tell Betty how everyone is discussing how she and her son are the most odd people on the block. After Bree leaves, Betty calls Edie to inform her that she wants to sell her house. Mike Delfino visits Noah (Dierdre's father). Noah is in a hospital bed and is very sick. Noah asks Mike why he has not visited him in a while. Mike lies, saying he has been there every Sunday. Noah wants Mike to tell him what he has been yearning to hear. Mike tells Noah that Dierdre's killer was a man named Todd Forrest, a drug dealer who killed Dierdre after she stole from him. Mike says he paid him a visit and killed him in return. Noah feels relieved but is still deeply troubled about all of this. He fires his nurse, who he claims was not doing a good job. Noah asks Mike if he will see him again. Mike jokingly asks "Will you be having an open casket?" The following night, a new nurse treats Noah. The nurse is revealed to be Felicia Tilman, who assures Noah that "they are going to be just fine". ===== Matt Helm is assigned by his secret agency, ICE, to bring down an evil count named Contini, who is trying to collapse the world economy by stealing a billion dollars in gold. Helm travels to Copenhagen, where he is given a guide, Freya Carlson, a beautiful but bumbling woman from a Danish tourism bureau. A pair of Contini's accomplices, the seductive Linka Karensky and Yu-Rang, each attempt to foil Helm's plans. The former is killed in an ambush intended for Helm, the latter in an explosion. On each occasion, Freya's clumsy attempts to assist Matt are helpful, but not particularly appreciated. McDonald, his chief at ICE, turns up to aid Helm, but is wounded in action. McDonald confides to Helm that the seemingly inept Freya is actually a top-secret British agent herself, using a clever guise. They go to Contini's chateau for a showdown, and Helm creates chaos and destruction with a variety of unique gadgets. Contini escapes with the gold on a train bound for Luxembourg, but Helm and Freya are able to catch up to him in a minihelicopter. Freya is almost killed by Contini, but Helm rescues her, then kills Contini by throwing him through a trap door onto the railroad tracks. Successful and alone at last, Helm finally has an opportunity to thank an appreciative Freya as only he can. ===== Sadie McKee (Crawford) works part-time as a serving maid in the same household where her mother is a cook, and is admired by the son of her employer, lawyer Michael Alderson (Tone). However, when Michael talks badly of her boyfriend, Tommy Wallace (Gene Raymond), during a family dinner, Sadie openly denounces her employers as snobby and insensitive. Sadie then flees to New York City with Tommy, who was fired from his job in the Alderson factory for alleged cheating. Nearly broke, Sadie and Tommy are befriended in New York by Opal (Jean Dixon), a hardened club performer, who takes them to her boardinghouse. The next morning, Sadie leaves the boardinghouse to look for a job and makes plans with Tommy to meet at the marriage license bureau at noon. Soon after she leaves, however, neighbor Dolly Merrick (Esther Ralston) hears Tommy singing in the bathroom and seduces him into joining her traveling club act, which leaves town that morning. Lobby card Heartbroken and embittered by Tommy's desertion, Sadie packs her bags, but Opal implores her to stay and gets her a job as a dancer in a nightclub. Ten days later, Jack Brennan (Edward Arnold), a jovial, rich alcoholic, helps Sadie handle an abusive customer and then demands that she sit at his table, which he is sharing with a friend - Michael Alderson. Still angry at Michael, Sadie ignores his speech to leave his intoxicated companion alone and goes home with Brennan that evening. Soon after, Sadie marries the adoring Brennan and, while enjoying her newfound wealth, does her best to handle his constant drunkenness. One afternoon, Sadie, who has been following Tommy's crooning career, goes to see him perform with Dolly at the Apollo Theater and is thrilled by the loving looks he gives her during his number. However, when Sadie returns home that evening, she learns from Michael and the family physician that unless Brennan stops drinking, he will die within six months. Sobered by the diagnosis, Sadie sacrifices her chance to reunite with Tommy and, after rallying the servants to her side, imprisons her husband in his house and forces him to quit drinking. Later Sadie goes with Michael and the now recovered Brennan to the club where she used to dance and is startled to see Dolly there performing without Tommy. After she confronts Dolly and finds out that Tommy was dumped in New Orleans, Sadie confesses to Brennan that she is in love with another man and wants a divorce. The understanding Brennan grants Sadie her request, and Michael, anxious to win her forgiveness, undertakes to find Tommy. Michael eventually locates Tommy in the city and deduces that he is suffering from tuberculosis. Aided by Michael, Tommy is admitted to a hospital. By the time Sadie is allowed to see him, Tommy's condition has worsened, and he dies after telling her that it was Michael who had helped him. Four months later, Michael celebrates his birthday with Sadie and her mother, and looks into Sadie's forgiving eyes before making his birthday wish. ===== Gameplay of Dun Darach One day Cuchulainn travels home with his charioteer companion Lóeg from a battle against the Connachta. On the way, they stop off at an inn and Lóeg is persuaded to help a young woman named Skar, whose chariot is damaged. Cuchulainn realizes that Lóeg is missing after taking refreshment at the inn. He later discovers that Skar is a sorceress and ally of the Connachta, and has taken Lóeg to the Secret City of Dun Darach in retribution for the death of Prince Amhair, who perished in the battle. Cuchulainn goes on a long search for the mysterious city, eventually discovering it and entering to find Lóeg. Dun Darach is an arcade adventure video game. The player guides Cuchulainn through Dun Darach and interacts with the environment by performing keyboard commands. The main objective is to find Lóeg, taking side quests from non-player characters (NPCs). These NPCs can give short hints to Cuchulainn, rob him, and confiscate his belongings if he carries stolen goods. Commands the player inputs can have him buy, steal and sell from shops in the city, bet at a casino (Iomain Ludum), and deposit money at a bank with daily compound interest. Dun Darach is large and consists of different quarters. The current time of the day is indicated by torches in the wall and by the greetings of characters. ===== The book consists of three short stories occurring each in a different timeframe, and are all related to the Ring universe: ===== Will Browning is a student who does not perform well in school. His father says that if Will does not improve soon, he will be spending the summer at Camp Spartacus, a boot camp for boys which will help him learn responsibility and discipline. To make up for the grades, Will orders a science project from an organization, "Ocean Pups." Two scientists, Victor and Conrad, who work there want to move out and work in a "real" lab. They make a breakthrough when they create a process of cloning they call "hyper-cloning". But when they leave, a cloned lab mouse escapes, and their cat chases it all over the lab. It then accidentally knocks over the cloning formula, which drips through a crack in the floor and all over an "Ocean Pups" kit. When Victor and Conrad find out about Will ordering the kit, they decide to spy on the house and take the possible clone back to the lab for experimentation. While working with the kit, Will accidentally clones himself after stirring the water with his comb that has his hair on it that contains his DNA. While the clone reads Will's science book, he rapidly learns from it, so Will decides to let the clone go to school as Will instead of a science project while Will secretly stays home. When the clone (named Twoie) goes to school, he does not act exactly like Will. Twoie starts getting better grades not because he is a lot smarter than Will (it was demonstrated throughout the movie that Will is smart, but he does not try) but because Twoie is not afraid to try, and makes amends with Will's old rival, Scotty DeSota. When the family visits Will's grandfather, Mordechai, who never talks to anybody, Twoie asks if being old hurts. Mordechai simply replies, "Not today." They talk and catch up for a long time. When Twoie tells Will about school and Mordechai, Will starts missing school and his friends. One day, Will is so jealous of Twoie that Will decides to go to school himself. When he gets there, he sees what a reputation he has now. His peers (including the cheerleaders) would greet Will and DeSota invited him to a baseball game. When his so-called girlfriend asks if he would like to go to the dance, he nervously agrees. Victor and Conrad keep an eye on Will's house and find out that Will hyper-cloned himself. They mistakenly think that Twoie going to the dance is the real Will Browning. While the real Will spies on them, he finds that Twoie has only a few hours before he turns into Ocean Pup eggs, as clones have a four-week lifespan. He grabs a mixture that will save Twoie, but Victor and Conrad spot Will and mistake him for Twoie. During the dance, Twoie goes to the bathroom after promising that he will show his friends a new dance move and tells himself that it is time to leave. When Will comes, his best friend, Chuckie, asks him how he changed his clothes so fast. Will explains that he cloned himself. Chuckie does not believe him. Suddenly, Victor and Conrad kidnap Will and take him to the warehouse, thinking Will is the clone. Twoie comes and rescues him, having learned his location from the telepathic connection they share, and helps him keep the scientists down. Victor and Conrad are defeated by Chuckie and Scotty who show up to help Twoie and Will after having been alerted by Twoie. They apparently called the cops as well, as they arrive soon afterwards along with Will's parents. Twoie is dying, but Will is able to feed him the mixture he took from the scientists that gives him a normal lifespan. Will explains everything to his family, and the scientists are arrested. The cops get suspicious, but Will makes up a story that Twoie is his identical cousin Gil Pupman from Belgium, and everyone, except for the scientists, back him up, despite being shocked. The only ones who know the truth are Will, his family, Twoie, Chuckie, Scotty, Will's grandfather, Victor, and Conrad. Will renames Twoie "Gil" and the family adopts him. ===== Philippe Gerbier (Lino Ventura), the head of a French Resistance network, is arrested by Vichy French police on suspicion of Resistance activity. Acquitted for lack of evidence, he is still interned in a camp. He and a young communist begin to work on an escape plan, but before it can come to fruition, he is transported to Paris for questioning by the Gestapo. He manages to kill a guard and to make his escape. Gerbier manages the Resistance network in Marseille. He and three of his men, Félix Lepercq (Paul Crauchet); Guillaume Vermersch, a burly veteran known as Bison (Christian Barbier), and Claude Ullmann, a young recruit known as Le Masque (Claude Mann), need to execute one of their own members, a young agent, Paul Dounat, for having betrayed Gerbier. They find the house next door to the one that they are using occupied and so they cannot use their guns. Lacking a decent knife, they strangle him. Lepercq recruits an old friend in a bar, Jean-François Jardie (Jean-Pierre Cassel), a handsome, risk-loving former pilot. On his first mission to Paris, Jardie meets Mathilde (Simone Signoret), a housewife who is one of the linchpins of Gerbier's network, and he visits his older brother, Luc Jardie (Paul Meurisse), a renowned philosopher who lives a seemingly detached, scholarly life in his Paris mansion. Some time later, Gerbier travels to the Free French headquarters in London in a British submarine. On the submarine, Gerbier meets Luc Jardie, who proves to be the head of all Resistance networks; his identity is a closely guarded secret. In London, Gerbier organises additional logistical support for the resistance and Luc Jardie is decorated by Charles de Gaulle. While they are there, Lepercq is arrested by the Gestapo. When Gerbier learns of the event, he cuts his trip short and parachutes into France's countryside. Mathilde, in command after Lepercq's arrest, devises an audacious plan to rescue Lepercq, who is being tortured in a maximum-security Gestapo prison in Lyon. Jean-François Jardie, after hearing the details of the plan, writes Gerbier a letter of resignation and incriminates himself with an anonymous letter to the Gestapo so that he will be arrested and jailed with Lepercq. They share a cell, Jardie badly beaten and Lepercq now barely alive after being tortured repeatedly. Shortly afterward, disguised as Germans, Mathilde, Le Masque, and Bison use forged papers that order Lepercq's transfer to a different detention facility as a ruse to rescue him. Their plan fails when the prison doctor pronounces Lepercq unfit for transport. When Jean-François sees that the rescue has failed, he gives Lepercq his one cyanide pill. Having seen during the rescue attempt that the Gestapo has displayed his photo as a wanted man, Mathilde urges Gerbier to escape to London, but he refuses and says that no one can take his place in the growing Resistance. Moments afterward, Gerbier is swept up in a raid by Vichy police and handed over to the Germans. He and his cellmates are due for execution, but subjected to an SS officer's sadistic game. They will live a little longer if they can run to the far wall of the room before they are killed by the machine gunners. As the shooting starts, Mathilde's team tosses smoke bombs to block the Germans' view and thus throws a line to Gerbier, who narrowly escapes. Gerbier spends a month alone in an abandoned farmhouse deep in the countryside. Jardie arrives to seek his advice following the arrest of Mathilde. They fear that she has been forced to reveal the identities of her confederates because the Nazis have threatened her teenage daughter. Jardie hides when Le Masque and Bison arrive. Gerbier orders Mathilde's immediate execution, but Bison refuses to carry out the order and swears to prevent Gerbier from killing her. Jardie emerges and convinces Bison that Mathilde is incapable of suicide but expects them to kill her. Later, Jardie reveals to Gerbier that the argument he presented to Bison is purely speculative. Jardie and his team pull to a stop on a Paris street, where they have located Mathilde. Bison shoots her twice. The final text screens reveal the eventual fates of the four men, all of whom died either through suicide or at the hands of the Nazis. Gerbier's precise fate is not revealed, only that on 13 February 1944, he 'decided not to run this time'. ===== Philip Wermeer has escaped from prison where he serves a sentence for the murder of Ebenezer Saxon, the patriarch of Saxon city, who in his turn is believed to be behind the murder of Wermeer's father. Wermeer is holed up in Gila Bend by a swarm of bounty killers, who want his $3,000 reward, posted by Saxon's three sons David, Eli and Adam. A sheriff named Clayton arrives on a stagecoach and bosses his way through the cordon set up by the local lawmen. While walking to the saloon, he performs actions that tip off Wermeer as to where some of the besiegers are hidden (like throwing a lit match so a man hidden in hay has to put it out). Wermeer makes it to the saloon, where Clayton, who has counted Wermeer's shots and knows that he is out of bullets, arrests him. Hole, a spokesman for the bounty killers, calls on Wermeer to surrender. A shot rings out and Clayton emerges dragging the "dead" convict. They argue that Clayton is a sheriff and therefore he cannot collect bounty, and that he instead should give up the body. The disagreement develops into a gunfight. Wermeer jumps up on a horse and escapes, pursued by the pack (though not Clayton). Wermeer makes the bounty hunters follow his horse, then hitches a ride with the stagecoach, where he finds Clayton among the passengers. When the group stay the night at Silver Bells, Wermeer goes for a shotgun hanging on the wall, but Clayton stops him. A drunken stationmaster assures the gun is empty, but Clayton retorts: "Never consider a gun empty". Then he and Wermeer play cards, Wermeer betting his $3,000 bounty. Wermeer wins and Clayton promises to take him to Saxon city as he wants. Wermeer steals a revolver from Clayton's bag, but is told that it is empty. Wermeer repeats Clayton's earlier saying and pulls the trigger, but Clayton shows him the bullet, taking it out of his mouth. Wermeer tries to leave, but Clayton shoots the door, this time with the other five bullets. Meanwhile, the bounty hunters led by Hole surround the house. They give Wermeer thirty seconds. He and Clayton are inside with Elisabeth, a female passenger who has earlier shown interest in Wermeer. Clayton tells her that Wermeer is innocent and that he saw who did it, but if Wermeer walks out the door he will never know. Wermeer gives himself up. Hole and two of the bounty hunters now kill the others in their pack, then ride off with Wermeer. Clayton finds them beating and questioning Wermeer in a waterfall, asking where the silver of his father is and offering to let him go if he tells. Clayton shoots off the rope and liberates him. Wermeer asks if he is still a prisoner. When Clayton says no, he holds a gun against Clayton and rides off to Saxon city on the latter's horse. After arriving Wermeer confronts the Saxon sons, Adam and Eli. He accuses Eli (who is the town's sheriff) and asks who killed his father. We also learn that Hole was sent by Eli to find out who really killed the old man Saxon. Clayton arrives and demands that the Saxons reopen Wermeer's case. Wermeer sends word to his friends and people loyal to his father to gather at the silver mine. A duel between Hole and Wermeer is supervised by Clayton after he reveals that it was Hole who killed Wermeer's father, following orders from Ebenezer Saxon. An ambusher is there helping Hole, but Wermeer shoots him without Clayton interfering. (In a German-language version, the dying Hole says he killed Wermeer because the latter refused to share the silver.) David Saxon, the oldest of the brothers and the one responsible of running the town, orders Adam to stop the people heading to the silver mine. Shortly after, Adam massacres Wermeer's followers with hidden explosives and a machine gun. He also kills his own men, following his brother David's instructions to not leave any witnesses. Meanwhile David meets with Clayton, who says that they both know who killed the old man Saxon. David offers $25.000 if he and Wermeer leave town. Clayton relays the offer that the charge will be dropped. Wermeer replies that the Saxons made the offer because "dead people don't need a leader", and reveals the wagon in which he carries the bodies of those killed by Adam. Adam shoots him from a window, though Elisabeth, who arrived in town to marry Adam, cries out a warning. Clayton escapes during the gunfight. In the morning, Wermeer is to be hanged. Clayton says he knows who is the real killer. David wants the hanging to continue but Eli says that he must know. Clayton confesses that he himself did it, explaining that Ebenezer Saxon killed Wermeer's father, and that David Saxon bought the judge who sentenced Philip Wermeer and stripped Clayton of his title of Sheriff after he stood in trial to declare him innocent, so justice could only be done "the Saxon way". Clayton also denounces the massacre at the silver mine, and the Saxons agree to meet Clayton at the cattle pens. At the confrontation, when Clayton approaches, David says that the three must draw first to overcome Clayton's faster and expert gunplay. Wermeer, from a distance, shoots off Clayton's hat so that he draws first. It works and Clayton reacts by killing the three men and only getting a small wound. Wermeer picks up his hat and gun and says that Clayton now can go back to being a sheriff. Wermeer leaves for Mexico with Elisabeth, not caring about the silver. The old man from the stagecoach that carried the initial group, now friends with Wermeer, drives them down the road, while Clayton goes his own way. ===== Movie star Lola Burns (Jean Harlow) is angry with her studio publicist E. J. "Space" Hanlon (Lee Tracy), who feeds the press with endless stories about her greatness. Lola's family and staff are another cause of distress for her, as everybody is always trying to take money from the actress. All Burns really wants is to live a normal life and prove to the public that she's not a sexy vamp, but a proper lady. She tries to adopt a baby, but Hanlon, who secretly loves her, thwarts all her plans. Burns decides she can't stand any more of such a life, and flees. Far from the movie fluff, she meets wealthy and romantic Gifford Middleton (Franchot Tone), who hates the movies and therefore has never heard about Lola Burns and her bad press. They soon fall in love, and Gifford proposes marriage. Burns is to meet her fiancé's parents, but everything collapses when Hanlon, together with Burns' family, finds her, and tells the Middletons the truth. Burns feels hurt by the rude way Gifford and his parents dump her, and accepts Hanlon's suggestion to return to Hollywood with no regrets. She does not know that the three Middletons were all actors hired by Hanlon himself. At the studio, Burns and Hanlon are kissing when the “Middletons” walk by her dressing room. They have been given jobs on the next Barrymore picture as a reward for helping to bring Lola back to the fold. Infuriated, Burns flees. Hanlon jumps into the moving car. They are about to kiss when the supposed lunatic who has been pursuing her throughout the picture, claiming to be her husband, sticks his head in the window. He greets Hanlon and asks “How’m I doin’ ?” Fade out on the battling couple. ===== Only a few days before his wedding, Michael Hamilton (Clark Gable), a Philadelphia lawyer, travels to Naples in Southern Italy to settle the estate of his late brother, Joseph, with Italian lawyer Vitalli (Vittorio De Sica). In the opening narration, he states that he "was here before with the 5th US Army" in World War II. In Naples, Michael discovers that his brother had a son, eight-year- old Nando (Carlo Angeletti), who is being cared for by his maternal aunt Lucia (Sophia Loren), a cabaret singer. Joseph never married Nando's mother but drowned with her in a boating accident. Joseph's actual wife, whom he had left in 1950, is alive in Philadelphia. Michael discovers to his dismay that his brother spent a fortune on fireworks. After seeing Nando handing out racy photos of Lucia at 2 a.m., Michael wants to enroll Nando in the American School at Rome, but Lucia wins custody of the boy. Despite the age difference, romance soon blossoms between Michael and Lucia, and he decides to stay in Italy. ===== Forth Bridge in 2007 At a London music hall theatre, Richard Hannay is watching a demonstration of the superlative powers of recall of "Mr. Memory" when shots are fired. In the ensuing panic, Hannay finds himself holding a seemingly frightened Annabella Smith, who talks him into taking her back to his flat. There, she tells him that she is a spy being chased by assassins, and that she has uncovered a plot to steal vital British military information, masterminded by a man missing the top joint of one of his fingers. She mentions "The 39 Steps", but does not explain their meaning. Later that night, Smith, fatally stabbed, bursts into Hannay's bedroom and warns him to flee. He finds a map of the Scottish Highlands clutched in her hand, showing the area around Killin, with a house or farm named "Alt-na- Shellach" circled. He sneaks out of his flat disguised as a milkman to avoid the assassins waiting outside. He then boards the Flying Scotsman express train to Scotland. He learns from a newspaper article that he is the target of a nationwide manhunt for Smith's murder. When he sees the police searching the train, he enters a compartment and kisses the sole occupant, Pamela, in a desperate attempt to escape detection. She alerts the policemen, who stop the train on the Forth Bridge. Hannay escapes. He walks toward Alt-na-Shellach, staying the night with a poor crofter (farmer) and his much younger wife. Early the next morning, the wife sees a police car approaching and warns Hannay; she also gives him her husband's coat. Hannay flees. The police chase after him, using an autogyro, but he eludes them. He eventually reaches the house of Professor Jordan. The police arrive, but Jordan sends them away and listens to Hannay's story after ushering out his guests (including the local sheriff). Hannay states that the leader of the spies is missing the top joint of the little finger of his left hand, but Jordan shows his right hand, which is missing that joint, then shoots Hannay and leaves him for dead. Luckily, the bullet is stopped by a hymn book in the crofter's coat pocket. Hannay goes to the local sheriff. When more policemen arrive, the sheriff reveals that he does not believe the fugitive's story, since Jordan is his best friend. The police handcuff Hannay, but he jumps through a window. He tries to hide at a political meeting and is mistaken for the introductory speaker. He gives a rousing impromptu speech—without knowing anything about the candidate he is introducing—but is recognized by Pamela, who gives him away to the police once more. He is taken away by the policemen, who insist Pamela accompany them. When they drive the wrong way, Hannay realizes they are agents of the conspiracy. When the men get out to disperse a flock of sheep blocking the road, Hannay escapes, dragging the unwilling Pamela along, as they have been handcuffed together. They make their way across the countryside and stay the night at an inn. While he sleeps, Pamela manages to slip out of the handcuffs, but then overhears one of the fake policemen on the telephone, confirming Hannay's assertions. She returns to the room and sleeps on a sofa. The next morning, she tells him what she heard. He sends her to London to alert the police. No secret documents have been reported missing, however, so they do not believe her. Instead, they follow her. Pamela leads them to the London Palladium. When Mr. Memory is introduced, Hannay recognizes his theme music—the annoyingly catchy tune he has been unable to forget. Hannay, upon seeing Professor Jordan signal Mr. Memory, realizes that Mr. Memory is smuggling the Air Ministry secrets out of the country. As the police take Hannay into custody, he shouts, "What are The 39 Steps?" Mr. Memory compulsively answers, "The 39 Steps is an organisation of spies, collecting information on behalf of the Foreign Office of ..." at which point Jordan shoots him, before being apprehended. The dying Mr. Memory recites the information stored in his brain: the design for a silent aircraft engine. ===== In May 1485 two of the devil's envoys, Gilles (Alain Cuny) and Dominique (Arletty), arrive at the castle of Baron Hugues (Fernand Ledoux) on the night of a celebration for his daughter's engagement. The Baron's daughter, Anne (Marie Déa), is set to marry Renaud (Marcel Herrand), a warlord who prefers talking about battle more than reciting love poems. Disguised as traveling minstrels, Gilles and Dominique enter the castle and use their powers of enticement to ruin the upcoming nuptials. Gilles seduces the innocent Anne, while both the Baron and Renaud become bewitched with Dominique. But, when Gilles accidentally falls in love with Anne, the Devil (Jules Berry) arrives to ensure that any true happiness is destroyed. When Gilles and Anne are caught together in her room, Gilles is thrown into the dungeon, and Anne and Renaud's engagement is called off. When the Baron and Renaud realize that they are both in love with Dominique, they duel to the death and Renaud is killed. Following the Devil's orders, Dominique leaves the castle and entices the Baron to follow her in suit. Intrigued by Anne's unusual purity and faith in love, the Devil decides he wants Anne for himself. Making a deal with the Devil, Anne agrees to be with him in return for the Devil releasing Gilles from chains. Once Gilles is free, the Devil strips Gilles of his memory and Gilles walks off leaving Anne with the Devil. But, once Gilles is gone, Anne reveals that she lied and that she could never love the Devil. Returning to the fountain where she and Gilles first pronounced their love, Anne and Gilles reunite and through the power of love, Gilles recovers his memory. Finding the two once again in love, the Devil changes them both into statues, but finds that, even underneath stone, their hearts continue to beat. ===== Former senator William Tadlock leads a wagon train along the Oregon Trail from Missouri with the help of hired guide Dick Summers. After several accidents which cost settlers' lives, a mutiny of sorts develops and his position is overtaken by Lije Evans. Soon, different factions develop amongst the people of the train as they try to survive their trek to Oregon. ===== While practicing piano, Alvin sees Louise being beaten by Spike, and he rescues her and then brings her back to Lucretia’s house. Lucretia, the owner of the boarding house where Alvin is residing, allows Louise to stay in return for chores around the house. Eddie meets with Spike, who has a black eye after the incident, and the former attempts to convince Spike to let Louise work as an entertainer for him. Spike doesn’t seem enthusiastic and shows regret for beating her, which he later credits to his alcoholism. Spike has some desire to allow his daughter to escape the kind of life he is stuck in, but he is unable to change any of his actions without being sucked into his old lifestyle by the alcohol supplied by Eddie. Eddie learns the truth about the confrontation between Alvin and Spike during dinner at Lucretia’s. Later in the evening, Eddie forcefully attempts to bring Louise back to her “old pappy” but again Alvin intervenes. Drunk again from Eddie’s liquor, Spike continues to harass Louise who contemplates suicide if it continues. Alvin proposes to Louise after rescuing her again from the altercation, claiming that she wouldn’t need to worry about harm if they were married. After he defends Louise from Eddie at Lucretia’s house, Alvin exclaims “I’ll teach you to treat our women like that!” Over more alcohol, Eddie schemes with Spike to distract Alvin with a fake telegram announcing his mother’s illness while they kidnap Louise. Alvin cannot take Louise with him because he hasn’t informed his mother of their marriage, which she would not have approved of because of her concern with class. Louise laments in life and finds a letter from Alvin’s mother urging him to marry another woman who is “part of our set,” referring to the same level in social stratification. She proceeds to rip the letter and then the marriage certificate. Before they go through with the plan, Spike once again hesitates, remarking that she is better off away from people like him. Alvin comes back to confront Eddie after learning he had been tricked, and that his mother was visiting friends out of town. The scene is cut between Alvin's being in the car in the suburbs and Louise's tearing up mementos of their marriage. Eddie breaks into the house and entices Louise with far-fetched possibilities of becoming rich. As Alvin enters and guns are pulled, someone accidentally shoots Louise in the neck leaving a scar. Louise becomes involved with Eddie's gambling while Alvin is in prison. Eddie refers to Alvin as a “dicty sap”, which insults his ambitions to move up the rungs of the class system. Alvin escapes prison by filing the bars in his cell and re-establishes himself as a music instructor with a false name. Alvin falls in love with his student, Alice, but “lives a daily lie” because he has hidden the secrets of his past. Louise is involved with Alice’s father so Alvin meets her after dropping an urgent note to Alice’s father. Alice’s father unknowingly pairs the two together for a dance. Later that night, Louise makes advances on Alvin, threatening to expose him, and he gives in for a moment but in a later scene Alvin rejects her and leaves. In distress, Louise kills herself after writing a revealing letter of repentance and apology. In it, she confesses that it was really Eddie who shot her neck, and he wouldn’t allow her to tell the truth during the trial. Alvin feels compelled to inform Alice and her family about his secrets after hearing of Louise’s death, and they forgive him. The lament of Alice’s father mirrors the earlier foreword in blaming the environment and Louise’s lack of education, finishing with the statement: “our people have much to learn.” ===== ===== Candy Quackenbush visits the enchantress Laguna Munn to remove Princess Boa's soul from her body; upon which, Boa attempts to kill Candy herself. Later in the novel, Boa searches for Christopher Carrion on Gorgossium and (failing to find him) captures Finnegan Hob, her former fiancé. In a brief visit to the human world, Candy resists her father, Bill Quackenbush, who tries to obtain her memories. After return to the Abarat, Candy re-unites with her now-numerous supporters and befriends Christopher Carrion and later his father, Zephario Carrion. Pursued by Mater Motley's subordinates, Candy falls in love with a boy named Gazza, who immediately requites the affection. Gazza later learns that Malingo the Geshrat is also in love with Candy. At the climax of this installment Mater Motley releases the arthropod 'Sacbrood', who in turn cover the sky and give the book its name, and collaborates with the extraterrestrial Nephauree, who seek to dominate the Abarat. A struggle follows in which much of the Abarat is destroyed or damaged, and wherein Mater Motley encounters the submarine 'Requiax'. At the edge of the Abarat, a Nephauree makes an appearance; Candy uses a piece of the Abarataraba (the Abarat's supreme book of magic) to save Mater Motley's prisoners; Christopher Carrion and Malingo prevent Mater Motley from killing Candy; and Christopher Carrion's siblings are released from the dolls on Mater Motley's dress. Having fallen from the Abarat into the 'Void' beyond, Candy, Malingo, and Gazza enter another, unidentified parallel universe, concluding the book. ===== 1692, Salem, Massachusetts. John Proctor is the only member in the town's assembly who resists the attempts of the rich to gain more wealth at the expense of the poor farmers, thus incurring the wrath of deputy governor Danforth. Proctor's sternly puritanical wife, Elizabeth, is sick and has not shared his bed for months, and he was seduced by his maid, Abigail. When he ends his affair with her, Abigail and several other local girls turn to slave Tituba. Reverend Parris catches the girls in the forest as they partake in what appears to be witchcraft. Abigail and the rest deny it, saying that they have been bewitched. A wave of hysteria engulfs the town, and Danforth uses the girls' accusations to instigate a series of trials, during which his political enemies are accused of heresy and executed. When Abigail blames Elizabeth Proctor, the latter rejects John's pleas to defraud Abigail as an adulteress. Eventually, both Proctors are put on trial and refuse to sign a confession. The townspeople rebel, but not before John is hanged with other defendants; his pregnant wife has been spared. Elizabeth tells the angry crowd to let Abigail live. ===== Spike and the current Slayer of 1888 form an alliance to battle the Jack the Ripper, a prostitute-murdering madman. It is learned Jack is not at all human. The alliance fails and Jack survives to come to Sunnydale in the modern day. He has plans, and using a mystical fog, he desires to kill more of the human race, which he hates. Soon, the fog does arise, which is used as cover as a demon army rampages through the streets of Sunnydale. The threat is neutralized; unfortunately there are heavy citizen casualties. ===== In 1958, the Merlin law made brothels illegal in Italy. Adua, Lolita, Marilina and Millie are four prostitutes whose brothel in Rome is shut down. Under Adua's leadership, they pool their savings, two million lire apiece, to open a restaurant on the outskirts, which will be a cover for an illegal brothel. They rent a run-down building and hire workmen to fix it up but, when they apply for a permit to open the restaurant, their application is rejected because of their history of prostitution. One of Adua's former customers, Ercoli, agrees to buy the building and use his connections to get the permit in his name, in return for a rent of one million lire a month. The restaurant turns out to be unexpectedly successful, and the women effectively abandon their plans to offer sexual services and start to lead respectable lives. But the restaurant doesn't earn as much as they could make as a brothel, and they can't pay Ercoli his rent. Ercoli gives them an ultimatum: start working as prostitutes again, and pay him his rent, or he will kick them out in 24 hours. When Ercoli returns, Adua refuses, humiliates him, and he leaves. In revenge, he has them all arrested for prostitution, their pictures are in the newspapers, and their respectable lives are destroyed. Adua ends up working in the streets again. ===== Dédée d'Anvers works in a bar and lives with the bar's bouncer Marco. When she gets to know the Italian sea captain Francesco she believes she can get out of this milieu. Marco kills Francesco for that. Marco kills Francesco because Marco needs money to make a drug deal. ===== It is 2010. A failure as a 3rd grade teacher and a family man, Shinichi Ichikawa lives with his cheating wife, his teenage daughter who dates older men, and his son who is bullied because of his father's presence in the school. Escaping from everyday life, Shinichi secretly dresses up nightly as "Zebraman", the title character from an unpopular 1970's tokusatsu TV series he watched as a child before it was canceled after the seventh episode. As a result of meeting a wheelchair-using transfer student named Shinpei Asano, also a fan of Zebraman, Shinichi not only regains his love for teaching but also develops feelings for the boy's mother. At the same time, a rash of strange crimes and murders have been occurring around the school at which Shinichi teaches. On his way to Shinpei's house in his costume to give him a surprise, Shinichi fights a crab-masked serial killer whom he defeats when he starts exhibiting actual superpowers. Confronting more criminals who are possessed by a strange slime-based alien force, Shinichi learns that the Zebraman series was actually a cautionary prophecy of an actual alien invasion written by the school's principal, revealed to be an alien who refused to go through with the invasion and attempted to keep his kind from getting out from below the school before they kill him off and attack in full fury. Though he knows how the show ends, Shinichi defies his predestined fate as he is the only person who can stop the aliens from taking over the Earth. As a result, when the aliens emerge from the ground, the government informs the United States, which will perform an airstrike on the aliens. Realizing this, Shinichi learns of his powers and defeats the aliens. ===== Sunnydale Drive-In reopens with a dusk-to-dawn festival of classic B movies. Xander has free tickets after working there as a gopher for the construction crew, but as Buffy, Willow, and Cordelia show little interest, he ends up going with Jonathan. Jonathan, like many of the patrons of the drive-in, falls asleep during the night and cannot be re-awakened. Meanwhile, Buffy and Angel fight off attacks from a wolf-man and a gang of chain-wielding bikers who seem solid one minute and fade into thin air the next. Other vanishing figures are seen around town, leading Giles and Willow to research ectoplasm. Xander recognizes a picture in one of Giles' old books as the man behind the re-opening of the drive-in: Mr Balsamo, otherwise known as the eighteenth-century occultist Cagliostro. When Giles is kidnapped, Buffy, Angel and Willow head to the drive-in to confront the villain, while Xander and Cordelia stay at the hospital with his victims. ===== A traveling carnival arrives in Sunnydale. It seems the carnival might be another victim of Sunnydale's weirdness. Nobody seems to be able to remember it arriving despite the many old-style wagons, the numerous performers, and horse-drawn carts. The creepy calliope music seems almost to beckon out to people. Also nobody who goes into Hall of Mirrors comes out exactly the same as they were to start with. Inspired by a pair of once-homely twins now parading around the school like divas, the Scoobs decide to investigate the carnival. It's soon clear that entering comes at a cost above the price of admission. Willow becomes consumed by envy, Cordelia gets greedy, and Xander finds himself overtaken with gluttony. Angel is revealing a dangerous new persona, whilst anger rises in Rupert Giles. More serious still, Buffy's pride starts to threaten those she cares about. ===== Mayor Richard Wilkins III invites a woman named Belakane to speak at the local Sunnydale High School. She has a program, "Be the Ultimate You!". It aims to build self-esteem in teenagers. However, she is a demon ant-like queen and her so-called self- esteem program is actually a test to find workers to build her colony, and to find mates to expand her populace. She soon reduces students to single trait beings, for example Buffy is reduced to 'aggressive slayer'. ===== A young woman, Marjorie, is attacked in her home by a would-be rapist, Raul, and manages to turn the tables on him, tying him up in her fireplace. Her roommates come home to discover the attacker bound with cords, belts and other household items. Terry and Patricia, the roommates, express different points of view about rape in society. Terry, a rape victim herself as a teenager, believes that Raul will not be convicted because a rape did not actually occur and there is no proof. Patricia believes in the judicial system and insists on calling the police. The three friends also turn on each other at various points in the play, due to Raul's knowledge of each through stalking them. For instance, close to the play's opening, Raul reveals to Terry that Marjorie had been having an affair with Terry's boyfriend. ===== Earl Hickey, a thief, narrates the last few years of his life, explaining that he married a six-month pregnant woman named Joy while drunk in 1999. Earl and his brother Randy moved in with Joy to a trailer park. Earl and Joy had their own child, Earl junior, in 2001, but he was a black boy, implying that Joy cheated on Earl with African-American Darnell "Crab-man" Turner. In 2005, Earl wins $100,000 in the lottery, but is immediately hit by a car and watches the ticket blow away. While he recovers in the hospital, Joy divorces him, and Earl is introduced to karma while watching talk-show host Carson Daly; do bad things and bad things happen, do good things and good things happen. This makes sense to Earl, so he decides to try to make up for all the bad things he has done and makes a written list of 259 items. After leaving the hospital, Earl and Randy move into a motel where they meet a pretty Mexican maid, Catalina. When Earl picks up trash to atone for item #136, "I've been a litterbug", he finds his lost lottery ticket. He decides that karma works, and as such resolves to continue making up for items on the list, beginning with #64: "Picked on Kenny James". Earl, Randy and Catalina find Kenny's parents' house, and Earl sends Randy to find out from them where Kenny lives. Randy poses as former class president looking for Kenny, but offends the Jameses who call the police. Regardless, Randy makes his escape with the address. Earl spies on Kenny to figure out how best to help him. Kenny's life is good, but he has nobody to share it with, so Earl decides to hire a prostitute, Patty, to have sex with him. When Kenny refuses free sex, Earl talks to Kenny in person, not understanding why he turned down sex. However, Randy finds homosexual pornography in Kenny's nightstand. He and Earl, never having met a homosexual person, flee the house in fear. Although he tries to ignore Kenny, calling the list item "special circumstances", Earl is shortly thereafter attacked by Joy and realizes: there are no special circumstances. He returns to Kenny's house and asks why Kenny doesn't have a man. Kenny answers that nobody knows he is gay, and he is afraid to go to a gay bar. Earl agrees to come with him, to give him needed support and cross Kenny off his list. They go with Randy to a gay bar, where Kenny builds up the confidence to talk to a man. Acknowledging the cathartic irony of being accepted for who he is by the man he once feared the most, he thanks Earl and says he can cross him off his list. ===== Screenshot Four peasant families working farms for the same landlord scrape out a meagre existence in 1898 in the countryside around Bergamo. Over the course of a year, children are born, crops are planted, animals are slaughtered, couples are married, stories and prayers are exchanged in the families's shared farmhouse. Undercurrents of revolution are seen by the peasants but largely ignored, as a communist rabble-rouser gives a speech at a local fair and when a newlywed couple visit the big city of Milan and witness the arrest of political prisoners. When spring comes, the father from one of the four families cuts down a tree to make wooden clogs (an alder, aimed in the title because its wood was typically used for this kind of handworkhttp://uomoenatura.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Ontano- nero.pdfhttp://www.officinadellambiente.com/it/articolo.php?idl1=0&idl2;=0&id;=3320 ) that his son can walk to school, but the landowner discovers this, and the family is forced off their land by the incensed landlord. The remaining families watch them go, praying for them and recognising their own fragile existence. ===== Nick Parker (Henry Thomas) is a struggling young artist suffering a mental and physical breakdown. When a violent murder happens in his apartment building, it pushes him to the edge of sanity. Suspected by his sister (Teri Hatcher) and tracked by a police detective (Bill Duke), Nick begins to think he may have committed the murder himself except for the appearance of a mysterious drifter (David O'Hara) who has moved in upstairs. Is he a witness or a murderer, and was it all a setup or illusion? The bottom line is: Who can you trust when you can no longer trust yourself? ===== Over the course of 24 hours, a group of New Yorkers, whose lives are interconnected, must make pivotal decisions about their relationships. Most notably, Isabel (Banks), a photographer, is having second thoughts about her engagement to Jonathan (Marsden), while her award- winning actress mother Diana (Close) suspects that her husband is having an affair and thus questions the open nature of her marriage. ===== The film stars Jesse Bradford as Johnny, a young man with dreams of becoming a stock car racer. After he loses all of his money and possessions in Las Vegas, he drifts into the world of hustling, in the hope of making enough money to travel to Charlotte, North Carolina to join the car racing industry. He meets Eric (Jordan Brower), a gay hustler, who finds himself falling for Johnny. Jonathan Taylor Thomas also stars as Steve, a bisexual hustler, and Daryl Hannah plays Veronica, a former showgirl and prostitute who has served as a surrogate mother figure for Eric since his own mother died. Other than Veronica, the only thing Eric has to remind him of his mother is a silver dollar she gave him that he carries for good luck. Eric falls deeply in love with Johnny, and is saddened that his love will remain unrequited. Eric finds out that Johnny is a virgin and really wants to have sex with a woman, so Eric asks Veronica to have sex with Johnny. Under the guidance of Eric and with tips from Steve, Johnny slowly becomes a good hustler. Steve then asks Johnny to join him in entertaining some gay clients for a potentially large payment. Johnny refuses because it is Eric's birthday, much to the annoyance of Steve, who really needs the money from the clients who will only pay if both Steve and Johnny arrive. When Eric remains sombre, Johnny questions him, they argue, and Eric finally confesses his love for Johnny. Johnny tells Eric that he really cares for Eric too because Eric has been the best friend that he has ever had, and asks Eric to move with him to Charlotte. Delighted to find out that Johnny really cares for him, Eric agrees. J.T., a sociopathic drug dealer, tosses Johnny a package while running from the police. It contains crack cocaine and cash. Steve finds it in their place and steals it. When J.T. shows up looking for it, it's missing. J.T. holds Johnny hostage while Eric looks for Steve. Steve refuses to return the cash and the drugs, so Eric heads to Veronica's place. There he steals the gun belonging to her police officer boyfriend and heads home. J.T. is playing William Tell with Johnny, shooting a can of tomato soup off his head. Eric comes in and thinks Johnny's been shot. He gets into a gun battle with J.T., killing him. Johnny and Eric flee but Eric realizes he's been shot. Eric dies in Johnny's arms, giving Johnny his lucky silver dollar. At the bus station, Johnny puts the dollar in a slot machine and hits a jackpot. He buys a bus ticket and leaves town. A year later, Veronica is working as a cocktail waitress. She glances up at a television and sees Johnny. He's a member of a pit crew, having taken a step toward realizing his dream. ===== In Italy, wealthy families often hire bodyguards to protect family members from the threat of kidnapping. A wealthy family that needs a bodyguard hires Christian Creasy, a burned-out ex-CIA agent turned mercenary, to protect their daughter, Samantha "Sam" Balletto. Creasy has been broken down from all of the death and horror of combat he witnessed in the Vietnam War and in Beirut, Lebanon. Although Creasy is not interested in being a bodyguard, especially to a twelve-year-old youngster, he accepts the assignment because he has no better job offers. Creasy barely tolerates the precocious child and her pestering questions about him and his life. But slowly, she chips away at his seemingly impenetrable exterior, his defenses drop, and he opens up to her. They become friends and he replaces her parents in their absences, giving her advice, guidance, and help with track. Creasy's life is shattered when Sam is kidnapped by the mafia. Despite being seriously wounded during the kidnapping, Creasy halts his recovery to get weapons from his former partner, David. Creasy vows Sam's safe return, as well as vengeance on the kidnappers. ===== This book is told from the perspective of Detective Mike Hoolihan, a female detective who is charged with the task of finding the motivation for Jennifer Rockwell's suicide (she shot herself in the head three times, supposedly). Jennifer, a beautiful astrophysicist with a seemingly perfect life seems to have had no reason to kill herself. Thematically this book touches on cosmology and chaos theory, and their relation to the human condition as a possible motive for suicide. Hoolihan is a recovering alcoholic and former homicide detective who lives with an obese man named Tobe in an unnamed American city. She reveals that she had been sexually abused as a child, revolted violently against the abuse at the age of ten, and then pursued a number of affairs with abusive or unworthy men. Despite her disadvantages, she becomes a successful detective before her illness forces her to accept less demanding work seizing assets from criminals. Her experiences lead her to examine gender roles in police work. Her former boss, mentor, and personal friend 'Colonel' Tom Rockwell asks that she investigate the apparent suicide of his daughter Jennifer who, as a beautiful, intelligent, cheerful, popular woman had no obvious reason for taking her own life. Rockwell suspects Jennifer's lover Trader Faulkner, a distinguished academic, of murdering Jennifer. Hoolihan attempts to pressure Faulkner into confessing, but fails. She discovers that Jennifer was taking lithium, met a philandering salesman in the bar of a local hotel, and made uncharacteristic mistakes at work shortly before her death. Hoolihan then deduces that these factors are merely 'blinds' - or clues - deliberately planted by Jennifer for the benefit of an investigation at the behest of her father. Hoolihan concludes that these blinds are meant either to provide the less astute investigator with a sense of 'closure', or to indicate a greater bleakness, or nihilism. After breaking down while attempting to communicate her findings to Rockwell - who immediately expresses his concern - Hoolihan heads for the nearest bar, knowing that the alcohol will kill her. ===== ===== The film starts by with Anjali (Trisha) sitting on a bench in Rameswaram feeding a white pigeon by a calm ocean. A retired police officer Shankar (Devan) comes and sits on the bench by her side, and they exchange pleasantries. Suddenly, she whips out a knife and kills him with the help of her maternal uncle Ramachandran (Nassar), while saying that she has been waiting for this moment for many years. She then comes back to Chennai with Ramachandran to attend college. After that, the scene shifts to Aathi (Vijay), who lives in New Delhi with his foster family consisting of his parents Mani (Manivannan) and Lakshmi (Seetha), who are both loving to him, and his sister. He takes up a course in a college in Chennai against his foster parents' wishes, while he is actually on a personal mission to eliminate the people behind the murder of his blood family. Unable to be separated from Aadhi, his foster family comes to Chennai along with him. It is revealed that Anjali is studying in the same college as Aadhi, and she also has her own agenda to seek revenge on her family's killers, and she is assisted by Ramachandran. Meanwhile, RDX (Sai Kumar), a local gangster, enters and is shown to have a dispute with Pattabhi (Rajan P. Dev). To exact their revenge, Ramachandran attempts to kill Sadha (Karate Raja), one of RDX's henchmen, but fails to do so since Aadhi kills Sadha with a gun he was armed with. At first naturally, RDX assumes the killer can be none other than Pattabhi, so he kills him. However, Aathi arrives on the scene with help from Bullet (Vivek), his college classmate who is a comical rowdy. Aathi threatens RDX telling that he was the one who killed Sadha, and that he will also kill Abdullah (Adithya Menon). As typical and usual, Abdullah gets angry and goes to kill Aathi but fails, and Aathi kills Abdullah, while his foster family witnessed this act with horror. On being questioned by his foster family, Aathi tells his story. Aathi's biological father (Prakash Raj) was an honest cop who arrested one of RDX's henchmen. It is revealed that Anjali and Aadhi are from the same family as Anjali's father (Livingston) is Aathi's mother's brother. RDX pays Aathi's house a visit and asks his grandfather to let his henchmen go. When Aathi's grandfather (Vijayakumar) refuses, RDX threatens them, only to find knives being held at him by Aadhi and his cousins. Aathi's father arrives and arrests RDX. Infuriated, he pays them a visit with some of his henchmen and Shankar. Together, they murder their whole extended family. Only Anjali, Ramachandran, and Aathi survived the blast that annihilated their family. After the house is blown up by RDX, Aadhi escapes and is taken in by a couple who later became his foster parents. On finding out his past, Aathi's foster parents request him to come back to New Delhi, but he refuses. He then takes them to the railway station, but is nearly ambushed by RDX's men. He succeeds on defeating them in a fight and meets RDX, warning him to bring his brother Robert (Subbaraju) from Dubai, whom he promises to kill. Soon, Robert arrives, and in revenge, kills Ramachandran, while challenging Aathi to meet him at RDX's place. Aathi came after finding out that RDX had Anjali kidnapped and held hostage by his henchmen in the library of their college, which happens to be the old house that Aathi, Anjali, and their family escaped after killing Robert with his own gun. RDX's men held Anjali hostage, but she is saved by Bullet and the other students in the college. In a thrilling climax, Aathi kills RDX and is shown to be leaving and reuniting with Anjali, the only one left in his family. ===== It is 1977, the summer of a brutal blackout, the time of the Son of Sam murders, and a period of brutal fiscal disaster for New York City. The slayer Nikki Wood fights against the forces of darkness and also tries to protect her son, Robin. Meanwhile, Spike and Drusilla arrive in the city hoping to hunt down a slayer, not without the local vampire community soon discovering of their arrival. ===== Romain, a gay 31-year-old fashion photographer, finds out he is terminally ill and has only three months to live. He rejects the treatment for his metastasized tumor that might offer him a slim (less than 5%) chance of survival. Romain exhibits both selfish and reckless behavior. He realizes that his good looks give him a certain amount of leeway and he tests the forbearance of the people who care for him. He chases away his lover Sasha and delights in antagonizing his sister. The only person in whom he confides about his illness is his grandmother Laura. ===== The book is set in 1837, and follows the adventures of "The Pirate Captain" and his crew of unorthodox pirates. They meet a young Charles Darwin and Mister Bobo, a highly trained and sophisticated "man-panzee", who have been exiled from London by a rival scientist. Having sunk the Beagle, which he believed was a Bank of England treasure ship thanks to a tip-off from Black Bellamy, the Pirate Captain agrees to take Darwin home and help him defeat his enemies and the very evil and angry Queen Victoria. ===== The story depicts a future where robotic prosthetics for humans and artificially-created organic body-parts for robots (known as Metallos) are commonplace. Metallos have been granted equal status with 'normal' humans. A man, who has been granted the right to long life (possibly immortality) by an official Board of Mortality, meets the surgeon who is to assist in the performance of heart replacement surgery on the man. The surgeon offers him a choice between a metallic or fibrous cyber-heart. The man stubbornly refuses the doctor's attempts to persuade him to accept a fibrous heart, saying that it's "weak," as compared to a metal heart. Later, the surgeon remarks to a medical engineer that he would rather that humans and robots stick to being what they are instead of becoming similar. The engineer calls such talk "segregationist", to which the surgeon replies that he "doesn't care." At the end of the story, the surgeon is revealed to be a robot himself. ===== The player takes the control of the human side in a war against the mysterious Insignian race. All of the warfare is carried out by enormous military robots. ===== Cable Hogue is isolated in the desert, awaiting his partners, Taggart and Bowen, who are scouting for water. The two plot to seize what little water remains to save themselves. Cable, who hesitates to defend himself, is disarmed and abandoned to almost certain death. Confronted with sandstorms and other desert elements, Cable bargains with God. Four days later, about to perish, he stumbles upon a muddy pit. He digs and discovers an abundant supply of water. After discovering that his well is the only source of water between two towns on a stagecoach route, he decides to live there and build a business. Cable's first paying customer is the Rev. Joshua Duncan Sloane, a wandering minister of a church of his own revelation. Joshua doubts the legitimacy of Cable's claim to the spring, prompting Cable to race into town to file at the land office. Cable faces the mockery of everyone he tells about his discovery. That does not deter him from buying surrounding his spring. He immediately goes to the stage office to drum up business but is thrown out by the skeptical owner. He pitches his business plan to a bank president, who is dubious about the claim. Cable impresses the banker with his attitude and he is staked to $100. Cable, who hasn’t bathed since his desert wanderings, decides to treat himself to a night with Hildy, a prostitute in the town saloon. They quickly develop a jovial understanding but before they can consummate the transaction, Cable remembers that he has still not set up his boundary markers and rushes out, much to Hildy's chagrin. She chases him out of the saloon in a sequence that wreaks havoc on the town. Back at the spring, Cable and Joshua get to work, dubbing the claim Cable Springs. The two decide to go into town and are drunk by the time they arrive. Cable makes up with Hildy and spends the night with her, leaving Joshua to pursue his passion: the seduction of emotionally vulnerable women. Cable and Joshua continue to run the robust business, delighting in shocking the often genteel travelers with the realities of frontier life. In moments of solitude, Cable and Joshua philosophize on the nature of love and the passing of their era. Joshua decides that he must return to town. Hildy arrives at Cable Springs having been "asked" to leave by the modernizing townfolk, who can no longer abide open prostitution in their midst. She tells Cable that she will leave for San Francisco in the morning but winds up staying with him for three weeks. This time elapses during a tender, romantic montage. Then one day, Taggart and Bowen arrive on the stagecoach. Cable lets them believe that he bears them no ill will, and he alludes to a huge stash of cash that he has hoarded, knowing that the two men will return to steal it. When they do, Cable outwits them, by throwing rattlesnakes into the pit they have dug. When they surrender, he orders them to strip to their underwear to venture into the desert, just as he had been forced to do. Taggart, believing Cable will once again hesitate to defend himself, reaches for his gun but Hogue shoots him dead. A motor car appears, driving right past Cable Springs with no need or interest in stopping for water. The drivers laugh at the archaic scene of western violence as they race past. "Went right on by," says Cable in amazement. "Well, that's gonna be the next fella's worry." Cable takes mercy on the grovelling Bowen. He even gives him Cable Springs, having decided to go to San Francisco to find Hildy. The stagecoach arrives and Cable gets ready to pack up when suddenly another motorcar http://justacarguy.blogspot.it/2010/12/in-movie-great-race-you-may-have- liked.html appears. This one does stop and Hildy emerges, opulently dressed. She has become prosperous and, now on her way to New Orleans, has come to see if Cable is ready to join her. He agrees but while he loads the motorcar he accidentally trips its brake. The car runs over him as he pushes Bowen out of the way. Joshua, who arrives by a black motorcycle with a sidecar, gives a eulogy for Cable as he dies. This segues into a funeral with the cast standing mournfully over Cable's grave. They are grieving not only the death of the man but the era he represents. The stagecoach and motorcar drive off in opposite directions. A coyote wanders into the abandoned Cable Springs. But the coyote has a collar - possibly symbolising the taming of the wilderness. ===== Lorry (Constance Bennett) and Minnie (Pert Kelton) are a pair of rollickingly wanton prostitutes who occasionally get hapless male admirers drunk before robbing them. After being released from a Louisiana jail they head down the Mississippi River on a steamboat. Lorry steals $60 from a "Mr. Smith" she entertains in her room, and when she is confronted by the boat's captain, who accuses her of the theft, she escapes by jumping off the vessel into the river. She is soon rescued by cotton barge skipper Dan (Joel McCrea), but she robs him too. Once in New Orleans, Lorry disguises herself as a newspaper writer in order to meet publishing magnate Stephen Paige (John Halliday). She then gets him drunk, takes him to his home, and the next morning blackmails him into supporting her, including renting a lavish apartment for her. She returns to the cotton barge and repays Dan his "loan" and they fall in love. Minnie now arrives at Lorry's apartment, soon followed by Stephen, who threatens to expose her sordid past, causing her to leave him but not to return to Dan, whom she had agreed to marry. When Stephen cannot persuade her to return to him, he realizes that she really does love Dan, and he brings about their reunion with the help of the now-married Minnie. ===== In the year 1997, Bernice Summerfield is recovering from the breakdown of her marriage at the Doctor's house on the fictional Allen Road near Adisham in Kent. To her surprise, when the TARDIS arrives it is the Eighth Doctor that steps out. Before Benny can come to terms with the change, a helicopter crash lands nearby, carrying soil samples from Mars and a prisoner, astronaut Alex Christian, who has been incarcerated since he killed the crew of a British Mars mission. Or so everyone thought. In reality, his crew were killed by Ice Warriors and his imprisonment was part of a deal negotiated between the British government and the Martian authorities. Since then, there have been no further missions to Mars, but now Britain has sent a new mission back to the planet. British astronauts land on Mars where they intrude on the tomb of an Ice Lord. The Ice Warrior Xznaal arrives on Earth with the pretence of vengeance, but is secretly in league with the British Science Minister, Lord Greyhaven. When the Eighth Doctor interferes with their plans, Xznaal releases a deadly weapon known as the Red Death. This apparently kills the Doctor, leaving Bernice and the Brigadier to deal with the invading Ice Warriors… ===== When a wealthy man made his fortune convincing the world that bad is good and good is bad, he got bored of his success, and wanted to have some fun with his fortune; he created a huge theme park as a slice of life look at Hell, called Underworld: the Theme Park. Disguised as the devil and calling himself "the Boss", he sunk to new lows in deviant behaviour, but it wasn't enough; so he invited a nice family to live in Underworld, for the sole purpose of torturing them. But when his skeletal right hand man, Kevin directed the Baskervilles his way, he may have bitten off more than he can chew. The show is almost a mirror image of The Munsters, where instead of a family of monsters trying to live in a human suburb, it's a human family trying to fit in a demonic city, where all the rules are the opposite of what they were back home. ===== J.D. (Chuck Norris), a trucker from California, returns from the road to learn that an old friend was assaulted and paralyzed by Sergeant Strode (Don Gentry), a policeman in Texas City, California. He makes inquiries into Texas City and learns that its policemen Strode and Deputy Boles (Ron Cedillos) have a history of "trapping" truckers for a corrupt judge running various rackets in the so-called "City". When his younger brother Billy (Michael Augenstein) begins working as a trucker, J.D. warns him to stay away from Texas City. But Billy is easily fooled by an officer (Strode) on a CB radio, who pretends he's a fellow trucker. After Billy disappears, J.D. sets out in search of him. He goes to Texas City and barges in on a city council meeting, wherein Trimmings' stooges boast of their booties. He befriends a waitress, a single mother, working at a diner which overcharges outsiders. After getting into a fight with the owner of the local wrecking yard and accidentally killing him, J.D. is arrested and sentenced to death by Judge Trimmings. J.D.'s girlfriend tells his fellow truckers what's happened via CB radio. They come to rescue J.D. and Billy and tear the town down. ===== As the yearly vacation of six neighbors, the Gilberts, Masons, and Weavers, approaches, Kitty Weaver (Lucille Ball) and Larry Gilbert (Bob Hope) find themselves frustrated with the routine. When both their spouses (Ruth Hussey and Don DeFore) are kept away from the vacation, Kitty and Larry find themselves alone in Acapulco, with the Masons (Philip Ober and Marianne Stewart) bedridden with illness. Forced together, Kitty and Larry fall in love. Once the vacation is over, however, they have difficulties in either abandoning or continuing their romance. ===== Inspired by stories about doppelgängers and identical twins such as The Prince and the Pauper, Honolulu features Young in a dual role as Brooks Mason--a top movie star--and as Hawaii-based businessman George Smith. Mason is tired of being in the public eye, so when he discovers that Smith is close enough to be his twin, he arranges to switch places with Smith temporarily. When Mason steps into Smith's life, he finds himself in a tug-of-war between Smith's fiancée, and a dancer named Dorothy March (Powell), with whom he has fallen in love. Meanwhile, Smith discovers that being a famous movie star is not all that it is made out to be. ===== In an all- female high school in South Korea, the Jookran High School for Girls, a homeroom teacher Mrs. Park, nicknamed "Old Fox" due to her sadistic method of teaching, circles several points in the students' yearbooks and calls her new fellow teacher, Hur Eun-young, who was her former student, that "Jin-ju, is definitely dead, but still attending school". Moments later, she is strangled with a noose by an unknown figure, her body discovered by three new senior students: the talented, superstitious artist Lim Ji-oh; the timid outsider, Yoon Jae-yi; and the sullen, unpopular Kim Jung-sook. Their now-replacement teacher is the cruel, abusive Mr. Oh, nicknamed "Mad Dog", who likes to give corporal punishments to his students, as well as harassing the class' top scorer, Park So-young. The discovery of Mrs. Park's body deeply impacts Ji-oh and she creates a painting of her body, which earns her a horrible punishment by Mr. Oh. Seeing Ji-oh dispirited, Jae-yi, a former artist, agrees to teach her painting at the storage room, which is rumored to be haunted. Ji-oh sees that So-young goes there to hide her smoking habit. Eun-young suspects that Ji-oh may have been Jin-ju's ghost since she carries bells that Jin-ju, her friend from high school, gave her, though Ji-oh tells her that they were given Jae-yi. One night, Mr. Oh is terrorized by Jin-ju and killed by stabbing. The next night, Ji-oh finds Jung-sook and So-young bickering, ending with So-young storming out. Jung-sook commits suicide in a manner similar to Mrs. Park's: hanging herself by a noose. So-young tearfully reveals to Eun-young that she used to be close to Jung-sook, but the teachers started comparing them and they drifted apart, with Jung-sook growing bitter and withdrawn. While painting, Ji-oh discovers a statue created by Eun-young for Jin-ju, as well as Mr. Oh's body. Jin-ju died in the storeroom while trying to save the statue; as it fell, she tripped, and everything came down, including the sculpting knives, which ultimately killed her. Eun-young learns from the yearbooks that since then, Jin-ju has entered the school year after year, posing as false students. She is currently posing as Jae-yi. Eun-young is confronted by an enraged Jae-yi/Jin-ju. Before Jin-ju can kill her, Ji-oh arrives and asks her to rest in peace. Jin-ju says that all she wanted was to live a normal high school life and have someone who could love her fearlessly as Eun-young couldn't. Jin-ju disappears after Ji-oh and Eun-young promise that they will correct the misgivings and that they will never forget her. The blood pouring down and smeared out of the walls while Eun-young and Ji-oh, tired, sit in the room, with Ji-oh resting her head in Eun-young's lap. Eun-young and Ji-oh are still in the classroom when they are visited by a student the next day. The student leaves upon seeing the two, and as she turns around, it is revealed that she is Jung-sook's ghost. ===== 301, 302 explores the relationship of Song-hee, a chef living in apartment 301, and Yoon-hee, an anorexic writer living in apartment 302. The film begins with a detective visiting Song-hee to investigate the disappearance of Yoon-hee. The detective questions Song-hee about Yoon-hee's personal life, Song-hee claims that Yoon-hee has no interest in food or sex. He then searches Yoon-hee's empty apartment. The film shows Yoon-hee in the spaces around her home that the detective explores. The detective finds her anorexia medicine and her written work on the subject of sex. The film goes back to when Song-hee moved into apartment 301. Yoon-hee avoids interacting with her, preferring to be left alone. Song-hee begins construction on her new apartment and Yoon-hee experiences flashbacks of her experience of sexual abuse. There is a flashback to Song-hee packing her belongings after divorcing her husband. He criticizes Song-hee's weight gain and when the film moves back to her moving into apartment 301, she expresses her desire to lose weight. Song-hee then visits Yoon-hee with a plate of the food she made. Yoon-hee does not eat the food and instead vomits into the toilet. Meanwhile, Song-hee celebrates her independence from her ex-husband and states her commitment to going on a diet. She brings Yoon-hee food a second time. She tries to make Yoon-hee eat sausage, which she refuses to do. Song-hee asks if she has been raped and then expresses her love for sex. Yoon- hee is visibly upset by the food and vomits again which offends Song-hee who presumes Yoon-hee thinks she is disgusting for liking sex. The film goes through a compilation of Song-hee cooking and delivering food to Yoon-hee who subsequently throws the food into the trash and vomits. Song-hee catches Yoon- hee taking out the trash and sees all the food she cooked in the trash bag. She digs the food out of the trash bag and puts it all on plates in front of Yoon-hee in an attempt to force her to eat but she vomits again. Song-hee brings Yoon-hee to her apartment and apologizes for her actions and then forces Yoon-hee to eat against her will. The film shows a flashback to Yoon- hee's life living with her mother and step-father in their family-run butcher shop. Her step-father repeatedly sexually assaulted her. She resorts to hiding from her family in a freezer, a child of a customer sees her exit the freezer and decides to enter the freezer as well. The child freezes to death. The film then moves back to Song-hee and Yoon-hee in apartment 301 and Song-hee finally understands Yoon-hee's reasoning for not eating. She commits to making food that Yoon-hee can eat but Yoon-hee continues to vomit in response to the food. The film moves back to Song-hee's conversation with the detective and it's revealed that she killed, cooked, and fed her pet dog to her husband, which caused their divorce. Another flashback shows Song-hee still married to her husband and living her life as a housewife. They are shown as a happy couple indulging in food and sex. Their relationship deteriorates and Song-hee's relationship with food changes as she begins overeating and gaining weight. She discovers that her husband is having an affair and gains resentment for their pet dog who receives more attention than her from her husband. She serves him a meal and reveals the skull of the dog in a pot. The film then jumps to their divorce and the official's decision that Song-hee's husband would have to pay for her alimony and work. Song-hee talks to Yoon-hee about her desire to find new ingredients to cook with and the pleasure she got from cooking her dog. Later, Yoon-hee asks if the dog suffered and undresses in front of Song-hee. She asks if she looks “tasteless”, Song-hee strangles her to death and cuts up her body. The next scene shows Song-hee having dinner and she daydreams about Yoon-hee in front of her eating as well. The fridge door swings open to reveal Yoon-hee's severed head. The screen fades to black and the sentence “So, has their loneliness all ended?” appears. The final scene shows Yoon-hee speaking to Song-hee who is lying naked on her bed. ===== The story of Red Prowling Devil centers on Naomi, a pilot who ends up working as an operative for a secretive world power as a way out of a life sentence for accidentally shooting down a plane full of civilians. Naomi feels deeply guilty about her crime and probably would have accepted imprisonment if it were not for an ill loved one depending on the money she earns from flying missions in her red- painted MiG-29. Naomi's assignments take her to locales around the globe, and the ace MiG pilot becomes world-famous (or infamous) as the "Red Prowling Devil," targeted by rival pilots from world air forces and terrorist organizations. ===== After Homer realizes he is dim-witted, Marge suggests that he take an adult education course at the annex center. Once there, Homer changes his mind and decides to become a teacher. He agrees to teach a class about tips for a successful marriage. At first he is confident of his teaching abilities, but he is frightened on the first day of class and is unable to help his students with their relationship problems. The class collectively gets up to leave, but when Homer mentions his conversation with Marge in bed, the class is eager to hear gossip and decides to stay. Marge soon discovers that everyone in town knows her personal secrets, like the fact that she dyes her hair because she is "as gray as a mule". She confronts Homer about revealing her personal life to the class and he promises to stop. To impress his pupils, Homer invites them to his house to observe the family having dinner. Fed up, Marge chases the students away and kicks Homer out of the house, no longer able to trust him. Homeless, Homer stays in Bart's tree house. Marge tries to reassure Bart and Lisa that she and Homer love them, despite their current separation, but Lisa and Bart worry their parents will get divorced. While Homer is gone, Moe arrives and declares his romantic interest in Marge, who turns him down. When Homer returns to the house with flowers for Marge, Moe panics and jumps out the window. Standing before her in rags, Homer says he can only offer her one thing: complete and utter dependency. Homer wins her over by saying he loves her and needs her to love him because he cannot afford to ever lose her trust again. The family is glad that Homer has returned, although Moe is less than thrilled. ===== Former Los Angeles policeman John Berlin is teetering toward burnout after the collapse of his marriage. At the invitation of an old friend and colleague, Freddy Ross, Berlin heads to rural northern California, for a job with the Eureka police force. Instead, Berlin prickles his new colleagues, especially John Taylor, who was passed over for promotion in order to make room for Berlin. After finding a woman's severed hand in a garbage bag at the local dump, Berlin reopens the case of an unidentified murdered girl, nicknamed "Jennifer", which went unsolved despite a full-time six-month effort by the department. Berlin notes an unusually large number of scars on the hand as well as wear on the finger-tips which he realizes came from reading Braille, determining that the girl is blind. He begins to believe the cases are related. Berlin does his best to convince Freddy and his fellow officers of his suspicions, but Taylor, and police chief Citrine, refuse to believe that the hand found at the dump is in any way connected to the other cases. After consulting his former colleagues in L.A., Berlin discovers that in the previous four years, six women, most of them blind, have either been found dead or are still missing, all within a 300-mile radius of San Diego. He becomes convinced that "Jennifer" was the 7th victim and the girl whose hand was found at the dump is "Jennifer 8", or victim #8. While investigating the links between the dead and missing blind girls, he meets blind music student Helena Robertson, determining that her roommate Amber was the eighth victim. Berlin becomes obsessed with the case, despite an almost complete lack of hard evidence, and becomes romantically involved with Helena, who resembles his ex- wife. After an attack on Helena, Ross accompanies Berlin on a stakeout at the institute where Helena lives in a dorm, after leaving Helena with Ross' wife Margie. When they see a flashlight shining on the same floor as Helena's apartment, Berlin investigates and is knocked unconscious by the killer, who then shoots and kills Ross with Berlin's .32 pistol. A grueling interrogation of Berlin by FBI special agent St. Anne ensues. St. Anne makes clear to Berlin that he figures him for Ross's murderer, but also inadvertently reveals information which helps Berlin realize that Sgt. Taylor is the true killer. Berlin tells St. Anne and Citrine who he believes the killer to be, but his deductions are met with disbelief. Berlin is arrested for Ross's murder, but is bailed out by Margie, who believes that Berlin is not the killer. Upon making bail Berlin returns to Margie's house only to learn that Margie has taken Helena back to the institute. Fearing that Helena and Margie are in danger, Berlin rushes to the institute, but fails to arrive ahead of Taylor, who breaks in and chases a woman he believes to be Helena through the dorm. Finally catching up to her, he is shocked to discover that the woman he'd been pursuing is actually Margie, who shoots him dead, avenging her husband and closing the case. ===== The film centers on real-life stage and screen producer George White as he gathers acts for his new Broadway revue. At the top of his list is blonde Alice Faye. Also appearing in the film was James Dunn and Cliff Edwards. George White's 1935 Scandals is best remembered as the major film debut of a young dancer named Eleanor Powell, here performing a "specialty dance". Powell, already a Broadway star, had played bit parts in a couple of films prior to this, but Scandals was her first major film role. According to her introduction to the book Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance, a mix-up in the make-up department resulted in her being made to look almost Egyptian and she left the production so disenchanted with movie-making, she initially rejected a contract offer by MGM that later in the year placed her in the popular Broadway Melody of 1936. Reportedly, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson filmed a dance routine for this film, but it was cut. Actress Jane Wyman appeared in the film as an uncredited chorine. ===== Eliot Arnold is a divorced, recently-fired newspaper reporter trying to start his own advertising and public relations agency. His teenaged son, Matt's nighttime attempt to "kill" his high-school classmate, Jenny, unfortunately coincides with a real assassination attempt on her alcoholic, abusive stepfather, Arthur Herk, by two freelance hit men from New Jersey. In the ensuing confusion, Eliot meets Arthur's wife, Jenny's mother Anna, and the two are instantly taken with each other. When Arthur, spooked by the gunfire, runs to the room of the Herks' Latin maid, Nina, she panics and runs outside the house, where she is befriended by Puggy, a young homeless man living in a tree on the property. Interviewed by Miami Police officers Monica and Walter, Arthur denies having any enemies, while secretly knowing that his employer, a corrupt contracting firm, has caught him embezzling money to pay off his gambling debts. Arthur decides to turn state's evidence, and, in order to ensure he is taken seriously by the police, intends to buy a missile from a pair of Russian arms dealers and turn it over to the police, claiming it belongs to his employer. But when Arthur goes to the dive bar the arms dealers are using as a front, he, the Russians, and Puggy (who earns a small wage helping to fetch and carry the crates containing the dealers' merchandise) are held up by Snake and Eddie, two dimwit grifters previously ejected from the bar. Mistaking Arthur for a "kingpin", Snake concludes that whatever is in the suitcase Arthur was buying must be valuable, and grabs it (ignoring the briefcase containing $10,000 in cash that Arthur brought with him). Jenny arranges to let Matt "kill" her in accordance with the rules of the game, at the back of a nearby mall, but they are spotted by Jack Pendick, a wannabe- policeman who mistakes Matt's squirt gun for a real firearm and starts shooting his own gun at Matt. They flee to Jenny's house and call Eliot, who arrives just before Snake and Eddie enter the house, holding Arthur at gunpoint. The whole family is taken captive, along with Officers Monica and Walter, who arrive to investigate the shooting at the mall. After interrogating the Russians, FBI Agents Greer and Seitz intercept Miami Detective Baker, and tell him the suitcase contains a miniature nuclear bomb, which, unlike a conventional "nuke", has no failsafes and is intentionally designed to be easy to trigger. Snake and Eddie leave for Miami International Airport with the bomb, and Jenny and Puggy as hostages. Officer Monica manages to free herself, Eliot and Anna, and they rush to the airport, leaving Walter and Arthur handcuffed together. Walter's attempts to free himself are hampered by Arthur, who falls face-first onto a large cane toad camped in his dog's food dish, receiving a dose of bufotenin venom that causes him to hallucinate. Four different groups of people reach the airport: *Snake, Eddie, Puggy, and Jenny board a plane for the Bahamas, but Puggy escapes before the plane takes off; a security officer opens the suitcase and does not recognize the bomb for what it is, but insists that Snake turn it on to show that it is harmless; Snake flips a series of switches, starting the bomb's forty-five-minute timer; *Eliot, Anna, Matt, Nina and Monica find Puggy, who leads them to the airplane; Monica and Matt board the plane before it takes off, but Eliot and Anna are left behind; *Henry and Leonard, the two hitmen, are trying to return home to New Jersey, but are interrupted by an escaped pet python that nearly suffocates Leonard, before Henry shoots it; the chaos caused by the python prevents any security officers from being able to stop the plane taking off, despite Eliot and Anna's frantic pleas; *Detective Baker and Agents Greer and Seitz arrive and, learning that the bomb's timer has been started, order the plane shot down by fighter jets from Homestead Air Reserve Base, to prevent more innocent lives being lost. When Monica confronts Snake, he shoots her with his gun, though not fatally. Eddie, unnerved by Snake's increasingly erratic and violent behavior, objects, and Snake shoots Eddie in the leg as punishment for perceived "insubordination." Eddie retaliates by pushing the suitcase out the plane's door and into the ocean. Snake, unwilling to lose his "kingpin suitcase," grabs it and is pulled out of the plane along with it. With Snake and the suitcase gone, the pilot radios the airport, and the fighter jets are called off. The bomb explodes underwater, killing no one except Snake and a large number of deep water fish. In the aftermath, the explosion is passed off as a rogue seismic event, and the main news item in the next day's paper is the bevy of goats that escaped on the highway and delayed the protagonists' rush to the airport. In the epilogue: *Anna divorces Arthur and marries Eliot; Matt and Jenny date for a while, but since they are step-siblings, ultimately choose to remain friends; *After recovering from the toad venom, Arthur tries to inform on his employer, but no evidence is found, and Arthur is killed in a supposed "fishing accident" a few weeks later; *Detective Baker marries Officer Monica, and tells her the truth about the bomb, though he swears her to secrecy; *Officer Walter quits the police force and becomes a male stripper; *Jack Pendick serves a short prison sentence and is hired as a security guard; *Henry is acquitted of any criminal acts at the airport, and he and Leonard return to New Jersey and continue to operate as hit men, though they steadfastly refuse to accept any future contracts in South Florida; *Puggy and Nina continue living in the Herks' home, sometimes spending nights in Puggy's tree. ===== Arthur Hamilton (John Randolph) is a middle-aged man whose life has lost purpose. He has achieved success, but finds it unfulfilling. His love for his wife has dwindled, and he seldom sees his only child. Through a friend, Charlie, whom he thought was dead, Hamilton is approached by a secret organization, known simply as the "Company", which offers him a new life. He ruminates on the proposition as he rides a commuter train on his way home. His wife meets him as he arrives home, but it is apparent that he is alienated from her. Hamilton arrives at a meat-packing plant for a meeting. He is given workman overalls and hat, then exits the facility by a different door and is seated inside a truck that takes him to another building. He disappears into a large complex filled with dark, empty hallways, where he awaits his transformation. The Company gives Hamilton the appearance of a young man (Hudson) through plastic surgery, and a new identity, namely "Antiochus 'Tony' Wilson". He later discovers this identity has been taken from someone who recently died. He is resettled into a community filled with people like him who are "reborns". Eventually, Hamilton decides the new life is not what he wants. He contacts the Company, letting them know he wants a different identity, and they agree, taking him back to wait for his new identity. There, he meets Charlie, who has also wished to go under yet another "rebirth". Charlie is chosen and walked away from the waiting room. Later during the night, the owner of the Company discusses his original purpose for founding the organization, and assures Hamilton that the issues he has brought up will be looked into. Hamilton realizes as he is wheeled into the operating room, before being sedated, that he is to be killed. His body will be used as the catalyst (corpse) for a new patient to be reborn. The film ends with the camera tilting up to a surgical light as a drill is brought down: as he loses consciousness, he has a memory of two figures walking along a beach; the image distorts and loses resolution. ===== In Istanbul, the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent sends home members of an Austrian diplomatic envoy whom he has kept imprisoned for nine months. He recognizes one of the members, however; a knight by the name of Gottfried Von Kalmbach, who had seriously wounded him during the Battle of Mohács. The Ottoman Grand Vizier Pargalı Ibrahim Pasha entrusts the widely feared soldier, Mikhal Oglu, with hunting down Von Kalmbach and retrieving his head. Mikhal Oglu and his warriors raid the countryside between the Ottoman Empire and Vienna in preparation for Suleiman's attack on the city. They attack a small Danubian village, in which Von Kalmbach had been sleeping off the previous night's drinking. He fights his way free, and rides for Vienna, where the townspeople are preparing for the arrival of Suleiman. The full Ottoman army arrives, and the siege begins. Von Kalmbach fights the encroaching Turkish soldiers atop the walls. He meets a belligerent, red-haired woman who fights alongside the men – ‘Red’ Sonya of Rogatino, revealed to be the sister of Suleiman's favourite harem-girl, Hurrem Sultan. When one fight against a number of Turks proves to be overwhelming, she comes to Von Kalmbach's aid. Later, there is a lull in the siege and the defenders content themselves with drinking wine in the city square. Red Sonya insults Von Kalmbach, and an argument breaks out. Drunk and furious, Von Kalmbach spurs the men into an impromptu attack on the Ottoman encampment outside the city. Coincidentally, the drunken raid thwarts a surprise attack planned by the sultan, to have been assisted by traitors within the walls of Vienna. The sultan eventually concedes defeat, and the Ottoman army prepares to leave. Von Kalmbach, however, is drugged and kidnapped by the traitors in Vienna – an Armenian merchant and his son, who had been in communication with the Sultan's vizier and hoped to claim the knight's head. Red Sonya comes to Von Kalmbach's aid yet again. She blackmails the Armenian into delivering a message to Mikhal Oglu, who was serving as vanguard for the capitulating Ottoman army. Oglu receives the message and, believing Von Kalmbach to be alone and not too far away from his position, leaves the column with a small contingent. He is met, however, by an Austrian ambush. In Istanbul, Suleiman is holding celebrations in honour of his ‘victory’ in central Europe. He receives a strange package in the mail, and Ibrahim opens it, hoping it to be the head of Von Kalmbach. It turns out to be the severed head of Mikhal Oglu, and included is a belittling note from Red Sonya and Von Kalmbach. ===== The book consists of a memoir of the author's experiences about returning to Iran during the revolution (1978–1981) and living under the Islamic Republic of Iran government until her departure in 1997. It narrates her teaching at the University of Tehran after 1979, her refusal to submit to the rule to wear the veil and her subsequent expulsion from the University, life during the Iran–Iraq War, her return to teaching at the University of Allameh Tabatabei (1981), her resignation (1987), the formation of her book club (1995–97), and her decision to emigrate. Events are interlaced with the stories of book club members consisting of seven of her female students who met weekly at Nafisi's house to discuss works of Western literature, including the controversial Lolita, and the texts are interpreted through the books they read. ===== Discovering that his grandparents have developed "Waltzheimer's disease", a disease that is slowly turning them "normal", Gomez organizes a family reunion, hoping that some branch of his enormous family tree will find a cure. Unfortunately, the company arranging it misspells his surname and reunites him with the Adams family instead, including Dr. Philip Adams, who plans to poison his father and rearrange his will. Gomez hopes that Dr. Adams can cure his grandparents; Morticia spends time with the women; Fester and Thing do their best to capture Butcher, a mutated puppy who feeds on human hair; Wednesday and Pugsley are busy making new friends; and Lurch falls in love. A couple who are headed to the reunion are given the wrong address and end up in the Addams family mansion, where Granny and Cousin Itt are staying. ===== Private Kang is a member of the South Korean marine corps who is eager to shoot a North Korean spy during his time guarding the South Korean coastline near the Korean Demilitarized Zone. One evening he shoots and kills a South Korean civilian who has strayed into a forbidden zone to have sex with his girlfriend. Kang and the girlfriend of the dead civilian both have mental breakdowns. The woman believes the members of the coast guard are her dead lover, and engages in sexual affairs with them. Though commended after the shooting, Kang is dismissed from service. He then returns to kill other members of his unit. He then goes to the South Korean capital city of Seoul, where kills people at random with his bayonet before being confronted by armed policemen. Gunfire then erupts.Synopsis from ; and ===== While camping in the woods on a company outing, Fry is abducted by aliens as he searches for Bigfoot. He wakes up the next morning to find that his nose has been stolen from his face. Fry learns that human noses are regarded by aliens as an aphrodisiac called "Human Horn". Bender, Leela, and Fry discover that Fry's nose has been sold by a "porno dealing monster" to Lrrr, ruler of the planet Omicron Persei 8. The three travel to Omicron Persei 8, where they learn Lrrr and his wife, Ndnd, are having marital troubles, explaining Lrrr's purchase. After retrieving Fry's nose, Leela reattaches it by laser. However, once Bender has finished explaining some details of human anatomy to Lrrr, Lrrr orders that Fry's "lower horn" now be removed for consumption. Leela stalls the Omicronian by suggesting that he and Ndnd share a romantic dinner in the woods and work on their relationship. The dinner nearly fails; as Fry is about to get his lower horn removed, Bigfoot shows himself. Ranger Park, the park ranger, also arrives, pleased to have finally gotten a look at Bigfoot. The ranger tries to amputate one of Bigfoot's feet as a trophy, but Lrrr prevents him. Lrrr then delivers a moving speech: Fry's wing-dang-doodle, like Bigfoot, is one of God's most beautiful creatures. Ndnd then realizes that her husband is still the sensitive Omicronian she fell for. The crew quickly retreats as the now-happy couple passionately make love. Behind the credits, an episode of The Scary Door is shown. ===== Set in Hong Kong, the story is told through the eyes of several people. Dawn Stone is an ambitious young woman who wants to make as much money as quickly as she can. Tom Stewart is an Englishman who had been in Hong Kong since 1935 and made his fortune in business. Sister Maria, whom Tom wants to love, is a devout nun and tends to the territory's poor and needy. Their stories all converge in the end when Hong Kong is passed from British to Chinese rule. Category:2002 British novels Category:Novels set in Hong Kong Category:Faber and Faber books ===== Kim Bong-doo is a young teacher in a Seoul elementary school. He comes to school later than the students, and is scolded by the principal everyday. Instead of preparing lesson plans, he goes drinking at room salons, and he actively encourages and coaxes parents to give him bribe money in exchange for his favoring their children. But one day, he finally gets caught in the act, and becomes the target of parent complaints. So Mr. Kim gets temporarily transferred to the boondocks, a branch school in a remote village in Gangwon Province. In the countryside, cell phones are useless and even buying cigarettes at the nearest corner store is out of the question. There are only five students in the whole school, and he's also discontented with the extremely naive villagers who offer him all sorts of vegetables and fruits instead of money. To make matters worse, a grumpy old man named Mr. Choi blackmails him into teaching him the Korean alphabet. Driven to near insanity by boredom and peace, Mr. Kim maps out a plan to transfer all of his students to Seoul, thereby closing down the rural school. For starters, Mr. Kim begins an after-school program to focus on developing each student's special talents so that they'll want to get a better education in Seoul. Contrary to his bad intentions, this results in a happy, supportive environment for the children and the village community, such that the school officials reconsider their policy of closing down the school because of Mr. Kim's "wonderful devotion" to the kids. But when a businessman unexpectedly appears, saying he'd like to turn the school into a survival game site, Mr. Kim becomes tempted by money once again. ===== The film follows a young man who makes a living by helping people commit the perfect suicide. After one woman's suicide, her boyfriend investigates the incident and discovers the man who is helping others with their suicides. ===== When Fry takes Bender to a museum exhibit, he is shocked to find a fossilized dog on display, which he recognizes as his pet from the 20th century, Seymour Asses. For three days he protests in front of the museum by dancing to "The Hustle" by Van McCoy, demanding they give him Seymour's body, which proves successful. Professor Farnsworth then examines Seymour's body, and concludes that, due to his unusually rapid fossilization, a DNA sample can be made to produce a clone, and it would even be possible to recreate Seymour's personality and memory. Fry begins to prepare for the dog and Bender becomes jealous. Just when the Professor is ready to clone Seymour, Bender arrives. Angry that Fry will not spend time with him, he grabs the fossil and throws it in a pit of lava, believing that destroying it will restore his friendship with Fry. Fry is furious at Bender and extremely upset at having lost Seymour. Bender realizes how Fry could love an inferior creature and apologizes for what he did. The professor explains that the fossil may not have instantly melted, as it was made of dolomite. With this in mind, Bender, claiming to be partly made from dolomite, dives into the lava and recovers the fossil. The Professor begins the cloning process and his computer informs him that Seymour died at the age of 15, meaning he lived twelve years after Fry was frozen. Fry has a change of heart, and aborts the cloning process, believing that Seymour must have moved on with his life, found a new owner, and forgotten about him. A flashback then shows that, contrary to Fry's assumption, Seymour faithfully obeyed his last command, which was to wait in front of Panucci's Pizza until he returned. Seymour stays there as the years pass and in the final shot, he lies down and closes his eyes.Seymour's fate was later revealed in Futurama: Bender's Big Score. ===== The increasingly demented and film-obsessed Gaea has replaced the Avatar that Jones destroyed at the end of Wizard with a new one, a replica of Marilyn Monroe. She spends her time in a travelling film festival of her own making, called Pandemonium, where she is attended by various humans, zombies, and many bizarre creatures of her own creation, such as living film cameras. Earth meanwhile is in the grip of a slow nuclear war, possibly started by Gaea herself. Some survivors are rescued by mysterious pods called mercy flights that bring them to Gaea. They are cured of all their physical ills, and then, still mentally damaged, dumped in the twilight city of Bellinzona, an anarchic place run by criminals. All this means that humankind's future is now in the wheel, and at the mercy of its senile ruler. More of Gaea's earlier plotting comes to light when it is revealed that all the captured Ringmaster crew were fitted with a parasitic, worm-like spy right inside their brains, which broadcast their every thought and perception to Gaea. Records of all these experiences and perceptions have been kept in the hub and nerve-center of the habitat — as a result of which Gaby's personality has survived her physical death, and she now exists as a rogue intelligence. She is able to communicate with Cirocco, and together they hatch plans for the future of the wheel. Cirocco's own brain parasite is extracted by a Titanide surgeon and imprisoned in a jar. Nicknamed Snitch, it is both a creature in its own right, which can talk, feel pain, and apparently recover from any injury, and is a part of Gaea's fragmented and disintegrating mind. As such, it becomes a source of information on her schemes, which Cirocco ruthlessly exploits through a mixture of torture and bribery: Snitch has emerged from her alcohol-addled brain with an addiction to liquor. Chris Major has stayed in Gaea, where he is mutating into a Titanide. Robin of the Coven had returned to her people in the interim, and now returns to Gaea, along with her two children: a 19-year-old daughter named Nova, and an infant son, Adam. Having a son is anathema in her female-only community. It is revealed that the children were not planned, but are offspring of herself and Chris, owing to genetic material somehow planted in her when she last was on Gaea and triggered to implant at later times. Robin, along with her children, is reunited with Chris and Cirocco, whereupon the distraught Nova immediately develops a crush on Cirocco. They also meet a friend and lieutenant of Cirocco's, Conal Ray, originally a none-too-bright bodybuilder from Canada and a descendant of Ringmaster crew member Gene. Chris asks Robin for custody of Adam, as his last link to humanity when he becomes a Titanide. After a short period of peace, Gaea's agents kidnap Adam. Cirocco becomes aware that the infant boy shares her ability to activate Titanide eggs, and therefore represents the race's future, as well as a means of controlling them. Gaea has apparently arranged his birth so he can be Cirocco's successor, and his kidnapping to force her into a confrontation. After a failed rescue attempt by the group, Chris decides to take his chances by surrendering to Pandemonium, now permanently located in the region of Hyperion, so that he can be near Adam. The new Pandemonium is a fortified area dedicated to classic Hollywood themes, including a Yellow Brick Road and a replica of the house "Tara" from Gone with the Wind. Returning to base, Cirocco finds that all the zombies used in the kidnapping have mysteriously died. The cause appears to be a "love potion" that Nova concocted from kitchen spices along with her own blood and pubic hair. This appears to be yet another latent prank on Gaea's part, but it is used to exterminate the "death snakes" that create the zombies. This leaves Gaea with a labor shortage in the new Pandemonium. Her senility has advanced to the point that she can no longer create new hazards for the human and Titanide populations. Some months pass while Cirocco's forces regroup and make a new plan. Now desperate to recover Adam, who is beginning to see Gaea as a mother figure, Cirocco uses her influence among the Titanides to conquer Bellinzona, imposing law and order with the intent of eventually raising an army to attack Pandemonium. In time, through her unusual mixture of charisma and ruthlessness, she manages to transform the inhabitants' disorganized chaos into a genuine community. She co-opts groups such as the "Free Females" and "Vigilantes", who used force to protect their enclaves, while killing off the gangster leaders who ruled much of the city. When Cirocco finally launches her attack, she has to guide nearly 40,000 human soldiers and several thousand Titanides some 1500+ kilometers around the wheel, while dealing with the various horrors living in the regions of the wheel, and fending off attacks from the Gaean Air Force, the successors to the old buzz-bombs. These new creatures are armed with rocket bullets, smart missiles, and bombs. On Cirocco's side are a set of highly advanced airplanes that she imported from Earth to destroy the first set of buzz-bombs. The pilots are a hastily assembled collection of people trained by Conal. With help from Gaby Plauget, Cirocco enlists the help of some of the Angels in a preemptive strike to destroy the Air Force's refueling bases. This prevents most of the attackers from reaching her army. Conal's own air force destroy the rest at the cost of several planes, including Conal's own. He parachutes down to join Cirocco's army. When the army finally reaches Pandemonium, Cirocco's attack is a mixture of display and deadly force. Robin's former familiar Nasu, an anaconda lost in the previous novel, has become gigantic living in the Wheel. She attacks Gaea, who proves to be able to restore her body from any injury after killing Nasu. Whistlestop the blimp, with the aged and dying Calvin inside, attempts to immolate Gaea in a Hindenburg-like blaze. Eventually Gaea is lured out of the city, enabling part of the army to rescue Adam while Cirocco and Gaea face off. At that moment Gene, old and addled, and living next to the dead remnant of one of the former regional brains, sets off the final blow (instigated by Gaby) by destroying with dynamite one of Gaea's major nerve-centers in full view of his own mind-parasite, which Gaby has removed from his head. Gaea is disoriented enough for Gaby to force her out of the hub, leading to the destruction of the giant Marilyn Monroe avatar in a scene reminiscent of the climactic battle in King Kong. The last fragment of Gaea's mind, in the shape of Snitch, dies in Cirocco's hand. Gaea's final act is to paraphrase last words from a classic movie, Little Caesar. Cirocco is then lifted bodily into the air to join Gaby in the hub of the Wheel. Gaby, now the new divinity of the wheel, reveals to Cirocco that Gaea was in fact an entity distinct from it and that those changes of 'management' are a regular occurrence in the enormously long life-cycle of those entities. All the plotting perpetrated by Gaea throughout the trilogy was aimed at securing her demise and replacement in a manner entertaining and flamboyant enough to suit her. Gaby invites Cirocco to share the position with her, but the former Wizard declines, choosing instead to simply live free for the first time in nearly a century. As she ponders her new and free future, she wonders what she will do next. She leans over, falling from the top of the spoke toward the ground 600 kilometers below, leaving her fate to chance — she is now finally free to live only for herself. ===== Fast-talking Jimmy Bates (Lee Tracy) takes over as publicity agent for a struggling carnival owned by Colonel Munday. His latest scheme to bring in customers involves promising to reveal the identity of the father (allegedly one of the local town's residents) of his hot-tempered girlfriend, "hootch dancer" Teresita (Lupe Vélez), at that night's performance. However, when the local sheriff learns that it is all a con, Bates, his friend Achilles and Teresita have to flee. They head to New York City. Bates has always bragged about his close friendship with powerful theater impresario Merle Farrell. Bates promises to make Teresita a star, but it soon becomes clear that Farrell has never heard of him. Undaunted, Bates promotes Teresita as "Princess Exotica", an escapee from a Turkish harem, complete with a eunuch servant (Achilles) and a lion. Bates informs the reporters that she will be starring in Farrell's show. At first, Farrell is outraged, but when he hears about the sharp increase in ticket sales, he signs Teresita to a contract. Farrell insists, however, that she perform a slow Middle Eastern-style dance, which bores the audience. Bates rushes onstage and has her drop her pretense and sing a modern song. This proves to be a hit, and Teresita becomes a star, while Bates becomes Farrell's new publicity manager. However, while Bates is away on a business trip, she starts seeing the married Farrell. When Bates finds out, he quits and promises to make the first girl he sees into a bigger sensation to eclipse his treacherous girlfriend. That turns out to be blond hotel maid Gladys (Shirley Chambers), whom Achilles is trying to romance. Bates has Gladys pretend to be "Eve", the leader of a group of nudists. He blackmails Farrell (with a compromising photograph of him and Teresita) into signing Eve to his show. Meanwhile, the public has started to tire of Teresita. Achilles decides to return to the carnival life, and purchases Colonel Munday's business. Bates calls him a fool, but after a while, he too becomes dissatisfied with New York and goes to see his friend. There, he finds Teresita singing as one of the carnival's attractions. ===== Riding a white horse, Brigadier General Maximilian Rodrigues de Santos of the army of Mexico arrives at a United States border crossing with a small company of soldiers on foot. He claims to be leading his men to Laredo, Texas to march in a parade on George Washington's birthday. The soldiers' destination is actually San Antonio, where the general intends to carry out a quixotic mission to "re- occupy" the Alamo. None of his men are aware of his plans, but without argument they do whatever they are told by Max's devoted Sergeant Valdez. Disguising himself in an ill-fitting suit as a tourist, Max goes on ahead and takes a guided tour of the Alamo. In the gift shop, he encounters an attractive young blonde, Paula, who, when she isn't selling postcards, is a radical student activist. He returns to his men and, after racing through the streets of San Antonio, they seize control of the fort, taking Paula and two other Americans as their prisoners. Max places a call to the local authorities, telling police chief Sylvester that the flag of Mexico now flies above this piece of hallowed Texas ground. Sylvester doesn't take him seriously at first, but quickly discovers that Max is an actual Army general and that everything else he has claimed is true. The chief goes to the Alamo to meet Max in person, using the passwords "John Wayne" and "Richard Widmark" to gain entry. Max instructs him to contact the Pentagon and report the fort to be back under Mexico's control. As Max will only negotiate with another general, Sylvester calls on Billy Joe Hallson, a brigadier general of the state's National Guard, whose day job is running a mattress store. Max is unimpressed. A low-level bureaucrat from Washington condescendingly promises that if Max leaves quietly the United States will not take this "invasion" too seriously and mocks Mexico as "not exactly the Soviet Union." To which Max announces he will hold the Alamo for thirteen days in response to the snub. Paula sees Max as a heroic revolutionary but he tells her his only reason for the invasion was to impress his girlfriend back home who told him that his men wouldn't follow him into a brothel. A three-star U.S. Army general named Lacomber arrives to take charge. A company of his men scale the wall and enter the fort, but without ammunition, so as to avoid bloodshed and an international incident. It turns out Max's men are not carrying ammo, either, but the Americans fall for Max's bluff to open fire and promptly surrender. Max celebrates by doing a Mexican hat dance. Paula brings the general back to earth by explaining that she has learned his soldiers follow him only because Valdez shoots any who do not obey orders. Disheartened, Max decides to wave the white flag of surrender and go peacefully. A private anti-communist militia, who think Max is a front for the Chinese, arrives just as Max is surrendering to Lacomber. Their leader, whose aunt is one of the hostages, shoots Max in the shoulder. Max bravely orders his unarmed men to attack the armed militia. His men, for the first time, willingly follow his orders and the militia flee as their leader is arrested. Max then tells the U.S. authorities that he intends to "advance"—to Mexico. Satisfied at that, Sylvester, Lacomber and Hallson let the Mexican general get back on his horse. He rides out of town triumphantly with his men chanting proudly: "Viva Max!" ===== Jenny, a young small-town woman, moves away to the city when she becomes pregnant through a one-night stand. She meets film director Delano, who has received a draft notice and does not want to be inducted into the Army. Jenny and Delano take a liking to each other. Learning that an acquaintance got out of having to serve by having a baby on the way, Delano offers to marry Jenny, claim paternity and support her baby, if she in turn will play along, and he can avoid being drafted. In the months until Jenny's baby is born, the couple experiences the ups and downs of their in-name-only marriage, including a visit back to her family and hometown, and his ongoing relationship with another woman, as Delano and Jenny await the outcome of his draft case. At the end of the movie, Jenny goes into labor. Delano brings Jenny a little music box; as it plays a nurse brings in Jenny's new baby. Jenny lovingly holds the newborn and begins to breastfeed as Delano looks on. The movie ends with the two of them staring at the newborn, sleeping soundly in its mother's arms. ===== Carry On Jack starts with the death of Admiral Horatio Nelson (Jimmy Thompson), whose last words are that Britain needs a bigger navy with more men, followed by his famous request for a kiss to Hardy (Anton Rodgers). In the main story, Albert Poop- Decker (Bernard Cribbins) has taken 8 years and still not qualified as midshipman, but is promoted by the First Sea Lord (Cecil Parker) as England needs officers. He is to join the frigate Venus at Plymouth. Arriving to find the crew all celebrating as they are sailing tomorrow, he takes a sedan chair with no bottom (so he has to run), carried by a young man and his father (Jim Dale and Ian Wilson, respectively) to Dirty Dick's Tavern. Mobbed by women in the tavern as he is holding a sovereign aloft (as advised by Dale), he is rescued by serving maid, Sally (Juliet Mills). She wants to go to sea to find her shanghaied boyfriend Roger, but landlord Ned (George Woodbridge) has let her down. She finds that Poop-Decker has not reported to the ship yet and is unknown to them, so in a room upstairs she knocks him out and takes his midshipman's uniform. Poop-Decker wakes and dons a dress to cover his long johns, and downstairs, along with a cess pit cleaner named Walter Sweetly (Charles Hawtrey), is shanghaied by a press gang run by the Venus' First Officer Lieutenant Jonathan Howett (Donald Houston) and his bosun, Mr Angel (Percy Herbert). They come to when at sea and are introduced to Captain Fearless (Kenneth Williams). Poop-Decker makes himself known, but there is already a Midshipman Poop-Decker aboardSally, in disguise. Poop-Decker, as a hopeless seaman, goes on to continually upset Howett by doing the wrong thing. Sally reveals her true identity to Poop-Decker after he has been punished, and he decides to let things continue as they are. Eventually, in the course of the film Poop-Decker and Sally fall in love with each other. After three months at sea and no action, the crew are very restless, and when they finally see a Spanish ship, the Captain has them sail away from it. Howett and Angel hatch a plot, making it look like the ship has been boarded by the enemy during a night raid and using Poop-Decker as an expendable dupe to get the Captain leave the ship on his own volition. Poop-Decker, Sweetly and Sally thus help the Captain into a boat, and they leave the ship, but while leaving his cabin, the Captain gets a splinter in his foot, which later goes gangrenous. When they reach dry land, Captain Fearless reckons that they are in France and they need only to walk a short distance to reach Calais, while they are actually standing on Spanish soil. Sally and Poop-Decker spot a party of civilians and steal their clothes while they are bathing. Now in charge of the ship, Howett and Angel sail for Cadiz and plan on taking it from Don Luis (Patrick Cargill), the Spanish Governor. They are successful, but their plot is ruined by Poop-Decker's group, who stumble into Cadiz (believing it to be Le Havre) and recapture the Venus. Sailing back to England, they encounter a pirate ship, whose crew seizes the Venus. The Captain (Patch, played by Peter Gilmore) turns out to be Sally's lost love Roger, but upon seeing him as a coarse, brutal rogue, she no longer wants to have anything to do with him. In order to force her compliance, Patch and Hook (Ed Devereaux) try to make Poop- Decker and Fearless walk the plank, but Poop-Decker manages to escape and cut down a sail, which covers the pirates, capturing them. In Cadiz, the former crew of the Venus are taken to be shot, but escape with five empty Spanish Men of War to England for prize money and glory. They are within sight of England when they encounter the Venus. While Poop-Decker, Sally and Walter are working below decks on cutting off Fearless's badly infected leg, a fire gets out of control on deck and burns a sail, which sets off the Venus' primed cannons, hitting all five Spanish ships and thus once again thwarting Howett's shot at fame and glory. Poop-Decker and his companions end up at the Admiralty as heroes. Fearless is promoted to Admiral and given a desk job. Poop-Decker and Sweetly are given the rank of honorary Captains, with pensions, but Poop- Decker reveals that he is going to leave the service to marry Sally. ===== A top-secret chemical formula has been stolen by STENCH (the Society for the Total Extinction of Non-Conforming Humans). Fearful of the formula falling into the wrong hands, the chief of the Secret Service reluctantly sends the only agent he has left, the bumbling and silly Agent Desmond Simpkins (Kenneth Williams), and his three trainees—Agent Harold Crump (Bernard Cribbins), Agent Daphne Honeybutt (Barbara Windsor), and Agent Charlie Bind (Charles Hawtrey)—to retrieve the formula. The agents travel separately to Vienna, where each makes contact with Carstairs (Jim Dale), who assumes a different disguise each time. Next, they rendezvous at the Cafe Mozart and later travel on to Algiers. Upon the way, they encounter STENCH agents the Fat Man and Milchmann (who stole the formula whilst disguised—befitting the English translation of his German name—as a milkman). Unfortunately, the agents' ineptitude results in Carstairs being floored in an encounter with the Fat Man. Daphne and Harold attempt to steal the formula back whilst disguised as dancing girls in Hakim's Fun House, where the Fat Man is relaxing. The agents also encounter the mysterious Lila (Dilys Laye), whom they are uncertain to trust. With the STENCH henchmen close on their heels, the agents have no other choice but to have Daphne memorise the formula with her photographic memory, before the four of them destroy the formula papers by eating them with soup and bread. The four agents end up captives of STENCH. Daphne is interrogated by the evil Dr Crow (played by Judith Furse and voiced by John Bluthal), head of STENCH, but she fails to succumb until she accidentally bumps her head, causing her to reveal the formula. Simpkins, Crump, and Bind manage to escape their cell and to collect Daphne and Dr. Crow's tape recording of Daphne's recitation, but are caught up in an underground automated factory process, from which they escape only when Lila pulls a gun on Dr Crow, forcing her to reverse the process. Simpkins sets the STENCH base to self-destruct before rushing into a lift with the other agents, as well as Lila and Dr Crow. As the lift ascends, Lila reveals to Simpkins that she is a double agent working for SNOG (the Society for the Neutralising of Germs) and that she has a crush on him. The lift reaches the surface, which is revealed to be the office of the chief of the Secret Service; the headquarters of STENCH is right below the streets of London. STENCH headquarters self-destructs, choking the chief's office in a thick cloud of smoke. ===== On Saturday, 5 April 1941, one day before the Axis invasion of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, a colourful group of random passengers on a country road deep in the heart of Serbia board a dilapidated bus, headed for the capital Belgrade. The group includes two Gypsy musicians, a World War I veteran, a Germanophile, a budding singer, a sickly looking man, and a hunter with a shotgun. The bus is owned by Krstić Sr., and driven by his impressionable and dim-witted son Miško. Along the way, they are joined by a priest and a pair of young newlyweds who are on their way to the seaside for their honeymoon, and are faced with numerous difficulties: an army roadblock forcing a detour, a farmer ploughing the road which, he claims, stretches over his land, a flat tire, a funeral, two feuding families, a shaky bridge, Krstić Jr.'s recruitment into the army, and a lost wallet. All these slow the bus down and expose rifts among the travelers. During the early morning of Sunday, 6 April, amid rumours of war, they finally reach Belgrade only to be caught in the middle of the Luftwaffe raid (Operation Punishment). The only apparent surviving passengers are the two Gypsy musicians who sing the film's theme song before the end. ===== Professor Bumble, S.I.R. and the other child characters of The Flying House The series begins in the middle of a game of hide and seek, as a young boy named Justin Casey (Gen Adachi) finishes counting and begins searching for his friends Angela "Angie" Roberts and her little brother Corbin "Corky" Roberts (Kanna and Tsukubo Natsuyama). As he searches for Angie and Corky in a wooded area, a thunderstorm suddenly appears. Justin manages to sneak up on the two before the rain starts pouring, forcing them to run for cover. They eventually find a spacecraft type house in the wooded area, previously unseen according to Justin. At first glance it appears that nobody is home, until they discover a battery type android named Solar Ion Robot (Kadenchin), or S.I.R. for short. They soon meet the owner of the house, Professor Humphrey Bumble (Dr. Tokio Taimu), who introduces the children to his greatest creation, a half rocket, half house one of a kind time machine namely The Flying House. Humphrey's attempt at recreating Benjamin Franklin's famous lightning experiment with the use of a bat looking kite flying outside the house to get the machine working only leads to a temporary change in S.I.R.'s personality from nice to mean and goes berserk before sending The Flying House on course for the past. Little did they know that Justin, Angie, Corky, and S.I.R. truly realize how long the journey back home will take due to Humphrey's misguidance and errors in time travel, but in the meantime they witness and participate (with little or no consequences) in numerous events in the Bible's New Testament, from John the Baptist's birth to the rise of the Apostle Paul. Eventually, they make it home exactly the same way they traveled into the past in the first place. S.I.R. gets a knock in the head which, again, makes him go from nice to mean and go berserk and he attacks The Flying House. Ironically, S.I.R.'s berserkiness fixes it in such a way that it finally sends the whole crew back to their own time period, and the show ends, with S.I.R. changed back from mean to nice by the end of the trip. ===== No single character dominates The Wayward Bus. The viewpoint shifts frequently from one character to another, often taking the form of internal monologue so that we are experiencing a given character's thoughts. Much of the novel's length is simply devoted to establishing and delineating the various characters. This novel takes place firmly within the "Steinbeck country" of California's Salinas Valley (although the three primary locations described are all fictional): most of the narrative occurs at Rebel Corners, a crossroads 42 miles south of a San Ysidro, California that is described as being north of Los Angeles.The Wayward Bus by John Steinbeck, Introduction by Gary Scharnhorst. Penguin Edition, Introduction copyright 2006. "None of the places in the novel, with the notable exceptions of such southern cities as Los Angeles, Hollywood and San Diego, refer to actual sites. There is a Santa Cruz, California, of course, but no San Juan de la Cruz, as in the novel; and there is a San Ysidro, California, but it is located in San Diego County, nowhere near the San Ysidro of the story." Juan Chicoy (half-Mexican, half-Irish) maintains a small bus, nicknamed "Sweetheart". He earns his living as a mechanic, and by ferrying passengers between Rebel Corners and San Juan de la Cruz. The larger Greyhound Bus Company serves both of those locations on separate routes, but does not have service connecting the two. Juan and his wife Alice also own a small lunch counter at Rebel Corners. The Chicoys supplement their income by selling food, coffee and candy to people who pass through on the bus route. Rebel Corners is such an obscure place that nobody actually lives there except for the Chicoys and their employees of the moment. Alice is devoted to her marriage but is in all other ways a deeply unhappy woman, who despises and distrusts all other women. The Chicoys have two employees: one is a teenager named Ed Carson, who works as Juan's assistant mechanic and general helper. Carson claims to be descended from the famous frontiersman Kit Carson, and he wants to be called "Kit", but he is usually called "Pimples" because of his extreme facial acne. Pimples Carson (as he is identified through most of the novel) is constantly helping himself to cake or candy from the lunch counter, telling Alice to deduct it from his wages. Alice, deeply suspicious of everyone but her husband, asserts that Carson's "tab" for the food and sweets he consumes has exceeded what her husband is paying him; she also accuses Carson of stealing food. The lunch counter's other employee is Norma, a young waitress. Because of Alice's bad temper and misogyny, waitresses tend not to last long at Rebel Corners: Norma is merely the latest in a long series of waitresses. Norma is obsessed with film star Clark Gable. She writes long fan letters to Gable which she mails to him at his studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, but these are never answered. Norma maintains a semi-paranoid delusion that there is an employee at MGM who maliciously intercepts Norma's letters so that Gable will never find out she is in love with him. At one point, Norma claims to be Gable's cousin. A family of three, on vacation, have been forced to spend the night at Rebel Corners because the bus, named "Sweetheart", needed repair. Juan, Alice, Norma and Pimples gave up their beds to the travelers and spend the night sitting up in the diner. The family now hopes to travel to San Juan on Juan Chicoy's bus: these are self-important businessman Elliott Pritchard, his wife Bernice and their daughter Mildred, a college student. The novel's description of Mr. Pritchard is an example of Steinbeck's concise character delineation: "One night a week he played poker with men so exactly like himself that the game was fairly even, and from this fact his group was convinced that they were very fine poker players." Two more transients are waiting for the bus. One of these is Ernest Horton, a traveling salesman for a novelties company. Horton makes a very colorful entrance in this novel: he limps into the lunch counter, claiming to have injured his foot in a road accident. He then takes off his shoe, revealing a bloody sock. He removes the sock, exposing a badly maimed foot. As soon as this gets the desired response, Horton peels off the "injury": it's actually one of the gag novelties made by his company. Horton is a frustrated man who hopes to launch one or more of his many get-rich ideas, but lacks the funding to put them into practice. His favored project is a kit for men who cannot afford formal attire: a set of satin lapels and satin trouser stripes that can convert a black business suit into a tuxedo. The other transient is a young blonde woman whose face and curvaceous figure attracts male attention. This woman's real name is never disclosed: she is always passing through somewhere on the way to somewhere else, and so she uses a series of false names in her encounters with men she never expects to meet again. Shortly after she arrives at Rebel Corners, she sees an advertisement for Camel cigarettes near an oak tree, so she introduces herself as Camille Oaks. (She is identified by this alias through the rest of the novel.) Later, seeing an advertisement that reads "Chesterfields: They Satisfy", she claims to be a dental nurse employed by Dr. T.S. Chesterfield. In fact, she is a stripper who earns her living performing at stag functions. Camille Oaks has a low opinion of men, possibly stemming from the type of men she meets. She respects the very few men who are honest enough to offer her a sexual proposition right away, but she has no patience for the men who more typically waste her time by trying to be "friends" with her, and who only gradually reveal their true intent. One chapter of the novel is a sympathetic depiction of George, a low-paid Negro who works as a "swamper" at the Greyhound bus depot, cleaning the buses and retrieving lost property. George finds a wallet containing $100, a windfall by his standards. He schemes to keep the money, but is seen handling the wallet by another employee. Louie, a white bus driver, returns the wallet to its owner, promising to split any reward money evenly with George. Louie receives a decent reward but then cheats George, telling him that the owner's reward was only a dollar ... all of which Louie "generously" gives to George. As George never interacts with the characters at Rebel Corners, it is interesting that Steinbeck made room for this vignette which is irrelevant to the main narrative. Very little actually happens in The Wayward Bus. Norma discovers Alice reading her letter to Clark Gable and after a lifetime of mistreatment she stands up for herself by quietly packing her cardboard suitcase. Ignoring Alice's defense, Norma collects some money from the register and walks out to board Sweetheart for the next trip to San Juan. Juan has made this bus run many times, and he is bored with the dull routine. This time, however, the heavy rain that has fallen makes a bridge unsafe, and so he asks the passengers to decide whether to return to Rebel Corners or attempt to reach their destination via an old dirt road. They choose the road. En route, he deliberately runs the bus into a ditch, telling the passengers it was an accident. The symbolism here is, by Steinbeck's standards, unusually heavy-handed: Juan, whose life is trapped in a figurative rut, escapes it by driving into a literal rut. The "accident" has temporarily stranded Juan and his passengers in a remote area. While they are waiting for Juan to seek help on foot, a walk of four miles, Pritchard engages Camille in conversation and expresses interest in helping her in her "career": she recognizes this as the opening gambit of a seduction, and she turns him down venomously. Pritchard assaults his own wife, partly in anger at her and partly to regain his self- importance after Camille's rejection. Juan, who has no intention of returning to the bus, plans to escape his life and marriage by returning to Mexico. He soon walks off the road to seek shelter in a deserted farmhouse, where he falls asleep in a barn. Pritchard's daughter Mildred, strongly attracted to him already, follows him and they have sex, but it ends up lacking in fulfillment and pleasure for both characters. Their distant focus on the experience along with awkward and dismissive dialogue implies personal regret soon afterward (another reader finds the opposite reaction in Mildred who seems very happy and fulfilled by the experience. Juan also returns invigorated to the stranded bus and extricates it from the ditch). Eventually Juan and Mildred return, the bus is driven out of the rut, and everyone gets back on. The novel ends with San Juan de la Cruz visible in the distance. ===== Outlaw Johnny Finger, better known as The Rumpo Kid (Sid James), rides into the frontier town of Stodge City, and immediately guns down three complete strangers, orders alcohol at the saloon—horrifying Judge Burke (Kenneth Williams), the teetotal Mayor of Stodge City—and kills the town's sheriff, Albert Earp (Jon Pertwee). Rumpo then takes over the saloon, courting its former owner, the sharp-shooting Belle (Joan Sims), and turns the town into a base for thieves and cattle-rustlers. In Washington DC, Englishman Marshal P. Knutt (Jim Dale), a "sanitation engineer first class", arrives in America in the hope of revolutionising the American sewerage system. He accidentally walks into the office of the Commissioner, thinking it to be the Public Works Department, and is mistaken for a US Peace Marshal, and is promptly sent out to Stodge City. The Rumpo Kid hears of the new Marshal, and tries all he can to kill the Marshal without being caught, including sending out a pack of Indians, led by their Chief Big Heap (Charles Hawtrey) and hanging the Marshal after framing him for cattle rustling. Knutt is saved by the prowess of Annie Oakley (Angela Douglas), who has arrived in Stodge to avenge Earp's death and has taken a liking to Knutt. Eventually, Knutt runs Rumpo out of town, but once Rumpo discovers that Knutt really is a sanitary engineer and not the Peace Marshal he once thought, he swears revenge, returning to Stodge City for a showdown at high noon. Knutt conceals himself from Rumpo's gang in drainage tunnels beneath the main street, emerging momentarily from manholes to pick them off one by one. He does not capture Rumpo, who escapes town with the aid of Belle. ===== It is the time of the French Revolution, whilst the French aristocracy are losing their heads, two bored English noblemen, Sir Rodney Ffing (pronounced "Effing") and his best friend Lord Darcy Pue (played by Sid James and Jim Dale respectively), bored with the endless round of country pursuits, the social scene and “the same old balls”, decide to have some fun and save their French counterparts from beheading by the guillotine. Enraged, but barely competent, revolutionary leader Citizen Camembert (Kenneth Williams) and his toadying lackey, Citizen Bidet (Peter Butterworth), scour France and England for the elusive saviour of the French nobles, who has become known as “The Black Fingernail” after his calling card of “two digits rampant”. After a series of audacious rescues the Black Finger Nail succeeds in rescuing the Duc de Pommfrit (Charles Hawtrey), whilst disguised as an insurance salesman, and in the process tricking Citizen Camembert into guillotining his own executioner. Citizen Camembert is chastised by his superior Maximillien Robespierre (Peter Gilmour) and threatened with the guillotine. During his escape from France Sir Rodney meets his true love, Jacqueline (Dany Robin), leaving her with a silver locket containing a set of his mother’s false teeth. On discovering Jacqueline, Camembert and Bidet imprison her. Using the locket as a trap, they travel to England, to uncover the real identity of The Black Fingernail. They are accompanied by Camembert’s lover, Desiree (Joan Sims), who is on the lookout to marry a man with a title, disguised as the Comte and Comtesse de la Plume de ma Tante. Desiree pretending to be Camembert's flamboyant sister, whilst wearing the locket. After a series of intrigues at a ball at Ffing House, everyone’s identity is unknowingly revealed. As foppish Sir Rodney challenges Camembert to a rigged duel in order to get a head start on his journey to Paris to rescue Jacqueline. Desiree is now herself in love with the hero and will do all she can to save him from the guillotine in return for his promise that she will marry her titled man. After arriving in Paris, The Black Fingernail discovers that Jacqueline has been moved from the Bastille to the Chateau Neuf (Waddesdon Manor), the former home of an avid art collector and member of the aristocracy, recently presented to Citizen Camembert, by himself. The Black Fingernail travels there, with Lord Darcy and the Duc de Pommfrit to rescue her. During the ensuing fight between the rescuers and the French soldiers, most of Citizen Camembert’s new art collection is destroyed. With the help of Desiree, Jacqueline is rescued. All five, The Black Fingernail, Jacqueline, Desiree, Lord Darcy and the Duc de Pommfrit, flee the collapsing chateau to safety. For their incompetence Citizen Robespierre orders the execution of Citizens Camembert and Bidet on a double guillotine. Their final consolation being that The Black Fingernail is not there to see it, until the executioner reveals his identity as none other than The Black Fingernail himself. Afterwards, in England, The Black Fingernail marries Jacqueline, who becomes Lady Ffing, whilst he keeps his promise to Desiree, who has married the Duc de Pommfrit, much to her own chagrin. ===== Francis Bigger (Howerd) is a charlatan faith healer, convinced that "mind over matter" is more effective than medical treatment. During a lecture, he stumbles offstage and is admitted to the local hospital. In hospital, he incessantly groans and whines about being "maltreated", demanding better treatment than the other, eccentric patients. These include: bedridden layabout Charlie Roper (James) who shams illnesses to stay in hospital; Ken Biddle (Bresslaw) who makes frequent trips to the ladies' ward to flirt with his love interest, Mavis Winkle (Dilys Laye); and Mr Barron (Hawtrey) who seems to be suffering sympathy pains while his wife awaits the birth of their baby. While being treated, Bigger meets two very different doctors. Clumsy yet charming Dr Kilmore (Dale) is popular with the patients and loved from afar by the beautiful Nurse Clark (Harris) while hospital registrar Dr Tinkle (Kenneth Williams) is universally detested, as is battleaxe Matron (Jacques), who harbours an unrequited love for him. After Bigger's arrival, novice nurse Sandra May (Windsor), arrives at the hospital with her intention to declare her (questionable) love for Tinkle, and enters his room, violating hospital rules that female staff are not permitted in the male quarters. Matron and Kilmore burst in on her declarations of love, which are cruelly rebuffed by Tinkle. Matron throws Nurse May out, and she leaves while tearfully announcing she'd rather die than live without Tinkle. Dr Tinkle fears for his position after this incident, and contrives with Matron to get rid of Kilmore and Sandra May, lest they reveal the truth. Shortly after, Sandra May climbs on to the roof of the nurses' home to sunbathe in her bikini top. Dr Kilmore and Nurse Clark assume she is going to throw herself off the roof in despair after Tinkle's rejection. Kilmore rushes to save her and climbs on to the roof. He realises she is sunbathing and prepares to leave, but Sandra assumes to her horror he is leering over her, and shrieks in fear. Her screams attract attention and soon the entire hospital staff and townspeople flock to watch. Nurse Clark attempts to help Kilmore before he falls off, but he accidentally tears her skirt off, leaving her in her underwear and stockings. Kilmore crashes through a window to safety, but lands in a bath ... with a nurse in it, who assumes he is attacking her. His good reputation is destroyed among everyone except his patients. Dr Kilmore is given a hearing with the hospital governor, but Matron and Tinkle deny his revelation of Sandra May's fight with Tinkle. As Sandra May has left the hospital, Kilmore has no proof to support him and is forced to resign. Nurse Clark reports the treachery of Tinkle and Matron to the patients and together they decide to exact revenge upon the pair for what they have done. The patients stage a nocturnal mutiny - their first victim is Sister Hoggett, whom the female patients overpower and leave bound and gagged in a linen cupboard, incapacitating her from alerting the orderlies. The male patients take care of Tinkle while the females take care of Matron. The ladies manage to get Matron to confess by torturing her with a towel bath, while the men get Tinkle to confess by performing an enema on him, since their previous attempt to do so by giving him an icy cold bath failed. The next day, Dr Kilmore is appointed the new hospital registrar while Tinkle is reduced to a simple doctor. Mr Barron, now fully recovered and cured, and his wife finally have their baby and Bigger and his newly wedded wife Chloe (Sims) bicker as they leave the hospital. However, on their way out, Bigger deliberately falls on the steps and injures his back again to avoid anymore difficulties with his wife and is brought back to the hospital. ===== Fry feels useless after Leela and Bender return from an extremely successful mission without him. Leela asks Fry to walk Nibbler while she goes on a date with Chaz, the mayor's aide. Fry is convinced the only good he serves is to clean up after Nibbler, but Nibbler tells him otherwise. Having never heard Nibbler talk, Fry is dumbfounded as Nibbler knocks him out and takes him to Eternium, Nibbler's home planet. The Nibblonians explain that because Fry lacks the delta brainwave on account of him being his own grandfather (seen in Roswell That Ends Well), he was immune to the attack of the Brainspawn a few months prior (seen in "The Day the Earth Stood Stupid"). The Nibblonians reveal the Brainspawn's plan to collect all knowledge in the universe, store it in a colossal memory bank called the Infosphere, and destroy the rest of the universe. Because of his immunity, Fry is the only person who can stop them. The Nibblonians give Fry a "Quantum Interphase Bomb" which will send the sphere into an alternate dimension forever, as well as a wind-up toy vessel with which to reach and escape the Infosphere. Fry successfully plants the bomb, but is detected; when he tries to escape, his vessel falls apart. Fry activates the bomb anyway, and despite being doomed to enter the alternate universe, he is glad that his life had a purpose. The Brainspawn show Fry something that happened on December 31, 1999, the night he was frozen (seen in "Space Pilot 3000"). Fry is upset to see that Nibbler tipped him into the cryogenic chamber and sent him to the year 3000. Nibbler explains that he had to do so, as Fry was the only person who could defeat the Brainspawn. The bomb detonates, sending the Infosphere to the alternate dimension. Meanwhile, Leela goes on her date with Chaz. Chaz reserves the rocket skating rink for Leela, but Leela dumps him after he turns away the Cookieville orphans who were supposed to visit the rink. In the alternate dimension, the Brainspawn discover they can send Fry back in time to stop Nibbler from freezing him. Fry accepts their offer and is transported to the cryogenics lab. He appears behind Nibbler under the desk, just before his past self is frozen. He restrains Nibbler, who protests that Fry must be sent to the future to save the universe. Nibbler asks if there is anything he wants to save in the future, and Fry mentions Leela. After Nibbler advises Fry not to give up on her, and promises that he will help Fry win Leela's heart, Fry tips his past self into the cryogenic chamber. As Fry finds himself disappearing from the timeline, he has enough time to tell Nibbler the vessel he was given was not suitable for the task. In the future, Fry plants the bomb again and successfully escapes the Infosphere, having been given an upgraded vessel this time. Nibbler and Fry return to Earth, and Nibbler gives Fry a flower before blanking Fry's mind. Back at Planet Express, Fry gives Leela the flower. Leela tells Fry that although he may not be the most important person in the universe, she is happy to see him and kisses him. ===== Two best friendsa heterosexual woman, Abbie, and a gay man, Robert decide to have a child together. Five years later, Abbie falls in love with a heterosexual man and wants to move away with him and Robert's little boy, Sam, and a nasty custody battle ensues. ===== According to the ancient Mayan calendar, magic is cyclical, leaving the world and returning every 5000 years. Magic enters the world, grows, peaks, and eventually retreats. When magic was last at its peak, a powerful Ziggurat was constructed near what would be modern day Santos, Brazil. The purpose of this construct is shrouded in the mists of history. Even the Chancela family, who secretly maintained the ziggurat for thousands of years, did not know its purpose, nor did they know the purpose of the strange artifact somehow connected to the ziggurat. In the millennia since its construction, the ziggurat was eventually buried, hidden in the side of a mountain. Then, on December 24, 2012, magic began returning to the world, leaving change and confusion in its wake. The years after magic's return wrought change on a global scale. RNA Global, a powerful multinational corporation, sent a research team to Santos, Brazil. Their job was to explore and research the strange energies coming from a mountainside along one edge of Santos. Armed with an artifact from ancient times, the research team sought to channel and control the magical energies they were exploring. Instead, they caused a magical accident that destroyed half the city and brought down the mountainside, revealing the ziggurat to all. Deflecting blame for the incident to an Ork paramilitary organization, RNA retreated from the city while rethinking their strategy. After a time, RNA Global returned to Santos, this time armed with a government contract that provided them control over the city. Vowing to keep the peace and clean up Santos, RNA's first actions were to enact martial law and declare a curfew for all citizens. The locals, still upset over the initial accident and trying to rebuild on their own, began resisting RNA's efforts. The resistance was helped greatly by the leadership of the Chancela family, who were dedicated to defending the ziggurat and recovering the artifact. Resistance turned to conflict, conflict turned to skirmish, and skirmish eventually plunged the city into all-out war. Eventually, forces began to organize themselves under the Chancela family, and became known as "The Lineage". The battle between these two sides has grown to great proportions as of 2031, as the struggle for the artifact continues between RNA Global forces and The Lineage. ===== Vivian Bearing (Emma Thompson) is a professor of English literature known for her intense knowledge of metaphysical poetry, especially the Holy Sonnets of John Donne. Her life takes a turn when she is diagnosed with metastatic Stage IV ovarian cancer. Oncologist Harvey Kelekian (Christopher Lloyd) prescribes various chemotherapy treatments to treat her disease, and as she suffers through the various side- effects (such as fever, chills, vomiting, and abdominal pain), she attempts to put everything in perspective. The story periodically flashes back to previous moments in her life, including her childhood, her graduate school studies, and her career prior to her diagnosis. During the course of the film, she continually breaks the fourth wall by looking into the camera and expressing her feelings. As she grows increasingly ill, Vivian agrees to undergo more tests and experimental treatments, even though she realizes the doctors treating her, including former student Jason Posner (Jonathan M. Woodward), see her less as someone to save and more as a guinea pig for their treatments. The only person who seems to care for her as a person is Susie Monahan (Audra McDonald), one of the nurses on the staff. Late in Vivian's illness, the only visitor she receives in the hospital is her former graduate school professor and mentor, Evelyn Ashford (Eileen Atkins), who reads her excerpts from Margaret Wise Brown's The Runaway Bunny. As she nears the end of her life, Vivian regrets her insensitivity and realizes she should have been kinder to more people. In her time of greatest need, she learns that human compassion is of more profound importance than intellectual wit. Vivian dies at the end of the film, with her voiceover reciting "death be not proud". ===== The story is a discussion between Eero and his biological mother (Kirsti), where they are talking to each other and clarifying their misunderstanding and difference in present time. Eero has just come back from his visit from Sweden for Signe's (Swedish mother) funeral. The plot of the story is based on the time of the Second World War and the main character of the story is a Finnish boy (Eero Lahti). The biological father of Eero (Kari-Pekka Toivonen) is in the Finnish army. He dies in the front and Eero's mother Kirsti falls into deep depression. As the war gets worse, Eero is sent to Sweden to a new Swedish family. In the new family, he has a father Hjalmar Jönsson, mother Signe Jönsson and a grandfather (who cannot speak but hears everything). He also meets the neighbor’s daughter Siv. Despite Hjalmar being very welcoming, Eero is not willing to stay in Sweden and wants to go back to his biological mother. Signe is frustrated in Eero's unwillingness to adjust to the situation. She is also frustrated in the language barrier and the fact that she wanted to have a small girl instead of Eero. There is a reason why she wished to have a girl; it is later revealed that she had lost her six-year-old daughter Elin two years earlier in a drowning accident. In the struggle of the change Signe wants the boy to learn Swedish. After a long struggle to adjust, slowly Signe starts to attach to the boy and she starts loving him. And getting attention, care and affection, the boy starts attaching too, and that leads to their having a tight mother-son relationship. The war ends and Germany loses the war with Russia. The children taken to Sweden safe from the war are now being returned to their homes in Finland. The situation in Finland (Helsinki) gets better, and that means Eero has to return to his biological mother and leave the Jönsson family in Sweden. The bond between his Swedish family has by then grown so much stronger that he is unwilling to go back to Helsinki. But despite of his wishes and Signe's resistance, Eero is sent back to Finland to his mother Kirsti. Later, in a scene where Eero and his mother are older, Eero tells his mother that back then, it was impossible to ever have the same relationship with his biological mother that they used to. As a child, he was certain that once he lets someone come close to him, he is in risk of losing everything again. Eero was afraid that his mother will leave him again if things get worse. The adult Eero even tells his mother, that when he came back from Skåne, Kirsti (his biological mother) wasn't a mother to him anymore. ===== Eddie York and Chuck Gibson are two ex-soldiers leaving the service to become mink farmers in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. As they leave New York City to travel to their new home, they stop at a tailor to get new suits. While at the tailor, Eddie is mistaken for a wealthy playboy, Francis Pemberton, by a local thug. Since Francis owes $12,000 to a bookie named Jim Arnold, the thug decides to bring Francis back with him to his boss. The thug holds Eddie and Chuck at gunpoint and makes them follow him to Arnold, where the bookie claims his money back. Not for a second buying Eddie's explanation that he is not Francis, Arnold takes Eddie's wallet containing $3,000 in cash, and tells Eddie to come back the next day with the rest, or else. Eddie sees no other alternative than to find Francis and straighten him out to get his money back. He goes to the Pemberton mansion to find Francis, but it turns out Francis hasn't been home in two years, but spent his time boozing in Mexico. Eddie is again mistaken for Francis Chuck tries to get their money back by telling the people at the house that Francis has promised to invest $3,000 in a mink farm. This meets no objection in the household, and they tell "Francis" to go and get cash in the family safe. Of course Eddie doesn't have the combination to the safe. Awaiting someone who can help them open the safe, the two men are invited by Joan, a young woman who is a distant relative to the family, to stay the night at the mansion. In the evening, more Pembertons arrive back at the house, including Grandpa Pemberton, Francis' wife Mary and his daughter Stephanie. Eddie is ordered by Grandpa to talk to his wife and daughter, and when he meets them they notice that there is a noticeable change in Francis' behavior. Joan and Mary are very impressed by Francis' sudden generosity and capacity. Even Grandpa notices something different about his grandson. Fred MacMurray as Eddy York and Marguerite Chapman as Joan Uncle Wills, the man with the safe combination, arrives in the morning, and is stunned by the audacity of Francis, who usually is much more evasive and timid. Mary has left a note to Francis, where "her side of the story" is explained. It turns out that there is a feud going on between husband and wife regarding custody of their daughter Stephanie. Wills is helping Francis to get sole custody of his daughter. Unaware of this, Eddie tells uncle Wills to let Mary see Stephanie as much as she wants, making Wills surprised. Soon Arnold arrives to the mansion to collect his money, and Eddie orders Wills to get the money from the safe. Wills tells "Francis" that he will lose half his fortune if he loses custody of the daughter, and reminds him of the lawsuit where they try to declare Mary unfit as a mother. Wills then writes a check for the sum of $12,000 to pay off Arnold. Upon giving the check to Arnold, Eddie gets his wallet back. Before leaving the family to its own, Eddie decides to try to help fix the relations between Francis and Mary, leaving the letter from Mary to Joan, asking her to mail it to Mexico. Wills suspects that Francis has lost his mind and tries to commit him to a psychic ward, but fails as Eddie escapes his clutches. At the same time, the real Francis arrives in a taxi to the mansion. Eddie's true identity is then revealed, and Grandpa confesses that Eddie in fact is Francis' twin brother, and that they were separated by birth. Wills attacks both Eddie and Francis with accusations of concocting different plans to hurt the family fortune, but Joan is on their side and hands the letter to Francis. When Eddie goes to the tailor again to fetch his new suit, Arnold meets him there, furious over the fact that Wills' check bounced. Instead, Arnold demands that his payment be in rare books from the Pemberton library, and they go there to steal books at his discretion. Joan finds herself appalled by the way things are handled at the Pemberton house and leaves. Eddie, who has taken a liking to her, follows her, but Chuck is left behind in the clutches of Arnold who still demands his payment. Grandpa meets Arnold and reveals to both him and Francis that Eddie is the twin brother. Francis writes another check to Arnold, who releases Chuck. On his way out of the house, Arnold helps Eddie explain the twin-brother confusion to Joan, and she also reveals she is in love with Eddie, who proposes to her on the spot. It turns out Wills has managed to get Mary arrested for trying to kidnap Stephanie, and the police bring her to the mansion. Eddie impersonates Francis again and make the police release Mary, and she comes into the house to see her daughter. Meanwhile, Francis has been bound and gagged by Wills, who believes he is Eddie. Eddie goes on to trick Wills that he is Francis and gets him to confess all the letters from Mary that he has destroyed and that never reached Francis. Francis hears what Wills has done and throws him out of the house. Francis gets another chance of reconciling with Mary and takes it. Eddie and Joan elope together with Chuck in a taxi, and stop by the tailor on the way to the train station. Arnold is there again and, as a peace offering for all the misunderstandings about Eddie's identity, Arnold gives them a pair of minks to start off their business. ===== Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn play hooky from school and plan to revive a dead cat with the spirit of a man named Hoss Williams who is on his death bed. Sawyer and Finn talk with Muff Potter, the town drunk, but are interrupted when Injun Joe says that Doc Robinson wants to see them. Muff and Joe meet Robinson and he informs them that they have a job to dig up the grave of Williams. Joe is angry that Robinson did not fix his leg correctly. Meanwhile, Tom continues to skip school and comes up with fantastic stories about why he is not home for dinner, where he tricks the children of the town to do his punishment chores for him. After Williams dies, Tom and Huck go to the cemetery and find out that Muff and Joe are digging up William's grave on the orders of Robinson. Joe continues to be angry at Robinson and demands more money for the job. When Robinson refuses, Injun Joe picks up a shovel, accidentally knocking Muff out. He hits Doc Robinson into the grave with the shovel, then grabs Muff's knife and jumps in after Robinson and kills him. Tom and Huck witness all this and then flee, making a pact never to tell anyone what they saw. Joe frames Muff for the murder and Muff goes to jail. Meanwhile, Becky Thatcher moves to town which sends Sawyer into a romantic daze. At the trial for Muff, Tom is unable to contain himself as Joe is called to the stand and lies about the incident, continuing to frame Muff for the murder. As Tom is called to the stand, he relates what happened, not mentioning that Huck was with him. Suddenly, Injun Joe throws a knife at Tom, narrowly missing Tom's head and jumps out the window of the courthouse, fleeing. After the trial, Tom and Becky get "engaged", but that quickly ends when Tom mentions he is also engaged to Amy Lawrence. After sulking, Tom is attacked by Huck for "breaking the pact" and they both decide to run away. While paddling down the Mississippi, their raft is capsized by a passing riverboat and they end up on an island, where they enjoy freedom and muse over what happened to Injun Joe. While on the island, they witness some people "dragging the river", a process where a cannon is fired to bring up any bodies from the bottom of the river. Tom and Huck decide to go home and find out that there is a funeral being held for them. The funeral service breaks up when Judge Thatcher sees them in the back of the church. The Widow Douglas takes Huck under her wing. Later, at an Independence Day celebration, Tom and Becky go into McDougal's Cave for a drink of water from the underground spring and run into Injun Joe. Joe chases them through the cave, intent on killing Tom. However, Judge Thatcher, Muff, and Huck catch up to Joe and Muff tosses a torch at Joe, who falls to his death. Later, Huck disappears, worrying the Widow Douglas and Tom finds him at the old fishing place where they hang out. Tom berates Huck for worrying the Widow, and Muff decides to leave town. ===== Raven, an English assassin, is hired to kill a government minister in a European country (in fact, Czechoslovakia), an act calculated to provoke a European war. Returning to London, he is paid off in cash by his contact, who uses the false name "Cholmondeley". However, when Raven starts spending the notes, he discovers they were stolen. Furious at being cheated and hunted by the police who think he was the thief, without a ticket he follows "Cholmondeley" onto a train going to Nottwich. Also on the train is Anne Crowder, a chorus girl travelling to start work in a pantomime. Her fiancée, Mather, is the detective leading the hunt for Raven. At Nottwich, Raven uses Anne's ticket to get off the station and, since she has recognised him, he takes her to an empty house to kill her. Escaping, she does not report what has happened, out of sympathy for Raven, but instead goes to the theatre to work. There, she is asked out to dinner by one of the backers, Davis, who is "Cholmondeley". After dinner he takes her to a house where, when he realises she knows about his involvement with Raven, he smothers her, though he does not kill her. The owner of the house helps herself to Anne's smart monogrammed handbag and the next day is seen with it in the street by Raven, who forces his way into the house and finds Anne weak but still alive. She agrees to co- operate with him, since both want Davis/Cholmondeley dead, and he takes her to a hideout he has found. While in hiding, they discuss Raven's murder of the government minister; Raven also talks to Anne about his childhood and the difficult circumstances in which he discovered his mother's suicide—details that will anticipate Raven's own death and the imagery the novel uses to depict his final moments.Fluet, Lisa, "Hit Man Modernism," in Bad Modernisms Durham: Duke University Press, 2006 In the night, the hideout is surrounded by police, led by Jimmy Mather, and Anne decoys them so that Raven can escape. Nonetheless, Raven has to shoot and wound a policeman to flee. There is gas drill practice, in preparation for war, and everyone, except Raven, is wearing a gas-mask, so he forces a student participating in a rag to undress and give him his clothes and gas mask. Thusly disguised as a student participating in the rag stunt, Raven spots Davis, without a gas-mask, in the street, and fines him for charity. Davis says he has no cash and will pay him in his office. Going there, Raven discovers it is the headquarters of a giant steel company that will profit hugely from a war and that the boss is Sir Marcus, a corrupt industrialist. Upon discovering that Marcus is Davis/Cholmondeley's boss Raven takes him at gunpoint up to the suite of Sir Marcus. After explaining his reasons, he kills both men and is himself shot dead by police who have surrounded the building. ===== Steve Randall (Brodie) is an independent trucker who is hired by an old friend to haul some freight. Only when Steve arrives at the warehouse, does he discover he has been hired to haul away stolen goods. Steve wants no part of the plot and resists, but a cop is killed as they're committing the burglary, and all except one manage to get away. Later, after kidnapping and assaulting Steve, the criminals, led by Walt Radak (Burr), threaten to mutilate Randall's wife (Long) unless Steve confesses to the murder committed by Radak's brother, captured during the theft and sentenced to death for the cop-killing. Steve plays along with the criminals just long enough to escape. He takes his wife and leaves town, heading cross country. The couple are then pursued by both the cops and the crooks. Steve then discovers his wife is pregnant with their first child, making the stakes even higher that they get away to safety. ===== Vishal Agnihotri, a convict, is imprisoned for the murder of a group of four criminals who had brutally raped and killed his sister-in-law. Vishal tries to get justice in court but is unsuccessful and the men are released from prison with the help of a corrupt lawyer. The four criminals then visit Vishal's home because he tried to file a case against them. Driven by vengeance, they try to rape Vishal's wife Priya, but she kills herself with a knife. Angered at all this, Vishal decides to take the matter into his own hands and murders the four criminals himself. He is sentenced to life in prison for the crimes. When journalist Roma Singhvisits the jail for a report that she's writing, a few of the convicts try to rape her. The attempted rape reminds Vishal of his misfortune and he intervenes and saves Roma. Roma hears Vishal's story and decides to help free him. She is heard by a blind businessman - Mr. Jindal who tries to recruit Vishal as a hit-man. He wants Vishal to kill some anti-social elements in the city, mainly the two powerful drug lords Jibran and Tyson and all the people who work for them. Mr. Jindal tells Vishal that these drug lords are responsible for creating people like the group of four men he killed in the first place, by bringing drugs to the streets and corrupting the locals with them. Vishal refuses at first as he has just got out of prison and now wants to live a normal life. However, the memories of his murdered family come back to haunt him as he spends a day alone in his home, and he agrees to work for Jindal. Inspector Sahoo is very greedy and becomes an informer for Jibran, one of the targeted drug lords. He discloses all internal matters of the police department to Jibran in return for money. Police Inspector Amar Saxena is trying to catch the drug-trading suspects. He is unhappy about the release of Vishal, who he believes deserves to be in prison because of the murders he committed. Things become even more complicated when Amar finds Vishal at most of the murder scenes of criminals involved in drug-trading. Vishal goes on a murder spree until he realizes that even the Commissioner thinks that the unknown murderer is doing more to help society than the police could ever do. Vishal refuses to kill the Commissioner, thus angering his boss, Jindal. Vishal attacks Jindal with a paper-weight, but Jindal dodges it. Vishal then realizes that Jindal is not blind and is the real antagonist, as he was pulling the strings all this time. Jindal tells Vishal that Jibran and Tyson were his rivals. He also confesses that he murdered his wife Pooja and Inspector Karan Saxena (who happens to be Amar's father), to cover up the truth, and faked his blindness to throw the police off his trail. Jindal, who has now partnered with one of his former enemies, Jibran, leaves Vishal to die. Vishal escapes, only to be confronted by Amar. Inspector Sahoo, who is brought to Jindal by Jibran to give him important information about Vishal, tells him that Vishal is alive and will tell the entire truth to Amar and the Commissioner by the next morning. Then Jindal kidnaps the journalist, Roma, and kills the sub-editor Siddiqui, who tries to save her. Amar, Vishal and the Commissioner go to Jindal's home to arrest him, but they find the sub-editor, Siddiqui, murdered at his home. They discover that Jindal has kidnapped Roma in order to forcefully marry her. Amar and Vishal find Jindal's den with the help of Inspector Sahoo and corner him. After a melee, Jibran is killed. Jindal tries to kill Amar, but Vishal takes the bullet and is mortally wounded. Amar kills Jindal and avenges the death of his father before Vishal dies in Amar's lap. ===== The book begins with Cornelius hired by the mysterious Arthur Kobold, who claims to represent a publishing firm wishing to print a complete copy of The Book of Ultimate Truths, a set of great secrets discovered by Hugo Rune, but suppressed by unknown forces. Cornelius and his schoolfriend Tuppe set out to find the book. They encounter the evil Campbell, who is also seeking to retrieve the lost book, to allow him to return to the Forbidden Zones, areas of the world hidden from humanity (excepting London taxi drivers). The two heroes retrieve the book and return to the Murphy home in Brentford, only to find the Campbell is waiting there for them. It is revealed the Campbell is Cornelius' half-brother, and that their father is Hugo Rune. The Campbell escapes with the key to the Forbidden Zones, a re-invented ocarina. Cornelius and Tuppe pursue him to the nearest entrance to the Zones, but the Campbell's plans are foiled by the arrival of a large gathering of a cult devoted to Hugo Rune. The ocarina is destroyed, as is the Campbell. Arthur Kobold presents Cornelius with a large cheque as an advance against royalties from the publication of the book. The cheque is revealed to be a trick - Arthur Kobold was in fact working for the denizens of the Forbidden Zones all along. Seemingly foiled, Cornelius then realizes that the map of their journey forms a schematic for the creation of another re-invented ocarina, and along with a London A-Z map showing the locations of the entrances to the Forbidden Zones the heroes are left plotting their next adventure into the unknown. Category:Novels by Robert Rankin Category:1993 British novels Category:American fantasy novels Category:Novels set in London Category:Doubleday (publisher) books ===== A young promoter, Frankie Christopher (Victor Mature), is having dinner with two friends, ex-actor Robin Ray (Alan Mowbray) and gossip columnist Larry Evans (Allyn Joslyn), when he decides on a whim and a dare to turn their waitress, Vicky Lynn (Carole Landis), into a star. Vicki shares an apartment with her sister Jill (Betty Grable) who works as a secretary. After a whirlwind promotion Vicki begins a quick rise to fame and she secretly signs a contract with a producer in Hollywood. She only tells Frankie that she is leaving the day before her scheduled departure for Hollywood. But the next day her sister Jill comes home to find Vicki dead and Frankie standing over the body. Frankie Christopher is accused of the murder of Vicky Lynn and grilled by the police. An obsessive police officer, Ed Cornell (Laird Cregar), pushes Frankie hard and tells the captain that he knows that Frankie is the killer because he says that Frankie was angry that Vicki was leaving him after all that he had done for her. Frankie is released but Cornell keeps following him and threatening him. Frankie hides out with Jill's help and they both begin to fall in love. With Jill's help Frankie manages to find the real killer, Harry Williams (Elisha Cook, Jr.), a young man who worked in the sisters' apartment building. He convinces two police detectives that Cornell was trying to frame him for the murder. They go to Cornell's apartment where they find the walls plastered with posters of Vicki and Frankie realizes that Cornell was in love with Vicki and blamed him for taking her from him. ===== Eight survivors of a sunken German U-Boat, including their surly captain, have been picked up by a fishing boat and taken to Walmington-on-Sea. The Home Guard unit is to be responsible for providing security until the proper military escort can arrive. Captain Mainwaring refers to Adolf Hitler as a tinpot dictator resembling Charlie Chaplin, annoying the captain, who starts to make a list of names of who he will seek out for retribution once the war ends. Pike sings a song in which Hitler is called a "twerp"; the captain says that his name will also go on the list, and asks what it is. Mainwaring says "Don't tell him, Pike!". The platoon settle down to guard the prisoners overnight. The Verger and Warden Hodges enter the hall after a night out drinking to find the prisoners there waiting for them. Taking advantage of the distraction, the U-Boat Captain feigns illness and manages to steal Mainwaring's revolver, seizing Hodges as a hostage and threatening to kill him if Mainwaring does not release them. Mainwaring eventually agrees, confident that someone in the town will see them escaping. However, the Captain has anticipated this – the platoon will be forced to march the prisoners through town to the harbour so as to offset suspicion, and will then accompany the prisoners back to Germany to ensure that the Royal Navy do not intervene. Once they are back in Germany, his list will be closely examined. Cooperation will be further enforced by a grenade in Corporal Jones' waistband, which the Captain will activate at any hint of trouble. Wilson had earlier primed the platoon's grenades with dummy detonators, not trusting Private Pike to handle live ammunition. The U-Boat captain's plan is inadvertently ruined by Mainwaring's senior officer, the Colonel, who chances upon the marching platoon en route to meeting the escort and, seeing the string in Jones' waistband, immediately pulls it. In the resulting chaos, Wilson calmly asks the Colonel for a pistol, and uses it to recapture the German Captain, forcing him and his men up against the wall. Once everything has calmed down, and Mainwaring has realised that in disobeying his orders, Wilson has saved Jones' life, Jones requests if someone could ask Private Frazer to remove his hand from his trousers. ===== The play opens with the introduction of Beatrice, a woman who has traveled to Venice disguised as her dead brother in search of the man who killed him, Florindo, who is also her lover. Her brother forbade her to marry Florindo, and died defending his sister's honor. Beatrice disguises herself as Federigo (her dead brother) so that he can collect dowry money from Pantaloon (also spelled Pantalone), the father of Clarice, her brother's betrothed. She wants to use this money to help her lover escape, and to allow them to finally wed. But thinking that Beatrice's brother was dead, Clarice has fallen in love with another man, Silvio, and the two have become engaged. Interested in keeping up appearances, Pantalone tries to conceal the presence of Federigo and Silvio from one another. Beatrice's servant, the exceptionally quirky and comical Truffaldino, is the central figure of this play. He is always complaining of an empty stomach, and always trying to satisfy his hunger by eating everything and anything in sight. When the opportunity presents itself to be servant to another master (Florindo, as it happens) he sees the opportunity for an extra dinner. As Truffaldino runs around Venice trying to fill the orders of two masters, he is almost uncovered several times, especially because other characters repeatedly hand him letters, money, etc. and say simply "this is for your master" without specifying which one. To make matters worse, the stress causes him to develop a temporary stutter, which only arouses more problems and suspicion among his masters. To further complicate matters, Beatrice and Florindo are staying in the same hotel, and are searching for each other. In the end, with the help of Clarice and Smeraldina (Pantalone's feisty servant, who is smitten with Truffaldino), Beatrice and Florindo finally find each other, and with Beatrice exposed as a woman, Clarice is allowed to marry Silvio. The last matter up for discussion is whether Truffaldino and Smeraldina can get married, which at last exposes Truffaldino's having played both sides all along. However, as everyone has just decided to get married, Truffaldino is forgiven. Truffaldino asks Smeraldina to marry him. The most famous set-piece of the play is the scene in which the starving Truffaldino tries to serve a banquet to the entourages of both his masters without either group becoming aware of the other, while desperately trying to satisfy his own hunger at the same time. ===== After a robot actor on All My Circuits malfunctions, an open casting call is held for a replacement. Bender attends the audition and while the other actors are on, he boos them and chants his own praises through the door. Easily swayed, Calculon gives him the part. On the air, Bender sings, dances, drinks, smokes, and steals. His behavior boosts the show's ratings; kids, such as Dwight, Cubert, The Cookieville Orphans and Tinny Tim, begin to emulate his on-screen antics. Disgusted by this, Professor Farnsworth and Hermes start a protest group called "Fathers Against Rude Television" (FART). Dwight and Cubert are desperate to become cool after no one shows up to their joint birthday party, and find that drinking and smoking only make them sick, so they mimic Bender's thieving instead, stealing all of Bender's belongings and using them to throw a party at the Planet Express office. Hermes, Farnsworth, and Bender walk in on the party. Bender is indifferent until he realizes that the things they stole belonged to him. Annoyed that he inspired his own robbery, Bender leads F.A.R.T. in a crusade to get himself off TV. Invading the set, Bender is held at gunpoint by both F.A.R.T. and the network executives to quit the show and shoot the scene, respectively. Bender distracts the network president and Farnsworth and grabs their guns from them. Ordering the cameraman to film, he begins railing against irresponsible behavior on TV, but changes his mind midway through and segues into a speech on parental responsibility which Calculon agrees is good enough to broadcast. At Planet Express, Farnsworth realizes that sometimes you just need to turn off the TV for a while. However, after browsing through channels and finding nothing good on, they continue to watch when they stop on Everybody Loves Hypnotoad. ===== Surrender the Pink is a story about screenwriter Dinah Kaufman. Although Dinah is successful at her job, she is a failure in her relationships with men. She then meets someone she believes to be the man of her dreams, Rudy Gendler. Rudy is successful and sophisticated, and he asks her to marry him. She soon discovers, however, that he is not exactly what she believed him to be and their marriage is over. Dinah then realizes that she still loves Rudy and wants him back. ===== While attending the Earth 3004 Olympic Games with the crew to see Hermes compete in the limbo event, Bender feels he should compete as well. However, feeling emasculated by the large male Olympic bending robots, he decides to pose as a fembot in order to compete. Competing as Coilette, he easily beats the female competitors, winning five gold medals. However, the medalists are called in for gender testing prior to the awards ceremony. Desperate, Bender has Professor Farnsworth give him a sex change, turning him into an authentic fembot. Coilette is invited to go on a late night talk show. Also appearing on the show is robot actor Calculon, who falls for Coilette instantly. The two start dating, which Coilette confides to the crew she is doing for the fame and valuable gifts Calculon sends her. Calculon proposes to Coilette. She accepts, scheming to get half his money with a divorce settlement. However, moved by Calculon's deep professions of love, Coilette finds that though she does not want to be his wife, she also does not want to hurt him with a divorce, and even openly weeps while telling the crew this. Professor Farnsworth concludes that Coilette's new emotionalism is due to her new female hormones taking over. Leela offers to help Coilette out under the condition that she reverse her sex change. She reasons that though there is no way for Coilette to get out of her predicament without hurting Calculon, a soap opera parting will hurt him least. At the wedding, Coilette, Leela, Zoidberg and Fry stage an elaborate scene that fakes Coilette's death. As promised, Bender returns to his male persona, and claims to have not been changed at all by the experience. However, under his breath he bids Calculon an emotional goodbye. ===== Two dental students, David Cookson (Monkhouse) and Brian Dexter (Ronnie Stevens) become mixed up in the misadventures of a thief, Sam Field (played by Kenneth Connor), when he tries to sell them stolen dental equipment. ===== Alex (Rob Lowe) leaves a naked woman sleeping as he disappears into the city, throwing away a bag of things to cover his tracks. Michael (James Spader), a shy, socially awkward doormat, discovers important work materials missing. He knows that Patterson, his nemesis at work, has somehow hidden them but can't prove it, let alone bring himself to accuse the man. Frustrated, he hides in his office - only to be confronted by his fiancée Ruth (Marcia Cross), whose prattling about their upcoming wedding serves to create further anxiety for Michael. He goes to a bar at the beach and buys a drink for a woman who has lost her wallet. Her abusive boyfriend appears and assaults Michael. Suddenly, Alex appears, breaks a beer bottle and defends Michael, menacing the thug until he leaves. Michael turns to thank his benefactor, but the man has disappeared. At home, Michael’s older brother Pismo (Christian Clemenson) borrows money - a frequent occurrence he blames on being unable to get anywhere because of a drug conviction. Michael goes for a nighttime jog and sees the mysterious man from the bar on the pier. He introduces himself as Alex. They go out for drinks and Alex tells Michael he needs to get the best of Patterson. At work, he does just that and feels exhilarated. Over a short period of time Alex introduces Michael to a life of hedonism, aggression and anarchy. He shows Ruth a video of Michael having sex with Claire (Lisa Zane) to break up the engagement Michael told him he didn’t want, creates a distance between Michael and his brother and involves him in armed robbery and a drug fueled crime spree, ending with an assault on Patterson, though Michael is too drunk and drugged to know what he’s doing. Eventually, Michael comes to his senses when he learns at work about the assault. He confronts Alex, who tells him in detail about what happened; Michael tells him he’s finished with this toxic relationship. At work, Michael wins the promotion he’s been dreaming of because Patterson has withdrawn. Michael feels too guilty to enjoy his success. Alex takes it upon himself to convince Michael to reconsider his decision - one way or another. Michael returns to an emptied apartment and realizes Alex is behind it. When he finds him and Alex takes credit for the promotion, Michael tells him to keep the stuff and consider them even. Alex begins wreaking havoc on Michael’s life. He makes a video of himself killing Claire off-camera with Michael’s golf club and leaves her body in his apartment. Alex beats him up and leaves him. Michael is trapped, unable to go to the police. He enlists his brother’s help to get rid of the body in the La Brea Tar Pits. Michael’s secretary quits because she is upset by his changed personality. Claire's body is found by police and Michael finds a golf club in his office - a message from Alex. Michael enlists Pismo’s help again - this time to find Alex and eliminate the problem. Michael sets up Alex: he sends Pismo to the secret mobile nightclub to follow Alex. Pismo grabs a beer bottle with Alex’s DNA and a bag with the girl’s drivers license. Alex sees him and follows him out of the club. Alex attacks Pismo, but Michael saves him, and Pismo gives him a beach address he has found where he can find Alex. Michael has a gun, and is about to leave when Pismo notices that Alex has rigged the car to blow up. They fix it and Michael changes his mind. At the beach apartment, Alex has sex with two women in Michael’s bed. He prepares to disappear the way he did before. After he grabs a plastic bag with Michael’s bloody jacket, Michael appears and holds a knife to his throat. Alex admits he was going to plant it at Michael’s apartment. They struggle. Alex prepares to kill Michael, who escapes, running down the pier. Alex traps him at the end of the pier and Michael grabs a gun he has planted; it’s a trap for Alex. He preens and tells Michael his philosophy, admitting to killing Claire and beating up Patterson while Michael was unconscious - and Michael calls out to Pismo, who has recorded the entire confession. But Pismo stumbles, distracting Michael, and Alex lunges at him. Michael shoots in self-defense and Alex falls into the water. Pismo calls the police, who appear on the beach, and Michael walks out to meet them with the evidence. Alex’s body washes up on the shore as the brothers talk to the police. ===== Totò and Alfredo Bini on the set of The Hawks and the Sparrows Totò and his son Ninetto roam the neighbourhood and the countryside of Rome. During the walk they observe a body being removed from a house following a murder. They next encounter a talking crow, who is described in the intertitles thus: "For the benefit of those who were not paying attention or are in doubt, we remind you that the Crow is – as you say – a left-wing intellectual of the kind found living before Palmiro Togliatti's death"). The Crow subsequently recounts the tale of "Fra Ciccillo" and "Fra Ninetto" (still played by Totò and Ninetto), two Franciscan friars, who are bid by St. Francis to preach the Gospel to the hawks and the sparrows. After many months, they succeeded in preaching the commandment of love unto the species separately, but are not able to get them to love each other. The sparrow-hawks continue to kill and eat the sparrows, as it is in their nature. After the tale, the journey of Totò and Ninetto carries on, the Crow still accompanying them. They encounter other individuals: land-owners who order them out off their land when they are caught defecating; a family living in absolute poverty with no food and who Totò threatens to drive out of the house if the rent is not paid; a group of travelling actors (representing figures marginalised from society such as women, those that are gay, the elderly, racial minorities, and the disabled) and who persuade the pair to push the group's Cadillac car for them; and a rich man who is waiting for Totò to give him the money he owes him (in contrast to the earlier episode where Toto had demanded rent). After that, a brief extract of news footage of the funeral of Palmiro Togliatti, the long-time leader of the Italian Communist Party. Then, after having met a prostitute, they end up killing and eating the Crow, whom they found to be unconscionably boring. Pasolini declared that Uccellacci e uccellini was his favourite film, as it was the only one that did not disappoint his expectations. Ennio Morricone's opening theme music features Domenico Modugno singing the movie's credits. ===== After finding out that she is the princess of the Doll Kingdom, third grade student Licca Kayama is in terrible danger. Now, the evil Dr. Scarecrow is after both her and her royal throne, putting her life at risk. Licca's grandmother decides to give her a set of dolls as a gift. When needed, the dolls will transform into larger versions of themselves known as the Doll Knights. Together, they will protect Licca at all costs so she can continue living her normal everyday life. ===== The player steps into the shoes of an anonymous bounty hunter who rides into a busy town in order to track down and bring to justice four outlaws whose control over the territory is widespread: Handsome Harry, Nasty Dan, El Loco, and The Cactus Kid. The bounty hunter first fights against a group of bandits attacking a fort commanded by a United States Army general, Clinton Briggs. With each scenario, the bounty hunter fights his way to the final enemy, one of the four outlaws, each of whom can either be wounded and apprehended or shot dead. The ending sequence depends on the way in which the criminals were brought to justice. ===== It's December 21, and hour by hour Angel and his crew must survive the longest night of the year. ===== ===== Sergeant Eustis Clay (Steve McQueen) cannot wait to finish his peacetime service and move on to bigger, better things. He is a personal favorite of Master Sergeant Maxwell Slaughter (Jackie Gleason), a career soldier who is considerably brighter than Eustis, but enjoys his company and loyalty. Slaughter is a totally institutionalized lifer, wired into all the perks, back channels, and supply sources an army base can provide filtering through his near autonomous cabin hub. Eustis is involved in a number of schemes and scams, including one in which he will sell tickets to see an equally dim private named Meltzer (Tony Bill) run a three-minute mile. He inconveniences Slaughter more than once, including a traffic mishap that requires him being bailed out of jail. Determined to tempt Slaughter with the joys of civilian life before his hitch is up, Eustis fixes him up on a date with the much younger, not-too-bright Bobby Jo Pepperdine (Tuesday Weld). At first, Slaughter is offended, but gradually he sees another side of Bobby Jo, including a mutual fondness for crossword puzzles. Eustis and Slaughter golf together and begin to enjoy the good life. One night, Eustis is devastated to learn of the death of Donald, his dog. A pair of hated rivals use their status as military policemen to lure Eustis into a barroom brawl. He is beaten two- against-one and is nearly defeated when Slaughter angrily comes to his rescue. Together they win the fight, but the middle-aged, overweight Slaughter collapses from the effort. Hospitalized, Slaughter delights Eustis by suggesting that they leave the Army together and go live on a tropical isle, surrounded by blue seas and beautiful girls. Slaughter dies, however, and Eustis, a changed man, re-enlists in the Army. ===== Gameplay screenshot showcasing the first boss. One year after the events of Metal Slug 7, a special disc that contains deep and intricate secrets about the Metal Slug project is stolen by a mysterious group called the Ptolemaic Army, whose specialty lies from within archaeological excavation and espionage. Marco and Tarma of the Peregrine Falcon Strike Force follow in hot pursuit against the group and in the process are joined by Eri and Fio of SPARROWS. Together once more, the quartet investigate the shrouded objective of the Ptolemaic Army, who over time grows more powerful as they are joined by a mysterious masked man and his followers. At the end of the game, the Ptolemaic Army summons a giant demon as the final boss, which after a long battle is forced to leave Earth thanks to the heroes. ===== Margaret McGinty, a barmaid and former actress, is found hanged, and her lodger, Harold Taylor, caught at the scene, seems plainly guilty. Everyone believes it to be an open-and-shut case except for Miss Marple. She is the lone holdout in the jury that tries him, leading to a mistrial. Despite the disapproval of Inspector Craddock (Charles Tingwell), Miss Marple decides to delve into the case. She poses as a gatherer for a church jumble sale to enter and search Mrs McGinty's home. She finds a newspaper with words cut out and several programmes for a murder mystery play, Murder She Said, recently performed in the town. These clues lead her to suspect that Mrs McGinty was blackmailing a member of the repertory company, the Cosgood Players. Miss Marple auditions for the Cosgood Players under their actor/manager Driffold Cosgood (Ron Moody). Cosgood is unimpressed by her acting ability, but as she mentions that she has independent means, he hopes for a financier and allows her to join the company without being paid. Miss Marple knows that she is on the right track when one of the actors, George Rowton (Maurice Good), is poisoned moments later. She secures accommodation in the boarding house in which the cast is staying to further her investigation. Someone leaves a copy of Cosgood's play Remember September in her bedroom for her to read. With the help of Mr Stringer, Mrs Marple investigates the staging history of that play and also Mrs McGinty's past connection to the company. An attempt to silence Miss Marple claims the life of another actress. Expecting another attempt during a theatre performance, Miss Marple manages to unmask the killer. Cosgood appeals to her to finance Remember September, but she refuses: "Mr Cosgood, whatever else I am, I am definitely no angel." ===== Set in a remote mountain village in Ming China, the 14th century AD., the story is largely seen through the eyes of Gu, a well-meaning but unambitious scholar and painter, with a tendency towards being clumsy and ineffectual. A stranger arrives in town wanting his portrait painted by Gu, but his real objective is to bring a female fugitive back to the city for execution on behalf of the East Chamber guards. The fugitive, Yang, is befriended by Gu, and together they plot against the corrupt Eunuch Wei who wants to eradicate all trace of her family after her father attempts to warn the Emperor of the eunuch's corruption. His daughter fled, and Abbot Hui intervened to protect them. The stranger, Yang and her friends are all superior warriors. The stranger has a special flexible sword that bends and that he can wear within his belt, making him seem unarmed. One of the unique aspects of the film is that Gu is a non-combatant all the way through the film and only becomes involved when he sleeps with Yang. Upon doing so, he is no longer the naïve bumbling innocent, but instead becomes confident and assertive, and when Yang's plight is revealed, he insists on being part of it – and even comes up with a fiendish "Ghost Trap" for the East Chamber guards. This is a plan to use a supposedly haunted site to play tricks on the guards to make them believe they are prey to the undead. He first spreads rumors of ghosts, with his mother playing a part. The film then briefly uses split-screen with six separate views to show the spread of these rumors. In the aftermath, Gu walks through the carnage laughing at the ingenuity of his plan until the true cost of human life dawns upon him. He sees Abbot Hui and his followers arrive to help bury the dead. After the battle, Gu is unable to find Yang, who he is told has left him and does not want him to follow her. He tracks her down at the monastery of the saintly and powerful Abbot Hui Yuan, where she has given birth to a child by Gu and become a nun. She tells Gu that their destiny together has ended and gives Gu their child. Later, when Gu and the child are tracked down by Hsu Hsien-Chen, the evil commander of Eunuch Wei's army, Yang and Abbot Hui come to Gu's rescue. In the ensuing battle, Hsu is killed and Yang and Abbot Hui are badly injured (the latter bleeding golden blood). The film famously ends with the injured Yang staggering toward a silhouetted figure, presumably Abbot Hui, seen meditating with the setting sun forming a halo around his head, an image suggesting the Buddha and enlightenment. ===== The Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard unit has received exciting news; as Captain Mainwaring puts it, the long dark tunnel is now illuminated by a bright light shining for all to see. He is not, as Pike initially believes, referring to the blackout, but to the arrival of the Americans in World War II (and not before time, according to certain members of the platoon). A detachment of American troops will be arriving in Walmington-on-Sea within the week, and the Home Guard intend to treat them to a traditional British welcome. It is Lance Corporal Jones who has the brilliant idea (arrived at following a characteristically long-winded anecdote about a spear-throwing contest during his military service in the Sudan) of treating their visitors to a darts match in the local pub, to which the platoon will bring their girlfriends. All initially goes well with the meeting of two nations. Mainwaring is surprised by the informality of the American Colonel Schultz (who greets the British officer with a cheery "Howdy partner, put it there!"), and the colonel is somewhat nonplussed both by Frazer's unique rendition of the Robert Burns poem "Scots Wha Hae" (with strategic updating and references to Hitler) and Jones' complicated explanation of where the term 'limeys' originated, but all seems to be going well, with a number of pleasing propaganda photos taken. It starts to go wrong when the American soldiers are told to make themselves feel at home – and thus immediately start flirting with the Home Guard's girlfriends, who all promptly forget about their boyfriends when faced with the attention of the handsome young Americans. Matters are not helped by the ungracious American response to warm beer and the lack of Scotch due to war privations, and when Warden Hodges struts in and begins telling the Americans that their late entry into the First and Second World Wars is not greatly appreciated, it does not take long for a fight to break out. The next day, Mainwaring (having earned a black eye as the first person to get hit in the fight) is ordered by his superiors to make a formal apology to the Americans, and thus restore Anglo-American relations and offset any potential German propaganda value out of the fight. Resentful at being made the scapegoat, he intends to make a formal statement detailing how his platoon were not responsible for the violence; but as every member of the platoon (even, surprisingly, Godfrey) was a more than willing participant in the fight, it soon becomes a moot gesture. Mainwaring is surprised, however, by the arrival of Colonel Schultz, who, having learned of the extent of British hardship during the war, and somewhat ashamed of his earlier ingratitude, has arrived to offer his apologies on behalf of his unit, and to give the men a gift of chocolate. This would seem to be repairing the friendly relations – until the Home Guard learn of a dance in the American mess to which their girlfriends are all invited. It does not take long for Jones to provoke the American colonel to violence once again, or for Mainwaring to receive yet another black eye. ===== Following a standard exercise on the stealthy approach to an enemy soldier, Captain Mainwaring calls Sergeant Wilson into his office. He has received an alarming letter from Pte. Godfrey, informing the captain of Godfrey's intent to resign from the unit at the earliest possible convenience. Given Godfrey's vital role in the platoon (as the soldier who makes the tea), Mainwaring is unwilling to let Godfrey go, and demands an explanation. Godfrey thus tells him that his decision emerges from a recent incident in which he found a mouse in his kitchen, but found himself unwilling and incapable of killing it; and if he can't kill a mouse, how can he be expected to kill a German? During the telling of the story, Godfrey reveals that in the previous war, he was a conscientious objector who refused to fight. Mainwaring, appalled and disgusted, orders Godfrey to get out of his sight; whilst Wilson is tolerant and understanding of Godfrey's need to follow his conscience, Mainwaring is sickened at the thought of a man not wanting to fight and, assuming Godfrey to be a coward, determines to shame and humiliate him in front of the troops. With characteristic pompousness, he convenes a parade of the remainder of the platoon in which to inform them of Godfrey's apparent cowardice, but his thunder is stolen by the unimpressed ARP Warden Hodges, who wants to discuss an upcoming ARP/Home Guard drill. Once the platoon learns of Godfrey's past, he is ostracised by the other men. Many - including Jones - are undecided about their response to Godfrey's decision, and some, including Pike and Walker, do not especially care. However, Frazer is characteristically vocal in his condemnation of Godfrey's cowardice, and has no hesitation in expressing his disgust to the other man's face. It is decided that Godfrey will remain in the unit until a replacement can be found. The ARP/Home Guard training drill arrives, during which Warden Hodges will teach the men how to retrieve unconscious bodies (represented by sacks of straw) from burning buildings filled with smoke. Naturally, Mainwaring is unimpressed by the volume of smoke in the building and fills the boiler with burning rags, thus filling the building with far more smoke than safely required. He also informs Godfrey that he has no intention of letting the other man use his "conchie tricks" to get out of this exercise (not that Godfrey had any intention of trying to get out of it), and intends to follow Godfrey through the hut to make sure that he completes the exercise. The remainder of the unit having passed through the hut, Godfrey makes it through, being the second-to-last member to conduct the exercise. He waits outside the huts exit for Mainwaring - who doesn't come out, despite taking longer to conduct the exercise than expected. Without hesitation, Godfrey re-enters the smoke-filled hut in order to retrieve Mainwaring who fainted due to smoke inhalation. Later, Godfrey recuperates from the training exercise in bed, having also experienced smoke inhalation, and is visited by the entire platoon, having overcome their earlier feelings for him in concern for his health. As Mainwaring attempts to express uncomfortable gratitude to Godfrey for saving his life, he notices a photo of a younger Godfrey, in military uniform, wearing the Military Medal. Godfrey's sister Cissy explains that, whilst refusing to fight in the First World War, Godfrey instead joined the Royal Army Medical Corps as a stretcher bearer, and was responsible, during the Battle of the Somme, for a tremendous act of heroism in rescuing several wounded soldiers from no man's land under heavy fire (which, with characteristic modesty, he downplays, and he refuses to wear his medal on the grounds that it feels ostentatious). Embarrassed at their earlier treatment of him as a coward (although Frazer, typically, insists that he knew it would be the case all along), the platoon apologise, and at Wilson's suggestion, Mainwaring has no hesitation in declaring Godfrey the platoon's medical orderly, having learnt that heroism is not a matter of appearance. ===== Taylor (Alyson Michalka) and Courtney Callum (Amanda Michalka) are two thoroughly spoiled yet well- intentioned sisters whose widower father, Reed Callum (Jack Coleman), owns Callum Dairy. The girls mother died prior to the events of the movie. Their house keeper Corrine helps take care of the girls now. Taylor has just gotten her license, after almost failing the test at the beginning of the movie. They leave the house to depart for a shopping trip, but leave a towel on the stove, starting a house fire. Shocked by their carelessness and over spending, and deciding the girls should start making their own cash, Reed puts them to work at the dairy to teach them responsibility. He goes out of town, looking for a rare butterfly to add to his collection. This leaves the girls to look after the dairy. When the girls start working at the dairy, it quickly becomes their worst nightmare. They mess up almost every step of the way, such as dropping Courtney's cell phone into one of the full yogurt cups, and then tripping and splashing blueberries on themselves. All the employees think they are stuck-up and don't believe that they can do their job. Soon after they start working there and doing their jobs better, someone steals all the money out of the businesses' bank account. It is then up to the girls to come up with a plan to save the dairy, and the jobs of those who are working, but no one believes in them. Taylor has changed her nature and asks Courtney if she can use her party money to pay for the employees' paychecks, or else they will leave Callum Dairy. Taylor and Courtney are at a meeting with the other employees when Taylor tricks Courtney into leaving to get her cell phone, she says that she will get the money, but still no one believes her. Without consulting Courtney, Taylor uses her party money for the employees, thus causing a very big fight between the two of them. Taylor and Courtney finally enjoy their work in the factory and earn the employees' belief and respect. However, Courtney ignores Taylor in every possible way. They have a fight at work when Courtney is putting in the numbers for the expiration dates. Even though they have the money to pay the employees' paychecks, Courtney's mistake threatens their business because the milk, believed to be expired, is sent back. Their employers realize this will take them all night and that they will miss the deadline, but Reed comes along with volunteers, mostly town folks (including the wealthy ones who attended Courtney and her friends' debutante) who are impressed with the sisters' efforts to save the beloved dairy company. They manage to pull through the evening and the employees and town folks celebrate. It is revealed that his business partner and best friend Bob Fenwick is the thief, but he gets away with the money. After checking his finances, Reed determines that the dairy will survive, but that money will be tight for some time. The girls happily volunteer to work with him even when he gives them the day off to help out. In an alternate ending, Courtney finds a way to track Reed's friend who stole the money. The girls show their father a footage of the embezzler playing in a casino in Puerto Rico, and Reed alerts the FBI to catch him. Despite getting their money back, the sisters continue working in the dairy in the hopes of one day succeeding their father. ===== In 1843, roguish gambler Paul Regret (Whitman) flees to avoid a death penalty after a duel with Emil Bouvier (Gregg Palmer), the son of a Louisiana judge. Regret claimed that he would have only wounded Bouvier if he had not sidestepped. He is captured by Texas Ranger Captain Jake Cutter (Wayne) after a tryst with a mysterious lady, Pilar Graile (Ina Balin). Regret manages to escape but is recaptured after a chance encounter with Cutter in a saloon. Returning Regret to Louisiana, Cutter is forced to join forces with the condemned man to fight the "Comancheros", a large criminal gang headed by a former officer who smuggles guns and whiskey to the Comanche Indians, to make money and keep the frontier in a state of violence. Cutter stops at a ranch owned by a friend when the Comanche attack suddenly. During the attack, Regret jumps on a horse and flees but instead of making a clean getaway, he returns with a unit of Texas Rangers and the attack is repulsed. Because of Regret's act of valor, a company of Rangers and a judge lie themselves blue in the face, stating that Regret had been working undercover as a Ranger to spy out the Comancheros' supply line, clear his name, and swear him in as a Texas Ranger. After finding one of the Comancheros' suppliers and killing him in self defense, Cutter and Regret take over his delivery wagon and infiltrate the self-sufficient Comanchero community at the bottom of a valley in the desert. Pilar reappears as the daughter of the ruthless Comanchero leader Graile (Nehemiah Persoff), who uses a wheelchair. After Cutter and the other Texas Rangers defeat the Comanches and Comancheros, Regret and Pilar leave together for Mexico and Jake rides off into the sunset to rejoin the Ranger company. ===== Set in the year 2012, a series of seemingly unrelated events take place, which during the course of the story all become interconnected. In Antarctica, an oil drilling venture is taking place by fictitious oil company Rola Corp. It is an unstable time in the region because the US and China are at loggerheads over mineral and oil rights, and the geopolitical landscape is dicey. The drill ship does not strike oil, but does discover a very hard form of diamond which turns out to be Carbon 60. Not only that, but the samples they retrieve have hieroglyphic writing on them. Meanwhile, the US military has been monitoring unusually high solar flare activity and are worried about its effect on their fleet of satellites. While observing Chinese military maneuvers in Antarctica, the spy satellite picks up a highly unusual energy signal emanating from two miles beneath Antarctica's ice sheet. When the US military and Rola Corp. pool their resources it is discovered that not only is the diamond-type material reactive to the sun, but the time of the energy pulses under the ice in Antarctica, match the timing of flare activity from the Sun. A team of scientists are assembled to unravel the mystery. From Richard Scott, a linguistic Anthropologist, to Jon Hackett a Complexity Physicist. The team soon discover that the same energy signature from Antarctica is being detected by satellites from ancient monuments all over the Earth. From the Amazon jungle to Egypt and China. Inspired by stories of the ancient flood of Noah, Scott embarks on the mammoth task of deciphering the mysterious language found on the material, and comparing what it has to say with the ancient myths and legends of floods from all around the world. The myths all have similar themes. They talk about the Sun, the destructive power coming from the sky, a flood, and a mythical lost city, known more famously as Atlantis. More than that, the myths talk of the cyclical nature of this destruction and point to an event that happened 12,000 years ago that may well be happening all over again. The story climaxes with the discovery of Atlantis under the ice in Antarctica and the team's expedition to reach it and find any crumb of help that may save the Earth from the impending disaster that the Sun is about to unleash as it reaches the maximum in its cycle. ===== In 1901, after finding gold while panning in Nome, Alaska, on their claim, brothers George and Billy Pratt and partner Sam McCord have become rich. Sam plans to travel to Seattle, to purchase mining equipment; George also asks Sam to bring back his fiancée, Jenny Lamont, a French girl whom George has never met but has corresponded with for three years. Sam is disgusted by marriage, which he considers tantamount to slavery, and cannot understand why George would willingly seek matrimony, but he reluctantly agrees. Frankie Cannon, a recently arrived conman, runs into Sam in town and attempts to swindle him out of some of his money before he leaves. After arriving in Seattle and finding that George's girl has already married another man, Sam brings back prostitute "Angel" as a substitute, giving her the gifts originally intended for Jenny. However, Angel misunderstands Sam's intentions, believing that Sam's offer is for her to be with Sam; during a reunion picnic of Sam's old logging friends the following day, Angel becomes enamored of Sam, who treats her like a respectable lady. On the boat trip, Angel learns of the misunderstanding. Sam intends for her to return to Seattle, but she disembarks at Nome, and plans to stay at the hotel until the return boat arrives. Since Sam has been gone, Frankie has become the owner of the hotel, having won it from the previous owner in a game of cards. It is revealed that Frankie and Angel know each other from their past lives, and that Angel was formerly Frankie's girl. Refusing to stay in the hotel and become Frankie's girl again, Angel stages a fake fight, storms out of the hotel, and travels with Sam to the homestead where he and the Pratts live. Upon arriving at the homestead, Sam immediately leaves to join George at a neighbor's claim, where claim jumpers are attempting to drive off the claim holders. After fighting off the claim jumpers, Sam notifies George that Jenny is married, and tells him about Angel. Meanwhile, 17-year-old Billy has become infatuated with Angel back at the homestead, and attempts to impress her by acting as if he is more worldly than he is. Upon his return to the claim, George rejects Angel outright, while Sam throws Billy into the river to sober up after a night of drinking. After spending some talking to Angel, George takes a liking to her and is willing to marry her. But once he realizes that she has fallen for his partner, and that Sam has been acting strangely because he is also in love with Angel, George spends the night in the "honeymoon cabin" pretending that he and Angel are madly in love in order to incite Sam's jealousy to the point that he will admit his love; instead, Sam gets increasingly frustrated and, as morning arrives, finally decides he's going to leave. Meanwhile, Frankie enacts a scam to swindle the claim away from Sam and the Pratts. Soldiers arrive at the claim, interrupting Sam's preparations to leave, and announce to Sam and the Pratts that someone else has filed a claim to their land; until the dispute can be resolved, all work must halt and Sam and the Pratts cannot take any of the gold they have thus far acquired. When Sam resists, he is arrested and taken to town; George, Billy, and Angel all follow. In town, Sam discovers that Frankie has conned an illiterate drunk to fraudulently file a claim for their discovery. An all-out brawl in the town's muddy streets brings it all to an end, and Frankie's duplicity is uncovered to the authorities. The boat for Seattle has come early, and Angel decides to leave; however, she is convinced to stay once Sam yells out publicly that he loves her. ===== On a snowy December night, a state execution transfer vehicle crosses into the quiet backwater town of Snowmonton. Inside is serial killer Jack Frost (Scott MacDonald), who eluded police for years and left a trail of thirty-eight bodies across eleven states before finally being arrested by Sam Tiler (Christopher Allport), the sheriff of Snowmonton. Jack is scheduled to be executed at midnight, but Jack kills the guard and the vehicle crashes into a genetic research truck. Jack is exposed to chemicals from inside the truck, causing him to dissolve and fuse with the snow. Despite news reports of Jack's demise, Sam cannot forget Jack's threats of vengeance. Old Man Harper is found murdered, and soon afterwards a local bully named Billy (Nathan Hague) is killed when he is pushed into the way of an oncoming sled, getting decapitated. According to Tiler’s son, Ryan (Zack Eginton) a snowman caused Billy's death. Billy's parents Jake (Jack Lindine) and Sally (Kelly Jean Peters) are then later murdered by the same snowman. FBI Agents Manners (Stephen Mendel) and Stone arrive in Snowmonton and convince the Sheriff to put the town on 24-hour curfew, sending his officers out to gather all the townspeople. Deputy Chris Pullman (Brian Leckner) is killed when the snowman runs the officer over with a police cruiser. Billy's older sister Jill (Shannon Elizabeth) and her boyfriend sneak into the sheriff's home to steal his wine and have sex, as revenge for her family’s death. The snowman kills Jill's boyfriend and pretends to be bath water to lure in Jill, solidifying around her and proceeding to rape and physically assault her, resulting in her death. The snowman returns with the police cruiser to the station, finally confronting Sam. Agent Stone reveals himself to be a representative of the genetic research company that created the chemicals and reveals that the snowman is a mutated Jack Frost. He also reveals that the human soul exists as a chemical and that the acid was going to be used to contain DNA in case of a nuclear holocaust. They attempt to destroy Jack by blowing him up by releasing aerosol cans in the police station and firing a bullet at him, but to no avail. They then use blowdryers to drive Jack into a furnace, which evaporates the snowman. Jack condenses, killing Stone and wounding Manners. Jack traps Tiler and Ryan within his car, but Tiler escapes by inadvertently throwing the oatmeal Ryan made him at Jack, burning the snowman's head. Ryan put antifreeze in the oatmeal, believing it could help keep his father from getting cold. Sheriff Tiler tells his friend, Paul Davrow (F. William Parker) to fill the bed of his truck with antifreeze. Jack chases Sam through the halls of a church and finally catches him, driving an icicle into his chest and almost killing him. The truck full of antifreeze arrives just in time, however, and Jack and Sam crash through a window and into the truck's bed. Jack Frost melts in the antifreeze, and the antifreeze is poured back into the containers, and buried deep under the ground of Snowmonton. Tiler's wife Anne (Eileen Seeley), realizes that the state police are on their way. When Paul asks Tiler what they are going to tell them, Tiler says, "we'll tell them that it's too late". However, one of the containers is shown to be bubbling, revealing Jack is still alive. ===== ===== Set mostly during one long day and night, Lovers, Liars & Lunatics follows a dysfunctional suburban Los Angeles family. Paddy Rayne (Vic Polizos) is the manager of a local retail store who is having an affair with his secretary Gloria (Mia Cottet). Paddy wants to leave his neurotic, highly contemptuous wife Elaine (Christine Estabrook) to live with his mistress. Unfortunately Gloria just wants Paddy's money. He hides the money at home. Gloria calls on her two "associates", Gloria's younger brother Louis (Michael Muhney), and his dim-witted girlfriend Justine (Amber Benson), to rob the Raynes when the house is empty that night. Elaine figures out the affair and steals Paddy's money from the kitchen cupboard spice bottles. She plans to leave him in the morning. Both cancel their getaway plans to Bakersfield. Later that night, Louis and Justine arrive at the house to rob it, only to be surprised by finding Paddy and Elaine still there, forcing the inept burglars to tie them up. But soon, Louis and Justine realize they cannot leave, for their getaway car is missing (Justine had accidentally left the drive gear on), plus Paddy's other car is gone (their son Gunner had taken it for his date with Sally). Soon, the couple is bickering at each other. Louis demands to know where they keep their money. Soon, Julian, the couple's other son, walks in and he too is soon tied up. When Gunner and a drunken Sally return from their late-night date, they are also caught at gunpoint and tied up by the increasingly desperate Louis and Justine. Paddy, in the seclusion of a nearby bathroom, tells Louis that he will give him his wealth totaling $140,000 if he kills his wife so he can be free of her constant nagging, while Elaine later tells Louis that she will give him $15,000 of the store's retail profits if he kills Paddy's mistress, Gloria. But Elaine doesn't know that it was Gloria whom hired Louis to rob their house in the first place. As the night drags on, the events lead to Gloria's arrival, wanting to know what is taking so long with the robbery, as well as the arrival of two persistent, but equally inept, policemen whom threaten to blow everything out of proportions. Justine literally shoots herself in the foot with the gun, forcing her to untie Elaine to tend to her wound. At the same time, Gloria has wild sex with Paddy in the bathroom to get to him to talk where he is keeping his money, which leads to him dying from a sudden heart attack. (Earlier that evening, Elaine had switched his heart medication with Viagra.) Gloria then learns from Louis about a $140,000 cashier's check and takes it from him. In another argument, Gloria accidentally shoots Justine, leading to chaos as Elaine takes advantage of it to untie everybody. Louis attacks Gloria, while Gunner intervenes, in which he slips and fatally hits his head against the kitchen counter. Elaine grabs a baseball bat and bludgeons Louis to death with it. While Julian flees, Sally runs outside to chase after the departing police, only to get accidentally run over by the cop car. The two policemen return to the scene, where they catch and arrest Gloria as she's leaving the house. Investigating, the two policemen find all the dead people with Elaine apparently the only one alive. But in an off-the-wall, final joke, it's strongly hinted that Elaine could get blamed for all the deaths because of her erratic personality, having been driven over the edge of sanity from this ordeal, with the final shot of her babbling to the two cops about her husband having an affair, and then she rants about not having the best TV sound speakers. ===== The action takes place mainly on board an old wooden-walled battleship, HMS Battledore, which has been purchased by a Trust for the rehabilitation of young criminals, and intended by the founder to put backbone into young jellyfish. Shortly after joining the board of management of the Trust, Miss Marple (Margaret Rutherford) witnesses the sudden death of a fellow trustee, who has just returned from a surprise visit to the ship, much disturbed by something he has discovered there. He dies without being able to reveal his discovery. Miss Marple manages to obtain a small sample of his snuff, which is found to have been poisoned. Resolving to learn what the murdered trustee had discovered, she visits the ship, while her dear friend and confidante, Mr. Jim Stringer (played by Margaret Rutherford's real-life husband Stringer Davis), investigates on shore. The Captain (Lionel Jeffries) takes an immediate dislike to her, and makes a sarcastic comment to his mate about her outdated formal naval attire, asking "Who does she think she is, Neptune's mother?" His distress intensifies when she announces her intention to remain on board several days, and to sleep in the Captain's own quarters, obliging him to move into his second-in-command`s cabin. That night, one of the officers is murdered – run through with a sword and then hanged from a mast. As the police investigation proceeds, the assistant matron is killed, apparently by an injection of poison. The investigation interferes with the ship's traditional celebration of Trafalgar Day. Somewhat unreasonably, the Captain blames Miss Marple for this. He begs Chief Inspector Craddock (Charles 'Bud' Tingwell) to find a way to get her off the ship, saying: "She's a jinx! She's a Jonah! She's blowing an ill wind!" Miss Marple sets a trap: she announces to the crew that she knows that the poison was administered using a mousetrap as a booby- trap. She hints that she intends to reveal the murderer's identity shortly. She persuades Chief Inspector Craddock to allow the crew to go ashore for their Trafalgar Day celebration while she remains on board the deserted ship, with Chief Inspector Craddock and his assistant, Sgt. Bacon (Terence Edmond) secretly hiding in wait for the murderer to attempt to silence her. Sure enough, the Executive Officer ("No.1" in Naval parlance, yet meaning 2 i/c), Commander Breeze-Connington (William Mervyn), appears, and informs her that he has embezzled a large sum of money which he feels is owed to him because he was unjustly passed over for promotion, and that he committed the three preceding murders to avoid being exposed, and that he intends to kill her on the spot. Miss Marple calls out to Inspector Craddock to make the arrest, but he and Sgt. Bacon have accidentally been locked in their hiding place, and cannot help. Breeze-Connington draws his sword, intending to run Miss Marple through, but Miss Marple is herself an accomplished amateur fencer. She and Breeze-Connington engage in a ferocious sword-fight. Breeze-Connington succeeds in disarming her. He is about to administer the coup de grace, but Mr. Stringer, who, worried about her safety, had secretly rowed out to the ship in the dark, clubs him over the head from behind with a marlin spike. The Captain faces a court martial for failing to prevent the embezzlement which occurred under his command. As he enters the state-room to hear the verdict, he sees his sword on the table with the hilt toward him, and mistakenly infers that he has been found guilty. Miss Marple corrects him; the board has found that he was not at fault. Although greatly relieved to have avoided disgrace, he announces that he must resign even so, because he has been having a long affair with the ship's Matron (Joan Benham). This is a violation of the golden rule of the trust that there should be "no hanky-panky between the sexes" on board ship, and they now intend to get married, which would disqualify him for his position as Captain. He makes his farewell and turns to go, but Miss Marple stops him, saying, "I think I speak for my fellow trustees when I say that golden rule is hereby rescinded. You're a fine sea dog captain, but it seems to me the Battledore could do with a woman's hand at the helm." He and Matron embrace joyfully. As Miss Marple steps into the dinghy to leave the ship, Matron and the Captain wave good-bye from the deck. The Captain turns to Matron and remarks, "You know, the moment I clapped eyes on her, I said to myself, 'What an old darling'!" Matron, remembering his actual first reaction, raises her eyebrows archly. ===== Tom Logan (Robert Redford) is an Assistant District Attorney in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. He is slated as the next District Attorney. Laura Kelly (Debra Winger), an attorney representing performance artist, Chelsea Deardon (Daryl Hannah), seeks out Logan to discuss her client's case. Chelsea is accused of attempting to steal a painting from millionaire Robert Forrester (John McMartin). Chelsea claims that the painting was a gift from her artist father, Sebastian Deardon (James Hurdle), eighteen years earlier for her 8th birthday. That same day her father and most of his paintings were lost in a mysterious fire. At a formal dinner to publicly launch Logan's candidacy as the next District Attorney, Kelly unexpectedly arrives with Chelsea and holds an impromptu press conference as a means to coerce Logan's cooperation. Soon after, Forrester drops all charges against Chelsea after swapping the Deardon painting for a Picasso with art gallery curator Victor Taft (Terence Stamp). Both Taft and Forrester were Sebastian Deardon's associates and do not want Chelsea prosecuted. Taft later shows Logan and Kelly the swapped Deardon painting, which does not have an inscription to Chelsea written on the back as she claims. Shortly after, police detective Cavanaugh (Brian Dennehy), who investigated the Deardon fire, provides Kelly with proof that the supposedly lost paintings still exist and says that Chelsea's father was murdered. Late one night, Chelsea arrives at Logan's apartment claiming a man has been following her. She insists that the painting Taft showed Logan and Kelly was not the one that belongs to her. Logan escorts Chelsea home. As he leaves her building, someone shoots at him then runs off. Logan and Kelly later follow Taft to his warehouse and sneak in. They find evidence of an insurance fraud scheme between partners Taft, Forrester, and a third man, Joseph Brock. Taft locks them inside the warehouse, then makes a quick getaway. The two barely escape unharmed as the building explodes, apparently triggered by Taft to destroy evidence. A distraught Chelsea arrives at Logan's apartment, revealing she went to Taft's residence and threatened him at gunpoint for information. She claims Taft took the gun away and hit her. Chelsea spends the night with Logan. The next morning, police burst into the bedroom and arrest Chelsea for Taft's murder. The resulting scandal ends Logan's D.A. career, and he reluctantly teams up with Kelly. During her murder trial, Chelsea experiences a flashback memory and openly accuses Forrester of being involved in her father's death. When an assassin attempts to run down Logan and Kelly, the man is fatally hit by a taxi. Logan retrieves the assassin's wallet and finds Forrester's business card. Logan and Kelly discover Forrester's dead body and find Chelsea hiding at the scene, though she proclaims her innocence. Logan goes to the police department to find Cavanaugh while Kelly and Chelsea head to Taft's gallery where his memorial service is in progress. Detective Cavanaugh is actually Joe Brock, Taft and Forrester's former business partner they framed for the fraud scheme, resulting in Brock being sentenced to prison. At the Taft Gallery, Brock forces Kelly and Chelsea to break open a large hollow sculpture where Sebastian Deardon's missing canvases, now estimated to be worth $20 million, are hidden. Brock takes the canvases, then sets the gallery on fire to escape during the evacuation. Logan arrives and struggles with Brock, who falls to his death. Logan finds Kelly and Chelsea, grabs the paintings, and the three exit the burning gallery. Outside, Chelsea tearfully reveals the "To Chelsea" inscription on the back of her father's painting. After all charges against Chelsea are dropped, Logan's former boss, exploiting Logan's publicity, offers him his old job. Logan chooses to continue working with Kelly, with whom he is now romantically involved. ===== Living in Manhattan, Tom (Zach Braff) is a cook who has difficulty keeping a steady job. His wife, Sofia (Amanda Peet), is an attorney. When their first child is born, they agree that she will be a full-time mom and he will work hard to get a promotion. When Tom gets fired after defending his friend Paco (Yul Vazquez), he takes a job in Ohio working at the ad agency where his father-in-law is the assistant director. Tom is assigned to report to Chip (Jason Bateman). Chip is a strict and hard-working paraplegic man who is coincidentally Sofia's ex-boyfriend from high school. Chip still carries an obsession with her, so he conspires to make Tom's work life miserable. As Tom's frustrations mount, Chip begins to sway Sofia to his side. Tom begins to suspect that Chip isn't handicapped at all and goes through his desk. He finds a photo of Chip playing tennis and rushes to his in-laws' house to see his wife and show her the picture. He finds Chip having dinner with Sofia and her parents and holding Tom's child. Tom mercilessly tries to prove that Chip isn't actually paralyzed by dragging him up a flight of stairs and then throws him, expecting him to stand up to prevent falling. Chip doesn't stand up (the photo actually being Chip's late twin brother) and Tom is humiliated in front of his family. Later, he confronts Chip outside his house and attacks him, where Chip reveals that he really can walk, but can't fight outside of his chair. After sitting back down, Chip beats him severely and reveals that he plans to sleep with Sofia, much to Tom's already-increased rage. It's revealed that Paco had called Chip under the guise of being an ad agency boss in Barcelona, telling Chip that he got a job and convincing him to fly to Spain. Excited by the news, Chip goes to Sofia and asks her to come with him. However, Tom accosts them both and convinces her not to go with Chip. Chip, angry that Sofia chose Tom over him, heartlessly mocks Tom and reveals he "faked his orgasm" to Sofia before getting out of his chair and walking out. While chastising them from outside, Chip is hit by a bus and ends up paralyzed from the waist down, crippling him for real. Tom and Sofia have moved out of Ohio and Sofia's dad is helping Tom start his own ad business. Tom and Sofia are shown to have switched positions, Tom becoming a stay-at- home dad while Sofia becomes a full-time worker. During the credits Chip is shown being tossed out of the ad company in Spain, and later on Tom's friend sees Chip in the middle of the running of the bulls on TV. ===== The film opens by following a moody goth named Reese, who befriends three other outcasts like him: Zack, a rich nerd; Ashley, Zack's sister; and Phoebe, a flower child. They go to a forest and find a glowing rock. They gain powers from just stepping into its presence, and they use these powers to intimidate and humiliate people who have made fun of them over the years. *Zack gains telepathy. *Phoebe gains telekinesis/psychokinesis. *Ashley gains speech- induced psychic suggestion. *Reese gains the ability to heal or hurt others/himself using his mind. However, her power goes to Ashley's head; and she begins to take over the school, using mind control. She attacks her brother Zack and tries to kill Phoebe and Reese. They force her to heal Zack, but she forces Phoebe to levitate off the building and drop to the ground. Reese (because of his ability to heal or hurt) takes his own hearing away, when Ashley tries to control him; and he breaks the piece of the rock she had around her neck. He heals Phoebe; but, when they return to destroy the glowing rock, it has disappeared. Ashley is committed to a mental institution; but a former teacher brings her more of the glowing rock. The movie ends with her eyes turning blue, indicating that her powers have returned. ===== The film opens just as construction has been completed on a railway connecting a mountainous regions of eastern Bosnia and western Serbia in 1992. Luka, a Serbian engineer, has moved to Bosnia from Belgrade with his mentally unstable wife, Jadranka, and his football-playing son, Miloš, to run a railway station and act as caretaker. Luka is at work preparing the opening of the railway while Miloš attempts to become a professional footballer with the Partizan team. Utterly engrossed in his work and blinded by natural optimism, Luka remains deaf to the increasingly persistent rumblings of war, which has broken out in Croatia and threatens to spread. When the conflict explodes, Miloš is denied his place on the football field when he is enlisted into the Serbian army, and Jadranka disappears on the arm of a Hungarian musician. Eventually, Luka receives news that Miloš has been taken prisoner of war. Luka considers suicide, but a profiteering acquaintance presents him with Sabaha, a Bosnian Muslim whom he has taken hostage. Luka intends to exchange Sabaha for Miloš, but the two fall in love after they are forced to flee deeper into Serb- controlled territory. When a UN-enforced prisoner exchange is finally arranged, Luka and Sabaha try to escape to Serbia at an attempt to cross the Drina river, but Sabaha is wounded by a Bosnian sniper after squatting to urinate behind a tree. Army nurses narrowly manage to save Sabaha's life, and she is exchanged for Miloš, along with other prisoners. Jadranka also returns, and the family is reunited in their old home, but Luka is lovesick. He lies down in front of a train, but when the train stops to avoid running over a mule, it is revealed that Sabaha is on board, and the two ride away on the mule. ===== In the arcade version, two nameless brothers are on a mission to rescue their family from an entity known as King Crimson. In the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive version, the main character is Johnny Ford who's a member of an operative group who shuts down drug cartels in South America. After completing his last mission, Johnny returned home only to find it in shambles, and he sees a note in which King Crimson kidnapped his entire family. The reason for the abduction is that Johnny's father, Malcolm Ford, was developing a serum which could help people break their addictions to all narcotics. Since the government is unable to help Johnny, he sets off on his own to rescue his family and destroy King Crimson's empire of evil for good. ===== The protagonist of the game is Torin, the son of a farming family on the planet of Strata. An evil sorceress named Lycentia (voiced by Christine McMerdo Wallis) captures his family with a magic spell and he embarks on a quest to find her and free his parents. Torin travels to the "lands below" to worlds beneath the surface of the nested planet, through colossal crystal columns called phenocrysts. These phenocrysts transfer life-giving sunlight—and people—to the lower worlds with erresdy powder. He is aided by a purple dog-like creature called Boogle, who is able to change himself into a variety of shapes. As Torin travels downward, scenes of both his and Lycentia's pasts reveal their true relation as well as Torin learning about his true identity and the true cause for his journey. ===== Asylum is set in Britain in the early 1960s. It tells the story of Stella Raphael (Natasha Richardson), the bored and unfulfilled wife of Max (Hugh Bonneville), a psychiatrist working at a remote mental asylum. Stella starts a passionate affair with Edgar (Marton Csokas), one of the patients. Edgar is particularly dangerous, having gruesomely murdered his wife in a jealous rage. Not deterred by Edgar's violent past, Stella is beguiled by Edgar's passion and the affair intensifies. Although Max suspects nothing, Dr. Peter Cleave (Sir Ian McKellan) correctly guesses that the two are seeing each other. Cleave, who is fixated on Stella himself, attempts to get Edgar to admit to the affair—to no avail. Edgar, who has been denied release, can take it no longer and breaks out of the asylum. Stella attempts to continue life without her lover, playing mother to her son, Charlie, and wife to Max. Around Christmas time, she receives a call from a friend of Edgar who arranges a rendezvous in London. The affair resumes with Stella using shopping trips as a pretext for her trips to the city. Edgar soon tires of the subterfuge—as well as sharing Stella's sexual attentions with Max—and demands that she choose to stay with him permanently or not return for another visit. Shortly thereafter, Cleave confronts her, telling her that he knows that she has been going to London to see Edgar. After unsuccessfully attempting to bully Stella into revealing his whereabouts, Cleave reminds her that Max can have her committed to the hospital. Stella then runs away to join Edgar, and they begin a loose, somewhat bohemian life together, remaining out of the public eye for fear of the police. Soon, the lust of the relationship begins to wear off and Stella begins to see a darker side to Edgar's personality. He becomes obsessed with his work, to Stella's chagrin. He also starts to become aggressive and violent towards her, intensifying her fear of him. After shopping one day, Stella returns to the pair's squalid studio flat to be found by police and taken back to her husband and son. Her husband struggles to forgive her but accepts that their son needs a mother figure. Edgar observes Stella's capture from the shadows and flees. Max, who has lost his position at the hospital, accepts a new job and moves the family to Wales. Stella struggles to settle back into "normal" life with her family, trying especially hard to make amends with her son. Edgar tracks her down and a brief meeting with him results in his capture. This sends Stella further into her depressed and distracted state. On a school outing with Charlie some weeks later, Stella takes her son away from the class teacher and other children and they go into the woods together. Stella perches on a rock while Charlie searches for fish in the river. He suddenly loses his footing, falling into the river and begins to drown. Not noticing, Stella remains in a trance, not moving to help him. The class teacher arrives and attempts to help him, but Charlie is already dead. Stella is anguished over this and following this trauma, her husband and Dr. Cleave decide that she needs to be institutionalised. She is taken to the same asylum where she met Edgar. Unknown to Stella, Edgar is still held there. With the help of constant medication and care, Stella gets 'better', though she never fully recovers. She accepts Dr. Cleave's offer of a stable relationship, much to his delight, after he informs her that Max wants a divorce. At the annual ball, where male and female patients are permitted to socialise, Stella is anxious to share a dance with Edgar and desperately looks forward to seeing him. Unknown to her, Dr. Cleave prohibits Edgar from attending the ball, gloating that he and Stella are to be married. Dr. Cleave later informs Stella that Edgar will not be attending. As a nurse escorts patients back to their rooms, Stella sneaks off up a stairway leading to the roof. Before anyone notices that she has gone missing, Stella jumps off of the roof tower to the courtyard below, but she does not die immediately. Dr. Cleave rushes to her aid, but she rejects his help saying "Leave me alone." He steps away from her, and she dies from her injuries a moment later. in the final scene, Max visits the cemetery where Stella has been buried next to their son. He places a bouquet on Charlie's grave, removes one flower, and places it on the grave of his wife. ===== A police officer fails in capturing a drug dealer in Los Angeles, so his boss Hugh Janus transfers him to Hawaii for disciplinary reasons. On the island some former female students are just gathering in a luxury hotel. The young ladies once belonged to the sorority "Omeaga Kappa Omega" and are now invited to an erotic photo shoot which is organised by Derek Simmons, the editor of the Cavalier Magazine. Shortly after their arrival, Terri Walker, one of the former students, is strangled in the pool while her friend William Culp is absent for some minutes. Detective Newman begins to investigate the murder together with his new colleague Julie Seska and the coroner Ferguson. Next to Terri's corpse they find a document which resembles a final examination certificate and has the imprint "Failed" on it. William tells them to observe Derek Simmons very closely. In the following night, the next student dies. Amanda Calvin is lured outside to the pool by a phone call and falls victim to the unknown murderer. Later the cops find William in the hotel room of the student Megan Davidson, who also belongs to the group. They just had sex and now they are questioned. The cops get to know the background of the series of murders. Five years ago, Rachel Kincaid committed suicide by falling from a bridge in her car. At that time she was the favourite for the election of the sorority's speaker, but she was mobbed by her competitor Kristen Neal, who is also present in Hawaii now. After Newman and Seska have clarified these connections, William wants to inform them about something. But before Newman meets him, the young man is killed by the murderer and can only indicate that there is some problem with Rachel. Newman again gets in contact with his colleague Rita in Los Angeles, who had already provided him with the file about Rachel, and asks for Simmons. Rita gets to know that the editor of the magazine is actually called James Derek Kincaid and that he is Rachel's brother. He has gathered the students in the hotel to take revenge for his sister's death. Megan and Kristen, who are the only surviving people among the invited students, meet at the hotel room. It is the fifth anniversary of Rachel's suicide. Kristen suspects Megan and threatens her with a pistol. Suddenly the lights go out and she forces Megan to go into the hallway where she runs across the murderer. Kristen is able to expel the killer, but accidentally shoots at Seska. Newman just arrives in time to stop the killer who really proves to be Simmons alias Kincaid. With the help of a photo, the detective realises that the case is not yet complete. As he has been intimate with the photographer Tayler Cameron before he recognizes her necklace. She is a sister of Rachel and Derek. Now she overwhelms Kristen and threatens to strangle her. When Newman intervenes, she escapes to a rock over the pool. She stabs a knife in her body and falls down into the water. The cop just wants to announce the next corpse, but she attacks him. Newman shoots Taylor in self-defense. At the same time his colleagues in Los Angeles arrest professor Andrews, who was not only Rachel's study adviser, but also impregnated his student before she died. When they arrive at the police station, the cop Sam reveals to be another brother of Rachel. He shoots the professor. ===== The "mega prom" was introduced to Racine almost 50 years ago by the city's Rotary Club after an alcohol-related car accident. As a result, the Rotary decided to sponsor a post-prom party for the city's high schools as a safe alternative for prom-goers. The film focuses on the prom-obsessed residents of Racine, and in particular, two very different girls and one boy (Tonya, Dori, and Ben) who are followed in the days and nights leading up to their prom night. Racine is a racially mixed population. The film portrays the long history of its one-of- a-kind prom. Some of the students are going to college after graduation; others are headed to the military. The film gives an inside look at everything from the students' selection of gowns to dinner. The celebration begins with a rowdy parade where students are shown riding fire engines, 18-wheelers, and even elephants through the city streets. Prom-goers from seven city high schools converge on one citywide prom to make red carpet entrances. As the credits roll, we are given an update almost five years later about some of the people featured in the film. Several have not achieved their high school goals. Others have lost contact with their high school sweethearts. One heartfelt scene shows a couple going off to war. ===== Weighted down by chain, the body of gangland boss Harvey Preston is dragged out of the English Channel in a fisherman's net. British Intelligence suspects a connection with a minor cross-channel smuggling ring, and sends dogged undercover agent Paul Chavasse to find answers. Chavasse soon discovers that this is no small-time operation; it reaches throughout the world and leads to the doors of some very ruthless and powerful men. Men who aren't about to let Chavasse interfere with the delivery of their precious cargo... ===== In 1910 London, Kate Croy (Helena Bonham Carter) lives under the careful watch of her domineering Aunt Maude (Charlotte Rampling). The wealthy Maude has taken the penniless Kate in as her ward, intending to marry her to a rich man and save her from the fate which befell her recently deceased mother when she married Kate's own dissolute father, Lionel (Michael Gambon). Lord Mark (Alex Jennings), a sophisticated aristocrat with a large estate, begins to court Kate with Maude's approval. However, Kate is secretly in love with a young muckraking journalist named Merton Densher (Linus Roache), whom her aunt has forbidden her from pursuing a relationship with because of his humble circumstances. Nonetheless, she has continued to meet with Merton in secret, though he is growing increasingly impatient for her to leave her aunt and marry him. Aunt Maude confronts Kate about her continuing association with Merton and threatens to withdraw her financial support from Kate and her father. Kate reluctantly breaks with Merton and refuses to meet with him anymore. A few months later, at a dinner party given by her aunt, Kate is introduced to the wealthy American orphan and heiress Milly Theale (Allison Elliot), who is on an extended trip through Europe with her travelling companion Susan Stringham (Elizabeth McGovern). The cynical Kate is captivated by Milly's beauty, vivaciousness and humour, and the two form a strong friendship. Kate and Merton reconcile and resume their secret meetings; one day they run into Milly, and Kate introduces Merton as a family friend. Soon after, Milly invites Kate to accompany her and Susan to Venice. Before leaving, Lord Mark secretly reveals to Kate that Milly is terminally ill and that although he desires Kate he needs to marry Milly and her fortune to avoid losing his estates. Aware that Milly is indifferent to Lord Mark but is smitten with Merton, Kate invites Merton to Venice and persuades him to show Milly affection in an effort to seduce her. Kate expects that the orphaned and lonely Milly will leave him her fortune after her death. During Kate's, Milly's, and Merton's excursions through Venice, Kate gradually becomes jealous of Milly's attraction to Merton, so much so that she lures him away one night to have sex. Milly confronts her the next morning, though Kate denies that Merton is her lover. She realises that, if her scheme is to succeed, she must leave Venice without warning Merton. On their own in Venice, Merton's affection for Milly grows and the two form a strong bond, even as her condition worsens. One day Merton spots Lord Mark at a cafe; alarmed, he goes to visit Milly but is denied entry. Susan visits him and Merton realises that Kate has revealed their secret to Lord Mark to sabotage the whole scheme, knowing that Mark would tell Milly as revenge for her rejecting him. Nonetheless, Milly agrees to see Merton and the two share an intimate moment where she forgives him and says that she still loves both him and Kate, despite their actions. A few days later, Milly dies and Merton and Susan attend her funeral. After Merton returns to London, Kate comes to Merton's flat. She asks why he has not come to see her in the weeks he has been back and finds a letter from Milly's lawyers, informing Merton that Milly did indeed bequeath a sizable portion of her estate to him. Merton tells Kate that he will not take the money, and she must marry him without it if they are to be together. They make love and afterwards Kate agrees, with the condition he tells her that he is not still in love with his memory of Milly. He cannot, and Kate leaves him for good, knowing that her conniving has backfired. Merton returns alone to Venice, while in the background we hear Milly's voice repeating her confident assertion that Merton will be coming into his own, and sooner than he thinks. ===== The story is set deep in the Andhra Pradesh countryside, in the West Godavari. Swarnalata (Shabana Azmi) is a classically trained Carnatic singer who lost her son and best friend, Vaishnavi ( Ranjani Ramakrishnan ) in a bus accident. The story reopens after a period of 20 years, when Vaishnavi's son, Abhinay (Prakash Kovelamudi)plans to leave his business of composing jingles with a desire to start a music troupe to compose an everlasting music just like the Charminar, and with these plans returns to his home in his village. His plan irks his father Nassar who wants him to look after the ancestral lands in the village. On the day of Death Anniversary of Vaishnavi, Abhinay spots Swarnalatha, and hears her song "Pibare Ramarasam" in the temple. When Swarnalatha leaves the temple, Abhinay stops her, saying, "you knew my mother" and follows her. The duo reach the bridge when a car comes and hits Abhinay, and the car was being driven by Pinky (Perizaad Zorabian). Swarnalatha screams and reaches her home, with the 20 years old guilt in her mind that her one step on the bridge caused the accident. Here, the Car gets some glitch and Pinky is compelled to stay for the night in the village. Next morning both Abhinay and Pinky set for Hyderabad to seek the perfect artists for the proposed troop, and they get a guitarist and a drummer Balaji Shaleen Sharma. All land up at Pinky's boutique whose environment irritates Abhinay but somehow Pinky consoles him and the practices start, with a few opportunities coming up their way, but their rock-band does not receive the respect as Abhinay had expected. After a few days Abhinay receives the violin his mother used to play when she was alive. He returns to the village to return the violin to Swarnalatha, saying that both her voice and the sound of the violin are complementary to each other and one cannot exist without one another, and invites her to sing with their troop, for which she refuses saying that she won't come to the village and returns the violin. Swarnalatha's husband asks him to bring his troop to the house on Ganesh Chaturthi day. The troop arrives on the said date and Swarnalatha starts singing "Mahaganapathi Manasa Smarami", but stops in between and sings the sophisticated sargam of the song, for which no compatible music could be played. That evening Abhinay again compels Swarnalatha to sing in the city, but she again refuses, and Abhinay ends the communication with the note that She owes him a lot as he is her best friend's son, after all. Next morning Abhinay's father expresses his dislike in his son's musical career in front of Swarnalatha, and at the same time Swarnalatha agrees to sing for Abhinay in the city. She starts from her house with her husband. On the way their car breaks down and they are forced to take the bus, which crosses the bridge. Swarnalatha starts screaming, stops the bus and starts running and falls ill. Both return to home and her husband reports that she cannot come for singing. Next day Swarnalatha personally calls pinky and asks her to learn Carnatic Music. Pinky learns carnatic music from Swarnalatha. After a few days Abhinay plans a concert, though for Pinky to sing but always urges Swarnalatha to come for singing, but she continues to express her reluctance because she considers the bridge as a punishment for her ambitions. One day, while driving, Pinky gets irked at the repetitive reluctance of Swarnalatha, and speeds up the car and crosses the bridge, and Swarna starts screaming, "Stop the car! We all are going to die". Finally Pinky stops the car and reveals that her father was drunk and was responsible for the accident. The film ends with the concert in which Swarnalatha appears and sings "Thaaye Yashoda" on repeated urging from Pinky, and the concert becomes a 10-week hit. A side plot involving Pinky and her city slicker mother (Lillete Dubey) and the villager Appa Rao(Dharmavarapu Subramanyam) with his buffalo Annapoorna add comedy into an otherwise serious and thoughtful film. The film was photographed by Rajiv Menon and edited by A. Sreekar Prasad. Music was composed by Mani Sharma. ===== The novel's protagonist is Victor Jenner, sent to prison for shooting and crippling a police officer after an attempted rape. At his trial and afterwards he claims that his actions were unintentional and somehow provoked by his victim. But there may have been other reasons for his attack of which even he was unaware. Ten years later, Jenner is released from prison and has to find himself a new life, with the reduced resources produced by ten years' incarceration and the handicap of a significant criminal record. He discovers that it is all too easy to slip back into the old one. ===== Melquiades Estrada, a Mexican undocumented worker working in Texas as a cowboy, shoots at a coyote which is menacing his small flock of goats. A nearby United States Border Patrol officer, Norton, thinks he is being attacked and shoots back, killing Melquiades. Norton quickly buries Melquiades and does not report anything. Melquiades' body is found and is reburied in a local cemetery by the sheriff's office. Evidence that he may have been killed by Border Patrol is ignored by the local sheriff, Belmont, who would prefer to avoid trouble with the Border Patrol. Pete Perkins, a rancher and Melquiades' best friend, finds out from a waitress, Rachel, that the killer was Norton. Perkins kidnaps Norton after tying up his wife, Lou Ann, and forces him to dig up Melquiades' body. Perkins had promised Melquiades that he would bury him in his home town of Jiménez, if he died in Texas. Perkins undertakes a journey on horseback into Mexico with the body tied to a mule and his captive Norton in tow. It is clear to Sheriff Belmont that Perkins has kidnapped Norton, and so police officers and the Border Patrol begin to search for them. Belmont sees them heading towards the Mexico border, but as he takes aim at Perkins, he can't bring himself to shoot and returns to town, leaving the pursuit to Border Patrol. On their way across the harsh countryside, the pair experience a series of surrealistic encounters. They spend an afternoon with an elderly blind American, who listens to Mexican radio for company. The man asks to be shot since there is no one left to take care of him. He does not want to commit suicide because, he argues, doing so would offend God. Perkins refuses as it would offend God. Norton attempts to escape and is bitten by a rattlesnake and eventually discovered by a group of illegal immigrants crossing into Texas. Perkins gives one of them a horse as barter payment for guiding them across the river to an herbal healer. She turns out to be a woman whose nose Norton had broken when he recently punched her in the face during an arrest. At Perkins's request, she saves Norton's life before exacting her revenge by breaking Norton's nose with a coffee pot. The captivity, the tiring journey, and the rotting corpse slowly take a profound psychological toll on Norton. At one point the duo encounter a group of Mexican cowboys watching American soap operas on a television hooked up to their pickup truck. The program is the same episode that was airing when Norton had sex with his wife in their trailer earlier in the movie. Norton is visibly shaken and is given half a bottle of liquor by one of the cowboys. Norton's wife is shown as she decides to leave the border town to return to her home town of Cincinnati. She has grown distant from her husband and seems unconcerned about his kidnapping, stating that he is "beyond redemption". Perkins and Norton arrive at a town that is supposed to be near Jiménez, but no one in the town has heard of Jiménez. Perkins has some luck in locating a woman Melquiades indicated was his wife but, when Perkins confronts her, she states that she has never heard of Melquiades Estrada and lives in town with her husband and children. She does visibly react to a photograph Perkins shows her of Melquiades standing behind her and her children, stating that she does "...not want to get in trouble with her husband". Perkins continues onward searching for Melquiades' descriptions of a place "filled with beauty". Eventually they come upon a ruined house which Perkins feels was the one Melquiades had mentioned. Perkins and Norton repair the walls, construct a new roof and bury Melquiades for the third and final time. Perkins then demands that Norton beg forgiveness for the killing, but Norton responds with obstinacy. Perkins fires several shots from his pistol around Norton until he complies, asking for forgiveness from Melquiades. Perkins accepts his hysterical grief and in passing calls him "son". Leaving Norton the second horse, Perkins rides away as Norton calls out and asks him if he will be okay. ===== In the process of burying a beloved dog in the animal cemetery of Wyvis Hall, a beautiful Suffolk country house, the owner unearths the skeletons of a dead woman and baby. The horrific discovery challenges the buried memories and guilt of a small group of young people who, 10 years earlier, spent the broiling Summer of 1976 in a self-indulgently irresponsible idyll at Wyvis Hall, unexpectedly inherited by one of their number. Slowly the facts emerge and the past catches up with them. But which woman is dead? And whose child? ===== When art dealer Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz) travels from Chicago to North Carolina to pursue a local, self-taught painter (Frank Hoyt Taylor) for her outsider art gallery, she takes the opportunity to meet and stay with the family of her new husband George (Alessandro Nivola), who live close by. There is his mother Peg (Celia Weston); his reserved, contemplative father Eugene (Scott Wilson); and his sullen, resentful, twenty-ish brother Johnny (Ben McKenzie) who, although married, lives at home. He is studying for his high school equivalency certificate while working at Replacements, Ltd. as an order processor. Johnny married his now pregnant wife Ashley (Amy Adams) before either of them finished high school. Relations between Johnny and Ashley are strained, with Ashley believing that a baby will solve their marital problems. Madeleine and George stay in the expected baby's nursery, and Madeleine becomes friends with Ashley, who is very sweet and friendly, if somewhat naive and talkative. The family takes Madeleine to a church social, where George is asked to sing a hymn. Madeleine is not used to intense religious displays but makes no comment. She attends Ashley's baby shower and gives her sister-in-law an antique silver spoon, which stands out from the other gifts. Madeleine discovers that she does not know much about George, as they have been married only six months and knew each other only a week before they got married. The artist Madeleine is pursuing wavers over signing with her gallery. Ashley goes into labor, and the family goes to the hospital with her. Madeleine chooses to go and convince the artist to sign with her gallery, which briefly makes George angry. Madeleine calls George to rave about the artist (she is impressed with his work, but shocked by his anti-semitism) without asking about the baby. George interrupts her and informs her that Ashley's baby boy is stillborn, which causes Madeleine to double over with guilt. The artist and his sister drive Madeleine back to her in-laws' home, and she later sits with Eugene on the back porch and cries. Meanwhile, George supports Ashley at the hospital, who expresses that George is always there when Ashley needs him. George kisses Ashley on the forehead and leaves. George comes home and has a wordless encounter in the garage with his brother, Johnny, who throws a tool at him, injuring his forehead. George does nothing in response. The next day, George and Madeleine prepare to leave. Johnny calls Ashley and suggests that they "try again," to which Ashley excitedly squeals. As George and Madeleine drive onto the highway and pick up speed, George remarks, "I'm so glad we're out of there" as Madeleine caresses George's neck with her left hand. ===== The Sirian Empire, centred in the Sirius star system, has advanced technology that made their citizens effectively immortal (barring accidents) and sophisticated machines that did almost everything for them. But this technology came at a price: many Sirians became afflicted with "the existentials", a debilitating malady that left them feeling worthless and with no reason to exist. To overcome this problem and give its people "something to do", Sirius embarked on a conquest of space and colonised many planets. But they also encroached on territory of the superior Canopean Empire that led to a costly war, which Canopus won. As a gesture of reconciliation, Canopus returned all the captured Sirian territory and invited Sirius to jointly colonise a new and promising planet called Rohanda (an allegorical Earth). Canopus took the northern continents and gave Sirius the southern continents. Ambien II, one of the Five who run the Sirian Colonial Service and also govern the Sirian Empire, represents Sirius on Rohanda. She sets in motion a series of bio-sociological and genetic experiments where large numbers of primitive indigenous people from Sirian colonised planets are space-lifted to Rohanda and adapted there for work elsewhere in the Empire. In the north, Canopus nurtures Rohanda's bourgeoning humanoids and accelerates their evolution. They also put a Lock on the planet that links it to the harmony and strength of the Canopean Empire. Canopus keeps Ambien II updated with reports of all their work, but she is suspicious of Sirius's former enemy, seeing them as a competitor rather than a partner, and is unable to correctly interpret them. Then an unforeseen "cosmic re-alignment" breaks the Lock and Shammat of the malicious Puttiora Empire begins exploiting the situation by corrupting Rohanda's Natives. Canopus, seeing Rohanda decline, renames the planet Shikasta (the stricken). Sirius, unconcerned about Canopus's troubles in the north, continue to refer to the planet as Rohanda. In an attempt to foster better relations with Sirius, Klorathy, a senior Canopean Colonial administrator, invites Ambien II to observe events in their territory. Ambien II, eager to learn more about Canopus, agrees. As Rohanda evolves and civilisations come and go, Ambien II and Klorathy meet several times to watch Rohanda's degeneration. Canopus does what it can to help communities, but with Shammat's evil and a broken Lock, they make little progress. From time to time Klorathy requests Ambien II's help and while working on the planet, she meets Nasar, another Canopean official. She also encounters Tafta, the Shammat commander on Rohanda, and at one point nearly succumbs to his corruption. Ambien II eventually abandons the Sirian Experiments in the south when they are overrun by Shammat. The Five want her to abandon Rohanda altogether, but she has become too attached to the planet and is warming to Canopus and seeing the error of her (and Sirius's) ways. The Five question her ties to their former enemy, but when she tries to explain herself, they do not hear what she is saying, just as she initially could not hear what Canopus was saying. The Five then send her to Planet 13 on "corrective exile" to write a report on what has happened (this book). When she later releases the report, the Five issues a statement denying the authenticity of Ambien II's work. ===== The story opens when the Providers, the invisible and unidentified rulers of all the Zones, order Al•Ith, queen of the peaceful paradise of Zone Three, to marry Ben Ata, king of the militarised and repressive Zone Four. Al•Ith is repulsed by the idea of consorting with a barbarian, and Ben Ata does not want a righteous queen disturbing his military campaigns. Nevertheless, Al•Ith descends to Zone Four and they reluctantly marry. Ben Ata is not used to the company of women he cannot control, and Al•Ith has difficulty relating to this ill-bred man, but in time they grow accustomed to each other and gain new insights into each other's Zones. Al•Ith is appalled that all of Zone Four's wealth goes into its huge armies, leaving the rest of its population poor and underdeveloped; Ben Ata is astounded that Zone Three has no army at all. The marriage bears a son, Arusi, future heir to the two Zones. Some of the women of Zone Four, led by Dabeeb, step in to help Al•Ith. Suppressed and downtrodden, these women relish being in the presence of the queen of Zone Three. But soon after the birth of Arusi, the Providers order Al•Ith to return to Zone Three without her son, and Ben Ata to marry Vahshi, queen of the primitive Zone Five. Al•Ith and Ben Ata have grown fond of each other, and are devastated by this news. Back in Zone Three, Al•Ith finds that her people have forgotten her, and her sister, Murti• has taken over as queen. Disturbed by the changes she sees in Al•Ith, Murti• exiles her to the frontier of Zone Two. Al•Ith, drawn by its allure, tries to enter Zone Two, but finds an unworldly and inhospitable place and is told by invisible people that it is not her time yet. At the frontier of Zone Five, Ben Ata reluctantly marries Vahshi, a tribal leader of a band of nomads who terrorise the inhabitants of her zone. But Ben Ata's marriage to Al•Ith has changed him, and he disbands most of his armies in Zone Four, sending the soldiers home to rebuild their towns and villages and uplift their communities. He also slowly wins over Vahshi's confidence and persuades her to stop plundering Zone Five. When Arusi is old enough to travel, Dabeeb and her band of women decide to take him to Zone Three to see Al•Ith. This cross- border excursion is not ordered by the Providers, and Ben Ata has grave misgivings about their decision. In Zone Three the women are shocked to find the deposed Al•Ith working in a stable near Zone Two. While Al•Ith is pleased to see her son, she too has misgivings about Dabeeb's action. The bumptious women's travels through Zone Three evoke feelings of xenophobia in the locals. After five years of silence, the Providers instruct Ben Ata to go and see Al•Ith in Zone Three. At the border, he is surprised to find a band of youths armed with crude makeshift weapons blocking his way. Clearly they want no more incursions from Zone Four. Ben Ata returns with a large army and enters Zone Three unchallenged. He is not well received, but finds Al•Ith with a small band of followers who have moved to the frontier of Zone Two to be close to her. Ben Ata and Al•Ith reunite; he tells her of the reforms he has introduced in Zone Four and his taming of the "wild one" from Zone Five. One day Al•Ith enters Zone Two and does not return. But the changes set in motion by the two marriages are now evident everywhere. The frontiers between Zones Three, Four and Five are open, and people and knowledge are flowing between them. Previously stagnant, the three Zones are now filled with enquiry, inspiration and renewal. ===== ===== Planet 8 is a small world that was colonised by the benevolent galactic empire Canopus and populated with a new species created from the stock of four different species originating on several other Canopean planets. Planet 8 has a warm temperate climate and, under Canopus's skilled guidance, the inhabitants live comfortably and at peace with themselves and their world. One day Canopus instructs them to build a huge wall, to exact Canopean specifications, right around the girth of the planet. The construction takes the inhabitants years to complete, and when it is finished, Canopus tells the planet's representatives, leaders of each of the planet's main disciplines, to relocate all settlements north of the wall to the south. Canopus informs everyone that unfortunate interstellar "re-alignments" have taken place and that Planet 8 will soon experience an ice age. After a while temperatures start to drop and the climate begins to change. Glaciers form in the north and slowly advance towards the wall. Canopus, however, assures Planet 8 that Canopus has a new home for them, a peaceful and prosperous world called Rohanda (the subject of the first book in this series, Shikasta), and that when it has reached a certain level of development, Canopus will space-lift the inhabitants of Planet 8 to Rohanda. This fills the people of Planet 8 with hope as they are forced to adapt their lifestyles to cope with this new and unfamiliar climate. By the time the glaciers reach the wall, much of the vegetation in the south has been destroyed by snow and ice and conditions grow worse. Conflict breaks out amongst the erstwhile peaceful villagers as food becomes scarce. But the wall holds the glaciers back and the people still remain resolute in their faith that Canopus will rescue them. Then Canopean agent Johor (first introduced in Shikasta) arrives on Planet 8 with the devastating news that disaster has struck Rohanda: it has been renamed Shikasta (the stricken) and is no longer available for re-settlement. But Johor does not leave Planet 8. He remains to endure the hardships with the villagers and does what he can to help them face their inevitable demise. In time, when the population is now faced with starvation, the wall, which was only a temporary barrier, gives way and the glaciers start over-running settlements in the south. The senior representatives, at a loss as to what to do, head north over the wall and onto the glacier. Johor travels with them as they try to reach the pole, but they soon all succumb to cold and hunger. Their physical bodies perish, but their "beings" rise and merge into a single consciousness that becomes the Representative for Planet 8 and all its memories. After watching Planet 8 freeze over completely, the Representative departs for a place "where Canopus tends and guards and instructs." ===== Clifford Peache lives in an upscale Chicago luxury hotel with his father, the hotel manager, and his grandmother. He is a new student at Lake View High School, where he arrives each day in a hotel limousine. Clifford quickly becomes a target of abuse from a bully, Melvin Moody, and his gang, who regularly extort money from students, allegedly to protect them from another student, Ricky Linderman. According to school legend, Linderman has killed several people, including his own little brother. Not believing the stories, Clifford consults a teacher who claims that the only violence she's aware of from Ricky's past occurred when his nine-year-old brother died accidentally while playing alone with a gun. Ricky was the first to find the body. Despite the rumors, Clifford approaches Ricky and asks him to be his bodyguard. Ricky refuses, but the boys become friends after Ricky saves Clifford from a beating by Moody and his gang. Ricky has emotional issues over the death of his brother, and although he's slow to trust Clifford, Ricky shows him a cherished motorcycle that he has been rebuilding. The friendship between the two boys is strengthened as Clifford successfully helps Ricky search junkyards for a hard-to-find cylinder for the motorcycle's engine. Through Clifford's friendship, Ricky comes out of his shell, proving to a few classmates that he's not the killer the school rumors allege. As Clifford, Ricky, and a few other friends from school eat lunch in Lincoln Park, Moody and his gang approach. Moody has enlisted an older bodybuilder named Mike to be his bodyguard. Mike intimidates and physically abuses Ricky, who refuses to fight. Mike vandalizes Ricky's motorcycle before Moody pushes it into the lagoon. Ricky runs away, ashamed and angry. He later appears at Clifford's hotel, asking for money before leaving again. Clifford follows him and the two argue before Ricky finally reveals that it was he who accidentally shot his brother while playing with their father's gun, and lied about finding his brother's body after the fact. As a result, Ricky is overwhelmed with guilt and remorse, leaving Clifford behind as he takes a subway train into the night. Moody and Mike return to the park to continue bullying the other children. Ricky is also there retrieving his motorcycle from the lagoon. Moody notices, demanding the motorcycle, which Ricky silently refuses. Moody summons Mike, and after more intimidation from the bodybuilder, Ricky and Mike engage in a long fistfight, which Ricky ultimately wins. Moody and Clifford have split off into their own fistfight, after Moody tried to unfairly intervene in the fight between Ricky and Mike. Ricky urges Clifford to fight Moody while Ricky coaches him. Clifford initially fights incompetently, taunted by the overconfident bully, but finally lands several solid punches, the last of which knocks Moody down, breaking his nose. Moody sits on the ground, bleeding and whining, showing himself to be a coward. Ricky retrieves his motorcycle and jokingly asks Clifford to be his bodyguard as the two leave with their friends. ===== The Volyen Empire is a relatively weak interstellar empire situated at the edge of our galaxy. It comprises the planet Volyen, its two moons, Volyenadna and Volyendesta (also referred to as planets), and two neighbouring planets, Maken and Slovin. Intelligent life evolved independently on each of these five "planets", and over time unstable empires formed, where each planet for a period ruled the others. The Volyen Empire is the last of these empires and rules the region with force and repression. Although this system is at the edge of the Canopean Empire's sphere of influence, Canopus sends agents to the region because Volyen's colonisation of Maken and Slovin provoked the Sirian Empire who had earmarked these planets for "possible expansion". In addition, Shammat, Canopus's enemy, had established a presence in the region. Disillusioned and oppressed, the citizens of Volyen and its colonies start speaking out against the Volyen government. Revolutionary groups form and counter the Empire's rhetoric with rhetoric of their own. Krolgul of Shammat, buoyed by the turmoil, encourages anti-government behaviour. Klorathy, a senior Canopean Colonial administrator, is sent to Volyen to observe the unfolding events, and to monitor Incent, one of his agents who has been caught up in the sentiment of the revolutionary rhetoric. Incent has also fallen prey to Krolgul's propaganda and is withdrawn from the field by Klorathy and placed in a Hospital for Rhetorical Diseases on Volyendesta. Sirius is now threatening to invade the region, and this is welcomed by the downtrodden in the Volyen Empire because they are sure that Sirius will set them free. Many citizens became Sirian agents and provide Sirius with information and support. But the Sirian Empire is itself in turmoil. A conflict on Sirius split the governing oligarchy into the Questioners, led by the Five who want Sirius's expansion program halted, and the Conservers, who believe Sirius should continue colonising other planets. The Five were defeated and Sirius resumed its expansion, but this time with an uncontrolled brutality that turned the Sirian Empire into a tyranny. When the Sirian agents learn about Sirius's tyranny, their loyalties are divided between Sirius and Volyen, and they become known as "sentimental agents". Sirius invades the Volyen Empire with troops from nearby Sirian occupied planets. The troops, themselves colonial subjects of the now declining Sirian Empire, were told that Volyen is poor and deprived and needs Sirius's help. But when they land they discover that the Volyens are better off than they are, and return home and declare their own planets independent from Sirius. Volyenadna and Volyendesta, with Klorathy's help, become self-sustaining and declare their independence from the crumbling Volyen Empire. The change of circumstances in the region weakens Krolgul and his influence, and he returns to Shammat. Incent, now "recovered" from his illness, decides that he is going to help Krolgul. Klorathy, still Incent's custodian, follows him to Shammat. ===== Shion is running final tests on KOS-MOS aboard the Woglinde when the crew retrieve a Zohar Emulator, one of thirteen replicas of the Zohar. Cherenkov monitors Shion's progress, but is also a U-TIC spy furthering their goal of finding the original Zohar. Following the Zohar Emulator's retrieval, the Woglinde is attacked by Gnosis. KOS-MOS self- activates and protects Shion's team, in the process killing Virgil with friendly fire to save Shion and Allen. KOS-MOS brings them and Cherenkov on board the Elsa, which is heading to their destination of Second Miltia. When a Gnosis attacks, chaos' ability to dispel them saves Cherenkov's life. The attack begins mutating Cherenkov, tormenting him with visions of his past as a soldier who failed to adjust to civilian life and killed many people including his wife. During these periods, Shion becomes concerned about KOS-MOS's behavior, and Allen worries about Shion's emotional state. Alongside these events, the cyborg Ziggy is dispatched to rescue the Realian MOMO from U-TIC, as data stored inside her could open the way to the original planet Miltia, lost in a disaster for which her creator Joachim Mizrahi is blamed. Ziggy rescues MOMO and narrowly escapes, fending off attacks by Margulis. Albedo, who is working with U-TIC for his own goals, sets out in pursuit of MOMO. The Elsa is pulled out of hyperspace and swallowed by a giant Gnosis. During their attempts to escape Cherenkov transforms into a Gnosis. The group are forced to kill the transformed Cherenkov before escaping on the Elsa and being rescued by Jr.. During the subsequent battle, KOS-MOS activates previously-unseen weaponry and absorbs the attacking Gnosis. While traveling with Jr., the group learn that the Kukai Foundation are gathering and storing the Zohar Emulators created by Mizrahi. Meanwhile, U-TIC uses agents within the Federation to doctor footage of Jr.'s battle with U-TIC and implicate the group in the destruction of the Woglinde. The group travel to the Kukai Foundation base above Second Miltia, operated by Jr.'s brother Gaignun. They are subsequently held hostage by Federation troops due to U-TIC's influence. With help from an ally of Gaignun, the group retrieve evidence from within KOS-MOS's memory center which can exonerate them. While inside KOS-MOS's memory, the group are guided through a dream-like realm constructed from their repressed bad memories, all the way observed by Nephilim, with whom chaos is acquainted. Shion also meets a vision of Febronia, a Realian woman killed in the Miltian Conflict, who asks Shion to "free" her sisters Cecily and Cathe for the sake of both humans and Realians. Before fulfilling their mission, Nephilim tells them that KOS-MOS was designed to stop the energies of U-DO from entering their reality, an event which caused the original planet Miltia to vanish into a space-time void and could potentially destroy the universe. Due to surviving a Gnosis encounter and remaining human, Shion has the capacity to change the future for the better. During these events, Albedo captures and psychologically tortures MOMO before triggering the "Song of Nephilim", a song which attracts swarms of Gnosis. The Federation fleet try to destroy the Kukai base as it appears to be the source of the Song, but Wilhelm—who has been secretly observing events—arrives with a private fleet that destroys the Gnosis and protects the base. KOS-MOS then uses an advanced weapon to detect the Song's source in a cloaked spaceship. Boarding the spaceship, the group rescue MOMO and fight Albedo, but are stopped by a blue-cloaked man who allows Albedo to escape with a piece of data extracted from MOMO that could grant access to Miltia. Albedo then summons Proto Merkebah, a research ship created by Mizrahi to summon U-DO, and destroys the Federation fleet before aiming Proto Merkebah's weapons at Second Miltia's capital. The blue-cloaked man—revealed to be a resurrected Virgil—observes events before being summoned away. Shion's group infiltrates Proto Markebah and destroys its core while Albedo flees. Escaping Proto Merkebah as it self-destructs, KOS-MOS shields the damaged Elsa as it enters Second Miltia's atmosphere. ===== Episode II begins fourteen years prior to the opening of Episode I during the Miltian Conflict. Canaan and chaos are sent to investigate, discovering that Realians are being driven insane by the "Song of Nephilim", a harmony that affects the mind. They are saved from an ambush by Jin, who has stolen data implicating the people using the Song. After fending off an attack by Margulis that leaves Margulis scarred, Jin transfers the data into Canaan's mind to keep it safe. Fourteen years later, the data remains locked, with the key to unlocking it still being on Miltia. Now based on Second Miltia, Canaan is assigned to protect the crew of the Elsa following their arrival. Upon arrival, Shion reluctantly hands KOS-MOS over to Vector officials while instructing Allen to keep an eye on her, while Ziggy prepares to escort MOMO to have the data implanted by Joachim Mizrahi retrieved. During her stay, Shion receives a vision from Nephilim, asking her to help Cecily and Cathe as she promised. While on Second Miltia, MOMO, Ziggy, chaos and Jr. are attacked by U-TIC agents in powerful mechs, only being saved by Canaan's intervention. Shion meanwhile has an uncomfortable reunion with Jin, as she blames his absence for the deaths of their parents during the Miltian Conflict. In the hours leading up to MOMO's scan, both Jr. and his brother Gaignun are telepathically tormented by Albedo, who still cannot decode the data he stole from MOMO. During the procedure, a virus implanted in MOMO by Albedo activates, and MOMO fragments her own personality to keep Mizrahi's data secure. Shion, Jr. and the rest of the group enter MOMO's subconscious to save her. During this period, Jr. reveals that he and his brothers were part of an experiment by Dmitri Yuriev: Yuriev's wish was to create an existence which would neutralize U-DO. The three were close, but Albedo became despondent when he discovered his ability to survive any injury was unique to him, meaning he could outlive his brothers. During an experiment, Jr. broke the circuit containing a portion of U-DO, resulting in everyone except himself, Albedo and Gaignun being killed. Albedo was touched by U-DO and went insane, while Gaignun remained unaffected. As they save MOMO, Albedo hacks in and tricks MOMO into releasing the decoded data to him. Using the data, Albedo opens the way to Miltia. With Miltia accessible, the Federation, U-TIC, and the Immigrant Fleet fight each other for control of the Zohar hidden on the planet. Shion and Allen attempt to reach Miltia, but are almost destroyed by U-TIC forces and only saved due to KOS-MOS's spontaneous activation and intervention. With help from Gaignun and the Second Miltia government, the group then launch an assault with the Elsa, destroying the Immigrant Fleet mothership before being rescued by Gaignun as the space-time distortion around Miltia vanishes. Joined by Jin and Canaan, they unlock the data within Canaan, revealing that the Immigrant Fleet has funded U-TIC since its inception, and that MOMO's father Mizrahi sacrificed himself to seal Miltia away after Albedo released the energy U-DO. After a skirmish with Margulis, the group find the Zohar and two deformed comatose Realians used to control its energy: these are Cecily and Cathe. Shion reluctantly allows KOS-MOS to kill Cecily and Cathe. The Zohar is claimed by Sergius on behalf of Ormus and the Immigrant Fleet. He installs the Zohar into the Proto Omega, a giant machine built within the structure of Miltia, with the intent of destroying the Gnosis and Federation so Ormus will be free to rediscover Lost Jerusalem. The Proto Omega's awakening destroys Miltia. Shion's group escape on the Elsa as the Proto Omega activates, destroying both Miltia and the surrounding armies of the Federation and Ormus. As the group launch an assault on the Proto Omega, Gaignun—who had previously killed Yuriev after refusing to kill Jr. as ordered—is possessed by the spirit of Yuriev, who takes over the Federation government and launches his own attack on the Proto Omega. When the group face Sergius, they are aided by Albedo, but Albedo is apparently killed by Sergius. After their battle, Sergius is killed by a group of cloaked men dubbed the "Testaments" due to exceeding his role in their plans. The Testaments then resurrect Albedo and give him control of the Zohar, which immediately unleashes U-DO's energy. Jr. is forced to kill Albedo, dispersing the U-DO energy, but is comforted by Nephilim. Before the Zohar can be retrieved, a massive ship dubbed "Abel's Ark" appears and absorbs the Zohar. Wilhelm, who has been observing events, speaks telepathically with chaos while calling him "Yeshua", praising his decision to become an active player in events. In a post-credits scene, Wilhelm confers with the Testaments about recent events while welcoming a new white-cloaked member. ===== Following her resignation from Vector in the wake of her discoveries and the Gnosis Terrorism, Shion allies with underground group Scientia to investigate. Her former co-worker Allen takes her place looking after KOS-MOS. Meanwhile, Canaan, Jr., Jin, chaos, MOMO and Ziggy are investigating a landmass that originated from Lost Jerusalem. They are attacked by Margulis, then the landmass is swallowed with the Elsa in an inverted pocket of hyperspace. Shion meanwhile visits Allen, and sees the demonstration of two new weapons for fighting the Gnosis—T-elos, a battle robot meant to replace KOS-MOS; and Omega, a mech created from the Proto Omega's remains and piloted by Abel. After the test, T-elos' creator Roth Mantel informs Allen that KOS-MOS will be scrapped so development can focus on T-elos. As KOS-MOS's weaponry is the only way to break into the hyperspace pocket and save the Elsa, Shion leads the group into the facility and rescues KOS-MOS, guided at one point by Abel. During this time, Shion has frequent visions of the girl Nephilim, and has blackouts where she is contacted by U-DO. Events are also observed by Wilhelm, who is working with the Testaments to find both Abel and Abel's Ark. Entering the hyperspace pocket, the group find the Elsa and investigate the area, encountering both Albedo and Virgil and learning that the Vessels of Anima powering their E.S. mecha are key to the Testaments' plans. They are then confronted by Mantel—who reveals himself as the Red Testament—and T-elos. T-elos almost kills KOS-MOS, but Shion's pendant activates, apparently transporting them to the planet Miltia fifteen years into the past, which is revealed to be a world within Shion's subconscious. They are attacked by Voyager, who is beaten back by a redesigned KOS-MOS. During the group's time there, Shion learns the true events that caused Miltia's fall; her father, Kevin, Margulis and Mizrahi were attempting to control the Zohar through experiments involving both Shion and her mother, but when U-TIC and Federation forces clashed, Kevin and Margulis released unstable combat Realians which slaughtered nearly everyone in the battle. The trauma caused the young Shion to resonate with the Zohar, summoning the Gnosis and awakening U-DO; it was only Mizrahi's self-sacrifice in sealing away Miltia that prevented the chaos from spreading. The group fight Virgil before he is calmed by the spirit of Febronia—who tended him when he was injured on Miltia and with whom he formed an attachment prior to her death—and follows her into the afterlife. The Red Testament also appears, revealing his true identity as Kevin and asking Shion to join him. Evading Kevin and T-elos, the group escape from Shion's subconscious back into the normal world, but following this Shion becomes emotionally unstable. During their absence, the Federation government is manipulated by Yuriev into assaulting Ormus in search of an artifact called Zarathustra. Abel's Ark, summoned by the events in Shion's subconscious, appears in the real world and begins causing planets to vanish as it pursues Zarathustra. Nephilim asks Shion to free Abel from Yuriev's control, then Yuriev leads the Federation fleet and Omega to capture the Durendal. Yuriev activates the Zohar Emulators stored in the Durandal, intent on using them in combination with Omega and Abel's Ark to defeat U-DO by rising to godhood. The group successfully infiltrate Abel's Ark, where Jr. kills Yuriev with help from Albedo. Albedo then teleports Abel and the Zohar away. The conflict results in Albedo's consciousness merging with Jr., while Gaignun dies along with Yuriev. The group follow Abel and the Zohar to the planet Michtam, the holy land of Ormus. There they kill a disillusioned Margulis, and Canaan sacrifices himself to destroy Voyager. Descending deeper into Michtam, Shion experiences visions of Lost Jerusalem, seeing chaos under the name "Yeshua" alongside a previous incarnation of herself, KOS-MOS's physical template Mary Magdalene, and Jesus prior to his death. In a final confrontation with T-elos, they learn that T-elos and KOS-MOS were both designed by Wilhelm and the Testaments to resurrect Mary Magdalene, with KOS- MOS holding her spirit and T-elos being made from her body. The group are then confronted by Kevin, who asks KOS-MOS and Shion to join him. Shion, blinded by her love, joins him until Allen convinces her otherwise, voicing his own long- held love. The group then confront Wilhelm at Zarathustra's resting place. Wilhelm reveals that he has been preserving the universe from ending due to human wills that reject connection with U-DO; by capturing U-DO's "eyes" Abel and Abel's Ark and using eternal recurrence, Wilhelm has trapped the universe in a time loop with the power of Zarathustra and the Zohar. The Gnosis are revealed to be spawned from the wills that reject U-DO and escape from U-DO's realm. Shion, whose necklace and will are key to activating Zarathustra, is tortured by Wilhelm in an attempt to make her wish for recurrence. KOS-MOS shatters the necklace, preventing the recurrence from ever happening. A redeemed Kevin then sacrifices himself to destroy Wilhelm, allowing the group to cripple Zarathustra. Abel, Nephilim, KOS-MOS and chaos choose to stay on Michtam, drawing all Gnosis to them and using a dimensional shift to move that region of space to Lost Jerusalem. Their actions and the release of chaos's Anima energy—which is accelerating the universe's death—will delay the universe's destruction, giving Shion time to find Lost Jerusalem and discover the key to changing humanity's will and saving the universe. During the escape, Jin sacrifices himself to save Shion. The resultant explosion of energy from the dimensional shift destroys the U.M.N., rendering faster-than- light travel impossible. Shion goes with Jr., Shelley, Mary, and Allen on the Elsa to find Lost Jerusalem, while MOMO stays behind with Ziggy to reconstruct a new travel network with Scientia's help. In the mid and post-credit scenes, a badly-damaged KOS-MOS floats through space and is contacted by chaos, saying they will both awake when they are needed. KOS-MOS is last seen drifting towards Lost Jerusalem. ===== The story, according to the opening movie, is as follows: "Once upon a time in feudal Japan, a brutal war raged. No one foresaw its conclusion, at least not in the manner in which it unfolded. And now...the evil Shogun Kigai has kidnapped Princess Koto in order to sacrifice her for his resurrection ritual. But there is hope.... Two courageous ninjas (Guren and Gunjo) have stepped forward. The battle among humans has ceased. And in its place, a new battle has begun: humans against demons." ===== Each episode was broken into several segments: "It Did Happen", a segment that talked about similar disasters happening in other parts of America (or even earlier in the target city featured); "When It Happens/How It Would Happen", which talked about how the disaster would unfold; and a third segment about how to prepare for the disaster, and interviews with residents in the threatened areas about what they think of the disaster threat. Sometimes there is a segment called "Before It Happens", which shows what is being done to prepare for the disaster. ===== When word reaches Jackie O'Shea (Ian Bannen) and Michael O'Sullivan (David Kelly), two elderly best friends, that someone in Tulaigh Mhór (Tullymore), their tiny Irish village of 52 people, has won the Irish National Lottery, they, along with Jackie's wife Annie (Fionnula Flanagan), plot to discover the identity of the winner. They obtain a list of lottery customers from Mrs. Kennedy (Maura O'Malley) at the post office and invite the potential winners to a chicken dinner, where they attempt to get the winner to reveal him- or herself. After everyone has left and they are no closer to an answer, Annie realizes that one person did not come to the dinner, so Jackie pays a late-night visit to the only absentee: the reclusive Ned Devine (Jimmy Keogh). He finds Ned in his home in front of the TV, still holding the ticket in his hand, a smile on his face and dead from shock. That same night, Jackie has a dream that the deceased Ned wants to share the winnings with his friends, as he has no family to claim the ticket. Jackie wakes up after the dream, and before dawn, he and Michael return to Ned's house to gather Ned's personal information so they can claim the winnings for themselves. Elsewhere in the village, Maggie O'Toole (Susan Lynch) continues to spurn the romantic interests of her old flame, "Pig" Finn (James Nesbitt), a local pig farmer. Finn is convinced they belong together, as he thinks he is the father of her son Maurice (Robert Hickey), but she cannot abide him due to his ever-present odour of pigs. Finn has a rival in Pat Mulligan (Fintan McKeown), also hoping to marry Maggie. Jackie and Michael call the National Lottery to make the claim, prompting a claim inspector to be sent. The inspector, Mr. Kelly, arrives to find Jackie on the beach and asks him for directions to Ned's cottage. Jackie delays Kelly by taking him on a circuitous route while Michael races to the cottage on a motorcycle, completely naked, and breaks in so he can answer the door as Ned. After discovering that the lottery winnings are far greater than they anticipated (totaling nearly IR£7 million), Jackie and Michael are forced to involve the entire village in fooling Mr. Kelly. All the villagers sign their name to a pact to participate in the ruse, except one—the local curmudgeon, Lizzie Quinn (Eileen Dromey). She threatens to report the fraud in order to receive a ten-percent reward, and attempts to blackmail Jackie for £1 million of the winnings. Jackie does not refuse her outright, but later insists to Michael, "She'll sign for the same as us, or get nothing at all!" The villagers go to great lengths to fool the inspector, even pretending Ned's funeral is a service for Michael when the inspector wanders into the church. The inspector leaves, satisfied that the claim is legitimate, and the villagers celebrate their winnings at the local pub. Meanwhile, Quinn makes her way to the nearest working phone, a phone box outside the village on the edge of a cliff, and phones the lottery office. Before she can report the fraud, however, the departing claim inspector sneezes while driving past her and loses control of his car, forcing an oncoming van (driven by Tullymore's village priest, returning from a sabbatical) to crash into the phone box, sending it plummeting off the cliff and crashing to the ground below with Quinn still inside. At the celebration, Jackie spots Maggie, who is content to marry Finn now that he has the money to give up pig farming. Maggie confides in him that Ned is Maurice's real father, meaning that Maurice is technically entitled to the entire winnings. Jackie urges her to claim the fortune for Maurice, but she demurs, determined to keep the secret so that Maurice will have a father and the villagers will have their money. Finally, Jackie, Michael, Maurice, and several other villagers stand on a headland and raise their glasses to Ned, toasting him for his gift to the village. ===== Eun-jin was separated from her older sister Yu-jin when they were kids at an orphanage. While growing up, Eun-jin became a Kkangpae (Korean Mafia) gangster and adopted the nickname "Mantis." Upon discovering that Yu-jin had cancer, Eun- jin demanded that the doctors perform an operation; however, they refused. The dying Yu-jin wished that her sister would marry soon, so Eun-jin went on a blind date under the advice of her underling Romeo, who invited a stylist to design the appropriate makeup for Eun-jin. However, the date was a disaster and Romeo was sent to find someone else more suitable. Later, while Eun-jin was smashing up a car in retaliation against two men, a man ran up to protect her, but was accidentally hit in the head by Eun-jin. The man, Kang Soo-il, was simple, but kind-hearted. He seemed perfect for Eun-jin and he later married her. Yu-jin spoke to Eun-jin about her desire to have children and Eun-jin set out to get pregnant. She forced her husband into several occasions of sexual intercourse. While Eun-jin was out for a meal with her group, she was approached by a man from a rival gang, the White Sharks. He was asked to leave after he had a drink from Eun-Jin, but still lingered. Annoyed, she stabbed him in the head, barely missing his eyes. The next day, there was a meeting between Eun-jin and the White Sharks and a showdown was arranged between Eun-jin and Nanman. Eun-jin and Nanman fought fiercely. It seemed that Nanman had the upper hand after stabbing Eun-jin in the stomach. However, as he went to finish her off, she moved out the way and Nanman fell down a cliff. However, Nanman managed to climb back up and tries to strangle Eun-jin. Eun- jin found a way to escape and stomps on Nanman's groin after she stabs the ground right next to his face, refusing to kill him. Soo-il eventually found out that Eun-jin was a gangster after seeing her tattoo on her back, and wanted her to give it up. Eun-jin discovered she was pregnant and told Yu-jin. Later, Yu-jin then died in front of Eun-jin after telling Eun-jin that her baby deserves a father. Later, Romeo died in the arms of Sherry, after being stabbed by five street punks. Sherry uses the public telephone to call Andy that Romeo has been stabbed. Andy mistakenly believed it was Nanman and the White Sharks who killed Romeo and set out to take revenge on them. Upon arriving at the White Sharks' warehouse, Andy and the rest of his group discovered that they were heavily outnumbered. The pregnant Eun-jin went out to fight the gangsters, but suffered a miscarriage after suffering a vicious attack by Nanman. Eun-jin told Nanman to stop kicking her in the belly as she was pregnant. Nanman then revealed that he had become a eunuch after his earlier showdown with Eun-jin. As Nanman was about to stab Eun-jin, her boss turns up and pleads to the White Shark to spare her life in exchange for some documents. Soo-il found out that Eun-jin was pregnant when she was in the hospital. He takes revenge on White Shark by dousing the gang and him with kerosene. As he was holding up the lighter, Soo-il was restrained but White Shark foolishly ignites himself, along with 64 other men, when attempting to light his cigarette. The film ends with Soo-il as the leader alongside Eun- jin, who is starting a showdown with another gang leader. ===== Bong-soo (Sol Kyung-Gu) has been working as manager of a small bank in an apartment complex for three years. During his three years there, 23 years if you count his school days, Bong-soo has never been late. However, he purposely decides to skip work one day. There is only one reason. Inside a subway train that has suddenly stopped on his way to work, everyone around him reaches for their cell phones to call someone. At that moment, he realized that he does not have a single person to call. He does not know that inside the educational center across the street from the bank where he works, a 27-year-old woman Won-ju (Jeon Do-Yeon) is looking over to him, nourishing a small love. Bong-soo and Won-ju run into each other every day, at the Ramen restaurant, at the bank, at the bus station. All kinds of trivial incidents occur but Bong-soo still does not truly recognize Won-ju's presence. One day, while looking over the bank's CCTV tapes, Bong-soo discovers someone pitifully calling out his name to the small, closed-circuit camera that does not even record sound. ===== Hong Man- taek is a 38-year-old bachelor who at his age is still unable to meet eyes with a woman. Whenever his mother complains "Never had luck with men, never had luck with sons," he feels guilty about not having found a bride yet. Man- taek's old friend Hee-chul thinks he is a lady killer, but he's only a bit more experienced than his basket case friend. Urged on by his grandfather, the two bachelor buddies embark on a matchmaking journey to Uzbekistan to find wives. The trip to Uzbekistan begins with anxiety and hope. While Hee-chul musters all his suaveness and broken English to appeal to the women, Man-taek gets rejected again and again. Even more frustrated than Man-taek himself is Lara, their matchmaker-cum-interpreter. There is a special reason why she must find a bride for Man-taek, and she decides to give special private lessons on language and manners to achieve their common goal. ===== Trailer Reckless radio commentator Andy McCaine (Ronald Reagan) gets into trouble when he attacks a corrupt city government, and his boss forces him to host an innocuous kiddie program. ===== The novel, told from a third-person perspective, is set in the early 1930s. Ty Ty Walden is a widower who owns a small farm in Georgia, just across the border from South Carolina. His daughter, Rosamund, is married to Will Thompson, a worker in a cotton textile mill. Another daughter, whom everyone in the novel refers to as Darling Jill, is unmarried. His son, Buck Walden, is married to the beautiful Griselda. Buck and Griselda live on the farm with Ty Ty and Ty Ty's other (unmarried) son, Shaw. Pluto Swint, an obese and lazy local farmer, sexually desires and wants to marry Darling Jill, who constantly humiliates him. Ty Ty is obsessed with finding gold on his land, and he, Buck, and Shaw spend most of their time digging holes on the farm. Ty Ty has promised to donate any profits generated by a parcel of the farm to the church, but, terrified that gold will be found on "God's acre", he keeps moving the acre marker around. Only two African American hired hands, Uncle Felix and Black Sam, do any farming on the property, and the Waldens largely live off loans and what little income Felix and Sam generate. The local union of mill workers was locked out by management 18 months earlier after they protested against a wage cut. Extensive poverty now afflicts the towns of Scottsville and Clark's Mill, and the Horse Creek Valley (where the Waldens live). Will fantasizes about entering the mill and turning on the power again to bring employment back to the townspeople. The novel opens with Pluto Swint arriving at the Walden farm to announce that he is running for county sheriff. Pluto mentions that an albino will be able to dowse for gold and tells Ty Ty that an albino was spotted in the southern part of the county. Ty Ty, Buck, and Shaw drive off to kidnap the albino. Pluto and Darling Jill drive to the Thompson house in Scottsville, and spend the night there. The next morning, Will makes love to Darling Jill while Rosamund is out buying hairpins; when Rosamund returns she discovers the two naked in bed together and beats Darling Jill with a hair brush. She fires a gun twice at Will but misses, and he flees the house "naked as a jay-bird" though an open window. Rosamund and Darling Jill reconcile through tears, "as though suffering a common bereavement." Later that day Will returns wearing just a pair of borrowed shorts. After he gets dressed Pluto drives Rosamund, Will and Darling Jill back to Ty Ty's house. On the way, they talk about Jim Leslie, another son of Ty Ty's, who started as a mill worker and married a rich man's daughter. Jim has become a wealthy cotton broker who now snubs mill workers as "lint-heads." Ty Ty, Buck, and Shaw return with “the albino”, a boy in his late teens named Dave Dawson. Ty Ty speaks at length about Darling Jill's beauty. After supper, Dave takes Darling Jill into the woods and has intercourse with her. Ty Ty and Buck search for them, and then watch them make love, although Ty Ty declares that he only thought they were hugging each other, since he couldn't see a thing in the pale light. (There are undercurrents of incest throughout the novel.) The second day, Will arrives at the Walden farm. Shaw and Buck (who suspects that Will is intending to seduce Griselda) engage in a fist-fight with him, but Ty Ty breaks it up. Will talks to Dave, who says he does not want to return to his poverty-stricken home in the southern swamps. That night, the family drives into town so Ty Ty can ask his estranged son Jim Leslie for a loan. Ty Ty, Darling Jill, and Griselda meet with Jim, who reluctantly gives Ty Ty $300., warning him not to ask for any more money and advising him to farm the land instead of looking for gold. Before the family drives back home, Jim tells Griselda that he wants her even if he has to go to the farm and drag her back. He puts his arm around her and attempts to kiss her, but the car takes off and he only succeeds in tearing her dress. Later that night at the Walden farm, Ty Ty is still worried that the albino Dave wants to run away, but his fears are allayed when he and Buck discover Dave and Uncle Felix sleeping peacefully in the barn. A short time later, Ty Ty watches his daughter-in-law Griselda undress, and catches a good glimpse of her bare skin as she slips on her nightgown. The morning of the third day, Pluto drives Will, Rosamund, Darling Jill, and Griselda back to the Thompson house in South Carolina. Will goes out on mill business, and returns highly agitated and determined to open the mill the next morning. After a while he calmly looks at Griselda and tells her that the time has come, and nothing in God’s world can stop him now, and in an insane burst of flying fingers and throbbing muscles he tears off her clothes like a madman as she watches unresistingly, until she stands before him, waiting and trembling. She does not try to escape from him, but backs away until he catches her and drags her to another part of the house. Through the open doors they are seen and heard by Rosamund and Darling Jill and Pluto. Never before had Darling Jill felt so completely aroused. No one but Pluto got much sleep that night, and the next morning Will’s three paramours — his wife Rosamund, and his sisters- in-law Darling Jill and Griselda — hurriedly, easily and lovingly fix his breakfast. During the fourth day, Will learns that the mill owners have brought in out-of-state security guards to keep the plant closed. He and some other men break into the plant and turn the machinery on. The guards shoot Will in the back, killing him, leaving the three women in shock and despair. That night, Darling Jill takes Pluto by the hand and leads him to the bed, where they fall asleep holding one another. On the morning of the fifth day, Will is buried. That afternoon, Pluto drives Darling Jill, Rosamund, and Griselda to the Walden farm. Ty Ty, Buck, and Shaw learn of Will's death. Buck suspects that Griselda has been unfaithful with Will. The family argues ferociously during dinner, and Buck runs out of the house and does not return. Pluto also leaves that night. On the morning of the sixth day, Jim Leslie arrives at the farm, telling his father "I know what I want, and I came after it." He storms in the house looking for Griselda, but Buck and Shaw follow right in after him. Buck grabs a shotgun off the wall and Jim Leslie runs out the front door with Buck close behind. Jim Leslie stops running and turns to face his brother, shaking his fist. Buck says "I reckon you'll leave her alone now" and shoots twice, killing Jim Leslie. Ty Ty is in shock that he could not prevent blood being spilled on his land -- the blood of one of his children. And although he was completely exhausted, and knew that he would soon be too old to dig anymore, he returned to the hole to dig some more. He also willed that God's little acre would now follow Buck, stopping where Buck stopped so that his son would be upon it no matter where he went. In the final paragraphs, it is implied that Buck commits suicide with the same shotgun he used to kill his brother. =====